The Old Vengeful

have to do is imagine Winston Churchill writing to Franklin Roosevelt dummy3

in 1942 or '43 . . . Dear FDR— About the invasion of Europe, we think the Normandy Project is the one we should go for, and henceforth we'll call it Operation Overlord. Yours ever, Winston . . . Don't look so sad just because you can't run before you can walk, dear Elizabeth—it's simply that operational code-names by definition don't mean a thing, it's only project names which spill the beans. Just think what Hitler would have done if he'd picked up 'Normandy' rather than 'Overlord'—okay?'

Elizabeth could only nod, still ashamed, because getting anywhere too late was still just as bad as not getting there at all, and not boring him with lack of intelligence was all she had to offer him.

'Getting a Project Name is a very rare occurrence, like winning the pools. What's much more usual—in fact, what I've been doing the last year or two in my own specialisation

—is trying to work out in advance what the most likely projects could be, so that we can set about frustrating them.'

'How do you do that?'

He shrugged. 'How indeed! It's a bit like forecasting the future from the entrails of a sheep ... we try to identify their project planners first, and then what they specialise in. And then we postulate the information they're likely to get, and so on.'

'But this time . . . you got 'Vengeful'.' Elizabeth hadn't concentrated so hard since her viva at Oxford, when she knew she was on the borderline. 'But this time it hasn't dummy3

helped you.'

'What makes you think that, now?' He put the question casually, but she could sense the change from boredom to curiosity.

'Practically everything that's happened to me. Coming to see me was supposed to be just routine, for a start.'

'Everything is routine to start with.' He parried the truth neatly. 'Ask any policeman.'

'Researching single-ship actions of the Napoleonic War is routine? That's what policemen usually do?'

'I've done more unlikely things.' This time the teeth showed in the smile.

'I've said something that amuses you?' She didn't like that smile.

'No. I was just remembering that I once said much the same thing to David Audley, years ago—that what I was doing was an unlikely thing to do.'

'And how did he reply?'

'Oh ... he said that the past always lies in ambush for the present, waiting to get even.' The smile vanished. 'But you are right: I didn't think your Vengeful—or any of your Vengefuls—could possibly have anything to do with their

'Project Vengeful'.'

'But you do now?'

He looked at her, but not quite inscrutably. 'Now ... I also dummy3

think of everything that's happened—to both of us. And I think of Novikov . . . because Novikov is real—he's not a Napoleonic single-ship action, or a crew-member from a jolly boat—Novikov is KGB, and the KGB isn't a registered charity, or a funny set of initials to frighten the children with when they won't settle down, or any other sort of imaginary bugbear that doesn't really matter—' he caught himself as though he could hear the change in his own voice. 'You have to understand what the KGB is, Elizabeth: it's the militant arm of the Soviet State outside Soviet territory—and inside it as well, but inside doesn't concern us— here concerns us ...

and I've seen it kill here— plan to kill, and then kill someone who got in the way of the killing, without a second thought—

and that was a bloody 'project' too, which became an operation . . .' Again he caught himself, this time scrubbing his face clean before he continued. 'So you've got to watch out for yourself now. Don't depend on Audley—don't even trust me . . . Faith is quite right, we're not really trustworthy, and we're not safe to know.'

Something had changed about him. The garden, and the quiet of evening, with the smells of honeysuckle and lavender, were the same. But he was different.

'Why are you telling me this, Paul?'

'Orders, Elizabeth. 'Spill the beans', David said.'

She shook her head. 'No—why are you warning me?'

He looked at her curiously for a second, and then grimaced.

'You know too much now, Elizabeth.'

dummy3

'But you said . . . David Audley trusts me now—?'

He nodded. 'That's right. And in my experience that's a damn good reason for not trusting him, I'm sorry to say.'

VII

''HE SHOT AN arrow in the air'—or, to be exact, in the correspondence columns of The Times, which for his purposes was very much better—and it came to earth in the remarkable memory of Miss Irene Cookridge. Which was not at all what he expected, but much more rewarding,' said Audley. 'So you just read her reply for yourself, Elizabeth.'

He reached down the table towards Elizabeth, and she took the letter from him. But although she also caught Paul's eye between the silver candlesticks, with the flames sparkling on the glitter of the cutlery and glass between