October Men (28 page)

Unfortunately, the boots were also stiff and uncomfortable, and neither in shape nor colour did they match his city suit. But then the suit itself had come far down in the world in the last twenty-four hours: it was dusty and rumpled—it looked as though he had slept in it, which was close to the truth—and there were signs of serious damage to the knees and elbows, the souvenirs of Ostia.

Boselli wondered unhopefully whether he could add the suit to his growing list of expenses. The boots, he had already decided, were a legitimate charge on the state, being the result of a direct command from the General, but for the rest he would have to consult the appropriate schedule. Maria was always very hot on his recovering the most minute expenses, down to the smallest bus fare, insisting on checking them all herself before he submitted them. But he had never before had anything like the bizarre items now entered in his little book, so bizarre that he would never dare show them to her. He would have to pretend he had lost the book, meekly accepting the contempt that the lie would incur.

“Keep your head down, Pietro,” snapped the General out of nowhere. “Keep your head down and put your coat on—and then come up here.”

Boselli looked about him wildly, clutching the precious tape recorder to his chest. Better a broken ankle than a broken tape recorder —it was small, but it had an expensive weight and feel to it even apart from its contents.

“My coat?”

“They’re not blind, man. That white shirt of yours stands out like a surrender flag. Cover it up!”

The shirt blended in rather well with the stones, thought Boselli, and his jacket felt like an overcoat in the heat. But an order was an order.

The General lay full length in the dirt, half under a bush on the lip of the bank, a large pair of binoculars beside him. Boselli began to scramble up, his boots slipping in the loose pebbles. When he had reached the level of the General’s feet he stopped, steadying himself with his free hand.

“Beside me—here,” ordered the General, indicating a dusty patch just within the shadow of the bush. It was clear that he expected Boselli to prostrate himself similarly, which was all very well for someone in battle dress and combat jacket, but which would put the finishing touch to the suit’s degradation.

Unhappily he edged his way up the last stage of the incline and stretched himself alongside his master.

“Good. Now have a look at the place,” said the General briskly, offering the binoculars.

It was just as hot in the shadow as in the open, but the General showed no sign of discomfort. In fact quite the opposite: he radiated an
air
of well-being and good humour—it was obvious that he was enjoying himself playing at being an operational commander again after so many desk-ridden years.

And so he might, thought Boselli, because no ordinary commander would have been able to cut through all the interdepartmental, inter-force rivalries so easily. When the General whispered, people moved; when he spoke they jumped; when he growled they broke the sound barrier. He had known this before, but he had never participated in it actively, and the memory of what he himself had achieved in the past few hours using the General’s name steadied him now. There were morale-raising rewards in pretending to be a man of action, always provided one could keep out of the front line.

As if to support this conclusion came the distant sound of the spotter plane, making its second pass exactly on schedule. It droned high over their heads, corrected its course to pass directly over the hill and disappeared over the mountains beyond.

Boselli wedged his dark glasses above his brow, blinking for a moment in the harsh light, wiped his sweaty palm on his trousers, and accepted the binoculars.

It took him ten fumbling seconds to adjust them—the General must be as blind as a bat—and then the hilltop came up in focus, first the vines, then the outbuildings, and finally the dilapidated farmhouse itself. But there was not a sign of movement anywhere, and he could see nothing more in close-up than he had been able to see with the naked eye half a mile down the gulley of the watercourse, in the grove of trees where the cars were hidden.

He lowered the binculars and stared at the landscape around. The ground directly ahead was bare and scrubby for perhaps half a mile, maybe more, until the first row of vines. Away to the right he could see the naked line of the track which must lead to the farm from the road. It was poor country and the wine from those grapes would be harsh—a land of bare subsistence living.

“Well?”

Boselli shrugged. “If this is the place—it looks uninhabited.”

“It is the place.”

“They could be lying.”

He realised that he didn’t know—would never know—who “they” were. It had been just a voice calling the number they had given from a public callbox—at the
Stazione Termini
.

“Disobeying an order coming all the way from the Kremlin?” The General snorted. “I really don’t think that’s very likely. Besides, I know it is the place.”

Boselli waited for enlightenment.

“According to the local police it is owned by the brothers Giolitti, but unless I’m very much mistaken their real name is Prezzolini … and they were both founder-members of the Bastard’s execution squad in the old days.” The General nodded up towards the hill speculatively. “This is the place.”

He turned back to Boselli. “And now, Pietro—you have arranged everything?”

“Yes, General—“ Boselli checked his watch, “—the helicopter will be here on the hour. The spotter plane—“

“That was on time. It has made two passes.” The General nodded. “Just enough to alert them, but not quite enough to frighten them. The chopper will do that.”

“And it is necessary to frighten them?”

“Oh, yes. That is the psychology of it—Dr. Audley’s psychology. You must remember that this is really his operation, Pietro. We have merely implemented it.”

Boselli had been remembering little else in his spare moments ever since that first call to Moscow, and he was no nearer resolving the contradictions in the General’s behaviour. For two things were clear to him beyond all else: the General wanted George Ruelle dead—and the General was proposing to let George Ruelle slip through his fingers.

Admittedly, any attempt to take Ruelle from his hilltop would almost certainly result in the death of the Englishwoman, which would be regrettable. But the English had only themselves to blame for the situation, and the deaths of Armando Villari and the policeman, never mind that old score from 1943, demanded final settlement. The General was an honourable man, of course, and would keep his word—Boselli had no quarrel with that. What he could not reconcile was that the General had agreed to give his word in the first place.

“General—“ Boselli searched for a way of saying what was in his mind, or at least some of it, and came to the conclusion that it was probably written on his face anyway.

“We must let Dr. Audley save his good lady first,” said the General. “After that—we shall see how things develop. But now I would like to hear that tape of yours, eh?”

Biselli unzipped the black leather case and drew the recorder out.

“From the beginning, General?”

“I think so. I know you said over the phone that it was not exactly informative.”

“Except where the Russian—Panin—said that he had given orders that the Party would find out where Ruelle was hiding, General. Otherwise he denied everything.”

“No leakage of secrets? No traitor?”

Boselli shook his head. “He insisted that the German’s death was due to natural causes—that the record was correct.”

“And did Dr. Audley seem surprised—or disappointed?”

“No, General—not at all.”

“Of course he didn’t, Pietro. He never expected the Russians to admit anything. Like all savages they are very sensitive about such things.”

The General’s mouth twisted sardonically. “And frankly, if I was in their place I wouldn’t have admitted anything either.”

“And yet he trusted them to get him the information he wanted.”

“And was not disappointed, Pietro—for here we are—“ the General nodded towards the hill, “—and there the Bastard is.”

Boselli frowned. The General’s high good humour was positively unsettling, but this was no time to suggest by further questions that he, Boselli, was out of sympathy with it because he was too stupid to understand what was going on. He had never thought of himself as stupid before, but it was clear that he had missed the significance of whatever it was that pleased the General.

He reached forward to the tape recorder.

“But of course he didn’t trust them,” said the General. “It is as well for you to understand that, because you may have to deal with this man Audley again and you must learn how his mind works.”

The General paused thoughtfully. “He has a good mind, this Englishman—a Renaissance mind. He knows how to threaten without making threats.”

“He threatened them—the Russians?”

“Oh yes. But not in so many words. What he did was to give them the blueprint of the threat—the materials … a—what do you call it? —a do-it-yourself kit. That is what he gave them—a do-it-yourself kit!”

He grinned boyishly at Boselli, as though his knowledge of such a plebeian thing as do-it-yourself was surprising.

“Don’t worry, Pietro—your instinct was right. No one in his right mind trusts a Communist to trade honestly, they are worse than Neapolitans. But you must remember what Audley said to the man Panin that first time at Positano.”

“He was—very frank.”

“Indeed he was. He offered to trade one piece of information for another, and to show his good faith he offered his own information in advance. But what else did he give?”

Boselli thought back. At the time he had thought the Englishman had been unnecessarily talkative, both as regards events in England and in Italy.

“He made sure the Russian knew that he was personally involved —that his wife’s life was at stake. He said there had been a shooting in England—“ the General’s manicured left forefinger marked off each item on the fingers of his right hand, “—and a worse one in Italy. He emphasised that he knew the KGB was not to blame—that the agent Korbel and the Bastard were no better than terrorists—and that the authorities in both countries were prepared to offer terms not only to save the woman but also to avoid unnecessary scandal. He said if the newspapers here got hold of it, with the elections approaching, they would make a feast of it, and nobody wanted that—it would only benefit the neo-Fascists and the trouble-makers. He—“ The General stopped as he saw the light of understanding in Boselli’s eyes, “—you see, Pietro?”

Boselli saw—and saw that he had been absurdly slow in catching on.

The deal—the trading of information—was a fiction to enable the Russians to take his orders and to give their own without loss of face. The traitor in Moscow was of no importance to the Englishman compared with his wife, and he had served notice that if any harm befell her he would blow the whole scandal wide open.

It mattered not at all that the KGB was for once blameless. Either the world would refuse to believe it, and they would be branded as kidnappers and murderers at a time when the civilised world was sick of such crimes; or they would be revealed publicly as the incompetent employers of kidnappers and murderers, incapable of controlling their own agents. And the fact that this was often true enough made not the least difference: what mattered was that it should not be seen to be true by the man in the street.

“You see, Pietro?”

Boselli nodded. But what he still did
not
see was why the General, as a lifetime Red-hater, was so happy to go along with the Englishman’s plan.

“Good!” The General looked at his watch. “Now you can play me the tape.”

By the time they got back to the cars the Englishmen had arrived: they were sitting on the pine needles, talking quietly for all the world as though they were waiting for a picnic to begin. Indeed, they seemed more relaxed now than at any time since he had first met them, during which no immediate danger had threatened them. And since they might be both dead within half an hour this must be a conscious display of that celebrated British phlegm of which they were so proud, but which Boselli had always imagined stemmed from a simple lack of imagination.

Audley rose slowly, brushing the pine needles from his trousers before coming towards them.

“Good day, General—Signor Boselli,” Audley gave the General a little bow and Boselli a curious glance as though he was looking at him for the first time. “Are we all set, then?”

“Everything is as you wished it to be, Dr. Audley,” said the General. “It’s a typical Ruelle bolt-hole, with an escape route at the rear —he always boasted that his kennels had back doors to them. But we have the whole place covered.”

“And the presence of your men in this area is accounted for, just in case?”

The General looked at Boselli.

“Yes, professore. There was an announcement on radio and television last night and again today—there is supposed to have been a breakout from prison at Naples. We have had roadblocks set up over half the province to make it look authentic.”

“Excellent. And of course the roadblocks will have discouraged them from leaving the farm, eh?”

That bonus hadn’t occurred to Boselli, but he nodded quickly and knowingly in agreement. He had worked hard enough on this operation to justify taking all the credit that was going spare. Besides, it was for the best that the Englishmen should have their confidence built up: they were taking all the risks, after all.

“Very well.” Audley turned to the General. “But there is just one small change in plan. I’m not going to take Richardson with me. I’ve decided against it.”

Richardson’s brow creased with surprise. “What do you mean? We agreed—“

“—We didn’t agree anything, so don’t start arguing, Peter.”

“Arguing? Man—I’m here to watch out for you!”

“Too late for that. And once we’re up there, there isn’t anything you can do to stop things going wrong—if I can’t swing it.”

“Oh, come off it! The Bastard’s a real mean guy, David—“