Treece smiled. “You may leave that to me with full confidence, young lady. I have certain contacts in the Chaikovsky Ulitsa.” He turned again to Jones. “That’ll be transport for two, two hotel reservations — and all the rest of it.” “There’s just one more thing,” Shaw put in. “The Cane family… you’ll remember I told you they’re under threat from the KGB—”
“I was aware of that before I left London.”
“Yes, but don’t you see — now the KGB have lost me, the wife and child are in dead trouble!”
Treece said briskly, “Leave that to me too. We know exactly where they are and as soon as I get to the Embassy I’ll talk to London on the closed line. I’ll also see to it that the KGB’s satisfied as to your own disappearance, so you needn’t worry about being arrested at Bykovo. Well — anything else?” He looked from one to the other, expectantly, like a sergeant-major addressing a squad.
Shaw looked back at him steadily. Treece, he thought, had suddenly become wonderfully co-operative, even to the extent of getting Virginia into the Press party unasked. “Yes,” he said. “I’d like to know, if I may ask, why you’ve suddenly turned up in Moscow, Brigadier?”
Treece looked suddenly angry, then smiled and rasped a hand along his moustache. “I’m here,” he said, “Not to check on you, Shaw, if that’s what’s bothering you, but because I wanted to be on the spot to deal with developments as they arise, and the reason for that is the generally serious view London takes of the whole situation. However, the fact I’m here makes not the least difference. It’s still up to you. I know you won’t fail us. Oh, and by the way… officially, I’m lent to the Embassy as an extra military attache — understand?”
“I understand,” Shaw replied. “There’s just one other thing before you both go. I’d like Kosyenko’s forthcoming itinerary… in detail.”
Treece glanced at Jones. “Jones’ll hand it to you at Bykovo,” he said. “Come along, Jones. Collect what you wanted and we’ll get along to the Embassy.” Jones went over and unlocked a drawer in his desk, brought out a file, and slipped it into his briefcase. Then he nodded curtly at Shaw and departed in Treece’s wake, slamming the door behind him.
Later that morning, Virginia said, with a wicked look in her eye, “Time’s running out a little, at least till this thing’s over… but we do have until around a half after five this evening and that’s something.”
He grinned down at her. “So?”
“So last night,” she said, pouting a little, “was nice. Wasn’t it?”
“An understatement!” He reached out a hand to her and drew her down to the sofa. His hand was ruffling her hair when the telephone bell shattered the peace of the flat like a call to arms.
Twenty-four
Shaw sat up, listening to the shrilling of the bell. Virginia said anxiously, “Better let it ring, Steve.”
“No.” He reached out for the telephone. “We could miss something that way.”
“Miss what?”
“How do I know till I’ve answered it? Could be the Embassy, though I’ll admit I’d expect them to keep off the line in the circumstances.” He lifted the handpiece and put the receiver to his ear; not answering, he waited. A man’s voice asked, “Is this 46-07-23?”
Shaw stiffened and glanced at Virginia. Disguising his voice he said, “Yes, it is.”
“Who’s that speaking?”
Shaw said, “Jones here. Who’s that?” There was silence, and then a click in Shaw’s ear. Slowly he replaced his own hand-piece and turned to Virginia, frowning. “Whoever it was,” he said, “he knew damn well I wasn’t Jones.”
She looked at him, eyes wide and frightened, a hand playing with a brooch. “Was it the Embassy?” she asked.
“I doubt it!” He gave a short, hard laugh. “I could so easily be wrong, of course… but I’ve a pretty good idea who it might have been.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Wicks,” he answered tersely. “He didn’t say much, but I believe I recognized the yoke.”
“Wicks!” Virginia whistled, a low sound of astonishment. “Now, how in hell does that fit, Steve?”
He shrugged, but his face was bleak. He said, “Don’t ask me! I’ve said I could be wrong. If I’m not…” He left the rest of it unsaid. The implications were endless. Jones might be working on a line of his own; he could be in possession of more information than he’d let on to Shaw — in which case he, Shaw, wasn’t being fully trusted by someone. Or Wicks could be in a spot and ready to talk — cold feet at the last moment? But how would he know about Jones’s flat — wouldn’t he contact the Embassy direct? He would — which led to the vastly more serious aspect: the possibility had to be faced that Jones himself was involved, that he could be a double agent, part of the Conroy network. That stood out a mile, but one thing alone was reasonably certain, for what it was worth: Jones couldn’t have been expecting that call or he’d have dreamed up some excuse for getting rid of Shaw and Virginia and Treece, and for staying on in the flat to take it.
Speaking his thoughts aloud, Shaw said, “He must be on the level… otherwise he wouldn’t have risked us with the MVD in the first place. For all he could tell, one of us might have cracked under the grill and spilt the beans about the threat to Kosyenko.” He frowned. “Or is that a valid hypothesis, I wonder? Maybe it could have been safer for him that way, rather than let us get picked up and really put through it. As it was, he helped us spike their guns, didn’t he?”
Virginia said, “Could be. You going to ring the British Embassy and report this, Steve?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ll still play this my way. I’m inclined to be suspicious of telephones in this country, anyhow.”
There were no more calls after that; and though Shaw kept a discreet watch through the windows on the street below he could see no sign of anyone waiting around to tail people leaving the building. But however confident Treece might be to the contrary, Shaw knew it was only too likely that, since his disappearance the night before, the KGB would in fact be watching the airports closely.
At five-fifteen, the front-door bell rang.
Shaw went straight away to answer it, his hand grasping the Russian girl’s automatic in his pocket. When he opened the door, he found a middle-aged English driver who asked for no names but gave him a searching look and then said smartly, “The car’s waiting, sir.”
“Thank you. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”
“Very good, sir. Meanwhile I’m to hand you this.” The man reached into a pocket and drew out a bulky envelope sealed with wax. Shaw took this and the driver turned away. Shaw watched him as far as the stairs and then closed the door and went back to the drawing-room where Virginia was waiting. She looked at him quizzically and he said, “Marching orders.” He ripped the envelope open and brought out two passports, one British, the other American, and two fully authenticated Press passes, stamped by the respective Embassies and countersigned by the Russian authorities. He looked up, smiling tightly. “All set,” he said. “The plane leaves in—” he glanced at his wrist-watch. “—forty minutes. Ready?”
“When you are,” she replied quietly. “I’m glad the waiting period’s over, to tell you the truth, Steve.”
He pulled her to him and lightly kissed her hair. “So am I. We had to face it sometime. Remember, it’s touch and go, or it will be if the KGB are watching the internal flights. Treece is taking a hell of a risk for us, but the stakes are worth it. We’re the expendable ones if anything goes wrong,” he added with a touch of cynicism.