The Twentieth Day of January

a face in a magazine you assumed you recognized it because it was well known and familiar, a film star or some public figure. But that wasn’t why the photograph had stayed in his mind. He remembered Dempsey now.
It had been in Paris. May 1968. And the song had said it was the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. But China had exploded her first atom bomb, France her first hydrogen bomb and the North Koreans had captured the first US Navy ship to be taken since 1807. And on the streets of Paris the students were demonstrating against the Government. That was where he had last seen Andy Dempsey, with bright red blood soaking his white shirt from a broken nose as they slung him into the black van.
After the taunting shouts, they had thrown cobbles from the streets at the police before the SDECE, with the black crosses on their white helmets, came in. It was they who had beaten up Dempsey, and his girl, as the barriers came down. Her mouth had been wide open as she screamed as the thug twisted her breast and kneed her groin. Then he had lost sight of her as she fell to the ground in the forest of feet and legs.
Dempsey was an American and his girl was a Russian or a Pole. He couldn’t remember which. That was the last time he had seen them. He had been withdrawn to London just afterwards. It had been one of his first jobs for SIS, a low-profile penetration of student groups in Paris. And Dempsey had been on his list as a member of the Communist Party and intimately involved with a Soviet citizen. His reports would still be on file.
He switched off the fire and went back to bed.
It was midday before he had time to go to Central Records. He sat in front of the micro-film reader for over an hour. There was more than he remembered. Apart from the typed reports there had been a handful of photographs and several pages of notes in his own handwriting. The round careful script looked naïve and juvenile now. He had forgotten about Kleppe.
He walked back to the house in Bessborough Street. It was one of those rambling turn-of-the-century houses that wealthy merchants built for themselves when cotton was still king but Manchester was beginning to lose the fight to London as the centre of trade. Now it was the operational base of one of those special units that were spawned from time to time by SIS. Highest security, but liable to be disbanded at any time. The present incumbents were designated as SF14. Special Force 14 were responsible for planning and mounting deep penetration operations into the intelligence services of the Soviet bloc. MacKay was one of its two operational directors.
He slid his card into the slot and the door chunked open. The Field Security sergeant at the small desk had known him for three years but, as always, they went through all the routine of passwords and identity checks. Some day somebody was going to renege and four feet from the door was where they aimed to stop him.
Magnusson was obviously not too pleased at being disturbed on a Sunday morning for speculative discussion. He was too civilized a man to say so outright, but too hard pressed in his job not to make clear that if the appointment was not urgent and about a current operation, it could wait its turn after the weather, the problems of protecting chrysanthemums from the first frost, and the possibility that Cooper’s Oxford marmalade might not be maintaining its quality.
Magnusson sat with one slippered foot on a sleeping Labrador that quivered after rabbits in its sleep. As he refilled MacKay’s glass and handed it to him he finally said, “So what was it, James?” And MacKay gave him a report on what he had checked out. He held out the envelope of photocopies but Magnusson waved it aside.
“And what are you suggesting that this all adds up to?”
“That the campaign manager of what looks like the probable next US President was a Communist in 1968. That his girl was a Russian and bound to be a Party member, or she would not have been allowed to go to Paris. That a man named Kleppe, a rich man with some sort of Soviet influence, got them both out of jail when the US Embassy wouldn’t lift a finger.”
“Go on.”
“There isn’t any more.”
Magnusson raised his eyebrows. “So what do you see—another Philby?”
“Could be.”
“And what d’you you think we should do, my boy?”
“Mention it to CIA liaison at Grosvenor Square.”
“Why?”
“They ought to know.”
“Why d’you think they don’t know?”
“Maybe they do, but we had all the information on file about Philby and his Communist wife, and nobody checked it out.”
Magnusson nodded. “I’ll speak to the Minister and let you know. Has there been any news about Kowalski?”
“Nothing since the first report, except a confirmation that the Poles haven’t got him. It’s KGB for certain.”
“What’s Anders doing about it?”
“I don’t know, sir, but he’s already on his way to Berlin.”
“There’s a nice little pub in the village if you want a bite on your way back.”
And MacKay took the hint and left Magnusson to the Sunday Times and the Observer.
May 1968 had been one of the times that he knew he would always remember. It was the first solo assignment that he had done for SIS. It looked like a piece of low-key routine, and he had wondered what interest SIS could have in the students at the Sorbonne. He had decided that they were merely testing out the fluency of his French or maybe his ability to maintain a cover. But they obviously knew more than they had told him at his briefing meetings. He had only been there three months when the demonstrations started, and he had been recalled in the second week of August.
It had seemed a spring and summer of ceaseless sunshine, the