Len Deighton - XPD

In May 1979, only days after Britain s new Conservative government came to power, the yellow box that contains the daily report from MI6 to the Prime Minister was delivered to her by a deputy secretary in the Cabinet Office. He was the PMs liaison with the intelligence services.

Although the contents of the yellow box are never graded into secret, top secret and so on-because all MI6 documents are in the ultra secret category-one rather hastily handwritten report was flagged. The PM noted with some surprise that it was the handwriting of Sir Sydney Ryden, the director general of MI6, and selected that document for immediate attention. Attached to the corner of it there was an advertisement, clipped from a film journal published in California the previous week.

A film producer, unlisted in any of the departments reference books, announced that he was preparing what the advert described as A major motion picture with a budget of fifteen million plus! It was a Second World War story about plundering German gold in the final days of the fighting. The cutting bore the rubber stamp of Desk 32 Research and was signed by the clerk who had found it. What is the final secret of the Kaiseroda mine? asked the advertisement. Kaiseroda had been underlined in red pencil to show the word which had alerted the Secret Intelligence Service clerk to the adverts possible importance.

Normally the space the blue rubber-stamp mark provided for reference would have been filled with a file number but, to his considerable surprise, the research clerk had been referred to no file under the Kaiseroda reference. Instead the Kaiseroda card was marked, To director general only. IMMEDIATE.

The Prime Minister read carefully through Sir Sydney Rydens note, baffled more than once by the handwriting. Then she picked up a telephone and changed her days appointments to make a time to see him.

The elderly police constable on duty that afternoon inside the entrance lobby of 10 Downing Street recognized that the man accompanying Sir Sydney was the senior archivist from the Foreign Office documents centre. He was puzzled that he should be here at a time when the PM was so busy settling in but he soon forgot about it. During the installation of a newly elected government there are many such surprises.

The Foreign Office archivist did not attend the meeting between the PM and Sir Sydney, but remained downstairs in the waiting room in case he was required. In the event, he was not.

This was the new Prime Ministers first official meeting with the chief of the espionage service. She found him uncommonly difficult to talk to: he was distant in manner and overpowering in appearance, a tall man with overlong hair and bushy eyebrows. At the end of the briefing she stood up to indicate that the meeting must end, but Sir Sydney seemed in no hurry to depart. Im quite certain that there is no truth in these terrible allegations, Prime Minister, he said.

He wondered if madam would be a more suitable form of address or perhaps maam, as one called the Queen. She looked at him hard and he shifted uncomfortably. Sir Sydney was not an addicted smoker, in the way that his predecessor had been, but now he found the new Prime Ministers strictures about smoking something of a strain, and longed for a cigarette. In the old days, with Callaghan and before him Wilson, these rooms had seldom been without clouds of tobacco smoke.

Well discover that, said the Prime Minister curtly.

Ill get one of my people out to California within twenty-four hours.

Youll not inform the Americans?

It would not be wise, Prime Minister. He pressed a hand against his ear and flicked back errant strands of his long hair.

I quite agree, she said. She picked up the newspaper cutting again. For the time being all we need is a straight, simple answer from this film producer man.

That might be rather a difficult task, if my experience of Hollywood film producers is anything to go by.

The PM looked up from the cutting to see if Sir Sydney was making a joke to which she should respond. She decided not to smile. Sir Sydney did not appear to be a man much given to jesting.