Soldier No More Page 16

  “I am not joking,” said Genghis Khan unjocularly. “Are you requesting repetition?”

  “No. I’m requesting a little bloody common-sense. Are you telling me Lex—Lady Alexandra… is a CIA contact?”

  There was a pause. “I am saying she is Category ‘C’ 1956.” Another pause. “What are you saying?”

  Roche thought for a moment, and came to the conclusion that a doormat was what people wiped their feet on. “I’m saying … I’m saying that I’m just about to make myself agreeable to Lady Alexandra Champeney-Perowne—if possible, very agreeable … and I suppose I’m also saying… I know the CIA are good, but surely they’re not that good? So what the hell are you saying, then?”

  There was another pause. Then “Wait,” said Genghis Khan.

  Roche waited. Category ‘C’ didn’t mean anything, as he had already told himself. But in this instance he wanted to be sure.

  The pause elongated. Obviously Genghis Khan was making further inquiries, even further afield on another phone. And the idea of Genghis Khan jumping for him fed Roche’s courage and self-esteem at compound interest rates.

  The phone crackled in his ear. “We are still inquiring. Are you able to wait?”

  Another nought appeared on Roche’s deposit of courage. “For a few minutes more, maybe … One thing, though: do you have any idea where Audley’s money comes from? He seems to be ‘of independent means’, as they say, but his father … his father … was up to his ears in debt. So he’s acquired ready cash from somewhere—and quite a lot of it. Have you anything on that?”

  This time the delay was only to be expected, since this hadn’t been one of the questions on the list, and sub-stations weren’t geared for this type of uncleared traffic. But if Genghis Khan was as top-brass as Roche guessed he must be, then he just might bend the rules.

  “We have nothing on that.” He betrayed nothing in his voice, either. The bending was still in the balance. “I would prefer to talk to you face-to-face on the matter.”

  The idea of Genghis Khan swanning around in Raymond Galles’s neck of the woods was not to Roche’s taste at all. “That might be difficult. I’m going to be pretty tied-up the next day or two. I’m not sure I can get away.”

  You will get away if I require you to do so.”

  Roche dug into his capital. “I’ll get away if it’s safe to do so. I don’t promise anything—not if you want results.”

  He wished he could see Genghis Khan’s face, even though there’d be no expression on it. Face-to-face was better, and in the end safer too, in spite of all the complications.

  But not just now.

  “Information has been received on Audley,” said Genghis Khan out of the silence, apropos of nothing. “Rather curious information. He’s a strange man.”

  You can say that again, thought Roche. “How d’you mean?”

  Sniff. And sniff, in the context of Genghis Khan, was a manifestation of extreme emotion.

  “He worked for British Intelligence, from maybe 1944 to 1946. In Germany, perhaps in France, perhaps in Spain … perhaps also in Greece—we are not sure. He was very young.”

  “And that’s strange?”

  “We are being circumspect, and that makes investigation difficult, and more so with the passage of time.” Genghis Khan ignored the question. “He left them … it appears that he left them in anger in ‘46—mutual anger. We believe that he disobeyed orders. Or possibly he misinterpreted orders— again we are not sure. We are not sure about anything.”

  And they didn’t like being unsure, that was for sure.

  “But they surely want him back now,” Roche goaded him. “And they tried to get him back once before, too.”

  “That is correct. It was at Cambridge, in ‘49. We have that authenticated beyond doubt.”

  There was more to it than that—and that offered a very obvious hypothesis. “Did we approach him at Cambridge—after he turned them down?” Roche chanced his arm. “What happened?”

  Genghis Khan chewed on the questions in silence for a time. “It was…a very gentle contact. Very circumspect, you understand.”

  ‘Circumspect’ was the in-word of the moment. But there was the minutest suggestion in that passionless voice that the very gentle circumspection of 1949 hadn’t fooled David Longsdon Audley for one minute.

  “Yes?” inquired Roche innocently.

  “It was not successful.”

  “How not successful?”

  Pause. “It was rejected.”

  “He went to the police, you mean? Or the Special Branch?”

  Pause. “He threw our contact into the river, from a flat-bottomed boat.”

  The ‘flat-bottomed boat’ added a vivid realism to Audley’s rejection of the chance to join the destined conquerors of the world. Recruitment— would-be recruitment—on a punt on the Cam was an unusually imaginative touch, nevertheless!

  Roche smiled. “Well, he’s a big fellow, so they say. I expect he caught our man at a disadvantage, anyway.”

  Sniff. “Our man was a woman.”

  Well! Well… maybe Oliver St.John Latimer did have it right, at that! And add unchivalrous and eccentric to all those other attributes into the bargain!

  “I see what you mean by ‘strange’,” agreed Roche carefully. It was also rather strange that Genghis Khan should have told all this in such detail, unless he’d calculated that nothing but the truth would serve to warn Roche himself of the perils that lay ahead. “I’ll make a point of not going boating with him.”

  “When he travelled in the Middle East—he has travelled extensively in the course of … historical research—“ Genghis Khan brushed aside Roche’s levity “—he made it a practice to visit the ministries of police to explain that he had served with British Intelligence during the war in Europe, but was no longer a serving officer. He did this in Egypt and Syria and Jordan and the Lebanon.”

  Well again! Now … that was what Genghis Khan had really meant by ‘strange’, not the Cam punting episode at all! And it was strange, by God! (It was not in the least strange that Genghis Khan knew about it: the Comrades had all those police ministries sewn up tightly, for sure, and it wouldn’t have needed any circumspection to throw up that information, for even surer!)

  But, of course, neither those ministries nor the Comrades would have taken such a disclaimer on its face value; rather, it would have put them on their mettle.

  And yet, obviously, all consequent investigations had proved negative— obviously, not only because if it hadn’t been so he wouldn’t be here now, trying to recall this strange man to the colours, but also because if there had been anything to unearth, the combined efforts of half a dozen middle eastern security departments and those of the Comrades would have done it by now.

  And yet it was still strange … or, it would be still so if everything about the man wasn’t of a piece with it. In fact, with everything going against him, Audley appeared to have achieved classic nothing known status.

  “So he’s clean, then?”

  “Until now,” agreed Genghis Khan.

  “Of course. As soon as I meet him he goes into Category ‘A’, naturally.”

  “I don’t mean that—wait!” Genghis Khan abruptly cut off further inquiry.

  Roche squinted down the sunlit street. He could see his Volkswagen, but there was still no Lady Alexandra beside it to force him to break contact before he had discovered what sort of relationship she had had with the CIA.

  “Very well.” The phone reclaimed him. “The woman Charnpeney-Perowne is confirmed Category ‘C’. But you are right—it is a bureaucratic nonsense nevertheless.”

  Roche’s morale went down and up in quick succession. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “She had a close contact. A known agent in their trade delegation in London, and then in New York. It is of no significance whatsoever—you can discount it.”

  “A close contact?”

  “The contact was in bed. He has since left their s
ervice.” Genghis Khan sounded as though he would have sounded angry if he had ever allowed himself the luxury of sounding anything recognisable. “We have wasted too much time on her. Subject, Stephanides, Meriel Aspasia, British passport; daughter of Nikos Stephanides, of Cypriot-Jewish extraction, hotel-keeper, London, known agent Sherut Yediot 1945-48, Mossad 1948 onwards; daughter known agent Mossad 1953 onwards, operating Cambridge and London Metropolitan area, present cover literary agent, Liddell Carver Associates—“

  Christ!

  “—active, inform Central Records movements priority urgent, ends.”

  Christ! thought Roche again numbly. Not Greek or Anglo-Greek, but Greek-Cypriot Jewish. And not just Greek-Cypriot Jewish, but Mossad. And not merely Mossad, but second-generation Mossad, the daughter of a man who’d been an Israeli agent even before Israel had existed. And not just second generation Mossad, but active, inform Central Records movements priority urgent—which meant a top-flight agent whose every movement had to be reported double quick to Central Records so that the Comrades in the field could be warned of trouble before it enveloped them.

  He swallowed as much of that as he could. “Well, she’s here.”

  “Where—exactly?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. She’s staying with Miss Baker and Lady Alexandra … in a cottage owned by a Madame Peyrony, a few kilometres outside Neuville, where I’m phoning from. But I haven’t been there yet.” It was occurring to Roche belatedly that he was the Comrade in this particular field, and nobody had warned him that Meriel Stephanides was already busy ploughing the field up.

  “But you’re going there now?”

  “Yes.” His telephone-holding hand was sweating.

  “Excellent!”

  “What’s excellent about it?” It also occurred to him that Genghis Khan had deliberately kept the good news about Meriel Stephanides to last, either in order not to demoralise him, or (more likely) just for the sheer pleasure of it.

  “Her presence confirms the importance of whatever it is they want Audley to do—that is obvious.” Genghis Khan paused in order to let the obvious sink deep into Roche’s stomach. “Do you require assistance?”

  Yes—

  “No. I haven’t even recruited Audley yet.”

  “Well, I advise you to do that as quickly as possible—for your own sake. Then we’ll see about Mademoiselle Stephanides. Meanwhile, I will make contact with you tomorrow at 0900, by the south gate of Neuville. I will have further information for you by then.”

  Outside, in the sunlight, there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

  The heat which bounced up around him off the cobbles of the little square didn’t warm him at all, it was repelled by the great block of ice inside him.

  The more he thought about his situation, the worse it became. Because if Meriel Stephanides was … what she was … then it would be prudent to assume that the American, Michael Bradford, wasn’t what he seemed to be, but something much more dangerous.

  He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to run away to.

  Lady Alexandra was standing beside his Volkswagen, waiting for him. She saw him, and waved energetically. He waved back automatically, glad that she couldn’t see his face from that distance. He had all of a hundred yards in which to rebuild a happy holiday smile on it.

  IX

  “ON—BUGGER!! Now Jilly’s bloody egg’s broken!” Lexy stabbed at the frying pan, as though it had let her down deliberately. “And of course I’ve got everything wrong—I should have done her bacon first, shouldn’t I! Oh well, not to worry—she’s probably still in the bath—go and see if she’s still in the bath, David darling, and if she is then tell her to stay there—“

  Roche blinked at Lady Alexandra, and tried to reconcile what he knew with what he was seeing, and opened his mouth and shut it again without speaking.

  “And has Steffy come back yet? I think I’ll throw this egg away and start again—I think I’ll throw the bloody lot away and start again! I hope to God the chips are still hot… or at least warm—is she still in the bath?”

  Roche swallowed. From the way she moved … or rather, from the way different parts of her moved under the dress, he could swear that she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

  “—I don’t mean go literally and see whether she’s still in the bath—I mean, you can … because there isn’t any lock on the door, I broke it yesterday—but all you have to do is listen through the wall by your ear, that’s all—don’t lean too hard, or it’ll fall down—“

  Roche felt the wall tremble against his ear. It was paper-thin, and he could hear Jilly-washing-sounds distinctly through it. He nodded speechlessly at Lady Alexandra.

  “Well, that’s all right! Just tell her to go on soaking—tell her there’s no hurry—right?”

  Roche observed also that Lady Alexandra’s face was dirty again, with a black mark down the side of her nose on to her cheek which was presumably a legacy from when she had stoked the boiler for Jilly’s bath, after emerging from her own.

  She had stoked the boiler, and she had cooked his supper and her own, and she was cooking Jilly’s supper—the Lexy Special—in that exquisite dress, which must surely smell more of bacon fat and chips than Chanel by now—

  (And the Lexy Special was a horrific greasy memory of hunger stemmed, but not satisfied: broken eggs, frazzled bacon and fried bread exploding into fragments, and limp chips congealed into inseparable lumps—ugh!)

  He turned to the partition wall. “Jilly?”

  “I can hear you. I heard.” Jilly shouted. “Tell her just egg-and-bacon, no chips … And tell her not to incinerate the bacon.”

  Lexy was already smiling cheerfully at him when he turned back to her. “I heard too! They’re all just unappreciative of my culinary efforts— all except David Audley, he never complains—he’s a gentleman, like you, David!”

  “He never complains—“ Jilly’s voice, deadpan as Genghis Khan’s, came through the wall beside Roche’s ear, faint but clear “—because his taste has been … institutionalised … by public school… and the Army … and Cambridge … so he doesn’t know any better.” Splash, splash. “His stomach… is permanently … disadvantaged.”

  “Jealousy—“ shouted Lexy “—will get you nowhere!” She grinned her great wide-mouthed happy smile at Roche. “Would you like some more chips? Steffy’ll never finish this lot now.”

  “Steffy … knows … better!” Splash, splash.

  “Shut-up!” Lexy scraped the frying pan into the bucket beside her. “Would you like seconds, David darling?”

  God! Perish the thought!

  “No, I’m fine,” said Roche hastily. “But… where’s Steffy?”

  Lexy waved the kitchen spatula, scattering fat over the top of the stove. “Oh, God only knows! She’s always going off on her own somewhere or other. We think she’s got a boyfriend tucked away—or one of her poor bloody authors she’s galvanising into a masterpiece, maybe … but she won’t say, she just swans off into the blue and that’s that … Not to be trusted, our Steffy—definitely not to be trusted! And that’s Mike’s opinion too. He says she’s a femme fatale.”

  That was very true, thought Roche; it was even so true that it hurt. And it wasn’t surprising that Bradford, the American, thought so, either; because in this operation, whatever it involved, there was no reason why the Americans and the Israelis should be on the same side.

  “Darling—why don’t you go out and see if you can spot her en route? If you walk up to the corner you can see for miles—but get yourself another drink first, we’ve still got bags of duty-free gin in those huge bottles we bought on the boat…”

  Roche retired gratefully up the drive from the cottage, ginless but glad to be out of the kitchen, where the air was blue with burnt fat and treachery. Because in this operation …

  Ever since Suez the Americans had been bad friends with the Israelis, even though more in pique and sorrow than anger … and
the way things had been going since Suez last year, they’d soon be co-operating again—at least so long as the Russians called the tune in Egypt.

  Yet the key to everything was still Audley: and if he could find that key before the Americans and the Israelis did—

  But in his case it wasn’t a case of if: he had to find it, or else—

  He stared out over the blue-hazed landscape, across the rolling hills and forests and enclaves of cultivated land, and saw none of it.

  The stakes weren’t any higher, because for him they had been at the limit from the beginning, from the moment he had decided to defect again if he could see a way to do so.

  But now they were inescapable, because the bets were on the table—if he failed, then the Comrades would never forgive him this time. Only now the game was more complicated, with the Americans and the Israelites in it, with stakes of their own, and as yet he didn’t even know why they were playing. And not to know that was very frightening. And the CIA, with all its unlimited resources, was even more frightening. And Mossad, with its limited resources but unlimited ruthlessness, was even more frightening still.

  It made him feel sick to his stomach, and he couldn’t control the sickness, so that before he knew what he was doing he was throwing up the Lexy Special into the stubble of the field at his feet.

  For a moment he was bent double, swaying dizzily, his vision blurred with tears. Then he managed to steady himself, his hands on his knees, as he vomited again helplessly—he had lost his supper, and now his lunch was coming up.

  He focussed on the stubble again, and found that he had instinctively lurched a few yards away from the disgusting mess, to an unfouled piece of ground. Among the dead stalks at his feet there was a fresh green plant growing, its tendrils snaking out from a fissure in the dry earth. He frowned at it, unable to identify the plant—there was another similar one a few yards away, and another beyond that, and another … they were in a line stretching down the hillside towards the road, and there were others dotted over the field, apparently growing haphazardly, but actually in other lines like this one.