Live, Love, and Cry

by George B Mair

  A soft knock at the door cut him short and he raised his voice. ‘Come in.’

  Grant knew the caretaker well. Until he suddenly realised that he knew nothing about him at all: that he had accepted the Admiral’s word for everything. Accepted that the elderly couple who ran the house had been graded ASAC, Above Suspicion Above Corruption. Accepted that they had wormed their way into an inquisitive country society and built up a front as retired gentlefolk forced to live quietly on capital during these years of inflation.

  ‘A word, Admiral.’ The man’s manner was composed, but there was a blueness about his eyes which reminded Grant of killers he had known—and killed. His Lovat green Harris tweed was cut to perfection, with trousers baggy in the right places and the elbows patched with deerskin. He might have been sixty. Or even seventy. Somehow he seemed ageless, his face weatherbeaten and tanned, the cheeks crinkling with a hundred lines born from years around eyes narrowed against . . . what?

  Grant eased himself in the chair and watched as he walked across the room. There was an unexpected spring to his step and the bulge of firm thigh muscles above the knees. He smelt of tobacco and peat. His fingers were stained with oil and Grant’s nostrils quivered at a whiff of gun-smoke. But the season had opened and there had been a shooting party that morning. Grouse was listed for luncheon. It was all probably quite innocent.

  But there was something else clinging to these tweeds, and as he listened to the background noise of words it bothered him more and more. Until . . . Papastratos! He sighed gently. His own one-time favourite Greek cigarettes. Thank God, too, for thick hairy tweed which trapped smells, and for the morning dew or humidity which dampened the wool and made them come alive in a warm room.

  Papastratos! It might mean nothing. Or everything. At least one of SATAN’s top men had been a Greek. Why not two?

  The man’s voice was soft and he spoke almost without accent. Something better than BBC. A mixture of West Highland and the colonies could do it. He might have been a district commissioner before the end came. Had an air of authority even when speaking to the Admiral. Even when telling him that the visitors were waiting for them.

  The Admiral smiled with his lips. ‘Ready, David? Mr. Smith will lead the way.’

  Grant looked at the caretaker’s wrist. His watch was on the clumsy side and the strap at least an inch broad. He hesitated. Bugs no larger than that could throw a message several hundreds of yards. And even although the barrage which surrounded the house would block transmission there was still a case for action. ‘One minute, sir.’

  The two men stopped and Smith stared impassively at Grant’s Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum. ‘Something wrong?

  ‘Your watch,’ said Grant briefly. ‘Let’s see how it works.’

  The man ignored Grant’s gun as he unclipped the buckle and laid it on a side table. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Perhaps the Admiral will now check that everything is on the up and up.’

  ‘Then let me save him the trouble. The timepiece works very well, but as you seem to suspect it is really part of a small microphone. I must congratulate you on being so shrewd.’ Smith smiled towards the Admiral and his manner seemed completely relaxed. ‘I doubt if you will ever find the receiving end, but I’m curious to know what you are going to do about me.’

  Grant motioned towards a chair. ‘Papastratos,’ he said coldly. ‘Why do you use Greek cigarettes?’ The man’s indifference was shattering.

  Smith tensed. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No?’ Grant’s disbelief was almost an insult. ‘I think that you smoke Papastratos cigarettes or else that you’ve recently been with people who do. But Papastratos comes from Greece and so do a few top people in SATAN. Any comments?’

  The blue eyes were now colder than ice. ‘I still don’t understand.’

  Grant slowly levelled the Magnum. ‘I give you my word that if you don’t come clean I’ll take you through the skull.’

  The two men eyed one another grimly and Smith’s jaw tensed as he saw Grant’s finger slowly fold round the trigger. ‘You are really suggesting that I’m a double agent.’

  ‘Right.’ Grant hesitated. ‘But suppose you say it instead and then we’ll know where we stand.’ He was working on split-second bluff and with instinctive shock tactics which had taken an expert off-guard. ‘Well?’

  Smith licked his lips. He was suddenly pale beneath his tan and a bead of sweat had broken on his brow. They eyed one another in a silent battle of wits and then Smith hung his head in a curious gesture of resignation. ‘I’ve enough experience of men to know that you mean what you say, Doctor. And I’m too old to beat you. But I’m also too young to want to die.’

  He pulled himself together and lit a cigarette from a box on the table. A moment passed in which he seemed to marshall his thoughts and then he opened up with a quiet assurance which was somehow convincing: commission at eighteen during the First World War and thirty years with Military Intelligence until 1950 when he was retired on pension. Dug out again by Sir Jonah Lyveden when his old chief discovered that NATO wanted a reliable couple to take over the Big House: and eventually accepted by Admiral Cooper when he found that they could blend with their background or pass as shabby-genteel ‘country’ types living near the bone on the old estate.

  His original posting had been clean and with no strings attached, but trouble had broken when Britain wanted to know more about an American-sponsored NATO project which Whitehall felt was being kept too hush-hush. Loyalty to his old chief had made him report as required and thirty-odd years of experience had given him the know-how to communicate with minimal risk. ‘After all,’ he said slowly, ‘I had been trained all my life to work for Britain. And Britain is in NATO. An ally of America. We were all in the same boat. It didn’t seem very wrong to pass American secrets on to London.’ But someone had tripped him up and arranged an effective piece of blackmail. His grandchildren were at boarding school and if he didn’t play ball one of them would be murdered. He had had enough experience to know that people with resources to expose his own activities had all that it took to kill a child. For over eighteen months he had been monitoring every possible conversation in the place and taping it through a receiver concealed in the rafters.

  But the name SATAN was new to him and he had never heard of Zero, though it was true that the men who had briefed him five days earlier in Perth had smoked an unfamiliar brand of cigarette. It might well have been Greek. Or Turkish. He wasn’t an expert on tobacco.

  And he hadn’t received a penny in cash. Anything he had done had been to save life. His two grandsons were now the most important things left to his wife’s old age.

  ‘Over to you, I think, sir.’ Grant was suddenly tired. Endless complications would break before this lot was solved but it was the Admiral’s headache. And the old man was already dialling a number. Scramblers had been installed at every key instrument on the Department’s list and Grant guessed that the few direct lines involved were about the safest means of communication left in Britain. ‘Lyveden. Sir Jonah Lyveden.’

  He half smiled as he heard the quivering impatience in the Admiral’s voice. Sir Jonah was a First World War V.C. with twenty years in counter-espionage to his credit before he had settled into the life of a Norfolk squire whose estates served as a front for half a dozen other activities which brought him into contact with everyone who mattered in the English Establishment.

  But more important: he was still in the Service and could almost be described as liaison officer between the mature world of British Intelligence and the young organisation which was still struggling for experience under NATO—and the Admiral.

  In fact if it hadn’t been for Sir Jonah he himself might still have been working for UNO in the blackest spots of bush-fire wars throughout Afro-Asia. Lyveden had been a good friend. Responsible, in fact, for his posting to ADSAD as Britain’s contribution to NATO intelligence. But he now suspected that a blind bluff played off against Smith would end with Lyveden
in the hot seat.

  The Admiral was speaking with an affected lazy drawl, and only the give-away pulse in his neck showed that trouble lay ahead. Smith was rubbing his hands together in front of the fire and wisps of steam were rising from his damp tweeds.

  ‘. . . he came on your recommendation, Sir Jonah. Any comments.’ The last two words rapped out like bullets.

  The room had suddenly become menacing and the hills overcast with shadow as Grant covered the figure by the fire, and with another part of his brain picked up the crackle of spluttering conversation. The Admiral was reflected on a mirror above the fire-piece and Grant saw his face stiffen with anger. ‘I agree. It does look as though he’s a double agent. But originally, sir, I’ll have you remember that he came from Whitehall. Now who do you think he could be working for, Downing Street or Timbuktu?’

  Smith stiffened and a twinkle suddenly lightened his strangely blue eyes as the Admiral snapped into action. ‘The fact is, sir, that on the man’s own admission he has worked for Britain and that you used your influence with myself to enable British Intelligence plant a man right inside my own doorstep to work against the private interests of an ally within NATO.’

  For crissake, thought Grant. What next? Everyone knew that there were no holds barred where this sort of thing was concerned. But the unwritten law was explicit. Never be found out. Chances were that several dozen Americans had been wasting good time trying non-stop for years to winkle out British secrets which might be a clue to behind-the-scenes trade or foreign policy, though the heavens would fall before Washington ever admitted it.

  The Admiral raised his voice. ‘You can be sure of that, Sir Jonah. You can be perfectly sure of that. And if I don’t get total satisfaction my resignation goes in tomorrow.’ He slammed down the receiver. ‘Ten minutes, David.’

  Smith rolled against the cushions of his chair and watched the old man slam the door as he left the room. ‘How very awkward you’ve made it for everybody.’

  He stood up and crossed to the window. The hills were brightening again and Grant watched curiously as he muttered slowly to himself: ‘Surely they can’t do anything to me when I’ve only been working for Britain on British soil.’

  As he turned to light another cigarette a sharp tinkle showed the broken window, cracks spreading out from a clean puncture as the sun broke against fragments of glass on the floor which sparkled like diamonds against the crimson carpet. Smith was holding his breast, a look of blank surprise spreading over his face as Grant dived to his H.Q. in the next room and switched off the protective radio beam. His reaction time had always been phenomenal but he had seen too many bullet-holes to be mistaken. Contact with the helicopters was immediate. ‘Patrol entire area on north segment house. Arrest or destroy any man attempting to escape and advise Command all personnel must report immediately with weapons to C.O. All ranks to parade within forty minutes on flat ground east of entrance drive. Firing to cease forthwith. Repeat all individuals, civilian and military, within two miles radius to be brought to house within forty minutes. Authority fire if resistance offered. Over.’

  The two choppers circled north by west of the house while he was speaking and Smith dragged himself to a chair as he rushed back to the sitting-room. ‘Through the chest,’ he muttered. ‘But I suppose a man is always too young to die.’ He coughed and a splash of blood spurted over the cushions, trickling down his chin and staining his shirt. His pulse was running at a hundred and thirty. Breathing was shallow and his eyes unnaturally bright. ‘I said you’d never get the receiving end. Your army exercise was bad tactics. Easy to infiltrate people in uniform. Gives them a passport to do what they like. ’Specially when there’s scope for shooting.’ His lips were dry and his voice became feeble. ‘At least better me than the children.’

  ‘But how did they guess?’ Grant shook him gently by the arm. ‘For God’s sake, Smith, tell me. How did they know?’

  The man smiled slightly. ‘Suppose I really killed myself. They ran a wire from here to the moors. Buried. Got a pick-up and amplifier below the carpet. Rigged it up four nights ago. Very tidy job.’ He coughed again and ignored the trickle of blood which ran down his cheek. ‘Always tried to do a tidy job, Doctor. You didn’t even notice that the gravel had been freshly raked. And you still can’t block a wire with a radio beam.’

  Grant heard the door open and saw three men walk rapidly into the room. ‘May I present the Prime Minister and the Ambassador.’ The Admiral’s voice was coldly cynical. ‘Dr. Grant lives with bodies, gentlemen. But maybe he can tell us how, pre-cisely, he acquired this one.’

  Smith gasped for breath and opened his eyes. Blood was oozing from his mouth and a pool had collected at the exit wound behind. His voice was thick and the words slurred. ‘Try the Salutation on the first Sunday of every month. The bar. And ask for a double Clanrana.’

  ‘What time, man?’ Grant was merciless. ‘Pull yourself together. What time?’

  Smith looked at him hopelessly. His eyes were glazing and his face was parchment pale. ‘Six.’ He gasped again. ‘Six at the Salutation.’

  There was a croaking gurgle in his throat and a last heaving struggle for breath as Grant stood up and mopped his brow. ‘Sorry, gentlemen, but if Britain hadn’t tried to pull a fast one over the United States and her other allies in NATO this would never have happened.’

  The Prime Minister looked at him coldly, but his fingers were shaking as he fidgeted with his lapel. ‘I’ve heard a great deal about you, Dr. Grant, and very little has pleased me. Suppose we go into the next room and you explain what you mean.’

  Admiral Cooper’s voice was frigidly polite. ‘You may care to recall, Prime Minister, that this house has been leased to NATO, or more specifically to the Administrative Department controlling Security measures bearing upon Attack and Defence. We have just been attacked, and our immediate task is now to defend. So since I represent NATO, and since His Excellency and yourself are my guests, I suggest that you wait next door.’

  The Ambassador bent over the dead man and glanced across the flat ground outside to the moors beyond. ‘Six hundred yards and a downhill target. Some shootin’. This way, sir.’

  The Premier hesitated. ‘Then perhaps you will be good enough to see us as soon as possible. This sort of thing is intolerable.’

  ‘Death, Prime Minister,’ said the Admiral, ‘is always intolerable. And if you had our job you might find that your own life was also intolerable. But right now Dr. Grant is going to be busy.’ His voice softened. ‘Deal with this, David. But fast. And report in time for the Professor’s project. Zero hour now noon.’

  A splash of blood had stained Grant’s hand and he wiped it away with a pocket handkerchief. The wire! And the end of the wire! Less than five minutes since the shot had been fired. Surely he would get the breaks this time!

  Chapter Two – ‘What else could they do but simply live—love—and cry?’

  The hall grandfather clock was striking midday when Grant paused at the door of the annexe to Professor Juin’s laboratory. The military exercise had been broken off and troops paraded according to schedule. All rifles were now stacked in the basement, each labelled with bearer’s name and rank. It would be a simple job for the ballistic people to trace the killer weapon: if it had been recovered. But he would have bet an even month’s salary that it was now lying underneath a tuft of heather somewhere on the hills. The murderer hadn’t been all that stupid!

  Nor had any civilian been spotted nearer than three miles to the target. Which simply meant that he had gone to ground. And again probably on the moors where camouflage could hide a score of men until dusk. There would have to be a man hunt after dark with the ’copters carrying searchlights and a company of Black Watch cursing like blazes while they beat a heavy stretch of the roughest country south of Perth till dawn.

  He fumbled with his tie and knocked on the door. He was keyed up to read every straw in the wind and sensed that the Admiral’s voice showed a man who was near
ing the end of his patience.

  Professor Juin was the only man in the room who seemed wholly at ease, but Grant knew that beneath his roundly placid features he lived in a state of perpetual conflict between a compulsive duty to unravel scientific mysteries and guilt sense at how his discoveries might be used. He was sipping black coffee and nursing a cheroot, one of his few self-indulgences. ‘Before we begin the demonstration, Doctor, perhaps you will tell us what has happened. I think we are all a little anxious.’

  The Admiral pointed to a chair. ‘Re-lax, son. And then give. Starting at where you were covering Smith with that goddam Magnum and I left to report developments topside.’

  They heard him out in a stony silence broken only when the Ambassador drawled a lazy comment about lack of confidence between allies.

  The Prime Minister shrugged his shoulders. ‘Your own people are not always blameless. Sir Jonah Lyveden seconded this man Smith to ADSAD because he seemed the best man for the job. And Admiral Cooper accepted him because he agreed with that assessment. There was no question at that time of our people using him for anything other than the terms of reference understood by both sides. But when Washington began to use NATO equipment up here for developing an exclusively national mini-reactor for work with isotopes we felt justified in protecting our own interests.’

  The Ambassador smiled. ‘Quite a few years ago, sir. And my understanding is that Smith was still on your pay-roll this morning.’

  ‘But he also said he was working for other people,’ said Grant quietly. ‘They tripped him up as a double agent and then blackmailed him into playing things their way. With respect, sir, I can see no reason to think Smith was lying.’

  The Prime Minister stared across the room. ‘Dr. Grant, do you seriously expect me to believe that sort of thing? That an international business set-up exists only to steal state secrets and play one government off against another. Or that through any coincidence it could have a name which abbreviated to anything so melodramatic as SATAN?’