Текст книги "The Romanov Succession"

Автор книги: Brian Garfield

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PART FOUR:

September-November 1941

1

In the latitudes of northern Scotland there was daylight until after ten o’clock and they made landfall by twilight with the formation intact, the three Fortresses in a V-triangle with the three transports riding below and behind them.

Alex stretched his limbs one at a time in the confined space.

Spaight was muttering in the throat mike: “If you wanted a sardine why the hell didn’t you draft one?” Spaight had that trait: every morning he made a joke-a sour joke about the weather or a caustic joke about the food. Somewhere in him was a core of bitterness; underneath the hard competence there was dissatisfaction. Alex hadn’t got too close to it but he had the feeling Spaight had been born with an impulse toward perfection and felt unfulfilled whatever he did. He was introspective and if he’d been more of a golfing backslapper he’d have had two or three stars instead of one but the fact that he had one at all was testimony to his extraordinary talent for organizing people and commanding their loyalty. He lacked a head for imaginative tactics but he had the genius of a first-rate staff officer: if you told him what had to be done he would produce everything that was needed for the job and put it all in the right place at the right time. Spaight was married and thrice a father but he kept his family rigidly segregated from his professional existence and he hadn’t once mentioned his wife since they’d left Washington. He was a soldier and she was a soldier’s woman and that was the way the game was played.

Pappy Johnson came on the headset. “Picking up some radio chatter from the Channel. I’ll cut you in.”

Static in the earphones and then he picked up the voices, quite distinct-a very calm crisp Welsh voice, “Break right, Clive, the bugger’s on your arse.”

He could hear the banging of the cannons and the fast stutter of machine guns above the whine of pursuit engines and then the same voice again, still dispassionate: “I’ve taken some tracers-on fire. I’m bailing out. Due east of Dover-I can see the cliffs. Someone save me a pint of bitter and a pair of dry drawers.”

In his imagination he could see the Spitfires and Messerschmitts in the twilight wheeling among the barrage blimps; the Heinkels in ponderous formation lining up for London and the Hawks and Spitfires trying to get at them before they could drop their sticks of bombs through the swaying beams of the searchlights.

There was a break in the static and Johnson said, “Sorry, I’ve got to change the frequency and get landing instructions.”

Spaight said, “You’ve got to hand it to those bastards.”

They were dropping across the mountains of Scotland in slowly fading twilight; the hillsides were indeterminate, dark and heavy. The B-17 thundered lower between the ranges and finally he saw the lights of the runway through the perspex. The bomber descended toward them like a climber on a sliding rope.

The runway was rough; the plane bounced and pitched along the center stripe between the cannister lights. A small van came shooting onto the gravel and curved in to intercept, running fast down the edge of the runway with a big FOLLOW ME sign across its rear doors, Turning on its tail wheel the bomber went along slowly after the van, unwieldy and awkward on the ground. Pappy Johnson was complaining into his radio: “This runway’s got a surface like a goddamn waffle. This Jesus shit airfield wouldn’t get certification from the civil air board of the corruptest county in Mississippi!”

The FOLLOW ME van circled to indicate their parking place and Johnson cut the engines. It was dusk now and the tower was carping in a crisp Scottish voice: “Let’s get the rest of the wee birds down now, lads-we want to switch off these lights, don’t we now.”

He inched painfully to the hatch and lowered himself by his arms. The leg had gone very stiff. Ground crewmen climbed into the bomber and Pappy Johnson stopped by the running board of the van to look back at it the way he might have looked at a woman.

The driver gave a palm-out salute. He saw to their seating and drove them down the gravel strip and decanted them beside a wooden hangar, and sped away to meet the next plane.

Felix was there with his compact movie-actorish looks and his readiness to laugh or spill tears or burst into rages; he emerged from the hangar in an immaculate white uniform his tailor must have worked around the clock to build.

Alex saluted him. It made Felix grin like a schoolboy. “Welcome to the toy shop, Alex.”

“Where’s our headquarters?”

Felix indicated the decrepit hangar behind him. “Right here, I’m afraid. Well then come in, all of you. My God that’s a big ugly monster of an aircraft.” He turned around with a casual wave that drew them all inside and walked through a small door cut into the hangar’s great sliding gate. Over his shoulder he added, “I’ve got Sergei off in search of billets for you and your friends.”

Alex suppressed a smile. Felix was playing the game to the hilt: he’d already taken over. They’d given him a new role-leader of men-and it looked as if it was the role Prince Felix had been waiting for all his life.

2

Black felt curtains overhung the hangar’s few small windows; the high naked lighting within was harsh even though the building was so huge that the farther corners were in shadow. “It used to be a service shop for aircraft on North Sea rescue patrol,” Felix told them. “They’ve moved most of that over to Scapa Flow now. It’s obsolete and cobwebby but it’s ours.”

The room wasn’t far short of an acre in dimension. Vertical steel supports sprouted from the cracked concrete floor here and there; the ceiling was a skeleton of metal and the roof above it was an arched tunnel of corrugated steel gone rusty in patches so that it looked like camouflage paint. Without the clutter of aircraft for which it had been designed the floor space looked infinite; the scale was intimidating, it dwarfed them all.

In the front corner a plywood partition seven feet high marked off an office that might have been used by the maintenance director at one time; it had an open doorway and Alex could see the end of a desk within. The remainder of the huge room was undivided except by the eight steel pillars-two-foot-square I-beams, the sort they built bridges out of.

It had been Vassily Devenko who’d obtained the use of it and he must have done a good deal of very fast talking because even if they’d intended to abandon the building they’d have wanted to demolish it for scrap.

Along the south wall under the blackout-draped windows were stacked dozens of wooden crates with consignment bills-of-lading taped to them. Two men in English uniforms with slung rifles stood sleepily near the door; they were not Englishmen, they were White Russians; Alex recognized them both from Finland. When they saw his face they both stiffened almost imperceptibly-the gesture of coming to attention; he nodded to them both as he went by them.

He made introductions; he said to Pappy Johnson, “Prince Felix is the man you’re going to train to drop the lump of sugar into the cup of coffee. He’s our lead pilot.”

Johnson was startled, then dubious, then polite: “Fine-that’s just fine.” He essayed a smile.

“You don’t mean to tell me I’ve got to fly one of those bloody four-engine battleships?”

“Felix is a first-class pilot-don’t let him fool you.”

Johnson was squinting. “You’re the Prince Felix Romanov that won a couple of air races.”

“In racing planes, Captain-not stinking huge blunderbusses.”

“You rated to fly multiengine?”

“I’ve flown twin. Never four.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Alex said. But Pappy Johnson did not look happy.

A short man-very wide but not fat-emerged from the corner office and strode forward in a British uniform with a colonel’s pips on the shoulderboards.

Felix said diplomatically, “Colonel Tolkachev has been showing me around.”

Tolkachev’s broad ruddy Cossack face was expressionless when he gave his formal salute. “Welcome to Scotland, Colonel.”

It was a studied slight: he knew full well what Alex’s rank was but Alex wasn’t in uniform and it had given Tolkachev the excuse to address him by the rank he’d held when Vassily had been the brigade’s general.

Tolkachev turned to John Spaight and clicked his heels. Spaight shook hands informally with the adjutant. “How are you, Tolkachev? Put on a little weight, I see.”

Tolkachev had been Vassily’s right hand and he was still Vassily’s man and there was no mistaking the enmity, it came off him in waves.

Tolkachev said, “I believe you will find the regiment in order.”

Regiment, Alex thought, picking up on it. No longer brigade. Well they’d been cut up badly in Finland.

“Where’ve you got the men billeted?”

“Across the field. They are smaller hangars than this one.”

“How many men on the roster?”

“Six hundred eighty-two combat personnel. Two hundred eleven support personnel.”

“All from the old outfit, are they?”

“We have had a few recruits. Some of the Poles came over-it looked like more action with us than they had where they were.”

“Is there still a company of Finns?”

“No sir. Helsinki recalled them to defend the border. They are fighting the Bolsheviks again you know.”

“Then we’re all White Russians with a sprinkling of Free Poles, is that it?”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ve done a remarkable job of keeping the unit intact.”

“That was General Devenko’s doing, sir.” Tolkachev wasn’t giving an inch.

“You’ve been here what, nearly a year?”

“That is right.”

“With what duties?” It was like pulling teeth.

“Miscellaneous defense,” Tolkachev replied. “We have fourteen pilots-the British supplied us with those light aircraft you saw at the end of the field. The air detachment has been flying air-sea rescue missions and spotter flights looking for enemy shipping in the North Sea. The rest of us have been manning antiaircraft stations along the coast, guarding rail shipments of war materiel, doing sentry shifts at Scapa Flow. We have done a good deal of combat training and parade-ground drilling-the General said we were going into action.”

“So you started commando training.”

“Yes sir.”

“How far along are they?”

“That would depend on the nature of the combat mission.”

Alex was tired; he’d need a clear morning head to get down to the details. “I’ll want a meeting of all field-grade officers at nine in the morning and a general formation at noon.”

“Very good sir.”

Alex turned to Prince Felix. “Well how are you then?”

Felix spread his hands wide. “Like a duck to water, old man. I’ve been flying those puddle jumpers.”

“I’ve been expecting a message from Baron Oleg.”

“It came this afternoon. It wasn’t much of a message. We’re to expect someone tomorrow evening.”

Then Oleg had kept his word. It would be someone from Spain, hand-carrying the contact drill for reaching Vlasov.

It would be none too soon. Without Stalin’s favorite Red Army general none of this was going to work at all.

3

At six in the morning Sergei knocked and he struggled out of sleep, filled with random pains.

There was no shower and the bath water wasn’t heated because it had not occurred to any of them to light the boiler. He washed with cold water and sponged himself with a cloth; it was bracing if nothing else. When he had shaved he surrendered the bathroom to Spaight and got into his Russian dress-whites because of the regimental formation he’d scheduled for the day; and found his way into the kitchen where Sergei had eggs frying in the bacon grease.

It was a farm cottage that Sergei had rented: the little garden backed up on the airfield’s fence and the hangars were visible and within walking distance. The owner of the house was a Royal Naval Reserve petty officer serving aboard one of His Majesty’s destroyers; the wife and children were living thirty-six miles away with a sister-in-law in the town of Inverness.

It was a comfortable bungalow, very small rooms with everything in its place and chintz headrests on the armchairs.

“It’s a hell of a house to run a war from, Sergei.”

“Yes sir.”

He’d done eating and got into his second cup of coffee when Spaight stumbled groggily into the kitchen, suffering badly from the change in time. “Christ I feel like a quart hangover. I woke up trying to scrape the moss off my tongue. How you making it this morning?”

“Feeling no pain,” Alex lied. “Sit down and revive yourself on some of Sergei’s coffee.”

The cup was almost engulfed by Sergei’s huge hand when he set it down. Then he put his grave eyes on Alex. “Will there be soldierly duties for me as well, my general?”

Sergei was overage and overweight but he had lived his entire life for the single purpose of soldiering for Russia. Alex said, “You’ll fight with us, Sergei. We couldn’t do it without you.”

Sergei went back to the frypan beaming.

“John, I’m going to handpick you a parachute company. You’re going to have to equip them and train them for jumping.”

Spaight shot a quick warning glance to his left.

Alex said, “I’ve trusted Sergei many times with my life and he’s trusted me with his. You might listen when Sergei speaks-the British Expeditionary Force awarded him a DSM in the Ukraine.”

The Distinguished Service Medal was a citation the English didn’t take lightly. Spaight showed his surprise and then nodded. Sergei happily served up his eggs and ham-sliced bacon.

Alex said, “The heavier things are coming by convoy. Transports have a way of ending up in the Atlantic trench. It’s going to be another of your jobs to keep leaning on Glenn Buckner to deliver the goods we need-regardless of U-boats.”

“Tall order,” Spaight remarked. “What else?”

“You’ll be in overall command of training.”

Spaight pushed his empty plate away and swallowed the last mouthful. “Okay. Now you can tell me what I’m training them for.”

“Paratroop commando tactics. The same drill we had at Bliss.”

“Uh-huh. With the two of us trading places. I’ve already said that’s all right with me-but I’d still like to know what kind of operation I’m preparing them for.”

“Just teach them to jump out of those Dakotas. The men have seen their share of combat in Finland-you won’t have to teach them a damned thing about handling rifles or digging holes or maintaining battle discipline.”

“That’ll speed things up. My God the times at Bliss I’d have given my left nut for a training cadre that had any kind of combat experience at all. Do you have any idea how much of a godsend you were to my command, Alex?”

“You’ve seen combat,” Alex pointed out.

“Twenty-three years ago in French mud. That wasn’t combat, that was a screwed-up slaughterhouse in the trenches.”

“I’ve seen your combat record.”

“Where the hell did you turn that rock over?”

Alex said, “You took a patrol a hundred miles inside German-occupied territory on an armed reconnaissance. You came back through the lines with four German colonels and one of the Kaiser’s major-generals for prisoner interrogation-and you didn’t lose a single man. That’s what I want you to train these paratroops for. That mission all over again. To get to the objective without being seen or shot at. To attain the objective without fuss and without noise.”

“Son-if I can call a major general son-that was a nice quiet little farmhouse in the Rhine country that the Boche were using for a rear-echelon officers’ billet. Like this house here. We had to put knives in half a dozen sentries just before dawn and that was all there was to it-we caught the brass hats with their pants down standing in line waiting for the latrine. That ain’t exactly the same idea as walking into the Russian goddamned Kremlin.”

“We’re not going into the Kremlin,” Alex said.

Spaight grinned. “Aha. That’s piece number one of the puzzle.”

At seven he finished reading over the document he had spent odd moments of the past week writing. It consisted of nineteen pages of neat Cyrillic script. He folded it in thirds and sealed it in a buff-colored envelope and went in search of Sergei.

He found the old soldier cleaning a Mannlicher rifle. The tiny bedroom stank of solvent and oil. The square of newspaper on the floor was a repository for cloth patches that had come off the ramrod with star-shaped stains of tawny oil; the weapon hadn’t been dirty but Sergei had carried it around the world with him for twenty-six years and the reason he could still rely on it was that he hadn’t taken it for granted. It looked like a venerable antique but by now it was part of Sergei’s arm and he could put a bullet from it into a moving head at five hundred meters.

Sergei’s big face was the texture of old rubber that had dried and gone cracked-grey in a desert sun. Tension made him flick his tongue across his lips. “I shall be the eyes in the back of your head then.”

“You understand how it must be done.”

“I must not kill him. If he tries to assassinate you…”

“When, not if. They won’t give it up now.”

“When he tries to assassinate you I am to shoot him where it will not kill him.”

“You understand why, Sergei?”

“Of course. We must find out from him who has employed him.”

“We’ll try to make it easy for him,” Alex said. “I’ll stagger my routine. I won’t follow any pattern from day to day except for one habit we’ll show him. Every morning at exactly half-past seven I’ll leave this house and walk through the back gate in the base fence and walk straight to the main hangar. He’ll be watching my movements. He’ll try to find a pattern and he’ll learn there’s only one time of day when he can anticipate where I’ll be-half-past seven in the morning, going from here to there on foot. That’s where he’ll try to kill me. It won’t be for two or three days, perhaps a week.”

“You must go armed of course.”

“I’ve got my pistols. I’ll wear them from this morning on.” They were a pair of British Webley. 45 revolvers he’d acquired from a captured Japanese lieutenant general in the mountains of Kansu Province. Once in the Shensi he’d nearly bought the farm when the hammer spring of his Smith amp; Wesson had broken at full cock and since then he’d carried two revolvers-revolvers because he had never trusted automatic pistols, they jammed too easily with a little mud or cold weather. He’d settled on the big. 45s because when you hit an enemy with them he went down and lost interest in fighting.

Sergei was assembling the Mannlicher mechanism and began to thumb cartridges into the Krag box. Alex watched him set the safety. “I’ve got an envelope I want you to keep for me.” He produced it. “Put it where it won’t be found. These are the plans for the operation. If I’m taken out they won’t have time to try to reconstruct my plans or devise new ones. If it happens you must get these plans to Prince Leon immediately.”

“I understand.”

4

Officers’ call was at nine. He was in the hangar by seven-forty, ready to go over the mound of papers that abstracted the regiment’s status: its personnel, its supplies, its readiness.

Tolkachev came strutting out of the office. He didn’t offer a greeting; just stood at attention waiting.

“Let’s go back to your office.” The leg twinged angrily when he strode past the Cossack.

He waited for Tolkachev to follow him into the cubicle. “Shut the door please.” There were enlisted men elsewhere in the hangar; it wasn’t for their ears.

Tolkachev shut them in. Alex stayed on his feet. He felt brittle. “We haven’t got room here for personal antagonisms. Are you prepared to work under my command?”

“I will not resign voluntarily from the regiment.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

Finally Tolkachev said, “I have been adjutant here for nearly two years, sir.”

“You’ve been used to having it your own way here. You’ve been the operations man-General Devenko wasn’t to be bothered with the details of running a unit. And in the last few weeks you’ve got accustomed to being in command-there was no one here but you. That’s got to change. Can you accept that?”

“I would be willing to take orders…”

“But not from me, is that it?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“I commend your candor, Tolkachev.”

“I must resign then?”

“No. You’re a first-rate combat soldier. I’ve got a job for you.”

“I see.”

Tolkachev didn’t see-not yet. Alex said, “I’ll want the company rosters now.”

Tolkachev got them from the files. Alex spread the papers on the desk and stood leaning over them on his hands. He studied names: put faces to them from memory and summoned recollections of their talents and excellences. Here and there he checked off a name with the blunt point of a pencil.

When he’d done he had checked fifty-eight names and he withdrew from the desk. “I need forty more than I’ve marked.”

“For what purpose?”

“Combat skills and good minds. Russians only-no Poles.”

Tolkachev bent over the rosters. Alex left him alone until he’d finished and then went over it, the names he knew and the names he didn’t know, and he erased four or five of Tolkachev’s marks. When Tolkachev stiffened he said, “I’ve got to use my own judgment.” He glanced up and surprised a look of white-hot hatred on Tolkachev’s flat face. “Give me half a dozen more. I want the very best of them.”

Tolkachev did the job again and when Alex was satisfied he put the rosters aside. “All right. Now you’re going to have to reorganize the regiment. You’ll have to shuffle the assignments. These men whose names are checked off-I want them assigned to a special training company. They’re to have a barracks to themselves. Their officers will live in that barracks with them and there’s to be absolute security maintained at all times on that building.”

“Yes sir.”

“You don’t understand what it’s all about-that’s the way it’s going to stay, Tolkachev. These hundred men are mine-them and the pilots. The rest of the regiment will remain yours to run. You’ll continue performing the Allied defense duties you’ve been performing. You’ll have to spread yourselves thinner to make up for the men I’ve drafted. Once the new company is formed up there’s to be no contact between its men and the rest of the troops in the regiment. We’ll have our own mess hall, our own recreation areas segregated from the others. You’ll have to rotate assignments in the regiment to keep a twenty-four-hour guard patrol on the training area, including the company barracks-I can’t waste these men’s time having them pull sentry duty. I’ll want two men on each entrance. No one will be allowed in or out of the trainees’ area without a pass signed by me or by General Spaight. No one-including yourself. Is this clear?”

“Yes sir. Absolute security. I understand.”

“The sentries will be armed with live ammunition. Anyone who tries to disobey their challenges is to be shot. Not to kill but shot where it’ll hurt. Understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then pick good marksmen.”

Tolkachev said drily, “You have the best ones in the training company, sir.”

“Then teach the rest of them to shoot better,” Alex said gently. “All right-you’ve got a great deal to do. You’d better do it. Incidentally you’ll have to move your office-we’ll be needing the use of this hangar.”

“Yes sir. Just one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“The British have suffered us here because we’ve performed useful services. We have freed British units to go to the fronts-we have been doing the work that their own people would have had to do otherwise.”

“I understand that. You’ll go right on doing those things.”

“No sir-not quite. The reason they gave us the use of this airfield is that we have been able to fly offshore patrols and rescue flights for them. If we stop, they will probably want their airfield back.”

“You’ll have to let me worry about that, Tolkachev.” But he could see the way the Cossack’s mind was working: Suppose he throws a spanner in it and we lose our base on account of him}

Alex said, “You’re just going to have to take your chances. I’m giving you more than you’d have given me. More than you probably deserve. If a soldier’s not prepared to take orders from his superior then he’s not much of a soldier.”

“Was that how it was with you and General Devenko then, sir?” Tolkachev hadn’t hesitated: it had been there in him, bottled up, waiting for the chance to come out.

“When your commander’s orders are clearly wrong you have the right to challenge them, Tolkachev. Not otherwise. Now get out of here and get to work.”

Tolkachev’s face had gone impassive again. He drew himself up. “When do you wish it finished, sir?”

“ When?”

Tolkachev gathered his dignity about him and wheeled out of the office.

The blackout curtains were open. Through the window he saw squads running the verges of the runway at double-time with heavy packs strapped to their shoulders. Sergeants barked the rhythm of the run and he recognized a captain and two lieutenants who ran along with them. Limping from the window back to the desk he wondered if the muscles of his thigh would knit in time for him to run like that before the mission took off.

Officers’ call; then regimental assembly: hard eyes full of challenge; uncertain eyes averted.

Then at two in the afternoon a De Havilland Beaver bounced lightly down the runway and decanted a passenger.

The group captain wore RAF wings and a DFC; he was short and wiry with freckled sharp features and a shock of heavy red hair. The light of merriment danced in the Scot’s eyes. His name was Walter MacAndrews.

Felix said, “We’re here by the good group captain’s sufferance.”

MacAndrews had a good firm handshake. “Heard a great deal about you from His Highness. I must say you look every inch of it.” He had to throw his head well back to look into Alex’s face.

On the way across the tarmac to the main hangar he explained, “We’ve got the responsibility for northern Scotland-air and coast watches. All the bloody patrol bases, includin’ this one. You might not believe it but I was a self-respecting Spitfire pilot once.”

Felix said. “He lost too many planes so they grounded him.” It was spoken with wicked mischief and from the way MacAndrews grinned it was evident they’d done a good bit of pub-crawling together.

MacAndrews said, “Well that’s a bit true, isn’t it, but I cost the Jerries three times as many aircraft as I cost His Majesty’s government and I thought we were square. Now I understand you’ve come to reorganize things here?”

“In a way.” Alex piloted them into the hangar office. “The regiment will be able to continue doing sentry chores and coast-watch flak tours. Railway guards, all the rest of it. But I’m going to have to pull our pilots out of it.”

MacAndrews showed a little distress. “We haven’t got that many planes to spare up here, General. We’re a bit of a shoestring army.”

“We won’t be needing the planes. If you’ve got other pilots to man them you’re welcome to take them back.”

It relieved the Scotsman. “That I can do. We’ve got a number of overage pilots not unlike myself-most of them dying for the chance to fly spotter patrols. We’ll collect the aircraft immediately.”

“I’ve got to impose on you for something else,” Alex said. “I need the use of land.”

“Land?”

“A field or a meadow. Something at least a mile long and reasonably flat.”

“For landing aircraft is it?”

“No. Something else.”

When MacAndrews saw it was all he was going to get he smiled with amusement. “And I take it you’d prefer it wasn’t a common right in the middle of a curious town full of people. Then it’s got to be something in the highlands, hasn’t it. How far afield may I go?”

“I’d like it as near here as possible.”

“Yet you want privacy. That’s a wee order, General. But there might be a spot or two. Give me forty-eight hours then-I’ll come up with something.” His eyes twinkled: “I don’t for a single minute suppose that’s all you’ll be wanting.”

“There’s only one other thing I can think of at the moment. We’ll want about thirty old cars. The next thing to junk will do-as long as they’re capable of chugging along at a few miles an hour. Don’t expect to get them back. We’ll pay for them of course.”

“Any particular make and model, then?” But there was no bite to MacAndrews’ sarcasm; he was too agreeable for that. “I can only assume you mean to entertain your men with bumper-car races on the meadow.”

“You wouldn’t be too far off,” Alex said.

Five minutes after MacAndrews’ Beaver took off a twin-engined British cargo plane made a rough landing and taxied awkwardly around to the main hangar behind the FOLLOW ME van. The first man out of the plane was not a member of its crew; his rank was too high for that.

“I’m Cosgrove, Bob Gosgrove. War Office.” The English brigadier had an empty sleeve pinned up and the face of a man weary of war. “They told you I was on my way?”

“I’m afraid not, Sir.”

“Bloody crowd of imbeciles in Communications. Well they’ve sent me up to fetch and carry for you. What do you need from us?”

“That’ll take explaining,” Alex said. “Come inside. Coffee?”

“Got it running out my ears,” said Cosgrove. He had an engaging smile; he was a gaunt grey man with a thick mane of hair and a faint resemblance to Vassily Devenko-very tall, the long angular face, the heavy hair almost white.

When Alex was alone with the English brigadier the hearty mask sagged. “All right then. What is this show about?”

“I’d have to know your authority for asking that.”

“You’d better put in a call to London then.”

If it was a bluff it had to be called. Alex rang Tolkachev on the base line and told him to get through to General Sir Edward Muir. Then while he waited he drew Cosgrove into conversation, plumbing him.

He found the brigadier forthright and direct. “Bloody hush-hush. The PM’s known far and wide for his cloak-and-dagger indulgences but I rather think most of them have come a cropper, haven’t they? Gallipoli’s a case in point. I was there, I know.”

Later he said: “The Home Office have agreed to give you use of these facilities but I hope you understand it’s a risk for them. I’m told the Assistant Secretary was a bit pained-they don’t like the idea, it may be in violation of international law.”

“I’m not a lawyer. That’s someone else’s department.”

“Up to a point,” Cosgrove said. “It means your people are going to have to be on their best behavior every moment. The slightest incident could dash the whole show. These Scots are bloody sensitive with foreigners.”