It told him he had made contact with those who could help and asked if anyone from the embassy might be tailing the head of Czech Intelligence and how many operatives were in place. Unbeknown to both, such was the nervousness of the British state regarding events in Czechoslovakia that the sister service to the SIS had people in place to monitor that kind of traffic between the two capital cities. If MI5 did not know the contents of Cal’s message or whom it was from, they knew to whom it was addressed. Part of their job was to compile a list that kept the SIS Central European Desk informed. The register of the day’s traffic was thus passed on to Broadway where the recipient’s name set off the bells with the man who ran it; normally he was above that sort of thing unless it was deemed important. Following on from Peter’s previous trip to Brno and the subsequent trail that led to La Rochelle it smacked of conspiracy and produced in Noel McKevitt the kind of expletive-filled apoplexy he reserved for times when he was alone and unobserved, the kind that turned the air blue and had those outside his office exchanging looks and shrugs.
