In the morning Troy called on Gus at the British Embassy.
“I need a secure line to MI5 in London.”
“May I ask why?”
“Vienna has a visitor.”
“Stop being coy.”
“Guy Burgess is holed up at the Imperial not half a mile from here.”
“Oh fucking hell!”
Gus reached for the phone.
“Give me a moment, Freddie. Hello … yes … put me through to Leconfield House on the scrambler.”
He put one hand over the mouthpiece.
“Do you want anyone in particular?”
“You’ll get a duty officer, but the man I want is Jordan Younghusband.”
“Hello? Yes … Fforde, Vienna Station here. I have Chief Superintendent Troy for Jordan Younghusband. Yes, yes. I quite understand. Yes, it is rather urgent. Thank you.”
He put the phone down.
“Jordan’s in the building. Somewhere. He’ll call us. Might take a while. I’ll ring down for coffee. You can tell me all about it while we wait.”
Over the next half hour Troy was as frank with Gus as his sense of caution allowed. He did not mention Méret Voytek. He wouldn’t mention Méret Voytek unless he really had to.
“It’s a mess,” said Gus simply.
“Why’s that?”
“Burgess is trouble wherever he goes. If I had a choice about his what d’ye call it? … de-defection … I’d rather he’d shown up in Berlin or Timbuctoo … anywhere but Vienna.”
“Yep.”
“Then we’ll agree, he’s quite capable of handling Guy.”
The phone rang.
Gus listened for a minute and passed the handset to Troy.
“Jordan?”
“Yep.”
“Freddie, what’s up, old son?”
Troy told him. Jordan heard him out without questions.
Then he said, “I’ll need to run this Upstairs. But I’ll be on a plane out as soon as I can. Just hang on to our friend and I’ll take over.”
“Jordan. I’m leaving today. I want nothing to do with this. It’s spook nonsense. Worse, it’s Burgess nonsense.”
“Freddie. When Upstairs hears this there won’t just be ripples, there’ll be a tidal wave. Please, just stay there … till I can get there. Overnight at the most. Honestly. I’ll call you back as soon as it’s clear what happens next.”
He rang off.
“I really don’t want to do this, Gus.”
“All rather depends on one’s sense of obligation, doesn’t it?”
“What, Queen and Country?”
“I was thinking rather more of your obligations to Jordan.”
“And I was trying not to.”
“Tell you what. Let’s give it another half hour, another pot of java, and see if he gets back to us before lunch. We can forget the elephant in the room and just catch up. So much seems to have happened since we last met.”
A pleasanter half hour passed. They rehashed the sins of Sasha, the farce of Troy thinking foreign agents had followed him halfway across Europe only to find them waiting in Vienna, and Troy told Gus enough about Shirley Foxx to bring a twinkle to his eye.
“This could be the real thing, eh, Freddie?”
“Perhaps,” said Troy.
The phone rang.
Gus held it out to Troy.
“Jordan?”
And in a stage whisper, pulling a face, Gus replied, “Onions!”
“Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can.”
“Good. Stay put!”
“What?”
“I said, stay put. Sit on that bugger, Burgess, till the bloke from Five gets there.”
“No … no … Stan, it’s got fuck all to do with you, me, or Scotland Yard. I’m coming home this afternoon.”
“You’re a serving Met copper. You’ll take orders. And the order is ‘Stay put!’ I will not have this coming back to be laid at our door. Those twats in the Branch lost Burgess in ‘51. I will not have it said that Scotland Yard let Guy Burgess escape … twice!”
The line went dead.
Troy said, “Ouch!”
“Quite.”
“Who would have thought Stanley Onions had a nark inside Leconfield House?”
“I think this calls for an early lunch, don’t you?”