Dunstone would deliver him the specific degree marks within the next three weeks, during which time he was to assemble his team.
He was back on the Strand now, the Savoy Court several blocks away. He hadn’t resolved anything, really; there was nothing to resolve, except perhaps the decision to start looking for people at the university. He was sure there would be no lack of interested applicants; he only hoped he could find the level of qualification he needed.
Everything was fine. Really fine.
He walked down the alley into the court, smiled at the doorman, and passed the thick glass doors of the Savoy. He crossed the reservations desk on the right and asked for any messages.
There were none.
But there was something else. The tuxedoed clerk behind the counter asked him a question.
«Will you be going upstairs, Mr. McAuliff?»
«Yes … yes, I’ll be going upstairs,» answered Alex, bewildered at the inquiry. «Why?»
«I beg your pardon?»
«Why do you ask?» McAuliff smiled.
«Floor service, sir,» replied the man, with intelligence in his eyes, assurance in his soft British voice. «In the event of any cleaning or pressing. These are frightfully busy hours.»
«Of course. Thank you.» Alex smiled again, nodded his appreciation, and started for the small brass-grilled elevator. He had tried to pry something else from the Savoy man’s eyes, but he could not. Yet he knew something else was there. In the six years he had been staying at the hotel, no one had ever asked him if he was «going upstairs.» Considering English—Savoy—propriety, it was an unlikely question.
Or were his cautions, his Dunstone cautions, asserting themselves too quickly, too strongly?
Inside his room, McAuliff stripped to shorts, put on a bathrobe, and ordered ice from the floor steward. He still had most of a bottle of Scotch on the bureau. He sat in an armchair and opened a newspaper, considerately left by room service.
With the swiftness for which the Savoy stewards were known, there was a knock on his corridor door. McAuliff got out of the chair and then stopped.
The Savoy stewards did not knock on hallway doors—they let themselves into the foyers. Room privacy was obtained by locking the bedroom doors, which opened onto the foyers.
Alex walked rapidly to the door and opened it. There was no steward. Instead, there was a tall, pleasant-looking middle-aged man in a tweed overcoat.
«Mr. McAuliff?»
«Yes?»
«My name is Hammond. May I speak with you, sir?»
«Oh? Sure … certainly.» Alex looked down the hallway as he gestured the man to pass him. «I rang for ice; I thought you were the steward.»
«Then may I step into your … excuse me, your lavatory, sir? I’d rather not be seen.»
«What? Are you from Warfield?»
«No, Mr. McAuliff. British Intelligence.»
3
«That was a sorry introduction, Mr. McAuliff. Do you mind if I begin again?» Hammond walked into the bed-sitting room. Alex dropped ice cubes into a glass.
«No need to. I’ve never had anyone knock on my hotel door, say he’s with British Intelligence, and ask to use the bathroom. Has kind of a quaint ring to it… Drink?»
«Thank you. Short, if you please; a touch of soda will be fine.»
McAuliff poured as requested and handed Hammond his glass. «Take off your coat. Sit down.»
«You’re most hospitable. Thank you.» The Britisher removed his tweed overcoat and placed it carefully on the back of a chair.
«I’m most curious, that’s what I am, Mr. Hammond.» McAuliff sat by the window, the Englishman across from him. «The clerk at the desk; he asked if I was going upstairs. That was for you, wasn’t it?»
«Yes, it was. He knows nothing, however. He thinks the managers wished to see you unobtrusively. It’s often done that way. Over financial matters, usually.»
«Thanks very much.»
«We’ll set it right, if it disturbs you.»
«It doesn’t.»
«I was in the cellars. When word reached me, I came up the service elevator.»
«Rather elaborate—»
«Rather necessary,» interrupted the Englishman. «For the past few days, you’ve been under continuous surveillance. I don’t mean to alarm you.»
McAuliff paused, his glass halfway to his lips. «You just have. I gather the surveillance wasn’t yours.»
«Well, you could say we observed—from a distance—both the followers and their subject.» Hammond sipped his whiskey and smiled.
«I’m not sure I like this game,» said McAuliff quietly.
«Neither do we. May I introduce myself more completely?»
«Please do.»
Hammond removed a black leather identification case from his jacket pocket, rose from the chair, and crossed to McAuliff. He held out the flat case and flipped it open. «There is a telephone number below the seal. I’d appreciate it if you would place a call for verification, Mr. McAuliff.»
«It’s not necessary, Mr. Hammond. You haven’t asked me for anything.»
«I may.»
«If you do, I’ll call.»
«Yes, I see… Very well.» Hammond returned to his chair. «As my credentials state, I’m with Military Intelligence. What they do not say is that I have been assigned to the Foreign Office and Inland Revenue. I’m a financial analyst.»
«In the Intelligence service?» Alex got out of his chair and went to the ice bucket and the whiskey. He gestured at them. Hammond shook his head. «That’s unusual, isn’t it? I can understand a bank or a brokerage office, not the cloak-and-dagger business.»
«The vast majority of intelligence gathering is allied with finance, Mr. McAuliff. In greater or lesser degrees of subtlety, of course.»
«I stand corrected.» Alex replenished his drink and realized that the ensuing silence was Hammond’s waiting for him to return to his chair. «When I think about it, I see what you mean,» he said, sitting down.
«A few minutes ago, you asked if I were with Dunstone, Limited.»
«I don’t think I said that.»
«Very well. Julian Warfield—same thing.»
«It was a mistake on my part. I’m afraid I don’t remember asking you anything.»
«Yes, of course. That’s an essential part of your agreement. There can be no reference whatsoever to Mr. Warfield or Dunstone or anyone or -thing related. We understand. Quite frankly, at this juncture we approve wholeheartedly. Among other reasons, should you violate the demands of secrecy, we think you’d be killed instantly.»
McAuliff lowered his glass and stared at the Englishman, who spoke so calmly, precisely. «That’s preposterous,» he said simply.
«That’s Dunstone, Limited,» replied Hammond softly.
«Then I think you’d better explain.»
«I shall do my best. To begin with, the geophysical survey that you’ve contracted for is the second such team to be sent out—»
«I wasn’t told that,» interrupted Alex.
«With good reason. They’re dead. I should say, ‘disappeared and dead.’ No one’s been able to trace the Jamaican members; the whites are dead, of that we are sure.»
«How so? I mean, how can you be sure?»
«The best of all reasons, Mr. McAuliff. One of the men was a British agent.»
McAuliff found himself mesmerized by the soft-spoken Intelligence man’s narrative. Hammond might have been an Oxford don going over the blurred complexities of a dark Elizabethan drama, patiently clarifying each twist of an essentially inexplicable plot. He supplied conjectures where knowledge failed, making sure that McAuliff understood that they were conjectures.