"Hall, Adam - The Sinkiang Executive" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

'You want some tea?'

He shook his head, looking away again. 'I've got a message for you, old fruit, that's all. You're requested not to leave the building. Okay?' He got up and wandered off in his red plaid slippers, saying a word to Maisie as he went out, leaving her giggling.

I sat at the table with the cold cup of tea and didn't want to move. My stomach had gone sour and I tried not to think about what Tilson had said - what Tilson had meant. But I'd have to think about it and I left the Caff and went up to the fourth floor and looked for Woods, because he might know the score. He was in Signals, perched in front of the mainline Asia console trying to get a director in the field some kind of access before his executive ran out of information - they were so bloody good at kicking you into a red sector and leaving you there like a sitting duck while they sat around here in London working out the material they should have worked out before you were even briefed.

Not true. They sometimes did it. Only sometimes, or no one would ever get back with his skin on. I was just feeling paranoiac, that was all, and when Woods turned round from the console to look at me and turned right back without saying anything I gave it up and cleared out. I hadn't expected him to say anything except hallo or something because he didn't have time: the yellow was flashing and the director was asking for a signal and Woods had one for him because he hadn't got the phone in his free hand; but it was his face that had rattled me: the quick surprise in it and then the shut-down as he looked at me for a moment without any expression at all before he went back to the set.

I was beginning to get the message.

For the next hour I hung around the upper floors but couldn't find anyone to talk to. There was a lot of pressure on this morning and everyone looked as nervous as a cat on moving day. Harrison might have spared me some time but he was sending a group out to one of the African states and asked me to leave as soon as I went in there. In Room 12 there was a dental mechanic installing a three-phase micro-receiver in a wisdom tooth for one of the Moscow couriers, and I didn't stay. Young Gray was fiddling about next door with a couple of Dinky Toys and the model of a street intersection. One of the buildings had a little flag and the whole thing looked terribly like a long-range elimination set-up for telescopic sights and I didn't interrupt him, except to remind him to lock the door as soon as I'd gone: we get a few visitors to the Bureau and although they're usually deep-screened people from the Foreign Office or DI6 we ought not to be seen playing games like that on the fourth floor, which is now the executive action complex.

I was sitting around in Monitoring with one ear on some stuff going out on the Chinese-speaking propaganda programme from Moscow when one of the phones rang and someone picked it up and looked around and said: 'Yes, he's here.' He passed it to me and I gave my name and listened very intently because this was the call I'd been waiting for: it couldn't be anything else.

It was one of the girls from Admin, asking if I could be in Mr Parkis's room as soon as possible and I said yes I could and put the thing down and went out, keeping my breath steady and my pace steady but finding it difficult, having to work at it. Because I knew what had happened, and I'd spent half the night and all this morning trying to tell myself that I didn't.


A copy of the Telegraph was lying on the desk with the front page turned towards me as I came in. Parkis was looking down at it, his pale fleshy hands in the side pockets of his jacket with the thumbs hooked over the top. He didn't speak.

When he saw I was looking at the newspaper he turned away and began walking in a short straight line between the window and the Lowrie on the wall, his soft elegant shoes leaving traces of dark and light as they disturbed the nap of the carpet. I didn't spend long looking at the paper: I'd seen it already.

Parkis stood still and looked at me with his ice-blue eyes. He is made entirely of ice, this man, and one day when I blow my cover at the wrong time or spring a trap in the wrong place or walk into a red sector without checking it first I'm going to go out cursing Parkis. This I promise.

They're all ruthless bastards, the London directors: they've got to be. They wouldn't survive if they weren't, and nor would we. But most of them understand what this kind of work does to us, and what it can do to us if it's allowed to get out of hand. Most of them regard us as human beings even when they're directing us into operations that no human being could be expected to bring off and keep his sanity. So we usually manage to get back, give or take a few exceptions; and this is partly because when we're out there in the field we know there's someone doing his best to look after us from London Control.

Parkis is different. He is like Loman, but infinitely worse. I've worked three missions under his control and since a year ago I've refused him and I'm going to go on refusing him. Parkis doesn't think we're human beings. He thinks we're robots. And the only reason why he's still among the top-echelon directors is because he plans his operations so meticulously that nothing can go wrong: providing you're a robot. But there are situations in the field that even Parkis can't control: it can rain and your foot can slip; a plane can be late; a shot can ricochet. Then if you're still alive he'll throw you to the dogs because there's nothing else he can do: his operations are designed to tick with the precision of a watch, and they are thus too sensitive to accommodate the unpredictable.

So he wins on points: he brings back as many of us as the other directors do, and he does it by skill; but it's the skill of a toymaker. He finishes the paintwork and winds us up and sets us going and nine times out of ten we don't hit the wall. It isn't the odds I mind: they're pretty good. It's Parkis.

He spoke.

'I've been waiting for you.'

'Not for long,' I said.

They could have found me in five minutes, wherever I was, since I'd come in this morning.

'What were you doing in Monitoring?'

'Keeping an ear open.' We're not supposed to wander about on the fourth floor unless we're on call or briefed.

I looked down at the Telegraph again, just for a second. They'd got a picture of the train, empty and with the doors open. The headline was across the three right-hand columns: Murder in London Underground.

I turned away from it and looked at the rain on the windows.

'Time is very short,' Parkis said thinly.

'Then let's get it over.'

He said in a moment: 'I have a question for you, Quiller. How many men have you been obliged to kill, in the course of a mission?'