his lecture was all over the place. Incoherent. Usually he takes off on tangents but he comes back to the main theme. This time he rambled and then this bandage came down his leg and he went to pieces.'
The Colonel looked across at Captain Fortune. 'Do we know anything about the need for bandages?'
'I've checked with the medics and they don't know. The guy came in gassed and no other sign of injuries.'
'Let's go back from there to previous behaviour. Anything unusual?' Captain Clodiak shook her head.
'Nothing I noticed. He's hetero, got nice manners, doesn't make passes, he's probably got some hang-ups, like he's a depressive. Nothing I'd class as unusual in an Englishman.'
'And yet he was definitely uneasy? And there's no question about the bandage?'
'None,' said Clodiak.
'Thank you for your help,' said the Colonel. 'If anything else comes to mind come back to us.' And having seen her out into the passage he turned to look at the sporting print for inspiration. 'It begins to sound as though someone's been leaning on him,' he said finally.
'You can bet your life Glaushof has,' said Fortune. 'A guy who confesses that easy has to have had some treatment.'
'What's he confessed to? Nothing. Absolute zero.'
'He's admitted being recruited by this Orlov and having a contact man in a Karl Radek. I wouldn't say that was nothing.'
'The one being a dissident who's doing time in Siberia,' said Urwin, 'and Karl Radek was a Czech writer who died in a Gulag in 1940. Not the easiest man to contact.'
'They could be cover names.'
'Could be. Just. I'd choose something less obviously phoney myself. And why Russians? If they're from the Embassy...yes, I suppose so. Except that he met quote Orlov unquote in the bus station in Ipford which is outside Soviet embassy staff permitted radius. And where does he meet friend Radek? Every Wednesday afternoon by the bowling green on Midway Park. Every Wednesday same place same time? Out of the question. Our friends from the KGB may play dumb occasionally but not that dumb. Glaushof's been dealt the hand he asked for and that doesn't happen by accident.'
'Leaves Glaushof up shit creek,' said Fortune.
But Colonel Urwin wasn't satisfied. 'Leaves us all there if we don't take care,' he said. 'Let's go through the options again. Wilt's a genuine Russian probe? Out for the reasons given. Someone running a check on our security? Could be some goon in Washington came up with the idea. They've got Shi'ite suicide squads on the brain. Why use an Englishman? They don't tell him his car's being used to make the test more effective. If so why's he panicking during the lecture? That's what I get back to, his behaviour in that lecture hall. That's where I really begin to pick up the scent. Go from there to this 'confession' which only an illiterate like Glaushof would believe and the state of Denmark really is beginning to stink to high heaven. And Glaushof's handling it? Not any more Ed. I'm pulling rank.'
'How? He's got a security blanket from the General.'
'That's where I'm pulling rank,' said the Colonel. 'Old B52 may think he commands this base but I'm going to have to disillusion the old warrior. About a great many things.' He pressed a button on the phone. 'Get me Central Intelligence,' he said.
Chapter 20
'Orders are no one in,' said the guard on the gate, 'I'm sorry but that's how it is.'
'Look,' said Mavis, 'all we've come to do is speak to the officer in charge of Education. His name is Bluejohn and'
