Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

Vicary waited upstairs in the library. The girls brought him the updates, one by one.

2115 hrs: The static post at Earl's Court spots Catherine Blake leaving her flat. Photographs to follow.

2117 hrs: Catherine Blake walks north toward Cromwell Road. One watcher trailing on foot. Surveillance van following.

2120 hrs: Catherine Blake catches a taxi and heads east. Surveillance van collects watcher on foot and tails the taxi.

2135 hrs: Catherine Blake arrives Marble Arch and leaves taxi. New watcher leaves the surveillance van and follows on foot.

2140 hrs: Catherine Blake catches another taxi in Oxford Street. Surveillance van nearly loses her. Unable to pick up watcher on foot.

2150 hrs: Catherine Blake leaves taxi at Piccadilly Circus. Walking west on Piccadilly. New watcher trailing on foot. Surveillance van following.

2153 hrs: Catherine Blake catches bus. Surveillance van following.

2157 hrs: Catherine Blake leaves bus. Enters Green Park on footpath. One watcher following.

Five minutes later, Harry came into the room. "We lost her in Green Park," he said. "She doubled back. The watcher had to keep going."

"That's all right, Harry. We know where she's going."

But for the next twenty minutes no one saw her. Vicary came downstairs and nervously paced the situation room. Through the microphones, Vicary could hear Jordan prowling the inside of his house, waiting for her. Had she seen the watchers? Did she spot the surveillance van? Had she been attacked in Green Park? Was she meeting with another agent? Was she trying to escape? Outside, Vicary heard the rattle of the surveillance van returning, then the soft footfalls of the dejected watchers slipping back into the house. She had beaten them again. Then Boothby telephoned. He was monitoring the operation from his office and wanted to know what the hell was going on. When Vicary told him, Boothby muttered something unintelligible and rang off.

Finally the static post outside Jordan's house came on the air.

2225 hrs: Catherine Blake approaching Jordan's door. Catherine Blake pressing the buzzer.

This piece of information Vicary did not need to know, for Jordan's house had been bugged and wired so thoroughly that the door buzzer, over the speakers in the situation room, sounded like an air-raid alert.

Vicary closed his eyes and listened. Their voices rose and fell as they moved from room to room, out of the range of one microphone and into the next. Vicary, listening to them trade banalities, was reminded of the dialogue in one of Alice Simpson's romance novels: Can I top up your drink? No, it's fine. How about something to eat? You must be famished. No, I had a little something earlier. But there is something I want desperately right now.

He listened to the sound of their kissing. He searched her voice for false notes. He had a team of officers waiting in the house across the street, just in case it all went wrong and he decided to arrest her. He listened to her telling him how much she loved him, and for some horrid reason he found himself thinking of Helen. They had stopped talking. Clinking glass. Running water. Footsteps ascending the stairs. Silence, as they moved through a dead zone on the microphone coverage. The sound of Jordan's bed, creaking beneath the weight of their bodies. The sound of clothing being removed. Whispers. Vicary had heard enough. He turned to Harry and said, "I'm going upstairs. Come get me when she makes her move."

Clive Roach heard it first, then Ginger Bradshaw. Harry had fallen asleep on the couch, his long legs dangling over the armrest. Roach reached out and smacked him on the sole of his shoe. Harry, startled, sat up, listening intently. He bounded up the stairs and nearly broke down the door to the library. Vicary had brought his camp bed from his office. He slept, as was his habit, with the light shining on his face. Harry reached down and shook his shoulder. Vicary came awake suddenly and looked at his wristwatch: two forty-five a.m. He followed Harry wordlessly down the stairs and into the situation room. Vicary had experimented with captured German cameras and recognized the sound immediately. Catherine Blake was locked inside Jordan's study, rapidly photographing the first batch of Kettledrum material. After a minute it stopped. Vicary heard the sound of papers being straightened and the door to the safe being closed. Then a click, as she turned out the lights and walked back upstairs.

"Well, if it isn't the man of the hour!" Boothby sang, flinging open the rear door of his Humber. "Come inside, Alfred, before you freeze to death out there. I just finished briefing the Twenty Committee. Needless to say, they're thrilled. They've asked me to pass on their congratulations to you. So, congratulations, Alfred."

"Thank you, I suppose," Vicary said, thinking, When did he have time to brief the Twenty Committee? It was barely seven in the morning: raining, colder than hell, London veiled in the dull half-light of wintry dawn. The car pulled away from the curb into the silent, shimmering street. Vicary slumped down on the seat, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, just for a moment. He was beyond exhaustion. Fatigue pulled at his limbs. It pressed on his chest like the winner of a schoolyard wrestling match, squeezed his head like a vise. He had not slept again, not after listening to Catherine Blake photographing the Kettledrum material. What was it that kept him awake, the excitement of so skillfully deceiving the enemy or disgust at the manner in which it was done?

Vicary opened his eyes. They were heading east, across the Georgian bleakness of Belgravia, then Hyde Park Corner, then Park Lane to Bayswater Road. The streets were deserted-a few taxis here and there, a lorry or two, solitary pedestrians rushing along the pavement like scared survivors of a plague.

Vicary, closing his eyes again, said, "What's this all about anyway?"

"Remember I told you the Twenty Committee was considering using some of our other Double Cross assets to help bolster the credibility of Kettledrum in Berlin?"

"I remember," Vicary said. He also remembered he had been stunned by the speed at which the decision had been reached. The Twenty Committee was notorious for bureaucratic warfare. Each and every Double Cross message had to be approved by the Twenty Committee before it could be sent to the Germans through turned agents. Vicary sometimes waited days for the Committee to approve Double Cross messages for his Becker network. Why were they able to move so quickly now?

He was too tired to search his brain for possible answers. He closed his eyes again. "Where are we going?"

"East London. Hoxton, to be precise."

Vicary opened his eyes to a slit, then let them close again. "If we're going to East London, why are we traveling west along Bayswater Road?"

"To make certain we're not being followed by members of any other service, friendly or hostile."

"Who's going to be following us, Sir Basil? The Americans?"

"Actually, Alfred, I'm more worried about the Russians."

Vicary lifted his head and twisted it around at Boothby before letting it fall back onto the leather seat. "I'd ask for an explanation of that remark, but I'm too tired."

"In a few minutes everything will be made clear to you."

"Will there be coffee there?"

Boothby chuckled. "Yes, I can guarantee that."

"Good. You won't mind if I use this opportunity to get a few minutes of sleep?"

But Vicary had drifted off and didn't hear Boothby's answer.

The car jerked to a halt. Vicary, floating in a light sleep, felt his head roll forward, then snap back. He heard the metallic crunch of a door latch giving way, felt a blast of cold air clawing at his face. He came awake suddenly. He looked to his left and seemed surprised to see Boothby sitting there. He glanced at his wristwatch. Good heavens, nearly eight o'clock!-they had been driving the London streets for an hour. His neck ached from the awkward position in which he had slept, slumped down in his seat with his chin pressing against the top of his rib cage. His head throbbed with a craving for caffeine and nicotine. He took hold of the armrest and pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked out the window: East London, Hoxton, an ugly Victorian terrace that looked like a factory fallen on hard times. The terrace on the other side had been bombed-a house here, a pile of rubble there, then a house, then rubble-like a mouth of rotting teeth.