His Lordship snorted. He had heard talk like this before. "The thing for you to do," he said, "is to take a little holiday. Go down to Dorset and join young Blade. I'm sure he can find another totsy for you. That's it, J. Take a few days off. Get drunk. Knock off a policeman's hat. Have Blade find you a totsy and have an orgy. Then, when you're over your hangover and remorse, you can get back to your job."
It would not be overstating to say that J was a little shocked. He stared at the white-haired gnome, a look of doubt on his well-bred Establishment features.
Lord Leighton chuckled maniacally. "You look like you've just been goosed by the Queen, man!"
J's jaw dropped. His false teeth glinted in the firelight. The old scientist chuckled again.
"Blade is having a go with the totsies, isn't he? Ever since his girl, Zoe? Since she found another chap?"
J nodded. "I suppose so, Lord L. Really, you know, I don't pry into the private lives of my people. I - "
"The hell you bloody don't," said His Lordship inelegantly. "Don't give me that cock, old man. I'll bet you know every time they go to the WC."
By now J had regained his composure. "Not always," he smiled. "Now and again they manage to nip in without me knowing about it."
Lord Leighton, having seen J smile, scowled. "Then go and check, man. One of your agents might be doing number two now and you in the dark about it. Go find out. Let me work. And have young Blade up here in two days, remember. I've only a few more adjustments to make on the master computer and we can send him out again. His fourth time, eh! Should be smooth as silk this time. I'm looking forward to it."
On his way back to the dingy office in Copra House, while the taxi crawled through fog, J wondered if Richard Blade was also looking forward to his next trip into Dimension X. There was, sighed J inwardly, really no way of knowing. Richard Blade did his job, performed his duty, and let it go at that. He didn't talk about it.
As the taxi slowed and became jammed in traffic, as the fog seeped in a crack of window and spread tentacles like a dank brown octopus, J's mood began to sink once more. He did smile once as he recalled Lord L's bawdy attempt to cheer him - the old man did have prescience in other than scientific matters - then his mouth dropped. He was worried. Things had gone too well for too long. His stomach pained him and that was a sure sign. The truth was, J admitted as he stared at a flashing Bovril sign without seeing it, that the Project, PDX, was due for trouble. Law of averages. Inexorable. You could never get away from it.
How true. When J got back to his office in Copra House the proof was waiting on his desk.
Richard Blade had left Moscow.
Chapter Two
Somewhere in the Kremlin, tucked away deep in the basement labyrinth, is a department known simply as TWIN. In keeping with the implied dichotomy, and to keep an eye on each other, TWIN is run by two high ranking officers: Ilich Yevgeniy of KGB, Victor Nikolayevich of GRU. The two men, apart from the usual departmental rivalry, worked well together.
TWIN is not a Russian, or an original, idea. The Russians adapted it from the Germans, who called it Doppelganger. The Germans in turn had stolen it from the British in World War 1. The British called it Code Gemini.
J, as a young officer in World War 1, had worked in Code Gemini for a short time. J never forgot it.
The basic idea behind TWIN, laughably simple, is predicated on the old belief that every man, and woman, has a double Somewhere in the world. A ringer. The Russians have developed the idea to the Nth degree; where they could not find a double they made one.
A double for every enemy agent known to the Russians. They helped nature by plastic surgery when necessary. TWIN proteges were schooled, at times for years, in walking and talking, mannerisms, background and education, foibles and virtues. They were permitted to speak Russian only during the few days of leave granted each year. The rest of the time they lived in mockups, sets, of English villages, French towns, Brooklyn backwaters, Chicago slums, New York apartments. Hong Kong penthouses. Japanese farms. Peking pagodas.
They were surrounded by people who spoke only the particular language in which the "double" was being schooled. Educated speech, slang, idiom, localisms. They wore the right clothes, smoked the proper tobacco, followed the right sports in the right newspapers. Read the same books and magazines, listened to the same music, that their prototype, an agent employed by some power somewhere on the planet, read and listened to. When possible, scars and dental work were duplicated, as were hobbies and skills and, in some cases, even sexual perversions.
Some of the doubles were never used. They retired, with generous pensions, and were usually given a new Zil sedan. Working in TWIN was a life-time career; you aged exactly as your counterpart aged; you retired when your counterpart retired. If, for some reason, your counterpart came out of retirement, so did you. Just on the chance that you might be of some service to The Party. And make some slight return for the millions of rubles spent on you.
Because it all cost a great many billions of rubles over the years. There was grumbling and muttering among the budget men. Every year TWIN had to fight for its life, justify its existence, and every year it managed to scrape through.
J, some years before, had managed to penetrate TWIN. His man, known in the MI6A files as Monster, was an absolute duplicate of J himself. It was a delicious irony and, for one of the few times in his professional career, J found it hard to keep the secret. He was nearly tempted to go into Kensington Green some night and dig a hole and whisper into it. A thing like that should be shared. This being impossible, J contented himself with the next best thing - when he retired and wrote his book, and when the J in Moscow also retired, then he would tell the world about it.
In the meantime J, alone in his office, his stomach throbbing, stared at the bit of paper he had just taken from his IN basket.
The Russian Richard Blade had left Moscow two weeks ago.
Two weeks. J's stomach fluttered like a gaffed fish. He reached for one of the phones on his desk, telling himself not to panic. He didn't know anything yet. And yet, as he waited for the trunk call to Dorset, his skin crawled. He told himself not to be a fool. There could be a thousand reasons why the pseudo Richard Blade had left Moscow. A vacation, a love affair, a training mission of some sort. An operation in a far part of the world having nothing to do with PDX.
J drummed on the desk and opened a drawer to search for his best spare pipe. He managed a smile at himself. Hell! He had been with Blade, the real Blade, only two days before.
Sitting right in this office, talking about the upcoming trip into Dimension X.
He found the pipe and a pouch of tobacco. But had it been the real Richard Blade?
J bit hard on the pipe stem. In this jet age you could get from Moscow to London, or Dorset, in two hours. Forget two weeks!
J nodded to himself. The trouble was here. The law of averages had run out. From now on he must exercise great caution, watch every P and examine every Q, dot every I and cross every T.
Then he smiled. His stomach eased a bit. He had one sure and infallible check. Even granted that the Russians had stumbled onto PDX - he could not see how - but even if they knew about it, and were trying for a plant, they must be sure to fail. No Russian had ever been out into Dimension X. Only the real Richard Blade had done that. Only the real Richard Blade could answer questions about the dangers and the weird adventures that had befallen him after be went through the computer.
J smiled again. Then immediately frowned. What, then, were the bastards up to? It would nag him now, he would never have any peace, until he knew.