Holland shook his head. ‘This is entirely our own problem. Though that doesn’t mean there isn’t a chance it’ll turn into another Zanzibar, and Smith will end up getting into bed with the Soviets or Chinese.’

‘Imagine kicking up all this stink to avoid giving half your country the vote only to end up a communist vassal.’

‘Stranger things have happened.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’ Knox asked, pre-empting the order he guessed Holland was about to give him.

There was a long, torturous pause before Holland replied.

‘No, I need you on something here.’

Knox hoped the relief that flooded through him didn’t show on his face.

Holland put his hand on the second folder, but he didn’t open it or push it over to Knox yet.

‘The Kosygin summit is going ahead,’ he said.

That was not what Knox had expected Holland to say.

‘Really? I assumed it had been cancelled as soon as the election was called.’

‘As far as anyone outside Leconfield House and a few offices in Whitehall is concerned, it was. Wilson doesn’t want to be seen cosying up to the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union while his majority hangs in the balance, but apparently the trade deal he’s dangling in front of us is too valuable to dismiss.’

‘Valuable, or necessary?’ Knox asked.

Both men knew that the country’s economy was on the slide, squeezed by decreasing productivity, increasing globalisation, and a hefty deficit inherited from Macmillan’s Conservative government. They also knew that the last Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, had been forced to devalue the pound in order to stabilise the country’s post-war recovery, and Wilson was desperate to avoid doing so again.

‘De Gaulle is still blocking our attempts at closer economic ties with Europe, and President Johnson still hates Wilson. Our options are limited.’

‘Stranger things,’ Knox repeated.

‘We simply can’t afford for the summit to go badly.’ It was clear that by ‘we’ Holland meant both the country and MI5.

‘It’s going to be a very discreet visit,’ he continued. ‘A few meetings, some private dinners and the like. Laing is managing our part of the proceedings and has all the details.’

Simon Laing was the SLO who had been recalled from Ottawa—the reason Knox had been sent to Canada. Clearly Holland was giving the junior officer a chance to redeem himself.

‘Do you want me to babysit him?’ Knox asked.

‘Actually,’ Holland replied. ‘I want him to babysit you.’

‘Sir?’

‘Would you rather I sent you to Rhodesia?’

‘What I want isn’t relevant,’ Knox said, after another short silence that finally betrayed his true feelings on the matter.

Holland huffed again, at last sliding the folder across his desk.

‘Read through this, then go find Laing.’

Chapter 10

Chapter 10