“Yes, sir.”
“Was I right?”
“Yes, sir, but we’ve had practical experience of a new weapon, a new method.”
“Rubbish. The two Americans may have, but you haven’t. You couldn’t repeat it without them. You’ve no more learnt how to do it than watching Menuhin play the fiddle on TV teaches you how to play the violin.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“We’ve got a complication now.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Cartwright’s chap Boyd broke into the house and took off with Symons. Boyd wants to expose the whole thing. The naughty CIA and their collaborators in SIS. Abuse of the minds of innocent victims. It would make Watergate look like the vicar’s tea party.”
“What’s Cartwright going to do?”
“That’s what worries me. I think he’ll make the right decision in the end. But if he’s backed into a corner Boyd’s only got to get to a telephone and call Reuters and the balloon goes up.” Parkinson pushed a trayful of files to one side. A symbolic clearing of the decks before he looked across again at Carter. “You’d better provide some insurance, Carter. Or we’ll all be writing our memoirs in the Tower.”
“Do we know where Boyd has taken Symons, sir?”
“No. You’d better get your people up there doing their bloodhound act. You get my meaning I hope.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll deal with it.”
Parkinson nodded brusquely as he reached for the internal telephone.
23
Maclaren drove the XJS with Sturgiss in the passenger seat and Carter stretched out asleep at the back.
Cartwright had flown up on a scheduled flight to Newcastle where there was a message for him at the airport to phone London. Signals Security had monitored several coded calls addressed to him from Boyd, on one of the SIS operational channels. Cartwright phoned the Special Branch senior at Newcastle and asked for a transceiver to be sent across to him.
He hired a car at the airport and as soon as the radio had been delivered he headed up the A1 for Beadnell. He booked into the hotel and then walked to the empty beach. In a hollow in the dunes he extended the aerial and turned the switch to Channel Five, the frequency Boyd had been using, and pressed the transmit button. Slowly and carefully he said, “Everest calling Snowdon … Everest calling Snowdon … are you receiving?” He turned over to receive and waited, but there was no reply. He called twice again and then looked at his watch. It was only three o’clock but he seemed to have been on the move for weeks.
The tide was ebbing and the white sand glistened in the afternoon sun, and far across the bay he could see the shape of Bamburgh Castle, its grey stones purple in the reflected light from the sea. On a rock beside him a sandhopper explored the skeleton of a small shore crab that was embedded in a thatch of orange lichen, and in the smooth stones at the high-water line a sea anemone swayed in a rock-pool, betrayed by the tide. It was like being a boy again, and his father giving him a magnifying glass, pointing out some rare wild flower or insect, telling him always to notice everything he saw. To find out what it was, its life-cycle and its habitat. But the magic had all ended when his father died. And now it wasn’t wild flowers and insects that he observed so minutely, but people. Their life-cycles and their habitats. Trying to assess their strengths and weaknesses in case it might some day be of use.
And that thought brought him back to Boyd. He had never really fathomed Boyd. He was loyal and experienced and had been consistently successful in all his operations. But there was part of him that seemed to be hidden away. Not deliberately perhaps, but it was there. A cut-off point. And his loyalty. Was it to the service or that pretty young wife of his? Which would get the casting vote if the chips were ever really on the table? He hadn’t worked out what he would say to Boyd to make him conform. He had sufficient confidence in his own powers of persuasion to be able to convince Boyd that the rules were the rules. And the particular rule in this case was that you did what you were told to do by the appropriate authority. When he knew that it was straight from the Deputy Under Secretary Boyd would surely conform. Some protest of course, but that was reasonable enough. There was a lot in what Boyd had said, but there were times when moral judgements had to be put aside and expediency ruled. That, of course, was what Goering and the others had said in their own defence at Nuremberg. But that wasn’t a just cause.
He looked at his watch again and went through the radio drill. Boyd came back on the second call.
“Snowdon calling Everest. I hear you.”
“Everest acknowledging. Hotel in one hour. Confirm.”
“Confirm. Over and out.”
Cartwright pushed down the telescopic aerial and slid the set into his jacket pocket. A breeze had come up and he shivered momentarily as he brushed the sand from his trousers.
Cartwright had ordered tea and toast in his bedroom and as he poured tea for them both he said, “Have some toast. You look half starved.”
“What’s going on, Cartwright? What’s the word from Mount Olympus?”
“The DUS asked me to pass on his congratulations for the good work you’ve done. He feels that you’ve placed us in an extremely strong position vis-à-vis Langley. For once we’ve got all the aces, and he’s very grateful.”
“What’s all that add up to on the ground?”
“He wants us to get the two Americans back as quietly as possible. And then we’ll decide what we want from Langley.”
“And Walker and the girl?”
“Walker? Who’s Walker?”
“The ex-soldier who has nightmares.”
“Of course. The name escaped me for a moment. Every effort will be made to help him sort himself out. Every effort.”
“And they’ll release the girl?”
“If it’s
