Geisler mopped at his face with a handkerchief. He said, ‘Just a minute. I don’t understand. How did you come by this photo?’
‘I’ll tell you that soon. Come on, Steve. Open up.’
Geisler went on staring at the photograph. Shaw didn’t believe he had tumbled to the fact that it had been taken after death. After a while Geisler muttered reluctantly, ‘Okay, I guess you win after all if you’ve got that far. As you said, we’re allies.’ He tapped the photograph. ‘We know her, Esmonde. She was detailed from the Embassy, here in London.’
‘But she’s an American citizen?’
‘Oh, sure. Living in London, working for U.S Navy Intelligence.’ He was silent for a moment, then he said wistfully, ‘She’s a darn good looker. Always was… more so, before the plastic surgeons were let loose on her.’
Shaw studied him carefully. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me her name.’
‘I don’t know her real name, never did, though I first met her back in Washington. Oh, I guess it was on file somewhere back in the Pentagon, but we’re a lot more watertight than your outfit. That way, you get few leaks,’ he added with a half-smile. ‘Her code name was Dolly Gray, and that’s how we knew her.’
Shaw murmured, ‘“Goodbye Dolly, I must leave you… though it breaks my heart to go.” Only this time it’s the other way round, Steve.’
Geisler looked up. ‘What’s that? How d’you mean, the other way round?’
Shaw answered briefly, watching Geisler’s face, ‘Because it’s Dolly who’s gone. She’s dead, Steve. Stone cold dead. That portrait was taken after death. I found the body myself this morning. Heart knicked by a .22 bullet, and the body dumped in a flooding chamber.’
Geisler stared. He repeated stupidly, ‘Flooding chamber? Why…’
‘Aboard that floating dock.’
‘Floating dock…’ Geisler didn’t appear to be taking anything in for a while, but then he suddenly realized what he’d been told and sat up straight, his eyes blazing at Shaw incredulously. ‘What did you say?’
Shaw repeated his statement and then gave Geisler the full details as he knew them. When he had finished he said, ‘Steve, you want to help, don’t you?’
‘Sure. Sure.’ Geisler looked back at him, blankly. ‘That’s just what I do want to help — but I don’t understand! I don’t understand at all.’
Shaw moved his long legs, easing himself in the chair. ‘Look, Steve. What were the orders to Dolly Gray — what was she after, aboard that dock?’
Geisler shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Esmonde. I just haven’t any idea. She had no orders about any dock… when I told you the first I’d heard of that dock was when I saw about it in the newspapers today, that was the plain truth.’ He lifted his arms, let them drop again. ‘Looks like maybe she was following something up, and got knocked. I don’t know. Or maybe she exceeded her instructions, acted foolishly. Happens with the best agents. She should never have landed up aboard a floating dock, anyhow. A woman’d stand out a mile.’
Shaw nodded. He said slowly, ‘Perhaps, but perhaps not. Depends on the circumstances under which she went aboard, or was taken aboard, and we don’t know yet what they were. Anyway, the mere fact that she was aboard,’ he pointed out, ‘means that that dock’s red hot! Steve, can you give me any idea at all of what the girl was sent out to do, or to find?’
Geisler kneaded at his eyes with his knuckles, then shook his head. He got to his feet and took a turn or two up and down the room. Coming back, he stopped and faced Shaw. He said, ‘Listen, Esmonde. I’d do anything I could and I hope you’ll believe that. Dolly Gray was a real good girl… and that’s an understatement. She was a darn good kid to have around, she had a wonderful personality… and she was the tops at her job. Now you say she’s dead. I don’t need to tell you that’s the kind of news we hate to get about any operator, but there’s one thing I can’t do on my own, and believe me, I still couldn’t do it even if the Queen of England went on her bended knees, and that is to open my mouth about what Dolly Gray was sent to do. Those orders came to my chief from the Pentagon, but the Pentagon didn’t originate them. Oh, no! They came from much higher authority. Get me?’
‘I think I do, Steve.’
Geisler said with simple candour, ‘If I yapped, they’d have me in the hot seat. This is something big… I mean what she came over to do is big. It’s that important, and it’s that secret.’
Shaw sighed. He said, ‘All right, Steve. I’ll have to accept that, I suppose. If you can’t give me anything else, I’ll take another good, stiff Scotch off you.’
He went across and poured it himself at Geisler’s gesture. He poured it slowly and thoughtfully. The girl was an American agent right enough, but where did that lead him? And what exactly was going on in the Pentagon? Already the peace was uneasy again; time had marched on and the temporary respite provided by the Test Ban Agreement — an instrument without teeth or sanctions — had ended cruelly and abruptly once Red China had started her own test series. It had long been Shaw’s contention in any case that once the world’s computers had assimilated the data, the backlog of information gained from the earlier tests, then a frame of mind would develop in which fresh testing would be seen as inevitable. Germany, U.S.A, Britain, France, Russia… they would one day evolve new weapons, and there would be pressure from the military chiefs to have them put through their paces; and now already China’s actions had prematurely forced both East and West to limber up again. In the world situation thus re-created, any misunderstanding or clash of interest among the Powers would have to be kid-gloved as never before.
Chapter Five
The voice of the N.I.D Duty Officer rattled out of the phone. ‘The Chief’s gone home, sir, but he left word that you were to call at his flat.’
‘Right.’ Shaw put down the phone and left the call-box. Hailing a taxi, he directed the driver to Eaton Square, where Latymer’s man let him into the flat and showed him into the drawing-room, with an offer, which Shaw gladly accepted, of a whisky-and-soda. Shaw drank slowly, looking around the room he knew so well. It was a beautiful room and tastefully furnished; Latymer had an eye for antiques. And there was always something new to see — some small but enchanting Dresden shepherdess, for example, or a gem of a French clock. This time it was a Renoir, an exquisite little landscape. Shaw was examining this appreciatively when Latymer came in, wearing a flowered silk dressing-gown and fleece-lined slippers — relaxed, but as much on the ball as if he’d been in his office in the Admiralty.
‘Well, Shaw?’ he rapped. ‘Sit down, man, and tell me all. Renoir can wait.’
Shaw obeyed; there being in fact little to tell, he was soon finished. Latymer stood there sunk in thought and frowning, his hands planted deep in the dressing-gown pockets, his heavy shoulders hunched broodingly.
After some forty-five seconds he gave a harsh grunt. He snapped, ‘Wait there. Help yourself to whisky if you want it. I’ve got some telephoning to do and I may be some time.’
He marched out of the room towards his study and his private ‘hush’ line, the line that had been used in the past to talk to almost every capital this side of the Iron Curtain and even, on occasion, beyond it. Shaw waited, helped himself to another and smaller whisky. Latymer was like some powerful spider, sitting firmly in his web until his emissaries brought home the flies, which could wriggle before him until he struck.… He was a cold man, though he had a hot temper certainly, and could be ruthless when he had to be. Indeed, he often had to be; he refused to suffer fools at all, let alone gladly, and he was swift to drop, and drop hard, on lethargy or inefficiency. Many people hated Latymer’s guts, many people on the other side had tried to kill him, but he was admired and respected in the Outfit and everyone knew there would never be another Latymer. Shaw had a lot of time for him; the Old Man was human enough at heart, and they had been together for a long while now. Shaw had a feeling that Latymer was going to stick his neck out rather a long way on this job, and that worried him. They had so pathetically little to go on, they had no idea what they were after, and however high up you were, however powerful your edict might be, you simply couldn’t go putting other countries’ floating docks on the beach just by lifting the telephone and mortgaging your word that all would come right in the end… much less could you go around treading on the toes of your allies.