There was a long silence. In the back of the car, Maxim took out his pack of cigarettes and looked at them. Although they were an unfamiliar brand, all the routine motions of shaking one loose and putting it in his mouth seemed totally natural. Could he really have become a smoker again after just one cigarette? No, he couldn't, because he still didn't have a light.
Clare Hall said: "What do you suggest I do?"
"Get out of town," Agnes said crisply. "Stay at some motel, or with a friend, not a relative. And then contact the FBI, I'll back you up, talk to them myself."
Agnes was putting herself out on a limb. Whatever else the FBI said, it was going to say Why didn't you come to us first? Because, Maxim realised, I insisted on going to St Louis for the CCOAC list…
"All right," Clare Hall said. "But I have to stop by my house and pack some things and pick up my car."
"Yees," Agnes agreed reluctantly. "We may still be ahead of them. They don't give their field men muchscope. On something like this, they'd have to check back up the line, it could be as far as Moscow, before they move… Harry, will you drive?"
That wasn't to save any masculine pride: she was a better driver than he was, and both knew it. But she wanted to look around, watch for reactions in parked cars that they passed. Unfamiliar with American cars, he got started with a thump from the transmission and a delayed surge of acceleration from the automatic gearbox.
"You introduced him as Alan," Clare Hall said, "and now you call him Harry."
"What are names in our trade?"
"I'd like to know that you're good at your trade. I haven't seen much sign of it yet."
"Just stay alive and you may prove something yet."
Maxim took a corner with a sudden tilt, betrayed by the power steering and soft springing. "Sorry… But taking up that point, do you have a gun in the house?"
"I could have," Clare Hall said cautiously.
"A hand gun?"
"Yes."
"Can I borrow it, at least as long as we're with you?"
"You mean you aren't even armed?"
Agnes said: "Your Constitution doesn't say anything about the right of foreigners to bear arms. Is this your street? Circle the block, Harry."
Apart from the central few blocks where the offices, shops and banks stood shoulder to shoulder, Matson was lavishly-Americanly-widespread. The most modest white frame house had, to Maxim's eye, an absurdly large amount of lawn, dotted with bushes and full-grown trees that towered over them. Perhaps it was because the land was so abundant that nobody had put in fences, hedges or walls, as the British would have done immediately to define their territory.
What had been the rector's house was a two-storey wooden building with gables that stuck out at each side under steep roofs, and a long porch with wooden columns.
"I can't see anything," Agnes said. "Back into the driveway."
In reverse, the car felt like an Army truck, but Maxim got it on to the concrete without scraping the big trees that shaded the house. He took Clare Hall's keys and Agnes moved into the driving seat while he ran, literally ran, through the house. Then he called them in.
"First, could I have that gun?"
It was a Walther 9mm, undoubtedly 'liberated' some time in the war, but still in good condition unless it was one made by slave labour, when grains of sand were said to have been added to increase the wear and tear. No, Maxim thought: if Tatham decided to bring this one home, it would be good. He'd know. There was a sealed box of ammunition dated fifteen years ago. He broke it open, loaded the gun, and felt better.
While Clare Hall packed upstairs, Agnes watched the street through the net curtains of the living-room.
"What do we do now?" Maxim asked quietly.
"Tag along with her as far as we can. She's got to get in touch with her father, if he is still alive. I don't know if there'll be a way I can look over her shoulder, but…"
The room still had a heavy, masculine feel to it, lined with old books and formal photographs. Maxim scanned them, but he didn't really expect Tatham to have been fool enough to cover his wall with pictures of the Crocus List recruits.
"D'you think Magill knew Tatham's body was never found?" he asked.
"Another little thing he didn't tell us. The whole Company must have known-but what should they do? There's no point in trying to track him down if they want to forget he ever worked for them. Can you see anywhere she keeps business papers? Here, you watch for a moment."
Glancing over his shoulder, Maxim saw her fiddling at the lock on a bureau drawer. Boards still creaked upstairs as Clare Hall moved about. Outside, the street was empty, and looked as if that was usual. Setting up a surveillance in such a place would be ridiculous: it was a lace-curtain neighbourhood, and behind every curtain was an old couple with nothing better to do than watch what everybody else did. In that, if not much else, Matson was international. Of course, if you were police or FBI you'dflash a badge and join the old lady behind her curtains with your binoculars.
And if you were somebody else you'd flash a gun and end up in thesaméplace: it was a common terrorist tactic to take a family hostage and do their killing from that temporary base. They knew better than to look obvious sitting in parked cars, and probably Moscow knew as much, too. The street still looked empty, and very menacing.
He heard Clare Hall coming downstairs, was aware of Agnes hurriedly stuffing paper into her bag and sliding the bureau drawer gently shut. He beckoned Clare over.
"There's a pickup truck, parked round the side of that house nearly opposite. Do you recognise it? Don't touch the curtain."
Agnes was suddenly at his other shoulder. Clare said: "That's the Gleissner house, they maybe have the decorators in."
"It's parked facing out," Agnes whispered. "Most people drive straight in: we backed in for a fast getaway. Give them a call, please."
Clare Hall punched a number on the telephone and listened. "They don't answer."
"Try once more, just in case it was a wrong number."
There was still no answer. Agnes said: "I think it would be best if you called the police and said there was something suspicious going on."
"Send some poor deputy up against Moscow Centre?"
Agnes and Maxim glanced at each other. They certainly didn't want a dead policeman to explain away. "I could talk to him before he came over," Agnes said thoughtfully, "tell him what's going on.,."
"You'regoing on," Clare Hall said. "You brought them here-now you get me out of this."
"In a way, it was your father who brought them here. Harry: what d'you think they're going to do?"
Maxim shrugged. "I assume they'd rather catch us on some lonely road, but do they think that truck can outrun your car?"
"Yes," Agnes said. "Those trucks have damn big engines, and with no load in the back… Yes, they'dthink they could catch my Snailsprint Special. They could, too." Instinctively, Agnes had chosen an innocuous low-powered model at Chicago airport. She was regretting it now.
"We can just wait here for them, then," Maxim said.
"They could walkin here," Clare Hall said.
"I wouldn't mind them trying to get close."
"Harry, could we try and settle something without a shoot-out for once? We'll be here for ever explaining why we're here. And God knows what the embassy…"
Maxim looked impassive. Clare Hall said: "My car's faster than yours. We can get through to the garage without them seeing, then unlatch the doors and crash out while-"
"No," Agnes said firmly.
"My God," Clare Hall said, "we can just walk out the back door and keep this house between us and the Gleissner house until-"