Time Travel in Rock: 1984, page 24
Petrov gave me a pitiful look and left.
“What do we do next?” I wondered.
“Go back to bed,” Zudge suggested.
The night before it had all seemed so easy. Now I felt lost.
I racked my brains. Trying to come up with ideas. But got nowhere.
Half an hour later, Simmons returned. She had the proverbial spring in her step, a song on her lips, and a head brimming with ideas.
She immediately saw my despondency and gave me a personalized pep talk that rekindled my enthusiasm within minutes.
“And that, my Great Dane, is why I only drink in moderation,” she concluded.
I groaned.
We’d brought Simmons and Petrov along for their specialist knowledge. I hadn’t expected these recruits from a primitive era to be smarter than us.
Chapter 44
Petrov ignored the men approaching him and pretended to concentrate on the excited boys by the Serpentine boat hire shop. The youngsters had pooled their money and one of them was trying to haggle for a group discount with the boat hire worker. A future capitalist in the making… if the time travelers’ mission proved successful.
The men sat either side of him on the park bench.
“Welcome, comrades,” Petrov said, not looking away from the children. “I’ve been expecting you.”
In Russian, one of the KGB men enquired, “Who the fuck are you, old man? And what are you doing here?”
“Your rigor is noted, comrade. You don’t know me. Nor should you. You were not informed of my arrival, nor should you have been. I report directly to Comrade Major Rogozin out of Norman, Oklahoma.”
The two men maintained a threatening silence while they considered his response. Overhead, the birds of Hyde Park sang their summer songs, unconcerned with the affairs of humans. Unless crumbs were involved.
The KGB used highly professional assets. However, take them outside of their usual parameters and they would flounder. Each man flanking Petrov was silently working through the implications of what he had just said, assessing the next move, and knowing that making the wrong one would lead to a terrible fate. Indeed, it was possible that by this point all possible actions on their part would lead eventually to their deaths.
Petrov judged this the right moment to speak. “The geese are flying low over Leningrad.”
This was the emergency recognition code phrase. Which he followed with, “Have you heard about the new oboist of the Kharkov Symphony Orchestra? He comes highly recommended.”
The second was the ‘obey me in all things or your superiors will answer for it’ phrase.
The problem with such code phrases, naturally, was that if the other side learned them, they would be used against you. If an asset was known to be compromised, such codes would be changed, but they had not.
So which was the more likely scenario? That the KGB’s London station had been compromised and its commanders were unaware of this. Or that this Russian who had inserted himself inside an active operation was a loyal servant of the Soviet Union, one so highly connected that his presence had not been announced?
And why would that happen? Because the Kremlin was suspicious. Someone very senior had been displeased by their operation. Possibly they had been compromised.
Such were the calculations running through the men’s heads. Whatever Petrov’s true purpose, they concluded that they themselves and every asset in England was under suspicion.
Or so Petrov reported later to me and the Zudge. He already knew we were not quite in the version of history our records said was the correct one. So it had been quite the gamble that the phrases he’d memorized fifty years previously would also work in this timeline.
As the boys clambered into their pedal boats on the Serpentine pond, buzzing with excitement and quite unaware of the deadly drama playing out a short distance away under the trees, Petrov struck the killer blow. “The success of Operation Bulldog is imperiled,” he said. “Allow me to conduct my affairs in my own way and we three shall meet in the next decade in what is currently called Parliament Square but will be renamed as befits our socialist victory. There we shall share good vodka under the banner of the hammer and sickle that will hang from Big Ben.”
Vodka. I had already concluded that the Russians in this era were obsessed with it, and it seemed fitting that Petrov ended his first brush with the KGB with the drink’s mention.
Or perhaps Petrov had added that ending to his report because he was playing to my stereotypical notions of Russians and vodka, a detail about me that he knew well. He was a cunning customer, and I had no way to know how much of what he reported was true.
The only reason I trusted Petrov was because we were still alive.
Chapter 45
Once our heads had cleared, we were all eager to follow up the connections we’d begun to establish at the party.
Zudge went for a drink with Evelyn, I volunteered to help Arthur Boddington with the backroom work for the CLPD, Petrov did his own spy thing (graciously blessing us with an update on the occasions it suited him), and Simmons most bizarrely of all dated Derrick.
I’m sure Zudge got the best deal out of that. As for who got the shitty end of the stick? Well, I was fairly sure that was me.
Arthur could be a patronizing jerk at times. Well, almost all the time, if I’m honest. He had a perfect knack for communication, tailoring to his audience his frequent ruminations about politics and history and the like. He always pitched things at just the right level for me to not quite follow what he was saying. Arthur Boddington forced his supposed intellectual inferiors to either silently stew in their own inadequacy or constantly ask him to illuminate their profound ignorance.
The funny thing about Arthur was that I don’t think he was aware he was doing this, and he would be horrified if he realized how uncomfortable he made many people feel. In many ways he was a warm and caring person, very generous with his time and money.
He was certainly generous about explaining the inner workings not only of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, but the complex politics of the inner and outer left in mid-1970s Britain.
It was a tumultuous time. Harold Wilson – the Labour leader for the past dozen years and hated by the CLPD — had won the last general election but had just resigned, to be replaced by James Callaghan, whom the CLPD disliked just as much. Although Labour was in power, they had a majority in parliament of just a couple of seats.
According to the official history of this period, there were a rash of by-elections coming up, where individual parliamentary seats would be fought due to the death or resignation of the sitting member of parliament. If you think through the math, every by-election was an existential crisis for a party in government with a two-seat majority.
Then there was the alternate history of the period. The one I’d first learned from a pamphlet in a dismal King’s Lynn bookshop in the English People’s Democratic Republic. Arthur talked about the two leaders of Labour’s left wing, Tony Benn (broadly supported by our team in the CLPD) and Michael Foot. I knew they were important because in the EPDR timeline, Callaghan had been ousted as prime minister in a vote of no confidence, to be replaced by Tony Benn, who would go on to win the general election in 1979.
But Benn would grow suspicious of the Soviet influence that surrounded him and was poisoned (ricin dart to the bum). Foot became the fourth Labour prime minister in six years, but by the time he realized what was going on, it was far too late.
When the Socialist Victory came, Michael Foot didn’t even get a show trial. He was executed by firing squad, same as several thousand other ‘dissident elements’ when the Soviet coup finally came.
As for all the tactics and philosophy behind the machinations of the CLPD and their like, obviously no one in their right mind wants to hear about any of it. Even at the time, most people living in Britain had no idea any of this was going on, and those who did would dismiss it as irrelevant history within a decade or two.
But to the participants in these intra-party wars, this was politics at its most intense. It all mattered. Terribly.
The people we were getting to know pored over the minutest detail of the wording of the latest model resolution (a means to pack their policies into the annual party conference), of the proposed electoral college setup (making sure the right kind of people had power over the party), and a host of other politicking.
And, boy, did Arthur want to explain it all to me. Every last socialist drop of it. And all pitched so I would not quite follow without asking him to elaborate.
Of all my Time Dogz missions so far, this was the one where I was working the hardest. So you’ll forgive me for being pretty pissed off that the first break came not from me, or even Zudge, but our rock goddess performing the role of a socialist Wonder Woman party queen.
* * *
It started with the telephone ringing at the Circus one sun-drenched Saturday morning.
Simmons took the call and burst into the living room where Zudge and I were relaxing with a game of Mouse Trap on the coffee table. We looked up at her, startled, because our rock goddess had lost her swagger. In fact, she looked terrified.
“This reality is flawed,” she announced. “You’ve been saying that all along, but I never realized how screwed it was. I mean, the universe exploding under its own contradictions kind of screwed.”
“What is it?” Zudge asked. “Who was on the phone?”
“Derrick,” Simmons replied ominously. A little too ominously. I realized this was one of her bouts of ‘acting’ that would one day, she assured us, conquer Hollywood. “Derrick’s blown me off.”
“You mean he canceled your date?” Zudge checked.
“Can you believe it?”
“It happens,” I said. “Perhaps he grew bored of you.”
The look of incredulity on Simmons’ face was entirely genuine. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
“Or maybe you were too intimidating,” Zudge suggested.
“Don’t know why you kept him going anyway.”
“Derrick has hidden talents. One in particular is larger than life.”
I groaned. “Jean, it’s too early in the morning for that Kiss tomfoolery. Try saying that again, but this time choose words that aren’t references to genitalia.”
She pouted. It was a sexy look on her, but she did heed my words. “Derrick was a blank canvas. I mean, totally blank. My mark is now upon his canvas and will be forevermore.”
“Better,” I said. “A little. Okay, then. Grab one of these plastic mice and join the game. I don’t think Derrick’s going to grow bored of you any time soon, or see someone else behind your back. He’ll have a perfectly good reason why he couldn’t make it today.”
“But he didn’t, that’s the point. Wait, the tracker gadget gizmo! Can we spy on him?”
“If he’s within range,” said Zudge. “Let’s find out.”
Our bags of tricks from the Kennel had RF trackers designed to be implanted under the skin. They were risky to use in the London of 2029, but 1976 was more primitive. Simmons had engineered no end of opportunities to insert all manner of things under Derrick’s skin and so it was time to employ one of our trusty dragonfly spydrones.
The drone could home in on the tracker if it was within roughly ten kilometers. Derrick lived in East Finchley, which was just out of range, so we sent the drone in the direction of his apartment to see if we could pick him up.
Derrick had told Simmons that he had to drop everything and head to Norfolk, claiming his brother had been in a car accident. Death from vehicle accidents was astonishingly high in this era, so I was inclined to believe Derrick, but Simmons insisted she had a nose that could sniff out a man’s lies across ten states.
Annoyingly, she was right.
The dragonfly had flown only a hundred meters away from the Circus when it picked up Derrick’s signal. He was in Clapham Common, about seven kilometers away and on the other side of the river from East Finchley.
“Derrick Maclean,” Simmons cooed. “You’ve been a very naughty boy.”
* * *
Clapham Common, according to my necklopedia, was one of the many green spaces preserved for public use in the London sprawl of the 1970s. In later decades, it would become notorious as a hive of ‘cottaging’, a quaint British term meaning cruising for gay sex in the gentlemen’s public conveniences that did in fact resemble tiled cottages.
Maybe Derrick was bisexual and got a kick from the edginess of cruising in parks, but I didn’t believe for a moment that he would drop a date with Jean Simmons on a sudden whim.
This was a problem with time travel. Give things another five years or so and the name of Clapham Common would start to become a nationwide code for heavily breathing men hiding in bushes and the like, so that’s what the records I was accessing wanted to highlight. But when I broadened my research, I got the impression that most Londoners experiencing 1976 as it happened would associate Clapham Common with fishing and camping in tents.
* * *
The dragonfly hovered over Derrick sitting on a park bench, a ballpoint pen rolling out of his lips as he puzzled over a newspaper crossword. The man was super intent on his puzzle, which was peculiar because it wasn’t even his. Someone had left it on the empty bench and Derrick had parked his arse and claimed the paper for his own. After a quick skim of the headlines, he went straight for the puzzle page.
“I knew it!” Simmons declared. “For that man to blow me off in favor of a crossword would be against God and against reason. Petrov explained all this. It’s a dead drop. I bet if you picked up that newspaper, you’d see nothing strange, but if you were in the know you’d find a coded message hidden in the crossword answers.”
Zudge knew how to wind up the undercover rock star. “Or maybe Derrick’s avoiding you and did a crossword to pass the time. Perhaps he just feels… I don’t know. Intimidated by you.”
“How dare you? I am worshipped by my lovers. Not feared.”
“Perhaps he wants a girl who will worship him.”
“Hmm… Interesting. But also incorrect. Watch…!”
I wasn’t sure whether to place my money on Zudge or Simmons. Derrick was acting weirdly, but humanity had not evolved to handle people as intense as Simmons.
After ten minutes, Derrick folded up the newspaper and left it behind.
The tracker told us he was walking in the direction of the nearest bus stop, but we kept the dragonfly buzzing around the trees, keeping watch over the newspaper.
A few minutes later, a man in a tan trench coat emerged from the trees and took Derrick’s place on the bench. In an era of long and unkempt hair, this man’s was trimmed military short, all the better to frame his Slavic features. He seemed too obviously Russian to be true, but sure enough he nonchalantly picked up the newspaper and turned the pages to the crossword. He studied the page for a few moments, and then tossed the paper into the bin next to the bench.
“Follow him!” Simmons cried when the alleged Russian rose to walk away.
We tracked him as far as Clapham South Tube Station. Then he gave us the slip.
“What did I tell you?” Simmons was ecstatic. “I’ve been dating a Soviet agent.”
Zudge didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know. It seems too obvious. Petrov said to assume that we were being watched at all times. Any true KGB asset would know that.”
“Grandpa Lenin’s right,” Simmons said. “But he’s being cautious. The Brits have their MI5, but they can’t be everywhere watching everyone of interest. That guy in the trench coat will be pulled from the large pool of low-ranked agents sent to perform routine tasks. MI5 will know who he is but won’t think he’s important enough to spend resources tracking him.”
“Jean’s right,” I said.
Zudge frowned as if I’d betrayed her.
“Remember the secret police in the English People’s Democratic Republic?” I responded. “They practically wore a secret police uniform so the citizens knew they were about. But the more people’s attention were on the obvious spies, the more they weren’t looking at the hidden ones.”
“That was only ever a theory,” Zudge pointed out.
I shrugged. “But I agree with it. Because I’m right. Derrick is spying for someone. The question is: what do we do about it?”
That sounds like an obvious question, but we’d been at this for weeks and still hadn’t come up with an answer.
We could smear Derrick with the mind gel. Hugely tempting, but Petrov had repeatedly warned us against that.
We could keep our target under observation and learn what we could. That would take a lot of effort, and we might not learn anything, but at least it would be a start.
Or we could inform on Derrick to the Brits. MI5 and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch had the resources and skills to do this properly. But we had no means of contacting them. And if they found out about us, they might bring us in for a little torture and interrogation because they would want to know who the hell we were.
We briefly went through the usual arguments, but we still couldn’t agree what to do next. Frankly, it was pathetic.
Simmons picked up the control box that had been displaying the images from the dragonfly. “Can we see the pictures again? The ones from Clapham Common?”
“We can,” Zudge replied. “But we can’t print them out.”
“No problem. I can draw them. Then Stiletto can try to inform the Brit spies. We all know you’re going to do it anyway, big guy, so you might as well do it properly.”
Jean Simmons. Rock goddess. Former history teacher. Spy novel addict. And now portrait artist with a 2B pencil. One who could also see right through me, too, because it was true, I’d made up my mind to go find some English spies to talk to. It was a risk, but far better than sitting over a board game talking when we should be doing.
Simmons caught Derrick’s likeness perfectly. The guy in the trench coat too.
And yes, during the long summer of 1976 she sketched me several times. She captured my tattoo particularly well.
