"I have been through the English newspaper reports," she said. "Among the people in the cafe was a girl called Jane Simmons. Her father owns newspapers. I have read some. He does not like Russia."
Chelichev smiled at her, very proudly, yet with compassion. She had done so well.
"He also has a friend called Brodski who is going to Tangier," he said. "Simmons and his daughter will go there too. They are agents of BC." He smiled again. "No one in our department told me," he said. "You are the first. I congratulate you."
"Who then?"
"Department K," he said. "I told you. They are very good. You will go to Tangier, too, and meet Brodski. He is a Pole. If you are Polish too he will love you even more. Find out all you can. I want names." She nodded. "Simmons runs the organization. Brodski is liaison officer with people in Po-
land, East Germany, and Hungary. The Chinese deal with Simmons direct. If necessary, you will bring me Simmons or Brodski alive. We must have the names of the people they hire in the next three weeks. Is that understood?"
"Yes, comrade-general."
"I will send an executive to you. He will execute the others."
"Yes, comrade-general."
"Craig will go with you also."
She looked surprised.
"Loomis insists on this. Anyway, the British are very strong in Tangier and you may need help."
"Very good, comrade-general."
"You of course will be controller. There is also the million pounds in Deutschmarks to be considered. You will steal it and destroy it."
"Destroy it?"
"It must not be used against us. By BC or anybody else."
"The British will want some."
"The British will get far more than money," Chelichev said.
"Very good, comrade-general. Will I have assistance to steal this money?"
"You will," Chelichev said. "I am also sending you a minor genius. He is emotionally unstable, as genius often is, and the executive will get rid of him after the mission. A pity in a way, his genius is unquestionable. His me'tier is theft."
* * *
It took nine days. At the end of that time Sir Matthew Chinn had lost seven pounds, and was as familiar with Craig's unconscious as with the contents of his own wardrobe. He had worried at first that Craig would resist the reintroduction of the urge to kill, but the resistance had been minimal. His craving was for orientation, a sense of purpose, and these Chinn gave him. The difficulty had been to erase the fixation that Craig developed for him almost from the beginning. But he had achieved it at last, as he had achieved an erasure of undue reliance on Hornsey. Under deep hypnosis, buried fathoms deep in the dark floor of his unconscious, Craig had acquired something else, too, something that Sir Matthew Chinn, to save his life, could not resist putting there, since to Sir Matthew the professional conscience was far more important than life. What Craig had acquired was the need to question Loomis's instructions, every time, but only to reveal that questioning when death was involved. Anybody's death, from Loomis's down.
On the tenth day Craig drove to the office and rang the bell. The porter looked at him, and even that phlegmatic man was awe-struck. From where he stood, Craig was completely unchanged. The porter remembered the soiled, naked mess under the blanket in the Lamborghini, looked at the man in the gray lightweight suit, silk shirt, Dior tie, and marveled. The Craig of that terrible night seemed never to have happened: the man was indestructible.
"Hallo, Mr. Craig," said the porter. "Feeling better?" "I'm fine," said Craig.
He walked into the hallway and heard the porter shut the door, then suddenly his body swirled like a big fish in water, his arms came up behind the other man's back, pinning him, while his thumbs pressed into the nerves on either side of his jaw. The porter tried to kick back, but the thumbs pressed in, lifting him higher, forcing aggression out of him.
"Got a new one for you," said Craig.
Loomis appeared at the head of the vast staircase.
"Oh you're back, are you?" he said, and added pettishly: "Put him down, Craig. Go and look at your correspondence, then come and see me. There's a lot to do."
Craig let the porter go, and turned the man around. The gray eyes had never given warning but now they were flat as disks. Rage, love, anger, hate: they were all gone. Burned out.
"I'll see you in the gym," said Craig. "You're getting slow." He left him then, and the caretaker thought of how carefully he'd lifted him from the Lamborghini, and regretted it. There was just no point in being nice to Craig.
Mrs. McNab thought so too. She treated Craig as she always did when he came back from a job: bade him good morning, found him coffee, waited while he read through his papers. Neither of them referred to what had happened; neither of them wanted to. Craig worked steadily, making neat notes as he went, then drank his coffee, which had cooled, and dictated rapidly and precisely for twenty minutes. Mrs. McNab's pencil flew and her mind marveled. Craig hadn't missed a trick.
When he had done Craig said: "Book me a session on the range this afternoon." Mrs. McNab made a note. "And tell the caretaker and the other chap to stand by. I'll see them in the gym at five." He stood up and stretched, and his hands were cruel.
"Tell them no beer or cigarettes until I see them."
"Very good, sir," said Mrs. McNab. There was a question in her voice.
Craig grinned. "I want them savage," he said, and made for the door. "I'm off to see Loomis— then lunch. I'll check that stuff I dictated before I go down to the range."
Then the door closed behind him, and Mrs. McNab wept softly, for perhaps five seconds, tears of frustration. One never knew how to react with Craig. He was a sort of Martian.
Loomis was as silent as Mrs. McNab about Craig's sufferings. All he said was, "Pour the coffee," then, as he sipped it, black and scalding, "Make your report."
Craig took out a tiny notebook, and began to talk, and Loomis heard of bulls and cowboys and girls—two girls in particular. Tempest and Jane made him blush; Craig talked of them as if they were theorems in geometry. He talked of his attack, and Hornsey's rescue, and there he finished. He said nothing about Sir Matthew Chinn, which was what Loomis had hoped for.
"These cowboys," he said. "Who were they?"
"Chap called Ivo Clements—a banker," said Craig. "Hamid Medani—rich young Moroccan. Son of a Rif sheikh, I would think. And the Earl of Airlie. He was the one I clobbered."
"You gave us most of that when you were delirious. We've been checking. Simmons collects men. He's had others," said Loomis. "Big men. All big. Barristers, BBC types, couple of Hungarian diplomats. A Rumanian. Greeks too." "No Yugoslavs?"
"No," said Loomis. "Tito doesn't care for him."
Craig said: "Have you been to see him?"
"We sent Linton up there. Sort of thing a policeman can get on to. Said there'd been a report of gunfire. Policemen are always nosy about gunfire."
"Well?"
"Simmons had gone away on business—his daughter wouldn't say where—and taken his valet with him. That's Zelko."
"He must have taken him in a trunk," said Craig. "Hornsey shot him dead."
"We'll get to Hornsey in a minute. Jane did the talking. Said they'd had guests for the weekend and they'd fooled about with some old TV sets—backgrounds I mean. Not receivers. They'd played at cowboys for a bit. Fired blanks. The sets had gone back to Simmons's TV company when Linton got there. She said you'd only stayed one night. She didn't know where you'd gone after that. She said you'd asked her a lot of questions and she didn't like you. . .
"Linton had a word with Ivo Clements. He didn't like you either. You're not a gentleman, d'you see. But he remembered when you left in the Lamborghini. He also remembered Hornsey asking you where you were going. You said London— and he followed you." He held up his hand as Craig tried to speak.