Krysalis: Krysalis Read online

  KRYSALIS

  JOHN

  TRENHAILE

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  THE FIRST WEEKEND

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  MONDAY

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  FRIDAY

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  THE SECOND WEEKEND

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  THE LAST DAY

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  About the Author

  III KRYSALIS GONE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER

  1

  David Lescombe did not look like a man about to face a make-or-break interrogation. Only the churning in his stomach gave the game away, and only to him.

  He walked up and down the corridor, hands clasped behind his back. At one end was a high window overlooking London’s Whitehall; whenever he reached it he would pause for a few moments to examine the busy scene, before resuming his steady progress to and fro.

  On every sweep of the corridor he passed a leather-padded door above which hung a sign: COMMITTEE ROOM TWELVE. Soon he would have to go through it. Whenever David thought of that, his stomach knotted and he walked on a little more quickly, as if by doing so he might escape what lay on the other side of the innocent-looking door. He glanced at his watch. Did he have time to run to the lavatory? No, don’t risk it, this morning of all mornings, don’t risk anything.

  He was about to be subjected to the process known as “positive vetting.”

  He came to a halt by the window. Outside it was a cold, bright winter morning, but David no longer saw it. Eager to escape the present, he remembered his youth: another passage not unlike this one, with busts of former statesmen on pedestals, and heavy-framed oil portraits hanging from the walls. His public school, the headmaster’s study, waiting for judgment.

  Seventeen, then. A prefect, someone in authority. Someone liked. In his class was another boy whom nobody liked. David took a good-natured interest in him, protecting him from the worst excesses of bullying. Hamilton, that was his name.

  David folded his arms and leaned against the window embrasure. Why think of Hamilton, a quarter of a century later? Ah, yes, of course. This morning, they proposed to vet him as a precaution against betrayal….

  The class had been waiting for a math lesson to start. Their master, “Beaky” Tozer, came in, took one look at the floor beside David’s desk and barked: “What’s that?” “That” was a pool of black ink, flowing in glossy abundance over the classroom’s parquet floor.

  David didn’t know who had spilled it. His desk was next to Hamilton’s, however, and he deduced immediately that one of Hamilton’s enemies (they were legion) must have sluiced the ink as a frame-up: not the first time that had happened. For a moment there was silence. Then, from somewhere at the back, had come the drawl: “Oh, Hamilton, what have you done now?”

  “It wasn’t me!” Hamilton’s pale, freckled face grew taut with fear. A brawl developed, with accusations and countercharges flying. David couldn’t believe the stupid childishness of it all. He and several others ended up in front of the headmaster, part of a long-drawn-out inquiry as to who had spilled the ink.

  David had weighed up the pros and cons, assessed the risks, and embarked on his first attempt at what years later he learned was called “crisis management.” The headmaster would expect him to name the guilty party. Instead, he’d confessed to the crime himself, pleading carelessness.

  “Why?” the headmaster had asked. “I mean, why own up to something we both knew you didn’t do?”

  David wasn’t sure.

  Standing by the window overlooking Whitehall, he to this day couldn’t be certain. Part of it was a feeling that Hamilton had suffered enough and should be protected from false incrimination; more, perhaps, had to do with David’s inner promptings of how best to deal with the ridiculous. If he confessed, there would be a swift end to an incident that was sapping house morale to an extent he regarded as nonsensical beyond words….

  The adult David laughed out loud. He was remembering how, after he’d taken his punishment, a fine as he recalled, the headmaster had said to him, “There’s something I want you to know, Lescombe. It may affect how you handle this kind of thing in the future. Hamilton claimed that it was you who spilled the ink.”

  David had stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “He blamed you for doing it,” the headmaster said impatiently. “Because he’s a coward and a sneak, and he knew that since you were sitting next to him, he had some pathetic chance of making it stick. But you’ve tied my hands, Lescombe. You and your silly, quixotic confession …”

  David moved away from the window, still smiling at the memory of the daft things he’d done in adolescence. Then the leather-padded door swung open, bringing him fully back to the present with a lurch. “Mr. Lescombe?” he heard a voice say. “Yes.”

  A man stood on the threshold of Committee Room Twelve, holding open the door. He was wearing an old thick tweed jacket over flannel trousers, very large in the bottom, and brogues that had been polished almost red. Two jowls hung suspended from either side of his ruddy face, ending in little pockets of dead-looking flesh. He succeeded admirably in his aim of not looking like anyone’s idea of a member of the British intelligence fraternity. He could have passed for an altogether different kind of vet. “Would you come in now, please?” he said.

  As David followed the man, his mind was busy making connections. Because he’d done his homework, deliberately seeking out others who had undergone this process and survived, he knew this man to be Jeremy Shorrocks, assistant director of MI6. Genial, that’s what they said about him. A pushover. Brewster, he’s the one you’ve got to watch….

  There were three people in Committee Room Twelve: Brewster, a deputy permanent secretary within the cabinet office’s security hierarchy; Shorrocks; and a woman wearing a police commander’s uniform, who David guessed must be from Special Branch. There were no introductions. David swiftly identified the chair he was meant to occupy and sat in it.

  During the silence that followed he tried to still the beating of his heart and concentrate on working out how they would see him: a tall, lean man in his early forties wearing a good suit and a calm expression. Yes, fine; stay with that.

  “Mr. Lescombe …”It was Brewster, the chairman, who spoke. “Thank you so much for agreeing to make yourself available this morning.” His smile turned conspiratorial. “I know how these things interrupt sche
dules.”

  “Not at all.”

  David crossed his legs at the ankles and languidly rested his hands on the arms of his chair, the fingers unclenched. He prayed that any connoisseurs of body language who might be present would notice and approve.

  “You know why we’re here: to consider whether there are any security objections to your admission as a member of the Krysalis committee.” Brewster combined a slight stutter with a liking for mid-word stress.

  David cleared his throat, and instantly wished he hadn’t. “Yes indeed.”

  “You appear to be clean,” Brewster said, but reluctantly, as if a man without blemish was an oddity.

  Shorrocks pushed back his chair and removed a pair of heavy spectacles. “Boringly so,” he agreed with a smile. “First vetted in 1985, no-shows on all subsequent repeats, nice wife, nice boat down at Brighton, no other hobbies, no vices….” He closed his spectacles with a snap and tossed them onto his papers. “Glad I’m not married to you.”

  “I’m glad you’re not,” David said. “They’d have to sack us both.”

  Shorrocks guffawed.

  “There’s just this one thing,” Brewster continued; it was clear that any humor would be lost on him. David resolved to keep a tighter grip on himself. “Just one query.”

  “Hardly worth raising, really,” Shorrocks put in. “This is Krysalis.” Brewster’s voice had turned acid. “It’s not just your common or garden in-depth vet, now is it?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Lescombe will understand, I’m sure, that we don’t want to overlook anything.” Brewster’s irritation was unappeased. “With the Vancouver summit less than three months away, and Washington breathing down our necks.”

  “Quite,” David said. “Please ask me anything you like.”

  His polite smile signaled that he did not anticipate any disasters, but inside him fear was gathering. If he could but pass this, he would become a member of the elite Krysalis committee, that select band of Englishmen and Americans whose job it was to prepare ground plans for the next European war. It would mean more money, more prestige, but above all it would mean that he belonged. That at the impossibly early age of forty-two he’d become a major power player. For a second he let himself imagine that moment of bliss when he would say to Anna: “I’ve done it!” Next second he had levered himself back to reality to hear Shorrocks say, “Your wife, Anna.”

  With an effort David somehow managed to keep his face under control.

  “At one time she seemed to be rather friendly with a German chappie.”

  “Indeed?” David forced himself to produce an unruffled smile. Say something! “Am I allowed to ask, what does friendly mean, in this context?”

  “Just that. Our informant … let me see …” Brewster flipped through several pages. “Ah, yes … this is a couple of years back, although it only surfaced recently…. A Treasury man, went to his favorite restaurant, there was your wife at the next table, didn’t seem to notice him although they’d met before … her companion talked fluent German to a passing acquaintance, obviously his native language….”

  “So it’s linguistics in the Treasury now, is it? I often wondered what they did.”

  Idiot! They don’t like fun and games. But Shorrocks laughed; and this time even Brewster permitted himself a smile. Only the female commander continued to sit there, flintlike. Shorrocks wrote something on a scrap of paper and slid it in front of Brewster, who affected not to see it. David would have given three years’ pension to know what it was.

  “I think that must be Duggy Atkinson,” he said quickly. “Your source.”

  “I’m afraid we’re not allowed to disclose—”

  “Oh, quite. Do excuse me.”

  Brewster cleared his throat. “Then it would appear that the same thing happened the next week and the week after that.”

  “I see. Two years ago, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  David looked up at the ceiling, as if pursuing some elusive memory. In truth, he was trying to quell the apprehension that had begun to undermine him. What on earth had Anna been up to? No, don’t think about that, just deal with it. “But not since then … however, the restaurant sounds all right.” David was seized with a sudden inspiration. He took out his diary. “What’s it called?”

  Shorrocks chuckled. He produced the restaurant’s name and even, after further research, a phone number. “According to our source, you should try the salade Nicoise.”

  “I see.” David’s forehead creased in a frown. “I’m sorry, I feel I’m missing something terribly obvious but … it hasn’t been made a crime to have lunch with Germans, has it?” Wonderful! Keep going!

  “Do we know which Germany?” the woman commander asked; and David turned to her. “I think we can safely assume West Germany,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  David raised his eyebrows. “East Germans having lunch with lady barristers, well … ha ha. That would be in the file, now wouldn’t it?”

  “Ha ha,” Brewster agreed. “But you can see our problem, I’m sure. Do you recognize this man, from our informant’s description?”

  David shook his head. “Anna’s circle of friends doesn’t totally overlap with mine. Possibly a client? She’s always had quite an extensive Euro-practice.”

  “Possibly.” Brewster made a note. “Now you know the next question, and it’s a frightful bore, I realize that, but—”

  “How’s the marriage?”

  “Ah …”

  “Sound as a bell, I’m happy to say.”

  “You’re surprised by this information but not perturbed by it; would that be a correct summary?”

  Damn right! David thought; but what he said was: “As to the second part of your analysis, yes; the first part gives me pause. I don’t find it surprising that my wife should lunch several times with the same man. What were they discussing, do we know?”

  “We don’t.”

  David shrugged. “She’s a barrister, very successful. Quite a lot of wining and dining goes on at the bar, from what I hear.”

  “When you next see your wife, will you put this to her?” Shorrocks asked.

  “Something that happened two years ago? I suppose I might. If I remember, which I probably won’t. Why, would you like me to?”

  “Noo …” Shorrocks shook his head with a smile. “And for the record, let me just say that Lescombe does have a point: the Germans—half of ‘em—are on our side now, you know. Not like last time.”

  Big Ben struck the quarter, affording Brewster an excuse to crush his ebullient colleague with magisterial silence. “Can I take it, then,” Brewster said at last, “that you have no objections to the admission of Mr. Lescombe to the Krysalis Committee?”

  “You can.”

  Brewster opened a plastic-backed folder at the last page. David drew a deep breath. Brewster was uncapping his fountain pen, was actually on the point of appending his signature, when Shorrocks cleared his throat and David’s chest tightened. Surely there could be nothing else, surely? But Shorrocks merely nodded toward the far end of the table.

  “Commander?” Brewster’s face was flushed.

  “No objections from Branch, sir.”

  Brewster signed.

  David sprinted through the arch into Whitehall as if competing for a place on the Olympic team. He did not pause until he came to a phone booth on the fringe of Trafalgar Square. It seemed like an eternity before Anna’s clerk put her on the line, but then there was that wonderful, musical voice: “Darling! How did it go? Did they …?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh David!”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right.” Memories of his wife having lunch with mysterious Germans fled from his mind, leaving only a heady mixture of love and exultation. Let Anna have lunch with everyone and anyone, who cared?

  “I knew it,” she cried, “The champagne’s already in the fridge; damn it, I’ll put another bottle in to chill the minute I get hom
e.”

  David was trembling; he could scarcely hold the receiver steady, but one thing he must say and the words came rushing out, “I’m too ill to drink—”

  “Ill! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing that a few hours in bed with you won’t cure.”

  He ran out of the booth, leaving the receiver to swing at the end of its cord. When the next caller in the queue picked up the phone, he was astonished to hear a woman’s joyous laughter still echoing down the line.

  CHAPTER

  2

  When Jürgen Barzel turned the key in the lock of his Köpenick apartment that evening he had no idea that he was opening up the end of the world. Then he entered, caught sight of Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung’s Colonel Huper perched on the kitchen table, swinging a bamboo swagger cane against his leg, and he knew. Twenty years of heartache, gone for nothing.

  “Books,” Huper said mournfully. “Why, Jürgen?” It was the use of his first name that told Barzel how serious things were.

  “You were the best HVA had,” Huper went on, coming out to meet Barzel. They stood face to face opposite the door to the huge living room. Huper gestured with his cane. Barzel looked. They had taken up the floorboards. All of them.

  There was nothing for them to find, but still he wanted to vomit. Something rose out of his stomach and he swallowed it down hard, repelled by the awful aftertaste. His teeth chattered with cold. Somehow he managed to keep them clenched together. It was all right as long as he averted his eyes from the carnage that once had been his living room.

  “Four thousand books, and more,” Huper went on. “You’re the best we have. And you make a library for yourself.”

  Barzel became aware of others in his apartment: gray men in macintoshes, who now seemed to come slithering out of his carved oak paneling like rats from a sinking vessel.

  Barzel looked down to find the tip of Huper’s cane planted against his breastbone. “You are a library. You know that, mm?” When Barzel said nothing, Huper continued: “Every secret service has two or three like you. ‘Why use the computer; Barzel’s in the building?’ A walking library. Twenty years of knowledge. Secrets. Connections. Cross-references.”

  Huper sighed. He was short and stout and he had little hair left; his face was that of a schoolmaster who has uncovered a drug ring in his honors class. Now he removed the cane from Barzel’s chest and said, “Let’s talk.”