The Crocus List

34

They left Gulev's car at a shopping mall on the outskirts of St Louis and got a cab out to the airport. They were back at the Washington embassy around dinner time, but the messages had got there sooner. Those were stacked in order of time and mounting hysteria on Agnes's desk. She flicked wearily through them, then reached for the phone. "They certainly traced my car… Hello?"

Maxim could hear the operator's anguished squawk.

"Never mind that," Agnes said firmly. "I'm not at home to anybody except London, but you can tell Colonel Lomax and Mr Giles that I'm back." She put the phone down. "Giles does the same job for the Other Mob, Six. You probably haven't met him."

She took the cover off a portable typewriter and began to type in expert bursts; Maxim remembered her undercover two years as a secretary. He lit a cigarette and slumped in a corner chair. Without looking up, she said: "You're getting the habit again fast. "

Maxim looked at the cigarette in his hand. "Funny. I thought I'd be fireproof after eight years."

"You'll fail your next Combat Fitness Test and then what?"

"Not quite the most pressing of my problems."

"No… light me one, would you?"

He put it in her mouth. "Report?"

"I seem already to have reported to Moscow," she said sourly. "It's about time London got a few words as well."

They could identify Lomax's urgent Rifle Brigade stride in the corridor well before he slammed through the door. "Good God, Agnes, what did you-and you!" He suddenly saw Maxim. "I told you specificallynot to-have you been in Illinois as well? I should have guessed. You canhave no idea of what we-By God, you'll stir up a rerun of the War of 1812 any moment now."

"Jerry," Agnes said wearily, "turn down the heat and come off the boil. I'll have something for you in a minute."

Lomax gave her a vicious glare and subsided in another corner. Just as Agnes finished, Giles came in, tall and aristocratic in evening dress, having been called away from some function. He had almost no hair and a permanently amused expression.

"My dear Agnes, youhave been enjoying yourself -except for your poor eye. What happened there? You've even got Charlie's Indians speaking to me again, although I won't pass on what they're saying. It seems they'd arranged in Matson to be tipped off if Arnold Tatham's daughter did anything newsworthy, and I suppose getting burnt to death counts as news even in these days. And would this gentleman be Major Maxim? Yes, I've heard of you. Delighted. Edwin Giles." They shook hands.

Agnes handed over her report. "Once encyphered, I shall send that Flash to Snuffbox, recommending a very limited initial distribution."

Giles disentangled a pair of gold-rimmed half-eyes from the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and perched on the corner of her desk to read it through. Lomax bounced up to try and peer over his shoulder; Giles simply handed him each sheet as he finished it, and at the end waited with his indecipherable smile unchanged.

Lomax said: "This appears to be the work of a diseased mind."

"Two diseased minds, actually," Giles pointed out. "Assuming that Major Maxim endorses it. You do? Thank you."

"We can't let this be signalled," Lomax said.

"I doubt we can stop it. Not short of eliminating Agnes and the Major and burying them under the magnolias. And given their advantage in years, and the tendency to activism revealed in that document, I'm not sure I'd choose to join you in that. We could, however, send our own telegrams expressing our own views."

"My own view is quite clear: fantasy."

"Not all of it, Jerry: by no means all. Taking just today's events, there seems to have been more going on in Matson, Illinois, than even our two young friends here could have achieved unaided. An elderly couple held up in their own house, bullet holes in Mrs Hall's car, a silenced machine-gun in the burnt-out truck beside its burnt-out passenger… How do we explain those away? Charlie's Indians seem to accept a Moscow factor, and while they can't officially act in their own country, the FBI isn't going to be caught not seeing Red when Charlie does."

"That's not my business-"

"Exactly…"

"-but now I've read this, I have to send something. "

"Then why not send Major Maxim? Put him on the first available seat to London, tonight if possible. I have no doubt that the Ambassador will authorise whatever it costs. Most willingly. "

"Damn it, I probably should send him back to Illinois…"

"But Illinois hasn't asked for him. Only for our Agnes, who has diplomatic immunity, unless the Ambassador chooses to waive it. I've seen nothing public nor private to suggest they know she had a male accomplice (forgive me) let alone who he is. Is your name on record out there, Major?"

"No, but a lot of people saw my face."

"All the more reason to get that face back to London prompter."

Agnes stood up, clenching her jaw to stop her face sliding off its moorings from tiredness and strain. "I want to get this down to the communicators."

"Something you might add," Giles said, "from a private source: that Mrs Hall had her passport with her. In her handbag; it didn't get too badly burnt."

Agnes nodded slowly. "So she was going further than just across a state line. Thank you, Edwin. Would you like a copy of this when I'm through?"

Giles smiled resignedly. "Yes, dear, I suppose I'd better have."

"The more the merrier. " She went out.

"And, indeed, the safer," Giles added.

"Do you two usually swap reports?" Lomax asked.

"We represent the same national interest, the spirit of inter-service co-operation… The answer is No, we don't, it's most unusual, but so is this situation. Let me advise you, Major, that should you ever come into possession of exclusive information, always share it before reporting back, in the hope that others will report it at the same time. Otherwise, the Top Floor will say: 'If we're only getting this from Major Maxim, it means he's been on the booze and invented it to cover his expenses.' Don't you agree, Jerry?"

"The Army doesn't work quite like that," Lomax said tightly.

"All Top Floors work like that. Innumeroveritas: in numbers, no matter how contrived, there is truth. In a solo report there is onlyvino. Which is why dear Agnes wanted me to have a copy."

"Are you going to send a report yourself?"

"You know, I don't think I have a choice. Not now."

"Are you going to say you believe in this Crocus List thing?"

"That I find it… possible. And am making my own discreet inquiries, and so on and so forth. My Service isn't directly concerned with activities within the UK, but one doesn't want to find the bandwagon's done gone. "

Maxim asked: "Will the Ambassador waive Agnes's immunity?"

"Normally, he might well-spirit of Anglo-American harmony and all that. But a little discreet circulation of her report in the White House and Langley could have them imploring usnot to let her make statements to the Illinois police, let alone stand up in court. Jerry, if you're going to get the Major on a plane tonight…"

Lomax threw a fierce glance at Maxim and stood up. "London"-he glanced at his watch-"London's fast asleep by now." He strode out.

In the silence, Giles watched Maxim covertly, then coughed and said: "You wouldn't have a cigar on you, Major? I'd been counting on a French colleague with good Cuban connections… Never mind." He walked to the window and stared out through the black shapes ofthe trees, stirring in the wind against the lights of Massachusetts Avenue. "And, of course, I did know Arnold Tatham."

Maxim looked up. "How well?"

"I wonder if anybody knew Arnold well. You could spend an evening chatting to him, having a splendid time, and at the end he wouldn't have told a thing about himself."

"Did you think he might still be alive?"

"Oh, yes, the lack of a body-we're a suspicious lot. But we can't spend our limited budget investigating Charlie's Indians; they're supposed to tell us what they're doing, anyway. And if a man of Arnold's experience wanted to vanish, it would be quite a job…"

"Could he have set up and still be running the Crocus List?" Maxim asked bluntly.

Giles winced. "Anybody with Arnold's experience could have set it up, given the backing. But what sort of man would have kept it going after he'd been told to shut it down?-and after he'd left the Reservation?"

"The List wouldn't know it was shut down unless it was told: there wouldn't be a headline in The Times. All he'd need to do would be not tell them. Though," Maxim frowned thoughtfully, "sitting there for ten years waiting for nothing… it would be nice to get a Christmas card at least."

Giles was nodding and smiling. "You're getting the hang of it, Major. And it could be just that: a Christmas card signed Fred, easily explained away to your wife as that American buyer I met on the Frankfurt trip years back… It must always have been a long-term, deep-cover operation. Their job was to get themselves into positions of access and influence. And from Agnes's report, they seem to have succeeded. "

He caught Maxim's look and sighed. "Yes, I do seem to be believing it, don't I? Must watch that, when it comes to my own telegram… But if such a List existed, this Berlin business would be the time to send it something more than a Christmas card, and Arnold Tatham… I said I didn't really know him, but I got to know of some of the things he'd done-most impressive-and perhaps some idea ofthe man. I'd say he was a very devout man. It is, in purely practical terms, a very useful thing to be. Loneliness is the curse of our trade. If you confide in God, you can be reasonably sure He won't whizz round to the nearest KGB informer the moment you've fallen asleep in a puddle of beer. Have you ever been on a mission in plain clothes -before today?"

"In Ulster, a couple of times."

"Then you know about these things, putting on a new identity and so forth-but more important, taking off your old one. I expect they stripped you naked, they certainly should have done, then searched your clothes for give-aways. A nasty feeling, but very necessary to your own survival. Arnold did far more of that than either of us; in the war they fed them French food and wine for the last twenty-four hours, in case they were captured quickly and made to vomit-a very small cruelty, by Gestapo standards. I have the feeling that Arnold could give up his real self more easily than you or I just because he didn't have to leave God behind with the London bus tickets and coins and tailor's labels."

Maxim waited, and when Giles said nothing more, asked: "So perhaps God told him to keep the Crocus List going when Langley told him to stop it?"

Giles said slowly: "It's always difficult to remember that you aren't working for anything more than the interests of your own country. One would like to be on a crusade, but… if God doesn't turn up to head the parade, He's a tricky part to replace."