'Well, what are you going to do? You practically promised to find the treasure!'
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Audley brightened. If there was no comfort in the long-term prospects, there was short-term enjoyment to DC had from mischief-making.
He rubbed his hands. 'Everyone's been pushing me about. Now I'm going to do the pushing. And the only way I can think of doing that is—'
'Is to make them think you're just about to do the impossible.'
Faith sat up sharply in bed.
'Just so. And I'd like to see Panin's face when poor old Stocker gives him the good news at London Airport. If I'm right he'll be down here like lightning.'
'But what will that achieve, David?'
'I shall enjoy it, for one thing. And it may baffle Panin somewhat.
He's not infallible, after all. In fact he's already lost us for a whole day, thanks to the incompetence of his agents–he doesn't know what we've been up to, and that may put him off a bit. Come to that, it may be the reason why he's arriving today instead of tomorrow.'
'So that was what the phone call was about! We're staying here to meet him?'
'That we aren't! We're going to London.'
Faith looked at him in surprise. 'But you said—'
'That was for Stocker's benefit. We're going to London because I've got some checking to do. I can leave instructions for Roskill and Butler to reconnoitre the area outside the airfield for suspicious dummy4
bumps and so on–that'll keep them happy.'
He moved over to their rumpled bed and stared down at her.
'And you, young woman, have got a trousseau to buy –and a toothbrush. Then we'll have lunch at Feyzi's and a quiet drive back to the Bull for a reunion dinner. Panin should be nicely on the boil by then!'
But Faith was frowning at him.
'David, I think I'm having a bad effect on you. You're acting out of character–you're sticking your neck out. And they'll chop it off for sure, and I'll have an unemployed husband. Don't you think you ought to stay to meet Panin?'
It was a new experience for Audley to have someone actually worrying about him, a rather confusing experience. He looked at her tenderly. She was without doubt rather flat-chested, and with her hair in confusion and her glasses perched on her shiny nose she no longer looked the sort of girl to drive a man to reckless action.
He smiled affectionately. 'If you are having an effect, it's long overdue, Faith love. For years I've been sitting in my tower thinking what an important person I was just because they treated me politely. But actually I think I was just a sort of cheap computer substitute–as soon as I started giving inconvenient answers they booted me into the first vacant job somewhere else. So just this once I'm going to programme myself, and if they don't like it–well, we'll see if they do like it first. Maybe they'll promote me!'
Before she could reply–he could see she was still unconvinced–he jerked the covers back.
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'Hey!' she cried, scrabbling for the sheets.
'Too late for modesty now, love. And too late for inquests too–I'm like old Sir Jacob Astley before Edgehill.'
'Sir Jacob who?'
'"O Lord! Thou knowest how busy I must be this day",' he quoted at her. Damn them all: she was the one who really mattered. ' "If I forget thee, do not thou forget me"!'
XIV
Jake Shapiro set his beer down carefully on the mat on the faded plush tablecloth, wiped his moustache carefully and grinned a broad, gold-filled smile at Audley.
'Surprise, surprise! I didn't expect to see you again so soon.
Comrade Professor Panin running you ragged?'
'For me not a surprise, but a pleasure, Colonel Shapiro.'
Audley looked curiously round the publican's snug, which was furnished as though time had frozen it in late Edwardian times. The only concessions to modernity, a garish TV set and a glossy telephone, were banished to a dark alcove in one corner.
'Cosy, eh? And the best beer south of the river, take my word for it, David, old friend. Have some with me.'
'I've got a long haul ahead of me, Jake. It's too early for me to go on the beer.'
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'Your loss. But I do understand your predicament. "Vodka and beer–no fear". You must keep a clear head for the Professor.'
The word was out, with a vengeance, evidently.
'You know about Panin, then?'
'There's been a lot of talk, certainly,' admitted Jake generously.
'Mystery Man's got a public relations man all of a sudden. I don't know what effect it has on you, but it'd scare the life out of me.'
'That's the point, Jake. What I want to know is—'
Shapiro raised a large hand.
'Me first, David.' He drank deeply, set the glass down carefully again and wiped his moustache once more. 'My turn, after all. The Portland trials of the Nord Aviation AS15–much better than the AS12, I hear. But I'm sure you heard better.'
Jake was presenting his bill, and Audley thought not for the first time that Jake's grapevine must be very good indeed. If the AS12
was the answer to Egypt's Russian missile boats, the AS15 was the answer with knobs on.
'Much better.'
'Range?'
'Five miles.'
'Cost?'
'Since devaluation? Maybe £2,400 a time.'
'Cheap at the price. But the bastards are still overcharging us. What about that Swedish one?'
'Let the other side buy that.'
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'I thought so. And I thought you'd be in the know. Now, just one more thing.'
Audley scowled at him. 'No more things, Jake. I've given you classified information. All you've given me is what's common knowledge in the bazaar, it seems.'
Jake guffawed. 'That's nothing more than the truth, my friend. I have to admit it: I've done you down.'
Then he stopped quite suddenly, and became almost serious. He wagged his finger at Audley.
'But you knew it was common knowledge and you still paid up, you perfidious Englishman. You knew I'd have to make amends.'
He waved his hands and squinted down his nose. This was his special Jewish character role, which hadn't changed since he'd hammed Shylock in a monstrous college production years before.
'I acknowledge the debt. Take your pound of flesh!'
'Stop fooling, Jake. How do you know it's common knowledge?'
'Joe Bamm called me from Berlin. He hadn't got me anything more, but his thumbs were twitching. He said he'd just got that little G Tower story from another source of his. He said that once could be luck, but twice was more than coincidence. Then he came back with Panin's Tuesday booking to London. I tried to phone you then, but you were off on some dirty weekend with your secretary.'
Audley winced. So the G Tower story was planted too. He remembered now how Stocker had spoken about G Tower as though he had heard about it independently of Audley's source.
They'd all been so pleased about it they hadn't bothered to question dummy4
it. A lovely, succulent carrot for the donkeys!
'The trouble is that's the lot, David. I haven't got one damn thing to add to your little store of knowledge. I haven't got a clue about what dear old Panin's up to, not a clue.'
'Is there anything cooking in Russia at the moment?'
'Search me! Except that there's always something cooking there.
Hawks and doves, old Marxist-Leninists and new thugs, Red Army and the KGB, Stalinists, Maoists — not many of them now–
Slavophiles, liberals, peasants. Davey boy, they can play their little games in more ways than I can make love. And they call it the Soviet Union! I tell you, Barry Goldwater's got more in common with Sammy Davis than some of those characters have with each other.'
He paused for breath. 'Why don't you ask your own Kremlinologists? Latimer's a sharp lad, they tell me. Or are you off on a do-it-yourself spree?'
Audley felt his early morning courage slipping. It al
l came down to a matter of time, and time was what he hadn't got. Panin had seen to that.
'Tell you what I'll do, David, seeing that I owe you something.
There's a real nice American I know–Howard Morris–do you know him?'
Audley nodded. Howard was a refugee from Nixon's America, a bright hope in the days of the much-maligned Lyndon Johnson who now held a nebulous post at Grosvenor Square.
'Of course you do! I forgot you were persona gratissima there since dummy4
the Seven Days. Well, Howard owes me a fat favour and I'm sure he won't mind me passing it on to you. He probably trusts you more than he trusts me, anyway. You're both part of the world-wide Anglo-Saxon conspiracy against the lesser breeds like me and Nasser.'
Shapiro consulted a little dog-eared address book, and then dialled a number on the shiny telephone.
He put his hand over the mouthpiece.
'You know Howard's only real claim to fame? Hullo there–could I have a word with Howard Morris . . . ? He isn't? No matter. I'll try again later.'
He replaced the receiver, consulted the little address book again and dialled another number.
'When he was in Korea he was one of the select band of brothers who accidentally bombed the main Russian base outside Vladivostock. Hullo! Is Howard Morris being overcharged at your bar . . . ? Yes, it's me . . . He is? Well tell him I've come to collect on my last loan. Thanks . . . Where was I? Yes, they bombed the living daylights out of it –thought they were still over North Korea.
And the Russkis never said a word. They thought it was deliberate.'
Jake's thesaurus of cautionary scandal was unsurpassed on either side of the Atlantic.
'And the moral of the story–or one of the morals–is that the burglar is in a poor position to complain about burglary. I commend that thought to you, David–Hullo, Howard, old friend . . . You are . . . ?
So am I! Look, Howard, I have our mutual friend, David Audley, dummy4
with me. I know you're busy Kremlin-watching these days. I'd count it a favour if you'd lend an ear to him for a minute or two–a real favour . . . You will–splendid!'
He passed the beery receiver to Audley. 'He's all yours. Make the most of him.'
'Hullo, Howard.' Audley was uneasily conscious that he was too ignorant even to ask the right questions, never mind understand the answers.
'Hi, David. I know your job forces you to consort with that horse-thief Shapiro, but don't tell me you're both moving into my territory.'
'Just me, Howard. And only temporarily, I hope. But I need someone to fill me in on the current situation over there. Is there a big row on, or anything like that?'
'What's wrong with your boys Latimer and Ridley? No, those were the Oxford Martyrs, weren't they! That's a Freudian slip if ever there was one. Latimer and Rogers?'
'You come well recommended.'
Jake grinned hugely, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger with one hand while giving the thumbs-up sign with the other. The effect was obscene.
'I do?' There was a mixture of resignation and uneasiness in the American's voice, and Audley knew exactly how he felt. Jake always took twenty shillings in the pound.
'Well, there's nothing special–except Round Sixteen in the Conservatives-Progressive fight. At the moment the Progressives dummy4
are on the canvas, because that bastard Shelepin's got the Army on his side as well as the Young Communist League. And of course the KGB is playing its own game. But the Army's been acting up ever since Czechoslovakia showed how efficient they were–they don't think they're getting the appropriation they need. Or the respect they deserve. And they'd like to bomb the hell out of China, too.'
He paused for a moment. 'European liberals get worried about our generals. If they had one good look at some of the Soviet top brass they'd head for the hills, I reckon! You stick to the Middle East, David: you'll sleep sounder than I do.'
'Which corner is Nikolai Panin behind?'
Howard did not reply, even interrogatively. If Jake knew about Panin's visit, then it was certain that the American did. And Panin would be very much his concern, which meant that Audley himself might soon have something of potential value to contribute to the Anglo-Saxon conspiracy.
'I might be able to help you concerning Panin, Howard –always providing you can help me.'
Howard took a deep breath. 'Panin's behind all four corners as far as I can see. He's the sort of character who has subscriptions to Ogonyek and Novy Mir, and leaves 'em both lying around for everyone to see. The day you tell me which side he's on I'll get you a Congressional reception. What in the name of heaven and hell is he coming to England for, David?'
'You tell me, Howard. You've got a nice fat file on him, I've no dummy4
doubt.'
'You must be joking. I've just been reading it; we've got a few pages of hearsay and Kremlin scuttlebut, but we've hardly got one solid thing on him since '45.'
'Nineteen-forty-five?' Gently now. 'He was just a line captain in
'45.'
'He was a major when we met him. We'd picked up some Forschungsamt files–Research Office stuff–in an AA Barracks in Stefanskirchen. Perfectly innocent stuff. But he wanted to see it and we let him have a look. We didn't get another make on him until after Stalin's death. I tell you, David, if you want a line on Panin I'm not your man, and I don't know who is. I wish I did!'
Audley wondered what the Forschungsamt was. He had never heard of it, so it could be highly secret or, more probably, highly unimportant. Jake's Berlin man, Bamm, would certainly know, but that would mean more favours, and Jake was too interested already. Besides, there wasn't time.
But Theodore Freisler would know, of course–it was exactly the sort of thing he would know. He had been meaning to phone the old man for twenty-four hours without taking the trouble to do it.
Now he had an adequate selfish reason for doing the right thing.
He thanked Howard Morris as sincerely as he was able to with the grinning Shapiro at his elbow, carefully deprecating his association with the Israeli. Apart from being a pleasant fellow, the American would be a useful contact in the future; the sort of man with whom the nuances between the lines of indigestible Soviet journals could dummy4
be enjoyably discussed. He thought nostalgically of his old, quiet life, which had ended a thousand years before, just last Thursday.
Sincerity was not required for his farewell to Jake. That was the one real virtue of their relationship–it was founded on naked and unashamed self-interest on both sides, needing no false protestations of friendship. He was going to miss Jake.
He was tempted to phone Theodore from the first call box as he had done before, but his guilt drove him to search out the grimy house behind the vast complex of the British Museum and to climb the interminable and even grimier stairs.
The huge, brutal face at once creased into a happy smile which hinted at the nature concealed behind it. One of the things that kept Audley from visiting more often was the undeserved welcome he always received. Theodore would stop whatever he was doing, no matter how important, and give him hours of his time.
'David, you arrive most opportunely! I have just made myself some of this excellent new tinned coffee. A big tin of it I bought at a specially reduced price last Friday, and already I have nearly finished it! And you and Professor Tolkien are to blame.'
'Professor Tolkien, Theodore? Who's he?'
Theodore heaped spoonfuls of evil-looking brown powder into a large mug and stirred it vigorously.
'He is the author of The Lord of the Rings and I'm most surprised you haven't heard of him.' Theodore tapped three substantial volumes with a heavy finger. 'A writer of fairy stories for grown-dummy4
ups. My friends have been telling me to read him for years, and I was too stupid to take their advice. Now I have done nothing but read him for three whole days–except to wrestle with your puzzle.'
'I have heard of him, actually, Theodore. But fairy sto
ries really aren't my line.'
'Your puzzle is a fairy story, my dear David. I have thought and I have telephoned friends of mine in Berlin, and I tell you there is nothing, nothing, that fits your puzzle. Time cancels out the value of things: what would be valuable to a thief then would not be valuable to them now. Not worth their trouble.'
'We had a tip that it might be the Schliemann collection from the Staatliche Museum.'
'The Trojan treasures? No, David, the psychology is wrong. Worth stealing–yes. After all, the Russians stole it and it was stolen from them, I know the story. But it was not theirs in the first place, so they would not pursue it. If it had been the amber from the Winter Palace, that would be different. That was theirs. But that was never brought beyond East Prussia.'
'Never mind, Theodore. It was good of you to take time from Tolkien to try.'
Audley sipped his coffee. It was surprisingly drinkable.
The old man was shaking his head. 'No, I have failed you. But even if your thief had catholic tastes and took a thing here and a thing there I find it hard to imagine a collection of objects which would tempt them now.'
'Tell me about the Forschungsamt instead, then.'
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The great bullet-head stopped shaking. 'What do you wish to know about the Forschungsamt, Dr Audley?'
'Anything, Theodore. I don't know the first thing about it.'
Freisler pondered the question for a time.
'The most interesting thing, of course, is that it illustrates the relationship of the old German bureaucracy to the Nazi Party. If you have time to read the relevant chapter in my book on the civil service between the wars I think that will become apparent to you.'
Before he could get up Audley managed to restrain him.
'I haven't really got the time. Just tell me what it was.'
Freisler looked at him pityingly. 'What it was? Why, it was the office that grew out of the old Chiffre und Horchleitstelle, Cypher and Monitoring. What I believe you would call "passive intelligence". I knew a number of people who worked in it–good Germans, too, not Nazis. That was the remarkable thing about the Research Office: the Nazis were always trying to take it over, but they never really managed to do so.'
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