out by fall-out …’ He paused. ‘But knocked out it can be. Our experts say that about half a billion people live on one-fifth of China’s land area. The prevailing wind is westerly. Four hundred bombs would kill fifty million by direct heat-blast effect, one hundred million would be seriously injured though they wouldn’t need hospitalization, but three hundred and fifty million would die by windborne fall-out.
‘The AEC minimized the fall-out effects in their follow-through reports on the tests (Bikini, etc.). Now the more militant of the Chinese soldier-scientists are using the US reports to prove that China can survive a nuclear war. We couldn’t withdraw those reports, or say that they were untrue – not even slightly untrue – so I’m here to leak the correct information to the Chinese scientists. The whole operation began nearly eight months ago. It took a long time getting this girl Annie Couzins into position.’
‘In the clinic near to Datt.’
‘Exactly. The original plan was that she should introduce me to this man Datt and say I was an American scientist with a conscience.’
‘That’s a piece of CIA thinking if ever I heard one?’
‘You think it’s an extinct species?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think, but it’s not a line that Datt will buy easily.’
‘If you are going to start changing the plan now …’
‘The plan changed when the girl was killed. It’s a mess; the only way I can handle it is my way.’
‘Very well,’ said Hudson. He sat silent for a moment.
Behind me a man with a rucksack said, ‘Florence. We hated Florence.’
‘We hated Trieste,’ said a girl.
‘Yes,’ said the man with the rucksack, ‘my friend hated Trieste last year.’
‘My contact here doesn’t know why you are in Paris,’ I said suddenly. I tried to throw Hudson, but he took it calmly.
‘I hope he doesn’t,’ said Hudson. ‘It’s all supposed to be top secret. I hated to come to you about it but I’ve no other contact here.’
‘You’re at the Lotti Hotel.’
‘How did you know?’
‘It’s stamped across your Tribune in big blue letters.’
He nodded. I said, ‘You’ll go to the Hotel Ministère right away. Don’t get your baggage from the Lotti. Buy a toothbrush or whatever you want on the way back now.’ I expected to encounter opposition to this idea but Hudson welcomed the game.
‘I get you,’ he said. ‘What name shall I use?’
‘Let’s make it Potter,’ I said. He nodded. ‘Be ready to move out at a moment’s notice. And Hudson, don’t telephone or write any letters; you know what I mean. Because I could become awfully suspicious of you.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I’ll put you in a cab,’ I said, getting up to leave.
‘Do that, their Métro drives me crazy.’
I walked up the street with him towards the cab-rank. Suddenly he dived into an optician’s. I followed.
‘Ask him if I can look at some spectacles,’ he said.
‘Show him some spectacles,’ I told the optician. He put a case full of tortoiseshell frames on the counter.
‘He’ll need a test,’ said the optician. ‘Unless he has his prescription he’ll need a test.’
‘You’ll need a test or a prescription,’ I told Hudson.
He had sorted out a frame he liked. ‘Plain glass,’ he demanded.
‘What would I keep plain glass around for?’ said the optician.
‘What would he keep plain glass for?’ I said to Hudson.
‘The weakest possible, then,’ said Hudson.
‘The weakest possible,’ I said to the optician. He fixed the lenses in in a moment or so. Hudson put the glasses on and we resumed our walk towards the taxi. He peered around him myopically and was a little unsteady.
‘Disguise,’ said Hudson.
‘I thought perhaps it was,’ I said.
‘I would have made a good spy,’ said Hudson. ‘I’ve often thought that.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, there’s your cab. I’ll be in touch. Check out of the Lotti into the Ministère. I’ve written the name down on my card, they know me there. Try not to attract attention. Stay inside.’
‘Where’s the cab?’ said Hudson.
‘If you’ll take off those bloody glasses,’ I said, ‘you might be able to see.’
26
I went round to Maria’s in a hurry. When she opened the door she was wearing riding breeches and a roll-neck pullover. ‘I was about to go out,’ she said.
‘I need to see Datt,’ I said.
‘Why do you tell me that?’
I pushed past her and closed the door behind us. ‘Where is he?’
She gave me a twitchy little ironical smile while she thought of something crushing to say. I grabbed her arm and let my fingertips bite. ‘Don’t fool with me, Maria. I’m not in the mood. Believe me I would hit you.’
‘I’ve no doubt about it.’
‘You told Datt about Loiseau’s raid on the place in the Avenue Foch. You have no loyalties, no allegiance, none to the Sûreté, none to Loiseau. You just give away information as though it was toys out of a bran tub.’
‘I thought you were going to say I gave it away as I did my sexual favours,’ she smiled again.
‘Perhaps I was.’
‘Did you remember that I kept your secret without giving it away? No one knows what you truly said when Datt gave you the injection.’
‘No one knows yet. I suspect that you are saving it up for something special.’
She swung her hand at me but I moved out of range. She stood for a moment, her face twitching with fury.
‘You ungrateful bastard,’ she said. ‘You’re the first real bastard I’ve ever met.’
I nodded. ‘There’s not many of us around. Ungrateful for what?’ I asked her. ‘Ungrateful for your loyalty? Was that what your motive was: loyalty?’
‘Perhaps
