The Memory Trap

London traffic, as he would surely not have looked over the Egyptian desert when he'd beaten the French.

There was nobody there — sod it!

He looked half-around. And then at the blackened panel below the statue: the old General, mortally-wounded, had still worried about the soldier's blanket in which they'd covered him. Because every soldier needed his blanket, just as he himself would have liked one now in the morning chill.

'Hullo, David.' Jake Shapiro appeared from behind the statue. 'You travel in style these days!'

If the old General had stepped down and offered him another blanket, Audley knew he'd not have been more dumb-struck.

'Jake — ?'

'Let's go and walk among the trees.' Jake kept well behind the statue, away from the road. 'Come on!'

The seconds of his minutes were ticking, Audley remembered. 'For God's sake — I thought you'd retired, Jake!' But he stepped out automatically: Jake had not only retired — he ought to be even more out-of-favour now, as an Arab-lover, with his present government. 'What the hell are dummy1

you doing here?'

'You asked for 'Mr Lee' — ' Jake pushed him towards the central path, between the trees ' — and now you are complaining?'

Audley disciplined himself. 'I'm not complaining. I'm just thinking . . . maybe I should have retired, too. But then ... by the same token ... I suppose I might still be here, mightn't I?

Taken out of mothballs?'

'Ah . . . well, as to that, I can't say.' Jake grinned at him. 'But maybe with us it's like the old music-hall jokes: the old ones are still the best ones?'

'Uh-huh?' Matthew's Rolls-Royce was cruising out there somewhere, like a stop-watch ticking silently. 'Unfortunately, I haven't time for jokes, Jake. Why are you here — in London?'

'Because this is where the action is. Isn't it?' The Israeli stepped delicately around a nameless mess on the path. 'I was back home. And you were in Washington, and you were not in Berlin. But now you are here, where the action is? So now we are both here — ?'

The Israelis didn't know about Capri. Or, if they did, Jake wasn't ready to admit it yet. But if they didn't . . . then they might not know about Richardson. But what they did know had to be substantial indeed, to force the new generation of Mossad to swallow its pride and re-enlist Jake Shapiro? Yes!

'You're here because of me?' The Israelis had been very dummy1

helpful in Berlin, of course. But Jake's presence in London now put a different gloss on that, taken with the present terrorist alert. So whatever they knew must be frightening them. 'Because of our old 'special relationship', would that be?' There was no time for finesse. 'You need a friend at court?'

''The Court of Queen Margaret'?' Jake slowed down as they approached the end of the trees. 'Ah . . . well, we never did have many friends here, even in the old days. Your Foreign Office was full of Arab-lovers — unrequited lovers, of course.'

He smiled at Audley. 'Sure — okay! Well . . . you, at least, were pragmatic, David. You were willing to do business in the old Yorkshire manner: 'Owt for nowt' — ?'

'What do you want, Jake?' He could see the very young man standing on guard at the far end of the gardens, apparently engrossed in his Guardian.

Jake gestured to turn them round into the trees again. 'I thought it was you who wanted something, David?'

Audley glimpsed a large car through the trees. But it couldn't be the Rolls yet. 'I just want to know what the Russians are doing.'

'Only that? Where do you want me to begin?'

'Don't piss me around.' In the old days Jake had usually got what he wanted by indirect means, he recalled: for Jake, an Audley question was as good as an answer. 'I've been minding my own business in Washington, working up our dummy1

submission on the new Secrets Bill for Jack Butler. As I'm sure you know.'

'Yes.' The Israeli nodded. 'The worthy Sir Jack has heretical views on Freedom of Information and the Public Interest —

he believes in them! That I know — yes! The worthy Sir Jack!

Yes?'

And the not-so-clever Jake Shapiro, thought Audley. But then half Jack's strength was that no one really believed in his sincerity. 'Yes. But now I want some information — in my interest, Colonel Shapiro.'

'Yes?' Jake peered into the trees on his left, pretending to be nervous.

'What's the matter.' Suddenly Audley actually became nervous.

'Don't worry. We are well-protected, old friend.' The reassurance came quickly. 'You lost someone in Berlin, didn't you?'

'Tell me something I don't know.' He decided not to hide his fear. 'Answer the question. My time is running out. And maybe in more ways than one, old friend.'

The Israeli faced him. 'Correction. You lost two people in Berlin: you lost a man named Kulik also.'