The Shepherd File (16 page)

Tirov was staring at the patient in a venerable way, as an elder statesman, as a guru, benevolent, hands behind his back, his heavy chin pushed forwards, eyes half closed, smiling. He appeared as if about to elaborate on a theme, to conduct an orchestra, to say a poem.

‘Now that Mrs Verschoyle has come round,’ said Morrison, ‘I must ask you to leave, Colonel Tirov. We have some questions we would like to put to her in private.’

Tirov listened. He looked at Holmes. Holmes grinned. ‘I think, Colonel,’ he said to Tirov, ‘you’ll have to tell them.’

The flat-faced woman of forty lying in bed stared from one to the other, a slight anxiety in her eyes. She looked tired and pathetic as she lay there, propped on pillows. Tirov spoke to her gently, soothingly. They know,’ he said. ‘You need not worry, Nina. You were successful. The lake was not contaminated. The troops got away. Everything will be all right.’

Morrison glared at Tirov and then at the woman in bed. The world seemed to be falling to pieces about him. He felt a gentle touch on his arm. It was Holmes. ‘She’s not Mrs Shepherd’s sister,’ Holmes murmured in Morrison’s ear. ‘You would have guessed, wouldn’t you, when you talked to her? She is Nina Lydoevna.’

‘Nina Lydoevna was deported,’ said Morrison.

Holmes smiled a crooked smile. ‘She came back,’ he said.

Rosa
Verschoyle

‘It was Shepherd,’ explained Nina Lydoevna to the fascinated Morrison, ‘who approached me first. I had known of him. We, in Soviet intelligence, are not unaware of those on the other side. But it was he who began.’ She looked again at Tirov.

‘Go ahead,’ said Tirov. ‘In the circumstances they should know everything.’

Holmes groaned. He looked at Lamb. He liked Lamb and he disliked the thought that Lamb was going to be hurt. But he did not see how it could be avoided.

‘Shepherd was short of money,’ said Nina Lydoevna. Tie was always complaining about his boss’s lack of imagination.’ Lamb coloured and looked indignant at that and Holmes sighed in sympathy. Nina Lydoevna continued: ‘Because of this lack of imagination he was starved of funds. In the Middle East you can do nothing without money. Without money he would have failed. So it was agreed that we would help. It was convenient for us to finance British agents in Africa because their aims and ours were identical.’

‘You paid Shepherd money!’ exploded Lamb. He was as white as a sheet.

‘We didn’t pay him directly,’ Nina said. ‘He didn’t know anything about it. We financed the agents he used, men who provided information.’

‘Men like Ian Dixon?’ suggested Holmes; and Nina nodded.

‘Dixon is dead,’ she said. ‘The Brotherhood got him. He took a consignment of the drug and tried to sell it on the black market. So they killed him. They got something else out of Dixon too before he died. They tortured him and he gave them Shepherd’s name. They tried to get Shepherd twice in Africa and they followed him to London.’

Holmes said, gently: ‘So Shepherd was successful in Africa?’

‘It took a long time,’ she said, sipping her tea, ‘but he got what he wanted. It was better than he thought, better than any of us had thought. The scheme was complicated. It was the work of a genius. We all recognized this. If it were to be sabotage it would need brains of the very highest order.’

Morrison took the cup from her and put it down. She lay in silence, her eyes far way. There was a sudden expression of tranquillity on her face, the powerful lips softened as she looked at Tirov.

‘Who got me out of Uplands?’

‘Mr Holmes.’

Holmes was aware of the large violet-coloured eyes fixed on him, like deep pools with soft margins. He was surprised at their intensity and intelligence.

‘So you are Mr Holmes?’ she said. ‘I have heard of you. You are the most famous of them all!’

Holmes bowed.

‘Go on with the story, Nina,’ said Tirov, gently.

When Shepherd came back to this country,’ she said, ‘he had everything he wanted to know to complete a case and make a report, except the details of the distribution of the drug and the attitude which my country would take.’

Holmes said, ‘He did not know you were financing Ian Dixon?’

‘Not even Dixon knew that,’ said Tirov. ‘We arranged for Dixon to make a profit out of a certain transaction. The profits could not be declared but he would be in a position to use them. That is the way to finance agents. You give them power, position, money.’

‘We must recommend the technique to the Foreign Office,’ murmured Holmes.

‘You can recommend it,’ said Tirov, ‘but they would never adopt it because it would not be cricket.’

‘It would be private enterprise,' grinned Holmes, ‘which would be better.’

Morrison grunted. Lamb, who was leaning forward to look at Nina, said to her: ‘Shepherd got in touch with you about the attitude your country would take?'

Nina Lydoevna nodded. ‘Shepherd was intelligent,’ she said. ‘He knew the struggle that was going on in Africa. He had seen the Chinese agents at work in a dozen countries. He had seen the trade missions from Peking. He knew the infiltration that was going on. He had seen the contacts between the missions and the Brotherhood. In every sphere the contact was made, though in every sphere the manifestation was different. Sometimes it was a movement for colonial freedom. In another country it would be a movement for continental unity, in another a nationalist opposition movement that was purely dependent on harnessing the discontent and the poverty. But, for whatever reason, the organization was the same, and behind each organization was the money from China and the brains of Akano.'

Lamb asked the obvious question.

‘Akano,’ said Nina Lydoevna, and her voice carried the vibrancy of her conviction, ‘is the finest military genius that the continent of Africa has produced. He is the head of the Brotherhood. He is a Masai, the son of a tribal chief, the son of a fighter, but he has none of the Masai laziness or pride. He is that rare creature whose intelligence transcends social and racial boundaries.’

‘Have you met him?' asked Lamb.

‘Once,’ she replied. ‘He is a tall man who says little and who has none of the African's emotional instability. He impressed me greatly. That was in the Sudan when I did not know who he was.’

‘And why,’ said Morrison, ‘do you consider him a genius?'

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He created the Brotherhood,’ she said, as if that were a sufficient explanation. She went on earnestly. ‘Do you know what that means? I find it difficult to convey to you if you do not know Africa. The Africans are still children. They are excited, emotional, devout, idealistic. They have no discipline, in the sense that we in Russia understand discipline, in the sense that you in this highly disciplined England of yours understand it. For the African, the Brotherhood is something completely foreign to his nature and to his tradition. Yet Akano created it out of Africans. It is a movement of an iron discipline with the fervour and secrecy of Jesuits.’

‘Phew!’ Morrison wiped his head. ‘That sounds a tall order.’

‘With anyone else but Akano,’ said Nina Lydoevna, ‘it would have been impossible. It would need a genius of astonishing power even to create such an organization. It is not based on blood, like the Mau-Mau, nor on hatred, but on the idea of a united Africa. It is based on love, on patriotism. That is the driving force behind it; and the driving force is Akano. He is, in himself, the new Africa. That is what makes him powerful. He is the new movement of the African people beside which the early stirrings of men like Lumumba were no more than primitive destruction of old faiths.’

‘Go on,’ said Holmes.

‘Shepherd had heard of him,’ she said, ‘but never met him. He had no idea of his power nor of the strength of his organization. He did not believe it. He came to ask me.’

‘At Runnymede?'

‘We met at Runnymede,’ she said. ‘It had taken time to prepare. Shepherd had discovered that Uplands was one of the centres of the Brotherhood. They made use of it because these health clinics have a world-wide link through the health movements and their advantage is that they are peopled with cranks and harmless characters who in themselves create no suspicion; also they have no race prejudice.’

‘Ah.’

‘Shepherd took infinite precautions. He pretended to have an ulcer. He went to a hospital and from there, pretending dissatisfaction with conventional treatment, to Uplands. We arranged our meeting through Mrs Wrythe.’

‘So she knew,’ said Morrison firmly.

Nina Lydoevna shook her head. ‘Not at all. We made use of her. I was a Russian health cure addict at the embassy who recommended Shepherd as a patient. Mrs Wrythe was innocent. Shepherd, however, found out he was watched. Akano was thorough. I told you the man was a genius. The African students at Uplands were members of the Brotherhood. Two of them worked in the kitchens. They were, so I believe, genuinely interested in the preparation of health food. To that extent they were genuine. They were given a cellar to carry out experiments into purely African food problems. They experimented on plankton foodstuffs.’

‘The excuse,’ said Holmes, ‘for the fish?’

Nina Lydoevna nodded. ‘You seem to know. The fish were for the distribution.’

‘Go back to the meeting,’ said Holmes.

‘I met him at Runnymede,’ said Nina Lydoevna. Her eyes were dreamy. ‘It was a beautiful day. There were picnickers by the river.’

‘And fishermen on the banks?’ That was Holmes. ‘Fishermen?’ she frowned. ‘Yes. There were. One or two. I remember. It was idyllic. It seemed so absurd somehow, so far removed from Africa, from Akano, that it was difficult to believe in the reason for our meeting. He asked me for information. I said I was prepared to give it for a price.’

‘What price?’

‘We wanted to know what he had discovered.’

‘He was willing to tell you?’

‘He was willing to bargain.’ Nina Lydoevna looked thoughtfully at Holmes. ‘Being willing to bargain information is not a crime. I will tell you one thing about your man Shepherd. He was a patriot. He believed in what he was doing. He was as much a patriot as I am or as Colonel Tirov. He would not have given us information which was against your nation’s interests. What he was doing was unorthodox and perhaps against your criminal code but it was done from the highest motives. He wanted to be able to put the full case, intact, to the Foreign Office, with every detail perfect. He was a perfectionist, perhaps, but he was no less a patriot.’

‘It is something which I understand,’ said Holmes.

‘I’m damned if I do,’ said Lamb. ‘Why the devil didn’t he come to me? Why didn’t he ask us for help?’ Lamb glared. ‘He was going behind the department.’

‘What did he want to know?’ said Holmes, ignoring Lamb.

‘He wanted to know who was behind the Brotherhood, who Akano was, where he came from, everything about him. I told him what I knew. He seemed unwilling to believe Akano was as efficient as I assured him he was. He still thought it was a wildcat scheme. I remember him using the word. He said that if he told his superiors about it without anything to back it up they would laugh themselves sick.’

Holmes looked at Lamb. ‘That’s right, you know,’ said Holmes. ‘Can you imagine going to Scott Elliot with the story of an African military genius who was about to sabotage the Strategic Reserve?’

‘He should have trusted me,’ said Lamb.

Holmes sniffed. ‘How many times do you tell your men to get their facts right before they come to you?’

‘I told him about the Brotherhood,’ said Nina. ‘I told him what I knew. I explained they were ruthless, highly secretive and disciplined. He found it difficult to believe.’

‘So would anyone,’ grunted Lamb. The story is fantastic.’

‘It is not the first fantastic thing to come out of Africa,’ said Nina Lydoevna soberly, ‘and it will not be by any means the last.’

‘You told Shepherd,’ said Holmes to her, ‘that the Chinese Peoples’ Republic were financing Akano?’

Nina nodded.

‘So he knew the interest the Soviet Union had in defeating Akano?’

‘Defeat?’ said Tirov, he was playing with his cigar case. ‘I am not sure of that word. The Soviet Union has a legitimate interest in the natural aspirations of the African people. They support the move towards African unity represented by Akano. They would not tolerate, however, such a movement being used for subversive purposes by the revisionist elements in the Chinese Peoples’ Republic. In the view of the Soviet Union that would be to support the exploitation of the Africans by the Chinese.’

‘Therefore,’ said Holmes, ‘you would be against Akano so long as Akano was backed by the Chinese.’

‘Akano was being exploited by Peking,’ said Tirov. ‘They were making use of the Brotherhood to get a foothold in Africa. That we could not allow.’

‘Shepherd knew that?’

It was Nina who replied. ‘He was able to give us information about the Chinese missions,’ she said. ‘In return we told him of the possibility of LSD being used to sabotage British intervention. The theory we had formed was that when the Akano rising was to take place the local governments would appeal for Commonwealth or United Nations troops to come in, as was done in the Congo. Then LSD would be put in the local water supplies.’

‘You were wrong,’ said Holmes.

‘Shepherd found out,’ she said. ‘When he went to Uplands he discovered the cellar. What he saw there put him on the track. He talked it over with me when I met him at Runnymede. By then he was certain. He was very excited. Imagine the effect of doping the reservoir which serves Pirbright Barracks. The timing would be difficult but the reservoir is in open country.’

‘Good God,’ said Lamb. ‘It’s incredible.’

‘Not incredible,’ she said, ‘but new. Imagine the effect on world opinion if you could dope British paratroops. No one would know they were doped. It would not be advertised. But they would take off from this country and crash on the way. If they dropped at all they would not be in a condition to fight. It would be shattering — British intervention in Africa a complete failure. British troops surrendering without a fight. Can you imagine the moral effect such news would have on all the subject peoples? Akano would be irresistible. Government after government would give way to him.’

‘And the Chinese would be in,’ said Holmes.

‘Naturally,’ said Tirov. They are behind him. He would not, even in victory, be able to shake them off.’

‘For two years,’ said Nina, ‘Akano worked in building up the Brotherhood in England. He trained and disciplined his men and brought them in as students. There are perhaps a hundred. No more. They spend a year in so-called study and then go home. Others take their place. The money comes from Peking. The discipline and purpose is provided by Akano. Three of them were based at Uplands, studying health diets.’