Gavin Lyall - The Crocus List

"Yes. If he will acknowledge the threat-"

"That man wouldn't acknowledge a fart in his own bath."

"If you say so…"

Sergeant Gower collected Maxim at the Arrivals gate of Tegel-known locally as The Pentagon because the French chose to build the terminal in that rather unsuitable shape. Gower was part of the Intelligence Corps company in the Berlin brigade, and they had met on the Ashford course.

"We got a flash to stop a dark green Volkswagen van at the checkpoint, if it tried to go out," Gower said, "but they didn't have a number. Just that it had a roof hatch and a stove pipe. And I've found which hotel Mr Ferrebee is in. The Archbishop's addressing the Senate this morning then lunching with the Mayor and flying out at 1530."

"Thank you."

"It's not much to go on," Gower said gloomily. "But we'll try." He was a shortish man in his mid-thirties who managed to seem older by his mournful outlook and shambling unmilitary gait. His worn sports jacket and the untidy length of his blonde hair weren't very military, either, but Int Corps didn't always try very hard at such things. Often the opposite.

"A little bird told me that Mr Ferrebee got a telegram through their office here," Gower added.

"Good. Then he'll be in the picture. Can you give me a lift there?"

"Happy to," Gower said sadly, dumping Maxim's bag in the back of an elderly Audi with civilian number plates. "Things have been very quiet since the Soviets put up their proposals. Behaving themselves. Maybe you can do something about that."

The meeting knew Sladen had failed on his mission to Number 10 just from the look on his face as he lowered himself stiffly into his chair. He placed his hands carefully on the edge of the table and pushed fiercely for a moment, his knuckles turning white. Then he relaxed and said: "It was, I think, the Stegosaurus which had one brain in itshead and another in its arse, to control the tail. I've always liked the big saurians: they managed to rule the world for about 140 million years, which sets a bench-mark for any civil service. But I've sometimes wondered whether, when the front brain shut its eyes and ears, the arse brain wasn't reduced to swishing around in the dark.

"The PM will sanction no action until he has had more time and fuller information-"

"Morerime!"George exploded.

Sladen held up a hand in so imperial a gesture that George stifled with surprise, because Sladen was stepping not so much out of character as into the one he might once have become. "Gentlemen, we of the arse brain cells are swishing in the dark."

But, George thought sadly, he's got even that wrong, because when nobody leads, we retreat into our little cells and do nothing. Not even swish.

Three of them made Ferrebee's hotel room seem crowded. It was narrow, no more than twice the width of the single bed, with a window at the end giving an excellent view of a new office block just a hundred yards away across the car park. Ferrebee himself sat on the bed, littered with newspapers, Maxim at the dressing-table alongside, and Sergeant Gower at the small desk under the window. No matter how small, a Berlin hotel will always give you space to lay out your workpapers, just as it will always find an extra floor fora Konferenzraum. It is in business for business.

"I'm very glad to see you again, Major," Ferrebee said, "although your presence seldom indicates good news. Perhaps you can expound on the extraordinary telegram I got through our office here, early this morning? Signed by George, the Deputy D-G of Security and some Assistant Commissioner from the Met. Assuming they weren't all bitten by the same mad dog, could you tell me what's behind it all?"

"It's a rather complicated story," Maxim said, "but what matters is that we think the threat to the Archbishop is real. Have you altered his travel arrangements yet?"

"No, not yet. I want to know where you think this threat will be."

"When the plane overflies East Germany or East Berlin, depending on the take-off direction. It has to be close: a Blowpipe missile can't reach very high."

Ferrebee stood up and stalked over Maxim's feet to the window, leaning past Gower to pull the net curtain aside. The sky was a cold windswept blue with puffy clouds trundling towards them over the office building. "It'seasterly at the moment, looks as if it should hold. Take-off east, then."

"You could take him out by road, sir," Gower suggested mournfully. "Pick up a flight at Hannover."

"As a last resort," Ferrebee said. "But I don't want to put His Grace to the business of being searched by the Volkspolizeiat two checkpoints. It's… humiliating, and after yesterday's sermon they aren't going to treat him kindly. I laid on this private flight so that he could get in and out in comfort. He's not a young man, nor a particularly fit one."

Maxim nodded. "Then can you reposition the aircraft to Gatow? I'm sure the RAF would…"

"The aircraft isn't here yet. We're supposed to be flying out at three thirty local time, and I don't suppose the aircraft'll be in more than three-quarters of an hour before that. A company may lend you their Jetstream," he explained, "but they take it back between flights. You have to work a company aircraft hard to justify it to the shareholders. All right, I might get it repositioned to Gatow, though that would mean a delay… Why don't we just go for a delay? It gets dark early these days: if we hung on until after dark, would your missile be able to hit us then?"

"It'd be difficult-but why not simply wait until I give you the all clear that there's no more danger?"

Ferrebee had been pacing the narrow space beside the bed, with Maxim keeping his feet well under his chair. Now he stopped abruptly. "How can you guarantee that, Major?"

"I can't. But if you don't go until I give the okay…"

"What are you going to bedoing. Major?"

Maxim gazed back, then smiled to soften his look.

Ferrebee said: "Do you know who these people are, then?"

"We've got three names so far. One's dead; yesterday. The other two we haven't found yet-but there's more we don't know about. We do know what van they're probably using, and our people at Checkpoint Charlie have orders to stop it, but it's probably over there already. "

"Then what are you going to do?"

Maxim said nothing.

"I do hope, Major, that you are acting under orders."

In no town or city in the world has the British Army (or the American or French) more power than in Berlin. Theoretically, little has changed since 1945 when the city came under Allied military government, so that the Foreign Office can merely advise the General in command what to do next. But a Foreign Office official on leave, shepherding the Archbishop, is less than the mud on an Army boot. Until one gets back to London, of course.

So Maxim just kept on smiling, and not quoting his non-existent orders.

Ferrebee dumped himself back on the bed with a twang of springs. "Very well. I'll do as yousuggest. But: I don't want any hint of a change in the Archbishop's arrangements to get out. That could lead these… these madmen, to change their own plans. And what about when we get back to London? There has to be security there."

"You'll be covered," Maxim assured him. "Security's finally got its boots on with this one. The whole thing should be wound up in a day or so."

"That's something." Ferrebee brooded for a moment. "This is absolutely incredible, you know: assassinating the Archbishop of Canterbury. It hasn't happened in over eight hundred years, Thomasà Becket…"

"Murder in the Cathedral," Gower said. "It's been well remembered. I dare say it stirred up a bit of fuss at the time, too."

"It did, Sergeant, it did. Though that wasn't intended."

Maxim stood up. "It's intended now."