She glanced briefly at the small, folded square of paper under the glass ashtray. Obviously, she was very curious to see what was written on it, almost curious enough to make me wait while she looked, but that would have shown a lack of self-control. The paper was there and would still be there after we'd disposed of the more intimate and urgent business of the evening. She laughed softly and came into my arms.
chapter FIFTEEN
Later, I heard her chuckle to herself, lying beside me in the rather narrow twin bed. I shifted position so I could look at her. There was still a hint of daylight in the room despite the late hour and the heavy curtains. She looked oddly pretty and girlish lying there in the dusk with her hair loose on the pillow.
"What's funny?" I asked.
"You do not act very much like a forlorn bridegroom."
"You bitch," I said fondly. "I should have strangled you while I had the chance. Anyway, I only got married. I didn't join the Boy Scouts."
"Urn," she said, unconvinced, but she didn't pursue the matter further. I heard her sigh. "it is really too bad."
"What is?"
"You know I have orders to kill you."
This was supposed to startle hell out of me. I grinned and said, "By this method? I can't think of a pleasanter way to go."
She laughed. "Oh, you are not to die until you have served us well, of course. And not at all if it interferes with more important business. But you have annoyed some of our higher people for a long time, and they would like me to dispose of you when this job is finished, if it is not too much trouble."
"And in the meantime you're telling me all about it?"
"Of course. You are not a fool; you have already considered the possibility, I am sure. So now I tell you about it with great frankness, and that makes you think I do not really mean it very much; that I am only talking to shock you. It is very good technique."
I said, "In that case, I'd better tell you that my boss has kind of hinted that it would be nice if I got rid of you, too, if it's not too inconvenient."
She smiled, and stopped smiling. She murmured, "And the terrible thing is that we will do it, will we not? No matter what has happened between us, in the end we will both try to carry out our instructions."
"That's right," I said. "What happens in bed means nothing anywhere else. It's something the suckers never remember, and people like us never forget."
"Of course." She hesitated. "Matthew-"
"Yes?"
She drew a long breath. "Never mind. Turn on the light, please. I am going to look at your piece of paper."
"Don't bother," I said. "I can tell you what it says. It's a note from a gent named Walling, to me. It says, Try Brossach, Sutherland."
"Brossach?"
"That's what it says."
"And why would this… this Walling send a note to you?"
"I never talked to him alive, except on the phone, so I can only guess. But I figure he'd spotted my predecessor, a guy going by the name of Buchanan, as an American agent. At least Walling had spotted Buchanan as a fake, and later read that he'd died mysteriously. Walling made a couple of shrewd guesses. When I called up with practically the same line, Walling jumped to the conclusion that I'd been sent to follow up the case. Just like your people figured when they saw me in London."
"And had you been sent to follow up the case?"
I grinned at her. "I told you. I just came over here on my honeymoon, nothing else. I'm strictly an innocent bystander, dragged into this mess against my will, but I can't seem to make anybody believe it." I shrugged. "Anyway, Walling was looking for help. He was scared. His partner had been run over by a truck, and his secretary had come down sick, and he had a hunch he was next, as he was. But he got the word out by Nancy Glenmore before he died." I glanced at Vadya. "And don't give me that know-nothing routine. You've been told all about Walling. And a lot about Buchanan, probably."
"Yes, that is your man who was found right up here near Ullapool."
"Correct. There's something funny about that. If they really have their headquarters in this vicinity, you wouldn't think they'd call attention to it by leaving dead bodies lying around."
"They have left other dead bodies around. With warning signs on their bodies. Not to mention people who have disappeared and never been found. There have been quite a number of those."
"But there wasn't any warning sign on Buchanan's body," I said. "That's my point. If he hadn't been found by a tweedy doctor type on vacation, who didn't like the medical aspects of what he saw, McRow's super-plague might already be loose in the land. And those other cases all happened back while McRow and his patrons were still showing us what they could do, and while their operation was small and handy enough that it could easily be moved whenever anybody got close. But I have a feeling this Scottish station is the last stop on the line. I think they're now set up for production rather than research, and they want to defend their privacy at any cost until they've stockpiled all the stuff they need to force the world to pay up, if that's really what they're after."
Vadya glanced at me sharply. "You do not think that is what they are after, Matthew?"
"Well, it's a hell of a big deal for just a spot of blackmail," I said. "They could just be spreading that notion around to keep us and McRow quiet, thinking that we know what's coming, and that we'll have plenty of time to answer their demands when they're made." I shrugged. "I don't know. In any case, if this is the critical stage of their operation, they wouldn't have let Buchanan be found anywhere close if they could have helped it. I think he just got away from them, which is encouraging. If one man can get in and out of the joint, another can. Maybe even without contracting a fatal disease." I hesitated. "There's one thing that bothers me, though. If this is Madame Ling's baby, why didn't she just haul McRow back to the land of the dragon for the final step. They'd all have been safe there."
"Safe?" Vadya laughed shortly. "That is not our information. We are told that your crazy scientist's process is not really safe anywhere. And if something should go wrong with a thing like this, Madame Ling's superiors would undoubtedly rather have it go wrong half a world away from their own sacred personages."
"Well, that makes sense," I said. There was something familiar about the scene. I seemed to be forever holding serious war councils in bed, with women I'd just made love to. Well, I couldn't think of pleasanter circumstances. I went on: "But it must be pretty tricky if they don't even want it brewing in Outer Mongolia."
Vadya said. "They are probably very much aware that they are really the last people in the world who should be meddling with biological weapons. After all, the best targets for disease in the modern world are the crowded and underprivileged populations of Asia." She frowned at the ceiling. "Brossach? It is a strange name. Where is it, darling?"
I grinned at her. "Hell, if I knew that, sweetheart, I wouldn't be confiding in you."
Her eyes narrowed quickly, and she turned her head to look at me. She started to speak, changed her mind, threw back the covers, got out of bed, and switched on the light. I watched her walk over to my coat, hanging on a straight chair. She took the maps from the inside pocket and, as an afterthought, threw the coat over her shoulders since the room was cold and she had nothing on. The effect was quite intriguing, but she made no attempt to capitalize on it. She just got the slip of paper and glanced at it to make sure I had quoted Walling's message correctly; then she spread the right map on the unused bed and started scanning it carefully.
I said, "You're wasting your time. It isn't there. I've looked. Furthermore, our research people can't seem to find it. I called them from London the other evening when I talked with Stark-you remember-and I checked with them again tonight, but they had nothing for me." That was true enough, even though it implied better communications than I'd actually been able to establish. I went on, "If they haven't been able to find it in twenty-four hours, God only knows how long it will take them. I'm guessing it's a specialized local reference of some kind, too ancient or insignificant to appear in the usual atlases or histories."