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

I took the phone. 'Good evening.'

There was silence on the line for a couple of seconds, while Croder wrenched his mood round and put his towering rage onto the back burner for a while -- this was my impression. When Croder and I made contact with each other we both had to keep our cool: we shared what some people called a flint -- and -- tinder complex.

'I'm most grateful to you,' he said at last, 'for giving up your holiday in Rome at such short notice.'

'I wish I could say it was worth it. There's nothing I can do here.'

'We thought there might be time.'

'Yes, I understand that. Are you keeping the mission running?'

The green LED was glowing on the scrambler to show that it was in synch with the unit on the Government Communications HQ signals mast at Cheltenham, and the red LED was unlit: we weren't being bugged. But it always worries me to trust a telephone with ultra -- sensitive information.

'No,' Croder said. 'I'm taking it off the board.'

So we'd lost the Russian contact, Zymyanin. And for the record book under Longshot: Mission unaccomplished, executive deceased.

'Then blame COT Norfolk,' I told Croder. 'No one else.'

I didn't say that for the sake of the man standing over there watching the street from the window: I'd been wrong -- this crash hadn't been Turner's fault even though he'd been the DIF running die mission locally. Hornby had just gone and got himself killed because he hadn't secured his approach to the rendezvous, couldn't have done.

'Please explain that,' Croder said on the line. No edge to his tone -- he just wanted to get things clear, and so did I. I'd been in a towering rage myself ever since I'd picked up that man's head from the dirt in the freight yard, because you could still see the youth in his face, the clear skin, the smoothness around the eyes.

'In my opinion,' I told Croder, 'the Chief of Training at Norfolk is sending people into the field too young and too soon.' I looked across at Turner. 'How old was Hornby, d'you know?'

He turned from the window. 'Oh, early twenties.'

'They're sending out kids,' I told Croder, 'and they're getting them killed.' The chief of support down there in the freight yard had looked even younger, could have been nineteen.

In a moment Croder said, 'Your comments are noted.' All I get, and I let it go. 'In the meantime you should know that the Soviet, Zymyanin, has signalled us and given his whereabouts.'

'Oh really.'

'He arrived in Moscow twenty minutes ago.'

'Intact?' There could have been some shooting down there at the rendezvous point.

'Yes. He's quite experienced.'

An older man, well -- trained. Bloody Norfolk.

I waited. A tram went moaning through the street below. Turner watched it, not actually seeing it, I knew that. He was trying desperately to pick up what information he could from my end of the conversation with Croder: he'd been the DIF for the mission but I already knew more than he did about the crash. I cupped the mouthpiece and told him, 'Zymyanin's alive and well.' It'd help him to know that his executive hadn't compromised the contact and got him killed too.

He shot me a look of relief and I lifted the phone again.

'We would like you to meet him there,' Croder was saying.

Meet Zymyanin in Moscow.