'A little before my time, that was.'
'A pity.' Audley chose to ignore the sarcasm. 'Garbo was a Spaniard who worked for us—for the Twenty Committee.
Masterman called him the Bradman of the double-cross world. He was a perfect genius at inventing imaginary sources of information—imaginary agents—to deceive the Germans.'
'So what?'
'So Little Bird's Russian contact, the one who passed on useless information from Western Siberia—he has the smell of Garbo about him.'
'The smell—?' Richardson screwed up his memory, trying to pinpoint the moment of falseness in Little Bird's tale.
'Garbo—'
'I—I have read about him, actually,' Richardson admitted, already regretting the sarcasm. 'But I seem to recall he passed on false information. And this certainly wasn't false—
two hundred million tons of oil a year say it isn't.'
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'I never said it was.'
'Then what are you saying, for Christ's sake?'
'I'm saying there has to be a man somewhere in the Kremlin who wanted to slip the word about the North Sea—someone high up. Why—well, maybe Neville Macready could answer that for us, but it doesn't really matter now. What matters is he wasn't a traitor. He just wanted to make sure that we kept drilling.'
'Why didn't he tell us then? Why did he tell Narva?'
'Because we would have wanted to know too much, and he didn't want to give away technological secrets. To convince us he'd have to put himself is our hands and he'd be at our mercy then. But if he could get Narva to switch his investment to the North Sea he reckoned he would tip the balance without betraying his country or risking his neck.
'But his problem was to sell the truth without the proof, and that's where Little Bird served a double purpose, poor little sod—'
A double purpose—
'—Alive he sold Narva the truth. And dead he proved it.'
Richardson saw the plot in the round at last: Little Bird had been manipulated into conning Narva with a mixture of truth and falsehood, only to be conned himself. And if that was how it was, then Comrade X was a true cold-hearted bastard, who deserved to be sold down the river in his turn.
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'The only thing that went wrong was—'
Audley stopped abruptly as a small figure burst through the French windows, skidded to a halt and stared at them in speechless surprise.
'Manfred! I told you not to run on the terrace—you will slip and then—'
The gently chiding voice tailed off as its owner appeared framed in the opening behind the little boy, to stare at them both with the same wide-spaced eyes.
Mother and son, as like as two flowers on the same stem, blue and rich honey and spun gold.
It couldn't be—and yet it ruddy well had to be, thought Richardson, seeing the evident look of recognition on the woman's face as the cornflower blue eyes settled on Audley.
Of course Richard von Hotzendorff had lost his first family in the war, and it was reasonable to expect him to have married a younger woman the second time round. But he had somehow expected a competent, muscular
'Dr. Audley!'
'Frau von Hotzendorff—I—I—regret—'
Audley had the grace to sound genuinely regretful, at least.
And with good reason, since this whole KGB scare was a dummy2
thing of his own making to twist Narva's arm . . . except perhaps if Audley failed the Bastard Ruelle might indeed turn his attentions to the Rhinemaiden.
The door opened behind them.
'Sophie, my dear—' Narva went forward quickly and embraced the woman '—it is good to see you.'
'Eugenio, I'm sorry I rushed away as we came in, but Manfred will go off to the ramparts—'
'Ah!' Narva swept Manfred into his arms, lifting him up high. The little boy's arms and legs wound round him affectionately. 'So Manfred wishes to go on sentry duty on the ramparts!'
'Uncle, there should be cannon there. Why do you not have cannon to drive away the pirates?'
'Because cannon will not deal with pirates, my love—pirates do not attack castles, they are too cowardly. To deal with pirates you put your cannon in a tall ship and you hunt them and seek them out and blow them out of the water—that is what you do with pirates— you blow them to bits!'
