October Men

'Naturally. He's a straight shooter and I've put in a lot of sweat for him over the years, and what I was doing was giving me the shivers—I knew what the finance boys in the big companies were saying about the North Sea at the time.

They said it was only good for the fish.'

'So you asked him what he was up to.'

'Right. I flew all the way from Oslo to Naples—to his place near Positano—just to ask him whether he'd flipped his lid.

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And he hadn't.'

'What did he say?'

'He said we were on a sure thing.'

Lady Deacon said: 'And did he have his astrologer with him, Mr. Howard?'

'Not with him, ma'am. His astrologer was in Moscow.'

'Moscow?' exclaimed Richardson.'

'That is what he said, Mr. Richardson.'

'Those were his exact words?'

'Exact words?' Freisler nodded at him knowingly. 'Now that is precisely what David wished to be told. Only it was the words of this Signor Narva he desired—'

'Why surely—he said a little bird whispered in his ear. A little bird from East Berlin who had it on the highest authority in Moscow.'

Deacon said: 'Well . . . that's uncommonly interesting. But it's just as David says—there's always an unromantic reason somewhere.'

Lady Deacon said: 'What do you mean, dear?'

Deacon said: 'The Russians simply had one or two of their own men on the Phillips and the Xenophon rigs, that's all.

It's not in the least surprising. Three-quarters of the men they have over here are more concerned with industrial dummy2

espionage than political and military spying . . . and North Sea oil would overlap both of those spheres anyway. But full marks to Narva for listening in on them—that was rather bright of him.'

Ian Howard said: 'It was more than bright. It was a goddam miracle!'

David said: 'How was it a miracle, Ian?'

'Well, maybe the Russians had their chaps on those rigs, I don't know. But it doesn't matter, because I was on the job long before they were. I was on it weeks before they struck at Cod—before the Freya rig even cleared harbour. And if you can tell me how Narva's little bird in Moscow smelt oil before the guys on the spot in the North Sea did—man, I'll sign the cheques for you and you can fill the figures in yourself—'

IX

'I DON'T SUPPOSE—' Sir Frederick Clinton regarded Richardson with a faintly jaundiced eye '—you are acquainted with William Pitt's Guildhall speech after Trafalgar.'

Richardson shook his head. The temperature was perhaps slightly less arctic now he had said his piece, but that was no sure sign that a second and more uncomfortable ice age was not about to set in. He had feared the worst from the moment he had been passed straight along the line, like dummy2

some carrier of a loathsome disease whom no one else dared to handle; this was certainly not the moment to attempt to cap the bon mot which was assuredly coming.

'I was almost resolved to cast you back into the Irish darkness.' Sir Frederick lifted a hand towards the intercom.

'You arrive late here, after having contrived to offend everyone in sight, including Brigadier Stocker, who has the patience of Job. . . . Mrs. Harlin, would you be so good as to ask Neville Macready to come up here at once. And will you have the dossiers on Eugenio Narva and Richard von Hotzendorff—Hotzendorff—sent up to me, quam celerrime.

Thank you. . . . And I rather think, Peter, that you have done all this out of a certain intuitive regard—I won't say loyalty—

for David Audley. Who would be the first, incidentally, to warn you against such instincts.'

Almost resolved! Richardson sighed inwardly with relief at the benison contained in that 'almost'; he was in the clear.

'You have committed us to covering up a clear case of homicide, however justifiable. You have leaked heaven only knows what information to an outsider—a foreigner at that quam celerrime however trustworthy.'

'I didn't tell Prof. Freisler anything he didn't already know, sir,' said Richardson.

'Except now he knows that he knows it. Did it not occur to you that Sir Laurie Deacon might be a more discreet contact from a security point of view?'

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'I understood he was in Paris, lobbying the Frogs on behalf of the pro-Market boys, sir,' lied Richardson hopefully. 'In any case, David once told me Freisler has a memory like an elephant. And I rather gathered he'd helped us before.'

'Not us—just David. And under the present circumstances that is something I'd prefer not to remember. One David is enough for any organisation. . . . Indeed, the view has been canvassed that even one David is too great an extravagance.'