'Yes?'
'Very well! Subject— Stein, David Aaron, reserve colonel, Heil Avir Le Israel—'
Genghis Khan wasn't wasting any time.
'—formerly flight-lieutenant, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, DFC 1944; at present Fellow of Rylands College, Cambridge, university lecturer in Paleolithic Art; nothing known—'
'Nothing known?'
'—I say once—'
'But, damn it—he was flying last year—he was with the Israelis at Suez!' protested Roche.
'And I say nothing known. Ends,' snapped Genghis Khan.
' Subject, Bradford, Michael LeRoy; United States Army, 1942-46, captain 758th Combat Engineers, European theatre; visiting lecturer in English Literature and Language, Hawkins College, California; novelist; occasional script-writer, various Hollywood studios; extensive travel, Europe, Middle East, 1951 to date; known contacts CIA London, Paris, Beirut, Cairo, unconfirmed Rome, Bordeaux, Lyons.
Category 'C 1952, updated 'B' 1955. Ends.'
That was better. Or not exactly better, but more predictable.
Or, not better at all, even if Category 'B' was no more than the sum of those contacts, which could well be accidental and innocent with all the CIA agents that were in the field at any dummy5
moment, which any travelled American might make through sheer chance. In short, Bradford had been observed in doubtful company four times, and maybe seven times, over five years, but had never been known actually to do anything; but the Comrades always assumed the worst until the subject proved the opposite, which was almost impossible, short of his actually offering them his services.
But that made Colonel David Aaron Stein's nothing known all the more surprising, because nothing known meant just that. As near as dammit, Colonel David Aaron Stein must be a-political, that meant; and, for an Israeli, that sounded near impossible—
' Subject, Baker, Gillian Agnes, only daughter of Archdeacon and Mrs Wilfrid Baker, Old Sarum, Wiltshire; scholar of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; Assistant-Principal, Foreign Office. Ends.'
Nothing known didn't apply to poor Jilly—didn't and couldn't, even though they obviously didn't know anything much about her. Because with Jilly the established Soviet diplomatic analogy already applied: if she worked for the British Foreign Office she would already be guilty as charged, even if she hadn't turned up on Audley's doorstep as ordered to help Roche establish himself. He had been foolish to think they'd accept his word for her innocence.
' Subject, Champeney-Perowne, Alexandra Mary Henrietta, eldest daughter of Denzil Arthur Fitzroy Champeney-Perowne—' Genghis Khan managed the whole mouthful of dummy5
names with his accustomed lack of passion '—Tenth Earl of Cotswold, MVO, DSO, MC, MA (Cantab.); brigadier-general, retired; colonel-in-chief, Royal South Wessex Dragoons; nothing known—'
Roche grinned into the mouthpiece. Nothing known in the case of Denzil Arthur Fitzroy et cetera meant that everything was known about him, and his father, and his father's father, all the way back to the moment when the bed-springs had creaked to receive His Gracious Majesty King Charles II alongside their resourceful Champeney-Perowne ancestress, and that it was all there to see in Debrett's and Burke's Peerage and Who's Who. And the idea of Genghis Khan quoting from those seminal works was captivating.
'—and Cornelia Ashley, nee Vanderhorn, American citizen—'
Lexy's mum was a Yankee!
'—nothing known—'
Vanderhorn sounded like dollars—oil, banking, meat packing, peanuts?—dollars in exchange for the coronet of a marchioness!
'—born New Hampshire, American citizen—'
And that applied to Lexy herself: Lexy was an American citizen, by God!
'—known contact CIA London, New York, 1956. Category 'C'
1956—'
'You're joking!' exclaimed Roche.
'What?'
dummy5
'I said 'You're joking',' said Roche.
'I am not joking,' said Genghis Khan unjocularly. 'Are you requesting repetition?'
'No. I'm requesting a little bloody common-sense. Are you telling me Lex—Lady Alexandra. . . is a CIA contact?'
There was a pause. 'I am saying she is Category 'C' 1956.'
Another pause. 'What are you saying?'
Roche thought for a moment, and came to the conclusion that a doormat was what people wiped their feet on. 'I'm saying . . . I'm saying that I'm just about to make myself agreeable to Lady Alexandra Champeney-Perowne—if possible, very agreeable . . . and I suppose I'm also saying. . .
I know the CIA are good, but surely they're not that good? So what the hell are you saying, then?'
