"Trevor, Elleston as Hall, Adam - Quiller 07 - The Kobra Manifesto 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

But I shouldn't have lost my cool so easily.

They note things like that.

The bulbs glowed yellow in the stairwell and I leaned on the banisters for a minute, listening to the raindrops hitting the skylight in the roof. Someone had made a mistake, that was all: the character in Room 6 was running a minor operation in Portugal with the local telephone for communication and a code series no one had used since I'd got back from Tunisa-it hadn't been blown anywhere but C and C had worked out some rather more sophisticated matrices with a computer for the mainline operations and these days the first-to-fourth series were given the trainees to play with.

'It's all right now,' Tilson said.

He was shuffling along the corridor in his plaid slippers, his round pink face radiating reassurance.

'Who is he, anyway?'

'Who is who, old fruit?'

That bloody fool.'

He gave a slight wince, and looked back along the corridor for a moment, lowering his voice. 'He's from upstairs.'

Now I got it. At the Bureau 'upstairs' is the rarefied territory where Administration has its offices. Normally their lordships leave us alone but sometimes one of them asks the directorate if he can run a minor operation to keep his hand in, and of course the directorate can't refuse. I suppose there's a point in it somewhere but that kind of thing can get out of hand: we could find one of those amateur heroes running a mission the wrong way round and getting the poor bloody executive caught in the works. We don't appreciate that sort of thing: it's our life, not theirs.

'All right Tilson, get me debriefed.'

'Of course,' he said comfortingly. 'What about a spot of tea first?'

'Listen, will you, they told me to make contact and escort on the French coast and the poor bastard killed himself and I've got his papers for whoever wants them and all I'm asking for is some service and I'm asking you to get it for me.'

The tone of my voice was pitching up again and I heard it and was warned. There wasn't anything to worry about: they must have a mission lined up for me or they wouldn't have sent me to Istres like that, through a Liaison 9 cut-out: they'd have told those Monegasque cops I had to telephone London. And if they had a mission lined up for me I'd be sent into the field within a matter of days and then I'd be all right.

Tilson was shuffling along beside me.

'Where the hell are we going now, Tilson?'

'Debriefing,' he said, 'then briefing.'

I could feel the subtle rise in the pulse rate throughout my body. 'They've got something for me, have they?'

That's right.' He turned a bland smile on me. Thought you'd be pleased.'

We went down the stairs, 'Who's my director?'

'Mr Egerton.'

I slowed. Egerton was a mainliner, one of the top echelon people in the London directorate. So it was something big.

'Look,' I said, 'this isn't the way to -'

'I do wish you'd take your foot off, old fruit, just till I can get you sorted out. The thing is, he's not in his office. I tried, from Firearms.'

'Where is he?'