‘Yes. So that’s just you and me, and de Gruchy.’ Garrod Harvey deliberately thought aloud. ‘But the Americans also may have an inkling, we decided.’
‘They may.’ Jaggard accepted the thought. ‘They’ve almost certainly got someone of their own in the Soviet Embassy. So it’s just possible they’ve also picked up a hint of the Polish operation—agreed.’
‘Yes. But their man is at a much lower level than our Viking.’ Harvey could see that the very mention of Viking, the highest-placed contact they had ever had in the KGB’s London Station, made Jaggard cautious. Yet he still had to push matters further. ‘So the Polish operation is the one you want us to leave well alone.’
Jaggard stared at him. ‘The one we
have
to leave well alone, Garry.’ The edge of his patience was beginning to fray. ‘We’ve been through all this.’
‘Even though we know that Zarubin—Zarubin and now Panin … even though we know that they’re up to some bloody mischief.’ Harvey nodded, noting the shift to ‘we’, even though the emphasis had been on ‘have’.
‘Yes.’ Jaggard knew that it had been his rank-pulling decision over their indecision which had swayed the vote. But, to his credit, he had never been afraid of responsibility. ‘Viking’s worth more to us than any bunch of miserable Polacks. And they must be damn close to him already—in fact, I’m not at all sure that this whole Polish thing hasn’t been dreamed up just so that they can pin their leak down. Because we haven’t had a whisper about these so-called “Sons of the Eagle” from our people in Poland—they’ve never even heard of them. But whoever they are, and whatever the KGB’s doing, Viking is just too valuable to risk, that was the decision. So what are you after, then?’
The moment to break cover had arrived. ‘Maybe we don’t have to risk Viking, Henry. Because, according to the FCO, it’s Panin who wants to meet Audley. And Audley doesn’t know anything about Viking—it’s just that he and Panin are both “distinguished scholars”—’ He remembered Audley’s file ‘—and old friends too, maybe?’
‘ “Friends”?’ Jaggard tossed the question aside contemptuously. ‘I thought you said you’d read Audley’s file? Back in ’70—remember?’
‘Yes.’ Panin had got exactly what he wanted in ‘70. But Audley had totally humiliated him in giving him what he wanted, and that would rankle for ever afterwards. But, much more to the point, Jaggard had read that file too. ’So Panin hates Audley. But then Audley also hates Panin, Henry: he’s an old Clinton recruit. And old Fred Clinton always made a point of recruiting on the KGB principle of good haters—“cool head, hot heart”, and all that.‘ He watched Henry Jaggard accept the statement. ’True?’
‘True.’ Henry Jaggard nodded, out of his recent scrutiny of the Audley file: over the years, others before them had crossed swords with David Audley (and had come out of each clash-of-steel with scars, and the wiser); but no one had ever even remotely hinted that his hot heart wasn’t in the right place, though he was a Cambridge man. ‘But Panin is a very dangerous old man, Garry. And—’
‘And so is Audley a dangerous old man, Henry.’ Now they were only negotiating the fine print of the agreement. But they had to go through it line by line, for the record on the tape under Jaggard’s desk. ‘It’s a toss-up which of them is the more dangerous. But I agree that there’ll be trouble when they meet.’ The thought of the tape concentrated Garrod Harvey’s mind. ‘Only my bet is on Audley—like last time.’ There was one more important thing to put on the record. ‘Old Fred Clinton must have made the same bet back in ’70.‘ Not that the tape mattered, really. Tapes could be edited, but editing tapes wasn’t Henry Jaggard’s style any more than throwing his subordinates to the wolves was Jack Butler’s. ’You’re quite sure that Audley doesn’t know about Viking, I take it?’
Jaggard shook his head slowly, without bothering to answer what wasn’t even a question.
‘What I mean, Henry, is that he doesn’t know—
and we can’t tell him, not even if we wanted to, can we
?’ Harvey paused deliberately. ‘Not even if he asked us about Panin. Which he won’t in any case, because that isn’t his way of going about things, you see.’
Jaggard leaned forward. ‘Just what exactly are you proposing, Garry? To let Audley go in blind?’
‘David Audley never went into anything blind in all his life.’ All Jaggard wanted was a little reassurance. ‘One of our problems with him in the past has been that he knows too damn much, not too little. So he’ll know Zarubin’s in London for sure—you can bet on that. And he’ll know who Zarubin is, too.’
‘But Poland isn’t his field.’
‘
Everything
is his field. He’s a Clinton-vintage R & D man born and bred, Henry.’ Harvey briefly considered the possibility that he might have been wrong about Jaggard’s intention, but rejected it. ‘He’s an interesting man. ’
‘ “A distinguished scholar”—so you said.’ Jaggard knew there was more to come. ‘ “A medievalist”. But I would have thought the sixteenth century was more his period. The treachery was more three-dimensional then, if I remember correctly.’
‘Yes.’ That was Henry Jaggard’s period, of course. And, as a devout Calholic, Jaggard had equivocal views on it which were well known. ‘But did you know that he’s also a recognized authority on Rudyard Kipling?’
Jaggard nodded cautiously. ‘Kipling is down as one of his hobbies, in his file.’
‘It’s more than a hobby.’ Harvey silently blessed the young Garrod Harvey Junior’s stuffiest godfather, who had given his birthday presents with such old-fashioned seriousness. ‘He’s just written a series of articles in the
Literary Journal
. Which are going to be turned into a book, I believe. He believes that Kipling is our most underrated author—and our most misunderstood one.’
‘Indeed?’ Jaggard’s politeness was strained to breaking-point, like the window of the de Havilland Comet which Garrod Harvey’s own godfather had trawled up from the sea-bottom off Elba thirty years before. ‘So what?’
‘The most recent one was on Kipling’s children’s stories.’ Harvey gauged the moment when Jaggard would explode, as the Comet window had exploded. ‘You know, my wife tells me that “We are what we eat”. But it seems to me that, more accurately, “We are what we read”. Or … in the present generation what we
don’t
read—I suppose it’s what we
see
now, on the television. Which is a truly dreadful prospect—’
‘
Garry—
’ Jaggard controlled himself with difficulty. ‘I have to see the Minister’s Special Adviser in about two minutes. And I don’t think I’m in a position to stretch his patience—do you?’
It was time to lower the pressure. ‘I think we might have something to offer the Minister. At least … if he’s prepared to cover our flanks, if anything truly unpleasant occurs.’ Garrod Harvey couldn’t bring himself to recall ‘the good of the state’ as an ally, even though it had to be their only true good, for what he envisaged; because the Minister’s Special Adviser would only be concerned with the good of his Minister. ‘Because Audley’s most recent article was on Kipling’s children’s stories, as I was saying—’
It was to Jaggard’s credit that he merely opened his mouth and then closed it without exploding, like some of the Comets which had managed more flights than others.
‘There’s this passage he quotes—’ Harvey held Jaggard’s attention ‘—which just about sums up the way he operates, on the rare occasions when he goes out into the field. Because when it’s all over he always says “I didn’t do anything—it just happened that way. It wasn’t my fault.” It’s called “
shibbuwichee”
, apparently.’
‘It’s called
what—
?’
‘ “Shibbuwichee”
. Which Kipling thought was a form of Japanese wrestling.’ Nod. ‘My elder boy was given a complete set of Kipling by his godfather last year, so I’ve been able to look it up: “
These wrestler-chaps have got some sort of trick that lets the other chap do all the work. Then they give a little wriggle, and he upsets himself. It’s called ’shibbuwichee‘, or ’tokonoma‘, or something”
.’ He blessed old Hetherington again, and his own memory too. ‘And that’s how Audley operates. So what I thought was that we might do the same to him now, Henry.’
‘How?’ Jaggard was there, ahead of him.
‘If we tell him Panin wants to see him, he won’t be able to resist that—’
‘But if he does?’
‘We’ll make it irresistible. Leave that to me.’ Part of their usual accord was that there
were
some things which Jaggard didn’t need to know. ‘But I don’t think he’ll want to miss Panin for a return game. And that could solve our Polish problem without the need to risk Viking. Because he’s never going to let Panin outsmart him. So you can be sure that whatever Panin really wants, Audley will find out what it is. And he won’t let Panin get away with it.’
‘But … if it goes the other way—?’
‘Then there’ll be a scandal.’ Garrod Harvey shrugged. ‘But if we leave Zarubin and Panin to their own devices there’ll be a scandal
anyway
, most likely, Henry. But
this way
…
this way it’ll be a Research and Development scandal. Because Audley will never come to us for help—it’s not in his nature to come to anyone, not even Jack Butler if he can avoid it. And certainly not when someone like Panin is involved. He’ll want to
shibbuwich
the man, like last time, Henry. David Audley’s whole psychology is dedicated to
winning
, not to Queensberry Rules games-playing. But if loses this time … then you can blow R & D wide open, Henry.’
‘Yes.’ That enticing possibility plainly captivated Jaggard—as it had from the start. ‘But if he
loses
, Garry —Panin’s a murderous swine … and Zarubin—’ He fixed Harvey coldly ‘—Zarubin’s worse than Panin, in so far as that’s possible, Garry.’
That was the good Catholic speaking, echoing generations of good Catholic Jaggards from the Reformation onwards, who had sweated and suffered for their Faith then, and had been disadvantaged even in liberal England for the next three hundred years afterwards, down to the living memory of Henry Jaggard’s own great-grandfather. ‘So?’
‘I can’t risk Audley.’ The cold look became deep-frozen. ‘Bringing R
&
D to heel is important. But what they’re doing at the moment is important also. And Audley’s done a lot of good work, over a lot of years, Garry. So risking him now just isn’t on.’
‘I agree—I do agree, absolutely!’ Harvey understood the complexity of his error and Henry Jaggard’s dilemma simultaneously: the professional and patriotic ninety-nine-hundredths of Henry Jaggard wanted what they both wanted; but the hundredth part of Henry Jaggard was old Catholic and very different—what it wanted, that hundredth part, was either Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin on his raw knees in front of the High Altar, praying for the forgiveness which the Holy Catholic Church never denied sinners … or Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin broken and bloody, and turned over to the Civil Power for appropriate final punishment, like in the old days.
‘I do agree, Henry.’ Garrod Harvey kept his face straight.
Because what Henry Jaggard wanted was for Audley to win and lose at the same time; and that was exactly what he was now about to offer to Henry Jaggard, and the Minister’s Special Adviser, and the Minister, and the Prime Minister, and Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II!
‘But my money’s on David Audley—I think he’ll screw Panin into the ground, and General Zarubin with him. But I also think we have to give him a bodyguard, to watch over him—’
‘A bodyguard—’
‘That’s right: a bodyguard.’ Nod. ‘I’ve taken that for granted.’ Another nod, for good measure. ‘Not just to look after him, but also to keep us informed as to how he’s breaking all the rules in the book. Because that’s what he always does—he doesn’t even pay lip-service to the rules, Henry. So if he screws Zarubin—Zarubin and Panin … then, even then with a bit of luck, we can still make a scandal of it—if we have someone on the inside beside him, watching him—?’
Jaggard frowned, as though some long-outdated moral scruples were attempting to skirmish with pragmatic experience, like bows-and-arrows against machine-guns, which was no fair contest.
And yet (as though the longbowmen and crossbowmen were cheating, by capitalizing on the silence of their weapons), Jaggard was still frowning at him.
‘We have to have someone alongside him, Henry.’ He had to press home his technological advantage. ‘Otherwise he’ll weasel out of it somehow, like he always has before.’
‘He’ll never accept anyone.’ Jaggard left his moral scruple behind. ‘Or he’ll want someone he can trust, like Mitchell or Andrew from R & D, Garry.’
Garrod Harvey shook his head. ‘They’re all too busy, with their own Gorbachev work. And they don’t fancy minding Audley, at the best of times.’ He made a face at Jaggard. ‘Minding David Audley is a thankless task. And in the past it’s also been rather dangerous. But, in any case, R & D hasn’t got the manpower for it. Or the womanpower.’ This time Henry Jaggard knew better, and merely waited for enlightenment.
Garrod Harvey turned the shake into a nod. ‘I fed a few notional facts into the computer this morning—profile facts.’
Henry Jaggard looked at him, trying to pretend that he knew ‘notional facts’ and ’profile facts’ from the double yellow lines on the road outside, far below them in Whitehall. ‘And—?’
‘I think we’ve got just the man for the job. At least … he’s a medievalist, of a sort. And he also speaks fluent Polish.’ Garrod Harvey smiled invitingly.
Henry Jaggard was so relieved to have left the computer behind that he accepted the invitation. ‘And—?’
They had passed the point where Jaggard might have said ‘What you’re proposing is monstrous, Garry,’ even though what he was now proposing was just that. ‘He isn’t Audley’s son, Henry. But he could have been. Audley will never be able to resist showing off in front of him.’
THE MAN FOR THE JOB
TOM MOISTENED
the end of his stub of indelible pencil and wrote ‘1025’ beside the line of the
bailey
ditch on his sketch-map.