It had been a mistake to let the man live that first time, whatever the risk, thought Roche. Beyond all doubt now, the Comrades wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. But there was no way of explaining it to him.
“I still think the KGB’s interested in you,” he compromised, paying as much of his new debt as he dared. “And you never know what they’re up to.”
D’Auberon shook his head. “What I know, Captain … they know that already—better than either of us, I fear.”
Roche felt the woods at his back. In a couple of days’ time d’Auberon would come out here to admire the progress of the restoration of his ‘ruined gatehouse of formidable proportions’, and some sharp-eyed, telescopic-sighted hireling would put an end to that illusion. But there was nothing more he could say to prevent it, without saying too much for his own good. “If you think so.” He turned away, wanting to reach the Citroen, yet still aware of the weight of guilt in the brief-case.
A thought surfaced, as his hand touched the door handle, turning him round to face his brother-under-the-skin for the last time—they were both just as foolish really—nothing could be more foolish than the pair of them, but he couldn’t let it go at that.
“Meriel Stephanides was killed in a car crash last night,” he threw the news across the widening distance between them. “But it wasn’t an accident—she was working for the Israelis.”
D’Auberon could bloody well make what he liked out of that.
XVII
HE FELT THE shakes coming on just as they were passing the overburdened poilu on the war memorial in the square at Laussel-Beynac, so to give his hands something to do, he made a great production of producing the key and unlocking the brief-case on his knees.
“Well… let’s see what we’ve got, then!” He riffled through the thick file of official French and the thinner folder of encyphered gibberish.
“That’s it!” He relocked the case. “I didn’t think he’d give it to us, but he did!”
Once he started to negotiate with the British, then they would take Galles to pieces bit by bit to reconstruct every detail of this journey, back over every word he’d said. But it didn’t really matter now what they thought. Getting away was all that mattered—Genghis Khan’s clever scheme had become as irrelevant as Avery’s original intention. He no longer needed either of them—he was free of them both at last. All he had to do was think straight.
“Go back to the river,” he ordered Galles. “I want to pick up my car.”
His hands were steadier now, clasping the brief-case to his chest.
All he had to do was think straight—
Item: If d’Auberon did go to ground, after that last flurry of half-truth, then that would do no harm—it would only give him more time;
Item: If he didn’t go to ground, and the Comrades did what he was pretty damn sure they would do, then so much the better—it would give him all the time in the world!
(In retrospect, he still didn’t know why he’d warned d’Auberon to start running, when he didn’t need to do it, and it had been against his better judgement, and he didn’t owe the man a damn thing; and yet—which was even more baffling—he didn’t regret doing it…)
But—item—why was Genghis Khan so delighted—not merely resigned, but delighted—to surrender all this to Sir Eustace Avery?
Just to get Roche in position?
Shit! The question answered itself as soon as it was asked! Of course getting Roche inside was important. But it was knowing the nature of the gift—and knowing the nature of Sir Eustace Avery, that ‘great survivor’— that had delighted Genghis Khan.
The Comrades weren’t giving up anything important, after all, because d’Auberon’s report had effectively destroyed the value of the Moscow source for ever—because they could never be sure that word of it hadn’t been leaked to the British.
Indeed, maybe it had … maybe that was why Sir Eustace was so desperate to get his hands on it as his own special possession?
Because it was still vitally important to him, of all people, as the proof that in reality the Russians had made a monkey of him—and that he’d made a monkey of the Prime Minister in turn, and got a knighthood for it as a reward!
Not even a ‘great survivor’ could survive that, if it got into hostile hands first. But in his own hands, with time to think and plan and shift responsibility … that was something else …
Maybe he was doing the man an injustice. But it didn’t matter, because his reaction would be the same, either way, given his will to survive—and that was what Genghis Khan was counting on, to give him the edge on the head of the whole Avery operation, with Roche at the heart of it to monitor progress.
It wasn’t bad—it was good.
Even, it was better than good—it was getting better and better and better, right up to the very best he could have imagined: with this he could make his own terms, and write his own ticket—with a little care, and a little time, and only a little more luck, nothing could stop him.
(It had been a mistake to warn d’Auberon, and he regretted it now. But he would make no more such mistakes.)
In fact, the only thing that could stop him was if Raymond Galles ran out of road.
“Steady on—you’re driving like a maniac.” He realised that his body, as well as his thoughts, had been rolling madly from side to side.
“We’re still being followed. I don’t like being followed.” The time spent outside the chateau had evidently frayed the little Frenchman’s nerves.
Roche peered around him. “This isn’t the way we came. How close are we to the river?”
“We aren’t going back to the river.”
But I want to pick up my car, damn it.”
“We’re not going back there … all alone there … if what you’ve got is so important. I am to look after you, and that is what I’m doing.”
“What the hell d’you mean?”
“I mean, m’sieur, that it was unwise of you to receive that thing which you are holding … to receive it with such pleasure … in the open, for all to see.” Galles twisted the wheel savagely. “Because … if that is what you have been waiting for, then perhaps… that is what they are waiting for… I think.”
That made uncomfortable logic, because he still didn’t know for sure who they were, or why they had been waiting, even though Genghis Khan had promised to attend to them. “So what are you doing?”
“I am taking you back to the Tower, where there are other people—first… . You will be safe there … and also, in that little car of yours you would never be able to get away from anyone, if it came to that.” More irrefutable logic.
“And then?”
“And then, when it is dark, I will bring you the other car, which I have ready for you. Then you will have the necessary petrol and performance, if that is what you require.”
Roche estimated his capabilities as a getaway driver. “But you said no one loses a motor-cyclist—“
“Also by then I shall have made certain preparations …. You may rest assured that you will not be followed far. And there will be a man with you, to guide you wherever you wish to go … And there will be no motorcyclists.” Galles pronounced the last word through his teeth. “I may be getting old—and I have been careless, to my shame … but this is still my patch, m’sieur.”
Was his patch? For once Roche’s vocabulary faltered. Country—piece of land—playing-field—home-ground—stamping ground—killing-ground— burial plot—?
Madame Peyrony had said almost the same thing. But whatever the word meant, it meant the same thing: that strangers came into it at their peril, and that these strangers now were in line to discover something about les chases et gens de la Dordogne et ses pays which would never figure in any guidebook.
“He is hanging back now—I haven’t lost him, but we are getting close to the Tower, so he thinks he knows where we are going,” murmured Galles, steadied by the prospect of vengeance. “Around the next corner I will
accelerate, and then I will stop quickly and you will get out quickly, and drop down out of sight even more quickly … and then I will be gone, and he will not be quite sure whether we have not been perhaps a little clever, to deceive him, one way or the other. Because he knows now that I know he is behind me.”
“He knows?”
“Oh yes—I have played this game before, I told you—he knows! It is like the old days … so we will play a small trick on him from those days: when he turns the corner and sees neither you nor this vehicle by the roadside it is possible that he may think we have decided to make a run for it after all, eh?”
Now he sounded almost as though he was beginning to enjoy himself, thought Roche resentfully, more irritated than frightened by the unexpected requirement to take part in such cloak-and-dagger activity just when everything had at last begun to seem straightforward.
But so long as he needed the man it would be as well to humour his hankering after the excitement of the old days.
“Very well.”
“Good!” Galles dropped a gear unhurriedly as the little Citroen began to labour up the final incline on to the shoulder of the ridge. The view opened up at Roche’s elbow, across the valley to the other side, which he had first glimpsed this morning in Audley’s company; then the distant ridge opposite had risen out of the dawn mist and now it was sinking into evening blueness, with the first lights twinkling on it. It would be dark in less than an hour.
Galles turned the wheel slowly. “Be ready!”
The engine surged with a sudden burst of power just as Roche caught sight of the Tower ahead, standing alone in the open, slightly downhill to his left. It looked dark and untenanted under its conical hat of black tiles— perhaps Audley was waiting for him in the cottage—?
“Brace yourself—“ the Frenchman held the wheel tightly with both hands “—I will return in one hour—or not more than two—bonne chance, m’sieur—now!”
Roche had one hand on the door handle, with the other still clasping the brief-case to his chest, as Galles stood on his brakes. The truck’s tyres slithered on the loose gravel at the side of the narrow road, and a tree sprouting out of a tangled blackberry bush flashed past his face.
The urgency of the whole procedure, rather than the idea behind it, threw him out of the vehicle. While he was still straightening up, before he could turn to slam the door, he heard it snap shut behind him—his last impression had been of Galles reaching across after him—and the truck was moving again. He stopped thinking about it instantly, and concentrated only on making himself scarce in a few yards of ground which he had seen only once before in daylight, and never studied with that aim in view.
But Galles had known it well enough, and had allowed for that: the Tower was fifty yards away down the track, and the cottage itself another fifty or more, both in the open and too far off to be worth a second glance. But the blackberry tangle was thick and in full leaf.
Three strides forward and two—three—sideways carried him away and down from sight of the road, into the long grass behind it, in automatic obedience to instructions.
He held his breath, and for a moment heard the blood pounding in his ears … and then exhaled slowly … and heard only the already distant sound of the Citroen’s engine fading into the trees down the road, halfway to the Château Peyrony already.
There was no other sound—no other sound within miles, by the absence of sound—least of all a bloody motor-cycle making up for lost time!
Roche counted off his heart-beats, through another minute, while regaining his breath. During the minute a sound did register … of a dog barking far away, angry at something—something which was most likely a grey garagiste Citroen being driven too fast, with imaginary motor-cyclists in hot pursuit.
He sat up behind the blackberry bush, feeling more angry with himself than with Galles—if they’d given him a superannuated old fool, living in the past on memories of outsmarting the Gestapo and the Milice, then what else could he expect? He could only hope that Audley and his cronies hadn’t witnessed the whole charade.
Still no sound. He rose to his feet and brushed himself down irritably, observing that he had scuffed the knees of his clean slacks with grass stains.
Not a whisper of sound. The road was clear, and the woods on the other side of it dark and empty with that peculiar evening stillness which always presaged the awakening of the night-hunting creatures.
He sighed, and picked up the brief-case. Because of the Frenchman’s imagination he had another hour to kill—and an unnecessary hour too, in Audley’s awkward company … and Audley, being Audley, would surely want to have a look inside the case!
Well… he could kill that idea stone-dead by pulling rank—captain now, but major-to-be—because as yet Audley had no rank, he was still just a bloody civilian, nothing more.
He smiled to himself as he set off down the track. Not major-to-be, but major-never-to-be, thank God!
Also, the cottage was as dark as the Tower, even though Audley’s ugly black Morris Cowley was parked outside it. With just a bit of luck, the man would be busy making his farewells to Madame Peyrony and the girls down the road, and he wouldn’t have to bother with him at all. He would leave him high and dry, in the middle of another great British intelligence disaster—that would be good training for him, if it didn’t put him off altogether—
The sound of the motor-cycle engine shattered his rosy dream into fragments.
It swung him round in disbelief, like a hand on his shoulder, and the dream-fragments flew together again into nightmare as he saw men behind him on the road, which had been empty a few seconds before—
The disbelief and the nightmare became real instantaneously as the sight-line between them met, and they saw that he had seen them.
He was right alongside the Tower, where the stone steps leading up to the door met the track, and the door itself—the heavy oak door—stood invitingly ajar, offering him protection as nothing else did, beyond any second thought.
His feet took off, every muscle and sinew springing them so that he hit the door with his shoulder to burst it inwards as though it had been closed against it—
The door crashed back into darkness—not quite darkness, but yellow light— faces and people and yellow light and darkness, which registered for an instant, utterly confused, and then exploded into a chaos of ear-splitting noise—and he was falling into the chaos, with something soft under him—
—yellow light flared up, screaming at him—and the thing under him was no longer soft, it was insanely alive, with its sharp nails raking his face across forehead and cheek, and nails then turning into fingers grabbing at his throat—
—the light and the noises meant nothing any more—the fingers were digging into him, sickening him with unexpected pain—
—he swept them aside—they were feeble, compared with his pain—and caught his own fingers into hair, twining them in it as he smashed the thing now in his hands on to the floor again and again—again and again and again— until there was a different feel about it, and the pain had gone from his neck, and what was under him was soft and boneless again—
Words came into his head, through his own shuddering breath—
“The bolts—bolt the door!” The hoarse cry was cut off by a tremendous crash just behind him somewhere.
“I’ve done it!” Another voice—a boy’s voice, shrill with fear, answered.
“Get away from it, Jilly—get away from it!”
The light wasn’t light—it was orange fire flaring up from the floor, from the ruin of a lamp—fire and acrid smoke swirling up, lighting and obscuring at the same time.
Another crash behind him—
“Get away from the door!” The voice lifted. “Now!”
Another crash. Then a pause, and a sharp crack-crack-crack—
“Yes, David…”
The name roused Roche. “What?”
“Roche?”
Roche’s scattered senses
came back to him. “Audley?”
“Mike?” The vague presence behind the voice and the smoke and flame rose up into the semblance of a man crunching something broken under his feet. “Mike?”
“God damn—aw, shit—God damn—“ the voice trailed off into a mixture of exasperation and anguish, unintelligibly.
“Lexy?”
Roche looked down at what lay beneath him, in sudden horror.
The flames illuminated a strange dark face, open-mouthed, eyes open but rolled back, with his fingers still entwined in the long black hair.
“Lexy?” said Audley again.
Another crash at the door—
“Don’t worry about that—it’ll take more than muscle to move it . .” Audley’s voice levelled “… and bullets.”
Crack-crack-crack—the three paper-bags exploded again, the last one metallically, as though soft steel had splayed out against hard iron.
Roche pulled his hands away in horror from the thing he was still holding, the hair dragging at his fingers before it released them.
“You better do something about that goddamn lamp—or we’ll choke if we don’t burn,” said the American thickly.
“Put the carpet on it,” ordered Audley. “I’ll get my torch—put the carpet on it, Mike!”
“Put the fucking carpet on it yourself—“ the American’s voice cracked. “—I’m hit—I’m hit, God damn it!”
“You’re hit?”
“Christ, man! He squeezed off half his magazine—where the hell d’you think it went?” The voice came back, this time with the anger momentarily blotting out the pain. “Jesus Christ!”
“Roche!” Audley dismissed his friend from the reckoning.
But Roche was already moving—as much to get away from the thing underneath him: if he smothered the flames then he would smother the sight of that also.
The centre of the room was a shambles— the whole room was a shambles, with the human beings in it thrown to the wall by the sudden explosion of fire and violence. But he could see, by the flames themselves, that the lamp had fallen off the carpet on to the floorboards, spreading fire around it.
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