Len Deighton - XPD

The outer door, bearing Hugo Koch’s name on a neat black plastic rectangle, was unlocked. As Stuart pushed it open a buzzer sounded down the hall, and Hugo Koch emerged wiping his hands on a kitchen towel.

‘My name is Stuart… from London.’

‘Koch. Hugo Koch. I got the message. There is coffee ready. Will you have some?’

In the room that Koch used as an office, there was a tray already prepared with big flower-patterned cups and saucers, linen napkins and a jug of cream with chocolate biscuits arranged geometrically on a side plate with a doily. It was as if all Koch’s efforts had gone into the elaborate preparation of this snack, for the rest of the room was austere, not to say shabby. The tubular office chairs needed repairs to their upholstery, and the wallpaper was old and faded. On the wall there was a framed watercolour painting of the Alps and a calendar advertising a watch company. On top of the metal filing cabinets that lined one side of the large office room there were piles of documents and old newspapers. An antique pendulum clock on the wall was silent, its hands set to twelve o’clock. Koch returned from the kitchen with a blue china jug of coffee.

‘You weren’t hurt in the accident?’ said Stuart politely as he accepted the coffee and poured himself a little cream.

‘I spent a year driving a police car,’ said Koch. ‘I keep a stretch of road between me and the cars ahead.’

‘Can I look at the documents? Umm, good coffee.’

‘They have already gone to London.’

‘Gone?’

‘He was here before seven. Luckily I’m an early riser. I was having breakfast.’

‘I was on the earliest flight.’

Koch shrugged. ‘There are other ways… private planes, military planes… ’

‘Who?’ said Stuart.

‘An old man, very tall, long hair over his ears. Ryden, he said his name was, although that never means much in this business.’ Koch smiled to show that he suspected that Boyd Stuart was also a false name. ‘I checked back with London and they confirmed he was OK. He signed my receipt. It was all in order, I assure you.’

‘Ryden?’

‘Hearing aid in his right ear. Doesn’t fit properly, he’s always having to push it back into his ear again. Too old for this sort of work, if you ask me, but I suppose an old fellow like that can do a messenger job.’

‘Yes,’ said Stuart, registering the fact that Koch regarded him as no more than a messenger too. Nearby church bells pealed loudly across the quiet trafficless city.

‘So there’s nothing else?’

‘Nothing else,’ said Koch. ‘I’m sorry about that. By the time this old fellow arrived, I knew you would have left. Have a chocolate biscuit.’

‘Thanks,’ said Stuart. So his father-in-law had got the transcript of the departmental phone call to him and acted upon it immediately. He was a cunning old bastard who revelled in the lies and deceptions of his craft. Koch had no idea that his ‘messenger’ was ‘super-spook’-the DG in person.

Stuart looked round the room. He knew the sort of life that resident operatives enjoyed and he did not envy Koch. Behind Koch’s desk the kitchen door had swung open and Stuart could see inside. There was a sink filled with dirty saucepans and dishes. He could see the flower-patterned cups from which the DG had no doubt had his early morning coffee. On the kitchen table a packet of Bircher muesli and a large economy-size tin of Nescafé had been pushed aside to make room for a brown canvas shoulder bag and what had been its contents. There were two factory-wrapped shirts and men’s underclothes, a pair of sunglasses and a packet of Roger & Gallet soap, sandalwood perfumed. Stuart wondered if Koch was preparing for an overnight trip; he found it strange that he should have only new linen and that he should be so extravagant in his choice of soap, but Stuart had long since found that even the most ordinary mortals display surprising foibles.

There was of course no way for Stuart to know that this inscrutable man had just come into possession of well over two million dollars’ worth of Hoffmann-La-Roche bearer shares, to say nothing of a serviceable Brazilian passport which would, after a little work by a man he knew, be good enough to provide him with a new identity.

‘A little more coffee?’ said Hugo Koch solicitously. ‘I sometimes think I’m getting too old for this sort of work. Do you ever have that feeling?’

‘Almost every day,’ said Boyd Stuart.

Although Stein’s injuries from the motor accident seemed no more than superficial, he never fully recovered from the concussion caused by the blow to his head. His eyes saw the continuing world of 1979 but his mind recognized only the memories, fears and dreams of long ago.

He began to regain consciousness just as Koch was leaving. He looked at the burning wreckage of Colonel Pitman’s Jaguar and at the corpse of the colonel, but he saw the blazing jeep under the African sky.

‘ Aram,’ called Stein. ‘Major Carson is dead. Stay where you are, I’m coming, Aram.’ Very slowly he got to his feet. The police were on the scene by now, but they were all busy coning off the wreckage and trying to slow down the traffic. They had no time to attend to Stein.

Concussed and confused, Stein made his way along the autoroute , staring uncomprehendingly at the passing traffic and sometimes calling for his brother. A motorist, having passed the scene of the accident, slowed and backed up for Stein. ‘Airport,’ said Stein, not once but half a dozen times. The Geneva-Lausanne autoroute passes Geneva airport and this good Samaritan took Stein all the way there and up to the departures level. Stein stumbled out of the car mumbling, ‘Thanks, Colonel.’

It was a measure of Stein’s stamina-and of the apathetic indifference with which airlines treat their passengers-that he was able to go through the procedures of buying a first-class ticket to Los Angeles. Perhaps he would have attracted more attention in the economy section of the jumbo, but airline staff have by now become used to encountering dirty and dishevelled travellers at the luxury end of aeroplanes.

That Saturday evening Geneva airport was crowded with tour groups and Stein’s appearance was not remarked upon by the airport staff. But he was noticed by Max Breslow, who was waiting in a line at the bank counter. He immediately telephoned Chicago.

‘Are you Edward Parker?’ Breslow asked the man on the phone. He brushed aside Parker’s question of who was calling. If it was one of Kleiber’s friends or colleagues the less he knew about Breslow the better. ‘My name does not matter but I am telephoning from Geneva, Switzerland, on behalf of a mutual friend named Wilhelm. Do you understand?’

‘I understand,’ said Parker.

‘It has all gone wrong here. It is a catastrophe! I doubt if you will see our friend Wilhelm for a long time, he’s in trouble with the police. I have just seen Mr Stein going through the immigration and security to the transit lounge. He is almost certainly going to board the Los Angeles direct flight. Perhaps he has the documents with him, but I didn’t see him carrying a bag. Do you understand all that, Mr Parker?’

It was Saturday afternoon in Chicago. Parker was sitting at his desk eating what remained of a toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich long since gone cold. He guessed immediately that the caller was Breslow and fingered his desk clock as he calculated the flight times between Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as the flying time between California and Switzerland. ‘Yes, I understand,’ he said. ‘Go through and make sure Stein boards, would you? I’ll arrange that someone meets him at the other end. Call me again only if he does not board that flight. Will you do that for me?’ Parker had acquired the North American habit of making his demands sound like polite inquiries.