He declined to discuss cameras, equipment, pay or trade-craft during this pre-Merlin period in London, and Smiley was conscious all the while that even the little Haydon was telling him was selected with meticulous care from a greater, and perhaps somewhat different truth.
Meanwhile both Karla and Haydon were receiving signals that Control was smelling a rat. Control was ill, of course, but clearly he would never willingly give up the reins while there was a chance that he was making Karla a present of the service. It was a race between Control’s researches and his health. Twice, he had very nearly struck gold – again, Haydon declined to say how – and if Karla had not been quick on his feet, the mole Gerald would have been trapped. It was out of this nervy situation that first Merlin, and finally Operation Testify, were born. Witchcraft was conceived primarily to take care of the succession: to put Alleline next to the throne, and hasten Control’s demise. Secondly, of course, Witchcraft gave Centre absolute autonomy over the product flowing into Whitehall. Thirdly – and in the long run most important, Haydon insisted – it brought the Circus into position as a major weapon against the American target.
‘How much of the material was genuine?’ Smiley asked.
Obviously the standard varied according to what one wanted to achieve, said Haydon. In theory, fabrication was very easy: Haydon had only to advise Karla of Whitehall’s areas of ignorance and the fabricators would write for them. Once or twice, for the hell of it, said Haydon, he had written the odd report himself. It was an amusing exercise to receive, evaluate and distribute one’s own work. The advantages of Witchcraft in terms of tradecraft were of course inestimable. It placed Haydon virtually out of Control’s reach, and gave him a cast-iron cover story for meeting Polly whenever he wished. Often months would pass without their meeting at all. Haydon would photograph Circus documents in the seclusion of his room – under cover of preparing Polly’s chickenfeed – hand it over to Esterhase with a lot of other rubbish and let him cart it down to the safe house in Lock Gardens.
‘It was a classic,’ Haydon said simply. ‘Percy made the running, I slipstreamed behind him, Roy and Toby did the legwork.’
Here Smiley asked politely whether Karla had ever thought of having Haydon actually take over the Circus himself: why bother with a stalking horse at all? Haydon stalled and it occurred to Smiley that Karla, like Control, might well have considered Haydon better cast as a subordinate.
Operation Testify, said Haydon, was rather a desperate throw. Haydon was certain that Control was getting very warm indeed. An analysis of the files he was drawing produced an uncomfortably complete inventory of the operations which Haydon had blown, or otherwise caused to abort. He had also succeeded in narrowing the field to officers of a certain age and rank…
‘Was Stevcek’s original offer genuine, by the way?’ Smiley asked.
‘Good Lord no,’ said Haydon, actually shocked. ‘It was a fix from the start. Stevcek existed, of course. He was a distinguished Czech general. But he never made an offer to anyone.’
Here Smiley sensed Haydon falter. For the first time, he actually seemed uneasy about the morality of his behaviour. His manner became noticeably defensive.
‘Obviously, we needed to be certain Control would rise, and how he would rise… and who he would send. We couldn’t have him picking some half-arsed little pavement artist: it had to be a big gun to make the story stick. We knew he’d only settle for someone outside the mainstream and someone who wasn’t Witchcraft cleared. If we made it a Czech, he’d have to choose a Czech speaker, naturally.’
‘Naturally.’
‘We wanted old Circus: someone who could bring down the temple a bit.’
‘Yes,’ said Smiley, remembering that heaving, sweating figure on the hilltop: ‘Yes, I see the logic of that.’
‘Well, damn it, I got him back,’ Haydon snapped.
‘Yes, that was good of you. Tell me, did Jim come to see you before he left on that Testify mission?’
‘Yes, he did, as a matter of fact.’