The crowd had shuffled out into the lobby. Milton made his way out, too, and Michael followed.
“We go for coffee now if you fancy it,” Michael said.
Milton felt his phone buzzing again. He reached into his pocket and took it out. The call was from Global Logistics.
“There’s a place down the road—”
“Sorry,” Milton spoke over him, holding the phone up. “I’ve got to take this.”
Michael held up both hands, smiled, and stepped back. Milton felt awkward and rude, but he didn’t want to go for coffee and this was a good excuse not to. On the other hand, he didn’t want to speak to Control either, but he knew that he couldn’t ignore him forever. He took the call and put the phone to his ear.
“It’s Tanner.”
“Hello.”
“Are you all right? I’ve been trying to get you for twenty minutes.”
“I’m fine.”
“You need to come in. The old man wants to speak to you.”
“About?”
“Just come in, Milton. Soon as you can. He’s not in a good mood.”
44
Milton was sent straight up to Control’s office. He remembered the first time that he had been shown up to the room. He had been much younger then, still in the Regiment and itching for a new challenge. He had worn his best suit, the one that he had last worn to the wedding of one of his old SAS muckers, and he had spent half an hour polishing his shoes until he could see his reflection in the caps. He looked down at himself now and could not fail to be disappointed by the comparison. His jeans and shirt had received the most cursory of irons. His boots were scuffed and marked and, as he reached up to rub his temple, his fingers ran through strands of hair that were long overdue a cut. Milton tried to pretend that he had allowed his standards to slip because it was easier to merge into the background when one looked like everyone else, but, although there was truth to that, it was not the reason. The enthusiasm that he had felt back then, and the desire to impress, had all faded away. He was going through the motions now. He had been for a while. He knew that something had to change.
Milton knocked on the door.
“Come,” Control called.
Milton opened the door and stepped into the office. Control was standing behind his desk, facing the window with his arms clasped behind his back.
“Hello, sir,” Milton said.
“Sit down, Number One.”
Milton did. He could see in the reflection that Control had his pipe in his mouth. He took a matchbook from his pocket, broke off a match and lit it. He puffed in and out as he held the match to the bowl; it took thirty seconds to light the pipe, a process that Milton knew Control was prolonging in order to make him feel uncomfortable. It didn’t matter; Milton was wise to all of Control’s foibles. They had worked together for years. He sat quietly with one leg folded over the other and waited until Control was done.
He inhaled, held the smoke, and then blew it out. He turned to face the room. His expression was grim.
“What’s going on, Milton?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Are you well?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve been off the reservation all morning. Tanner couldn’t reach you. Is there anything I need to know?”
“No, sir. I don’t believe so.”
“Penn said that you looked ill last night.”
“He did?”
“When you left the property. He said you looked like you’d been sick.”
“I had a migraine, sir,” Milton said. “I’ve been suffering from them for the last few weeks.”
“A migraine?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve been interrupting my sleep—I haven’t been well rested. I finished up at the Ryans’ house and went home to sleep.”
“I see,” he said. “And are you better now?”
There was no compassion in the question; it was as if Control was asking a repairman if a domestic appliance had been fixed.
“Yes, sir. I am.”
Control watched him shrewdly. “Nothing on your file about migraines.”
“They’ve been recent.”
“Have you spoken to the doctor?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“My preference would be to deal with it myself.”
Control stared at him for a beat. He was old school; you didn’t let something as mundane as a headache interrupt your work. You’d need to be shot, or stabbed, or break an arm or leg, but even then, it would be a case of getting patched up and throwing yourself back into the fray. A migraine, though? That wouldn’t do.
“See that you mention it next week,” he said.
“Next week, sir?”
“I’ve referred you to Dr Fry. He’ll want to speak to you. Make sure you tell him what he needs to know.”
This was a black mark against his name; Milton knew it, but he didn’t care. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll do that.”
Control stood and started to pace the carpet behind his desk. “I need to update you on PAPERCLIP.”
“Number Five apprehended him.”
“Yes,” Control said. “He did. But then he killed himself. Cyanide capsule hidden in the stem of his glasses. We lost Kuznetsov and Timoshev, then we lost him. You can understand why I’m unhappy with how the operation was handled. It’s been a bit of a fuck-up, hasn’t it? A comedy of errors—one thing after another. The government is going to want to know what happened and, frankly, I have no idea how I’m going to dress it up.”
There was a knock on the door.
“You’ll be glad to hear, though, that you have a chance to make amends. You and Five, actually. Come.”
The door opened and Tanner came inside. “He’s here, sir,” he said.
“Send him in.”
Milton turned in his chair as Pope stepped into the office. Tanner said he would bring in some refreshments and hobbled away.
Control rested the pipe in an ashtray. “Good afternoon, Five.”
“Sir.”
Control indicated the chair next to Milton and Pope took it.
“You two are going to have to cancel any plans you might have been unfortunate enough to have arranged. What happened yesterday obligates a strong response from us. You dropped the ball—the illegals are gone and PAPERCLIP is dead. But we have another source of intelligence and we have another opportunity. I’m going to give you the highlights, and then I’m going to tell you what I want you to do.”
45
Control puffed on his pipe. “We have a source of intelligence within the Center: the cryptonym is BLUEBIRD. We were told that Beck was a Directorate S handler, but BLUEBIRD didn’t know about the operation against Aleksandrov until after the fact. We were fortunate that we had Beck under surveillance, and that he led us to Timoshev and Kuznetsov. We’ve confirmed that they murdered Aleksandrov and Geggel yesterday.”
“Do we know why?” Milton asked.
“Why they did it?” Control shook his head. “BLUEBIRD suggests that Aleksandrov was in possession of a list of all the SVR’s agents in Western Europe, and that he wanted to sell it to us. Aleksandrov approached Geggel to act as intermediary.” Control blew smoke. “Geggel’s phone records have been examined—it turns out that Aleksandrov called him last week. We don’t have any record of what was said, but it was important enough for him to drive over from London to see him.”
“And Geggel didn’t tell anyone? Didn’t call it in?”
“He did not,” Control said. “And that’s not surprising. I knew him a little. He’d been around. He left SIS under a cloud. Made a mess of one of the files that he was handling—a source in the GRU was burned and it looked like he might have been to blame. He wasn’t ready to retire and they rather pushed him toward the door. If you asked me to guess, I’d say he went to see for himself whether Aleksandrov had anything of interest and, if he decided that he did, he was going to be the one to bring it in.”