I, Said the Spy Read online

  I, SAID THE SPY

  Derek Lambert

  COPYRIGHT

  Collins Crime Club

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by Arlington Books (Publishers) Ltd 1980

  Copyright © Derek Lambert 1980

  Design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

  Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

  Derek Lambert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

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  Source ISBN: 9780008268404

  Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008268398

  Version: 2017-11-10

  Bilderberg is the most top-secret conference in the world. Most people know nothing of its existence. The few who do know little more than that Bilderberg, held each year, is attended by one hundred or so of the richest and most powerful people in the western world, whose decisions determine future world policy. Bilderberg is organised each year by a steering committee based at The Hague, in Holland. Invitations to attend a conference are highly coveted and are extended only to heads of state, leading politicians, top bankers and major industrialists; those who influence the daily lives of millions of people. Yet their debates are unreported in the world’s press. Nothing at all of the events at Bilderberg has ever got through the strict security curtain which shields the conference from the outside world.

  UNTIL NOW

  DEDICATION

  For my not-so-grey eminence – Desmond Elliott

  EPIGRAPH

  ‘The world is governed by very different

  personages from what is imagined by those who

  are not behind the scenes.’

  Benjamin Disraeli

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  Part One

  Chapter: I

  Chapter: II

  Chapter: III

  Chapter: IV

  Chapter: V

  Chapter: VI

  Part Two

  Chapter: VII

  Chapter: VIII

  Chapter: IX

  Part Three

  Chapter: X

  Chapter: XI

  Chapter: XII

  Chapter: XIII

  Chapter: XIV

  Chapter: XV

  Chapter: XVI

  Chapter: XVII

  Chapter: XVIII

  Chapter: XIX

  Chapter: XX

  Chapter: XXI

  Chapter: XXII

  Chapter: XXIII

  Chapter: XXIV

  Part Four

  Chapter: XXV

  Chapter: XXVI

  Chapter: XXVII

  Part Five

  Chapter: XXVIII

  Chapter: XXIX

  Chapter: XXX

  Chapter: XXXI

  Chapter: XXXII

  Chapter: XXXIII

  Chapter: XXXIV

  Chapter: XXXV

  Chapter: XXXVI

  Chapter: XXXVII

  Epilogue

  Keep Reading

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  About the Publisher

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Bilderberg is fact.

  Since 1954 key members of the Western Establishment have met annually at a conference named after the venue of their first meeting, the Bilderberg Hotel at Oosterbeek, Holland.

  Bilderberg has been accused of both Right and Left Wing machinations; it has been indicted as a cabal of the elite of both Jewry and Masonry. Its deliberations have always been conducted in an atmosphere of obsessive secrecy and therefore the organisers cannot protest too vehemently at the calumny they occasionally attract. What is indisputable is that, once a year, a nucleus of incalculable wealth and power gathers under one roof. Indisputably, too, the future of the Western world, and therefore indirectly the future of the Communist bloc, must to an extent be affected.

  The conference and the Château in France in this novel, however, are fictitious, as are the principal characters.

  PART ONE

  I

  Danzer didn’t look like a spy.

  He was too sleek, too assured, too obtrusive.

  But who does look like a spy? Anderson pondered as he sat shivering in the back of the battered yellow taxi, on loan from the New York Police Department, waiting for the Swiss financier to emerge from La Guardia Airport.

  There was no future in looking like a bank robber if your profession was robbing banks!

  For three days Anderson had kept Danzer under surveillance at the Bilderberg conference at Woodstock, Vermont, attended by more than eighty of the richest and most powerful men in the Western world.

  Earlier that April morning in 1971, Bilderberg had broken up. Heads of state, politicians, bankers, industrialists, were now dispersing, confident that their deliberations had been secret.

  Overconfident.

  If Anderson’s calculations were correct, the conference had been attended by three spies. Certainly two – himself and the Englishman, George Prentice, one-time Professor of Economics at Oxford University.

  Anderson was ninety per cent certain about Danzer. Well, eighty-five …. The Russians had been trying for seventeen years to penetrate Bilderberg. He had two reasons for believing that with Karl Danzer they had succeeded. Firstly, he was a new recruit to Bilderberg; and secondly, he was the only guest whose credentials didn’t quite pass intensive scrutiny.

  Nothing specific, Anderson admitted, as the wind sweeping across the East River spattered sleet against the windshield of the taxi. Just a gap here, an inconsistency there.

  Nothing that he could prove to his employers in their headquarters eight miles from downtown Washington D.C., where hunches were regarded with cynicism.

  It was to convert a hunch into fact that Anderson had flown on ahead from Boston’s Logan airport to follow Danzer when he landed at La Guardia.

  It’s got to be him, Anderson insisted to himself. Got to be, as the eighty-five per cent certainty wavered and fell five points.

  ‘Are you a hundred per cent sure he’s flying to La Guardia?’ the man sitting beside him asked.

  Anderson who was sick of percentages said: ‘Sure I’m sure.’

  ‘Then he ought to be here by now.’

  Anderson grunted. It always surprised and annoyed him when Miller broke into his thoughts. You forgot that Miller with his thin, greying hair, inconspicuous clothes and gum-chewing jaws was there. That was Miller’s strength.

  Miller slipped a wafer of gum into his mouth without interrupting the rhythm of his jaws. In front of them, on the other side of a grimy transparent screen, sat the driver, bearded and wild-hair
ed, staring into the sleet.

  At regular intervals jets materialised from the cloud, as though suspended from somewhere above the low, grey ceiling; they seemed to hover for a moment, big and vulnerable, before disappearing onto the runway.

  Anderson glanced at his wrist-watch. Miller was right: Danzer should have arrived by now. He assumed that the executive jet had been delayed by the weather. Whoever heard of a plane that was not delayed by some unexpected phenomenon?

  ‘Maybe he’s meeting someone inside,’ Miller said, nodding towards the arrival lounge. ‘Maybe he won’t be taking a cab,’ shifting the wad of gum from one side of his mouth to the other.

  Anderson shook his head irritably. ‘He told me he was going to take a cab.’

  ‘Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe ….’ Miller said hesitantly – he was a nervous man and his nerves prodded him into making tactless remarks – ‘maybe you blew it’

  ‘How the hell would you know?’

  ‘Well, you are kind of conspicuous.’

  ‘I’m not the only black at La Guardia ….’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. But, you know, supposing he recognises you ….’

  ‘In this?’ Anderson gestured at the sleet; nevertheless he raised the collar of his raincoat so that it touched his tan, snap-brimmed hat, and slid lower in the seat.

  ‘I just hope you’re right,’ Miller said.

  ‘I am!’ Anderson leaned forward, rapped on the partition and pointed at the darkly handsome young man who had just joined the line-up for cabs. The driver, who already knew Danzer’s description, nodded his shaggy head.

  Although it was 9.35 in the morning, Danzer stood blinking in the daylight as though he had just walked out of the night into a brightly-lit stadium. He was not alone in his reactions: all the other passengers waiting for cabs looked cowered by their meeting with the sleet, which was extinguishing springtime in New York.

  ‘Take a good look,’ Anderson said to Miller.

  ‘Don’t worry, I already got him.’

  Anderson believed him: Miller’s eyes were camera lenses. And they had certainly photographed every detail of Danzer’s appearance. His wavy black hair, a little too long but not trendily so, the slim athlete’s frame, the cleft chin elevating what would otherwise have been ordinary good looks.

  He wore a camel-hair coat slung casually over his shoulders, and beneath it the navy-blue mohair suit that he had worn at the conference. (In Anderson’s experience Russians who had managed to escape the attentions of Muscovite tailors favoured blue mohair.)

  He carried a suitcase made of soft black leather, bearing in gold the initials KWD. The W, Anderson knew, stood for Werner. His black, buckled shoes were custom-made from crocodile skin. The only incongruous item was the shabby brown briefcase he carried in his left hand. Anderson noted that, although he pushed the suitcase along the ground with his foot as he neared the front of the line-up, he kept a tight hold on the briefcase.

  Anderson said to Miller: ‘Don’t let that briefcase out of your sight.’

  The driver of the police taxi, capable of speeds approaching 100 mph, started the engine as Danzer climbed into an equally battered cab, with an equally hirsute driver at the wheel.

  The sleet continued to pour down as the two cabs, fifty yards between them, joined the expressway. Cabs and cars rode to Manhattan on wings of slush; they reminded Anderson of power-boats racing on a river, except that here on Long Island the race never ended.

  The driver of Danzer’s cab was in a hurry, weaving in between the other vehicles whose drivers were too disgusted with the weather to brandish their fists or sound their horns. But, whatever Grand Prix ploys he pulled, Anderson’s driver kept behind him, theatrically nonchalant with one hand on the wheel, the other adjusting the wave-band on the portable radio stuck together with Scotch tape.

  ‘He’s too cool,’ Miller said. ‘He’ll lose him.’

  ‘It’ll be the first time,’ Anderson said.

  Anderson knew that as soon as Miller took up the chase his nerves would stop jangling and he would be as cool as the driver.

  Framed in the rear window of the cab Anderson could just make out the outline of Danzer’s head. He wondered what was going on in it. He hoped that it was filled with elation at his success in rubbing shoulders with the clique that unofficially moulded the lives of millions of men and women, most of whom had never heard of Bilderberg. He hoped that Danzer was anticipating promotion that had nothing to do with his outward trappings of success; elevation, that was, within the ranks of Soviet Intelligence. He also hoped that he was concentrating on the location where the drop was to be made.

  But perhaps, Anderson brooded as the two vehicles crossed Triborough Bridge, he was merely deciding where to have lunch; anticipating, perhaps, a liaison with a beautiful girl. One aspect of Danzer’s character had been incontrovertibly established: he liked women; what’s more they liked him.

  Danzer’s cab merged with the traffic pounding along the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. To his right Anderson caught glimpses of the dull-eyed buildings of Harlem, marvelling as he always did at the circumstances that had lifted him from a leaning tenement there to a small but luxurious apartment on the East Side.

  Danzer’s cab took an exit to the right and burrowed into mid-town Manhattan. Here the sleet fell erratically, blown by the winds exploring the canyons between the high-rise blocks, and the streets were wet and clean while the slush piled up in the gutters.

  ‘What if he makes a meet?’ Miller asked, jaws quickening. ‘Who do I follow?’

  ‘Follow the briefcase,’ Anderson said.

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  On East 42nd Street Danzer’s cab slowed down. Anderson could see Danzer’s head craned to one side as though he were looking for something – or someone.

  ‘Okay, any minute now,’ Anderson said. Unnecessarily, because Miller was hunched against the door, fingers on the handle. Miller’s nervousness was infectious; Anderson found that his fists were bunched so tightly that his knuckles gleamed white. ‘Don’t jump, just pay the driver and get out. Take your time.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  Danzer’s cab stopped at an intersection while pedestrians, heads bowed into the unseasonal and treacherous cold, flooded across the avenue.

  Then it took off again, hugging the kerb. They passed the New York Daily News building with the huge globe of the world in the window. Danzer’s driver was looking behind him, gesticulating with one hand. Anderson imagined what he was saying – ‘Why don’t you get out and walk? Time’s money, buddy ….’ Odd how your mind chanced on any trivia when you were tensed up. He noticed a gaunt man wearing only check shirt and jeans despite the cold, a poodle trailing a lead and sniffing ankles ….

  Danzer’s taxi stopped.

  ‘You know where to find me?’ Anderson asked, and Miller said: ‘Sure I know, you told me a dozen times already.’

  Danzer was standing on the sidewalk looking around him as his cab departed at speed. He took a notebook from the pocket of his coat, consulted it and peered down the street in the direction of the East River and the United Nations. His suitcase was between his legs but he still held onto the shabby briefcase.

  Miller climbed out of the cab onto the sidewalk, timing it well because at that moment Danzer turned and began to walk swiftly in the opposite direction like a man who has suddenly made a decision.

  Miller spat out his gum and began to follow.

  Anderson rapped on the partition again and the taxi began to edge along the kerb. It was easy enough to keep Danzer in sight: it was Miller the chameleon who kept disappearing.

  Once or twice Danzer glanced behind him, saw nothing suspicious and hurried on. Then he disappeared.

  Anderson blinked and searched for Miller. There he was, entering a hotel in between First and Second Avenues. Anderson knew it vaguely: it had an English-style pub at the back.

  The driver stopped.

  Thirty seconds later Danzer emerged wit
hout his briefcase. He turned sharply and began to walk towards the taxi. Anderson slid down low in the seat, face averted from the sidewalk.

  Danzer hurried past, almost running, like a man escaping from a crime.

  The driver turned and looked at Anderson questioningly. Anderson shook his head. There was no point: the briefcase had just emerged from the hotel – in the hands of a balding man wearing a cheap grey topcoat, wide-bottomed trousers and crepe-soled brown shoes.

  Anderson kept his eyes on the briefcase as it swung down the street. Miller emerged from the hotel, glanced briefly in Anderson’s direction, nodded almost imperceptibly and began to follow the newcomer.

  A Russian? Anderson placed the tips of his fingers together in a prayer-like gesture. Then he lost sight of Miller and his quarry. The next time he saw them they were crossing the bridge spanning 42nd Street.

  This time the driver slid open the partition. ‘What do you want me to do, Mr Anderson?’ His voice was soft and cultured, a contradiction of his appearance.

  ‘Take me home,’ Anderson said.

  All he could do now was wait.

  * * *

  The apartment was furnished with impeccable taste.

  But was his taste just a little too studied? Anderson wondered in those transient moments of self-doubt that assailed him from time to time.

  Olive green, wall-to-wall carpet covered the floor of the living room; the white-leather Chesterfield and easy chairs were low-slung – a little too low for Anderson’s long legs; the television peered from fitted bookshelves; abstracts – some bought in Greenwich Village and some painted by a long-ago girl-friend – hung on the walls; in one corner, approached by a zebra-skin lying on the olive-green carpet, stood a small jungle of poinsettias, rubber plants and ferns. The bedroom was all white, the bathroom blue-tiled with a sunken bath, the kitchen shone with stainless steel fittings.

  The rent was more than he could reasonably afford and, during those fleeting moments of uncertainty, Anderson wondered whether it was all worth it because, in the eyes of some of his guests, he could discern the patronising appraisal of those who had inherited rather than learned impeccable taste.