Colonel Butler's Wolf (16 page)

But now his face in its turn had been exposed to the near-pensionable Korbel and the spidery Protopopov—and now Korbel was hurrying after the latest in the line of false Butlers to get his reward up on the crag.

His reward … Butler lent back uncomfortably against his pack. All he had to do was to ask Richardson, and Richardson would dutifully tell him that everything was going according to plan—Audley’s plan.

A crafty plan, without doubt, full of elaborate twists and turns. But a sight too twisty and elaborate for Butler’s taste.

The primary aim was to identify the opposition—no bonus for that conclusion, it was inherent in his instructions—because the enemy’s strength and quality must always be a valuable pointer to the importance of the operation. And with all the advantages of a well-prepared battlefield and apparently unlimited equipment that aim ought to be attainable.

But being Audley’s the plan included a deception: Peter Korbel’s reward was to be deceived about something.

“Your man, sir—he’s just crossed the road.” The stocky Signals corporal murmured, deadpan. “He’s limpin’ a bit, but he’s goin’ like the clappers,”

Richardson stood up and peered through a crack in the grill on the other side of the truck.

“So he is, Corporal—so he is! Bloody, but unbowed. I think he’ll make it now, you know. You can send off the all clear then, and tell ‘em we’ll rendezvous according to schedule.” He turned back to Butler. “You know what we’ve got for him up there? Not up there, actually—he’s waiting down in Lodham Slack valley, just before Turret 4ob: Oliver St John Latimer in person!”

Butler frowned. Oliver Latimer was one of the more orotund of the resident kremlinologists in the department—a man with whom Audley was notoriously at odds too.

“Hah!” Richardson’s teeth flashed. “I thought you’d take the point! David don’t like Oliver—and Oliver don’t like David. Which is why David has had Oliver dragged all the way up here from his fleshpots in the Big Smoke just to confuse poor old Korbel. Two birds with one stone—just like David!”

Just like Audley. That was true enough, thought Butler grimly: the man was too shrewd to go out of his way to settle his private scores but could never resist settling them in the line of duty if the opportunity presented itself. Young Roskill had said as much from his hospital bed only a few days before.

But Latimer was the private bird; it was Korbel who mattered, and Protopropov, and whoever was behind
them.

“He wants to find out if you’re meeting anyone on the Wall, see,” continued Richardson, “and we didn’t like to disappoint him. So we’re giving him Latimer, and with a bit of -luck that’ll set their dovecotes all aflutter, specially if they’ve got a line on David, because they’ll know David and Latimer aren’t yoked together, see—“

“I see perfectly well.” Butler cut off the string of mixed metaphors harshly. “For God’s sake, man, let’s get on with the job. Let’s get moving.”

The Russians had followed him, and Audley’s men were no doubt pinpointing the Russians. It was an old game, and the trick of it was still the same: you could never be quite sure who was outsmarting whom—who was the cat, and who the mouse.

CORPORAL GIBSON SWUNG
the big signals truck between the stone uprights of the farm gate, round an immaculate army scout car which was parked beside a Fordson tractor, and backed it accurately into the mouth of the barn.

A stone barn, Butler noted through the gap in the grill— everything in this countryside was in stone, and judging by the recurrent shape of the stones most of them had first seen the light of day under a Roman legionary’s chisel: the Wall, away on the skyline at his back, had been this land’s quarry for a thousand years or more.

The rear doors swung smartly open from the outside and Butler looked down on his reception committee.

“Ah, colonel!” Audley began formally.

The Royal Signals subaltern at his side stiffened at the rank instinctively, and then relaxed as Audley ruined the effect with a casual gesture of welcome. “Come on down, Jack! We’ve only got about half an hour, and a lot of ground to cover. And you too, Peter. Everything according to plan?”

Butler sniffed derisively. According to plan! It was a sad thing to see a man like Audley take pleasure in the shadow of events rather than their substance.

“Like a dream.” Richardson swung out of the truck gracefully behind. “Korbel went up Winshields like a lamb, apart from his limp.”

“Good, good.” For a fearful moment Butler thought Audley was going to clap him on the back, but the movement changed at the last instant to a smoothing of the hair.

“If you like to carry on, Mr Masters. Just let us know if any of the suspects behave out of pattern.”

“Very good, sir.” The Subaltern fell back deferentially.

Audley indicated a doorway ahead of them. “I’ve got what used to be called a cold collation for you, Jack. Hard-boiled eggs and ham and salad. But a little hot soup from a thermos —we weren’t quite sure whether things really would work out. You know what you’ve been taking part in?”

He eyed Butler momentarily before continuing. “It’s what young Masters calls a ‘Low Intensity Operation’, by which I gather he means what the Gestapo and the Abwehr used to call ‘Search and Identify’. Only now I think we could teach them a thing or two, after all the practice we’ve had. And with all the equipment!”

“You can say that again,” said Richardson. “That frequency scanning thing they’ve got—the American thing—it’s bloody miraculous.”

“But just what does it add up to?” Butler growled.

“Add up to? Here—sit on the bale of straw, and Peter will serve your soup.” Audley perched himself on a bale opposite Butler. “Add up to? Well, at the moment Korbel talks to Protopopov on a very neat little East German walkie-talkie. And Protopopov talks to another colleague of his just over the crest of the ridge back there, down towards Vindolanda— someone we shall be identifying very soon now. Then perhaps we shall know what we’re about a little better.”

“But we don’t at the moment,” said Butler obstinately, staring at Audley through the steam of his hot cup of soup. “We don’t know what
they
are about.”

Audley blinked uncomfortably, and Butler’s earlier intuition was confirmed. Back in the flat in London the fellow had been uncharacteristically nervous. But now he was evidently no closer to an answer, and what had happened this morning was a fumbling attempt to find out more by injecting Butler into the action in the hope that the enemy would reveal more of himself. It was little better than grasping at straws.

“Perhaps I shall know better when you’ve made your report,” Audley said rather primly. “I hope you’ve got something worth listening to.”

“Not a lot, really. You’ve had my report on the accident.”

“Yes,” Audley nodded. “He invited his own death, and the invitation was accepted. In effect he committed suicide.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite as strongly as that. It depends on whether he decided to ride to Oxford before he started drinking or after, which is something we don’t know. But he was cracking, that’s sure enough.”

“The Epton girl corroborated that?”

The Epton girl. Butler felt a stirring of irritation at the memory of her involvement: somebody had not done his job very thoroughly in delving into Smith’s background for her to have been overlooked.

“She hadn’t seen him for three weeks, but she’d been worried about him for some time. She reckoned he was working too hard—he didn’t write to her at all that last week.”

“It wasn’t exactly a great love affair though?” Audley cocked his head on one side. “Not a very passionate affair, would you say?”

“She may not have been his mistress, if that’s what you mean.” Butler could hear the distaste in his own voice.

“I’d say that’s exactly what I mean. If she had been I think it would have been known up at Cumbria. Would you say that it was a genuine engagement even?”

“I think it was.”

“Hmm … “ Audley considered the proposition. “He should have been a bit wary of emotional entanglements—and she’s no great beauty, is she.”

“I found her a rather attractive young woman myself.”

Audley’s eyebrows lifted. “A bit overblown—but then she certainly has some attractive family connections, I admit. The vice-chancellor of Cumbria is her godfather.”

Beside Polly Epton’s apple-cheeked charm Audley’s own wife was a thin, washed-out thing, thought Butler unkindly. But it was Smith’s taste in women, not Audley’s, that mattered.

“I’m aware of it,” he rasped. “The Master of King’s is her godfather too, as a matter of fact.”

“Hah! Yet you still think it was a real romance?”

“If it had been bogus, then I don’t think Smith would have kept quiet about it,” Butler began awkwardly, fumbling for words to describe what he knew he was ill-equipped to imagine. “It was … a very private thing they had, just between the two of them.”

Audley looked at him curiously.

“Well—damn it!—she’s a nice sort of girl—“

He saw Audley’s face contort in bewilderment:
nice
was another of those words which had been twisted and blunted until its meaning was hopelessly compromised.

He felt embarrassment and irritation tighten his shirtcollar round his neck. But what he wanted to say had to be said somehow—

“Damn it all! What I mean is—I don’t mean she keeps her legs crossed tight all the time,” he plunged onwards. “It’s possible they did sleep together now and then when he came down to Oxford. But I don’t think it was just a physical thing with them—I’d say she was full of life when a man needed it, but full of—well, quietness and comfort when he needed that. And she thinks now—because of what I’ve told her—that if she’d been up at Cumbria instead of studying—whatever it is —occupational therapy, it maybe wouldn’t have happened.”

“She thinks it was an accident?”

“No, not after what happened at the bridge. But if she’d been there with him … “ He shook his head hopelessly. “I’m afraid I’m not expressing myself very efficiently.”

“Efficiently?” Surprisingly, the bewilderment had faded from Audley’s face. “On the contrary, you’ve put it very well indeed. If you think this of her—and of them!” Audley nodded to himself. “A girl for all seasons—if she strikes you that way, then that would explain it very well, too.”

“How would it do that?” Butler frowned.

“Well, you had me worried for a moment. But now I think I see the way it was.” Audley looked at him. “You see, our friend Smith had it made—as Peter here would say—he had it made. He had this two-year research fellowship, and after that he was dead certain of a lectureship.”

“Certain?”

“So Gracey tells me. Nothing but the best at Cumbria— and Neil Smith was the best. Why does that interest you?”

“Miss Epton thought that might be why he was working so hard: to make sure of a permanent post there. He wanted that very much.”

“He wanted it and he’d got it. It was right in the palm of his hand. He’d got it, and we weren’t on to him. Not even near him. And this engagement with the Epton girl would have made things perfect, socially as well as academically.”

Audley paused, watching Butler over his spectacles.

“He should have been on top of the world then. But he was right at the bottom—thanks to Sir Geoffrey we know that, and Gracey checks it out. The last two, three weeks he was one worried young man—a ball of fire with the fire burnt out, Gracey says. Which means that things hadn’t gone according to plan after all.”

“He had himself pretty well under control at Oxford. Whatever happened to him happened up here.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I’d guess you were closer to the mark in your report when you suggested that he took a spiritual knock at Oxford. Freedom of everything must have been a strong drug for a man with his background—“

“You know what his background was then?”

“We’ve a fair idea now, according to Peter here.”

Butler turned towards Richardson.

“Not for sure,” said Richardson quickly. “These things take time to establish, and time we haven’t had. What we’ve got— and Stocker had to go cap in hand to the CIA for it—is that the KGB pulled out one of their old-established ‘illegals’ from New Zealand a few years back to give someone some polish at their Higher School in Moscow. And we’ve got a tentative identification for Smith at the School for just about that time —only tentative, mind you. And the New Zealand angle fits.”

“You think he was never in New Zealand?”

“We reckon he was there, but not for long. Way we see it was that they pulled the switch just before the real Smith was due to fly out. Our Smith wasn’t really a very good likeness. Or he was only right in a fairly general way—height and colouring and so on. But he was starting out fresh here, and in a year or two when he’d filled out a bit and grown his hair we think he could have bluffed it out with anyone he’d known back there.”

“Even with his aunt?”

“Great-aunt, to be exact. Half-blind, and if she ever leaves New Zealand, then I’ll be a greater spotted kiwi. As far as false identities go, they had it pretty well made.”

“But a KGB graduate nonetheless,” cut in Audley incisively. “And then an Oxford graduate.”

“You can’t say he wasn’t well qualified,” murmured Richardson irreverently. “And of course David thinks Oxford cancels out Moscow!”

“Not Oxford by itself. I think he was the wrong man for the job. But it was when he stopped learning freedom of thought and started to teach it that it began to get under his skin.” Audley stared directly at Butler. “What I believe is there was one thing about him that his bosses didn’t realise— or they didn’t realise how important it was going to become: the fellow was a natural born teacher!”

Butler nodded cautiously. “That was what Hobson thought.”

“Gracey did too, and he’s a sharp man. The crunch came when Smith found out he was in the wrong business. Poor devil, I’d guess he’d become what he was pretending to be— and he liked it better.”

Poor devil indeed! thought Butler: the Devil himself had been a mixed-up archangel, and this poor devil had straightened himself out only to discover that there was no escape from Hell …