Adam Hall - The Tango Briefing

I came in over the Pole and we were stacked up for nearly twenty minutes in a holding circuit round London before they could find us a runway and then we had to wait for a bottleneck on the ground to get itself sorted out and all we could do was stare through the windows at the downpour and that didn't help.

Sayonara, yes, very comfortable thank you.

There was a long queue in No. 3 Passenger Building and I was starting to sweat because the wire had said fully urgent and London never uses that phrase just for a laugh; then a quietly high-powered type in sharp blue civvies came up and asked who I was and I told him and he whipped me straight past Immigration and Customs without touching the sides and gold me there was a police car waiting and was it nice weather inTokyo.

'Better than here.'

'Where do we send the luggage?'

'This is all I've got.'

He took me through a fire exit and there was the rain slamming down again and the porters were trudging about in oilskins.

The radio operator had the rear door open for me and I ducked in and the driver hooked his head round to see who I was, not that he'd know.

'You want us to go as fast as we can?'

'That's what it's all about.'

Sometimes along the open stretches where the deluge was flooding the hollows we worked up quite a bow-wave and I could see the flash of our emergency light reflected on it.

'Bit of a summer storm.'

'You can keep it.'

They were using their sirens before we'd got halfway along Waterloo Road and after that they just kept their thumb on it because the restaurants and cinemas were turning out and every taxi was rolling.

Big Ben was sounding eleven when we did a nicely controlled slide into Whitehall across the front of a bus and he put the two nearside wheels up on the pavement so that I could get out without blocking the traffic.

'Best I could do.'

'You did all right'

Most of the lights were on in the building but the place sounded dead as if they'd made up their minds at last that the only thing to do was run. I used the stairs and went straight into Walford's room but he wasn't there and I had to barge into Field Briefing before I could find anyone.

'Where's Walford?'

'Sprained a ball.'

'Oh for Christ's sake.' I pulled off my trenchcoat and shook the rain off the collar, throwing it on a chair. They've never done anything about the environment at the Bureau: it's a fridge or an oven according to the season and this was August. 'Walford told me to get here, fully urgent.'

'That's right.'

Tilson was always like this: try blasting his eyes and he'd ask if you'd care for some tea.

'You mean he's not in the building?'

'All that matters to me, old horse, is that you are.' He picked up a phone, not hurrying. 'Quiller's come in. Cancel those last two cables, revamp the board and warn Clearance for tomorrow morning.'

He put the thing down and eyed me amiably. 'How were the geishas?'

'Listen, if Walford's not here, who do I see? Who's my director?'

'Director?'

'It is a job, isn't it?'

'As far as I know, old horse.'

'Then I want some orders.'

'What's the rush?'

I turned away so I wouldn't have to look at his pink amiable face. He wasn't doing it deliberately; this was just his character and maybe they'd put him in charge of Field Briefing because that's when your nerves tighten up a whole octave higher, right on the brink of a mission. Maybe they thought his sleepy-eyed approach to the thing would calm us down. It was driving me up the wall.

'Look, they whipped me over the North Pole and spat me out of the airport and we screamed the place down getting here in a squad car and now you ask me what's the rush, so for God's sake get on the blower and find out.'

He rocked gently on his swivel chair.

'Care for a spot of tea?'

'Is Carslake in the building?'

'He's running the Irish thing.'

'Well, get me some orders.'

It's the routine reaction: most of the shadow executives get it the minute they know there's a mission lined up with their name on it. We call it the shakes, the blues, the doom-clangers, but it's the same thing, a kind of sudden love-hate relationship with the job that's been giving you the kicks you asked for all along the line, the same job that's going to kill you off one day when your guard's down or your luck's out or you've finally lost that fine degree of judgment that has so far kept you alive.

So when you know there's a mission you get an urge to run the other way and you can't do that because you're committed, so you run to meet it instead, head down and blood up but with that little cold knot in the stomach.

'The only orders I know, old horse, is that you're to piddle off home.'

'What did they get me here for, then, so bloody fast?'

'We just wanted to know you were physically available for this one, and wecouldn't be sure of that if you were mooning around Tokyo.'

It made sense and the speed went out of me and I crossed to the open window and stood with my back to the rain, watching his face now because I wanted all the info I could get without asking too much.

'What were the signals you just cancelled?'

'We were going to warn Smythe and Bickersteth to stand by. One's in Bucharest and the other's hanging around in reserve on the Pakistan show.'

'You were going to pull them out for this job?'

'If you couldn't make it.' He flattened his pink hand and tilted it, watching the light flash across his nails. 'And now you have. Or have you?'

'What the hell does that mean?'

'Well, you might not like this one.' He gave a shy smile.

The knot in my stomach got colder.

'Why? Is it a bastard?'

'Oh I don't mean that, old horse. Anyway, the thing is you're here physically and all you have to do now is go home and get a good night's zizz.' He leaned forward to look at a pad on his desk. 'Tomorrow they're running a film show for you at — '

It would've been quicker to pull out Smythe and Bickersteth, wouldn't it?'

'Much.'

'Someone wants me particularly for this one.'

He smiled boyishly.

'That's right.'

'Who?'

'Not absolutely sure. Tell you in the morning.'

'Is there a director lined up?'

'Sort of.'

'Who?'

'They haven't told me. Honestly. Or I'd tell you, wouldn't I?'

'If it suited you.'

'That's the way we do things, isn't it? We don't like you people to have too much on your mind. Gives you indigestion. Now why don't you just buzz off and — '

'Where's this film show?'

'Air Ministry. Nine ack-emma manana — will you be there?'

'All right.'

'Room 43, Squadron-leader Eastlake. Code-intro's «Birdseye», okay? Then you can tootle back here and I'll give you the rest and you can get cleared.'

I stood watching his smooth cherub's face for a bit and thought again about what he'd said — you might not like this one - and then got it out of my mind and picked up the trenchcoat and slung it round my shoulders because it was too stinking hot to put it on.

'What's the area?'

I think you'll need tropical kit.'

'Oh my God.'

It's a shame,' he smiled amiably, 'in winter they send you to Warsaw, don't they?'

'Why did they want me for this one, specially?'

'It's a solo mission, apart from the director in the field. You like working alone, don't you? So it ought to suit you down to the ground.'

Suddenly it struck me that they'd deliberately got Walford out of the way so that this bland little angel-face could handle me softly, softly, till they'd caught their monkey. This job was a bastard and they'd picked the only one who'd take it on out of sheer bloody-mindedness because he knew that anyone with a bit of sense would refuse. It had happened before and now it looked like happening again. If I let it.