"I don't know the litany," Barnett said.
"What? Oh, I see. Unfortunate image, that."
"You didn't have anything to do with the submersible blowing up this afternoon?"
"No. On my honor. I would have done my best to prevent it, had I known. The Turks are our allies for the moment. We don't do things like that for practice, you know."
"What sort of help do you need — and why should you ask me?"
"A man is to deliver some information to me later tonight. I do not altogether trust him. I would like you along to, as you might say, watch my back. As to why I asked you — well, we're in the same sort of business, really. We collect information. You merely disseminate it more broadly than I do. And, in this case, there should be a good story in it for you."
"One I can use?"
"Oh, yes. But I shall ask you to suppress some small points, such as my involvement."
"You fascinate me," Barnett said. "I assume it involves the Garrett-Harris."
"Correct."
"Excuse me for harping on this, but why can't you get help from one of your own people?"
"There is no one else within a thousand miles."
"Your embassy?"
"They know nothing of this. They would disapprove. The Foreign Office, under Mr. Gladstone, does not approve of gentlemen reading other people's mail."
"Who do you work for?"
"The Naval Intelligence Service."
"Sounds impressive."
"It's quite small and understaffed."
"Nobody," Barnett said, "has ever accused me of being a gentleman. I'm your man."
"Good." Sefton nodded his satisfaction. "I must go now. There is some other business I have to transact this evening. Can you meet me in my room at twelve o'clock?"
"Midnight it is," Barnett said cheerfully.
He spent the three hours until midnight writing the first draft of his story. There was no point in doing the rewrite until after the midnight meeting — when he might have a new end to the story.
-
It was five minutes to twelve by Barnett's pocket Ingersol when he closed his writing portfolio. He splashed some water on his face, put a fresh collar on, and slipped into his jacket. After a moment's consideration he picked up his stick and tucked it under his arm. It had no blade concealed in the shaft, but it was stout ash and would serve to turn a knife.
He walked down the hall to Lieutenant Sefton's room and tapped softly on the door. There was a brief scuffling sound from inside the room, and then silence. Barnett tapped again. The door swung open at his touch this time. The room was dark except for a reading lamp by the bed. In the yellow glow of the lamp Barnett saw Lieutenant Sefton lying supine across the coverlet. His head was off the side of the bed and blood from an open wound at the temple was spurting onto the polished wood floor.
For a moment Barnett was frozen with shock as the scene registered on his brain. Then the meaning of the still-flowing blood came through: Sefton must still be alive! Barnett pushed the door open wide and looked around. The window in the far wall was open and the blinds were swinging gently back and forth. The assailant must have made good his escape by this path, and it must have been within the past minutes, perhaps even as Barnett knocked. But it was more important now to save Sefton's life than to pursue his assailant.
Barnett rushed over to the bed and pulled Lieutenant Sefton's head gently back onto the sheet. He ripped off one of the pillowcases to make a bandage.
There was a faint scraping noise behind him. He turned…
FOUR — ODESSA
Politics is a way
of
life.
— Plutarch
The room was large. Sunlight from the two floor-length casement windows fell into a tessellated parallelogram across the marble floor, intersecting the great oak desk in the room's center, but leaving the corners in perpetual dusk. The desk and two chairs were the only furniture in the room. The polished top of the desk was bare except for an ornate baroque inkstand and a plain, leather-framed blotter. Fifteen feet off the floor, a narrow balcony ran around three of the walls. The ceiling was lost in gloom.
Moriarty sat in an absurdly short chair in front of the desk and waited. Two burly men in identical brown suits had escorted him into the room, seated him in the squat, low-backed chair, then turned on their heels and marched out, their footsteps echoing across the marble. He was left alone.
There came occasional faint scraping sounds from above, as though someone on the balcony were observing him, but he displayed no interest in the sounds and did not look up. Shortly they ceased.
When the sunlight had moved from the inkwell to the edge of the blotter a man entered through a small door in the far wall. The door was instantly closed behind him. "Sdravsoitye, Gospodine Moriarty, " he said, taking his place behind the great desk. "Kak vye pojyevoitye?" He was a slender man who looked quite young, but his face was lined with his years and what he had seen and what he had done. He wore a thin mustache which looked alien to his face, as though he had put it on for the occasion.
"Nye panyemi Po-Russkie?" the man said. "You do not speak Russian? I am sorry. My name is Zyverbine. I am in charge of the Foreign Branch of the Okhrannoye Otdelenie, the Imperial Department of State Protection. You come to us highly recommended. Would you tell me something about yourself?"
"No," Moriarty said.
There was a long pause. "No?" Zyverbine repeated.
"You already know everything you need to know about me."
Zyverbine suppressed a smile. He touched a concealed stud on the desk and the top drawer slid open. He removed a folder from the drawer. "Moriarty," he said, reading from the folder, "James Clovis. Born in 1842 in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, of Thomas Moriarty, headmaster of the Bradford School, and his wife, née Anne DeFauve, a woman of French extraction. Has an older brother, James Francis, a booking agent for the Great Central Railway, and a younger brother, James Louis, a major in the Royal Gloucestershire Foote, a regiment which has the traditional privilege of remaining covered when in the Queen's presence.
"James Moriarty — James Clovis Moriarty, that is — enrolled at the University of Aberdeen at the age of fourteen, living with an uncle in that city."
"Named?" Moriarty interrupted.
Zyverbine flipped the page and looked up, his pale blue eyes now expressionless. "Paul DeFauve," he said. "Your mother's brother. Teaches music and tunes pianos. Now living in Bath."
Moriarty laughed, which seemed to displease Zyverbine. "That is not accurate?" he demanded.
"Quite accurate," Moriarty admitted. "You have impressed me with your ability to cull the public record and make files. Now, could we get on with this?"
Zyverbine closed the file and replaced it in the drawer. "I am not altogether sure that you are the man for this job," he said.
Moriarty shrugged. "That is your affair. You paid my passage to come out here and listen. I came out here. I am prepared to listen. I am neither impressed with nor intimidated by your stage setting, but neither am I offended by it. I suppose it serves some purpose in dealing with the children that usually face you across this desk."
"Stage setting?" Zyverbine put his hands on the desk, the slender white fingers pressed into the polished wood. "What are you talking of?"
"This room," Moriarty said, waving his hand about. "The artful gloom. The vast empty space. Leaving me here alone. The noises overhead. The sawed-off legs of this chair to make me lower than you. It is all stage setting. Reading me the file to intimidate me with your wealth of sterile facts. I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed. If you have a job for me, tell me what it is, and let's get on with it."