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maintained solely by the parent department, and this department is responsible for collation and distribution of all material received. Any withdrawal of funds or equipment on behalf of the network will be designated by the network number, the code name of its Group Leader and the title of the parent department.
    N.B. It is an integral feature of Category F networks that individual members do not know the identities of their colleagues. Should this situation fail to hold, the network concerned should be disbanded immediately.

Chapter Eight
    T HERE ARE MANY solutions to the perennial problem of office tedium. Some people—usually those with active intellects—pass their time by solving crosswords, creating paper-clip chains, developing new designs of paper aeroplane and inventing various Heath-Robinson contraptions made of Sellotape, rulers and string. This was the approach Wyman favoured.
    Other people choose to devote their creative energies to the enhancement of their job. For example, the true bureaucrat enjoys nothing better than inventing unsolicited “cost analyses”, improving filing systems, and drawing up “efficiency studies” on multi-coloured graph paper. These activities are no less trivial and irrelevant than the achievements of the paper-clip engineers, but they give an illusion of efficiency and relevance to the orderly running of the office.
    Owen, Wyman’s chief, belonged to this second school of thought. Countless breakdowns, analyses and projections flowed from his pen. They were typed out, duplicated, circulated and thrown into waste-bins by those who received them. If Owen was aware of this, it did not bother him. The repeated Government demands for economies and reductions in spending merely charged his enthusiasm. He replied to every Ministerial memo on the subject with one more statistical salvo, confident that it would keep his masters happy.
    Owen’s background was military, as was his appearance. His neatly trimmed moustache and Brylcreemed hair adorned a stern, impassive mien that had taken him thirty years to perfect. He was concrete in every sense that Wyman was abstract. Although the two men shared many views, Wyman had reasoned them out, while Owen had swallowed them as blind dogma. They shared a world polluted by deception and brutality, but each had his own way of retreating from the stark realities of his job. Wyman turned facts into concepts, and took refuge in a sanctuary of abstractions; Owen built a stockade out of rule-books and Ministerial directives. Wyman’s air of detachment found little favour with the Whitehall mandarins; Owen’s blind submission was precisely what they wanted. Thus, Owen was assured of seniority and an index-linked pension, while Wyman was to be exiled into ignominy.
    Intercourse between the two men was usually polite and arctic. When Wyman asked to see Owen about a matter of some urgency, Owen made a great point of looking at a blank page in his diary.
    â€œYou’re in luck, Michael,” Owen said. “I have no appointments this afternoon. Do take a seat.”
    â€œThank you,” Wyman said.
    â€œWhat’s the problem?”
    â€œIt may come to nothing, but there are some news items I collated recently. Taken individually, none of them is terribly significant. When seen together, however, they form a disturbing picture.”
    Owen picked up an HB pencil and began scraping the wax out of his ear.
    Wyman went on: “The first is an item of news in an East German local paper. It reports the arrest of Otto Gödel for drunken behaviour in Erfurt on the night of October 21.”
    He passed a newspaper cutting to Owen.
    â€œAs well as this, we have a list of new arrivals at the Heisenberg Psychiatric Institute in Mühlhausen for the week ending January 4. You may recall that we decided to monitor the intake at that hospital because an unusually high number of political prisoners was being