Ariadne smiled. 'No. On at least two counts.'
'Right. Then all you can do is to throw in your lot with my people. I needn't explain you - you'll just be my assistant. Agreed?'
'Agreed.' Very much the earnest young discussion-group member again, she nodded sharply. 'But I must do my utmost to let Moscow know what's happened. You understand that?'
'Yes, quite reasonable. I've been working out how you can set about it. I don't suppose you'll have had any dealings with anybody at the Russian embassy here? That means you'll have to take your chance. Telephone them - on a public line - and just mention Gordienko. That'll get you somewhere near the right quarter. You'll know what to say. Of course, for all you know, you might get hold of the chap who sold out to the common enemy. But there's no way of guarding against that. Agreed?'
'Agreed.'
'Good. Now I must get hold of my man here and arrange a rendezvous.'
Bond picked up the telephone and asked for the number of the small foreign-language bookshop Stuart Thomas managed as his cover. In less than a minute the hotel operator rang back to say that the number was unobtainable: 'No, sir, not engaged, not no reply - unobtainable.' Alarm flickered in Bond. He checked the number, asked the girl to try it again, got the same result, put Ariadne on the job of chasing up Service Inquiries. The engineer on duty was sympathetic but not helpful. He could find no record of anything that concerned the number in question. He would attend to the matter, of course, as soon as he had the opportunity. Perhaps the lady would care to telephone him again later. Meanwhile had she thought that her friend might have overlooked the payment of his bill?
Without exchanging a word, Bond and Ariadne hurried out.
The situation turned out to be quite simple, and quite final. The firemen had done their work and left; the police were in possession. In charge of them was a stocky young lieutenant in smart light-grey uniform, courteous, probably efficient, and anxious to show off his English to Bond, who represented himself as an old customer of Thomas's drawn by curiosity and concern. There was plenty to arouse that: great blackened fragments of glass on the pavement, jumbled heaps of charred and saturated paperbacks, atlases, dictionaries, guidebooks, capsized cases and stands, a strong smell of burnt cardboard and glue. Some of the stock had escaped damage, and the fire in the shop itself had not spread to the adjoining furrier's and travel agency. The inner apartments had suffered worse, being more or less gutted in parts. One corner was open to the sky, and the rooms at the back of the travel agency were in almost as bad a state. It had been a remarkably fierce blaze.
The police lieutenant accepted a cigarette. 'The firemen have not done badly. They were notified quickly. We're still not certain what has caused the outbreak, but it's being suspected that this was no accident. The heat has been greater than we expect in an ordinary fire. Our expert's working here for the last hour. Some bomb, perhaps. Do you know by any chance, sir, if Mr Thomas is having some enemies? Business rivals, men of that sort?'
This was dangerous ground. Being roped in to help a police investigation would be a fatal setback. Bond said firmly, 'I'm afraid I don't know him on that basis, only as a customer. You'd better ask Mr Thomas himself.'
'Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment. Mr Thomas is not present. He wasn't present when the firemen came. I was understanding from the neighbours here that this seems unusual. Normally he's spending the night in his quarters at the back of the shop. A most lucky escape. No doubt the news will reach him soon and bring him. You're wanting to see him particularly, sir?'
'No,' said Bond. 'Not particularly. I'll contact him later. I just thought I'd like to ask him if I could do anything. Thank you.'
'Please, sir. Miss.'
The lieutenant bowed slightly, glanced at Ariadne with admiration, at Bond with cheerful envy, and turned away to meet a middle-aged man in plain clothes who, brushing ash off his jacket, was approaching from the back of the shop - no doubt the fire expert. Bond also turned away. He couldn't get at the information about to be delivered, and in any case it made no difference which particular technique had been used to cripple the British intelligence network in Athens, any more than it mattered - from this point of view - whether Stuart Thomas was alive in enemy hands or lying in the ooze off the Piraeus waterfront. Bond had had his most powerful weapon snatched away before he could grasp it.
As he put it to Ariadne back at the Grande Bretagne, 'It wasn't only him they were after - they wanted to prevent me from getting hold of his records, his lists of contacts, pick-up points and times, locations of letter-boxes and the rest of it, so as to cut me off from our people. All that stuff would have been in the back part of the shop, of course. That was the centre of the fire.'
Ariadne frowned. 'Why not just remove everything? Less to be seen. They could use what they took, certainly.'
'Less safe, too. They couldn't have been sure there wasn't some material in places they couldn't find without pulling the building to pieces and which I might know about. No doubt they took away what they could find easily. There wouldn't have been much of that if I know Thomas.'
'His assistant?'
'I can't see how I dare approach him after this,' said Bond, staring at the wall. 'If he's not dead or kidnapped he'll be watched. And I can't hang on here in the hope that somebody'll come to me. Pretty useless, anyway. The tags Thomas put on me last night have vanished. God knows how many other people have. How did Gordienko put it? Extreme ruthlessness. You and I seem to be in the same situation.'
'Yes, and so we must deal with it together.' Ariadne came over and sat beside Bond on the couch. She spoke with great determination and force. 'I too have been thinking. We must move immediately. We've a long way to travel and it's only... sixty hours exactly until the event Mr Gordienko mentioned. Probably less than that, because- '
'What is this event?'
'I'll tell you when we're on our way.'
'So that I won't get the chance to tell London beforehand,' said Bond dispassionately. 'Of course.'
