A wobble drifted across Richard Pynne’s features, as if a TV screen had briefly lost its hold. Pynne—inevitably Dick the Prick, but less and less often in his hearing—was the nearest Di Taverner had had to a favourite since the days of the late James Webb, whose legacy was a snatch of Service wisdom:
Frank Harkness.
“I’ll check on it,” he said.
“You know who he is?”
The question direct, and here was another Service gem: You never lied to Diana Taverner until you were sure you could get away with it.
“. . . He’s not on my radar.”
“Then you need a bigger dish.” Taverner pursed her lips, as if trying to banish a bitter taste. “He’s former CIA. One-time liaison with the Park. And then spent a couple of decades running a deep-cover mercenary outfit from a French chateau.”
“And he’s in-country now,” said Pynne. “Should we worry?”
“Well, he made a farce out of what should have been a solemn moment, but it’s possible he was just passing and saw no reason not to. Check with the DGSI, though. He was playing flics and robbers in their backyard long enough, they ought to have stuck a flag in him. Maybe we can get some actual collaboration, instead of indulging in pissing contests.” She paused. “And collaboration, well. They’re French, they won’t need reminding how that works.”
“I’ll choose my words carefully, shall I?”
Di Taverner allowed herself a brief smile. “Soon as you can. But first, an update on Snow White.”
Which was the code name for the operation Pynne had been given: home-soil, low-risk.
There was little to report. Hannah Weiss, Pynne’s joe, was a minor double: believed by the BND—the German intelligence service—to have infiltrated the British Civil Service on its behalf, she had in fact infiltrated the BND for the British intelligence service. That was what Regent’s Park thought, anyway. Pynne was her handler, but truth was she needed little handling; beyond her recent shift to the office of the minister in charge of Brexit negotiations—“in charge” being used in its loosest possible sense, there—she’d made no demands on him. They met once every three weeks, meetings that were easily the high point of Dick Pynne’s calendar: an attractive young woman, an expense-account coffee, the sense that his career was in the ascendancy. He kind of wished those sessions had an audience, though had to admit that that might have compromised the whole Secret Service aspect of proceedings.
Taverner asked him, “Anything new on BND protocols?”
There wasn’t. Hannah’s German handler similarly made contact every three weeks, though he splashed for lunch, being on a better expenses deal than Dick, and also, as mentioned, German. That aside, the running of a joe in the field seemed to differ little on the two sides of this currently friendly divide; had probably differed little since joes and fields were first discovered. Hannah brought back to Dick the details of these debriefings, at which—to maintain the appearance that she was working for German intelligence—she fed Peter Kahlmann, Dick’s opposite number, various Brexit-related titbits to accompany his schnitzel—
(“I hope you’re not descending to racial stereotypes,” Lady Di put in.
“They eat at Fischer’s. He likes the schnitzel.”)
—all of which had been carefully vetted to ensure minimum damage to British interests, however glittery they might seem. The idea was to boost German confidence while negotiations were ongoing; encourage them to overplay their hand, or at least to underestimate British resolve. There were limits, though. Dick’s suggestion that they sow a rumour that the Brexit minister was approaching mental breakdown, and likely to cave early on crucial points, had been vetoed on grounds that were, he was informed, “outwith his need to know.”
