the moujiks had received the knout. general g. gave them a few minutes to lick their wounds and recover from the shock of the official lashing that had been meted out.

no one said a word for the defence. no one spoke up for his department or mentioned the countless victories of soviet intelligence that could be set against the few mistakes. and no one questioned the right of the head of smersh, who shared the guilt with them, to deliver this terrible denunciation. the word had gone out from the throne, and general g. had been chosen as the mouthpiece for the word. it was a great compliment to general g. that he had been thus chosen, a sign of grace, a sign of coming preferment, and everyone present made a careful note of the fact that, in the intelligence hierarchy, general g., with smersh behind him, had come to the top of the pile.

at the end of the table, the representative of the foreign ministry, lieutenant-general vozdvishensky of r.u.m.i.d., watched the smoke curl up from the tip of his long kazbek cigarette and remembered how molotov had privately told him, when beria was dead, that general g. would go far. there had been no great foresight in this prophecy, reflected vozdvishensky. beria had disliked g. and had constantly hindered his advancement, sidetracking him away from the main ladder of power into one of the minor departments of the then ministry of state security, which, on the death of stalin, beria had quickly abolished as a ministry. until 1952, g. had been deputy to one of the heads of this ministry. when the post was abolished, he devoted his energies to plotting the downfall of beria, working under the secret orders of the formidable general serov, whose record put him out of even beria's reach.

serov, a hero of the soviet union and a veteran of the famous predecessors of the m.g.b.-the cheka, the ogpu, the n.k.v.d. and the m.v.d.-was in every respect a bigger man than beria. he had been directly behind the mass executions of the 1930s when a million died, he had been metteur en scène of most of the great moscow show trials, he had organized the bloody genocide in the central caucasus in february 1944, and it was he who had inspired the mass deportations from the baltic states and the kidnapping of the german atom and other scientists who had given russia her great technical leap forward after the war.

and beria and all his court had gone to the gallows, while general g. had been given smersh as his reward. as for army general ivan serov, he, with bulganin and khrushchev, now ruled russia. one day, he might even stand on the peak, alone. but, guessed general vozdvishensky, glancing up the table at the gleaming billiard-ball skull, probably with general g. not far behind him.

the skull lifted and the hard bulging brown eyes looked straight down the table into the eyes of general vozdvishensky. general vozdvishensky managed to look back calmly and even with a hint of appraisal.

that is a deep one, thought general g. let us put the spotlight on him and see how he shows up on the sound-track.

`comrades,' gold flashed from both corners of his mouth as he stretched his lips in a chairman's smile, `let us not be too dismayed. even the highest tree has an axe waiting at its foot. we have never thought that our departments were so successful as to be beyond criticism. what i have been instructed to say to you will not have come as a surprise to any of us. so let us take up the challenge with a good heart and get down to business.'

round the table there was no answering smile to these platitudes. general g. had not expected that there would be. he lit a cigarette and continued. `i said that we have at once to recommend an act of terrorism in the intelligence field, and one of our departments-no doubt my own-will be called upon to carry out this act.'

an inaudible sigh of relief went round the table. so at least smersh would be the responsible department! that was something.

`but the choice of a target will not be an easy matter, and our collective responsibility for the correct choice will be a heavy one.'

soft-hard, hard-soft. the ball was now back with the conference. `it is not just a question of blowing up a building or shooting a prime minister. such bourgeois horseplay is not contemplated. our operation must be delicate, refined and aimed at the heart of the intelligence apparat of the west. it must do grave damage to the enemy apparat-hidden damage which the public will hear perhaps nothing of, but which will be the secret talk of government circles. but it must also cause a public scandal so devastating that the world will lick its lips and sneer at the shame and stupidity of our enemies. naturally governments will know that it is a soviet konspiratsia. that is good. it will be a piece of ``hard'' policy. and the agents and spies of the west will know it, too, and they will marvel at our cleverness and they will tremble. traitors and possible defectors will change their minds. our own operatives will be stimulated. they will be encouraged to greater efforts by our display of strength and genius. but of course we shall deny any knowledge of the deed, whatever it may be, and it is desirable that the common people of the soviet union should remain in complete ignorance of our complicity.'

general g. paused and looked down the table at the representative of r.u.m.i.d., who again held his gaze impassively.

`and now to choose the organization at which we will strike, and then to decide on the specific target within that organization. comrade lieutenant-general vozdvishensky, since you observe the foreign intelligence scene from a neutral standpoint [this was a jibe at the notorious jealousies that exist between the military intelligence of the g.r.u. and the secret service of the m.g.b., perhaps you would survey the field for us. we wish to have your opinion of the relative importance of the western intelligence services. we will then choose the one which is the most dangerous and which we would most wish to damage.'

general g. sat back in his tall chair. he rested his elbows on the arms and supported his chin on the interlaced fingers of his joined hands, like a teacher preparing to listen to a long construe.

general vozdvishensky was not dismayed by his task. he had been in intelligence, mostly abroad, for thirty years. he had served as a `doorman' at the soviet embassy in london under litvinoff. he had worked with the tass agency in new york and had then gone back to london, to amtorg, the soviet trade organization. for five years he had been military attaché under the brilliant madame kollontai in the stockholm embassy. he had helped train sorge, the soviet master spy, before sorge went to tokyo. during the war, he had been for a while resident director in switzerland, or `schmidtland', as it had been known in the spy-jargon, and there he had helped sow the seeds of the sensationally successful but tragically misused `lucy' network. he had even gone several times into germany as a courier to the `rote kapelle', and had narrowly escaped being cleaned up with it. and after the war, on transfer to the foreign ministry, he had been on the inside of the burgess and maclean operation and on countless other plots to penetrate the foreign ministries of the west. he was a professional spy to his finger-tips and he was perfectly prepared to put on record his opinions of the rivals with whom he had been crossing swords all his life.

the a.d.c. at his side was less comfortable. he was nervous at r.u.m.i.d. being pinned down in this way, and without a full departmental briefing. he scoured his brain clear and sharpened his ears to catch every word.

`in this matter,' said general vozdvishensky carefully, `one must not confuse the man with the office. every country has good spies and it is not always the biggest countries that have the most or the best. but secret services are expensive, and small countries cannot afford the co-ordinated effort which produces good intelligence-the forgery departments, the radio network, the record department, the digestive apparatus that evaluates and compares the reports of the agents. there are individual agents serving norway, holland, belgium and even portugal who could be a great nuisance to us if these countries knew the value of their reports or made good use of them. but they do not. instead of passing their information on to the larger powers, they prefer to sit on it and feel important. so we need not worry with these smaller countries,' he paused, `until we come to sweden. there they have been spying on us for centuries. they have always had better information on the baltic than even finland or germany. they are dangerous. i would like to put a stop to their activities.'

general g. interrupted. `comrade, they are always having spy scandals in sweden. one more scandal would not make the world look up. please continue.'

`italy can be dismissed,' went on general vozdvishensky, without appearing to notice the interruption. `they are clever and active, but they do us no harm. they are only interested in their own backyard, the mediterranean. the same can be said of spain, except that their counter-intelligence is a great hindrance to the party. we have lost many good men to these fascists. but to mount an operation against them would probably cost us more men. and little would be achieved. they are not yet ripe for revolution. in france, while we have penetrated most of their services, the deuxième bureau is still clever and dangerous. there is a man called mathis at the head of it. a mendès-france appointment. he would be a tempting target and it would be easy to operate in france.'

`france is looking after herself,' commented general g.

`england is another matter altogether. i think we all have respect for her intelligence service,' general vozdvishensky looked round the table. there were grudging nods from everyone present, including general g. `their security service is excellent. england, being an island, has great security advantages and their so-called m.i.5 employs men with good education and good brains. their secret service is still better. they have notable successes. in certain types of operation, we are constantly finding that they have been there before us. their agents are good. they pay them little money-only a thousand or two thousand roubles a month-but they serve with devotion. yet these agents have no special privileges in england, no relief from taxation and no special shops such as we have, from which they can buy cheap goods. their social standing abroad is not high, and their wives have to pass as the wives of secretaries. they are rarely awarded a decoration until they retire. and yet these men and women continue to do this dangerous work. it is curious. it is perhaps the public school and university tradition. the love of adventure. but still it is odd that they play this game so well, for they are not natural conspirators.' general vozdvishensky felt that his remarks might be taken as too laudatory. he hastily qualified them. `of course, most of their strength lies in the myth-in the myth of scotland yard, of sherlock holmes, of the secret service. we certainly have nothing to fear from these gentlemen. but this myth is a hindrance which it would be good to set aside.'

`and the americans?' general g. wanted to put a stop to vozdvishensky's attempts to qualify his praise of british intelligence. one day that bit about the public school and university tradition would sound well in court. next, hoped general g., he will be saying that the pentagon is stronger than the kremlin.

`the americans have the biggest and richest service among our enemies. technically, in such matters as radio and weapons and equipment, they are the best. but they have no understanding for the work. they get enthusiastic about some balkan spy who says he has a secret army in the ukraine. they load him with money with which to buy boots for this army. of course he goes at once to paris and spends the money on women. americans try to do everything with money. good spies will not work for money alone-only bad ones, of which the americans have several divisions.'

`they have successes, comrade,' said general g. silkily. `perhaps you underestimate them.'

general vozdvishensky shrugged. `they must have successes, comrade general. you cannot sow a million seeds without reaping one potato. personally i do not think the americans need engage the attention of this conference.' the head of r.u.m.i.d. sat back in his chair and stolidly took out his cigarette case.

`a very interesting exposition,' said general g. coldly. `comrade general slavin?'

general slavin of the g.r.u. had no intention of committing himself on behalf of the general staff of the army. `i have listened with interest to the words of comrade general vozdvishensky. i have nothing to add.'

colonel of state security nikitin of m.g.b. felt it would do no great harm to show up the g.r.u. as being too stupid to have any ideas at all, and at the same time to make a modest recommendation that would probably tally with the inner thoughts of those present-and that was certainly on the tip of general g.'s tongue. colonel nikitin also knew that, given the proposition that had been posed by the praesidium, the soviet secret service would back him up.

`i recommend the english secret service as the object of terrorist action,' he said decisively. `the devil knows my department hardly finds them a worthy adversary, but they are the best of an indifferent lot.'

general g. was annoyed by the authority in the man's voice, and by having his thunder stolen, for he also had intended to sum up in favour of an operation against the british. he tapped his lighter softly on the desk to reimpose his chairmanship. `is it agreed then, comrades? an act of terrorism against the british secret service?'

there were careful, slow nods all round the table. `

`i agree. and now for the target within that organization. i remember comrade general vozdvishensky saying something about a myth upon which much of the alleged strength of this secret service depends. how can we help to destroy the myth and thus strike at the very motive force of this organization? where does this myth reside? we cannot destroy all its personnel at one blow. does it reside in the head? who is the head of the british secret service?'

colonel nikitin's aide whispered in his ear. colonel nikitin decided that this was a question he could and perhaps should answer.

`he is an admiral. he is known by the letter m. we have a zapiska on him, but it contains little. he does not drink very much. he is too old for women. the public does not know of his existence. it would be difficult to create a scandal round his death. and he would not be easy to kill. he rarely goes abroad. to shoot him in a london street would not be very refined.'

`there is much in what you say, comrade,' said general g. `but we are here to find a target who will fulfil our requirements. have they no one who is a hero to the organization? someone who is admired and whose ignominious destruction would cause dismay? myths are built on heroic deeds and heroic people. have they no such men?'

there was silence round the table while everyone searched his memory. so many names to remember, so many dossiers, so many operations going on every day all over the world. who was there in the british secret service? who was the man who . . .?

it was colonel nikitin of the m.g.b. who broke the embarrassed silence.

he said hesitantly, `there is a man called bond.'