Quiller's Run

'The Bureau can't touch it either?'

'Absolutely not. But what made you leave?' I went on looking out of the window. Floderus tugged a sleeve back, shooting cuff. 'Sorry. Not my business. Coming in with us?'

'Not bloody likely.'

A brief laugh. 'Things aren't that bad, you know. We leave the top level people more or less alone, and you'd be one of them, naturally, I personally run Chepping and Shahan, among others. They're pretty wild.'

The cab slowed as a troop of the Household Cavalry rode past, plumes bobbing, sabres bared, breastplates flashing in the pale sunshine. In a moment I asked, 'Have you seen him recently?'

'Who?'

'Pepperidge.'

'Not for a month or two. Why?' His horn-rimmed glasses caught the light as the cab swung into Piccadilly, and for a moment I couldn't see his eyes.

'He wants to give me the mission.'

Floderus watched me thoughtfully. 'You could do it, of course. It's rather' – head on one side – 'exotic. But why not come in with us and do something we could help you with? I'd look after you personally.'

'Nice of you.' Floderus was the assistant chief of his department, and notoriously choosy about the people he ran. 'But your operations don't go near enough to the brink.'

'We try to please,' he said drily.

'It's a different kind of field. I need' – I shrugged – 'you know what I need.'

'You'll get yourself killed, one day.'

'I don't want to the in bed.' I gave it a moment. 'Which foreign power is involved?'

He clasped his thin pale hands and stared down at them, the shadows of leaves in the early light washing over them as we neared the park. Then his head came up suddenly. 'Look, if you want to take this one on, you'll have to do it exclusively through Pepperidge. He's -'

'With your sanction?'

'Absolutely. It's there for anyone to pick up. Anyone of your capability. But we've got to keep right out of it. Our department. It's the kind of thing the UK daren't get involved in – or be seen to get involved in.'

'What makes it so sensitive?' I wanted to get as much out of him as he'd let me. He was the source.

He glanced round to make sure the dividing window was shut, then leaned closer. 'It's not only because there's an element of drug-running and the international armaments trade. Southeast Asia is terribly complicated politically, and what you would be doing, Quiller, would be making an attempt to remove – or render neutral – certain elements threatening the balance of power in that region, including the potential risk of a confrontation between Western and Soviet forces in Thailand. We -'

'An armed confrontation?'

'In these days,' he said bleakly, 'nothing is impossible, after the disastrous failure of the summit conference. This isn't just the cold war any more: it's the freeze.'

'Potent stuff. Where did this thing come from?'

'My department was approached by a foreign power in that region via the diplomatic bag. You would be working for that power, but the success of the mission would benefit the UK, and, of course, our ally the United States. Not to say world peace.' He leaned back.

'It doesn't sound like my kind of operation. It's too geopolitical.'

'The background is a geopolitical, yes, but that wouldn't concern you operationally. In fact it's very much your kind of thing – the very careful, clandestine infiltration of a major opposition network.' He tugged a sleeve back. 'But why don't you go and talk to Pepperidge again before you decide? I'm due at the Travellers' in ten minutes, and you'll want to be on your way.' He turned to the window to find out where we were, and slid the glass panel open. 'Driver, you can put me down anywhere here.' He turned back to me and said softly, 'We haven't made contact, as I'm sure you understand.'

'I've booked you out,' Pepperidge said, 'on Singapore Airlines Flight 297, change at Bombay, first class.' He threw another crust for the ducks. 'All expenses paid, though not by me. The hotel in Singapore isn't very posh, but there's a good reason. It's tucked away in one of the market streets, and you might want to make it your base.'

Crouching beside him, I held the paper bag while he dug for another crust. A light wind came across the lake, ruffling the surface; in the distance the flags above St James's Palace made patches of crimson and gold against the gunmetal clouds.

'Not that one, you silly little bugger, you'll choke yourself. Wait till it soaks a bit.'

'What about cover?' I asked him. 'Access, liaison, comunications?' I was instantly sorry, but couldn't take it back. This wasn't the Bureau sending me out. This was just the remnant of a once-talented shadow executive, shrugging off a mission he couldn't handle himself. 'Never mind -'

'I'm rather afraid,' he said quietly, 'you'll be pretty much on your own, old boy, this time.'

'Of course.'

Take a little getting used to.' A thin smile.

'Yes.' I'd got a dozen passports and visas and border-franked papers in the safe and I could work out my own access once I was in the field, if I decided to take this thing on at all.

'The cover I'd suggest,' Pepperidge was saying, 'would be either import-export or some kind of weapons specialist. You'd get a briefing on that, locally.' He tossed the last crust at a pretty emerald-winged mallard and crushed the empty bag into a ball, stuffing it into his pocket. 'As to access, they'll come to you, don't worry. It's all in there.' He'd given me a sealed oblong envelope when we'd met. 'As far as liaison goes, you'll have to pick a few people yourself, if you can find anyone you can trust.'

He stood upright, and I noted the stiffness in his legs. He was out of training, an old man, for God's sake, and not yet forty… 'I can't promise anything,' I told him.

'Of course you can't. Just go and see them, and listen to what they have to say. If you don't like it, you're not committed – I gave them no guarantee.' I caught a note of wistfulness. 'You've nothing to lose: this trip's on them. Enjoy yourself.'

I met Pepperidge again two days later, over a coffee in a Wimpey along the Edgware Road. As we came out on to the street I told him I'd drop him off on my way to the airport. 'Not to worry, old boy; I feel like a walk, do me good.' He stood with his hands buried in the pockets of his mac as it flapped against his legs; a spring wind was buffeting through the streets, reeking of diesel fumes. 'And listen, I' -his thin mouth tightened suddenly, then he made himself go on – 'I haven't had a drink since the day before yesterday, and that's how I'm going to go on, if you take this thing over. I just' – a slack hand emerged, making a throwaway gesture – 'just wanted you to know. And you'd better have this.' He offered a card. 'I'm renting a cottage in Cheltenham not far from the GCHQ mast. The pubs around there are full of interesting info, of course, and if I pick anything up that might help you I'll pass it on. That'll be my number. Not my name, you see, it's the owner's, but just make a note of the number. I'll put in an answering machine, all right? You can always leave a signal on it if I'm out sweeping for data in the pubs.' One of his wintry smiles. 'Tonic water and Angostura, that correct? God, not a festive prospect, I must say.'

A double-decker swung past, blotting out the sky, its exhaust drumming against a dress-shop window. 'I've got friends,' Pepperidge said, 'in Cheltenham, of course.' A tone of pride redeemed. 'If necessary I could possibly get a signal 2) you over the mast itself, through the British High Commission in Singapore.' He looked away for a moment, Then his yellow eyes came back to rest on mine, squinting against the wind. 'Not quite the service you're used to. Sorry.'

An hour and fourteen minutes later, at 17:51,1 got out of my cab at the Singapore Airlines departure point at Heathrow. Another one pulled in behind and I checked the single pass-eager as a matter of routine.