The Memory Trap

Audley held on to the stanchion which Mitchell had abandoned in moving out of his reach. What neither Butler nor Mitchell could imagine was that coming back to the sharp end was more interesting: that, however uncomfortable, it also reassured him that he was still alive, and not yet too geriatric for those duties to which he nowadays helped sentence others, for whom no scheduled flights were held, and who were not delivered to (or taken off) those flights as though they were such Very Important Persons that they didn't have to worry (or, couldn't waste time worrying?), because they were Too Important. So that now (no matter how frightened he could be if he let himself think about it) ... at least he wasn't so bored with life anyway!

'Very well! So Kulik was waiting for me. But so was the Arab.

And he took out Ted Sinclair, believing he was me. So why Kulik, then — ? If he was just bait?'

Mitchell shrugged. 'So maybe they double-crossed him.'

Another shrug. 'The mouse springs the trap — who cares about the cheese? Not the Russians!'

'No.' Elizabeth shifted uneasily. 'It doesn't fit.'

Mitchell looked at her in surprise. 'What doesn't fit, Lizzie?'

'It doesn't fit the Russians, Dr Mitchell.'

'No? Everything's sweetness and light now, is it? Glasnost and Perestroika, and all that jazz?' He cocked his head at her. 'And nice Mr Gorbachev off to New York to announce dummy1

missile cuts — and army cuts, too? Is that what you've been working on, Lizzie: doing Jack Butler's sums for him? Don't kid yourself, Miss Loftus —'

'I'm not kidding myself.' Elizabeth allowed herself to be provoked at last. 'You've been too long in Ireland, Paul.'

That was probably true, thought Audley critically. (And, typically for Research and Development, they each had a shrewd idea of what the other had been doing. So much for departmental security!)

'That may very well be, my dear Elizabeth.' Mitchell rolled loosely for a moment as he took her measure. 'And . . . you may have a point with nice Mr Gorbachev, even . . . seeing how he hasn't really any choice, the way the wind's blowing.'

He nodded again. 'But not everyone in the Kremlin has got the message yet — let alone in Dzerzhinsky Street and Arbatskaya Ploshchad.' This time he grinned. 'Apart from which, if Comrade Kulik could still have had something to sell . . . And he was on the level . . . even nice Mr Gorbachev wouldn't think twice about putting him down, for the good of Glasnost— eh?'

'With a hired assassin?'

'Why not?'

'An incompetent assassin?'

They were both volleying at the net now —

'He wasn't all that incompetent, Lizzie — '

'He didn't recognize David.' She looked at Audley: she'd had dummy1

enough of this exchange. But he wasn't yet ready to intervene.

'So he had a contract for one large male Caucasian, maybe.'

Suddenly it was Mitchell who was uneasy. 'Or maybe he panicked when it looked like Kulik was being picked up, and simply decided to settle for poor old Ted. It happens, Lizzie.

If you panic.'

'In Ulster maybe it happens.' She came back to Audley again.

'I don't know, David. But it just doesn't feel right.' She frowned at him. 'Killing you, David . . .'

'Yes.' Mitchell wasn't quite ready to quit. 'Now that would have been a scandal, I grant you.' He matched her frown.

'Our David is ... just a bit too grand for sudden death —

you're right there, Lizzie . . .' He trailed off finally, leaving

' This isn't Ireland' unsettled between them. 'So what have we got then? A bit of rogue KGB-GRU private enterprise, David?' They were both looking at him.

'Or ... a third party?' Elizabeth accepted victory diplomatically. 'Have the Germans identified the Arab yet?

He had this suspect passport — and the Israelis were very helpful over that, Schneider said.'

'They were, yes.' Mitchell steadied himself.

'What — ?'

'I talked to Schneider this morning, while I was waiting for you, David.' Mitchell sounded only slightly apologetic.

'Minding you ... I wanted to know who we might be up dummy1

against, just in case . . . just in case your Arab had friends.

That was when he told me all about the gun.'

'And the passport?'