"Trevor, Elleston as Hall, Adam - Quiller 17 - Quiller Meridian 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

'Where do we get a sack?'

'Oh for Christ's sake,' I said, and went across to the flatbed freight truck and got out my penknife and ripped open one of the sacks and poured out the grain and came back and got Hornby's body into it and picked up the head, my hands more tender now because this husk, this coconut, this Yorick -- thing with its matted hair and its staring eyes and its gaping mouth had recently been the vessel of all this man's experience, and now it was here between my hands, a bony urn containing the traces of a human life, etched among the infinitely -- complex network of nerve synapses and cerebral electronics until only a little while ago they had burned out like a firework show and left a shell of ashes for the world to grieve on.

I took off his watch and put it into my pocket. Wives and mothers sometimes ask for them as keepsakes.

'Come on,' I said, 'I need some help.' Hornby's arms and legs were difficult because rigor mortis had set in. 'How long have you been here?' I asked Fry when we'd finished.

He checked his watch. 'Nearly two hours.'

In the faint hope that Zymyanin had got clear before the pounce and would come back here to do business as arranged. It sometimes happens.

'If he doesn't show up,' I said, 'have we lost him?'

'Not if he's still alive. He's been keeping in contact with our DIF. Are you taking over as the executive?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I'm here to clean up the mess, for the moment.' I didn't mean Hornby, I meant the whole mission: there was going to be a lot to do, and the first thing was to trace the Russian contact, Zymyanin, if we could. If, yes, he were still alive. 'But you'd better tell me all you can, because there might not be a DIF for this mission any more.' That sometimes happens too, even though the director in the field is required to stay out of the action in his ivory tower throughout the duration. He's not always safe there: it depends on how bright he is. They'd got Hornby and they might have got Turner too, by now.' When did you last signal him?' I asked Fry.

'Soon after we got here. There's a public phone up there at the station.'

'How long did Turner tell you to wait here? For Zymyanin?'

'My discretion.' He didn't sound complaining. He should have. The director hi the field isn't meant to leave anything to the discretion of the support groups or anyone else except the executive, he's meant to direct them.

'Who's the control in London for Longshot' I asked him.

'Mr Pritchard.'

That wasn't surprising: Pritchard was halfway over the hill and tad done his bit for the Bureau, due for his pension, give him a minor job in Bucharest to end his career with. But Zymyanin was a Russian, and the Russians still weren't playing a minor role in international intelligence. If London wanted me to take over Longshot and get the wheels back on I'd need a new control, someone like Croder.

The bell sounded again from up there at the station, and a whistle blew. It was rather comforting on this stark and deathly night to know that someone was playing at trams.

'How many people have you got,' I asked Fry, 'protecting the 'Four.'

That was a lot of people, seven in all, for the support group of a minor mission. Turner must feel there was safety in numbers.

'You can pull them out,' I said. 'Zymyanin won't be coming back.'

'How do you know?'

His tone was challenging and I said, 'Because I've been in this trade for seventeen years and the number of missions I've seen blown by totally incompetent directors in the field would make your hair stand on end, and since we're on the subject there's one of your ADAMHALL people up there with shit in his pants because I came up on him from behind while he was watching the pretty blue and green signal lights, so find someone who can train him before you put him into the field again, you want to get him killed?' That was how the poor devil lying down there in his sack had got killed: he hadn't checked out the area or surveilled local traffic before he'd moved in for the rendezvous, he couldn't have, and he was meant to be an executive. I turned to the man standing next to Fry, not the one who was shivering. 'Go and phone the embassy and ask for their DI6 man and tell him you're Bureau and give the parole and the code -- name for the mission and ask him to get a car sent here to pick up the body and send it back to England.'

He took his hands out of his pockets. 'He'll want to know what --'

'He'll want to know where the body is and that is all you'll tell him, you understand? There's no scrambler on that phone up there. All right, get going.'

'Yes, sir.'

He swung away and I looked at Fry again. 'How many cars have you got here?'