Simon Green - The Spy Who Haunted Me

“I always thought he did it for the challenge,” said the Matriarch. To my surprise she was smiling just a little, and her usually calm and cold voice had just a touch of the wistful in it. “To see if he could do it, when no one else could. Alexander has been the best spy in the world for almost seventy years now. He admits to being ninety-one years old but could be even older. The point is, he became increasingly choosy about his missions, turning down most people. He said it was because there were no real challenges left anymore, but age catches up with all of us, even the incredible Independent Agent. In fact, he’s been quiet for so long most of us thought he’d retired.”

“He did contact us during the Hungry Gods War, to offer his services,” said the Armourer. “But that was when Harry was running things, and he said no. I don’t think he wanted to be overshadowed. Of course, that was before we realised just how serious the whole affair was . . .”

“The point is,” said the Matriarch, glaring sternly at the Armourer until he sank back into his chair, “Alexander King has contacted us. He says he’s dying. And is therefore prepared to divulge a lifetime’s hoarded knowledge and secrets to whichever present-day agent can demonstrate that they are worthy to take his place when he dies. To ascertain this, he is summoning the six most promising agents in the world to his home deep in the Swiss Alps. And he says he wants you, Edwin.”

“What? Me?” I sat bolt upright, honestly shocked. “Why would he want me?”

“He probably wants you because you took on the whole Drood family and won,” the Armourer said dryly. “And just possibly because you led us to victory against the Hungry Gods and saved all humanity. Anyway, he was most firm. He wants you, for this . . . competition of his.”

“You have to go,” said the Matriarch. “For the pride of the family, and to make sure the Independent Agent’s accumulated treasure of secret knowledge doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. That cannot be allowed to happen, Edwin. Alexander King knows things that no one else knows. The kind of suppressed truths that can bring down governments, start wars, and quite possibly set the whole world at each other’s throats. Any individual or organisation with that kind of knowledge would be a real threat to the Droods, particularly in our current weakened state.”

“And, of course, because there’s always the chance they might not use that knowledge in the world’s best interests,” said the Armourer.

“Well, yes, that too,” said the Matriarch. “Only we can be trusted with information like that.”

“Some of these hypothetical people might do a better job than us,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” said the Matriarch. “No one does it better than us.”

“Of course,” I said. “What was I thinking?”

“King says he knows who our traitor is,” said the Armourer. “You have to go, Eddie, and you have to win. For the sake of the family, and the world.”

“You will win, Edwin,” said the Matriarch. “Whatever this competition turns out to be. We’ll give you whatever support and assistance we can, but . . . in the end, you must win. By any means necessary.”

“I suppose so,” I said. I still had a whole shed load of reservations about practically everything involved with this competition, but I wasn’t going to waste my breath discussing them with the Matriarch. She was right about one thing: we had to find out who our traitor was, for the sake of the family and the world. Everything else . . . I’d have to think on my feet. As usual. I nodded slowly. “Do we at least know who the other competitors are?”

“No,” said the Armourer. “King is playing his cards very close to his chest for the moment. Typical of the man. We’ve been making some discreet enquiries, but no one significant has dropped out of sight . . . You’ll receive your instructions at King’s private head-quarters, some old ski lodge in the Swiss Alps. Very private, very well defended. It’s called Place Gloria; you might remember it from a rather famous spy film they shot there in the sixties.”

I shook my head. “I never watch spy films. I can’t take them seriously.”

“You’re expected to make your own way there,” said the Armourer. “Part of proving your worth, I suppose. The Merlin Glass could drop you off right at his door . . .”

“But you can’t take it with you,” the Matriarch said immediately. “Far too important to the family to risk it falling into enemy hands. On the other hand, Alexander King is supposed to have a quite magnificent collection of objects of power and influence in his own private museum. Spoils of the world’s secret wars . . . Some of which he stole from us. We’d quite like those back, if you can manage it.”

“Along with anything else you can get your hands on,” said the Armourer.

“I remember Alexander . . .” said the Matriarch. Her voice was definitely wistful this time, and her eyes were faraway. “I had a bit of a fling with him, in the autumn of 1957. In East Berlin, right in the shadow of the Wall. We used to meet at this perfectly awful little café that smelt mostly of boiled cabbage and served its vodka after the Russian fashion, with a little black pepper sprinkled on top. The idea being that as the pepper grains sank to the bottom of the glass, they’d take the impurities in the vodka with them. You really could go blind, drinking that stuff in East Berlin in 1957. Awful vodka, awful food, but I still have fond memories of that little café . . . or at least of the room we used to rent above it. Ah, yes; Alexander . . . This was before I met and married your father, Jack, of course.”

“Of course, Mother.” The Armourer looked more than a little uncomfortable at the thought of his mother getting it on with the Independent Agent, so I moved in.

“What were the two of you doing in East Berlin, Grandmother?”

“Oh, some nonsense about a Persian djinn being buried under the Berlin Wall to give it strength. We never did get to the bottom of it. But . . . you might mention my name to Alexander, Edwin, just in case he remembers me. A most charming fellow. Don’t trust him an inch.”

“Of course not,” I said. “He isn’t family.”

And that was the end of the council meeting. I was going to the Swiss Alps to meet a living legend who was dying and take part in a competition I didn’t understand, with people I didn’t know, all for a prize I wasn’t sure I believed in. And, no, I didn’t get a say in the matter. Business as usual, in the Drood family.

There was no way the Armourer was going to let me go off on a mission without the benefit of his very latest gadgets of mass distraction. So down to the Armoury we went, set deep in the bedrock under the Hall, so that when the place finally did blow itself up through an excess of imagination and optimism, there was at least some chance the family home would survive. As always, the huge stone chamber was jumping with activity and lab assistants running this way and that, sometimes in pursuit of an escaping experiment, sometimes because their lab coats were on fire. It took nerves of steel to work in the Armoury and a definite lack of the old self-preservation instinct. The Armourer strode through the chaos, entirely unmoved, while I stuck close behind him. If only to use him as a shield.

“How did the mellow bombs work out?” the Armourer tossed back over his shoulder, ducking slightly to avoid an eyeball with wings as it fluttered past.

“Oh, fine!” I said, stepping quickly to one side to avoid a lab assistant arguing fiercely with a plant in a cage. “Though the effects did seem to fade away pretty fast.”

“I’m working on it; I’m working on it!”