Terror's Cradle

Ì'm not doing anything,' I said. 'Neither co-operating nor otherwise until I know who I'

m talking to and why.'

Ì should have thought it was obvious,' he said mildly. He turned to the man with' the wavy hair. 'You told him who you are?'

`Yes, sir.'

I said, 'He says he's an official of the Ministry of Defence `So he is. Such officials do not normally disclose thei names.'

Òr authorizations?'

Ì see. Very well.' He snapped his fingers.

I saw the card briefly as it was flashed resentfully under my nose. It was headed Ministry of Defence and said the bearer was a duly authorized . . . I said, 'I have a feeling this militaristic clown and I don't speak the same language.'

`Your choice of words is offensive.'

Às F. E. Smith once said, I am trying to be offensive. He can't help it.'

The mildness was wearing thin. 'You know who I am?' Ì know your name. Alastair Wemyss. '

He sighed. 'You shouldn't know even that. However .. . all right. Mr Elliot here is an official of the National Security Agency of the US Government.'

`That's not how he introduced himself to me.

`No.' Wemyss looked at me for a moment. He was , an abstracted, scholarly man, and his dislike for his current position showed. He'd much prefer, to be back at Oxford, or out in the glowing light of Civil Service day again. 'You'd better leave us.' The DI5 man left reluctantly, badly wanting another go at me. Elliot remained. Wemyss said, 'Would you mind telling me what you know?'

`Precious little. I didn't have much chance. I was, only there thirty-six hours.'

Àll the same. If you please.'

Àlison Hay has disappeared,' I said, 'and nobody knows where to start looking for her, including me. Including Elliot, and including a Swedish police inspector called Schmid. I was trying to look.'

`You shouldn't have been there at all.'

Why not? Because you tied Scown's hands?'

He said patiently, 'In these matters it is sometimes necessary. How did you discover Miss Hay was, er, missing?' `she rang me up.'

Wemyss frowned. 'I understood she failed to get through. Elliot?'

`That's right.' Elliot was totally =emotional watching me through his shiny glasses. 'She didn't get through.'

Ì do wish you'd help voluntarily, Mr Sellers,' Wemyss said in that pained manner. Ìf I don't?'

`Let's avoid that attitude.'

I said, 'Correct me if I'm wrong. I think you've been using Alison Hay. Without her knowledge. As a result she's deep in something she can't handle and probably in very grave danger. Or even dead. Why the hell should I help you.'

`You have a duty to your country.'

`Certainly. But not to Elliot's.'

We have an alliance. You may have noticed. Your plain duty is —'

`No,' I said. 'Not that way. You tell me what this thing's about and if I can I'll help. But not if it involves further risk to Alison.'

`That decision is not yours to make.' He kept glancing past me at something and now he did it again. I turned my head. There was a clock on the wall. Ùnless we're back to the days of rack and thumbscrew it's my decision,' I said.

`Yes. Please empty your pockets.'

`You're charging me?'

Ì hope it won't be necessary, Mr Sellers, but you are impeding, quite deliberately, an important matter of state security. As you say, can't put you on the rack, even if I so wished . . Wemyss gave a thin smile. 'But I am entitled to ask to examine your effects.'

Àll right. Start with that.' I laid a none-too-clean handkerchief on the table. Then the rest : Elliot's gun; my passport, wallet, press card, money, cheque book, keys, notebook, pens, finally the layout photocopies. Elliot recovered

his gun with a long, easy arm. Wemyss picked up the passport and said, 'There is no entry relating to all this currency.'

`No.'

À technical charge, of course, but –'

I said, 'Don't threaten. I'm interested in Alison Hay. Just Alison. I don't give a damn what she was carrying and I think to make her carry it, whether she knew she was doing it or not, was bloody disgraceful. If there's some way of getting her out of whatever she's in, then I'll help. For the rest, you can get knotted!'

Ìt's a natural viewpoint,' Wemyss admitted. 'He looked up at me and then his eyes flickered past me to the clock. `But a difficult perspective for – '

I said, Ìf time's as tight as it seems to be, you're wasting quite a lot of it.'

`Perhaps.' He'd gone through most of my things and was now unfolding the photocopies.

'What are these?'

`Layouts. They're innocent enough.'

`Why did you copy them?'

`Because they were there. Because I thought they might tell me something.'

'Arid they didn't?'

`No.'

I folded my arms and decided to say no more. I knew that at least one of those layouts had been done before Alsa left Russia. She'd also brought something out and got rid of it.

' These men wanted it, whatever it was. But having got rid of the thing, Alsa was part of the past, expendable, perhaps already expended. Except that Wemyss kept watching the clock.

Wemyss glanced at me, then said to Elliot, 'Did you bring Miss Hay's belongings?'

`No.'

:Better get them sent over.'

Now Elliot glanced at the clock. 'Okay, but –' `Please be quick.'

Òkay.' Elliot moved to the telephone.

Wemyss said, (It means, Mr Sellers, that we must confide in you. At least to some extent.'

`Good.'

He shook his head. 'Hardly that. This is extremely important information.'

Ì shan't pass it on'

`No?' He shrugged a little. 'Well, perhaps you won't. Let me ask you this : why are you so sure Miss Hay was, as you put it, carrying something?'

I stared at him. 'You mean she wasn't?'

Ìt was open to question. Now I'm no longer sure there's any doubt.'

I said, 'You know it all, surely. The phone call saying she was in danger. The two alleged Frenchmen in the next hotel room who got murdered. Then she vanishes. And the business of being searched before she left Russia.'

Wemyss said, 'People are sometimes searched before they leave Russia.'

'To me it adds up.'

Ànd to me.' He gave his thin smile. 'I wish it didn't.'

Elliot replaced the phone and crossed the room towards us. `They'll try for the afternoon plane. Swedish police won't like it, though. They weren't too happy in the first place.'

Wemyss' manner changed abruptly. His, voice was suddenly crisp. 'Sit down, Sellers. And listen.'

I obeyed, watching him. The scholarly air had departed. He said, 'There is a writer in the Soviet Union whose work is disapproved by the authorities.'

I said, 'There are quite a number.'

`Please do not interrupt. This man's name is Daniel Kominsky. You know about this?'

I nodded. Kominsky was Jewish and had a daughter. He wanted to emigrate to Israel but wouldn't leave his daughter behind in Russia and his daughter was being kept there because her mother wanted her to stay. The Kominskys were divorced. A nasty tangle. The official Russian line was that Kominsky was free to go, but meanwhile he had no job in Russia and no income and survived on the charity of friends. It was rumoured that his Wife was an officer of the KGB. Nobody knew the daughter's view because she was in a training camp on the Black Sea. The Russians said she didn't want to leave her mother behind. Kominsky said she did. The story had been in and out of the newspapers for months.

Wemyss said, 'A group of Russian Jews, admirers of Kominsky, apparently decided to exert direct pressure upon the Soviet Government, other methods having failed. In spite of what you may have heard to the contrary, there are still many highly-placed Jews in the Soviet Union. What they did was to acquire a piece of important military information. They then made arrangements to take it out of the country. The plan was to inform the Soviet Government that unless Kominsky and his daughter were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, this information would be passed to the Americans. Clear so far?'