about him at all and the half-moon spectacles he put on to consult a small pocket book gave him the air of a minor professor. He was, in fact, as ruthless as Cesare Borgia and totally without scruples when it came to his country’s interest.
There was a tap at the door and his manservant, an ex-Ghurkha naik, peered in, tying the belt of a dressing gown about his waist.
‘Sorry, Kim, work to be done.’ Ferguson said. ‘Lots of tea, bacon and eggs to follow. I won’t be going back to bed.’
The little Ghurkha withdrew and Ferguson went into the sitting room, stirred the fire in the Adam fireplace, poured himself a large brandy, sat down by the telephone and dialled a number in Paris.
The French Security Service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre Espionnage, the SDECE, is divided into five sections and many departments. The most interesting is certainly Section Five, most commonly known as the Action Service, the department which more than any other had been responsible for the smashing of the OAS. It was the number of Service Five which Ferguson dialled now.
He said, ‘Ferguson here, DI5. Colonel Guyon, if you please.’ He frowned impatiently. ‘Well, of course he’s at home in bed. So was I. I’ve only rung you to establish credentials. Tell him to call me back on this number.’ He dictated it quickly. ‘Most urgent. Priority One.’
He put down the ’phone and Kim entered with bacon and eggs, bread, butter and marmalade on a silver tray. ‘Delicious,’ Ferguson said, as the little Ghurkha placed a small table before him. ‘Breakfast at two-thirty in the morning. What a capital idea. We should do this more often.’
As he tucked a napkin around his neck the ’phone rang. He picked it up instantly. ‘Ah, Pierre,’ he said in rapid and excellent French. ‘I’ve got something for you. Very nasty indeed. You won’t be pleased, so listen carefully.’
In the warehouse, it was quiet after Jack Corder had left. Barry walked to the entrance and locked the judas gate. He paused to light a cigarette and as he turned, a man emerged from the shadows and perched himself on the edge of the table.
Nikolai Romanov was fifty years of age and for ten of them had been a cultural attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Paris. His dark suit was Savile Row, as was the blue overcoat which fitted him to perfection. He was handsome enough in a slightly decadent way, with a face like Oscar Wilde or Nero himself and a mane of silver hair which made him look more like a distinguished actor than what he was, which was a Colonel in the KGB.
‘I’m not too sure about that one, Frank,’ he said in excellent English.
‘I’m not too sure about anyone,’ Barry said, ‘including you, old son, but for what it’s worth, Jack Corder’s a dedicated Marxist.’
‘Oh dear,’ Romanov said. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘He tried to join the British Communist Party when he was an undergraduate at Oxford years ago. It was suggested that someone like him could do more good by keeping his mouth shut and joining the Labour Party, which he did. Trade Union Organiser for six years, then he blotted his copybook by losing his cool during a miners’ strike three or four years ago and assaulting a policeman in the picket line with a pickaxe handle. Put him in hospital for six weeks.’
‘And Corder?’
‘Two years in gaol. The Union wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole after that. Deep down inside, those lads are as conservative as Margaret Thatcher when it comes to being British. Jack came over here when he got out and involved himself with an anarchist group well to the left of the French Communist Party which is where I picked him up. Anyway, why should you worry, or has the Disinformation Department of the KGB changed its aims?’
‘No,’ Romanov said. ‘Chaos is still our business, Frank, and we need to create as much as possible in the Western world. Chaos, disorder, fear and uncertainty, which is why we employ people like you.’
‘You haven’t left much out, have you?’ Barry said cheerfully.
Romanov looked down at the map. ‘Is this going to work?’
‘Come on, now, Nikolai,’ Barry said. ‘You don’t really want Carrington shot dead on a French country road, do you? Very counterproductive, just like the IRA shooting the Queen. Too much to lose, so it isn’t worth it.’
Romanov looked bewildered. ‘What game are you playing now?’
‘Oh, you know me,’ Barry said, ‘the game’s the thing,’ and added briskly, ‘I’ll still take the cash, by the way. Chaos, disorder, fear and uncertainty. I’ll do my best to see you get your money’s-worth.’
Romanov hesitated, then took a large manilla envelope from his pocket and pushed it across. Barry dropped it into the briefcase along with the map.
‘Shall we?’
He led the way to the entrance and unlocked the judas gate. A flurry of wind tossed rain into their faces. Romanov shivered and turned up his collar.
‘When I was fourteen years old in nineteen forty-three, I joined a partisan group in the Ukraine. I was with them two years. It was simpler then. We were fighting Nazis. We knew where we were. But now?’
‘A different world,’ Barry said.
‘And one in which you, my friend, don’t even believe in your own country.’
‘Ulster?’ Barry laughed harshly. ‘I gave up on that mess a long time ago. As someone once said, there’s nothing worse than a collection of ignorant people with legitimate grievances. Now let’s get to hell out of here.’
The apples in the orchard on the hill above Rigny should have been picked weeks before, were already over-ripe, and the air was heavy with the smell of them, warm in the unexpected noon-day sun.
Jack Corder lay in the long grass, a pair of Zeiss binoculars beside him, and watched the villa below. It was a pleasant house, built in the eighteenth century from the look of it with a broad flight of steps leading up to the portico over the main entrance.
There were four cars in the courtyard, at least a dozen CRS police waiting beside their motor cycles and uniformed gendarmes at the gate. Nothing too ostentatious. The President was known to imitate General de Gaulle in that respect and hated fuss.
For a while, Corder was a boy again lying in long grass by the River Wharfe, the bridge below him, good Yorkshire sheep scattered across the meadow on the other side. Sixteen years old with a girl beside him whose name he couldn’t even remember, and life had seemed to have an infinite possibility to it. He felt an aching longing to be back, for everything in between to be just a dream, and then the President of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, stepped out of the house below, followed by the British Foreign Secretary.
The two men stood in the portico flanked by their aides as Corder focused his binoculars.
‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘One man with a decent rifle is all it would take to knock out both of them.’
The President shook the Foreign Secretary’s hand. No formal embrace. That was not his style. Lord Carrington went down the steps and was ushered into the black Citroen.
Corder’s throat was dry. He took the transceiver from his pocket, pressed
