The Big Breach by Richard Tomlinson

central courtyard. Directly above the gatehouse is a luxury suite of rooms, reserved for the Chief on his frequent visits. Set around the courtyard are three main blocks, east wing, main wing and west wing. Each wing is self-contained and has its own complex of bedroom accommodation, kitchens, dining-rooms and bars. Spread amongst the wings are the other training facilities needed to prepare trainees for a career in the secret service - a gymnasium, an indoor pistol range, photographic studios, technical workshops, laboratories and lecture rooms. There is even a small museum, containing mementoes from the SOE (Special Operations Executive) of the Second World War and obsolete Cold War spying equipment. At the extremity of east wing is a helicopter landing pad and an outdoor pistol and sub-machine gun range. Recreation is not forgotten and there is an outdoor tennis court and croquet pitch to the west, as well as an indoor squash court just beyond the outer wall.
     
    Main wing, directly opposite the entrance, was our home for the IONEC. We disgorged ourselves from the minibus and headed into the in-house bar for another drink. Alcohol plays a prominent part in MI6 life and Ball and Long encouraged us to drink every night. The main wing bar, decorated with military emblems and souvenirs from Second World War SOE operations, soon became the focus for relaxation during the IONEC.
     
    That evening Ball and Young entered the results of our work into the CCI computer. Three individuals turned up with records. Hare's old paratrooper turned out to be a Walter Mitty with no military service, one of Castle's finds had a long criminal record and the pretty girl that I had interviewed turned out to be the younger sister of an MI5 secretary.
     
    Officially, the drab, nondescript yellow-brick building just opposite the police station on Borough High Street in Southwark, London, was a government stationery store. In reality, until recently it housed another MI6 training school. During the IONEC we spent alternate weeks at `Boro' and at the Fort. Training at Boro was oriented towards the administrative and theoretical aspects of the work and it was here that Ball and Long initiated us into the service's history, purpose and modus operandi.
     
    MI6's roots were in the Bureau of Secret Service, founded partly in response to the Boer War which took Britain by surprise, and partly in response to an increasingly belligerent Germany. On Tuesday, 30 March 1909, a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence met in a closed session in Whitehall. Colonel James Edmonds was the first speaker. He was head of MO5, the forerunner of today's MI5, whose job was to uncover foreign spies in Britain with his staff of two and budget of œ200 per year. Edmonds had ambitious plans and wanted to extend his service to spy abroad, primarily in Russia and Germany. But Lord Esher, the chairman of the committee, disbelieved Edmonds's tales of German spying successes in England and insisted that Edmonds prepare a detailed list of cases to back his arguments.
     
    Rather than back down, Edmonds resorted to a tactic which was used successfully by many of his successors in MI6 - he fabricated evidence to support his case. He provided Esher with a fictional list of spies drawn from a contemporary best-selling novel, Spies of the Kaiser by William Le Queux. When Esher asked for corroboration of his evidence, Edmonds claimed that such revelations would compromise the security of his informants - an excuse that was copied many times by his successors to extricate themselves from awkward inquisitions by government. It was enough for Edmonds to win his argument and with it the budget to expand MO5 to form the Secret Service Bureau. In 1911, the Official Secrets Act gave Edmonds sweeping and draconian powers to imprison anybody suspected of helping the `enemy', which at the time was Germany. That same primitive act is still on the statute books in Britain and even today