A Gentleman's Game

33

London-Vauxhall Cross, Office of D-Ops 16 September 1849 GMT "Where's Chace?" Weldon demanded.

"She's not in the Pit?" Crocker said.

"You damn well know she's not in the Pit. Where is she, Paul?"

Crocker scratched at his jaw, finding a spot of stubble he'd missed with his morning razor. "I really have no idea, sir. Perhaps you could inquire of David Kinney? I'm sure he knows."

Weldon's frustration ran through his neck, turning it crimson.

"It is after six, sir," Crocker added. "She may have headed home."

"Wardens clocked her out at half-past two. She never came back."

Crocker nodded thoughtfully. "She did say something to me about visiting her mother."

"Her mother lives in Geneva. Do you expect me to believe you allowed her to leave the country without registering the departure? That you've sent Chace on vacation without the proper authorizations?"

"I long ago abandoned hope of guessing what you might or might not believe, sir."

Weldon's hands opened and closed several times, and then he pivoted and slammed the door to the inner office. The gesture was uncharacteristically violent, and Crocker started slightly with surprise.

When Weldon turned back, his expression had drained of any readable emotion, including fury. His shoulders slumped, and his head lowered, and Crocker felt he was looking at a defeated man. Weldon wasn't a bad liar, but he wasn't the expert that Crocker himself was or, for that matter, that most of the Ops Directorate were. His words were good, but his body language had the tendency to give him away. He couldn't control it, at least not before it could be read.

This was not an act.

Weldon slowly took the chair facing the desk.

"You had lunch with Cheng," Weldon said. It wasn't accusatory.

"At the Hole."

"What did she tell you?"

Crocker didn't answer.

Weldon shook his head ever so slightly, as if he'd expected as much. "There's a directive from Downing Street coming, Paul. Probably arrived, though I haven't seen it."

"Directives are supposed to come down from C to you before distribution for action."

"I'm included in distribution after the fact," Weldon said. "This is coming from C to you."

"And this directive says what?"

"That Tara Chace is to surrender herself to David Kinney and the Security Services. Immediately."

"What's she done?"

Weldon just looked at him, clearly too tired and too defeated to play along.

"You've been fighting it," Crocker said, realizing.

"The last two days, since it was first proposed." Weldon looked away, to the sole decoration on the walls, the Chinese dragon print that Crocker kept framed behind and to the left of his desk. "Obviously to no effect."

"Why didn't you say something to me last night?"

"Because it wasn't your place, or mine! We serve, Paul, that's what we do, and we do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which directives to pursue. Every effort, every argument, was put forth on Chace's behalf. But the decision has now been made, and it is our obligation to follow our Government's orders."

"At the cost of Chace's life?"

"Regrettably, yes," Weldon said. "She's one person. For what's at stake, that's a reasonable sacrifice."

"I disagree, sir."

"I know you do. But your agreement, your disagreement, your cheerful acceptance, it's all irrelevant now. You will receive the directive, and you will implement it, or it will cost you your job."

Crocker stared at Weldon, saw in his expression that it wasn't a threat. Just another statement of fact.

"I don't know where she is, sir," Crocker said.

"But she's running."

"Perhaps."

"Did you speak to her?"

Crocker shook his head.

"I'd like to hear you say as much."

"The last time I spoke with Minder One was this morning," Crocker replied. "She was in the Pit until two-thirty, then left the building. I do not know where she went, nor do I know why."

Weldon frowned, measuring Crocker's words, probing their truth. "What did she say to you this morning?"

"That she was being targeted. That she suspected Box."

"That was all?"

"That was all."

"Did you confirm it?"

Crocker scowled. "Of course I didn't."

"Then why did she bring it to you?"

"To let me know she knew."

"I beg your pardon?"

"She was confirming it was Box."

"But you said you didn't confirm it!"

"That's correct. Chace knows that I'm to be informed if any of the Minders are under security check. She also knows I can't confirm it if they are. And since I didn't leap to my feet and start screaming that she was the target of a hostile party, she reasonably concluded that the check was in-house and routine, performed by Box."

"Routine, you say?"

"Elaborate but, yes, routine."

Weldon's thick fingers played absently with the tail of his tie. "She wouldn't believe that, would she? Not after being vetted so recently?"

"It's possible. She's my Head of Section, I'm inclined to grant her a modicum of sense."

"So she's running."

"I really can't say. I haven't heard from her."

"You're her D-Ops, no one in the world knows her better."

Wrong, Crocker thought. One man knows her better.

"I can't say, sir."

Weldon expelled a breath, frowning, obviously and deeply troubled. He smoothed his necktie, got to his feet. "When the directive arrives, you will follow it."

Crocker allowed himself the glare, both because he wanted to and because it was what Weldon expected of him.

"She's to be detained for Box," Weldon continued.

"She'll resist."

"Then steps will have to be taken to subdue her."

"You're authorizing violence against one of our own officers?"

"It won't be us who initiates violence, Paul, if that's what it comes to. If that's what it comes to, she'll be bringing it on herself."

"You'll destroy this Service, you realize that?" Crocker said, and all the anger he had been fighting against began erupting, and he heard his voice gaining volume and decided he didn't care. "We sell her like this, we'll never come back from it, we'll never regain what we lose. Sacrificing an agent in the field, on a mission, for a goal, that's one thing, that's something they all acknowledge, something they come to terms with as part of the job. But you bastards sell her to the enemy, condemn her to humiliation and death, all for the sake of a political expediency that's only required because she did exactly what you asked of her!"

"The Saudis, as I have said again and again to you, are not our enemies," Weldon retorted.

"How can you say that? You read the same packs from D-Int that I do! The Saudis harbor, supply, and provide comfort to our enemies, and that makes them our enemies! For Christ's sake, the camp in question is in the bloody Wadi-as-Sirhan, not in fucking Chipping Norton!"

Weldon became absolutely still, his look as jagged as broken glass. Raised voices approached the line but didn't necessarily cross it. Admitting that he knew the whys and the wherefores after denying them was perhaps insulting but expected. It was Crocker's profanity; that was another matter entirely.

"How can I say it?" Weldon repeated tightly. "Because it's what Downing Street says, Paul. It's what C says. And it's what you're going to say as well."

Crocker closed his mouth, breathing through his nose, feeling his heart pounding about in his chest as if it had been kicked free. Too much, he knew that, he'd pushed it too far, but the anger was righteous to him, and he didn't want to let it go.

He tried again, calmer. "You'll destroy the trust that exists in this building, in this service. You'll destroy the Special Section. None of them will ever trust any of us-me, you, C-again. It will kill us."

"Don't be dramatic. We will survive. We have survived worse, much worse."

"Betrayal from outside isn't the same as betrayal from within. This won't be seen as a Philby."

"No, it will be seen as a rogue SIS officer being taken in by Box."

"She's not rogue."

"If she doesn't report tomorrow morning, she damn well will be." Weldon stabbed a finger at Crocker. "If she isn't in the Pit by oh-nine hundred, you're to flash-signal all stations that Minder One is AWOL. One way or another, Paul, Chace is coming in, and she's coming in to Box."