Dirty Tricks : A Cold War Thriller by Chapman Pincher

Author:Chapman Pincher [Pincher, Chapman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2021-05-04T22:00:00+00:00

The following morning, the first Wednesday in June and therefore Derby Day, was cloudless. While hundreds of men were laying out their grey tails and toppers and thousands, who would soon be streaming to Epsom by rail, were seeking out their binoculars, Quinn was looking disconsolately out of his office window at the glorious sunshine bathing the river. He would have hated to go to the Derby and, in truth, there was nowhere he would rather be than in his office, sifting through the mass of telegrams and intercepts which had accumulated through the night. Indeed, how anybody in their right minds could pretend to enjoy themselves when war seemed so imminent he could not understand. Still, what the hell! There was nothing they or he could do to stop it. The politicians had seen to that with their complacency and bland assurances.

He allowed himself the luxury of a few more moments of feeling that he was unfairly chained to his desk, then sat at it to continue his scrutiny of the latest information. He was looking for signs that ‘sleepers’ among the hard-line Communists and professional subversives might be rousing themselves in response to orders from the KGB, which had long sustained them both in Britain and West Germany. Any movement by them would be a sure indication that a Soviet attack was imminent. There was none.

‘Things are looking grimmer and grimmer,’ Quinn remarked to Angela. ‘Satellite pictures confirm that Warsaw Pact Forces are still massing far back into Western Russia as well as in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Their so-called “Exercise Swordthrust” is scheduled to start in four days time. Some exercise! Estimates talk of 30,000 tanks being mobilized!’

‘And we seem to be doing nothing.’

‘We are doing all we possibly can,’ Quinn said crisply. ‘It’s the bloody fool politicians who are doing nothing. Hiding their heads in the sand as usual. And the NATO generals seem just as stupid. They know what’s happening yet a dozen of them have accepted invitations to “observe” the exercise. You know what will happen? They’ll be dead or in the bag as soon as “Swordthrust” switches for real.’

‘Maybe the politicians have ordered them to accept the invitation as evidence of good faith,’ Angela suggested.

‘That wouldn’t surprise me,’ Quinn said, making a note to find out if this were so. ‘How the hell anybody ever fell for that part of the Helsinki Agreement I’ll never understand, especially after the blatant way the exercise subterfuge was used to take Czechoslovakia by surprise in 1968. You weren’t here then, Angela, but we repeatedly warned the Foreign Office – and Number Ten – that the huge build-up on the borders of Czechoslovakia was not an exercise but mobilization for an attack. The Foreign Office refused to believe it.’

‘Are they fools, villains or both?’ Angela inquired.

‘You may well ask. Whatever they are they still think they are dealing with gentlemen. Some of the Russian generals may be gentlemen, but they’ll still do whatever those ruthless old bastards in the Politburo tell them.

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