October Men

'And Signor Villari?' Boselli's voice sounded stretched and thin.

The General turned slowly towards him. 'Armando didn't make it, I'm afraid.'

Boselli drew a long breath.

'I—am sorry, General.'

'Yes, so am I.' The General straightened up. 'The bullet was touching the heart. It was just too close, that's all—too close.'

'I am sorry.'

'Yes. But it was not your fault, Pietro.' The General nodded.

'Tell me, Dr. Audley—how is your wife?'

Richardson looked at the General in surprise which was instantly transformed to dismay as it dawned on him that this was no social inquiry—the unexpected question was delivered with a cold precision which altogether precluded that. So it could only mean that the Italians' patience was exhausted and that they were prepared to turn the screws as ruthlessly on Audley as he had done on Narva only a few minutes before.

'For God's sake!' Richardson snapped. 'Mrs. Audley's got nothing to do with this, General Montuori.'

'Indeed?' The General kept his eyes on Audley. 'I'd like to hear you say as much, Dr. Audley.'

dummy2

'She's—'

'Shut up, Peter,' said Audley quietly.

'Damn it, David—'

'Shut up!' Audley raised his hand. 'You tell me, General—

how is my wife?'

'I wish I knew.' The General nodded slowly at Audley. 'And I think you wish you knew too—eh?'

Richardson stared at them. 'What the hell—?'

'Calm yourself, Captain.' At last the General turned back to him. 'I think perhaps you have misunderstood me, boy.'

'I don't understand you, if that's what you mean—either of you.'

'No, I believe you don't—I really believe you don't!' The General looked at him quizzically. 'Where do you think Mrs.

Audley is at this moment?'

'In Rome. With her baby.'

'No, not in Rome, Captain. And not with her baby.' The General paused. 'We made an error, you see. After Ostia, we looked for Dr. Audley and we forgot to look for his wife. But we took it for granted that she was with him. Fortunately Boselli here had the wit to suggest that she might be engaged on some enterprise of her own when he found that she was not with him.'

'Faith—?' Richardson made no attempt to hide his disbelief.

The idea of David sending Faith on any dangerous enterprise dummy2

—and of Faith agreeing to go—was plain ridiculous. 'You must be joking!'

'No, Captain Richardson. I am not joking—even though Boselli was quite wrong, of course.'

'Quite—wrong?' Richardson stared at Boselli, whose surprise now clearly equalled his own. 'Wrong?'

'Our second mistake. No—I should say my mistake. And Dr.

Audley's in the first place, I'm afraid. To underrate the nature of the beast—'

'I made no mistake,' said Audley sharply. 'Except to assume the security of my own department—that was a mistake, I agree. But I didn't even know the beast was loose, as it happens.'

'Good God Almighty!' exclaimed Richardson as the jigsaw pieces in his mind shook out of the old ill-fitting pattern into a new and hideously better-fitting one.

David's extraordinary nervousness—his lies and his inconsistency. Even his urgent appeal Get me out of here . . .

and Richardson had let friendship and bitter embarrassment confuse him, stopping his suspicions from crystallising.

'They've taken Faith!'

Audley gave no sign that he had even heard: it was Montuori who nodded.

Richardson's brain accelerated: a kidnapping ... the oldest and crudest trick there was, although in high fashion now.

And still the cruellest and most effective trick too—in the dummy2

right circumstances.

Yet although the KGB was capable of it, the more so with someone like Ruelle at the helm of the operation, that still didn't make this thing explicable, pattern or no pattern.

'But—for God's sake, David—why? What have they got to gain?'