Soldier No More

It had been a mistake to let the man live that first time, whatever the risk, thought Roche. Beyond all doubt now, the Comrades wouldn't make the same mistake twice. But there was no way of explaining it to him.

'I still think the KGB's interested in you,' he compromised, paying as much of his new debt as he dared. 'And you never know what they're up to.'

D'Auberon shook his head. 'What I know, Captain . . . they know that already—better than either of us, I fear.'

Roche felt the woods at his back. In a couple of days' time d'Auberon would come out here to admire the progress of the restoration of his 'ruined gatehouse of formidable proportions', and some sharp-eyed, telescopic- sighted hireling would put an end to that illusion. But there was nothing more he could say to prevent it, without saying too much for his own good. 'If you think so.' He turned away, wanting to reach the Citroen, yet still aware of the weight of guilt in the brief-case.

A thought surfaced, as his hand touched the door handle, turning him round to face his brother-under-the-skin for the last time—they were both just as foolish really—nothing could be more foolish than the pair of them, but he couldn't let it go at that.

'Meriel Stephanides was killed in a car crash last night,' he dummy5

threw the news across the widening distance between them.

'But it wasn't an accident—she was working for the Israelis.'

D'Auberon could bloody well make what he liked out of that.

XVII

HE FELT THE shakes coming on just as they were passing the overburdened poilu on the war memorial in the square at Laussel-Beynac, so to give his hands something to do, he made a great production of producing the key and unlocking the brief-case on his knees.

'Well. . . let's see what we've got, then!' He riffled through the thick file of official French and the thinner folder of encyphered gibberish.

'That's it!' He relocked the case. 'I didn't think he'd give it to us, but he did!'

Once he started to negotiate with the British, then they would take Galles to pieces bit by bit to reconstruct every detail of this journey, back over every word he'd said. But it didn't really matter now what they thought. Getting away was all that mattered—Genghis Khan's clever scheme had become as irrelevant as Avery's original intention. He no longer needed either of them—he was free of them both at last. All he had to do was think straight.

'Go back to the river,' he ordered Galles. 'I want to pick up my car.'

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His hands were steadier now, clasping the brief-case to his chest.

All he had to do was think straight—

Item: If d'Auberon did go to ground, after that last flurry of half-truth, then that would do no harm—it would only give him more time;

Item: If he didn't go to ground, and the Comrades did what he was pretty damn sure they would do, then so much the better—it would give him all the time in the world!

(In retrospect, he still didn't know why he'd warned d'Auberon to start running, when he didn't need to do it, and it had been against his better judgement, and he didn't owe the man a damn thing; and yet—which was even more baffling—he didn't regret doing it. . .)

But— item—why was Genghis Khan so delighted—not merely resigned, but delighted—to surrender all this to Sir Eustace Avery?

Just to get Roche in position?

Shit! The question answered itself as soon as it was asked! Of course getting Roche inside was important. But it was knowing the nature of the gift—and knowing the nature of Sir Eustace Avery, that 'great survivor'— that had delighted Genghis Khan.

The Comrades weren't giving up anything important, after all, because d'Auberon's report had effectively destroyed the dummy5

value of the Moscow source for ever—because they could never be sure that word of it hadn't been leaked to the British.

Indeed, maybe it had . . . maybe that was why Sir Eustace was so desperate to get his hands on it as his own special possession?

Because it was still vitally important to him, of all people, as the proof that in reality the Russians had made a monkey of him—and that he'd made a monkey of the Prime Minister in turn, and got a knighthood for it as a reward!

Not even a 'great survivor' could survive that, if it got into hostile hands first. But in his own hands, with time to think and plan and shift responsibility . . . that was something else . . .

Maybe he was doing the man an injustice. But it didn't matter, because his reaction would be the same, either way, given his will to survive— and that was what Genghis Khan was counting on, to give him the edge on the head of the whole Avery operation, with Roche at the heart of it to monitor progress.

It wasn't bad—it was good.

Even, it was better than good—it was getting better and better and better, right up to the very best he could have imagined: with this he could make his own terms, and write his own ticket—with a little care, and a little time, and only a dummy5

little more luck, nothing could stop him.

(It had been a mistake to warn d'Auberon, and he regretted it now. But he would make no more such