The Crocus List - Lyall Gavin - Страница 40

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"Why did you leave the Company, Mo?"

The big man sighed heavily. "Maybe I'd stopped believing, started wondering if things couldn't have been just a bit different. Maybe I'm just saying I wish we hadn't donethe things that went wrong-old men think like that, kid themselves along. You can't regret everything. So… I hung in there another year, shredding a few more files, saying maybe it was time I went back to the law, and when I got this offer… I took my medal and they all cried. And I cried for Arnie, because he'd trusted me." He sighed again. "Sweetie, you are looking at an old moose who just can't figure out where he took the wrong trail, and he'll never get back up that hill again. Maybe I should just've stayed here and untangled Mrs Wertenheimer's fight with her landlord. That, I could'vegot right."

Despite herself, Agnes smiled with real warmth at the old crocodile -Maguiwas never a moose-shedding genuine crocodile tears. She believed in most of what he'd been saying; she had no idea of how much he believed himself.

Magill put on a brave, wry smile. "And how's about you? Is there still a crusade out there someplace?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps I'm on one now… I like to think so."

He reached and took her hand. "That's what I like about you. You belong to the good times… there were some, had to be. Tell me we can still win more than we lose."

"You and me together, Mo? Strictly under the UKUSA agreement?"

He threw his head back with laughter, then hauled her to her feet and hugged her to him. "I should've thought of invoking that long since. Yes, you and me. "

Her body had stiffened for a moment, but she made herself relax and huddle against him. This was why she was there; this, and something more… "Why, Mister Magill," she reacted with over-prim innocence.

"You and me," he repeated, smiling reassuringly. "The ones who understand crusades. D'you want…?" He nodded at a door that must be the bathroom.

"Won't be a minute." She took her big shapeless handbag with her. She was unsurprised to find a long silk bathrobe, neither masculine nor feminine, hanging on the back of the door. When she had undressed and put it on, without catching her own eye in the mirror, she went back to the other room and dumped the handbag on top of thedressing-table. As an afterthought, she routed in it to find her cigarettes and lighter, leaving it sloppily open.

Afterwards, she sat in one of the chairs and lit a cigarette, still in the bathrobe; Magill seemed to like his women never quite naked. He stayed stretched on the chaise-longue.

"Fix yourself another drink, sweetie."

"No thanks. It's either too early or too late."

"Never too late… didn't we just prove that?" He chuckled contentedly. "We should have got together a long time ago, when I wasn't an old man."

"You aren't old, Mo," she reassured him.

"Not with you, maybe…"

There had to be something left on the sideboard for her: she had earned it. But she was going to have to ask for it.

"Mo-where did the Crocus List get its training?"

"Germany. We had so many military establishments over there, the Company had its own place, Camp King close off Frankfurt, I guess most of it would have been there. Good practice for them getting there: fly to Paris, make contact with somebody who gives them a new passport, find your own way to Frankfurt."

"They must have done some in Britain. "

"I guess." Magill stretched lazily."Arnie would'vefixed it."

"And a base to store weapons and stuff. That's something you must have known about. It would have had to be protected by some sort of front for the gold chain to run through."

Magill just said: "Long time ago. All shredded and wiped clean."

"Then how did it self-start?"

"Just a clutch of Britons getting together in a pub, nothing to do with Langley. "

"Except for what you've told me."

"We've been socialising. You came up to socialise, we socialised."

Agnes clenched her teeth, recognising a dead end. "And what happened to Tatham's daughter?"

"Sure, her… last I heard, she was living in the old family house in Illinois. Matson, Illinois."

"Did she go back to the name Tatham?"

"No, I think she stayed with her married name. Hall. Clare Hall."

That was too easy; Agnes was immediately suspicious.

Magill went on: "You could write her. Tell you what: I'll give her a call and say you'll be writing, okay?"

"I might even drop in and see her."

"Well now, about that… with the UKUSA agreement and all… You just write her."

"While time goes by."

"Sweetie, I wouldn't want for you to get in a hassle with our government. That wouldn't help a career-oriented girl at all."

"Damnit, Mo, this is happeningnow. Something your God-fearing Arnie Tatham set up and is happeningnow. Because somehow that List got away. How?"

"I shredded it myself, without looking at it. You look great when you're mad. "

That made Agnes even madder, because she knew her friendly snub-nosed face couldn't cope with anger. She grabbed her handbag and went through to the bathroom.

When she got back she had put on not just her clothes but the cheerful little-girl smile that suited her far better.

'TUbe away."

Magill was mostly dressed, too. "Be seeing you, sweetie. Next time you're in town, don't forget old Mo."

"Never." She reached and pecked his cheek.

"Off to find your soldier friend?"

"That's right."

"Seems a nice boy."

Thank you, Mo, she thought: that'll do nicely. She had hoped to end on a note of pure hatred.

She was meeting Maxim at Pennsylvania Station, to take the Amtrak Metroliner back to Washington. For no special reason except that it was something new to show him, and it avoided the long grind out to the airport, the brief shuttle flight, and another cab queue. Airlines were brisk morning things; in the afternoon, you drifted home by train.

She bought first-class tickets and still had half an hour to spare. She found a phone booth in the shapeless concourse and called Magil J's office.

"Sweetie, what can I do for you that I didn't already? If there's anything I forgot, put it down to old age and I'll try and remember next time." If there was any post-coitaltristesseabout Mighty Mo Magill, his lifetime in covert operations hid it well.

"Couple of small things. How secure is this line?"

A momentary pause, then: "Hold on," and humming silence. He could have been warning his receptionist off the line or switching off- or on-a recording device. She didn't care either way.

"All secure. Shoot."

"I've been thinking, Mo. I'd still like the name of the front for the Crocus List."

"Long gone, I told you."

"I'd still like it. If you can't remember it, look it up and give me a call in Washington this evening. You've got my number?"

' "You sound kind of imperative, sweetie. Could there be any reason for this?" The old crocodile was smelling hook, not bait.

"We were peeped, Mo."

"No. No way at all."

"Mo, I'll tell you something, now. Your Company -my Service, too-got itself into video and pin lenses andultra-violet light, all wires and electricity. I never could understand electricity: it bites you. So I just staggered along with good old photography. I found this sweet little man who fixed up a non-reflex 35 for me, slowed down the motor wind so it wouldn't make a sound, fixed in a timer to take a shot every thirty seconds. Oh yes, and a filter to make it like the cap of my handcream tube looking out of my handbag and on the dressing-table. It's a lovely dressing-table, that, Mo. I want you to know how much I appreciate your dressing-table."

She turned to smile benevolently at the scurrying passengers behind her. There was a rare pleasure in blackmailing somebody, privately, from so public a place.

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