The Crocus List - Lyall Gavin (книги онлайн бесплатно без регистрации полностью .txt) 📗

For a dazed moment Maxim was back in the desert watching Jenny die in the bomb-torn Sky van, wondering if that had really been a missile, then knowing it hadn't been, and neither had this.

"A bomb on board?" he demanded of Fluke, who was looking solemn. "A bomb? Was that your fallback? How was it fired?" He found he had the gun in his hand again.

"I was saying a prayer," Fluke said.

"For the Archbishop? I should keep it for yourself. "

"For Jim Ferrebee."

44

Since 1945 the British Army's Berlin HQ has been in the 1936 Olympic stadium offices, although they have only recently got around to renaming the entrance road Jesse Owens Avenue, after the black runner with whom Hitler refused to shake hands. It was late evening, and the table had that late evening look: a litter of coffee cups, beer cans, half-eaten sandwiches, ashtrays and papers. The General had gone and the Brigadier and some colonels and the man from the Foreign Office and the man who was supposed to be from the Foreign Office but was Intelligence… just Maxim, Gower, and a balding bespectacled Major from Int Corps.

"I thought," the Major said, "that you told the General to piss off and mind his own business very politely-"

"I didn't tell him that."

"Of course you didn't, dear boy, but that was the message you intended and certainly the one he got. Anyway, your life is going to be one mad round of generals in the next few days." He lifted a signal form off the table. "I am to deliver you to the door of a Riff-RAF Dominie coming specially into Gatow in-just about an hour. Your own private jet: somebody up there on the sixth floor likes you."

"I'm not counting on it. You got a free ride to Tyburn Tree in the good old days, too."

"I don't see what more you could have done. Stayed with the Archbishop? You'd just be spread around a crater in the Gesundbrunnenrailway yard as well-for the first time in your life, I dare say, indistinguishable from an Archbishop. Sorry: that wasn't in the best of taste. But you wouldn't have searched this Foreign Office chap'sbriefcase for a bomb, now would you? If you'd suspected him, you'd have done more than that…"

"Ishould have suspected him."

The Major cocked his head and looked at Maxim with a wry smile. "I really don't recommend a hair-shirt, old boy: not standard Army issue. Just remember that the Foreign Office in particular, and a lot of other government departments besides, have more to worry about right now than the future of one Army major. Particularly one who knows as much as you do."

Maxim nodded, numbly, and stood up. "Can I have a word with this man Fluke before I go?"

The Major slanted his eyebrows. "No rough stuff?"

"If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have done it before."

"I don't see why not, then…" He led the way. "We strip-searched him, as you suggested, and there's a guard in the room-I take your point about their predilection for suicide. D'you think you'll get anything useful?"

"Just one question."

"I can see why you'd like to take a little duty-free info back with you…" They walked across the lobby of the old Olympic offices, still with its full-frontal statue of some German runner where a military policeman positioned himself tactfully whenever an important woman visitor came calling. "You know, why don't you cross-badge to the Pansies? You seem to be doing our work for us already…"

The Intelligence Corps badge of a rose inside a wreath was widely interpreted as 'A rampant pansy resting on its laurels. '

"I'd like to try and make it at the teeth end."

"Very noble sentiment, come a war. Until then, as your experience may have taught you, Int Corps tends to get stuck with more biting than most."

Fluke's 'cell' was a spare room hastily fitted up with a cot and a large Military Police corporal. Too tired for formality, Maxim waved him out. "I'll guarantee him." He sat beside Fluke, who was stretched on the cot.

"What did the evening papers say?" Fluke asked.

"Just what you wanted: Russian missile from the East. Itseems somebody had rung the press agencies and warned about an attempt on the Archbishop-that would have been Ferrebee from the airport, I suppose. Pity it takes weeks to get a phone call across the Wall, or you could have called him and learnt I was in town; it might have saved your mate walking with a limp the rest of his life. They're fixing him up, he'll keep the leg. Yes, you got what you wanted in the papers, and tomorrow's-but after that, it all depends on me, much as anybody."

Fluke lifted himself slowly on his elbows. "Don't you want these talks on Berlin stopped?-what the Archbishop wanted?"

"I'm a soldier. I'm hired to defend a way of life, of taking decisions. I'm allowed my own opinions and my own vote, but no more. If I want more, I'm not supposed to take it… But I admit I did. My only excuse is, I didn't start it. Maybe Arnold Tatham did, but-"

"Who?"

"Tatham. The man who picked you up in St Louis. No"-Maxim shook his head wearily-"of course, he wouldn't give you his real name. But it was Arnold Tatham. Now you know. You can also know that even if the Prime Minister wants to hush you and the List up, I can still blow it."

"I doubt that would help your career."

"Seeing non-existent policemen at the Abbey hasn't helped it much, either."

"I'm sorry about that." Fluke smiled wanly. "But, you know, I do think it's all over now. What more do you want?"

"It's over when I say it's over, and I want to be quite sure the List never comes to life again. So write it down."

"Don't be ridiculous, man. Would you do that about your own colleagues in the Army?"

"I might, under the pressure I'm going to put on you. First, I can blow the whole scheme as a fake, undo everything you've done by sacrificing Barling, Ferrebee, the Archbishop and his pilot and a few others I don't think you even know about. That's One… where was I?" He shook his head with real tiredness. "Oh yes: your wife and children, of course. And Ferrebee's and that mate of yoursin hospital here. You've given me the power to sacrifice them, brand them as the wives and children of traitors and murderers, since that's what you are. And finally, I want that List to take back to London, because you are not going to sacrificeme. So write it out." He stood up. "Oh -we identified one other, by the way. "

"Who?"

Maxim shrugged. "I'm sure you'll include him, anyway."

"I must say," the Int Corps Major felt he must say, "that you sounded most convincing in there. Yes, of course I had the room wired; wouldn't you? Did you really have another name?"

Maxim nodded. "He's dead, but I don't think Fluke knows that."

"Quite splendid. Bluff from strength. It would be nice to have you among our select company."

Maxim leant against the corridor wall and scratched the badly-shaved area under his chin. "Right now, I'd settle for a nice simple World War."

"Noisy. Probably does frightful things to the roses, too. I think it's better kept to the professionals, but… Your transport for Gatow should be arriving about now, and I think Gower's got your bag somewhere…"

"When I've got that List."