"Trevor, Elleston as Hall, Adam - Quiller 01 - The 9th Directive 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

'You are most hospitable.' The Westerner suspects the extravagant courtesies of the East and I~am always constrained. I added a bit in his own language to please him.

When he left me I noticed three things: a telephone was in this room; you could make an exit through a second door near the rosewood Buddha; and you could still hear quite distinctly the pebbly sound of the gem tumbler in the shop.

It had been a long trip and I hadn't liked being shot out here without any notice, so I tried to relax by looking at the display case on top of one of the safes. It was decent-enough stuff: lapis lazuli, obsidian, rase quartz, a few gem-quality microlines and a very hypnotic moonstone. This place was obviously a lapidary, not just a front.

Loman arrived in ten minutes, punctually. He came in by the second door near the Buddha and asked at once:

'When did you get here?'

'A few minutes ago.' We shook hands as perfunctorily as boxers.

'I mean when did you get into Bangkok?'

This evening at 1805. Air France Paris-Tokyo--'

'But what were you doing in Paris?'

'Oh my God, is it important?'

'I thought you were still in London when we put out the call for you.' He turned away and turned back, his small feet nervous. 'Everything is important. Very.'

'I hope that includes the fact that I'm here at rendezvous dead on time as per signal because I'm fed up with bloody airplanes--'

'Of course. Of course.' He managed to stand still. There were beads of sweat on his face. 'There was one thing they didn't tell me about this place - there's no air conditioning.' He was wearing gray alpaca and a spotted bow tie.

I have a dislike for men with small feet and bow ties and a dislike anyway for Loman. It has been mutual for years but has never affected our work, so that neither considers it important except when we find ourselves shut up together in the confines of a non-air-conditioned lapidarist's back room in Bangkok and similar places where it is barely possible to breathe. Loman is like that room in London with the Lowry on the wall; he smells of polish. His shoes and nails and nose shine brightly, and even his manners take on a spurious polish when he has time to rub them up. Just now he was too busy with his nerves.

I was beginning to feel better; seeing him so worried was doing me good. I said, 'Why couldn't they have told me where this door was instead of sending me through the shop?'

'You had to introduce yourself to Varaphan, of course.'

'With that rigmarole?'

'He isn't a contact. We couldn't use established technique.' He was looking around the room, his bright eyes ferreting out the details. 'This is our safehouse for the present. Sometimes we shall meet at the British Embassy but the most important business will take place here. Let us sit down. We will ask for something to be sent in. There is no need for any rush, none at all.'

The rattan creaked under his slight weight and now he was completely relaxed and looking' up at me as if it were I whose nerves had been showing.

'Just tell me one thing,' I said. 'Is this a mission or has something come unstuck?'

He tapped the little brass bell on the table.

'It's a mission. And nothing must come unstuck.'

I didn't sit down yet because I was too uneasy with the whole thing. Loman was very high up in the Bureau echelon and he rarely left London to direct an operator in the field. He had never personally directed me before and it wasn't going to be any picnic. I said uncivilly:

'I've just flown seven thousand miles at the drop of a hat and you say there's no rush.'

'Not now that you're here.'