The Crocus List

35

George Harbinger was no fool; he knew he could be walking into trouble at Eastbourne, and had no intention of just vanishing. On the other hand, he was doing something totally unauthorised, bits of which might turn out to be illegal as well. So he could hardly leave a note on the DDCR's desk-or anybody else's-saying Send in the SASif I don't come out by noon. Difficult.

But having thought along those lines, he realised he could leave a sealed envelope with Annette saying much the same thing. It was a nasty thing to do, because he had to pretend it would be good news. He was used to keeping secrets from her, not deceiving her. But anyway, he'd find the place deserted, and after a bit of snooping around, would ring back and tell her not to open the envelope at noon after all.

Mind, he'd better have some good news to tell her as well, not just that he'd got his head out of the lion's mouth with no more than saliva stains. Well, he'd think about that later.

Oxendown House stood alone, a few miles outside Eastbourne where the coast road swung a mile or more inland clear of the high cliff edge. George overshot it the first time past: it was invisible from the road behind a slight crest-presumably the Oxen Down-at the end of a long track studded with cattle grids and surrounded by pasture land. Quite good land, George's country eye noted, and certainly well drained by the limestone beneath.

The house itself was built on a terrace cut into the Down, facing the sea and bracketed by mature trees. It probably -dated from the golden age just before the First World War, but whether it had been the belle of the ball or the ugly duckling nobody could tell now. So much had been added by way of extensions, dormer windows, garage and outhouses that it had become a dowager slumped over the green sofa of the Down, any thought of good looks forgotten in uncorseted comfort.

The track turned into a curling gravel drive that brought the Rover on to a courtyard of York stone at the back of the house. He stepped out boldly, trying to look as if he were there to buy the house, but nobody came to sell it to him. He wasn't too sure that he would want it anyway: the courtyard, shadowed by tall cedars, had a mossy dampness that might have been charming in summer, but on that day gave George twinges of rheumatism just looking at it.

He then made a mistake. A real buyer might have stood and looked around a bit, but would then have gone and rung the bell beside the french windows under the portico. But since nobody seemed to have heard him arrive, George decided to have a snoop.

The courtyard became a flagged terrace running round one side and the front of the house. From there the land went on down to the distant cliff edge in a shallow valley of lawn and pasture that must have been carved by a stream that had long ago dropped underground in the limestone. That was about all that George could remember of his school geography lessons. Beyond was the grey English Channel and tiny pencil Unesthat were ships scratching their thin white wakes.

The lawn should have been mown before the end of the summer, he noticed, and turned to see if the frontage of the house had the same slightly run-down look to it.

A man in a khaki ski-mask was pointing a submachine-gun at him.

"Good God," George said, not acting in the least.

"It's Mr Harbinger, isn't it?" the man said in a pleasant English voice. "Come inside, please."

"Damn it, I came here just to look at this property-"

"All the way from the intelligence and security side of Mo D. Yes, yes. Don't let's waste any more time. Go inside." He made an impatient gesture with the gun – anold Russian one, not that there are any new Russian submachine-guns. I'm in the right place, George thought, but not in quite the right way.

There were French windows in the long rambling frontage as well. They went through a drawing-room where most of the furniture was dust-sheeted humps and into a large kitchen fitted with restaurant-size cooker, dishwasher and sink. It had been built to cater for twenty or more at a time, but only one corner seemed to be used now. There were a few mugs and a half-full bottle of red wine on the corner of the table, beside a bowl of earth with a few fingertip green shoots.

"D'you like flowers, Mr Harbinger?" the man asked.

"Don't know much about them. Out of doors, I'm a farmer, not a gardener. Daffodils?"

"Crocuses."

"I do believe," the DDCR said, "that it would save my voice and blood pressure if I simply had a tape set up in here so I could press the switch whenever you walked in. It would start: 'What the devil have you been doing now?' In fact, I don't think it would need to say more. That simple question seems to cover your total output… Well?"

Maxim smiled uneasily. "Have you seen a report sent over to Security last night, sir?"

"No. Jerry Lomax mentioned it on the phone, in a roundabout way, when he told me he'd deported you. Poor devil, you must have taken years off his life, too; he'd have to be up at four in the morning, Washington time, to make that call. No, I've been trying Security for the last couple of hours but they seem to have pulled up the drawbridge and stuck their heads under the pillows. Do you know what's in it?"

"Sir."

"It sounds asif you are, apart from anything else… just give me the worst."

"I'd like to get George Harbinger to confirm some points, sir. And he may be able to add some more: I sent him some data from America."

"You did, did you?" the DDCR said coldly. "Nowonder he was so bloody anxious to send you over… Well, you'll be lucky to find him. Not in yet as far as I know, and he's hardly been in the last few days, off seeing solicitors and… wasthat all to do with this thing?"

"It could have been, sir. May I try and ring his wife?"

The DDCR pushed the phone across the desk. "Go ahead. But be careful, he says he thinks his phone's bugged. Don't know if he's got the DTs or the RGBs…"

"I think it probably is bugged, sir." But the Albany phone rang unanswered, bugged or not.

In the silence after Maxim had put back the phone, the DDCR leant carefully back in his chair. "You really meant that about being bugged, Harry?"

"I've run across the Bravoes in this thing, sir. And I took one of their mikes out of somebody else's phone-in this country."

The DDCR absorbed that. "I'm just a civil servant now: no authority over you at all. I assume you're working to somebody I don't know about."

Maxim smiled. "Only George, if anybody."

"Who has no authority over you either in such matters. Harry, it sounds as if you're on a lonely road…"He stared at the ceiling beyond Maxim's head. "People on the outside think of the Army as pure woodentops, no thinking allowed, just obey orders as if we were cogwheels inside a washing-machine: warm wash, hot wash, tumble drain, slow spin… if it keeps 'em happy to think that way, fine. But then a war comes along and we're expected to be deep-thinking, imaginative, adventurous but caring. Perfect butler turned into the perfect lover… Is this just the rambling of any old soldier?"

"It doesn't sound like a civil servant, sir."

"No… We're more arrogant than the Civil Service. We don't think anybody could understand us: they're afraid somebody might understand them. The point is, peopledon't understand, particularly about what we mean by orders. They assume they're as simple as hot wash, warm wash; you and I know it's Go and do this by so-and-such hours and report back. We're trying to turn out people who can make their own decisions and choices. With you, we seem to have succeeded. "

Maximfell back on the old Army answer: "Sir."

"Never explain, never complain." The DDCR eyed him with what might have been friendly coolness. "The trouble that daft phrase has got me into. The problem is, people-"

George's assistant poked his head round the door. "I'm terribly sorry, Deputy Director, but I've got Mrs Harbinger on the phone. She's a bit troubled and… actually, I rather think she'd like to speak to Major Maxim instead, if you don't mind, she didn't know he was back until I told her he'd just got off the-"

The DDCR picked up the phone. "Transfer the call on Mr Harbinger's line, would you?" He smiled and nodded at the assistant, who melted away. The transfer took time, as usual, so he went on: "-the problem is, people don't understand the second, unstated, half: Do something about it, or live with it. Preferably the first, although the Civil Service-Annette? How are you… Yes, you want to speak to Harry, he's here…"

Maxim listened and asked quickly: "Where are you speaking from? Okay, fine… Give me that address…" He scribbled on a pad the DDCR pushed towards him. "No, I'm sure he's all right. I know something about these people, there won't be a problem, but I'll be down there as soon as… he'll be allright, I'll handle it."

When he had finished, the DDCR said: "Handle what and how? No, don't explain, but has something happened to George?"

Maxim took a deep breath. "I think he must have got himself… kidnapped. I know it sounds weird, but it's part of this whole thing."

"If you know where, we'd better get the police on to it."

"I'd rather have a go first myself, sir."

The DDCR looked at him. "One day, Harry, with a bit-or a lot-of luck you'll find yourself leading a whole battalion, 680 men at current establishment, and then that road is going to be more lonely than anything you've ever known. Because, for them, by God you'vegot to be right. Tell me something: does all this go back to the Abbey and the fake copper nobody believed in? Yes? Then tell me one thing more: are you doing this to prove you were right, or because it matters to this country?"

Maximsaid: "I started trying to find somebody nobody else wanted to find. Now I know it's important."

"All right. I'll give you three hours. If you haven't rung in, I'll have to do something."

George Harbinger was in darkness, the total darkness of a windowless room and probably darker in the mind from knowing it was underground. The lights had been on for a minute or so while the man had handcuffed his left wrist to a water pipe, so George knew he was in a long narrow cellar, roughly walled with breeze blocks, that led out of the small original cellar at the back of the house. He was probably under the slope across the courtyard, with ten or twelve feet of earth above him. Thinking about that didn't help.

It was a timeless place, because the man had taken his watch: George recognised this as a trick to speed the feeling ofdisorientationthat, in time, would leave him so grateful for light and company that he would answer any question. He was a long way from that, he told himself, but in time any man… and how much time had passed already? Would Annette have opened the envelope yet? And would anybody believe her? Oh yes: if she thought George was in trouble, she'd get herself believed.

How much time dothey think they've got? He was pretty sure there was a second man who had stayed out of sight: perhaps somebody who knew George-they had got his name and posting right-and whom George might know. What were they doing?-waiting for him to soften up, or packing up and pulling out?… and leaving him here? They wouldn't do that… would they?

Why didn't they come and ask some questions? That bowl of crocuses had been a question, in its way, seeing if he reacted. Stupid romantics, sitting around a totem of their codename, probably drinking red wine to toast the future! Really… The only other question had been who knew he was here. He thought he had handled that quite well. "I have left a sealed envelope naming my whereabouts that is to be opened if I do not ring in by one o'clock," he had said pompously, hoping to be disbelieved. He had just been prodded downstairs to the cellar.

It must be noon now, an hour earlier than he had told them, and the envelope opened and help on its way. He was certain it must be well past noon, but without light and time there are very few certainties… except that George needed a drink.