Martello deftly took back the balclass="underline"
'So the un-named narcotics agent filed his story, George. And he did what we'd all do. He took down the teaser and he sent it back to headquarters and he told Ricardo to lie low till he heard back from his people. See you in ten days, maybe fourteen. Here's your opium-money, but for information-money you have to wait a little. There's regulations. Follow me?'
Smiley nodded sympathetically, and Martello nodded back at him while he went on talking.
'So here it is. Here's where you get your human error, right? It could be worse but not much. In our game there's two views of history: conspiracy and fuck-up. Here's where we get the fuck-up, no question at all. Sol's predecessor, Ed, now ill, evaluated the material and on the evidence — now you met him, George, Ed Ristow, a good sound guy — and on the evidence available to him, Ed decided, understandably but wrongly, not to proceed. Ricardo wanted fifty grand. Well, for a major haul I understand that's chickenfeed. But Ricardo, he wanted payment on the nail. A onetime, and out. And Ed — well Ed had responsibilities, and a lot of family trouble, and Ed just didn't see his way to investing that sum of public American money in a character like Ricardo, when no haul is guaranteed, who has all the passes, knows all the fast steps, and is maybe squaring up to take that field agent of Ed's, who is only a young guy, for one hell of a journey. So Ed killed it. No further action. File and forget. All squared away. Buy the opium, but not the rest.'
Maybe it was a real coronary after all, Guillam reflected, marvelling. But with another part of him he knew it could have happened to himself and even had: the pedlar who has the big one, and you let it through your fingers.
Rather than waste time in recrimination, Smiley had quietly moved ahead to the remaining possibilities.
'Where is Ricardo now, Marty?' he asked.
'Not known.'
His next question was much longer in coming, and was scarcely a question so much as a piece of thinking aloud.
'To bring back an unspecified load in payment,' he repeated. ' Are there any theories as to what type of load that might have been?'
'We guessed gold. We don't have second vision, any more than you do,' Sol said harshly.
Here Smiley simply ceased to take part in the proceedings for a while. His face set, his expression became anxious and, to anyone who knew him, inward, and suddenly it was up to Guillam to keep the ball rolling. To do this, like Smiley, he addressed Martello.
'Ricardo did not give any hint of where he was to deliver his return load?'
'I told you, Pete. That's all we have.'
Smiley was still non-combatant. He sat staring mournfully at his folded hands. Guillam hunted for another question:
'And no hint of the anticipated weight of the return load, either?' he asked.
'Jesus Christ,' said Sol, and, misreading Smiley's attitude, slowly shook his head in wonder at the kind of deadbeat company he was obliged to keep.
'But you are satisfied it was Ricardo who approached your agent?' Guillam asked, still in there, throwing punches.
'One hundred per cent,' said Sol.
'Sol,' Martello suggested, leaning across to him. 'Sol, why don't you just give George a blind copy of that original field report? That way he has everything we have.'
Sol hesitated, glanced at his sidekick, shrugged, and finally with some reluctance drew a flimsy sheet of India paper from a folder on the table beside him, from which he solemnly tore off the signature.
'Off the record,' he growled, and at this point Smiley abruptly revived, and, receiving the report from Sol's hand, studied both sides intently for a while in silence.
'And, where, please, is the un-named narcotics agent who wrote this document,' he enquired finally, looking first at Martello, then at Sol.
Sol scraped his scalp. Cy began shaking his head in disapproval. Whereas Martello's two quiet men showed no curiosity whatever. Pale Murphy continued reading among his notes, and his colleague gazed blankly at the ex-President.
'Shacked up in a hippy commune north of Katmandu,' Sol growled, through a gush of cigarette smoke. 'Bastard joined the opposition.'
Martello's bright endpiece was wonderfully irrelevant: 'So, ah, that's the reason, George, why our computer has Ricardo dead and buried, George, when the overall record — on reconsideration by our Enforcement friends — gives no grounds for that, ah, assumption.'
So far it had seemed to Guillam that the boot was all on Martello's foot. Sol's boys had made fools of themselves, he was saying, but the Cousins were nothing if not magnanimous and they were willing to kiss and make up. In the post-coital calm which followed Martello's revelations, this false impression prevailed a little longer.
'So, ah, George, I would say that henceforward, we may count — you, we, Sol here — on the fullest co-operation of all our agencies. I would say there was a very positive side to this. Right, George? Constructive.'
But Smiley in his renewed distraction only lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips.
'Something on your mind, George?' Martello asked. 'I said, is there something on your mind?'
'Oh. Thank you. Beechcraft,' Smiley said. 'Is that a single-engined plane?'
'Jesus.' said Sol under his breath.
'Twin, George, twin,' said Martello. 'Kind of executive runabout kind of thing.'
'And the weight of the opium load was four hundred kilos, the report says.'
'Just short of half of one ton, George,' said Martello at his most solicitous. 'A metric ton,' he added doubtfully, to Smiley's shadowed face. 'Not your English ton, George, naturally. Metric.'
'And it would be carried where — the opium. I mean?'
'Cabin,' said Sol. 'Most likely unscrewed the spare seats. Beechcrafts come different shapes. We don't know which this was because we never got to see it.'
Smiley peered once more at the flimsy which he still clutched in his pudgy hand. 'Yes,' he muttered. 'Yes, I suppose they would have done.' And with a gold lead pencil he wrote a small hieroglyphic in the margin before relapsing into his private reverie.
'Well,' said Martello brightly. 'Guess us worker-bees had better get back to our hives and see where that gets us, right, Pete?'
Guillam was halfway to his feet as Sol spoke. Sol had the rare and rather terrible gift of natural rudeness. Nothing had changed in him. He was in no way out of control. This was the way he talked, this was the way he did business, and other ways patently bored him:
'Jesus Christ, Martello, what kind of game are we playing round here? This is the big one, right? We have put our finger on maybe the most important single narcotics target in the entire South East Asian scene. Okay, so there's liaison. The Company has finally gone to bed with Enforcement because she had to buy us off on the hilltribe thing. Don't think that makes me horny. Okay, so we have a hands-off deal with the Brits on Hong Kong. But Thailand's ours, so's the Philippines, so's Taiwan, so's the whole damn theatre, so's the war, and the Brits are on their ass. Four months ago the Brits came in and made their pitch. Great. so we roll it to the Brits. What they been doing all the time? Rubbing soap into their pretty faces. So when do they get to shave, for God's sakes? We got money riding on this. We got a whole apparatus standing by, ready to shake out Ko's connections across the hemisphere. We been looking years for a guy like this. And we can nail him. We have enough legislation — boy do we have legislation! — to pin a ten-to-thirty on him and then some! We got drugs on him, we got arms, we got embargoed goods, we got the biggest damn load of Red gold we ever saw Moscow hand to one man in our lives, and we got the first proof ever, if this guy Ricardo is telling a correct story, of a Moscow-subsidised drug-subversion programme which is ready and willing to carry the battle into Red China in the hopes of doing the same for them as they're already doing for us.'