The Doll’s House by Evelyn Anthony Page A

the last eight years I’ve been desk-bound. I didn’t take the personal risks any more, but I had to send out other people who did. In a way, I found that harder. But – it was my job, so I did it. This must sound familiar to all of you. Not all of us were action men. But Daniel was, for instance.’
    He turned to the Israeli.
    â€˜You organized the snatches for Mossad. Everyone knows what the PLO did to an Israeli agent if they caught them. The Jehalil Sons of Allah dismembered you piecemeal while you were still alive. And Monika—’ She smiled at him when he looked at her across the table. ‘Monika was an idealist. It wasn’t a very pretty ideal and it inspired people to do some very ugly things. But you believed in it. You killed for it, but you risked a life sentence in one of those West German women’s prisons where most of the high-risk political prisoners end up committing suicide.
    â€˜And you, Herr Werner?’ Oakham paused.
    The others were staring at the Dutchwoman. He regained their attention.
    â€˜You’ve been a Soviet sleeper since you joined the West German Foreign Ministry. You had a good career, a promising future. But you’d given your allegiance and you went on living an indefinite lie, waiting for the summons to serve, didn’t you? You weren’t an action man, Werner, but it takes a special kind of courage to lie low for years, waiting to be caught out … We knew all about you, of course. We got a tip from an East German source and we passed it on to Bonn. They didn’t do anything about you. They’d have picked you up the moment you were activated. Didn’t you ever feel the eyes on the back of your neck?’
    The German shook his head. He was pale instead of flushed.
    â€˜So that’s what we have in common round this table. We’re professionals. Experts in our different fields. Jan was my co-ordinator. They call it logistics now. Rilke – you made an art out of interrogation. You reached refinements of technique that nobody had ever thought of. Zarubin – you’ve never had a public face, but you didn’t need one. You play the Intelligence game like you play chess. Like your father did before you.
    â€˜We’ve given long and faithful service according to our skills. If there was a dirty job, a political foul-up which wasn’t of our making, a mind-blowing Intelligence problem to be solved, our masters dropped it in our laps. And we did what was wanted.’
    Oakham poured some water into a glass and drank it. They were watching him; the tension had risen. But he sensed a growing empathy. He was touching sore spots with a sympathetic hand. He had got the audience on his side by making them feel he was on theirs.
    He leaned towards them, palms flat on the table. His voice was soft. ‘But times have changed, haven’t they? We’re all going to be one big happy European family. It’s Love Thy Neighbour now. The Americans are opening hamburger chains in Moscow. Information’s being dished out like crates of tinned peaches. The Germans are one nation, cuddling up after the last fifty years as if there’d never been a Berlin Wall. The Cold War’s over, the Eastern Bloc is just a lot of countries dissolving into the chaos, people shooting each other in the name of democracy. Most of them couldn’t even spell it. But we’re told there’s a rosy future for the world.
    â€˜It’s a nice picture. But where does all this leave us?’ He raised his voice. ‘I’ll tell you. We’re not part of that picture, my friends. We belong to the bad old days. We’ve got dirty hands, when everyone else is showing up clean. So my department is closed down. I got a farewell lunch, a visit from the Deputy Chief and a pension. That’s me. After twenty-eight years. How about you, Rilke? Early retirement? They kicked you out. They don’t want to be reminded of