Quiller Salamander q-18 Page 2

  I didn't care for the 'Let's see' bit; it was meant to sound casual, and didn't. Everyone at the Bureau knew damned well I'd been on Solitaire: it had ended with quite a bang.

  'Yes,' I said.

  'Thought so. Who directed you in the field on that one?'

  'Cone.' I waited. If Flockhart knew his facts about that mission he wouldn't let it go.

  'Cone, that's right.' He dug some butter for his roll, and the light of the little red-shaded lamp on the table reflected off his knife, flashing across his eyes. He was looking down, busy. 'But wasn't Thrower directing you at first?'

  He knew his facts, yes, and wasn't letting it go.

  'At first,' I said.

  A faint smile came, put on for the occasion. 'Not often we see two directors in the field on one mission. What happened?'

  I could smell the dampness on my jacket left by the drizzle, was aware of the heated exchange of Italian going on behind the doors to the kitchen. My senses were tuned, alerted, because this man Flockhart was putting a probe into me, and I didn't know why. But of course he hadn't asked me to join him down here to discuss the cricket scores.

  'What happened,' I told him, 'was that Thrower wanted to do things his way and I wanted to do things mine.'

  He put his knife down carefully. 'So you had him replaced, is that it?'

  'Yes.'

  'In the middle of the mission?'

  'Pretty well.'

  'And Bureau One agreed to do it, is that right?'

  'Yes.' Bureau One was the head of the whole organization.

  'So you must have had good cause.'

  ' I had good cause whether Bureau One agreed with it or not.'

  He took it easily enough, but looked down quickly. In Berlin I'd demanded the immediate attention of Bureau One to get rid of Thrower, and it had meant waking him up at two in the morning in Washington; it was the closest I've ever come to being thrown out on my neck.

  'Linguini Francesco for the gentlemen,' and there was Luigi himself with the dishes, lowering them to the table with a flourish. 'But no wine? I have some Chianti Risadori that arrived — '

  'We're working, Luigi,' Flockhart said, and this time the smile had surprising charm. 'Perhaps later.'

  'There is time for work and there is time for Chianti Risadori,' Luigi said with nicely feigned indignation, and went away folding his serviette with another flourish.

  'You get on well, normally,' Flockhart was asking, 'with your controls and your directors in the field?' I didn't answer right away, and he said, 'I hope you don't mind if we dispense with small talk while we're eating?'

  'Not my language.'

  'Jolly good.' He waited for my answer.

  'I get on well if they're effective and don't try to bitch me about. Croder knows that, so does Loman.'

  'You've crossed swords, is that it?' Offered with a slight smile, but not the charming one. It was the smile, bearing in mind what Holmes had said, on the face of the tarantula.

  'We understand each other. I probably respect Croder more than any other control, and not just because he's Chief of Signals.'

  Flockhart moved the shaker of parmesan towards me. 'How is the linguini?'

  'First class.'

  'Croder, yes, is quite formidable, isn't he, in terms of effectiveness. What about Loman?'

  'He's effective,' I said. 'He ran me well in Singapore.'

  'But?'

  'I think it's the bow tie.'

  Flockhart actually laughed. 'The bow tie, yes, I know what you mean. What about Pepperidge? Ferris?'

  'Both impeccable. They could take me through.hell and back.' Had done so, in a way, and more than once.

  'You know Pepperidge lost his sister, do you?'

  'Yes.' I'd met her at his little house in Hampstead, a pretty woman with gaunt eyes and sallow skin, dying of cancer as gracefully as she could.

  'What about Pringle?'

  'He's never directed me.'

  'Less experienced, perhaps,' Flockhart said in a moment, 'than the directors you're used to.'

  'I don't know. Bit young, isn't he?' I'd only run into Pringle a couple of times in the signals room. 'Wasn't he on Switchblade?'

  'He was,' Flockhart said, 'and he brought it home rather well. Pringle is young, yes, but he has style.' He was watching me intently now. 'Which is something you'd understand, I rather think.'

  'Who was his control on that one?'

  'I was.'

  He looked past me as some people came down the steps, and I watched his face as he carefully checked them out. Quite a few of Luigi's clientele are spooks of some sort from DI5 and DI6, and some of our own people come down here.

  I wasn't ready to think that this man Flockhart had a mission for me but it looked as if it could be on the cards: what he'd actually been asking me since we'd come down those steps was: How difficult are you to control in the field? And if you think I ought to have been blowing my fuses at the thought of a new mission after six weeks of wearing my bloody shoes out along those dreary corridors the reason is quite simple. I had a question of my own: Did I want to work for a tarantula?

  Flockhart had finished checking out the people who had just come in, and was watching me again as I put my fork down and pushed my plate away an inch and sat watching him back.

  'The thing is,' he said in a moment, 'I need someone to go and take a look at certain things in Cambodia for me.'

  I waited. It was obvious I'd want to know more than that.

  Someone gave a sudden laugh behind me, and I recognized it. It was Corbyn, that bloody fool in DI5. He was one of the people who'd just come in, and that was the first of the series of laughs we were going to hear at regular three-minute intervals if we stayed long enough: Corbyn treats counter-espionage as some sort of tiddlywinks, absolutely ripping fun.

  Then Flockhart said, 'It's the sort of thing I wouldn't ask just anyone to take on.' He pushed his own plate away. 'It requires a rather high degree of discretion.'

  That threw me. The Bureau is a strictly underground outfit that doesn't officially exist: we answer directly to the prime minister without going through those hysterical clowns at the Foreign Office, and one of the reasons for this is to give us the freedom to do things that no one else is allowed to do, and I'll say no more. And if that doesn't already require 'a rather high degree of discretion' then what in God's name does?

  I didn't say anything. Flockhart was fly fishing with me, flicking his lures across the surface waiting for me to rise; but I wasn't in the mood: if he had a mission for me I'd look at it and if I liked it I'd take it — but I'd have to like it an awful lot if this man was going to be my control in London.

  'Discretion,' Flockhart said carefully, 'is of course our daily bread at the Bureau. But this — '

  'And for dessert, signori, we have an excellent Gelati di Napoli, anointed with just a soupcon of Punt e Mes — '

  'For you?' Flockhart asked me as Luigi took our plates.

  'No.'

  'Just espresso, Luigi. For both — is that right?'

  I said yes.

  'The linguini was acceptable?'

  'Your best, Luigi. Your very best.'

  A small dark boy with eyes by Michelangelo swept the crumbs from our bread into a scoop and darted away. 'Discretion,' said Flockhart again, 'is our stock-in-trade, yes, but what I need would be discretion within discretion, if you follow.'

  'The ultimate clam.'

  'How well you put it.' He waited, then said, 'But you haven't asked any questions yet. Lack of interest?'

  'Not really. Just put the proposition on the line for me and we'll take it from there. I don't like piecemeal information.'

  'Quite so.' He looked down for an instant.

  Behind me that clod Corbyn laughed. You can set your watch by him.

  'I need, then,' Flockhart said carefully, 'someone capable of total discretion to look at certain things in Phnom Penh for me, leaving tomorrow and reporting back to me personally through my private lines a
t the Bureau and at my home.'

  In a moment I said, 'I'm actually looking for a mission. The real thing.'

  The espresso arrived and Flockhart dropped the sliver of peel into his cup. 'Yes, I understand that. I didn't bring you down here to waste your time. Let me put it this way: if you are prepared to follow my instructions with reasonable fidelity, and to work — at least for the moment — with no signals board or transmissions through Cheltenham, and with no supports, couriers, or contacts in the field, I can guarantee you a mission. The real thing.'

  I suppose it's the way it goes, isn't it — if you lust after something a bit too long you're not sure whether you want it after all when it lands in your hands. But it wasn't really that, I think, this time. I didn't trust this man, and if I let him run me through a mission I would have to trust him with my life.

  'I would be operating, then,' I said in a moment, 'under a total blackout?'

  'Yes.'

  That too was suspect. I'd never known it happen before at the Bureau, and that could simply mean that none of the other shadow executives had ever told me about it, but I didn't think so. There's a grapevine in that place, as in most organizations, and this was something I'd never picked up.

  'Why?'

  Flockhart was ready for it, and said at once: 'You would learn why, as the mission progressed.'

  His eyes watched me steadily, their pale blue ice reflecting the red-shaded lamp but gaining none of its warmth. It didn't worry me too much that he wouldn't answer my question: at the outset of any mission we are told only as much as we need to be told, on the sound principle that the less we know of the background the less we can give away if the opposition should ever bring us down and throw us into the cell and get out the bamboo shoots and the shocking-coil and the rest of the toys.

  'When you say you can guarantee me a mission,' I told Flockhart, 'there would have to be a director in the field. At least that.'

  He gave a nod. 'Pringle.'

  The man he'd been trying to sell me. Pringle is young, yes, but he has style. Which is something you'd understand, I rather think.

  I dropped my own sliver of peel into the cup and watched it floating, saw one of his ice-blue eyes, Flockhart's, reflected there on the dark surface.

  Corbyn laughed, behind me.

  When I felt ready I said, 'When do you want my decision?'

  I looked up as I said it, to see if I could catch any reaction in Lockhart's eyes: I wanted to find out how much it meant to him to know that I was actually considering the mission, how much he needed me, how indispensable I was, whether I could dictate arms. But of course his eyes didn't show anything.

  Except the anger.

  'I want your decision now,' he said evenly.

  I didn't say anything right away, partly because I wasn't sure of the answer, not at all sure, with a man like this as my potential control.

  But I'd placed it at last, the vibration I'd been picking up since we'd started talking down here, the faintest whisper of something in the tone of his voice, in his breathing, the way he sat, his chin tucked in by the smallest degree and the head down;the attitude — on a minuscule scale — of a bull preparing to charge. And yes, perhaps it was also expressed in the very iciness of the eyes, which I hadn't noticed in the past, the few times I'd run across him. There was anger here, and of a high order, finely controlled, barely contained, as Flockhart sat watching me across the table.

  'That's rather soon,' I said, simply to give myself time. Because this anger of his was also something I should take into account, perhaps, before I made my decision. It wasn't directed against me: we were virtual strangers, had had nothing to do with each other before tonight. But anger in a man like this, directed at no matter whom, was a potent form of explosive.

  'Time,' he said evenly, 'is of the essence.'

  I heard that idiot Corbyn laugh again, but the sound was faint this time; the hum of voices in the room had seemed to die away as I let my mind fold into itself to seek guidance. I wasn't worried by the instant deadline Flockhart was giving me; with comfortable time to make any kind of decision we tend to cloud the issue with pros and, cons, and are never quite sure, when we've cast the die, whether we've done right or wrong. Whereas intuition is as fast as, light, flashing up from the subconscious with all the facts marshalled and the answer ready, if we're prepared to listen.

  'All right,' I said.

  Because the only fact that really mattered was this: when I'd been prowling those dreary corridors for weeks on end I would have taken on any mission for anyone.

  And nothing had changed.

  'You'll do it?' Flockhart sounded, if anything, surprised.

  'Yes.'

  He left his eyes on me, leaning forward a little across the table. 'You'll do well,' he said quietly. 'You'll do very well.'

  The next morning the drizzle had given over and a pale sun was trying to show through the clouds, with a March wind rising.

  Flockhart saw me in his office not long after nine, giving me a chair and going behind his desk again, throwing some papers to one side. They fell across a silver-framed photograph, and he left them there; I couldn't see it clearly at this angle because of the reflection on the glass, but it looked like a woman's face.

  'You can do your medical clearance,' he said, 'with your own doctor, or mine if you prefer. Your expense account is open as of now, and I shall be personally responsible.'

  He looked much the same as I'd seen him last night: cool, very controlled, expressionless. But the anger had gone. His speech and the movement of his hands were faster; anger had gone and left room for energy.

  'Fair enough,' I said. 'What about briefing?'

  'None, officially.' He turned his head to look from the window on my left, where a pigeon was waddling on the sill; then he looked back at me and said, 'There's nothing official about this at all, you must understand. Let me put it this way: your mission would not necessarily meet with acceptance by Administration, if I proposed it to them. That is why I didn't.' He watched me carefully. 'Does that bother you?'

  'I've spent most of my career,' I said, 'doing things totally unacceptable to Administration.'

  'Yes, I've heard it rumoured. That's why I selected you.'

  'There was a chorus line?'

  'Only in my head,' he said quickly. 'I've spoken to no one else, be assured. No one.'

  The pigeon flew off the sill, and through the gap in the window I heard the soft beating of its wings. 'All right,' I said. So if there's no briefing, what about instructions?'

  'You'll find them at the office of Trans-Kampuchean Air Services in Phnom Penh; I've already sent them on ahead of you. Here's their address. Your sealed envelope also contains rather substantial funds in US dollars and local currency, together with your hotel reservation and identity papers as an agent for Trans-Kampuchean.'

  'Are they Bureau?'

  'Shall we say, associated. Totally secure, but not a safe-house.'

  He pushed his chair back and got up, taking an envelope from a drawer and handing it to me. 'Air tickets and visa. You're on Air France Flight 212, routed through Kuwait and Bombay. Departure is 1:05, which will give you time for the medical and packing. Any questions?'

  'When will Pringle be there?' I asked him. In Phnom Penh.

  'Not for a day or two. You won't need him. He'll contact you when he arrives.' He let his eyes rest on mine for a moment. 'Pringle is young, as you say, and hasn't carried out as many missions as you. But I have the utmost confidence in him and I want you to treat him accordingly. He's shown himself capable of resourcefulness, imagination and cool-headedness in difficult times. We're clear on that?'

  I heard the warning. Pringle was Flockhart's man, and I wasn't expected to bitch him about if things got rough. 'Quite clear,' I said.

  Flockhart came with me to the door. 'I'm not opening a signals board for you at this stage, as you know, but for the purposes of identification, the code name for the mission is Salamander.'

&nb
sp; The sky was still clearing when I went through the door behind the lift and into the street, with Big Ben chiming three quarters of the hour at the far end of Whitehall. I'd committed myself and the die was cast and all that, but I wasn't feeling any regrets. I suppose it was just Flockhart on my mind, and the question of whether I could really trust him, trust him with my life, because when I walked across to the car and pressed the door button there was a sudden flash of memory and Fane went through the roof again and left his blood all over the video screen. Then it was gone, and I opened the door and got in.

  3: GABRIELLE

  We came down through black overcast across the Gulf of Thailand with a glimmer of light below us to the east of the mountains where the city of Phnom Penh lay sprawling across the land. A cloud of water vapour started filling the cabin as the Tupolev 134 settled into the approach path and the landing gear went down with a thump.

  'Tout va bien, vous croyez?'

  I said yes, everything was fine, you often got fog on board these things, par for the course. He was a jeweller from Paris, out here to look at some silver, and was actually wearing, he'd told me, a bullet-proof vest.

  There was the normal chaos inside the main hall at Pochentong and it was gone eight in the evening when I walked into the Trans-Kampuchean Air Services office, my shoes squelchy from the puddles in the street. Office? Call it a shed, tucked against the wall of what looked like a maintenance hangar.

  'I'm here to pick up an envelope,' I told the man behind the chipped plastic counter. 'Name of Jones, David.'

  'Jones, David, yes. Right-o.' But he didn't move yet, just sat looking at me with his head turned slightly as if he were deaf in one ear, English, pale, sweating — touch of malaria? I waited.

  A phone was ringing somewhere but he didn't seem interested. 'Jones,' he said, 'now that's a good old name. All the way from the Valley, are you?' He'd put on a Welsh accent, not a very good one. He was pissing me off a little by now.

  'I'm in a hurry,' I told him.

  'But of course you are.' He dropped the magazine he'd been reading and got up and went across to a dented metal filing-cabinet and hit it with the palm of his hand to get the top drawer open. 'The same with all of us, isn't it? Always in a hurry. How's Daisy?'