‘Importance to what?’ Tom couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his voice.
‘To what I want you to do.’
A flap, Tom remembered. ‘I’m due in Athens on Friday.’
‘That’s all taken care of. Frobisher has agreed to lend you to me for the time being.’ The half-smile began to condense again. ‘He Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State said you’d be pleased—that you don’t like dealing with the Greeks.’
‘I don’t.’ Frobisher himself would not have been pleased: Jaggard would have had to pull rank to obtain that ‘agreement’. ‘But we’re going to have a problem there—’
‘Then it will be someone else’s problem.’ Jaggard sliced through his half-heated protest abruptly. ‘As of this moment your problem is Audley.’
Being sliced like that irritated Tom. ‘But there’s no one else who can deal with it as I can. It isn’t a problem of protection—it won’t be a diplomatic hit next time, it’ll be a British tourist. And it’ll be a bomb. So someone’s got to galvanize the Greeks into pre-emptive action—’ The thought of Bill Bennett arguing with Colonel Stamatopoulos through an interpreter irritated him even more ‘—
and I can do that. Because…’ He caught his big mouth too late: he was not only kicking against the cut-and-dried inevitable, he was also devaluing Bill, who was not only better than he was in Africa and Central America, but a good bloke into the bargain. But that was too complicated to explain here on the edge of Ranulf’s ditch, with the first drops of today’s rain spotting his face.
‘Because you’re the best?’ Jaggard ignored the rain.
‘Because I speak Greek.’ Bill’s solution to Anglo-Greek relations would be to restore the Elgin Marbles, as though they were the same as General Wolseley’s Benin rubbish, from West Africa.
‘Because you’re the best, Tom.’ Jaggard ignored his answer. ‘But, as it happens, this isn’t so very different from what you’re Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State accustomed to do. In fact, the only difference is that it should be easier—the protection I want.’
It was time to stop arguing—or pretending to argue, thought Tom: It was time to find out what Jaggard actually wanted. ‘But Audley’s not diplomatic—’ But there was a short answer to that, he realized ‘—not over here, in England—?’
‘I don’t want you just to protect Audley—’ Jaggard stopped suddenly, and stared at him for a moment, his spectacles rain-blurred. ‘Of course, I do want Audley protected—not just because he’s an old friend, either . Because what’s locked up inside his head is probably of more value to us than anything Jack Butler’s got in his computer records.’
That was Research and Development in a nutshell, thought Tom: the only reason it still existed was that it had its own top secrets, which it played like cards close to its chest in spite of all orders to the contrary.
‘It’s a Russian he’s meeting, Tom.’ Pause. ‘It’s a somewhat fluid situation at this moment. But you may be able to solidify it for us, is what I’m relying on.’
A Russian, thought Tom. And then… a Russian in the UK—
Jaggard had implicitly said as much, in answer to his question about Audley, after suggesting that it wasn’t so very different from what he was accustomed to do. But what did he mean by
‘solidify’? ‘A Russian diplomat?’
‘A diplomat.’ But Jaggard’s face did not confirm his words. ‘Name of Panin—Nikolai Andrievich Panin.’ He met Tom’s questioning Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State expression without any sign of surprise. ‘Professor of Scythian Studies—or maybe it’s of Scythian Archaeology, I don’t know…
But for our purposes he has diplomatic status, as an umpteenth cultural attaché, to discuss the possibility of a Scythian exhibition at the British Museum the year after next.’
‘Uh-huh?’ Even without Jaggard’s deadpan expression Tom had his own experience of certain Russian cultural attachés in the Middle East, who had looked—and behaved—as though they could have set up prehistoric exhibitions from first-hand experience. ‘Which directorate would that make him? KGB
Archaeology—is there one for that?’
Jaggard looked up at the rain-clouds above, which still couldn’t make up their minds whether to drop their full load here, where there was no shelter, or further east, where there were more people.
‘Actually, that wouldn’t be wholly inappropriate for Comrade Panin, you know.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and began to dry his spectacles. ‘He really was a professor once upon a time, and an archaeologist too.’ He held up the spectacles to the sky. ‘But he also goes back a very long way in State Security—pre-KGB, pre-MVD even… possibly NKVD, early 1940s, in the War of Liberation—God knows, perhaps even before that, for all we know.’ He settled the spectacles back on his nose and looked at Tom again. ‘That makes him even older than David Audley—his old friend David Audley.’
‘Old… friend?’ As Jaggard seemed to be waiting for him to register surprise, Tom obliged him dutifully.
‘Old acquaintance.’ Having published his libel Jaggard carefully Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State retracted it. ‘Old adversary, of course.’ He smiled at Tom. ‘David will tell you a lot about Comrade Panin, if you ask him nicely.
He’s by way of being an expert on the subject. And…’ He trailed off deliberately.
Old, thought Tom. Old adversaries—old acquaintances… old friends—old family friends… even old admirers. Maybe not quite as old as old Ranulf and his adulterine earthworks, but old, old—
‘And?’ Jaggard hadn’t come to the point yet, but was waiting to be prompted.
‘Yes. I was just thinking…’ Jaggard pretended to be just thinking a little longer ‘… if you want to know about Audley, you could do worse—a lot worse—than ask Comrade Panin. It’s quite possible that he knows more about David than we do.’
That couldn’t be the point. ‘I’m going to meet him, am I?’
‘Panin?’ Jaggard wrinkled his nose as a large rain-drop spattered on his newly-polished spectacles. ‘Oh yes… In fact, you’re going to meet both of them—and very soon, too.’ He nodded. ‘This is a time for meetings, Tom: Comrade Panin is soon to meet David Audley—by request, and with our agreement, naturally. And you are going to mind them both, when they meet. And then you are to stay with Audley, like a limpet. Because we don’t think Panin has come over here for old acquaintance’s sake. We think he wants more than that.’
Tom was aware that he’d got more than he’d bargained for in answer to a simple question, and reeled slightly under the pressure of the disorderly mob of questions which crowded his mind. But Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State better to let another simple one through, while he imposed discipline on the big ugly ones. ‘What’s my authority for this, if Audley asks?’
Jaggard looked disappointed. ‘My dear Tom—aren’t you Diplomatic Protection? Panin has diplomatic status—’
‘But I only protect our own people overseas.’ Tom shook his head, even though he knew that he was nitpicking. ‘That’s bloody thin.’
‘But your section advises the Special Branch and the Anti-Terrorist Squad.’ Jaggard shrugged. ‘Use your wits—tell him whatever you think he’ll believe, for God’s sake!’