NOW 13

Chapter Thirteen

They called it the bagel. It was the usual monstrosity of concrete and steel and for generations to come the building that housed the GCHQ outside Cheltenham was known as the prototype of ugly government architecture.

However the Chief not at all concerned with how the building looked and more with what went on inside. He had started at the old Cypher Station at Bletchley Park and spend his youth deciphering German and Soviet intercepts together with the great Alan Turing.[1]

As every morning he was looking through the reports marked “immediate” the top-most one a report about a supposed GRU cell made up of 1930s smoking room communists from Camebridge. Clearly a completely ridiculous idea in this day and age[2], but since the arrest of the last such cell even before the war was still a secret.

But alas, since this report was coming in via the Polish Secret Service through the British Embassy in Warsaw in a semi-official contact between two closely allied services it had to be followed up on as it just [I]might[/I] be true after all. Oh well, something for Five to stick their noses in. He signed the line that showed that the message had gone through the hands of GCHQ and placed it back in the envelope which was resealed and sent of with the daily bag to MI5.

What was of much more significance were the rumours that the Foreign Office Diplomatic cypher was compromised. This was somewhat more plausible, as those that were ULTRA cleared knew just how deeply British codes had been penetrated at times.

The Red telephone that connected him directly to the headquarters of Five rang.

“Chief?” came the voice of Five's administrative head the phone. Although technically the head of Five was higher ranked in the bureaucracy of the British Civil Service whoever was running the Government Communications Headquarters was 'the Chief'' due to some long-forgotten incident during The War.

“Sir, what can I do for you?”

“Have you looked at the daily middle-East intake yet?”

“Not yet, Sir.” the Chief said and wondered what on earth Five was on about. But instead of asking he merely picked up the bag that was standing on his desk. As it was not marked as immediate he hadn't touched it yet.

Even as he broke the seal he asked: “Anything special I am looking for, Sir?”

“I will come over this afternoon.”

With that the connection was severed. The fact that he hadn't been told anything at all told the Chief more than a long conversation would have.

But why would Five be interested in any of Sixes Middle Eastern Stations? Even if they were penetrated or burnt Five was Counter-Intelligence, and the nearest MI5 Field Office to what was generally regarded as the Middle East was at Aden after all. Still, there were lots of things that Five did that had connections to the Middle East and any one of them could tangent the GCHQ.

If he were still working at Six, he'd forward this to the head of the Middle-East Department but he had no such thing.

He shrugged and resigned himself to wait for his superior to arrive. He called for a cup of tea and once it was in his hands he turned back to his reports.

He knew that sometime this afternoon an unmarked car would cross the perimeter of the facility and he would find out then at the latest.

~**---**~

The de Havilland VC10[3] of the British Overseas Airways Corporation was being serviced before flying the daily flight from London to Brasilia via Lisbon. Crew and Passengers alike were annoyed that they were half an hour late taking off but the delayed arrival of the pre-packaged meals that passengers had to endure these days had made it inevitable.

The General knew flying BOAC instead of Crab Air was a personal extravagance but technically he was still on leave and a day's worth of layover at Lisbon would give him a chance of visiting a few old friends. The coming assignment was to be his last before retirement anyway, nigh on forty years in the Army were enough. When he had been a young subaltern in the Cavalry back when a few British Regiments still had been mounted in the oldest sense of the word, and now Cavalry meant fast-moving Mechanized Infantry with organic tank and light Air support. In this time of Nuclear Weapons and jet bombers it was time to retire.

After all, he had already come to an arrangement with one of his oldest friends from the war, but since it was not as if...

His revere was broken when the Captain announced imminent departure and the four engines at the back of the plane spun up, and within two minutes the plane was in the air and left London behind.

The General was still missing his cigars which were a habit that he had given up by force in the depths of the Ukraine and somehow never picked up again. He missed the act of smoking more than whatever else had made the things so enjoyable, but he was never one to go back on his convictions.

So when the no-smoking sings came off he did not light up like so many other first-class passengers and instead watched the early-evening England glide by outside the window.

“Can I bring you something to drink or eat, Sir?”

It was a Stewardess with a menu in her hands.

The General nodded. “A cup of Tea, if you please.”

“Very well, Sir.”

To those watching him it was clear that he was current or formerly Army, an Officer of the type that was seen as stereotypical of the pre-World War Two British Army. If he was aware of that he didn't show it, even though it was at least partially true. He was a true product of the Old British Empire, born in a time and place when Indian Republicans had been more than a fringe movement, in the waning days of the old colonial system, when the Hornblower Novel he was reading[4] had been first written.

He had drunk his tea and was asleep when the plane crossed the British coast and circled wide over the Western Approaches to go around Brittany.

He was only awoken when for the umpteenth time he was awoken by the nightmare of his very own encounter with the Valley of Death as he called it, only that he had been charging a group of Soviet SU-85 Tank Destroyers. At this point the General decided that it was proper to get something to eat after all. He dinged for the stewardess and was pleased to find out that BOAC's reputation for better than average airline fare was holding up and decided on the steak. Eating heartily he barely noticed that a different Stewardess was walking around with a small cart full of magazines and readables. It made sense, most of the passengers would remain with the flight until they landed in Brasilia.

The General ended up with the most recent copy of the Radio Times. He had not yet read it but the blue box in the front was the talk of the land, at least among the people the age of his little grand-daughter who was, according to his son, hiding behind the couch every Saturday evening since this show ran. The General was unsure if this concept would hold, but somehow he believed it would.

He put it away and decided to sleep again. He had the distinct feeling he'd need it.

The Aircraft made it's way towards Portugal and on board Major General Sir Albert Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart KCB, MC, DSC was sleeping the sleep of the just while in other parts of the world things were afoot that would change things forever.

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Yes, it is short, but real live intervened and I had to chop things to get it done at all in a decent timeframe.

[1] His..orientations were officially overlooked as he was/is far to valuable to loose.

[2] :P The Camebridge Five were arrested by the Naval Intelligence Division in the person of James Bond's author. I took great delight in writing the scene where Ian Fleming arrested Kim Philby with the help of his trusty Mk.VI.

[3] Vickers withdrew from the aviation market completely after the war. DeHavilland picked up a lot of things, the VC.10 project included.

[4] And which I am listening to, thanks to an unabridged audio-book version.