Vestry maintained an uneasy silence until Colonel Cheever started to speak. Then he interrupted to say, “You might as well know, Rand. Rumor has it that Cedric Barnes once interviewed a double agent, someone working for us, who was on the verge of defecting to Moscow. This was to be the man’s swan song, his public rationale for his actions, not to be published until he was safely out of the country.”
“And-?”
“And at the last moment something changed. The double agent never defected, and Cedric Barnes kept his word. He never published the interview.”
“How long ago is this supposed to have happened?” Rand asked.
Harry Vestry shrugged. “In some versions it was 1985. Other versions have it way back in the ‘70s when Barnes was still a relatively young man. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“And yet the dozen men around this table yesterday all believe it happened. Not only that, they believe the interview still exists somewhere. Why would Barnes keep it all these years? Why not simply destroy it?”
“Unfortunately, he was a newspaperman,” the slender man answered. “I imagine he kept it all these years on the off-chance that the man might defect after all. The cold war ended, the Berlin Wall came down, and still he kept it.”
“You have no way of knowing that with any certainty,” Rand pointed out.
“Simon Spalding knows it, and he’s after the journal.”
Someone else knew it too, Rand suddenly realized. The man who had given the interview. Naturally he would have begged Barnes to destroy it after he decided to remain in England. Naturally he would know or suspect if it was still in existence. He would have been most anxious to keep it out of Spalding’s hands.
Rand found himself asking the obvious question. “Which of the club members first brought up this matter? Who was it that wanted the auction stopped?”
Colonel Cheever answered. “We’d all heard the rumors, of course. They say Barnes dropped hints himself on nights when he’d had a few too many brandies. When the auction was announced, several of us were concerned. I suppose Harry and I took the lead in it, but it was Shirley who talked it up and arranged for the meeting. He claimed to have two dozen of the old boys, but as you saw only half that number really appeared when the time came.”
“Eleven of us, really,” Vestry corrected. “Rand was an addition, you’ll remember. I’d say you and I and Shirley were the organizers. The other eight were lukewarm to the idea.”
“Could you give me a list of their names?”
“What in heaven’s name for?” Vestry still possessed the field agent’s reluctance to commit anything to paper.
“If there’s any truth to the rumors, the mysterious double agent could be retired now. He could even be a member of this club. If so, he would have been especially interested in attending your meeting yesterday.”
“Nonsense!” Cheever blustered. “I’ve known these people for most of my life. I’d vouch for any of them.”
Rand ignored him and asked Vestry, “Where can I find Shirley Watkins?”
The slim man considered his question. “If he’s not here he’s most likely at the Moon and Stars. It’s a pub down by the river, near Canary Wharf.”
* * * *
T
he two worlds of Shirley Watkins were vastly different from one another. The quiet luxury of the Old Spies Club was only some eight kilometers from the Moon and Stars Pub at Canary Wharf, but they were separated by more than distance. Once a haven for seamen off the nearby docks, now it was a meeting place for office workers from the tallest building in England. Even a recent IRA bombing had done little to frighten people out of the area. On this summer Wednesday the place was crowded and the aroma of beer mixed with a haze of cigarette smoke.
Rand spotted Shirley Watkins at once, seated in a booth with a middle-aged woman wearing too much makeup. He had on a suit and tie, and his bald bullet head seemed to reflect the overhead lights as he drank from a pint of stout. A decade or so older than the other male customers, he could still have been an executive from one of the Canary Wharf firms. When he saw Rand heading for him he told the woman, “Here’s business. I’ll talk to you later.” She gave Rand a sour look and exited the booth.
He slipped in to take her place. “I want to speak with you about the auction,” he began.
Shirley eyed him, sizing him up. “How’d you find me down here?”
“Harry Vestry said you might be at this place.”
“Yeah, Harry. I think he still spies on all of us, just to keep his hand in.”
“Did you take my advice about Magda Barnes and stay away from her?”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Whatever you say is fine with me. I was always one for obeying orders.”
Rand deliberately avoided making eye contact, fearing he might detect a touch of irony in the words. “I was talking with Vestry and the Colonel this afternoon. They told me about the rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“The interview that Barnes is supposed to have done with a double agent before he defected.”
“Yeah, that.” Shirley Watkins downed the rest of his pint. “Do you believe any of it?”
“I don’t know. I heard it for the first time about an hour ago.”
“Well, I’ve got my doubts but I’ll do whatever they want.”
Rand frowned at the words. “What do you mean by that?” he started to ask, then cut himself short. Another familiar face had just entered the Moon and Stars.
“What’s the matter, Rand?”
“That reporter Spalding just came in. He must have followed me.”
“Say the word and he’ll be feeding the fishes.”
Rand gave a dry chuckle. “Did you ever in your life really kill anyone, Shirley, or has it all been an act?”
“I’ve done my part.”
“Haven’t we all?” He slid out of the booth. “I’d better go talk to Spalding.”
* * * *
T
he columnist was nursing a half-pint, trying to avoid looking in the direction of the booth, when Rand joined him. “You’re Simon Spalding, aren’t you? I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced. I’m Jeffery Rand.”
Spalding was a slender man in his early fifties with thinning brown hair and a crooked nose that might have been broken in his youth. “Oh, yes. One of the retired spies. There are a great many of you around these days, aren’t there? You must have hated to see the cold war end.”
Rand already knew from his columns that he didn’t particularly like the man. “I retired from the Service long before the end of the cold war,” he said, and then asked, “Were you a friend of Cedric Barnes? I saw you at Sotheby’s yesterday.”
Spalding shrugged. “A fellow journalist. I was interested in what was being offered. I think I only met him once, at some awards dinner.”
“I suppose his daughter has already removed anything of special value.”
He shot Rand a glance that seemed an unspoken question. “We don’t know that. Sometimes people have clever hiding places for their valuables. They even sell fake beer cans now so you can hide your money and jewelry in the fridge.”
“Good idea, so long as the thief doesn’t have a thirst. I gather you’ll be at the auction tomorrow morning?”
“Sure. I’d like to pick up a souvenir of the old guy.”
“There are legends about him, about the stories he didn’t publish.”
Simon Spalding laughed. He was warming a little toward Rand. “We all have stories that don’t get published for one reason or another, same as you blokes. I remember back in 1981 when the Speculator took me off the European desk and gave me the column to write, I passed along some great story leads to my successor but nothing ever happened.”
“Tell me something, just between us,” Rand said with a smile. “Who are you following this evening-me or Shirley?”
“They say that man is a government-authorized assassin.”
&nbs
p; “Does he look like one?”
“Damn right he does!”
“Then he’s probably not. Not any more, certainly. He’s retired, same as the rest of us.”
A sly look came over the columnist’s face. “Member of the Old Spies Club, is he?”
“What’s that?”
“The place on St. James’s Street where you all go. That’s what they call it, don’t they? I’d do a column about it if I wasn’t afraid of getting sued.”
“Stick to the Royal Family,” Rand advised. “It’s safer.”
He moved away from the bar and headed for the door, waving goodbye to Shirley Watkins.
* * * *
R
and had to catch the early train into London for the auction the following morning. He was up before Leila because he wanted to clean and oil the little Beretta pistol he hadn’t fired in years. Just seeing him with it would have upset her, he knew. But catching sight of himself in a mirror he realized how foolish he looked. He was too old for these things. Deadly weapons were not for Sotheby’s, and certainly not for the Old Spies Club.
The first familiar face he saw as he entered the auction house and registered for his plastic paddle was Harry Vestry, standing near the door and glancing at his watch. “I was hoping you’d be here, Rand.” He glanced at the paddle. “Number 77! Sure to be lucky if you care to bid. If Cheever and Watkins get here too I’d like to position us in different parts of the hall where we can keep track of the bidding. I know it’s often impossible to identify the high bidder especially if it’s made by phone, but we can try.”
Still playing the old spy, Rand thought. “Simon Spalding is sure to be here, bidding on something. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Good! I saw him go in a few minutes ago. He took a paddle so he plans to bid.”
But when Rand entered the large high-ceilinged auction room with its twin chandeliers and rows of folding chairs, the first person he saw was Magda Barnes, immaculate in a white summer suit. “We meet again, Mr. Rand.”
“So it seems.”
“Will you be bidding on any of my father’s items?”
“I may.” He lifted number 77 and gave it a little twirl. “Good luck! You have a nice crowd.” Then he went off to find a seat.
The auction had already started and they were on the fifth item. Rand estimated there were about a hundred and fifty people in the room. Some, apparently the high bidders, were in glass booths above floor level. They seemed to be connected by telephone to their agents on the floor. Above the stage where the auctioneer stood, a large electronic sign gave the latest bids in pounds sterling, dollars, francs, yen and other currencies. As each item was announced for bidding it was shown on a turntable next to the auctioneer. Spotters along each side of the room watched for bids that the auctioneer might miss.
Rand could see that the prices were running fairly high for the antique items. Personal items and office supplies brought less, although Simon Spalding, seated a few rows ahead of Rand, paid two hundred pounds for Barnes’s old manual typewriter. Rand was surprised when Colonel Cheever suddenly appeared, raising his paddle from a back row to bid on the collection of books. The bidding was lively but Cheever finally lost out.
The canopied four-poster bed, too large for the turntable, was wheeled onto the stage. It went to a dark-complexioned man who may have been an Arab. Barnes’s writing desk fetched a good sum from a neatly dressed young couple. Finally Rand spotted Shirley seated on the aisle near the rear. He held a plastic paddle with the number 68 on it. That probably meant he’d come in before Rand, yet Harry Vestry at the door hadn’t noticed him. It signified nothing, of course. Vestry might have stopped in the men’s room for a moment.
The collection of Cedric Barnes’s own books, in various languages, was the last item to be auctioned. This time Colonel Cheever tried again, with better results. He took the lot for eleven hundred pounds.
Several of the winning bidders went to the office to settle up and claim the items if they were small enough to carry. Rand was on his way out when he ran into Simon Spalding at the St. George Street entrance. “Did you bid on anything?” the columnist asked.
“Not a thing. But I see you picked up that old typewriter.”
Spalding hefted it in its leather carrying case. “It’s worth about a tenth of what I paid, but I wanted a remembrance of the old guy. He was one of the tops in the business.”
Rand smiled in agreement. “He certainly was that.” He glanced at his watch. “Look here, Spalding, it’s nearly one o’clock. We both could stand a spot of lunch. The Old Spies Club, as you referred to it, is only a few blocks away, just across Piccadilly. Come along with me and I’ll treat you.”
Spalding quickly accepted. “That’s very generous of you, Rand. I’ll admit to being curious about the place.”
As they entered the club he suggested that Spalding might want to leave the typewriter in the checkroom, but the columnist clutched it firmly. “Oh, no! This cost me two hundred pounds and I’m hanging onto it.”
Rand chuckled and led the way into the dining room. After an exotic luncheon of roast beef and blood pudding, topped with red wine and finished off with trifle for dessert, Spalding took out a cigar and they adjourned to the gentlemen’s smoking lounge. It was deserted at this hour of the afternoon except for one man sleeping in an armchair, his bald head visible over its top. The columnist lit his cigar, offering one to Rand who declined. Then they settled back in the comfort of the overstuffed leather armchairs.
“I can see why you chaps like this place,” Spalding said. “It’s a perfect setting to wile away one’s retirement.”
Rand smiled slightly. “Now that we’re comfortable, suppose you show me the typewriter.”
“What? This thing?”
“The very same.”
“What for?”
“So I can confirm my suspicion as to the identity of the fabled double agent.”
Simon Spalding laughed. “You think this old manual typewriter of Barnes’s will tell you that?”
“I know it will, and so do you. Who ever saw a shiny plastic ribbon on a manual typewriter? They all used fabric ribbons.” He reached down and unzipped the leather carrying case. The columnist made no attempt to stop him. “It’s a bit narrower than the quarter-inch plastic ribbons that electric typewriters use. There was all this talk of a journal, but Cedric Barnes used a tape recorder for interviews, didn’t he? They even auctioned one off today.” Rand removed the ribbon from the machine. “It’s a tape, masquerading as a typewriter ribbon. The tape of Barnes’s infamous last interview with the double agent.”
“It’s going to make me a rich man,” Simon Spalding said.
“Or a dead one. Suppose I get a machine and we play this tape right now.”
“Here?”
“We’re alone except for that fellow sleeping in his chair. We won’t disturb him. Don’t you want to know the size of the fish you’ve landed?”
“I’d rather find out back in the office.”
“Funny thing,” Rand said, keeping his voice light. “You told me yesterday you only met Cedric Barnes once, at an awards dinner. But his daughter said you were at their house, back around the time of Sadat’s assassination. That would have been 1981, wouldn’t it?”
“You have a better memory for dates than I do.”
“There were rumors about Barnes’s unpublished interview with a double agent, a defector who changed his mind at the last minute. Rumors of a journal Barnes kept of the interview. Only Barnes didn’t keep journals, he used a tape recorder. One person would have known that for sure, would have known exactly what to look for among the items to be auctioned, would have spotted that recording tape disguised as a typewriter ribbon. The man Barnes interviewed, the double agent himself.”
“Damn you, Rand!”
“If I’m wrong, play the tape for me.”
Spalding’s hand came out of his pocket holding a small automatic pistol. Rand remembered his ow
n gun and wished now that he’d brought it.
“I’m a journalist, remember, not one of you spy boys!”
“You don’t look much like a journalist with that gun. I suppose the British and Russians used journalists from time to time, just as the CIA is sometimes accused of doing. Your job on the European desk was the perfect place to gather information. As for that interview, a journalist would be the most aware of a good news story, and the most likely to tell Barnes his side of the story before he defected.”
The Old Spies Club Page 2