Soldier No More (29 page)

Oh—ah—“

“
Oh-ah
indeed! Though maybe the RIP chaps might not have worked out what Ike was going to do, since Ike probably didn’t know himself, so it might not have done us any good to have an inside man in the White House, like we did in the Kremlin—“

An inside man?”

“Stands to reason. You don’t get one hundred per cent certainty by studying your navel and trusting to luck—you only get it when someone gives you the answers in the back of the book. RIP—
quod erat
demonstrandum
, dear boy. And I think the French had him, because we certainly didn’t—and don’t, more’s the pity. But I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when they met, all the same!”

Who was ‘they’?”

“Lord knows! None of our people here, that’s for sure … I thought you might have been one of them, young David—you weren’t in circulation at the time, and you’re a bit of a dark horse, writing all those non-event reports of yours all the time, to no possible purpose… . They came and they went, and but for one of ‘em—that stuffed shirt Avery—Useless Eustace—I’ve no idea …. But it was the French who produced the information, Avery just took the credit. And we shall not look upon their like again, I fear—because the French will never speak up again, after what we’ve done to them, and I can’t say that I blame them. Have another drink—to your next report on the incidence of scurvy in the French Mediterranean Fleet, say—?”

RIP.

He had known that Jean-Paul would already have all that, even before he passed it on, and that he would not earn his keep with Bill Ballance’s carefully indiscreet ramblings, just as he knew that it would be dangerous to push Bill further, beyond Bill’s suspicion that his Christmas drinking might be the subject of an internal security check by the dark horse. But that had been the last whisper he had been able to overhear about the near-legendary Joint Anglo-French Russian Intentions and Policy Sub-Committee, from Bill or anyone else. So he had never had a useful name to give to Jean-Paul, either British or French, let alone Russian.

But now he had a name.

“I heard d’Auberon mentioned in connection with it.” He needed more time to think, but there was no time. “I’d never heard of him—he isn’t an Army man.” Stocker shouldn’t expect him to place Quai d’Orsay names. “Until I got down here I didn’t know he’d resigned.”

But what the hell did Sir Eustace want with information about meetings which he had jointly chaired, for God’s sake?

“Where did you get all this?”

“Sir?” Playing stupid was easy, once the role was accepted.

“Who told you about RIP—and d’Auberon?”

“Bill Ballance told me about RIP, sir.” Betrayal, always providing it wasn’t himself he was betraying, was even easier than stupidity, and Bill didn’t give a damn, anyway. “And one of the girls down here told me about d’Auberon’s resignation—she knows him socially—Lady Alexandra Champeney-Perowne.” That bit of truth could do no harm, but he would keep Madame Peyrony up his sleeve. “She met him through Audley, I think … Anyway, with what she said and what I already knew, all I had to do was put two and two together.”

He watched the Frenchman tuck into his
potage
. Whether or not Stocker was enjoying his
omelette Roche
equally, with its tiny truffle-specks of truth, could not be deduced from the silence at the other end of the line. But it might be as well not to let him test its quality too long in case he caught the flavour of lies in it too.

“I’m running out of time, sir. I was supposed to meet Audley five minutes ago.”

“Yes.” Stocker came to life instantly. “So you don’t actually know what d’Auberon’s got, then?”

D
’
Auberon had got something.

But of course d’Auberon had got something. If he had quit his job in anger and disgrace with top secrets merely locked up in his head he would never have got out of Paris alive, let alone been allowed to settle comfortably in the Dordogne: the SDECE’s Bureau 24 would have seen to that, if ‘Colonel Lamy’ hadn’t simply farmed out the job to the West German contract assassin who was working his way through the foreign arms dealers at the moment…

It didn’t matter—what mattered was what was obvious: Jilly’s guess that d’Auberon had ‘beans’ to spill had been right, but she hadn’t taken the guess to its logical conclusion … which was that those beans had to be in a can somewhere safe, rigged to spill in the event of d’Auberon’s untimely demise. It was so obvious that Stocker hadn’t bothered to add that two-and-two for Roche’s benefit.

“No, sir.” But now other twos-and-twos presented themselves in a natural progression, following that obvious one, plus what Bill Ballance had said at Christmas: it would be the name of the inside man—it must be that, nothing else fitted so well, nothing was more likely to arouse such greed. That name would be worth almost any risk.

Any new department, starting out secure but in the cold, needed something hot to get things moving; and Avery of all people would have desired to get his hands on d’Auberon’s can of beans, because Avery of all people would know its value—it had already turned him into
Sir Eustace
when his colleagues were being demoted or passed over or bowler-hatted. If he could lay his hands on the one intelligence source that was accurate and secure
and came from th
e very top in the Kremlin
, then he could write his own ticket in both London and Paris—the poor bloody French wouldn’t have any choice, knowing that the perfidious British would shop them otherwise.

“Now, listen here, Roche—“

Roche could feel his heart thump in his chest, not with fear and simple arithmetic but with the multiplication of excitement at last:
not Avery
—
not Sir-bloody-Eustace
—
but he himself
—
poor-bloody-Roche
—
could write his ticket with that name anywhere in the world, from Washington to
Moscow and back
—

“… this is why we have to get Audley …”

Audley! He had forgotten Audley!

“… because we have good reason to believe that he can supply us with the d’Auberon material.”

Audley!

“…we had originally intended for you to bring him back to us first, and then to take it off him as a bonus …”

The red flare cooled instantly into icy determination, all Roche’s anger chilled into bitterness by Stacker’s crude lie. Perhaps they did want Audley, he seemed a natural candidate, sure enough; but what he had was what they really wanted, he was just the bonus. And Roche himself had originally been cast as the recruiter, not to be trusted with the important work and not to be given the full credit and the proper reward.

“… but now we can’t wait, Roche.”

They couldn’t wait because they hadn’t bargained on the arrival of the Americans, let alone the Israelis, on the scene ahead of them—probably ahead of them because Mossad and the CIA had also heard of Audley’s peculiar virtue, and had moved more quickly to exploit it. “You understand?”

He was expected to understand about the Israelis and the Americans. What he didn’t understand was why they were still so confident he could achieve all this. But Stocker would surely tell him that before long; and, more than that, any minute now he’d be offering back-up, with this sort of opposition.

“Yes, sir,” said Roche.

“I’ll get down to you as soon as I can. Not tomorrow … I have things to do up here … but maybe the day after. Galles will look after you, anyway.”

That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting—Stocker the day after tomorrow … and what use was Galles? He wasn’t even sure that the Frenchman was still trustworthy, never mind capable.

But Clinton had said he had been very carefully chosen, and oddly enough that was easier to believe now than it had ever been before: quite simply, d’Auberon’s ‘material’ was too important to be allowed to slip through their hands if there was the slightest chance of getting it—it was worth risking someone
good
in fact.

“There’s just one thing, sir.” There was no way now that he could ask those questions and get a useful answer. But there was another question which could be answered. “You said you’ve got ‘good reason’ to rely on Audley—that he can obtain d’Auberon’s … material. How d’you know that?”

Stocker was silent for a moment. “Mmm … ‘how’—I’m sorry, Roche, the ‘how’ is off limits to you. All you need to know is that he’s our man. But if you want to know
why
he is, I can give you that—because I was about to give it to you anyway.”

The fine distinctions of the answer seemed almost indistinguishable to Roche.

“Can’t you guess, man?” Stocker teased him. “I should have thought it was obvious enough, in all conscience.”

Obvious enough?

All the emphasis was on Audley, not d’Auberon. It had been Audley, Audley, Audley… and then not d’Auberon, but ‘d’Auberon’s material’— Audley, Audley, Audley—and d’Auberon’s material—and ‘good reason’, and ‘he can get it’, and ‘he’s our man’, and in the end
certainty
?

“He’s got it already—is that it?” The question had answered itself before he had whispered it into the mouthpiece: it would never have been enough for d’Auberon to hide away his can of beans in some safe deposit to which he had access, because Bureau 24 had ways of making people give such things up—ways the Gestapo had taught the French, plus all the refinements of cruelty Indo-China and Algeria had added. So the can would have to be at one remove from the owner, out of his hands and to be handed over only under certain controlled conditions of safety, back to him and no one else. That was what he, Roche, would do in the same dangerous position— nothing else would combine self-preservation with security.

“Bravo!” exclaimed Stocker.

But the catch was, thought Roche bleakly,
you needed a friend you could trust, willing to shoulder the risk for you
.

“So now you know,” said Stocker encouragingly.

Now he knew.

He knew that d’Auberon had such a friend, and that it was his job to engineer the betrayal of that friendship to save his own skin.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s not going to be easy.”

It wasn’t going to be easy, even though Sir Eustace Avery had chosen better than he knew—had chosen a real expert on betrayal, with a more urgent incentive than mere promotion to spur him on.

“I’ll think of a way though,” he murmured.

That was, Genghis Khan would think of a way, he thought grimly.

The Orgy in the Tower

“
BARBARIANS,
”
SAID AUDLEY
, perching himself on the stool.

“But Steffy’s not here yet,” said Lexy. “We can’t start without her. And what about ‘Tienne?”

“Lexy doesn’t want to start at all,” murmured Jilly. “She’s playing for time.”

“Lexy’s just saying that Steffy isn’t here,” said Lexy. “But if Jilly doesn’t shut up Lexy will say something nasty.”

“Etienne won’t be coming. But I agree Steffy isn’t here,” said Audley. “So our guest will take her place.” He raised his glass towards Roche. “You are hereby summoned to this orgy, Captain Roche. Your attendance is requested and required, no longer as a mere onlooker, but as a participant, with all the rights and privileges and duties appertaining thereto.
Ave
, Roche!”

Until that moment Roche had been in two minds about the soft light diffused by the paraffin lamp on the low table between them, for it veiled his expression no less than everyone else’s. But now he wished that he could distinguish more of Audley than the man’s voice and words revealed to him.

“Now come on, David—fair’s fair.” Stein stirred lazily on his nest of cushions beside the wine-rack. “He may not want to be summoned. He may prefer to on-look.”

“Or he may just think we’re crazy.” Bradford’s contribution came from behind the bottles on the table; all Roche could see was his dark head shake agreement.

“And he could be right there,” said Lexy. “Some orgy!”

“He doesn’t have to play, surely?” said Stein.

“You can’t turn him out into the night if he doesn’t.” The American’s dark curls shook again. “The laws of hospitality forbid it—we took him in on your behalf.”

But it wasn’t the laws of hospitality which mattered here, in this weird place, thought Roche: it
was
play
—he doesn’t have
to
play
—which was the operative word—Jilly had said as much—

“He may want… he may prefer … he may
think
.” Audley ranged his glass from one to the other, the lamp reflecting twin points of light like bright animal-eyes in his spectacles and throwing a huge shadow on the wall behind him. “He may even be right. But he will play, nevertheless.”

“Why?” snapped Lexy. “Why should he?”

“Because I say so. And I am in the chair tonight. So I make the rules.”

“
You just have to argue with him
—
you have to debate the subject, whatever it is
.”

“
What subject?
”

“
Whatever i
t is. We take it in turns, and he picks our brains. With Davey
—
David Stein
—it
was paleolithic art, with Mike Bradford it was the Great American Novel, and what Hollywood does to it
…
and with me it was the aftermath of the Korean War.
”

“It all sounds
a bit juvenile
.”

“
So it does
—
yes, you
’
re right
…
a bit juvenile
…
It is.
”

“And they put up with it
—
Stein and
…
the American
—
what
’
s his name?
”

“Mike Bradford? Yes, they do. I think they quite enjoy it, to be honest. You see, they
’
re the same rea
lly
—
they all missed out on that
—
the juvenile bit. What they call now
‘
the teenage
’
, don
’
t they?
”