"That still doesn't tell us who the Brit is-and before you start, he's too old to be their love-child. Cleanse your thoughts and start again."
"What else do you know about your American?"
"Nothing much… he wrote a couple of books."
"What sort of books?"
"One was a polemic on banking practice, by the title, and the other was about the Red Menace. "
"What does your Englishwoman do-since the war?"
With a shiver at talking of Miss Tuckey in the present tense, George said: "Oh… gives lectures, writes books-"
"Writes books."
' "Everybody writes books, these days… " George let his voice trail away. Keyserlinghad been anti-Communist: Dorothy Tuckey's work on Resistance techniques-seen as a future need-were anti-Communist. So perhaps the photograph was one writer paying homage to another whom he admired? "It still doesn't tell us who the Brit was."
"Another banker? Or another author-no, there isn't one on the list… Or a publisher? There's one of them. Could that be the missing link?"
"Most publishers look like missing links… But no jumping to conclusions. First we have to know who published Miss… Library."
One advantage of London clubs is that at least the older ones maintain good libraries that stay open after the public ones are closed. Miss Tuckey's works had been rather specialised, however, so it was only in the third of George's haunts that they found a couple of her books. The earlier had been published by the Parados Press and printed by Arthur Fluke amp; Son, Worcester.
"By God," George whispered-the particular library had that leather-bound and unread atmosphere-"I do think we've found him."
According to Annette's notes, Julian Fluke from the CCOAC list had spent a couple of years with a London publisher before joining the family printing firm in Worcester, where he had soon started a small imprint of his own. The books had been marketed through a bigger publisher: that, George knew already, was not rare and even today needed relatively little capital-particularly when you owned a printing works already.
"Isn't Parados some sort of fort?" Annette murmured.
"It's a bit of a fort, the wall you build to stop yourself getting shot in the back. Ha!" Such a name was no coincidence. Parados had specialised in Resistance memoirs and some crusading religious works. But it had published no books since 1970. Shortly afterwards, Julian Fluke had left the family firm and gone to. work for HMSO Press, the government printing works in Edinburgh. The latest Whitaker's Almanack showed that he was now Deputy Controller, Classified Printing.
George shook his head in slow admiration. After the CCOAC conference there had been two years spent winding down Parados Press-which could have made Fluke too overtly an activist figure-then the retreat to Edinburgh and the gradual penetration of the government institution he would understand best. Now, just about every secret government paper that needed printing would pass under his nose. A true position of trust-and in one way, Fluke's loyalty ran deeper than anybody had guessed.
34
They left Gulev's car at a shopping mall on the outskirts of St Louis and got a cab out to the airport. They were back at the Washington embassy around dinner time, but the messages had got there sooner. Those were stacked in order of time and mounting hysteria on Agnes's desk. She flicked wearily through them, then reached for the phone. "They certainly traced my car… Hello?"
Maxim could hear the operator's anguished squawk.
"Never mind that," Agnes said firmly. "I'm not at home to anybody except London, but you can tell Colonel Lomax and Mr Giles that I'm back." She put the phone down. "Giles does the same job for the Other Mob, Six. You probably haven't met him."
She took the cover off a portable typewriter and began to type in expert bursts; Maxim remembered her undercover two years as a secretary. He lit a cigarette and slumped in a corner chair. Without looking up, she said: "You're getting the habit again fast. "
Maxim looked at the cigarette in his hand. "Funny. I thought I'd be fireproof after eight years."
"You'll fail your next Combat Fitness Test and then what?"
"Not quite the most pressing of my problems."
"No… light me one, would you?"
He put it in her mouth. "Report?"
"I seem already to have reported to Moscow," she said sourly. "It's about time London got a few words as well."
They could identify Lomax's urgent Rifle Brigade stride in the corridor well before he slammed through the door. "Good God, Agnes, what did you-and you!" He suddenly saw Maxim. "I told you specificallynot to-have you been in Illinois as well? I should have guessed. You canhave no idea of what we-By God, you'll stir up a rerun of the War of 1812 any moment now."
"Jerry," Agnes said wearily, "turn down the heat and come off the boil. I'll have something for you in a minute."
Lomax gave her a vicious glare and subsided in another corner. Just as Agnes finished, Giles came in, tall and aristocratic in evening dress, having been called away from some function. He had almost no hair and a permanently amused expression.
"My dear Agnes, youhave been enjoying yourself -except for your poor eye. What happened there? You've even got Charlie's Indians speaking to me again, although I won't pass on what they're saying. It seems they'd arranged in Matson to be tipped off if Arnold Tatham's daughter did anything newsworthy, and I suppose getting burnt to death counts as news even in these days. And would this gentleman be Major Maxim? Yes, I've heard of you. Delighted. Edwin Giles." They shook hands.
Agnes handed over her report. "Once encyphered, I shall send that Flash to Snuffbox, recommending a very limited initial distribution."
Giles disentangled a pair of gold-rimmed half-eyes from the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and perched on the corner of her desk to read it through. Lomax bounced up to try and peer over his shoulder; Giles simply handed him each sheet as he finished it, and at the end waited with his indecipherable smile unchanged.
Lomax said: "This appears to be the work of a diseased mind."
"Two diseased minds, actually," Giles pointed out. "Assuming that Major Maxim endorses it. You do? Thank you."
"We can't let this be signalled," Lomax said.
"I doubt we can stop it. Not short of eliminating Agnes and the Major and burying them under the magnolias. And given their advantage in years, and the tendency to activism revealed in that document, I'm not sure I'd choose to join you in that. We could, however, send our own telegrams expressing our own views."
"My own view is quite clear: fantasy."
"Not all of it, Jerry: by no means all. Taking just today's events, there seems to have been more going on in Matson, Illinois, than even our two young friends here could have achieved unaided. An elderly couple held up in their own house, bullet holes in Mrs Hall's car, a silenced machine-gun in the burnt-out truck beside its burnt-out passenger… How do we explain those away? Charlie's Indians seem to accept a Moscow factor, and while they can't officially act in their own country, the FBI isn't going to be caught not seeing Red when Charlie does."
"That's not my business-"
"Exactly…"
"-but now I've read this, I have to send something. "
"Then why not send Major Maxim? Put him on the first available seat to London, tonight if possible. I have no doubt that the Ambassador will authorise whatever it costs. Most willingly. "
"Damn it, I probably should send him back to Illinois…"
"But Illinois hasn't asked for him. Only for our Agnes, who has diplomatic immunity, unless the Ambassador chooses to waive it. I've seen nothing public nor private to suggest they know she had a male accomplice (forgive me) let alone who he is. Is your name on record out there, Major?"