aircraft whose crew, one hoped, was similarly skilled in navigation; refuelling in flight while moving at stalling speed behind a tanker only three feet away, and then moving on a town they had never seen except in photographs; to drop a thermo-nuclear bomb, was a test of mathematical skill, dexterity, memory, and of confidence in the judgement of their leaders unparalleled since Constantine’s Edict saw the last Christian share a double bill with the lions. Soviet air space was often penetrated at a time when an explosion or a launching was expected. These SAC people were going to observe this one from the air as a comparison. To know which Soviet ground targets these three-man crews had committed to memory would be a very valuable ‘intelligence sequence’. The chances of Jean unloading such an item from them was remote, but I sat down a few chairs away and busied myself with some old unchecked expense accounts and indents that Alice had slipped into my case at the last moment without my noticing. Jean was doing a thing that men agents have to learn, but most women do naturally. She stood back and let the conversation move between the others, listening or guiding as needed. I hope she didn’t do that funny stare she tended to do when concentrating, because these characters wouldn’t miss it. They were tumbling over just to talk in front of her.
‘Yes, sir,’ a balding man of about thirty-eight was saying; his eyes were too small but his jaw strong and tanned.
‘But for me, New York is a city. I like to travel, I really do, but you just can’t beat little ole New York, boy!’
‘New York, I like, but it’s a little like Chi, I’d say. New Orleans — there is a city, there is a city!’
‘Then you’ve never been to Paris, France.’
‘Parley Fransays. I lived six months in Paris. Now there’s the last country on earth where women are subordinated to men.’
‘And that goes for India. Do you know, in Afghanistan a camel costs more than a wife? This old guy was sitting riding on his camel. I’d seen him around, I knew he spoke a little English. I pulled up by him. I had a little red English MGA at the time, went like a bird. “Why aren’t you giving your wife a lift, Chas?” I said. (We all called him Chas.) “No, there are minefields here near the aerodrome,” he said. “You let her walk then?” So he said, “Yes, it’s a very valuable camel.” Can you beat that? He said, “It’s a very valuable camel.”’
A tall fair-haired major diluted his drink with a splash of ice-water. ‘Bel Ami who was French, and knew all about women…’
‘You know he’s using the worst mix in the world?’ Jean opened her eyes an eighth of an inch.
‘Alaska, that’s the biggest state. Ask any Texan,’ said the balding one, and laughed.
‘And I’ll tell you the Texan answer—“Oil”.’
The tall major who knew Bel Ami, lifted his glass and contradicted, ‘You see this drink? If you were gonna measure the volume of this drink do you take account of the ice?’ He paused. ‘You don’t. And that’s how it is with Alaska. It’s all ice.’
The chuckling was interrupted by the lounge door opening; a plump major looked quizzically around the room, dark glasses bisecting his large globe-like face. Beside him a neatly assembled girl army secretary in khaki shirt and slacks, both a carefully chosen size or so too small, shifted uneasily before the clear, unequivocally carnal gaze from so many efficient male eyes. Hoping to break an atmosphere as thick as cooling fudge, the newcomer asked if anyone had seen his navigator. No one answered, and here and there an unkind grin clearly stated the alienation that his social success had wrought. He turned awkwardly in the doorway and someone said affably, ‘Give my love to your wife and children.’
The balding one took advantage of the time pause. He went on going on. ‘My pappy used to say, “Drink Scotch by itself; with rye mix a little water, bourbon, mix it with something strong, something really strong.”’ He laughed loudly. ‘Something really strong,’ he said again.
‘I like Germany. I like to eat there. I like to drink there. I like German girls.’
‘I was living in Scandinavia.’
‘It’s not the same. It’s different in Scandinavia.’
‘I was at school in a big town in northern Scandinavia,’ said Jean, jumping in agilely as an agent must, and speaking the truth as an agent should.
‘Narvik,’ said the balding one. ‘I know it very well. I knew every bar in Narvik this time last year. Right?’ he asked Jean.
She nodded.
‘How many’s that? Three?’ said the man who knew Bel Ami.
I had completed most of the indents for the typewriter ribbons, recording tape and assorted junk of every day by the time the airmen had ‘holycowed’ and ‘go-go-goed’, ‘see you latered’, ‘izz at the timed’ out of the lounge. She came up behind me and touched the top of my head. I found the unexpected intimacy of her physical contact as shocking as if she’d undressed in public. As she moved into view and sat down opposite me I reappraised her attitude. She was anxious to let me know, to reassure.
The sheer effectiveness of her reassurance precluded my trusting it. Perhaps she was my Dolobowski. She offered me one of those menthol cigarettes that taste like paint remover. I declined.
She said, ‘SAC lead crews flying B52s working out of Bodo, Norway and the new field near Herat.’ She took her time to light it with a small silver cigarette lighter. ‘I’d say committed targets; those launching sites West South West of Lake Balkach and the underwater nuclear submarine harbours in eastern Novaya Zemlya that Bobby did the work on. You probably already saw the modified bombbays on two of the planes.’
I nodded.
‘Two of the crews have ex-Navy bombardiers; probably a delay device operating by water pressure.’ She tilted her chin as high as possible and exhaled a stream of smoke vertically at the ceiling in an unusually theatrical way. From somewhere she had obtained a WAC officer’s summer dress, and like Dalby she had this quality of looking right in whatever she wore. She waited for praise as a small child does; posturing and preparing declaimers of skill or virtue. The days of Pacific sunshine had made her face a deep shade of gold, and her lips were light against the dark skin. She sat there studying the evenness of her finger-nail polish for a long time, and then without looking up said, ‘You went to Guildford?’
I nodded without moving my head.
‘In the first week when it’s all physical exercises and IQ tests and you mostly sit around waiting to be interviewed and talked out of staying on for a second week, there’s one lecture about cell construction and cut outs?’
I knew that she knew that this isn’t the sort of thing anyone ever talks about. I hoped that the lounge wasn’t bugged. I didn’t stop her.
‘Well, Alice is my only official contact, through her you were my permanent contact. As far as I’m concerned…’ she paused. ‘Since then I have used no other as the man in the Pears soap advertisement said.’
I sat saying nothing.
‘The complexities of my job are greater than they were in Macao. Greater than I suspected they could be,’ Jean said very quietly. ‘I didn’t see myself doing that.’ She moved her head towards where she’d been sitting. ‘But I’ll go along with it OK. But there has to be a limit as far as personalities are concerned. I am a woman. I can’t switch allegiances easily, and I am biologically incapable of answering to a group.’
‘You may be making a big mistake,’ I said, more in order to gain time than because it meant anything.
‘I don’t think so, and I’ll show you why,’ she said, ‘if you’ve an hour or so to spare.’
I had. I followed her out and across to the car park. She climbed behind the wheel of a Ford convertible, the metal and leather hot enough to produce a sickly smell. Attached to the sunshield on the driver’s side was a grey painted metal box. One face of it was perforated; it was a little larger than an English packet of twenty. This was a monitoring radio sending conversation to a receiver up to three miles away, and by means of a compass device sending a signal to show the direction and travel of the vehicle. It was a compulsory fitting to all cars on Tokwe. It was attached by means of two magnets, and I pulled it off the metal of the sunshield and buried it deep in a big box of Kleenex in the rear seat of a pink Chevrolet parked alongside. I hoped no one would bother to tune us in. If they did without a visual check we’d be just another silent vehicle in a car park outside the Mess.
The tyres made an ugly noise on the gravel as Jean let in the clutch and swung the power steering into a fierce lock. Neither of us spoke until a mile down the road we stopped to fold back the hood. I took a close look around the windscreen and door tops.
‘I think we are probably clean now but let’s be careful just the same — you were smart to take the
