“Yes,” said Mr. Behrens.
“It’s sandy soil, and we’ve spades in the car. We shall have to put them four feet down.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Behrens again. It would mean hours of digging. But he could see the sense in it. It was the rule. If you made a mess, you cleared it up. But there was more to it than that. If Colonel Tyschenko, his courier and his two personal bodyguards disappeared, the first idea would be that they had defected. And the mere suspicion of this would cause their opponents the maximum of trouble and uncertainty.
“Any blood there is, is on the matting. We’ll bury that with them. We can use the girl’s car for transport. After that I’ll drive it off and leave it in the thickest part of the forest. This isn’t a part of the world where intruders are encouraged. It could stand there until it falls to pieces.”
“There’s one other thing,” said Mr. Behrens. “We ought to get Nichol to a doctor before morning. The nearest one I know of, who won’t ask a lot of questions, is a hundred miles away.”
Mr. Calder considered the problem.
He said, “Give me a hand with the first part, getting the bodies moved. Then leave me to do the rest.”
“Will you be able to finish before the morning?”
“Almost certainly not. But I can lie up by day, and finish the job tomorrow night. I’ll see you in Cologne, at our usual place, the day after tomorrow.”
And so at four o’clock that morning Mr. Behrens was driving his car once more. His head was singing with the Benzedrine he had inhaled to keep himself awake. Beside him, Nichol was propped in the passenger seat. He had been delirious for some time and was now dozing. Mr. Behrens could only pray that they were not stopped. They would neither of them stand up to much inspection. And unless he could get Nichol into a doctor’s hands in time to save his life, they were going to lose half the results of their efforts.
The continental side of Route M they now knew about and could deal with. But the English side – how it worked, who operated it – that was all locked away inside the white face and under the tangled head of black hair that lolled on the seat beside him.
A red light sprang out of the night. Mr. Behrens cursed, and slowed. But it was only the warning light for a level-crossing gate on the main line from Cologne to Basle.
Mr. Behrens coasted up to the barrier and switched off the engine. Nichol turned his head, and looked at him. The sudden silence and cessation of movement had wakened him.
“Where are we?” he said.
“Nearly there,” said Mr. Behrens.
“There’s something,” said Nichol, “that I ought to tell you.”
“Don’t talk more than you must,” said Mr. Behrens.
Nichol hardly seemed to hear him. His body was in the present, but his mind was in the past. He went on in a conversational voice.
“Last night, at that hotel, I made love to Shura. She seemed to want it. It was the most wonderful thing I have ever done. It was the first time in my life. I’ve been rather strictly brought up. You appreciate that. I’d never imagined it could be such a perfect thing. And then I shot her. I had to shoot her.” He sounded serious, and puzzled. “That can’t be right, you know,”
“In this job,” said Mr. Behrens, “there is neither right nor wrong. Only expediency.”
The night express thundered past, and the gates rose and Mr. Behrens engaged gear and drove on.
Mr. Fortescue was the manager of the Westminster branch of the London and Home Counties Bank. He was also head of the External Branch of the Joint Services Standing Intelligence Committee. In his first capacity, he welcomed Mr. Behrens into his office one fine morning in May; in his second, he turned to business as soon as the heavy mahogany door had sighed shut.
“I’m worried,” he said, “about Calder.”
“I’m not too happy about him myself,” said Mr. Behrens. “We’re neighbours as well as friends, you know, and when a neighbour starts cutting you—”
“It’s come to that, has it?”
“I used to go up to play backgammon with him – at least once a week, sometimes more. For the last three or four weeks he’s been making excuses. And they’ve become such feeble excuses that I gathered the impression that what he really wanted was to be left alone.”
“He leads a somewhat solitary life, doesn’t he?”
“Entirely solitary. Apart from myself, the visiting tradespeople and an occasional hiker, I doubt if he sees anyone from year’s end to year’s end.”
“Do you think,” said Mr. Fortescue, “that he might be going mad?”
There was regret in his voice, but no surprise. Professional agents usually did come to an untimely end. The curious, involute, secretive, occasionally dangerous and always responsible way of life took its sure toll of them. A few were killed by the enemy; others took their own lives; half a dozen, as Mr. Fortescue knew, were living in quiet country houses where the furniture was fixed to the floors and the inmates ate with plastic knives and forks and were shaved by a resident barber.
“I should have thought,” said Mr. Behrens, “that Calder was the very last man to go that way.”
“It’s the strongest,” said Mr. Fortescue, “who break the most unexpectedly. If it wasn’t for Operation Prometheus this wouldn’t be so serious. I mean,” he added, as he saw the look of pain in Mr. Behrens’ eyes, “I should, of course, be desperately sorry if something like that did happen to Calder. He’s deserved well of his country. And I know that he’s a very old and dear friend of yours.”
“I quite understand,” said Mr. Behrens. “How deeply involved is he?”
“He is one of three men – the other two are myself and Dick Harcourt – who know
all
the details. Prometheus is an immense operation, and a great many people have to know a bit about it – you know a bit about it yourself – but we are the only three who know it all. We have been in it from the beginning. Indeed, I recollect that it was Calder who christened it Operation Prometheus.”
“Has the name any particular significance?” asked Mr. Behrens. He himself had been involved in an attempt to kidnap a Bulgarian general which had been known as Operation House Agent, and another, of such secrecy that the details cannot even now be discussed, called Operation Bubbles; and he had sometimes wondered who thought up the names, and on what principles, if any, they worked.
“There was a little more sense in this than in most,” said Mr. Fortescue. “Prometheus was born of a union between the sea, in the form of a nymph called Clymene, and a mountain, represented by the Titan, Iapetus. When we first seriously turned our minds to the liberation and advancement of Albania – a people whose original name, as you no doubt know, means ‘Sons of the Eagle’ – Operation Prometheus seemed quite an apt piece of nomenclature.”
“Do I gather that these plans may be coming to a head?”
Mr. Fortescue placed the tips of his fingers together and said, “Albania is in a state of balance. Not the balance of tranquility, but the balance of strong opposing forces. In one direction, they are drawn to Russia – Enver Hoxha is an ardent Stalinist, even now that Stalinism has become unfashionable. In another direction, they have much in common with Yugoslavia – a union with Tito would please many. To the south they have strong, ancient and sentimental ties with Greece.”
“Pull devil, pull baker,” said Mr. Behrens. “Who do we think will win?”
“We know who we’d
like
to win,” said Mr. Fortescue. “Our money is on Greece. If Georgiades Mikalos could be sure of our help – sure that it would be effective – then it’s pretty certain he’d have a good shot at it. But our joint timing has got to be accurate – accurate to a hair’s breadth. The stakes are too high for error. Mikalos will not forget what happened to Xoxe.”
“Where is Mikalos now?”
“In the hills behind Argyrokastron. Enver Hoxha has a fair idea where his hideout is, but he can’t do much about it. Mikalos is well protected by his own partisans, and has, besides, a convenient back door into Greece. But if he is inaccessible to Enver, he is also inaccessible to us. And when the time comes we shall have to establish liaison with him. The idea was that Calder would go. He knows the country well – he was there with our mission in 1944. And he speaks the language.”
“You say, the idea was that he should go. Do you now consider him too unreliable to send?”
“That is exactly what I want you to help me make my mind up about,” said Mr. Fortescue.
Three days later Mr. Behrens trudged up the long winding hill, overhung with trees, which led to the hilltop on which Mr. Calder’s solitary cottage stood.
He found the golden hound, Rasselas, lying on the front step. The dog seemed unhappy.
“Where is he?” said Mr. Behrens.
Rasselas thumped with his tail, and looked reproachfully over his shoulder toward the interior of the house.
At this moment Mr. Calder appeared in the hall. He was wearing what looked like a white nightgown. Combined with his bald and tonsured head, it gave him the appearance of a disreputable monk. He blinked and frowned into the sunlight, then seemed to recognise Mr. Behrens and said, “Come in. I’m very busy. But come in.”
“If you’re too busy to see me,” said Mr. Behrens tartly, “I can always go back. After all, it’s only two miles.”
“No, no. Come in. You can probably help me.”
Calder led the way into the sitting room.
“What on earth are you up to now?” said Mr. Behrens.
Across one end of the room was stretched an enormous piece of blank white paper pasted onto a backing of plywood. Coming closer, Mr. Behrens saw that six large pieces of lining paper had been joined together. Coming closer still, he saw that the paper was not, as he had supposed, blank. Considerable areas of it were covered with Mr. Calder’s neat, crabbed writing, interspersed with curious symbols and pictures.
“I have been engaged for some weeks,” said Mr. Calder. After a pause he went on, “I fear it may have made me seem unsociable, but I have been engaged in one of the most curious and most important tasks that I have ever undertaken in my life.”
“I can’t understand a word of it.”
“Some of it is in a special shorthand which I use for this particular purpose. Otherwise I couldn’t hope to get it all in.”
“But what is it?”
“I am tracing the genealogy of Prometheus – back to Adam, and down to myself.”
“Down to you?”
“Down to me,” said Mr. Calder. He seemed to be entirely serious.
“But how,” said Mr. Behrens mildly, “can you be sure that you
are
descended from Prometheus? Of course, I know that if one goes back far enough everyone is descended from everyone else, approximately.”
“There is nothing approximate about this. I have felt for some time that there was royal blood in my veins. But sometimes I have been aware that there is a higher plane than royalty. The plane of divinity.”
Mr. Behrens looked at his old friend, and there was grief in his eyes. “Have you really come to believe this bosh?” he said.
Mr. Calder was not embarrassed.
“It is hard to grasp,” he said, “but that is because you do not have the clue. Curiously enough, I was put on the track by Rasselas—”
The great dog, hearing its name, moved into the room and stood looking up at Mr. Calder. Mr. Calder patted his head absent-mindedly.
“When you consider a dog’s pedigree,” he said, “you realise that it is essential to follow both the male
and
female lines. The mistake we make in human genealogy is concentrating on the male. Prometheus was no ordinary divinity. He was the inventor of architecture and astronomy, of writing and the use of figures, of prophecy, medicine, navigation, and metal-work. He inherited strength and intelligence from his father, imagination and curiosity from his mother. He bestowed on mankind the gifts of fire – from his father. And from his mother, the gift of hope.”
“His mother’s was the greater gift,” said Mr. Behrens.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Mr. Behrens said to Mr. Fortescue on the following afternoon.
The meeting took place in one of the group of offices occupied by the Committee for European Coordination in Richmond Terrace, under the shadow of the hideous new Air Ministry building. The third man present was Commander Richard Harcourt, small, compact, dark, and energetic, and recognisable the length of St. James’s as a product of the Royal Navy.
All Mr. Behrens knew about him was that he had had a Greek mother, and had made a big reputation for himself in submarines in the Adriatic during the war – two reasons, no doubt, for his presence on this particular committee.
“The last time I saw him myself,” said Mr. Fortescue, “he spoke somewhat wildly on the subject of classical mythology.”
“Do you think he’s gone broody?” said Commander Harcourt.
Mr. Behrens was familiar enough with the jargon of the Security Service to know what he meant.
“I didn’t detect any ideological slant in his conversation,” he said. “It was quite a generalised form of eccentricity.”
“Basically, I’m sure he’s still sound,” said Mr. Fortescue.
“He may be sound,” said the commander, “but is he still a good security risk?”
The same thought was troubling them all. The store of secrets inside Mr. Calder’s dome-shaped head was such that even a casual overspill would be priceless gleaning for the enemy.
“You’ll have to keep as close an eye on him as you can,” said Mr. Fortescue.
Mr. Behrens travelled sadly back to Lamperdown.
When Mr. Calder and he had retired from active service in MI6 (as it was then called) and had joined Mr. Fortescue’s organisation, they had been encouraged to set up house within a few miles of each other. They would thus be able, as Mr. Fortescue had put it, to give each other covering fire. It was a sensible precaution which had already stood them in good stead more than once.
Mr. Behrens felt the defection of his ally very keenly. He was so silent at dinner that night that even his aunt, who was not given to small talk, noticed it. She supposed, since he had been up twice already that week to see his bank manager, that his troubles must be financial.