Soldier No More

'More urgently, there is an American whom you are likely to meet, by name Bradford—'

'Mike Bradford. He's staying with Audley, yes?' Roche produced a polite frown. 'A writer of some sort?'

'You've met him already?'

'No, just heard about him. He's a writer?'

'Of some sort—yes, m'sieur. And, it is thought, an agent of some sort also, of the American CIA.'

Roche deepened the frown. 'What the devil is a CIA man doing here? He can't be interested in Audley, surely?'

Galles shrugged. 'If we are interested in Audley . . .?'

'No.' Roche shook his head. But perhaps now was the time to start playing both ends against the middle. 'There's also an Israeli staying with him, an old RAF pilot—Stein. Do you know anything about him?'

'No, m'sieur. He was not mentioned. Only Bradford.'

So the British didn't know about Meriel Stephanides. If they were on to Bradford, they would not have missed her if they'd known about her, now that they'd finally got round to warning him about the opposition. But there was nothing particularly surprising about their not knowing something dummy5

that the Comrades knew only too well, he reflected sadly; and, to be fair, the Comrades hadn't performed so well either, having 'lost' Steffy until he'd given them her location, and never having properly 'found' Bradford's Category 'A'

status.

But Galles was frowning at him, as though there was something he was in two minds about saying.

'Yes, m'sieur?' he pushed the Frenchman gently.

'I don't know ...' Galles shook his head '. . . but there is one that I have—how shall I say it?—not reservations, not suspicions about. . . but . . . a feeling from the old times.'

'About Stein—the Israeli?' Roche pushed harder, and deliberately in the wrong direction. He realised that he wanted the Frenchman to say d'Auberon something-something, to save him from having to do so.

'No, m'sieur. I refer to the beautiful one, that Milady—

Mademoiselle Lexy—speaks of as 'Steffee'.'

'Meriel Stephanides?'

Galles nodded. 'Mademoiselle Stephanides—yes. But I have no reason . . . except that there is this feeling from the old times, in the war, when no reason was often good reason.'

Roche nodded back at him. 'I understand.' And bully for you, Raymond Galles! 'You know she's a Cypriot? Or Anglo-Cypriot, anyway?'

'Ah! And you have troubles in Cyprus—as we have in Algeria?'

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Roche nodded again. 'And Israeli intelligence is very strong there . . . You may be right—I'll see what Paris thinks about her. . .' He gave Galles his own version of the in-two-minds frown.

'Yes, m'sieur?' The Frenchman picked up the signal.

'I have a name for you also—and also with no reason. A French name.'

'M'sieur?'

Here I go then! 'Etienne?'

'Etienne?'

'He's a friend of Audley's, and he comes from an old local family—a distinguished family—'

Galles's eyes widened.

'—and he left the government service recently, I gather. Do you know of such a person?' Roche concentrated his soul into an expression of honest curiosity.

'But yes, m'sieur! The Vicomte Etienne!'

'The Vicomte?'

'Of the Chateau du Cingle d'Enfer—above the river, on the bend.'

Well, at least that made the identification certain: Lexy simply hadn't been able to twist her Anglo-Saxon tongue round Etienne d'Auberon du Cingle d'Enfer, and had reduced him in typical Lexy-fashion to 'Tienne!

'What d'you know about him?'

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Conflicting loyalties strove with each other in Raymond Galles's face, his sixteen-year commitment to the British against what might well be a more ancient identification with the Languedoc, which was older than either England or France, whose armies had each arrived here as foreign occupiers in their day.

'What d'you know of him?' repeated Roche patiently.

Galles shrugged. 'He was with the General during the war—

he passed through here once, in the spring of '44. . .' he ran out of steam prematurely at that point in the history of the Lord of Hell's River Bend, so far as Roche could translate Something- Something.

'He was in the Bureau Central de Renseignements—or the Organisation Civile?' prompted Roche.