Gavin Lyall - The Conduct of Major Maxim

"What earthly difference would that make, " Husband askedin a voice that still trembled slightly, "to your normal standard of conduct?"

That effectively ended the meeting.

George drove, not going anywhere, and for a few minutes he said nothing, then: "Ecology. That's it. You're going to have to develop a more ecological outlook. Tell yourself that, like the dung beetle and the greater horned toad, secret intelligence personnel are also God's creatures. It'll make life less exciting, but easier on the blood pressure. Do you think you can get anything for them?"

"If Blagg's got anything. This time he's going to tell the whole truth and nothing but. "

"Good. We're running out of time."

"I'd like to be able to convince him that it wasn'tthat mob that took a shot at him. "

George shook his head emphatically. "Husband would never authorise gunplay in London. In fact, I don't know how hecould authorise it – he hasn't got the men. They just don't exist, not here. The Firm uses a few muscle-brains in the Middle East and so on, but they're employed at several removes and a lot's done to make sure theystay overseas. You can spend your whole life in The Firm without once meeting a pistol by way of business – in fact, you'd better, if you ever hope to be considered for Best of Breed. "

Maxim made what might have been an agreeing noise. "All right, but what about Sims?"

"He's more vulnerable than Husband. If he makes a cock-up of this, anything approaching a scandal, he's finished in a very final way."

"Where did they get him from?"

"East Germany, via West Germany. He Saw The Light seven or eight years ago, and went to work for the Verfassungschutzat Ehrenfeld. Counterespionage. Given his background, he built up a very effective little unit, then he offered the whole thing to us after the Flying Doctor business. Did you hear anything about that? – probably you were out of the country."

"I know the one you mean. " Maxim had picked up the story from friends in the Intelligence Corps. A youngish doctor employed full-time to look after the health of the Verfassungschutz'sagents had been caught, by pure chance, passing on the details of those agents' medical histories and personal problems to the Other Side. He had, of course, been security checked and re-checked, and every time found to be clean. He was faithful to his wife – except for an occasional nurse, which she had to agree didn't count – and wasn't into drugs or gambling or politics. The security men had missed only one thing: the doctor didn't want to be a doctor, he wanted to be an airline pilot. They knew he spent his weekends at the flying club, but hadn't got around to totting up how many hours of blind flying instruction in a twin-engined Cessna he was buying, nor how much each such hour cost. And since the good doctor was a lousy pilot, it was a lot of hours and a lot of money, nearly half his government salary, and almost all paid for by sympathetic friends in East Berlin.

"It just goes to show," Maxim's confidant from Int Corps had summed up, "that sex and drugs and gambling aren't everything. One shouldn't benarrow-minded when looking for a man's weakness. "

The doctor wasn't the only security failure in West German intelligence, but he had been the last straw for Sims. Rather than see his unit rotted away by the disillusionment of constant betrayal, he had approached MI6 with an offer they didn't want to refuse.

"Of course, it isn't the Done Thing to poach people – let alone a whole unit – from an Ally," George went on, "but our East German operations had completely fallen apart, the place had become a total black hole as far as The Firm knew, and they were desperate. Anyway, we weren't feeling too chuffed towards West Germany at that point: something to do with Common Market fishing policy, they kept sending their trawlers into the Hampstead Ponds or somewhere. So the Foreign Office turned a bland eye – nobody was exactly complaining out loud – and we took on the whole Sims organisation as a going concern. From desk bods right down to people in the field. Mrs Howard was one of his. "

"Her? I thought she was supposed to be a sort of part-timer, an amateur."

"That's the story when something goes wrong: 'Not our normal standard, just somebody we picked off the street, don't judge us by her blah blah.' But she was one of his, all right. And overall, they seem to be doing pretty well. If Plainsong actually comes off it'll be a big boost for the whole Sovbloc desk. Then they can go back to asking each other where they got their blow-drys and leave the rest of us in peace."

After a minute or so, Maxim said: "Mrs Howard had a gun. Two, in fact."

"And look what a power of goodthat did us all. "

The doctor had been and gone by the time Maxim reached the little cottage on the hillside above Caswell's father-in-law's garage. Maxim suspected that the cottage belonged to the old man, too, and went with the job. He wondered how long Jim would stand that.

"Said he's doing very well," Caswell reported. "Gave him some more shots, his temperature's well down. Told me to keep himstill for a couple of days. "

"Is he awake now?"

"Yes, he's listening to the radio. I'll shift the telly in there for him tomorrow, that might keep him quiet."

"Has he heard about the one in the hospital?"

"Yes. It doesn't seem to bother him."

"Well…" But did they want it to bother him? Blagg's touching faith that Maxim would save him from murder charges in two countries might at least mean that he would stay where he was and do nothing – for once. Caswell led the way.

Blagg was lying flat on his back but bulging out of a small single bed that itself crowded the tiny room. It was all very cottagey, the uneven walls papered with a tiny flower pattern and all filled with an odd green light reflected in from the hillside that sloped up just outside the window. Blagg pulled out the radio earpiece and struggled to sit up.

"Lie still, you stupid little man!" Caswell thundered, all sergeant again. Blagg relaxed sheepishly.

For a couple of minutes they made sickbed small talk while Maxim tried to decide just how Blagg was. The right side of his face was a mass of scratches, there was a sticking plaster on his ear, and his chest was heavily bandaged, but even in that sickly light he seemed bright-eyed and calm. Best of all, hewas talking long sentences without a hint of breathlessness. Maxim was fit enough himself but, he thought wistfully, there's no medicine like being only twenty-five.

"Is this the first time you've copped one?" he asked.

"Nah, I got one in Armagh. Smack in the arse, but it was probably just about spent. Bloody funny that was, for everybody else. Have you, sir?"

"Years back, out in the Gulf." Maxim touched the outside of his right thigh; through the thin cotton trousers he could trace the hardedged crater that had come close to killing him, out in the desert hours from real medical aid. Instead, it had only taken away six months of his life – at a critical point that just might have foreclosed on his promotion hopes. If, of course, he still had any. Well, as they said, why didy oujoin the Army if you can't take a joke?

"One thing," Blagg said; "I'm lucky I don't smoke." He grinned slyly at Caswell, who had already twice taken out and then put away his cigarettes.

"Right, then," Maxim called the meeting to order. "I've talked to Six, and somebody in the Foreign Office. I'm sorry it took all this to get them out into the open – as far as they've come. They've said they'll do what they can for you, and I believe them. That wound might help with some fairy story… But you've got to tell me everything now. You hadn't remembered you had that gun, last time. "

"Lucky I had, though, wasn't it?" Blagg said aggressively. "Who was they, those two at Dave's place?"