“I’ll take you,” Jennie said. “We’ll have fun.”
“It’s not the same,” Ariel said, and then Crocker was out of the room, out of earshot.
The guilt dogged him all the way to London.
Ronald Hodgson was at Duty Ops when Crocker entered the Operations Room, supervising a skeletal staff, as appropriate for a weekend without a major operation in the offing. Crocker thought he did an admirable job of concealing his surprise.
“D-Ops on the floor,” Ron declared when he’d recovered, then added, to Crocker, “Didn’t expect you to be coming in today, sir.”
“No,” Crocker agreed, taking a position beside the Duty Ops Desk so he could survey the plasma wall. Lankford’s job in Morocco was posted on the map, with a callout designating the operation as “Bowfiddle,” and a notation reading, “Running—Joint.” Otherwise, there was nothing of immediate interest. Two other minor operations, one in Argentina, surveillance for the MOD, the other in Gibraltar.
Crocker stuck a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, called out to Alexis Ferguson at the MCO Desk. “Have we seen an exchange of signals with Tashkent Station in the last twenty-four hours? Anything at all?”
Alexis tapped her keyboard, quickly bringing up the log, scanning the entries. She was tall and quite thin, with a crown of short black hair, and she had to bend to peer at her monitor. “One exchange, sir, initiated nineteen-twenty-seven hours last night, London to Tashkent, with a reply logged as of oh-thirty-three, local.”
“Whose office initiated the communication?”
“The Deputy Chief, sir. Response by Station Number One, Craig Gillard.”
Crocker scowled, shook his head. Alison Gordon-Palmer had left the building before him the previous night. Unless she’d turned around and come back—which was entirely possible—the inquiry hadn’t been from her office. More to the point, if she was as deep into Sir Walter Seccombe’s pocket as Crocker was now beginning to suspect, she wouldn’t have risked tipping Chace’s run. Which meant that, while the communication appeared to have been initiated by the DC, it most likely hadn’t been.
Which left only two others who could make it look like the communication had come from the DC. Either D-Int, or C.
And Crocker couldn’t imagine why Simon Rayburn would want to hide any communication with a Station, let alone a communication to Tashkent, something he had both the authority and right to do whenever it suited him.
Which left C.
“We have a copy?” Crocker asked.
Alexis began tapping at her console again, then paused. After a moment, she resumed typing, faster, then paused again.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, slowly. “I can’t find a copy.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not here. It may have been purged to the server already.”
I doubt that, Crocker thought. “Who had MCO before you came on shift, Lex?”
“William Teagle, sir. He’s forty-eight hours off, due back Monday morning.”
Crocker turned back to Ron. “Is C in the building?”
One of the phones in the bank at the Duty Ops Desk began ringing, and Ron moved to answer it, saying, “I believe so, sir, yes.”
Crocker grunted, tapping the edge of his cigarette into the ashtray at Ron’s desk, waiting for him to finish with the call. Ron listened, murmured an assent, then hung up.
“C most definitely is in the building, sir,” Ron told him. “He’d like you to join him in his office, in fact.”
“Bloody hell,” was the only thing Crocker could think to say.
In almost every instance prior, Crocker had entered Barclay’s territory to find the other man firmly entrenched, either reigning from behind his desk or in the sitting area, where he would occupy the largest of the leather upholstered chairs arrayed around the coffee table. Barclay, like Crocker, like Seccombe, like Gordon-Palmer, like a thousand others throughout Whitehall, understood the power of the Desk, and the etiquette surrounding its use. Meet an underling while sitting behind it, you demonstrated your superiority in the chain of command; decline to stand upon receiving a guest, you indicated displeasure, or possibly even contempt; rise and move around it to greet, perhaps going so far as to offer a hand for the shaking, you declared anything from camaraderie to gratitude to friendship.
The etiquette of the desk, the ways it could be used, even abused, were legion. Crocker had sometimes thought, in his lighter moments, that the FCO and the Home Office could collaborate on a joint publication to be delivered to all senior civil servants. Your Desk and You: Strategies in Management, or something along those lines.
In the imagined publication, Crocker always imagined Barclay writing the foreword.
Entering the office on this Saturday morning, though, Crocker wondered if a new chapter mightn’t be in order. Sir Frances Barclay wasn’t behind the desk. He was waiting in front of it.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Crocker said.
Barclay nodded, then gestured vaguely in the direction of the sitting area. Instead of preceding Crocker, he followed. He even went so far as to remain standing until after Crocker had taken a seat on the couch.
“None of my PAs are in, I’m afraid,” Barclay said. “Else I’d offer you something.”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“I suppose we could have a drink from the bar, though it seems early yet.”
“A touch, yes.”
“Well, then,” Barclay said, and stood for a moment longer before almost reluctantly taking his customary seat. He positioned himself sitting on the edge, leaning forward. He adjusted his eyeglasses, then exhaled, resolving himself. “I assume you know that Daniel called your home, and spoke to your wife.”
“You didn’t believe my daughter had broken her leg.”
“It isn’t beyond you to employ your family in a deception.”
“Why would I deceive you?”
Barclay made a single noise, the start of an abortive laugh. “Paul, I don’t think that really deserves a response.”
“Perhaps I should rephrase, then, sir. What would I be deceiving you about this time?”
“I don’t know,” Barclay replied, suddenly frank. “But I do know you’ve been to see the PUS at the FCO twice in the past week. And I know that when I make inquiries into the purpose of those visits, the answers I receive are, at best, evasive.”
“It’s as I told you before, sir. Sir Walter has been soliciting my input regarding the fiasco in KL.”
“I don’t believe you.” Barclay finally leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together, setting his hands in his lap. He looked at Crocker. “And unfortunately, I seem to have no way to compel the truth from you, considering that you’ve little over a week left in this job.”
Crocker didn’t respond.
“You have no interest in the position in Washington?” Barclay asked.
Crocker considered his possible answers, then decided to go with brutal honesty. “None at all, sir.”
“Then I suppose the only real thing I can offer you is your job, and my promise that you will keep it if you bring me into your confidence.”
That was unexpected, and Crocker did his best to keep the fact from his face, but it answered, finally, the questions he’d been wrestling with ever since meeting with Seale in Hyde Park. For the first time, he felt confident he knew what this was about, if not in specifics, at least in generalities. Something had happened in the last five days to put Barclay not only on the defensive, but under siege. Something that he could not easily avoid or redress.
Something that threatened his career the same way, five days prior, he had threatened Crocker’s.