“He’s due to phone in any minute.”
Cockburn brooded, inwardly. “Tell him there’s been a problem. In Mallorca. Tell him we’re on his side. Tell him... tell him to get a newspaper.”
Kurt bent and picked up the paper he had bought in the lobby, re-reading the story again. “She better be alright. Bastards,” he said bitterly. “I hope he kills the lot of them.”
There was a knock at the door.
“That will be the KGB,” said Chloe dryly, rising to her feet. “One big happy family.”
That night, they stood amongst goods wagons, silent steel giants in the falling rain, the signal lights flickering as big diesel locomotives shunted wagons somewhere across the thirty acre yard. Quayle had insisted on a covert meeting. They had waited for two hours for him to phone the hotel after getting the message to the Bremen conduit, and Kurt had told him outright about Holly. After that, there’d been absolute silence down the line. Then it went dead. They’d had to wait another three hours for him to call back, listening for strength in his voice, hoping that his will was still there and strong and still fighting. Cockburn had taken the phone from Kurt, pleading with him to meet with them. “Don’t just go to war,” he’d begged. “Don’t just melt away. Think it through. Don’t go back underground Titus, let us work together. You have your reasons, we have ours, but the result is the same. Twenty years Titus, twenty years we’ve trusted each other.”
Now, they could only hope it had done the trick.
Chloe stood alongside Cockburn, wrapped in a huge coat, the empty freight wagon behind them shiny and wet. Kurt Eicheman stood a few feet away and miraculously managed to keep a cigarette alight, the brim of his fashionable hat pulled down over his face. Alexi Kirov waited back at the hotel in case of a fall back plan, settled in by the phone with a thermos of soup, a new Time magazine, and a feeling of resentment at being left behind.
Above them, the floodlights spluttered for a second and then went out. Full darkness settled over the yard.
Kurt smiled to himself and took another drag on his cigarette.
“Is this it?” Chloe asked Cockburn in a whisper.
“Could be a short or something.”
“It’s him,” Kurt said firmly.
“Will he have a gun?” Chloe asked. “I mean, what if he decides we’re the enemy or something?”
Neither man ventured an answer to that. They just stood in the darkness, the rain falling gently, the wind buffeting and tugging at their coat tails.
Suddenly a figure appeared. There he stood, a few yards away, his head uncovered, his short hair dripping water down his face. He wore no coat, just a lightweight shirt that stuck to his skin. As he stepped closer, Chloe recognised him from his pictures. Already she could see the exhaustion in his face. The eyes she had studied were real; they burned and glittered with an intensity, an anger that she could not describe. He seemed thinner and tired but the aura was still there. He’s down, she thought, but by God he’s not beaten.
“Hello Titus,” Cockburn said.
The eyes narrowed for a second and then he spoke, his voice laden with fatigue.
“What happened?”
“We got there a couple of hours too late. Marco’s OK. He saw them carry her out. Alive.”
“You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Titus seethed.
“We...”
“You had to try to find us.”
“We knew we weren’t the only people looking.” Cockburn replied.
“But you found her,” Quayle said bitterly. “Thanks Hugh.”
“What the hell...”
“You don’t understand, do you? You stupid cunt!”
“Oh Jesus,” Chloe said, realizing suddenly what he meant. “We led them in…”
“Yes,” breathed Quayle, “and you didn’t even know it.”
“Impossible,” Cockburn said quickly
“YOU SHOWED THEM WHERE TO LOOK!”
“Oh my God,” he said, his brain reeling at the thought. “But that would mean they’re in...”
“Sussed it have you?” he threw back sarcastically. “The master spy. You were always a good controller, Hugh, but you slipped up this time. You’re dangerous. Why couldn’t you stay out of it?”
“I’m sorry, Titus,” Cockburn said, understanding immediately Tansey-Williams’ reluctance to involve any further personnel. Somewhere inside Six, somewhere inside Century, was one of the people they were looking for.
“So am I,” Quayle replied – and, with his head bowed and his clothes soaking wet, he began to walk away.
Cockburn tried to follow, but Kurt caught his arm, shaking his head.
“Send the girl,” he advised. Slipping his overcoat off, he threw it to her.
Chloe looked at Cockburn, and only when he nodded did she hurry after the figure who walked slowly away into the dark, like someone with nowhere in particular to go.
She caught up to him and tried to match his pace over the granite stones.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Only to help…”
“I think you people have helped enough.”
“At least put this coat on,” she said.
“Why?”
“So you don’t catch pneumonia,” she dryly replied.
“Piss off.”
“No I won’t piss off,” she replied testily. “Look, you’re supposedly shit-hot. I’ve seen your record and heard the chat in the canteen. I even had a case officer who would shift nervously in his chair whenever your name was mentioned. But even the great Titus Quayle can’t take this mob on his own…”
“What do you know?” Viciously, he turned on her. “Tell me what realms of experience you draw upon? What are you, a grade three? Fresh out of Lincoln and the FO French course?”
“Yes I am!” she retorted. “But I’m something else. I’m a fan, and outside those two men back there, you don’t have many of those. I sat in front of my gas fire in a miserable little north London terrace house and listened to Tansey-Williams tell me the story of a man who paints like a dream, who can recite Shakespeare, a man who read history in the finest university in the world and gave twenty years to the service being hunted like an animal. I learnt to like him. I also learned of a girl called Holly who sounds
