who had stopped being afraid as well as polite —
no longer polite.
Audley turned slowly towards the voice, trying to steady himself as he met disaster face-to-face as he wiped the rain from his face.
'Ah! Colonel Zimin.' That steadying slowness helped him to discipline his own voice. 'I was hoping that it would be you
—' But, critically, he could still hear the slur of fear in his words. So he must do something about that instantly ' —
but ... I was afraid for a moment that your men might be trigger-happy, so far from home. I'm glad to find them as well-disciplined as this.' If he could have smiled then, he would have done. But his mouth was still under orders from his guts. 'I must congratulate you on them. In other circumstances they might have fooled me, even.'
Zimin shook his head. 'Dr Audley . . .' But then he stopped.
Audley caught the faint echo of his own words in the silence between them.
So far from home!
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'Yes, Colonel.' This wasn't Capri. And, also, he wasn't alone this time: whatever Zimin might suspect, he couldn't be sure. Or, even if his suspicions were close to certainty, his guts ought to be twisting just as much, by God! 'But, I don't think you've met my colleagues — or have you?' He turned to Mitchell and Mary Franklin. 'Mary — ?' He decided to omit Richardson from the introduction. 'Paul — ?' Now back to Zimin, who must be expecting a third name. 'Miss Franklin is representing Mr Henry Jaggard, of course. And Dr Mitchell is Sir Jack Butler's representative, as you must be well aware.' Now for Peter Richardson! 'And Major Richardson is why we're here — eh?' He nodded everything after Capri into the balance finally. 'The Major and I are old comrades, you understand?'
'Colonel Zimin.' Mary Franklin held her umbrella with both hands.
'Yes.' A bead of rain ran down Mitchell's cheek as he looked down his nose at the Russian. 'I hope that man of yours who's playing with my car also knows how to drive it, Colonel. Does he?'
Richardson, who was to blame for everything, said nothing.
Zimin assimilated those three different contributions to his problems without acknowledging any of them. 'If you and your colleagues will come with me, please — ?'
'With pleasure.' Audley hastened to accept the invitation on everyone's behalf. With that morning rush-hour in Monmouth behind them they had still been lucky that there dummy1
had been so little traffic on the side-road, to complicate this meeting further. But even with that motor-cyclist behind them (and maybe another one ahead of him, speaking just as good Queen's/British Telecom English politely, to delay any late travellers-to-work), it would be advisable to co-operate. 'Shall we go, then — ?'
He moved to follow Zimin down the line of vehicles, conscious not so much of the others behind him as of the ersatz Royal Signals sar'-major in the rear, with the corporal appearing in each gap, until the Russian stopped beside a truck with its canvas hood open for them. Then he stood aside.
Zimin assisted Mary Franklin into the truck, but then also stood aside.
'Spetsnaz.' Richardson scowled the statement at him.
Paul Mitchell, for his part, looked as though he was still thinking more about his Porsche than his skin. ''No trouble', David —?'
The inside of the truck smelt like the British Army, as of old.
Which was interesting, academically, because that was what it was supposed to be, although not what it was. And that was another plus for Spetsnaz, because all armies had their own distinctive smell: wasn't that what that old general from 1916 had once said to him?
But then, of course, the old general had never envisaged quite this sort of experience.
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It wasn't Maerdy Castle, of course: it would never have been anywhere so romantically appropriate for an arms dump (albeit not for the conquest and subjugation of Wales this time, Audley thought grimly). Although private and protected by its relative inaccessibility, the castle would never have been safe enough from interested trespassers (of whom he himself had been one, so long ago — long even before the days of Lukianov and Peter Richardson). Nor, for that matter, would its overgrown ruins either have offered any secure and weather-proof cover for the dump's contents
