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

He gave me back my papers and it occurred to me that the whole thing was a bit odd because you can't break many regulations leaving your car parked in a nice neat row with the others; but I wasn't really interested because I wanted to start battling a gangway through the traffic till we got to a quiet bar where I could give Marianne a cognac.

'Eh bien, m'sieur,' the big one said, 'il y a un Monsieur Steadman qui vous attend a I'Hotel Negresco, & Nice. C'est assez urgent, et vous n'avec qu'h nous suivre; vous savez?'

'Okay,' I said, and got into the Lancia.

'What is happening?' asked Marianne.

They're going to give us a hand getting through all the traffic.'

She kept her green eyes on me for a moment and then looked down and didn't ask anything else. I'd told her I was in the diplomatic corps, one of the routine covers when we're hanging around foreign parts between missions. There was the prescribed plate on the back of the car and I'd telexed the number to London and that was routine too. We're never asked to report at intervals or tell them where we're staying because we're meant to relax between missions but we have to tell them the country we're in and the car we're driving, so that they can get their hooks on us if something blows up.

The two motards had got their hee-haws going and the whistles began shrilling ahead of us as the traffic police began pulling the line of cars to one side to let us through. Marianne lit a cigarette and leaned her head back and closed her eyes and we didn't talk until the cops had taken us in a loop along the Boulevard des Moulins to the frontier by the bus terminal. A pair of French motards were waiting for us there with their bikes ticking over and the Monegasques peeled off and left us to it. The main street through Beausoleil was almost deserted because everyone was down there by the sea, and the French cops put on a bit of speed, using their klaxons on the rising 'hairpin bends to the Grande Corniche.

'Will you have to go?' asked Marianne. She was leaning her dark head sideways, watching me.

'Probably.'

Because London doesn't grab you just for a giggle. I didn't know who Monsieur Steadman was because it'd be a code name and it could be Ferris or Loman or Comyngs or anyone at all: it didn't have to be a director in the field at this stage; it could simply be a contact. During the last few hours something had come up on the board and they'd flown this man out and asked Interpol in Paris to pick up the driver of the car with the number I'd given them and tell him where the rendezvous was: the Negresco, Nice, That is a shame,' Marianne said.

She always tried to speak English to me, because I said I liked her accent.

'Yes.' I turned to look at her, then away again.

We'd planned three more days together before she had to go back on duty handing out trays at thirty thousand feet and I wouldn't have let anything bust into a situation like that in the ordinary way, but this wasn't the ordinary way: it looked as if the Bureau had a mission for me and all I could think about now was what I was going into and whether I was going to get out.

They've got some trouble,' I told her, 'in French Guinea, and the UK has been asked to mediate.' We were going through La Turbie at the correct speed and there wasn't any traffic so they weren't using their klaxons, which was. a relief. 'It just means they'll want me back in Paris.'

'Merde,' she said.

'Are you on the metropolitan flights?'

'No. I will be in Durban.'

She opened her eyes and looked at me for a minute and then curled her bare brown legs up on the seat and closed her eyes again and we didn't talk any more till we were rolling along the Promenade des Anglais, one motard still ahead of us and one behind. They'd taken us through most of the Corniche at a hundred kph and all we'd met were the La Turbie bus and a couple of deux chevaux but they'd used their hee-haws on sight and the indications seemed to be that London had sent a real phase-one priority to Interpol with the end result that these two anges de la route had been given instructions to get me through fire and water if it were necessary. It hadn't been necessary but they'd at least tried to show they were right on the ball in case any questions were asked later.

London doesn't normally fidget like that.

Marianne had an apartment in the Gustave V and I turned off the sea front and dropped her there, the rearguard motard following up and the front one meeting us from the opposite direction when he found out we'd made a deviation. She told me not to come up.

'All right,' I said.

She'd been quiet for most of the time since we'd left the Principality, because the Strobel thing was still on her mind. Also I think she'd been looking forward to the three days in we'd planned, and probably thought I should ring Paris and tell them I was down with the grippe or something; and that was what I would have done, if it had been Paris.

I got out of the Lancia and opened the little rusty iron gate of the Villa Madeleine, breaking another tendril of the morning glory that was twined round the hinges.

'Are you ever in Durban?' She gave a little moue and turned away and went up the tiled steps, finding the key in her bag; and when I was back in the car she'd gone, Marianne, with her slim brown legs and her smoky eyes and the way she made you feel it was the first time and never-coding.

Steadman had left a message at the desk saying he'd be in the Rotunda, and I saw him on the far side sitting alone at a table with a tray of tea. He looked at me over the cup.