Borowitz was bored now with toying with his pencil; he put it down, lifted his head and stared into Dragosani’s eyes. His own eyes had taken on a bleak gleam. ‘Of course,’ he finally continued, ‘we do have one gigantic advantage. We have me, Gregor Borowitz! That is to say, E-Branch answers to me and me alone. There are no politicians looking over my shoulder, no robot policemen spying on my spying, no ten-a-penny officials watching my expense account. Unlike the Americans I know that ESP is the future of intelligence gathering. I know that it is not “cute”. And unlike the espionage bosses of the rest of the world I have developed our branch until it is an amazingly accurate and truly effective weapon in its own right. In this – in our achievements in this field -I had started to believe we were so far ahead that no one else could catch us. I believed we were unique. And we would be, Dragosani, we would be -if it were not for the British! Forget your Americans and Chinese, your Germans and your French; with them the science is still in its infancy, experimental. But the British are a different kettle of fish entirely
With the exception of the last, everything Dragosani had heard so far was old hat. Obviously Borowitz had received disturbing information from somewhere or other, information concerning the British. Since the necromancer rarely got to see or hear about the rest of Borowitz’s machine, he was interested. He leaned for ward, said: ‘What about the British? Why are you suddenly so concerned? I thought they were miles behind us, like all the rest.’
‘So did I,’ Borowitz grimly nodded, ‘but they’re not. I Which means I know far less about them than I thought I 1 knew. Which in turn means they may be even farther ahead. And if they really are good at it, then how much do they know about us? Even a small amount of knowledge about us would put them ahead. If there was a World War Three, Dragosani, and if you were a member of British Intelligence knowing about the Chateau Bronnitsy, where would you advise your airforce to drop its first bombs, eh? Where would you direct your first missile?’
Dragosani found this too dramatic. He felt driven to answer: ‘They could hardly know that much about us. I work for you and I don’t know that much! And I’m the one who always assumed he’d be the next head of the branch . . .’
Borowitz seemed to have regained something of his humour. He grinned, however wrily, and stood up. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We can talk as we go. But let’s you and me go see what we have here, in this old place. Let’s have a closer look at this infant brain of ours, this nucleus. For it is still a child, be sure of it. A child now, yes, but the future brain behind Mother Russia’s brawn.’ And shirt-sleeves flapping, the stubby boss of E-Branch forged out of his office, Dragosani at his heels and almost trotting to keep pace.
They went down into the old part of the chateau, which Borowitz called ‘the workshops’. This was a total security area, where each operative as he worked was watched over and assisted by a man of equal status within the branch. It might seem to be what the western world would call the ‘buddy’ system, but here in the chateau it was designed to ensure that no single operative could ever be sole recipient of any piece of information. And it
Borowitz’s way of ensuring that he personally got to know everything of any importance.
Gone now the padlocks and security guards and KGB men. There were none of Andropov’s lot here now, where Borowitz’s own agents themselves took care of internal security on a rota system, and the doors to the ESP-cells were controlled electrically by coded keys contained in plastic cards. And only one master card, which of course was held by Borowitz himself.
In a corridor lit by blue fluorescent light, he now inserted that key in its slot and Dragosani followed him into a room of computer screens and wall charts, and shelf upon shelf of maps and atlases, oceanographical charts, fine-detail street plans of the world’s major cities and ports, and a display screen upon which there came and went a stream of continually updated meteorological information from sources world-wide. This might be the anteroom of some observatory, or the air-controller’s office in a small airport, but it was neither of these things. Dragosani had been here before and knew exactly what the room held, but it fascinated him anyway.