"You didn't have to. Look, I need Craig, d'you see?" "I do indeed." "Is it safe to use him?"
"For a while, yes, if you must," said Sir Matthew. "He's good at it, you know, and he's still got it under control."
"And one day he won't?"
"That's very possible. He's no longer aware of his love-hatred for killing, but it's stronger than ever. One day he won't wait for you to find his targets."
"How long?"
"He'd better see me in three months," said Sir Matthew, and stalked to the door, then he turned around. Loomis was surprised to see that his face expressed emotion. The emotion was malice.
"I should make a note of it, Loomis," said Sir Matthew. "One fact is overwhelmingly clear. Once Craig rejects your authority, his first target is obvious."
"Who?" Loomis asked.
"You," said Chinn.
* * *
Mrs. McNab brought in more newspapers, and Craig groaned aloud. The room held a couple of thousand already.
"These are the last," said Mrs. McNab. Craig grunted. "Any orders, sir?"
"Keep reading," said Craig.
If Mrs. McNab had not been a lady, she would have groaned too.
They were looking for news items on Russia: copy that knocked the country. Vanishing Sputniks, failure of five-year plans, plane crashes, the defeat of Moscow Dynamo, reputed sex changes in Russian women athletes. Anything that made Russia look bad. There was plenty of it. Craig and Mrs. McNab read of riots in Azerbaijan, attempted kidnapping of defecting diplomats in Sydney, denunciations of poets in Leningrad, towns that changed their names as one after the other of the giant idols—Trotsky, Kamenev, Stalin, Khrushchev—crashed. Carefully they noted the date and the edition of each paper that ran each story. Russian claims to have invented everything from the telephone to the airplane; political theorizing that ruined a wheat crop; drunks and the jet set and the man who made a fortune bootlegging the records of Louis Armstrong, until long before the end it seemed to Craig that only two kinds of people existed: the Russians, who did stupid things, and the rest of the world, who watched. Craig gathered up a pile of foolscap and went to the door.
"You needn't wait," he told Mrs. McNab. "It's almost teatime anyway."
"Very good, sir," said Mrs. McNab.
The time was 8:30. She hated him more than ever.
Loomis seemed to have devoured even more papers in even less time. The room was littered with them. He'd simply hurled them away when he'd finished with them, to make room for more. He sat now before an enormous plate on which was a roast chicken stuffed with truffles. The remains of a sole mornay had been pushed aside, a wedge of Stilton lay waiting. With it he drank a Chateau Lafite.
"I told you," he grunted. "Thinking makes me hungry. Want a drink?"
"Please," said Craig.
"Find a glass then," said Loomis.
Craig found a teacup, and Loomis shuddered.
"See a pattern?" he asked.
Craig sipped, and nodded, then looked at his sheaf of foolscap.
"Daily News, Glasgow Evening Messenger, Yorkshire Mercury, Woman's Ways, and In," he read.
"Woman's Ways? In?" asked Loomis.
"All the newspapers belong to Salvation Press," Craig said. "They do Woman's Ways, and In as well."
"In?"
"It's a groovy trend setter," Craig said ex-pressionlessly. "The mag that shows you tomorrow's world today. It doesn't like Russia either. Nor does Woman's Ways."
"You're not just a pretty face are you?" said Loomis. "That's the way I worked it out as well. Salvation Press is always first with the Russian stuff. Ahead of the Mail and Express even. And it prints stuff the others don't even bother with."
"That's right," said Craig, and drained his teacup.
"They got a tip-off," said Loomis. "They must have. There's too much coincidence, d'you see? I think that's what Calvet was on about."
"Yes," said Craig. "Nice wine, this."
Loomis grunted and pushed the bottle in-finitesimally toward Craig, who filled his cup.
"There's something else," he said. Loomis grunted again. "Salvation Press is run by a bloke called Simmons," said Craig. "C. G. Simmons. He owns Midland Television, too."
"That so?" said Loomis, and chuckled.
"He's got a daughter," Craig said. "Jane. She was with the walking party who saw Soong die."
"Bit o' luck, that," Loomis said. "Linton reckons she was sweet on you."
"You have plans for me?"
"You need a bit of a breather," said Loomis. "Country air. Wholesome food." He speared a mouthful of chicken and truffles. "Surrey. That's the place."
"Where Simmons lives?"
"Ahh," said Loomis. "Go down there and chat her up a bit. See if you can meet her pa."
"What's my cover?" Craig asked. "She knows I'm on to the Soong business."
"Foreign Office," said Loomis. "Far East Department. They had you up there in case Red China got irritated. I'll let you have the papers tomorrow." He chuckled. "Oh son," he said, "I've waited for years to see you in a bowler hat."
"I thought I was going to rob a bank," said Craig.
"That comes later," said Loomis. "When you get help."
yl'd rather pick my own," Craig said, but Loomis shook his head.
"That's out," he said. "Pity. But it'll keep anyway. This Simmons person—pretty, is she?"
"Very."
"Twenty," Loomis said. "And rich. Very rich. Only child, too. Her father dotes on her. And she's daft enough to dote on you. Use that."
"All right," said Craig.
"I give you a free hand," Loomis said. "Do what
you like, tell her what you like—only find out
where her father gets his Russian news from. And,
son, she's young, she'll be looking for glamour.
You'd better make yourself—" he sought, found,
triumphantly produced the word—"dishy." * * *
Simmons fiddled deftly with the toy theater, and the curtains parted. It was a lush and Edwardian theater, all red plush and heavy gilt. It reminded Brodski of the millionaires' whorehouse his uncle had described visiting in Moscow in 1911. Brodski's uncle had been a man who had enjoyed life to the very last. That had been in Cracow in 1946, as far as Brodski had been able to discover. An Uzbek infantryman had got him with a bayonet . . . Simmons began to arrange cutout figures on the stage: tiny nude models of women, with remarkable fidelity to detail.
Brodski asked: "Is this my new floor show?"
"Good God no," said Simmons. "It's far too good for Nuderama. This is for a party at my place."
He maneuvered the chorus line into place: eight girls in picture hats. They wore nothing except boots.
"Extraordinary how much more naked they look with their hats on," he said. Brodski sighed.
"I do not like your parties," he said.
"I do," said Simmons. "They're works of art. A chance for me to be creative. Besides, BC needs a party." Brodski still looked sullen. "Look," said Simmons, "we've done very well so far. You've had the contacts and I've had the money. The security's been just about perfect, because you've stayed here and run the club and the contacts have come to you. They come here and they get paid C.O.D.—every time. We're reliable. We pay big money for big jobs." He looked round Brodski's office. "And a strip club's been the perfect cover, so far. But we're moving on to something bigger still."
Brodski said: "I'm delighted to hear it."
"That's why Jane had to contact Soong," said Simmons. "We're going to mess up a moon shot, Brodski."
He arranged another figure in Edwardian costume in front of the chorus line.
"She should sing one of those inane music-hall songs while she strips," said Simmons.