by Adam Hall
'No problem,' Greenspan said. 'What is so great about it is that you remember doing it. And we took a little blood, right?' The Chaplinesque eyebrows lifting.
'Yes.' Needle in the arm, out there in the hall, I think.
'Very good. Your memory's fine.'
'My memory?'
'You bet.'
'Why shouldn't it be fine, for Christ's sake?'
'Well I guess – ' a shrug, a glance across Ferris – 'you've kind of had a busy day.' A hand on my shoulder, 'Feel okay now?'
'I have never,' I told him carefully, 'felt better in my life.'
'Well I can take a hint,' Greenspan said brightly. 'You don't need me around here any more.'
He fetched his bag from the desk, leaning across Ferris for a moment, saying something; then he slapped my arm with an excessive amount of good cheer and left us. It occurred to me that I wasn't quite straightened out yet, too aggressive, too defensive; but then he was damned right – it had been a busy day.
I shut my eyes for a while, less than a minute, and the firework show died down behind the lids and left mostly black. Then I opened them and saw Ferris watching me.
'What's this place?'
'A safe-house,' he said.
I looked around the room again. Big geographical globe, a glassed-in case of ivory elephants, massive tomes on dark mahogany shelves, Existential Psychotherapy, Noyes' Modern Clinical Psychiatry.
'It's a what?' I got up and looked at the shelves, at some of the other titles. 'Is this a psychiatrist's office?'
'Yes,' Ferris said. 'It's also a safe-house. That's why we're here.'
I had an urge to walk out and slam the door but a certain degree of reason stopped me. A Bureau safe-house can be anything and anywhere – there's one in the basement of the British Consulate in Marseilles and there's one in Madame Labhouet's bordello in Abidjan on the Ivory coast and there's one in the Horacio Escobar Clinic for Enteric Diseases in downtown Santiago – so a psychiatrist's office in Miami, Florida, wasn't untypical.
Jade clock: midnight, the gilt hands together at the top of the dial in a prayer of thanksgiving. Rendezvous aborted.
It is also a sacrosanct rule that once the opposition has made contact with the executive in the opening phase of a mission he is not to approach his director in the field at that director's base, since it risks exposing him. The DIF can only function from an ivory tower, controlling the shadow from a distance and keeping clear of the action. Directors in the field, by their nature, amass an infinite store of intelligence data every time they go out, and their value to the organisation is beyond the price of pearls. Most retire after sixty and take up golf; most shadow executives are dead before thirty-five, or if not, uninsurable.
So it was entirely reasonable that Ferris had ordered me brought here from the 1200 block on West Riverside Way for debriefing. Entirely reasonable.
'What's his name?' I came away from the bookshelves and dropped into the armchair again, a dead weight.
'Whose?'
The shrink's.'
'Dr Xavier Joachim Alvarez.'
'Are you going to have him check me out?'
'Only if you ask.'
The quietness came back into the room. Everyone seemed to be listening. 'I'm in first-class condition.' Said it straight to Ferris, carrying the weight of it in my eyes, the shadow executive formally reporting to his DIP that he was able to take on any kind of action if the need arose. 'He didn't put anything in, did he?'
Ferris turned his head a fraction, and I realised I was tending to talk in ellipses, my thoughts jumping ahead. 'Again?' he said.
'Greenspan. I mean he only took some blood, is that right? He didn't give me any dope. Sedative or anything.'
Quietly, 'Would you like a sedative?'
'No. What the hell for?' Be warned: this was the second time it had happened. A minute ago I'd thought they were going to have me checked out by the shrink but it'd only been in my mind, not theirs – Only if you ask. And now it had been in my mind that they might have wanted to sedate me and I'd been wrong, dangerously wrong, putting ideas into their heads. Did I really want a shrink, sedation, but didn't have the guts to ask for them?
Paranoia. Relax. I was much better now, less scared about what was happening to me. It was going to be all right.
'What is he going to test me for?'
'Drugs.' Ferris watched me steadily. There was a chandelier over the desk and that was where I was facing.
'Can we have that thing out? Bloody bright. What sort of drugs?'
Ferris turned his head and one of the other people got out of his chair and went to the wall switch. 'Oh,' Ferris said, 'any sort, really. We'll come to that.'
He looked less cold now in the softer light from the wall lamps, less hostile. So we will come to that, will we? Meant, I suppose, that I'd been behaving a bit oddly of late. Damn his eyes, I'd nearly got my head shot off, enough to shake anyone up.
The man sat down again and I said to Ferris, 'Who are these people?'
'Upjohn,' he said, turning his head again. 'And Purdom.'
'I need to know more than that.' Said it with an edge. The director in the field calls the shots at every phase of the mission but he is also there to succour, support and sustain the executive, who may indeed look like a snotty-nosed little ferret down in the catacombs but who is nevertheless the only man who can bring the mission home, and when I'm brought into a room to debrief and there are total strangers hanging around I want to know who they bloody well are, if you'll be so kind.
'Upjohn,' Ferris said, 'is a sleeper here. He knew Proctor, though not well. It's possible that he can help us find him, if he listens to the debriefing. Unless you object.'
A small man, Upjohn, with a spotty skin and a slanting eye and a pucker in the face for a mouth, terrible haircut, stuck up like bristles, the kind who can surprise you, former lieutenant-colonel in the special services or something like that.
'I don't object,' I said.
Thank you. Purdom,' Ferris said evenly, 'is here from London to get experience in the field.'
I jerked my head to look at the man, saw red suddenly – 'Experience in the what? You were in China, weren't you, on Pagoda? You did Mirage, didn't you, for that bastard Loman in Morocco? Jesus Christ, what sort of experience - '
Watch it.
It mustn't happen a third time. This was the last thought I wanted to put into their heads – that I couldn't keep my control.
Silence opening like a grave.
Then Ferris said gently, 'Experience in the United States. He hasn't worked here.'
Of course. Entirely reasonable. But the thought was still there, chilling the nerves. I'd heard of Purdom, seen him in the Caff now and then, seen his name on some of the boards, certainly the board for Pagoda and the one for Mirage and possibly others: he was one of the high-echelon shadows and no one had sent him out here from London just to 'get experience'.
Looking at the wall, not at me, the wall or the door or whatever was there behind me, a dark man, big-boned, his body hunched in the chair, thick hands folded and his legs crossed, almost twisted together, a quietly-ticking bomb with some clothes round it and some hair on top, an exaggeration, of course, but you get the picture – it was his nerves I was picking up on, his held-in energy. I watched him for a moment, taking him in, not wanting to look at Ferris because if I looked at Ferris I was liable to put it straight into words, get it over with.
Is Purdom out here to replace me?
Someone was speaking, his voice very soft, reaching me as if from a distance. It was Ferris. 'You're among friends, Quiller.'
He didn't know what he was saying because he hadn't been there in London when that bastard Loman had said exactly the same thing: You're among friends.
Friends? Loman had flinched. It was the time when they were trying to get me to think twice about resigning because they'd put that bloody bomb under the driving seat of that truck in Murmansk, deciding that I was expendable. I still
couldn't trust these people.
Not even Ferris?
'Am I?' Among friends.
'But of course.' His voice still gentle as he watched me with his pale honey-coloured eyes. I'd have to think, you know, think a little more carefully, because this man had saved my skin so many times – Berlin, Hong Kong, Murmansk – where other people would have left me to rot in the red sector and vouchsafed their sleep with a lie. Communications compromised, opposition in control, executive unreachable…
Trust, then, perhaps, this one man among them all. Because, in any case, if you can't trust your own director in the field you're dead. I'd proved that in Northlight: I hadn't been able to trust Fane and I'd come close to getting blown into Christendom in that truck.
'All right,' I said, heard myself saying, meaning all right, I was ready to believe I was among friends. 'I'm a bit tired, that's all.'
'Of course.' His voice still gentle. 'And there's a bit of delayed shock hanging around, according to Greenspan.'
'Possibly.'
'So you might not feel quite ready for debriefing.' Paused, giving me a chance to say no, not quite ready. I said nothing. 'But if you're willing, we could make some progress. London's a tiny bit fidgety.'
'Why?'
In a moment, 'First Proctor was missing. Then you.'
I sank into the chair, letting the muscles go, trying to centre. It wasn't going to be easy. 'You sent signals?'
'I had to. I didn't know where you were.'
'It was only for a short – ' and left it. I didn't remember how long it had been, didn't want to.
'I need to know,' Ferris said, 'why you left the hotel covertly.'
'I wanted to walk for a bit, without a whole troop of people around me. You know I hate support.'
The other two were looking at me now; I'd noticed their heads turn, the light catching their eyes. They shouldn't watch me. It made me nervous. Ferris ought to tell them not to watch me. He was unzipping a flat pigskin briefcase and getting a book out, a ballpoint from his pocket, opening the book.
He asked me: 'To walk where?'
'Oh, just around, for the exercise.'
1330 West Riverside -
'You were shot at,' Ferris said, 'and were therefore revealed as a target for the opposition, whose intention it was to kill. Having been recognised, then, and set up as that target, you obviously realised that this town has become a red sector for you.' A beat. 'Yet you went for a walk in the open street, "for the exercise".'
I got out of the chair and turned my back on him because it was the only way I could talk to him without letting him see my eyes. 'Is this a debriefing, for Christ's sake, or an inquisition?' Wheeled on him, anger in the eyes now and I wanted him to see it. 'You don't consider that the executive hand-picked by Bureau One himself for this mission isn't capable of deciding whether he can safely walk in the bloody streets or not?' Folded my arms, wrong posture because defensive but too late to change it, not one of these bastards looking at me, all looking down or into the middle distance, embarrassed perhaps because my voice was hitting back from the glass panels of the display case and the lacquered Chinese screen in short-range echoes, shouting, you might call it, you might call it that. 'I'd been cooped up in that stinking hotel for hours on end and I was still full of adrenaline from the lark on the quay and I wanted some exercise, yes, and I didn't want half a regiment keeping me under mobile surveillance because it could have attracted attention.' Tried to keep my voice under control, failed. 'I think that makes sense but if you think I'm out of my mind then you'd better send for your bloody shrink.'
Watching me now, Ferris was watching me.
'Why don't you come and sit down? You'll feel more comfortable.' Turning his head to the man on his left, Johnson, no, Upjohn, saying quietly, 'See if he'd mind joining us for a few minutes.'
The man got up and went out through the door behind him, not the one I'd come in by, leading to the hall, the other one. I looked down at Ferris. He was making notes in the debriefing book.
I said: 'The shrink?'
'Yes,' Went on writing.
A quietness on me suddenly, the anger fading. 'You said you weren't going to send for him.'
He looked up. 'Only if you asked. I think you just did that.'
I turned away, moved about. He was perfectly right. Then you'd better send for your bloody shrink. It had come right out of the subconscious because I knew I needed help and I'd been frightened to ask for it in so many words. I could have gone on lying, trying to protect my ego, but I didn't, because we'd got a mission running and something had gone terribly wrong and I had to face it, deal with it somehow. Listen, if nothing else I am a professional, for God's sake give me that.
'Can I have a drink?'
The thirst still burning.
'But of course.'
Ferris got up and went over to the table by the couch, where there was a decanter and a glass. I suppose that was what it was, the classical psychiatrist's couch; I'd only ever seen them in cartoons. If he asked me to lie down on it I would twist his head off at the neck and – steady, lad, you need this man, you need him.
'Thank you.' Glass of water.
He looked at me, Ferris, with his pale amber eyes, concerned that I should understand, if I read them right. 'All is well, my dear fellow. There will be no misdirection.'
A word normally used in the context of a courtroom, but within the Bureau the connotation is different: a director in the field will sometimes, if he's incompetent or devious, misdirect his executive, and if things are running close it can be fatal.
'I'm Dr Alvarez.'
A short man in striped pyjamas and a dressing-gown, dark eyes not smiling, serious. Taking me in, evaluating me, reaching for my hand.
This is Keyes,' Ferris told him.
'Good, yes,' not taking his eyes off my face, 'why don't we all sit down? You have some water. Would you prefer a glass of wine, some whisky?'
This is fine.'
'You're thirsty?'
'Dry mouth.'
'Of course. You had a nasty experience, I'm told. Do you mind if I sit behind the desk? I'm not trying to look authoritative, you must understand, it's just that I can think better there – it's my querencia. You are not sleepy?'
'No.'
'It would be understandable, if you were – it's late.' He swung his legs onto the desk, tilting the leather-padded chair back, folding his strong square hands, watching me for a bit longer and then turning his head to Ferris. 'Well now.'
'What I'd like to do,' Ferris said, looking at me, 'is to go through a routine debriefing, and if you find any trouble with it, Dr Alvarez will make things easier. You should know that he's on the Bureau's overseas roster and provides us with this safe-house in emergencies. His clearance status is Prefix 1.' Meant totally reliable, even that being an understatement. I could therefore, Ferris meant, go through a debriefing in depth with nothing barred.
I took a slow breath. It still frightened me, the memory of what my mind had been doing in the time period following the quay thing, and the debriefing wouldn't be easy, even with Alvarez here.
Ferris glanced at him now, and I think Alvarez nodded, only the slightest movement of his head. Then Ferris looked back at me.
'All right, I'm going to ask you again. Why did you leave that hotel covertly?'
It went on echoing in my mind, covertly… covertly… and I realised that something was happening to me, something I couldn't control. But my voice sounded all right, a fraction terse, that was all.
'I didn't go there. Isn't that the important thing?'
Ferris watching me. 'Didn't go where?'
And then the whole thing blew up and I was on my feet and standing over Ferris shouting at him – 'I can't tell you – ' the other two men suddenly on their feet as well and moving towards me very fast – 'I can't tell you, for Christ's sake, don't you understand?'
Chapter 8: SACRIFICE
Her breast brushed against me, her skin copper-coloured
in the subdued light, a powdering of dried salt on her shoulder.
There's a special one out there somewhere.
That you want to catch?
That I want to kill.
Green eyes alighting softly on mine, the eyes of a mermaid, of a succuba.
You will go to 1330 West Riverside Way, at any time before midnight.
Flash, flash from the field glasses across the water.
Not later than that.
Her skin bronzed, the down silken above her breasts, the light flashing, flashing on the cylinder of the syringe.
'Can we use your phone?'
Watchful amber eyes, the tick of the jade clock.
'But please.'
The sea had calmed. There was no movement now.
'Get them onto it straight away.'
A man, one of the men, Johnson, no, Upjohn, blotting a wall-lamp out as he passed across my line of vision. The faint beeping of the push-buttons.
'Make a note. 1330 West Riverside Way.'
A shadow across my eyes, then its substance, Alvarez.
'Well now. How do you feel?' His dark face with its black silk beard, his gaze intent. 'How do you feel now?'
'All right.'
'Good!' He rolled my sleeve down.
'What was in it?' The syringe on the tray.
'Valium.' He took the tray away.
'We want you to check out that address.' Upjohn, phoning.
'Utmost caution,' Ferris said.
1:20 on the dial of the jade clock. An hour and twenty minutes' time gap. I can't tell you, for Christ's sake, don't you understand? The last thing I remembered.
'Use utmost caution,' Upjohn said into the phone.
It's an esoteric Bureau term reserved strictly for when, for instance, you're defusing a motion-detonator bomb.
I looked at Ferris, but he was at right angles. Everything was. They'd put me on that bloody couch.
'Ferris.' I got onto my elbows and swung my legs down. No shoes.
'Hello,' he said.
'Did I tell you?'
'Yes.'
The address?'
'Yes. But tell me again, just to confirm.'
Silence, and time going by.
'Where are my bloody shoes?'
