October Men

'All of which any halfways competent political economist could tell you,' observed Audley dryly. 'And none of which was what you really wanted to know—eh?'

'It wasn't quite as simply stated as that.'

'But you wanted facts, not politics or strategy?' Audley persisted. 'You pushed him a bit?'

Narva compressed his lips, as though he had reached an awkward point in his recital of the Little Bird saga. 'The men I had sent reported back that there were no signs of any major oil strike. Rather the opposite—Xenophon was even thinking of selling its new rig and pulling out altogether.'

'Then what made you half-believe Hotzendorff?'

'There was a difference between what my experts told me and the information he supplied.'

'Namely?'

' Certainty, professore—that was the difference! My men said dummy2

nothing had been found yet— they would not say it wasn't going to be found. But these Russian reports weren't simply hypothetical, they were policy decisions founded on something that was evidently a fact, with no ifs and buts.'

'It didn't occur to you that they might be taking you for a ride, signore?' cut in Richardson. 'Because there isn't one damn bit of evidence that anyone else knew better than your chaps, you know.'

'But why should they take me for a ride, Signor—

Richardson?' said Narva. 'My success or failure is not important to them—they had no reason, they could have no reason! And I was not taken for a ride, either. That is the fact of it, is it not? We have not reached the figures that Little Bird gave me, I know. But they are going up all the time now

—already they are talking of 150 million tons a year. That is 40 per cent of European needs in 1976. And that is not being taken for a ride, signore—or if it is I would like to be taken on more such rides, I can tell you!'

Narva's vehemence, compared with his usual cool, was interesting. Hitherto only the threat to the Hotzendorff family had aroused him, with its implication of strong family feelings. To this Richardson now added the likelihood that he disliked even the suggestion that he could be deceived. Or could it be that in this one instance he had taken an uncharacteristic risk, and was sensitive about it?

That was worth pushing further—

'But what made you rely on this fellow?'

dummy2

'But I have told you! He—'

'Not Little Bird, signore. This contact of his—the Russian chappie he wouldn't tell you about. Didn't he want anything?

Did he spill the beans simply out of love for the West?'

Narva stared at him, slowly subsiding. Then he shrugged.

'There was no money in it, anyway, that I know. When I asked that same question at the beginning Hotzendorff said that no money was required. He said the deed was its own reward.'

A political protester, thought Richardson. Or a disaffected technocrat. Or an admirer of some dead poet or persecuted novelist, or even a Russian Jew. If there was anything in this version of the impossible it could be any one of those.

Audley murmured something unintelligible to himself.

'We're still straying from the point. You wanted facts and he didn't give them to you—'

'How do you know that?' interrupted Narva.

'Because you've been saying it all along.' There was a sudden nuance of weariness in Audley's voice. ''Nothing spectacular'—and the known facts were against him all the way. But you threw your money into the North Sea all the same.' Audley broke off for one moment. 'And for that he had to give you proof—just one bit of total proof.'

The two men stared at each other over the word like dogs over a buried bone. One dog knew the bone was there, because that was where he had buried it; the other dog also dummy2

knew it was there because other dogs' bones were what he lived on.

'Yes, Professore Audley—he gave me proof.'

'What proof?'

'The best proof in the world: his death.'

Not one bone, but two hundred and six of them. Tibias and fibias, big juicy thigh bones full of marrow and little crunchy finger bones. All the bones that went to make a man. So brittle that a chance blow might crack them, yet strong enough to lie in the earth for a million years.

Narva sighed. 'You are once more a good guesser, professore

— I pushed him. ... It happened that I needed a new field for investment. One inside Europe, politically stable —that was very attractive. And this was the time to start if what he was saying was the truth, before the bigger companies totally committed themselves . . . before the stampede. . . .'

Now he was explaining himself, almost justifying himself, in a way that was equally uncharacteristic. It was almost as though he regretted making good: Richardson began uncertainly to revise his earlier conclusion.

'How did he die?' Audley's harsh question interrupted the process of revision.

'How?' Narva shook his head. 'Officially—he had a heart attack. I have been able to find out no more than