October Men

Audley continued in a matter-of-fact voice. 'A wife and three young children. After he died they came to the West.'

Still Narva said nothing.

'It isn't easy to get out of East Germany. Especially with three young children. Not for a widow—and not for a widow in a hurry. And especially not for a widow named Hotzendorff, I'd say— wouldn't you?'

Silence.

Narva shrugged. 'But not impossible, evidently.'

'No, not impossible. The West German Government could manage it. So could the Americans, and so could we, with a bit of extra effort.'

'But you didn't?'

'None of us did, no. ... But there are four private groups who would try it if the price was right—two in East Germany and two in West. When Frau Hotzendorff came out we reckoned it had to be one of the East German groups. At the time it dummy2

hardly mattered, anyway.'

'Professore—'

'But later on we got curious, signore. And in the end I—we—

found it was one of the West German teams that did the job.

To be precise it was the Westphal Bureau.'

'West—' Richardson bit off the name so quickly that his sudden reaction almost passed unnoticed. And yet in that instant Boselli gained an equally sudden insight into the younger man's relationship with the older. A moment earlier he had been reflecting bitterly that he was the mere onlooker here, but now he knew that he was not alone; much of this was going above Richardson's head too.

'You know Joachim Westphal?' Audley cocked his head, knowingly. 'A Gehlen graduate before he went private—and Gehlen never had a better man. Very good—very reliable—

and very expensive. . . . And very choosy about his clients, so don't tell me that Hotzendorff had this all set up in advance, Signor Narva. Westphal wouldn't have touched Hotzendorff even if Hotzendorff had his sort of money, which he hadn't.'

'No . . .' Narva nodded slowly and thoughtfully. 'No, I will not insult you by arguing with you, Professore Audley. You are telling me that I arranged for the escape of Herr Hotzendorff's family from East Germany after his death?'

'Exactly that, yes.'

'But you have no proof of this, of course?'

'Westphal never reveals a client's name, as you well know—

dummy2

that's part of the deal. But I'm not concerned to prove anything, as I said before. Knowing is quite enough.'

'Knowing.' Narva chewed on the word. 'And this was my

'agreement'—Herr Hotzendorff would trade information in exchange for safety?'

'And money—and secrecy.'

'But naturally!' Narva nodded again. 'The one would be of no use to him without the others. Not with the risks he proposed to take.'

There was no argument about that, thought Boselli grimly, watching the two poker faces. By indulging in such a private deal the East German was not simply double-crossing his British paymasters by passing valuable information to a third party, but was also jeopardising their operations behind the Iron Curtain by taking on additional risks of his own.

General Montuori's sphere of activity did not extend beyond the curtain, but in broadly similar situations Boselli knew how incensed he became. And vengeful too, for his punishment, when the moment for it finally came, invariably fitted the crime. Which of course was never very difficult with double-crossers, once their original master had tumbled to them and their usefulness had ceased to protect them.

'Perhaps it is fortunate for him that he is beyond your reach,' Narva said blandly, 'if that is what you think occurred.'

Beyond everyone else's reach too. And that, no doubt, was dummy2

why Narva felt so strong: he had paid his money and had his money's worth, and the one man who might have compromised him with the British Government was safely out of the way.

Safely and conveniently. If it had been anyone else but Eugenio Narva one might be tempted to suspect that so convenient a conclusion to a politically dangerous business deal had been a little too convenient. But Narva's reputation for honourable dealing was as rock-firm as the man himself—

there Boselli disagreed with the big Englishman's character assessment even while accepting his version of the alleged

'agreement'; trust was not simply part of his stock-in-trade.

Much more simply he was a man of honour. It might be a dying breed, and it might already be dead in the Englishman's decaying island, but it was not yet extinct in Italy.

Indeed (Boselli warmed to the thought) the very fact that Narva had spared no expense to extricate Hotzendorff's family after the man's death—

The man's death! That was the point, the whole point that made the agreement doubly binding in honour for a