Spy Story

'You want to get me arrested?'

It wasn't simply her perfume that I could smell now, it was a whole pattern of events, the potatoes she'd peeled, the talc she'd used, the tweed skirt and her body under it. Some other time, some other motive, I might have proved a walkover for her.

I said, 'I went to a Paris fashion show once. You get in through a scrum of sharp-elbowed lady fashion experts, and they sit you on these toy-sized gilded chairs. From behind the velvet curtains we could all hear the screaming of the fashion models. They were swearing and fighting about mirrors, zips and hairbrushes. Suddenly the lights were lowered to the level of candlelight. There was the muted music of violins and someone pumped Chanel into the air. From the old biddies came only the refined sound made by petite hands in silken gloves.'

'I don't get you,' said Miss Shaw. She moved again.

'Well, it's mutual,' I said. 'And no one regrets it more than I do.'

'I mean this fashion show.'

'It taught me all I ever learned about women.'

'What's that?'

'I'm not sure.'

From the cellar Sylvester called, 'Will the Chablis do, Sara?'

'No it won't do, you bloody fairy queen,' she screamed. Sylvester was chalked on the casing, but the bomb- sight was set on me.

I said, 'I've still a lot more questions, I'm afraid.'

'It will have to wait. I must start the lunches.'

'Better get it over with.'

She looked at her watch and sighed. 'You couldn't have chosen a worse time of day.'

'I can wait.'

'Oh Lord! Look, come back for lunch — on the house. We'll do your questions after.'

'I have a lunch appointment'

'Bring her with you.'

I raised an eyebrow.

'I told you; I'm psychic' She consulted a large book. 'Deux converts — one o'clock? It will give you time for a drink.' She uncapped a gold pen. 'What was the name again?'

'You make it hard to refuse.'

'Excellent,' she said, and fidgeted with the pen.

'Armstrong.'

'And I'll give you your tickets for the play.' She went to the door. 'Sylvester!' she called, 'what the bloody hell are you doing down there! We've got the devil of a lot to do before lunch.'

Chapter Twelve

At the discretion of control game time can be speeded, halted or reversed so that bounds can be replayed with the advantage of hindsight. No appeal can be in made except on the grounds that notice in writing was not received before control's action.

RULES. ALL GAMES. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON

I went up to the Control Balcony when I got back. Schlegel was on the phone. It was still early; I hoped that he hadn't missed me. 'Sonofabitch,' he shouted, and slammed the phone down. I wasn't dismayed; it was just his manner. He used too much energy for everything he did: I'd seen such activity before in small thickset men like Schlegel. He smacked a first into his open palm. 'For Christ's sake, Patrick. You said an hour.'

'You know how it is.'

'Never mind the goddamned apologies. Not content with Hying boats, your friend is putting ice-breakers on a converging pattern along the Munnanskiy Bereg. Ice-breakers with sonar buoys… get it? He'll plot both the subs by taking bearings.'

'That's not bad,' I said admiringly. 'No one's thought of that before. Maybe that's why the Russians keep those two nuclear breakers so far west.'

Schlegel had a lot of hands, and now he threw them at me, so that the index fingers bounced off my shirt. 'I've got two admirals and selected staff from Norfolk running the Blue Control.' He walked over to the teleprinter, fed out some paper, tore it off, screwed it up and threw it across the room. I said nothing. 'And your friend Foxwell chooses this moment to demonstrate how well the commies can shaft us.'

He pointed down at the War Table. Plastic discs marked those spots where Ferdy had wiped out nuclear subs. The two replacement subs coming from Iceland and Scotland were moving along the Murmansk coast and would be detected by Ferdj-'s buoys.

'They should have dog-legged those subs nearer to the Pole,' I said.

'Where were you when we needed you?' said Schlegel sarcastically. He picked up his jacket and stood there in his shirtsleeves, his thumb hooking the jacket of his blue chalk-stripe, over his shoulder, his fingers grasping his bright red braces. He climbed into his jacket and smoothed the sleeves. That suit was Savile Row, from label to lining, but on Schlegel it was Little Caesar.

'How do we know that in a real, war the Russians wouldn't be just as nutty?' I said.

'And leave the Kara Sea wide open?' He tightened the knot of his tie.

'It's working out O.K.' I looked at the Game Clock, which moved according to the computer-calculated result of each bound. I picked up the pink flimsies that Blue Control had issued, trying to call the destroyed submarines.

'They just won't buy it,' said Schlegel. I noticed that on the electric lights of the tote board they were still shown as un-destroyed and in action.

I looked at the Master Status Report. I said, 'We should programme Ferdy's ideas, using every last ice- breaker available to the Russians. And we should do it again, giving every ice-breaker sub-killing capability.'

'It's all right for you,' muttered Schlegel. 'You won't have to go to the post-mortem with these guys this weekend. When they get back to Norfolk the shit will hit the fan, mark my words.'

'Aren't we supposed to be putting up the best defence of the I Russian mainland that we can devise?'

'Where did you get that idea?' said Schlegel. He had a habit of running his index finger and thumb down Ms face, as if to wipe away the lines of worry and age. He did it now. 'The navy comes here for one reason only: they want a print-out that they cart take to the Pentagon and make sure the trash haulers don't steal their appropriations budget.'

'I suppose,' I said. Schlegel despised the men of Strategic Air Command, and gladly allied himself with the navy to fight them I at any chance he got.

'You suppose! Ever wonder what a flying gyrene like me is doing over here, running this toy-box? I was the nearest they could get to having a submarine admiral.' He worked his jaw as though getting ready to spit but he didn't. He switched on the intercom again. 'Phase Eight.' He watched the Game dock hands spin round to fourteen thirty hours.

'Now they'll have to write off their two subs,' I said.

'They'll tell themselves it's pack-ice affecting the radio for another Phase yet.'

I said, 'Well they'll have one missile-submarine close enough to fire.'

Schlegel said, 'Can they retarget the mirvs before launching?'

I said, 'No, but they can make the independently targeted, war-heads fall as a cluster.'

'So it becomes a Multiple Re-entry Vehicle but not independently targeted?'

'That's what they call it.'

'That's like making a Poseidon back into a horse-and-buggy Polaris.'

'Not really,' I said.

'It's name rank and number time again, is it?' said Schlegel. 'Not really? How much not really? Jesus, I really