The Crocus List

38

An Aerad Guide-in fact, several fat loose-leaf volumes of it-was on George's desk. Also waiting was a grey-haired man in a very military suit whom George's assistant introduced as Group-Captain Coulson from NATS. ("National Air Traffic Service," the assistant whispered. "He thinks you may need help.")

George frowned at the idea, smiled at the Groupie, and pushed the guide to Maxim. "See what you can make of it, Harry."

One look told Maxim why they needed Coulson: each airport-formally called an 'aerodrome'-took up at least six pages, some printed on both sides, showing the general layout, ramp areas, SIDs and STARs (whatever they were), ILS, NDB/DME… He quietly pushed the volume back, open.

George took a glance. "Good God, it's written in Linear B. I shall never fly again."

"Easy when you know how," Coulson assured him. "Now, what do you want to know?"

Maxim said: "We're looking for an airport with two parallel runways running roughly east-west and you make a 180-degree right turn soon after take-off if you're going east. Sir," he remembered.

Coulson frowned thoughtfully. "You don't usually make a one-eighty so close… but sooner or later you've got to turn to get to where you want to go. Wheredo you want to go?"

Maxim looked at George, who shrugged and said: "It could be Russia. "

Coulson raised his eyebrows. "Russia's to the east of most places, so you wouldn't need to turn west. Are you sure your airport isn't in China?"

Georgeglowered. "Unlikely. How about the two runways?"

"Heathrow, in this country. Charlesde Gaulle. Schiphol. Frankfurt. Hannover. Tegel."

"Where?"

"Berlin." The silence was very sudden. Coulson went on: "It's run by the French, their sector, but it's the one commercial flights use. Ours is Gatow, but that's strictly military."

Maxim asked: "If you were taking off east, would you make a 180-degree turn?"

Coulson found the right pages. "Yes, if you wanted to get onto Centre Route 2, but that's the way back to West Germany and London. Right 180-degrees at three thousand feet and not less than three miles from the beacon. If you wanted to go to Russia, you'd go straight ahead over East Berlin, but I don't think anybody ever does that."

George said carefully: "Thank you very much, Group-Captain… would you care for a drink? Derek will get you one. I'm most grateful, and I wonder if you could treat this as being rather secret?"

The Groupie gave one last look at Maxim's mixture of combat and civilian dress and went out.

George slumped in his desk chair. "Berlin again. But why? What can they shoot down there?"

"They must want to make it look as if the Russians shot it down."

"They can't be going to blast some airliner. That doesn't sound like their style."

"They're going to blast somebody. You don't shoot to wound with a missile. "

George shook his head slowly, then got up and found a copy of the Standard on a side table. It was All Saints' Day and the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon in Berlin was briefly quoted on page 2. Sure enough, he had denounced any unilateral talks on Berlin as "an abdication of care for a brave and beleaguered people… Are we to say of Berlin 'I know him not?' " Strong stuff, with a hint in the last paragraph that the Foreign Secretary would have liked to call the Archbishop an Interfering old-, only daren't.

"Thesebuggers,"Georgesaid, "are planning to shoot down the Archbishop of Canterbury." He sat down. "No, they can't be. It's just not on."

"He'll be flying out of Tegel," Maxim said. "And it fits: Moscow's been trying to smear him, and they shot down that Iranian airliner-they've set themselves up for this. It doesn't have to be perfect, just so long as a lot of people believe it. And if the missile comes from East Germany or East Berlin-"

"ABritish missile."

"There'll be damn little left to prove anything-and that'll get called a Russian fake. Who's going to believe the British shot down the head of their own Church?"

"Exactly: why should these Crocus List people do it?"

Maxim took care with his answer. "I think the whole pattern is sacrifice, not assassination-when they use violence at all. A couple of them have committed suicide; you could say they sacrificed Barling-he was a churchgoer, wasn't he?-when he wasn't going to resign over Berlin, and that freed his group to vote their own way. But they didn't try to kill me at the Abbey or you at the house today. What bigger sacrifice can they make than their own Archbishop?"

"And the pilot of the aeroplane, and Jim Ferrebee, and a few others probably."

"They're on a crusade. And I think they're right at the walls of Jerusalem. At that point, a few civilian casualties might be acceptable sacrifices as well."

George looked at him and growled: "Just a simple soldier."

"They aren't simple soldiers out there. One tries to adapt. But whatever it is, can you just stop the Archbishop flying out of Tegel?"

"That shouldn't be a problem: Jim Ferrebee's out there with him. I can get him to… but, Harry, wait a minute: you're saying these Crocus clowns must have smuggled amissile into East Germany? They pull out yourtoenaüsfor trying to take in a copyof Playboy."

"They must have it disguised as something else."

"And how? The thing must be… how big?"

"With the launcher and sight, four and a half feet andsomething over forty pounds. It would have to be in a vehicle. Maybe built into it." He was recalling the odd bits of car-body metal in the garage, the power tools in the Land-Rover… "I'd like to know what the police find at the Oxendown House garage."

George instinctively glanced at the telephone. "Yes… we've got a little explaining to do… But if you're right, suppose these clowns get caught in East Germany? Even at the checkpoint? Think how that would look. Brits with a British missile…"

"Somebody had better catch them first. If the police have any ideas about the vehicle, we need to know them. "

"I could try going through Security." George sighed."Try."

"You've got to make them accept Agnes's report."

George sighed again.

"Or do nothing and just see what happens next," Maxim offered, smiling as politely as ever.

Glowering, George picked up the telephone. "Find me the Deputy D-G at Security, will you? No, the Deputy, I don't want the D-G himself on any account… He's Old Guard," he explained to Maxim. "Srill has some belief in the Sovbloc threat, though I fear thoughts of his pension loom largest of all… Alfred? So sorry to interrupt your dins, but you recall a little morsel that came in from Washington in the early hours?… Yes, I do know about it… And yes, I know this isn't a secure line, so I thought that if you and I could get together in, say, half an hour?… Oh, I'm sorry you don't think so, because I'd like some advice about what to say to the East Sussex police about a little happening down near Eastbourne today… Of course I know about that, I was, you might say, involved… Yes, I expect he was very dead, although that wasn't my direct doing, but one feels one has a duty to explain things to the constabulary, unless you felt otherwise… Ah, good. Half an hour, then?… I'll be there."

He put down the phone. "Would the wheels of government turn so smoothly without a regular greasing of blackmail?"

Maxim smiled again. "You might emphasise that the Bravoes are in on this."

"That'll be a little more difficult. Nobody's likely to have identified that burned-out bastard in Illinois…"

"You can prove they've bugged your rooms at Albany."

George stared. "I'd like to know how."

"No problem."