Soldier No More

There was another pause. Then 'Wait,' said Genghis Khan.

Roche waited. Category 'C' didn't mean anything, as he had already told himself. But in this instance he wanted to be sure.

The pause elongated. Obviously Genghis Khan was making further inquiries, even further afield on another phone. And the idea of Genghis Khan jumping for him fed Roche's courage and self-esteem at compound interest rates.

The phone crackled in his ear. 'We are still inquiring. Are you able to wait?'

Another nought appeared on Roche's deposit of courage.

dummy5

'For a few minutes more, maybe . . . One thing, though: do you have any idea where Audley's money comes from? He seems to be 'of independent means', as they say, but his father ... his father . . . was up to his ears in debt. So he's acquired ready cash from somewhere—and quite a lot of it.

Have you anything on that?'

This time the delay was only to be expected, since this hadn't been one of the questions on the list, and sub- stations weren't geared for this type of uncleared traffic. But if Genghis Khan was as top-brass as Roche guessed he must be, then he just might bend the rules.

'We have nothing on that.' He betrayed nothing in his voice, either. The bending was still in the balance. 'I would prefer to talk to you face-to-face on the matter.'

The idea of Genghis Khan swanning around in Raymond Galles's neck of the woods was not to Roche's taste at all.

'That might be difficult. I'm going to be pretty tied-up the next day or two. I'm not sure I can get away.'

You will get away if I require you to do so.'

Roche dug into his capital. 'I'll get away if it's safe to do so. I don't promise anything—not if you want results.'

He wished he could see Genghis Khan's face, even though there'd be no expression on it. Face-to-face was better, and in the end safer too, in spite of all the complications.

But not just now.

'Information has been received on Audley,' said Genghis dummy5

Khan out of the silence, apropos of nothing. 'Rather curious information. He's a strange man.'

You can say that again, thought Roche. 'How d'you mean?'

Sniff. And sniff, in the context of Genghis Khan, was a manifestation of extreme emotion.

'He worked for British Intelligence, from maybe 1944 to 1946. In Germany, perhaps in France, perhaps in Spain . . .

perhaps also in Greece—we are not sure. He was very young.'

'And that's strange?'

'We are being circumspect, and that makes investigation difficult, and more so with the passage of time.' Genghis Khan ignored the question. 'He left them ... it appears that he left them in anger in '46—mutual anger. We believe that he disobeyed orders. Or possibly he misinterpreted orders—

again we are not sure. We are not sure about anything.'

And they didn't like being unsure, that was for sure.

'But they surely want him back now,' Roche goaded him.

'And they tried to get him back once before, too.'

'That is correct. It was at Cambridge, in '49. We have that authenticated beyond doubt.'

There was more to it than that—and that offered a very obvious hypothesis. 'Did we approach him at Cambridge—

after he turned them down?' Roche chanced his arm. 'What happened?'

Genghis Khan chewed on the questions in silence for a time.

'It was. . .a very gentle contact. Very circumspect, you dummy5

understand.'

'Circumspect' was the in-word of the moment. But there was the minutest suggestion in that passionless voice that the very gentle circumspection of 1949 hadn't fooled David Longsdon Audley for one minute.

'Yes?' inquired Roche innocently.

'It was not successful.'

'How not successful?'

Pause. 'It was rejected.'

'He went to the police, you mean? Or the Special Branch?'

Pause. 'He threw our contact into the river, from a flat-bottomed boat.'

The 'flat-bottomed boat' added a vivid realism to Audley's rejection of the chance to join the destined conquerors of the world. Recruitment— would-be recruitment—on a punt on the Cam was an unusually imaginative