Billion-Dollar Brain
The classic spy thriller of lethal computer-age intrigue and a maniac’s private cold war, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File.The fourth of Deighton’s novels to be narrated by the unnamed employee of WOOC(P) is the thrilling story of an anti-communist espionage network owned by a Texan billionaire, General Midwinter, run from a vast computer complex known as the Brain.After having been recruited by Harvey Newbegin, the narrator travels from the bone-freezing winter of Helsinki, Riga and Leningrad, to the stifling heat of Texas, and soon finds himself tangling with enemies on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
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The great challenge I faced when asked to produce the jackets for new editions of Len Deighton’s books was the existence of the brilliant designs conceived by Ray Hawkey for the original editions.
However, having arrived at a concept, part of the joy I derived in approaching this challenge was the quest to locate the various props which the author had so beautifully detailed in his texts. Deighton has likened a spy story to a game of chess, which led me to transpose the pieces on a chessboard with some of the relevant objects specified in each book. I carried this notion throughout the entire quartet of books.
Since smoking was so much part of our culture during the Cold War era, I also set about gathering tobacco-related paraphernalia. KGB officer Colonel Alexeyevitch Stok’s relish for caviar is only matched by his scholarly passion for the works of Robert Burns. A portrait of the poet sits beside a pack of Russian cigarettes illustrated with a map of the Soviet Union. The pack provides a haven for the ‘Red’ pawn.
During a visit to Moscow some years ago I returned with the small but hefty bust of Lenin. The revolutionary leader’s bronze head rests on a bed of computer punch-cards and a censored secret FBI file. A luggage label testifies to the book’s protagonist’s stay at Leningrad’s Hotel Europe, and a torn 5 Mark Finnish bank note provides a conventional ploy for our agent.
The cigarette cards on the back cover reflect the ever-present cricket match, and also the devotion to his vintage Riley motor car of George Dawlish, the public school-educated Senior British Intelligence officer and head of WOOC(P).
I photographed the jacket set-up using natural daylight, with my Canon OS 5D digital camera.
Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1966
Copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 1966
Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2009
Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2009
Cover design and photography © Arnold Schwartzman 2009
Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780586044285
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780007342990
Version: 2017-05-22
Spring is a virgin, summer a mother, autumn a widow, winter a stepmother.
RUSSIAN PROVERB
Two mythical countries (Kalevala and Pohjola) fight a perpetual war. They both want a magic mill that grinds endless salt, corn and money. The most important figure in this conflict is an old man named Vainamoinen. He is a wizard and a wise man. He is also a musician and plays tunes upon the bones of a pike. Vainamoinen woos a lovely young girl, Aino, but she drowns herself rather than marry an old man.
KALEVALA (a Finnish folk epic)
Mr Paul Getty … is quoted as having said that a billion dollars is not worth what it used to be.
NUBAR GULBENKIAN
Contents
Billion-Dollar Brain: Secret File No. 4
Section 1: London and Helsinki
‘Very few people go there. Even reporters who live there are restricted to the places they permit them to visit,’ said the lady in the travel agency. ‘And the organized bus tours are for sympathetic trade union people and party members. There would be lots of food and wine but you wouldn’t get to see anything much. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’
