Quiller Barracuda Read online

  'It's self-disgust but if you'll give him a chance he'll make a first class shadow executive and God knows they're rare enough. It's not as if -' '

  He was looking at his watch and I turned and went to the door and pulled it open.

  'Quiller.'

  I looked back at him.

  'You know Proctor, don't you?'

  Conversational tone.

  'Czardas?'

  'Yes.'

  'He did a couple with me.'

  'So you know him rather well.'

  I didn't think he wanted an answer; if you go through a couple of major ones you know your contact in the field rather well, yes.

  There were some people coming along the passage and a woman's voice said, 'I think someone's in there with him' and Croder said, 'You'd oblige me by closing the door and sitting down, if you've got a moment.'

  Oh Jesus Christ he was in a towering rage but all you could hear were the words, give him that much, he knew how to get control. What he was really saying was that if I didn't come back and sit down in the next five seconds flat he'd hit the second telephone from the left and blast me straight into six months suspended operations and leave me to rot.

  But that wasn't why I pushed the door shut. I didn't think we'd finished with the Fisher thing.

  'Thank you. Proctor has been doing sleeper in Florida for the past eighteen months.'

  'I didn't know.' I thought he'd been laid off, because Czardas had left him with a 9mm slug behind the heart they couldn't get at – he'd caught a side shot at Ferihegy Airport in Budapest when he was taking off in a Partenavia P.68 Victor with half the Defence Ministry's ultra-classified files and one of their younger secretaries on board.

  'He's very good,' Croder said, and picked up a phone that had started ringing. 'No later than eighteen hundred hours, and they are not to be armed -that's very important.' He put the phone down. 'He's been sending exemplary material through our routine-grade lines without cessation except for periods of leave, when Hayes took over. But in the last few weeks his signals have – Proctor's, that is – his signals have taken a slightly strange turn. Moreover, he's begun sending material through the diplomatic bag.'

  Verboten, in the absence of exceptional circumstances. I didn't say anything.

  'I've decided not to call him in for investigation because I believe it's already too late for that. There was a certain amount of delay before I was consulted.' Below in the street a bus throttled up, making a sound just like the rolling of heads. 'It might also seem wise to leave Proctor to go on as he's going, and send someone out there to take a look at things without alerting him. I thought of asking you, because you know the man rather well and there's nothing we can offer you at the moment, unless Krinsley's operation in Dakar comes unstuck, which is unlikely.'

  'What's he doing?'

  'But then,' Croder said, 'Africa's not your preferred field, is it?'

  'It's time the whites got out of there and left it to the natives. It's their land.'

  A phone rang again and he picked it up; it wasn't the red one. 'Switch calls to Costain.' I thought that was interesting, considering the Proctor thing didn't sound terribly urgent. And there was another thing: I wouldn't have thought the Chief of Signals would have been asked to send out a top-echelon shadow executive to the United States to check out a sleeper with a screw loose. But I didn't give it a lot of attention because I was coming down from the anger about Fisher and the adrenalin was washing around and leaving the system sour, a taste in the mouth.

  'Have you been there before? Miami?'

  I said I hadn't.

  'Not unpleasant, this time of the year.'

  'It's too risky.'

  'In what way?'

  'I mean I could be out there nursing Proctor and you could have a mission come onto the board and you'd give it to someone else. And I need one.'

  'I understand that.' He looked down. Carefully: 'You are normally less sensitive.'

  Let it go. 'I'm down for the next one in, and I've got to be here. I'm on standby.' He couldn't do anything about that; it's recognised that if they leave a shadow too long with nothing to do he's going to claw the wallpaper off.

  There might be time,' Croder said, 'to call you in from Miami.' Looking up, 'I would consider it a personal favour, if you'd agree to take this on.'

  'I'd like to oblige.' I don't take charm from a vampire.

  His expression didn't change. 'It was Mr Shepley, I should perhaps tell you, who asked me to send someone out.'

  Bullshit. Shepley was Bureau One, king of kings and host of hosts, and he wouldn't give his Chief of Signals a thing like this to play with when there were five missions running on the boards. I suppose he knew I was giving him some bullshit too: I certainly didn't want to be way out there in the States when a new mission came up in London because I couldn't trust them to call me in, but I could ask for a formal guarantee and expect to get it. But I wasn't going to ask, because it was giving me a certain amount of dark joy to keep on saying no to the man, considering he wouldn't give me even a minute of his time on the Fisher thing.

  'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I don't want to leave London.'

  'You make it difficult, Quiller,' hooded eyes brooding on my face in the greenish light of the lamp.

  'With regret.' Politesse for tough shit.

  'I could of course require your acquiesence.' For require read order, but as I say he's not unmannered.

  'Of course.'

  'But I would prefer to persuade you.' Dark head sinking lower onto his shoulders, I could see the feathers.

  'There's no chance,' I said.

  He pulled a drawer open and dropped some papers onto the desk, some kind of forms on top, I think. Then he reached for a pen. To put it formally, then, you decline to undertake this assignment, despite my repeated request?'

  'Yes.'

  'What if I kept Fisher on and sent him to Norfolk?'

  'I'd go to Miami.'

  'I have your word on that?'

  'Yes.'

  I looked in on Holmes before I left the building.

  'He's going to keep Fisher on,' I said.

  In a moment, 'Yes. He told me this morning. I'm sorry I couldn't say anything – for some reason he put me under strict hush.'

  Chapter 2: MONCK

  'Gin?'

  'Just some tonic.'

  Glass crashed again, musically.

  'Good flight?'

  'Bit bumpy coming in.'

  'I'm not surprised.' He gave me the tonic. 'There's still a bit of turbulence about.' Baggy alpaca jacket and trousers, cracked suede shoes worn to a shine along the sides, fifty, I suppose, thin silver hair across a peeling scalp, name of Monck. 'Lost my boat.'

  'I'm sorry.' I'd seen litter across the bay as we'd come into the approach, two or three yachts wallowing in the dark sea, capsized. Maria, the captain had told us, was approaching the Florida coast by now and well out of our way, but she'd done some damage, with an estimated death toll of fifty.

  'Good timing,' Monck said, 'on your part,' and gave a slow winning smile. 'Cheers.'

  More glass fell: a huge Bahamian was at the top of a ladder clearing away the smashed window panes, a trickle of blood down one arm, which I didn't think he'd noticed.

  'You really mean she was a write-off?'

  'What?'

  'Your boat.'

  'Oh. Pretty well. Salvage some of the interior teak and brass and so on, perhaps. Pretty Polly.' A quick brave smile. 'Long may she sail the Elysian seas, what? Let's go and sit over there.' We were in a kind of conservatory where they'd put a bamboo bar and filled the rest of the place with huge palms and hibiscus and birds-of-paradise. Some of the floor was still flooded where the coloured tiles had broken over the years, leaving hollows.

  Wicker creaked under us, and Monck balanced his drink on a leaning stool. He'd met me at the airport and brought me here in a clapped-out Austin, no air-conditioning, any more than there was in this place.

  'How long do you th
ink you'll be here?'

  'A few days.'

  'You're going to see Proctor, I believe.'

  'Yes.' I hadn't been formally briefed in London but Croder had said that Monck was persona grata and would give me any help I needed.

  'Then you'll be more than a few days. He's back in Florida. You just missed him – he was on the last plane out before they stopped traffic because of the hurricane.'

  'Where's his base, here or -?'

  'Miami. He shuttles a bit; quite a few people do. Judd was here last week; he's got a place. Have you studied Judd?'

  'No, if you mean the senator.'

  'Don't worry,' he said, and got a crumpled packet of cigars out of his jacket. 'You're not politically inclined, as I know. Proctor is, at least he is now, and that's the main problem.' He scraped a match. 'You can consider this as interim briefing, you understand, filling you in a bit before the other people arrive.'

  His face was pink in the light of the flame; the lamps weren't on in here yet and the place looked like a jungle, the plants beginning to crowd in as the dying sun fired the walls and windows.

  'Other people?'

  Monck let smoke trickle out of his mouth, watching the huge man on the ladder. 'You'll be taking a look at Proctor, but it won't stop there. You didn't bring much baggage, but you can do a little shopping when you've the time.' He faced me suddenly, the wickerwork creaking, his faded blue eyes resting quietly on mine. 'I'm fully conversant with your record, and it must have occurred to you that Mr Croder wouldn't lightly toss you the chore of checking on a sleeper who's started sending in funny signals.'

  This man, for all his baggy suit and thinning hair, wasn't coming across as a semi-retired staffer put out to grass in the dependencies. For one thing I knew the tone: he was telling me precisely what he wanted me to know and that was all, and he answered only those questions that called for it.

  But I decided to take him head-on: 'Did Bureau One want me out here?'

  The big overhead fans sent the smoke streaming away on the sticky air. His eyes were still on me, and when he was ready he said, 'Surely Mr Croder told you.'

  'At the time, I wasn't ready to listen.'

  Softly, 'Then I hope you're listening now.'

  Glass crashed again and it sent a flicker along the nerves. It hadn't been bullshit, then, on Croder's part: the head of the Bureau had told his Chief of Signals to send this particular executive out here and I hadn't believed it because there wasn't even a mission on the board, but Monck had spelt it out for me a minute ago: You'll be taking a look at Proctor, but it won't stop there.

  But Croder must have known that the mention of Bureau One would have got me out of London with no trouble at all – he hadn't needed to use Fisher like that.

  'You say it won't stop,' I told Monck, 'at Proctor. But are we talking about an actual mission?'

  He looked away, picking a bit of cigar-leaf off his lip and studying it with abstract care. A plump woman came through the doorway with her arms on her hips.

  'Justin! You come on down from there, I need your he'p in the kitchen, man! Now you jus' come on down!'

  'This stuff gonna fall on people's heads!'

  'Ne' mind about they heads, they have to watch out for theyselves. You c'm'on down now, y'hear me?'

  Monck didn't say anything until the huge man had got down the ladder and gone out. 'An actual mission… well I'm not sure, you see. My job -' he faced me again with a sudden swing of his head – 'is to keep you out here in the Caribbean until such time as things develop. Until we know where best to deploy you. Does that -?' He waited.

  'Not really.'

  'I didn't think so.' Shifting his weight in the chair, "I'll put it like this. Vibrations have been coming out of this region over the past few months and they've started to reach London. All departments have been working into the night for a long time now, especially Signals and Data Analysis and of course Codes and Cyphers. At first it had the look of a major narcotics development, understandable in this area; and then we thought it was something political involving Fidel Castro – again understandable, given the geography.' He dropped ash, watching it blacken on the wet tiles. 'We still don't know much, but we know differently. What it does concern is the upcoming American election, in which of course Senator Mathieson Judd is actively engaged. It also concerns the balance of power between East and West as it exists at the present time, which is precariously. So we're talking about something rather more than the requirements of a mission.' His faded blue eyes still on me, 'Let me put it this way. If the extent of things proves as far-reaching as we've begun to believe, I shall find it difficult to sleep soundly in my bed.'

  Black girl, extremely pretty, more than that, vibrant, demanding male attention, petite in a silk dress that you could have hidden in one hand, watching me as I came in, so that I hardly noticed him in the shadows between the hanging brass lanterns, noticed him only when he moved slightly. I'd rung the bell and he'd called out for me to come in; they were standing quite a few feet apart, as if they'd been talking but not intimately.

  'Here you are,' said Proctor, as if he hadn't quite expected me to come, though I'd phoned him ten minutes ago from the hotel.

  I would talk to him, Monck had said at the airport in Nassau, with extreme caution. It's not out of the question that he's been turned.

  And was wired, or had a bug running.

  The door swung shut behind me; it was probably on a spring, though I hadn't felt it; there was no draught; the air in Miami tonight was deathly still: they said we were in the eye of the hurricane, the eye of Maria, though it had been downgraded to a storm after blowing itself out across the ocean.

  'Monique, this is Richard Keyes.' I'd told him my cover name on the phone. 'Monique.' He didn't say her last name. She stood with one dark slender arm hanging with the hand turned for effect, like a model's, as she studied me, her eyes a sultry glimmer set in the black mascara.

  'Good evening,' she said on her breath, then looked at Proctor. 'Call me?'

  'Of course.' He didn't go to the door with her; as she passed me she left the air laced with patchouli.

  I thought I heard a shutter bang in the wind, but it must have been someone upstairs, perhaps slamming a door: it was too soon for the storm to start up again.

  'When did you get in?' He didn't offer to shake hands.

  'Earlier on.'

  'You come direct?'

  'Through Nassau. You look good. Long time.'

  'I'm all right. What'll you have?'

  'Tonic.'

  He went to the built-in bar where there was a ship's lamp burning; the glint of mosquitoes passed through the light. He didn't actually look all that good but I didn't think it was because of the bullet in him; Monck had said it didn't trouble him providing he didn't get into any kind of action. It looked, I thought, more like natural wear and tear: booze and late nights and girls like that one, a bit of a man, Monck had said, for the ladies.

  'Lime or lemon?'

  'I don't mind. Nice place.'

  'It's all right.'

  Lots of wicker and bamboo and big cushions nixed up with some Miami Beach art deco mirrors and wall plaques, fixtures, I would have thought, they wouldn't be his. Not much light anywhere, the walls mottled by the filigree work of the lamps hanging all over the place on chains, a Moorish touch. Big-screen TV set and VCR cluttered with boxes of tapes. a pile of glossies spilling onto the Persian rug – Vogue, Harper's, Elle, Vanity Fair. He'd established deep cover as an advertising rep, working through the major US east coast and Bahamian stations.

  'Still on the wagon?'

  'Pretty much.' I took the glass. It was more, I could see now as he stood close to a lamp, than natural wear and tear. He had a good face, unusually well-balanced, the dark eyes level and the nose dead straight and the chin squared, but the skin had started to go, even at his age, forty or so, because of the stress, which had made him start losing weight. It was in and around his eyes, too; they were less steady
than they'd looked when we'd been waiting there in the cellar in Szeged near the Yugoslavian border the last time out together, waiting ten hours for them to find us and throw a bomb in and leave the pieces there for the rats to pick over. Czardas.

  He didn't look as if he could ever go into the field again, although I couldn't tell whether some of the stress he was showing, or all of it, wasn't to do with me: he might not always be like this.

  We sat on cushions on the floor – the only chairs were grouped around the bamboo table – and I went into the routine according to briefing, just thought I'd look him up, heard he was out here, so forth.

  'Sure, it's good to see you.' He'd poured bourbon for himself, a big one, neat. 'Some kind of vacation?' The accent was still English but he was picking up the US vernacular.

  'Not really. We think Castro's putting in some new off-shore listening posts on instructions from the Komitet. The High Commission signals room's been getting crossed lines.'

  In a moment, 'Not your usual pitch.' His smile had a certain confiding charm, and it was there to take the danger out of the comment. It didn't.

  'It's not on the board,' I said. There was no one else they could send out here. But I got a guarantee from Croder.' If there was a bug running I couldn't do anything about it. I was meant to be out here on the Castro thing and thought I'd look in on Proctor for old times' sake: that was the script and I had to stay with it.

  'Guarantee?'

  'That he'll pull me back to London if a mission comes up.'

  'How long has it been?'

  'Getting on for two months. You know what it's like.'

  He scratched at the black hairs on his chest through the vee of his shirt. 'I used to.'

  'You miss it?'

  Things are all right here. This election's warming up, you know. What do you think of our Senator, Judd?'

  'Politics aren't my bag.'

  They can be quite amusing, the way they play them here. Someone started a rumour last month that Judd had been a pot addict, and they finally pinned it down to a single drag on a joint in high school, thought it was an ordinary cigarette. But it could have crippled his campaign – these good people don't care about a man's foreign policy, so long as he's Mr Clean.'