The Sinkiang Executive Read online

  I turned away from it and looked at the rain on the windows.

  ‘Time is very short,’ Parkis said thinly.

  ‘Then let’s get it over.’

  He said in a moment: ‘I have a question for you, Quiller. How many men have you been obliged to kill, in the course of a mission?’

  ‘What? God knows. Not many. Half a dozen.’

  Bangkok. East Germany. Warsaw. Tunisia. Hong Kong. The States. Other places.

  ‘Half a dozen,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Possibly more.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Zade had taken one or two with him, in that jet.

  Parkis swung round and said with soft fury, ‘Do you think that gives you a license?’

  ‘Not really.’

  He waited to see if I was going to add anything. I let the silence go on.

  ‘This man Novikov,’ he said at last.

  ‘Is that his name?’ I looked at the paper again.

  ‘Yes. His cover name was Weiner.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  There must have been someone else there. Or they’d ‘You didn’t know his name?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘No. I only -‘

  ‘But you knew who he was?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Parkis, I don’t go around doing that sort of thing to strangers. If you -‘

  ‘Very well. I am now asking for your explanation.’

  I took a breath and wondered if there was any point in giving him some carefully considered lies. I didn’t think there was. And some remnant of human faith was averse to my playing Judas to the dead.

  ‘It was a personal thing,’ I told Parkis. ‘I -‘

  ‘Personal?’

  I shut up again. If he wanted an explanation he’d have to let me give it in my own way, without interruption. But this wasn’t going to be my game anyhow: I’d already lost. I knew it and they all knew it - Matthews, Woods, Tilson, and all the rest of the people who’d looked at me this morning as if I was some kind of zombie. And Parkis knew it. ‘Be good enough to proceed.’

  ‘Without interruptions?’

  He stood gazing at me in silence and I could feel the chill.

  ‘It was in Czechoslovakia,’ I told him defensively, ‘a couple of years ago. The Bratislava thing. Mildmay handled that one, with Loman in the field.’ I looked away from him. ‘Well, there was a girl.’

  He waited. I was trying to remember things about her, but all I could think of was her name. Katia.

  ‘It was the end phase,’ I said in a moment. ‘I’d been in there and sent the stuff out and London was satisfied and my orders were to save myself if I could. Loman was still directing me in the field, with signals through Prague. But they had the girl, so I made a deal. I said they could take me for interrogation if they let the girl go.’

  I was trying to remember the details but it’s often hard to go back over the end phase of a mission: we’re usually concerned with saving our skin and I suppose there’s a certain amount of retrogressive amnesia that sets in to protect the psyche; otherwise we’d never go out again. Today, talking to Parkis in a different environment, I found that particular scene was still in sharp focus, fogging out most of the background: Katia standing there under the lamp, scared to death and still smiling for me because that was the way she wanted me to remember her; and those two bastards standing one on each side.

  ‘They agreed to the deal,’ I said absently. ‘And I saw her walk away, free.’

  He asked too casually: ‘You submitted to interrogation?’

  ‘What? Of course not. I knew I could get out: Loman had a plane lined up and I’d got papers for Austria. So that’s what I did.’

  I listened to the rain on the window. It had been raining then, in Bratislava; she’d been wet with it, her hair shining as she’d walked away, out of the lamplight, free.

  ‘When I was back in London I heard what they’d done to her.’

  That was all I wanted to tell him,

  I watched the streaks running down the window, distorting the skyline across Whitehall; it looked as if the roofs were slowly melting out there in the January cold, and the buildings dissolving.

  ‘You failed to keep this “deal” of yours,’ Parkis said.

  ‘So did they.’

  ‘Did you ever imagine they’d keep to it?’

  ‘I think they would have.’

  ‘If you had.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So the blame was yours.’

  ‘Indirectly. But I didn’t kill her. They did.’

  He looked at the carpet, his feet together, his hands coming out of his pockets and clasping themselves in front of him. It looked as if the bastard was praying for something. Patience, probably.

  ‘So I am to believe that for the sake of avenging this girl you speak of, you killed a man in a public place and put the Bureau in extreme hazard.’

  ‘Believe what you like,’ I told Him.

  His head came up sharply. ‘But she wasn’t even working for us! The Bratislava operation was -‘

  ‘She was liaison. She’d been helping us to -‘

  ‘Not Bureau liaison. Loman would have -‘

  ‘Of course not. She was Czech, working through their -‘

  ‘But if you were on the point of getting out, her work must have been finished! You had no further use for her!’

  ‘Use for her?’ I realized I was backing off a little, in case I hit him. It wouldn’t do any good. ‘You mean she was expendable?’

  He turned away impatiently. ‘They had no reason to kill her in any case, did they?’

  ‘She’d blown one of their cells.’

  ‘That would be no reason.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  But this was why I’d lost. If it had been anyone but Katia I would have chanced it. The risk wasn’t high: but the risk was to her. And I couldn’t tell Parkis because he wouldn’t have understood.

  ‘How deeply involved were you, Quiller, with this girl?’

  ‘That’s none of your bloody business. I went into Bratislava, I did the job and I got out again. That’s all Control was concerned with.’

  He turned away and took a couple of steps and turned back and asked tonelessly: ‘How did you kill him?’

  ‘Windpipe.’ My arm still felt the strain: I hadn’t been able to use my left hand to increase the force because the plump woman might have turned round again and seen his face. He’d gone down slowly, sliding against me as I eased him to the floor.- My strength had appalled me, because I knew it was abnormal, fired by the rage; but I had exulted in what I was doing. The only unpleasant thing was that he’d had bad breath.

  Parkis wasn’t looking at me. He said: ‘He’d been following you. Did you know?’

  ‘Of course I knew!’

  ‘Where had he first got on to you?’

  ‘Knightsbridge.’

  He swung into movement again and said with sharp emphasis: ‘We received a complaint.’

  ‘Oh, really? So you weren’t certain it was me.’

  ‘Not until you admitted it. But surely that’s academic?’

  He meant I would have admitted it anyway, if he’d asked me point blank. I suppose I would have.

  ‘Yes.’

  We’re allowed some kind of a private life outside the Bureau; and this thing between Novikov and me had been a private matter. Parkis wouldn’t normally have the right to question me on it but of course I’d stirred something up and there was a risk of the Bureau’s being involved unless they could put out a massive smoke-screen. I thought there must have been another man on that train; someone who’d seen what happened; and I was relieved there hadn’t been because I’d been thinking I must have missed him.

  ‘You realize, of course,’ Parkis said, and one of his phones rang, ‘that the police are looking for you at this moment, and with great energy?’ He picked up the phone and spoke with his back to me. ‘No. No clearance. No briefing. The first available. I would say within ten minutes.’ He put the receiver
back and faced me. ‘Well?’

  ‘Looking for someone,’ I said, but I didn’t feel so casual as I sounded.

  ‘You killed Novikov,’ he said with soft anger, ‘and they are looking for his killer. They are looking for you, don’t you understand? And you were seen on that train, by a great many people. The Yard is now questioning every passenger they can trace, asking for a description of anyone acting strangely.’

  ‘No one saw me do it. They -‘

  ‘How far do you think you’d gone before they saw him lying there dead? You imagine -‘

  ‘Descriptions are notoriously vague, you know that.’

  He came up to me and stared into my face with his ice-blue eyes and his voice was soft, though not quite steady. ‘Even if the police never found you by routine investigation, they’ll receive every possible help from the Russian Embassy, however anonymously. Don’t you realize that?’

  I didn’t say anything; it wasn’t really a question. He was just getting rid of some shock and setting me up for the pay-off, in whatever form it would take. Of course he was perfectly right about the Russian Embassy: they’d give my description to the police out of sheer indignation. On any given day there are scores of people moving around London with a tag on their tail, with the action concentrated at the embassies and consulates; the Foreign Office and the headquarters of MI5 and DI6 are also under uninterrupted surveillance. The tags are second-class material for the most part: trainees, executives earning their pension after action in the field, sometimes an odd spook who’s after someone specific. All the services do it and everyone knows about it and we settle for that; it’s the routine chore of keeping tabs on each other in case the pattern changes and we can learn something new. And the thing is that we could all knock each other off if we wanted to, but there wouldn’t be any point; we’re doing our job and they’re doing theirs and if anyone really wants to go somewhere in strict hush then he first makes bloody sure he’s got a clean tail.

  It’s been an unwritten law since the services became organized, and last night I broke it.

  ‘Have you anything to say?’ Parkis was asking me.

  Wearily I said: ‘What like?’

  ‘In your own favour.’

  I thought about it.

  ‘Not really.’

  He went and sat down behind his desk and now I caught so much of the chill in the air that it reached my spine. I suppose I’d been holding back from the brink that I knew was there, hoping for some kind of luck that’d save me. As Parkis began speaking I knew it was strictly no go.

  ‘I wasn’t able to see you the moment you arrived here this morning, Quiller, because I was in emergency conference with Administration. Two decisions were reached. One: that you should be sent out of London as soon as possible and in the utmost secrecy. Two: that your immediate resignation would be received with our unqualified approval. You will draw an overnight bag on your way out of the building, and there is transport waiting for you at the door. Your escort will facilitate your passage through London Airport Immigration as best he can.’ He paused briefly. ‘Unless, of course, it’s already too late.’

  Chapter 2

  COCKROACH

  The black widow dropped lower, until I could see the red hour-glass pattern on its abdomen. Soon it dropped lower again, stopping at intervals, the long thin legs spreading out.

  The thread was visible now, very fine and very dark.

  I moved my hand.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Charlie said quietly.

  I kept still. In a moment the spider dropped again, this time to the surface of the bench. Charlie turned the reel quickly, catching the thread fast enough to wind it into a helix on the twin rods.

  ‘They’re sensitive,’ he said, his voice quiet. ‘They don’t mind slow movements, but if you move quickly they get upset.’ He took the probe and coaxed the spider on to its tip, endlessly patient. It was five minutes before he could lift it on to the reel again, and another five before it began dropping, letting out its thread. ‘She’s good for one more spin, this one. She’s made four today.’

  The long pointed legs splayed suddenly and the widow stopped.

  ‘I can feel a draught,’ I said.

  ‘So can she.’

  He began winding the long reel as the spider dropped at regular intervals, sensing its environment.

  ‘She’s out of sorts,’ Charlie said, softly crooning. ‘They’re not normally active in winter.’

  The widow began moving towards the edge of the bench and he teased it into the jar, giving it a fly to catch.

  ‘They’ll only take living food - they don’t eat carrion, like us.’

  ‘Carlos!’

  ‘Si?’

  ‘Usted necesita leche?

  ‘Por favor, Pepita!’

  We could hear the woman going down the stairs.

  ‘Voice like a foghorn, heart of gold. Does everything for me.

  Lost her son in the civil war. Now she’s got another one -me.’ He wheeled his chair across to the other bench and took a handframe out of the drawer, holding it up to the light. ‘I told you I’d show you. This thread’s four days old - it’s dried now, lost its stickiness. This thing’s a micromanipulator. You put the lens in here - they come already grooved. All I have to do is lay the thread into the grooves and Bob’s your uncle. Five dollars a go, okay? That little sweetheart spun me fifty bucks’ worth just now while you were watching.’

  He dropped the lens into the foam-lined box and shut the drawer gently. ‘Next time you find yourself behind a long distance rifle, you’ll know what the crosshairs are made of -if it’s a good one. This stuff’s stronger than platinum wire and about ten times as good as the plastic hairs they’ve got on the market now - they’re too brittle and they’re not really black. Of course, I don’t get much call for this kind of thread these days - they’re making everything of cold crap, aren’t they? No wonder civilization’s falling apart. What are you doing in Barcelona anyway?’ He was looking at me over the edge of his half-moon glasses. I didn’t answer. ‘Silly question,’ he nodded.

  Charlie was one of our sleeper agents in the Mediterranean theatre, originally Codes and Cyphers, then operational for two years until the El Fatah took him for a Shin Bet executive and blew a Porsche from under him when he was nosing around in Cairo.

  ‘I got thrown out of London,’ I told him. This must be the cleanest window in the whole of Barcelona : I suppose that was Pepita. A few dried brown leaves were still on the platanas down there along the Ramblas, and a wind from the harbour pulled at them Feliz Novedades! a torn banner said in red and blue letters. ‘Thrown out?’ He sounded concerned. ‘Slung out, kicked out, what d’you want me to say?’ I swung round to face him.

  ‘What we want,’ he said gently, wheeling his chair across to the living quarters, ‘is a nice little drop of Carlos Primero, which by good grace they named after me.’ He picked up the bottle and poured two shot glasses. ‘I’m on the wagon,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s right. Never been off, now I come to remember.’

  I knew he wouldn’t say anything more about the other thing so I poured myself some Orangina and tipped his glass by way of apology and said: ‘I blotted my copybook, that’s all. They had to get me out of London so fast that that is what I’m doing in Barcelona - it was the first available plane to anywhere.’

  ‘Dear, oh dear.’ He stared upwards from his chair. ‘I suppose that’s fairly typical. You tend to leave a suitable uproar behind you when you skip town.’

  ‘This time it’s not quite as funny as that.’

  ‘I wish I could do something,’ he said in a helpless tone. ‘Wouldn’t you like to sit down?’

  ‘You’re doing your bit,’ I told him. ‘You’re my contact here.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  Then I decided to tell him.

  ‘My neck’s on the block, Charlie.’

  He swung his chair round so that he was facing me.

  ‘Spell out,’ he
said.

  ‘I’m being fired.’

  He sat perfectly still, looking up at me over his glasses. By the way I’d said it he knew I wasn’t joking.

  ‘Did you say “fired”?’

  ‘Invited to resign. Same thing.’

  Very quietly: ‘What in Christ’s name for?’

  ‘Breach of security.’

  His large greying head tilted sideways, and I remembered his good ear was the left one.

  ‘You?’

  My mouth tasted awful and I wished I hadn’t started this: in the course of sixteen missions I’d learned to keep things to myself, and what I was doing now felt like a confession under interrogation and I didn’t like it because I’d experienced interrogation a good few times and they’d never broken me.

  But my voice went on. ‘It wasn’t anything professional. I mean I didn’t make a slip or blow cover or lose information,’ I had to turn away from him now. ‘It was something I did in hot blood.’

  Again he said, and as quietly: ‘You?’

  It made me turn back on him. ‘All right, ‘I’m ten-tenths reptile, is that what you mean?’

  ‘How else could you do your job?’ he asked gently.

  ‘I’m not looking for excuses. I am what I am and I do what I do and - a fractional hesitation in my mind while I asked myself exactly what I was, what I did - ‘and it’s too late to make any changes.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s the same with most of us.’ He didn’t glance down at the rug on the wheelchair but I sensed it was what he meant. ‘Who was the woman?’

  I went across to the window, subconsciously looking for escape. I wanted to stop talking and get out of here: he knew me too well. I don’t like being known. ‘How’s business?’ I asked him. ‘Can’t grumble.’

  I heard his chair moving behind me, the rhythmic squawk of the tyres on the polished floorboards. ‘You ever get out of this place, Charlie?’

  ‘What do you think I am, a fucking cripple?’

  ‘Not with those arms.’ They were enormous; I’d seen the weights and pulleys in the corner when I’d come in here. He couldn’t run anywhere but if anyone got within reach of him and he didn’t like it I’d say they’d be better off with a black widow. ‘We could have a meal,’ I said, ‘some time.’