The Memory Trap

prescience when things went wrong, Jack Butler was accustomed to tell it how it was. 'But Kulik did actually ask for me, you say. So what form did this request take? What did he want us to do?'

'The message was passed at an embassy reception for one of our trade delegations. Low-grade technology — factory robotics for car production. And he didn't really ask us to do anything. He just wanted to be met — by you, David.' Butler pursed his lips. 'It was your name that sparked Jaggard's Moscow colleagues. They'd never heard of Kulik. But they had heard of you.'

'Where did he want to be met?' Audley brushed aside such doubtful fame.

'In West Berlin.'

'In West Berlin —'

'That's right. He was getting himself across. He said that he had something of the highest importance. He gave his name.

And he named the place and date and time of the meeting.

Just that — nothing else. Except he wanted you to meet him.'

Too bloody simple by half! 'Where was the place?'

'A restaurant beside one of the lakes. Well inside the city —

nowhere near any crossing. And Jaggard said he'd have the place properly covered, so he didn't reckon on any dummy1

complications.'

Audley felt the minutes ticking away. Maybe that 'too-bloody-simple' had been hindsight. Because it did look reasonably simple, if not routine: Kulik himself had been doing all the risky work, and had in effect offered himself on a plate in the restaurant, free of charge and without advance bargaining. So, really, anyone could have picked the man up, since he had nowhere to go except further westwards after having come so far already.

Then a cold hand touched him between the shoulder-blades as he found himself thinking that, although anyone could have gone, he would actually have fancied a nice easy trip to Berlin, to meet someone who wanted to meet him. He'd always liked Berlin, even in the bad old days.

'And . . . Jaggard didn't mind, when you refused to supply me?' It occurred to him as he spoke that Henry Jaggard might have smelt a rat. In which case, if things went wrong, Jack Butler's intransigence could be blamed.

'I promised to produce you in due course, when they'd got Kulik back here.'

'Uh-huh.' He sensed that something was inhibiting Butler now. And it could be that, even if he hadn't smelt that rat, Butler might well have smelt Henry Jaggard's calculations, even though he would have despised them.

'Yes . . . Well, I thought it might be as well for us to have a representative there, David.' Butler scowled honestly. 'Just in dummy1

case Kulik really wanted to deal with Research and Development, not with anyone else.'

The cold hand touched Audley again. But then he remembered gratefully that Butler had already reassured him about the casualty list. 'A very proper precaution, Jack!'

All the same, the coldness was still there, even while he grinned proper curiosity at Butler by way of encouragement.

Because, with Kulik deceased (and no matter how frustrating that certainly was), there was nothing much anyone could do now. And yet here was Sir Jack Butler at Heathrow, like the mountain come to Mahomet. 'So who did you send, then?'

'I sent Miss Loftus.'

'Oh yes?' In matters of intelligence research, Elizabeth was razor-sharp. But her field experience was necessarily limited by her length of service. 'A good choice.' And, on the face of it, that was what it must have seemed to be —for Henry Jaggard's 'routine pick-up'. Only from the granite-faced look of Mount Butler now, it evidently hadn't been. 'She's okay, is she, Jack?'

'Yes —' The VIP cordless phone on the low table beside Butler began to buzz, cutting him off but not startling him.

'Hullo?'

Audley took refuge in the echo of that reassuring 'yes' for a moment as Butler stared through him while receiving his phone-message. Then the departure/arrival flight monitors on the wall behind caught his attention. They gave him a dummy1

choice of Stockholm, Athens, Naples or Madrid, but not Berlin, or even Frankfurt — there were no immediate German destinations at all, in fact.

'Thank you.' Butler replaced the receiver.

It was just possible that they'd chartered a plane just for him, decided Audley, permutating the scheduled alternatives in order of possibility and then rejecting them all as unlikely.

But then, since old Jack was quite notoriously tight-fisted with his Queen's revenue, a chartered plane was either out-of-character or another disturbing indication of extreme urgency.

Butler nodded at him. 'Your flight's on schedule, David.

They're boarding now.'

Audley's eye was drawn to the monitor. If it was one of, those, then it would be Stockholm, with a Berlin connection, the boarding warnings suggested. All the rest were too far away to make sense, so far as that was possible. 'You said Kulik was heading for West Berlin. How far did he actually get?'

'He got to the restaurant. He was killed there.'