"I think the probabilities usually even out the improbabilities in the end, actually."
"A somewhat unromantic view. But you may be right—I gather you usually are—stop hovering, Pietro!"
Boselli blinked nervously. "Sir—I—I was wondering about Villari—"
"And I am wondering about Ruelle. Did Signor Narva's helpfulness extend in that direction?"
Boselli shook his head. "No, sir. But we did not expect him to know anything—in that direction."
Richardson looked at the little Italian with renewed interest.
He had kept as quiet as a church mouse during Audley's duel with Narva, almost as though he wanted no part of it. And his present nervousness was obvious. But they knew better now—
that the quietness was a deceptive front and the nerves were those of the hunter at the smell of his quarry, Ruelle.
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"That is true," admitted the General, eyeing Audley speculatively. "One of your probabilities, Dr. Audley."
"And Signor Villari?" Boselli's voice sounded stretched and thin.
The General turned slowly towards him. "Armando didn't make it, I'm afraid."
Boselli drew a long breath.
"I—am sorry, General."
"Yes, so am I." The General straightened up. "The bullet was touching the heart. It was just too close, that's all—too close."
"I am sorry."
"Yes. But it was not your fault, Pietro." The General nodded.
"Tell me, Dr. Audley—how is your wife?"
Richardson looked at the General in surprise which was instantly transformed to dismay as it dawned on him that this was no social inquiry—the unexpected question was delivered with a cold precision which altogether precluded that. So it could only mean that the Italians' patience was exhausted and that they were prepared to turn the screws as ruthlessly on Audley as he had done on Narva only a few minutes before.
"For God's sake!" Richardson snapped. "Mrs. Audley's got nothing to do with this, General Montuori."
"Indeed?" The General kept his eyes on Audley. "I'd like to hear you say as much, Dr. Audley."
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"She's—"
"Shut up, Peter," said Audley quietly.
"Damn it, David—"
"Shut up!" Audley raised his hand. "You tell me, General—
how is my wife?"
"I wish I knew." The General nodded slowly at Audley. "And I think you wish you knew too—eh?"
Richardson stared at them. "What the hell—?"
"Calm yourself, Captain." At last the General turned back to him. "I think perhaps you have misunderstood me, boy."
"I don't understand you, if that's what you mean—either of you."
"No, I believe you don't—I really believe you don't!" The General looked at him quizzically. "Where do you think Mrs.
Audley is at this moment?"
"In Rome. With her baby."
"No, not in Rome, Captain. And not with her baby." The General paused. "We made an error, you see. After Ostia, we looked for Dr. Audley and we forgot to look for his wife. But we took it for granted that she was with him. Fortunately Boselli here had the wit to suggest that she might be engaged on some enterprise of her own when he found that she was not with him."
"Faith—?" Richardson made no attempt to hide his disbelief.
The idea of David sending Faith on any dangerous enterprise dummy2
—and of Faith agreeing to go—was plain ridiculous. "You must be joking!"
"No, Captain Richardson. I am not joking—even though Boselli was quite wrong, of course."
"Quite—wrong?" Richardson stared at Boselli, whose surprise now clearly equalled his own. "Wrong?"
"Our second mistake. No—I should say my mistake. And Dr.
Audley's in the first place, I'm afraid. To underrate the nature of the beast—"
"I made no mistake," said Audley sharply. "Except to assume the security of my own department—that was a mistake, I agree. But I didn't even know the beast was loose, as it happens."
"Good God Almighty!" exclaimed Richardson as the jigsaw pieces in his mind shook out of the old ill-fitting pattern into a new and hideously better-fitting one.
David's extraordinary nervousness—his lies and his inconsistency. Even his urgent appeal Get me out of here . . .
and Richardson had let friendship and bitter embarrassment confuse him, stopping his suspicions from crystallising.
"They've taken Faith!"
Audley gave no sign that he had even heard: it was Montuori who nodded.
Richardson's brain accelerated: a kidnapping ... the oldest and crudest trick there was, although in high fashion now.
And still the cruellest and most effective trick too—in the dummy2
right circumstances.
Yet although the KGB was capable of it, the more so with someone like Ruelle at the helm of the operation, that still didn't make this thing explicable, pattern or no pattern.
"But—for God's sake, David—why? What have they got to gain?"
"I would have thought that was obvious, Captain," said Montuori. "Since they have not stopped Dr. Audley from taking action, then they must want him to do some of their work for them."
"But they don't need him, sir. If they already know about Little Bird—"
"But they don't," Audley cut in.
"What do you mean?"
Audley sighed. "I mean the Russians know nothing about Little Bird—or about Faith."
"But Ruelle—and Korbel—?"
"Ruelle and Korbel—yes, they know. . . . But tell me, Peter, what do you know about Ruelle and Korbel?"
"They work for the KGB, damn it."
"Ruelle did once maybe, but a long time ago—and Korbel won't for much longer. They are two old men, Peter. Two failures who have outlived their usefulness, and they know it.
And for that reason they have become very dangerous."
Where do flies go in the wintertime? Nobody knows—they dummy2
just disappear—
"You think Ruelle is acting independently?" said the General.
"Without official sanction?"
"I don't think, I know."
"How?"
"Because he told me so, General Montuori. When he abducted my wife at Ostia he made it very clear to me that he was answerable to nobody, and that I was to deal only with him."
"And what does he want of you, Dr. Audley?"
"He wants the name of the high-ranking official who leaked the North Sea oil strike to Richard von Hotzendorff in 1968.
He also wants—or Peter Korbel wants—the details of the report Hotzendorff made."
"And just what does he propose to do with those items?"
"That he didn't say. I can only guess that Korbel believes the report is worth a fortune still. But as for Ruelle—" Audley shook his head "—perhaps he thinks he can use that name to restore his own. I don't know whether it's power or mischief that he's after— maybe both."
So that was it, thought Richardson: not a deep-laid Russian plot after all, but a stratagem by two twisted, embittered old men!
They had known each other once and had maybe met again to curse the ill-fortune which had betrayed them, and the years which had left them high and dry, and which were now dummy2
fast running out on them. So naturally they had jumped at the last unexpected chance which Hemingway the librarian had dumped in their laps.
And equally naturally, because they were old men and losers, the chance had gone wrong on them, first on the stairs at Steeple Horley and then in the hot, dusty streets of old Ostia.
After that the stakes had become life and liberty as well as money and power.
"Mischief—yes, that is Ruelle," murmured the General. "And they used someone else to make you do what they know they are not capable of doing—that is Ruelle too. The Bastard still runs true to form." He looked at Audley shrewdly. "What exactly were his terms, then?"
"They will hold my wife until they have used my information.
Then they will let her go."
"And you believe that?"
"No, not a word of it," Audley shook his head. "Until I give them what they want Faith is safe, I believe that. But after that we'll both know too much to be left alive—I know how Ruelle's mind works."