Gavin Lyall - The Secret Servant

"Just something a friend said."

"Oh. I don't think you'll find that…" He chattered on, perhaps nervously, as the Dominie slanted downwards.

The little aeroplane stopped less than halfway down the vast runway that was itself a far greater contribution to NATO than Luxembourg's 630-man army. If Der Tag ever dawned, this was one of the 'mobilisation bases', built to take the biggest American transport aircraft that would flock in with reinforcements – unless a Russian missile or air strike had got here first, of course. Meanwhile, it was the tidiest airport Maxim had ever seen: the grass was cropped to the bone and the runway edges trimmed as neatly as any royal garden.

There was a brief unceremonial ceremony behind the cargo sheds, out of sight of the main terminal, then they were hustled into two hired Mercedes and skimmed off towards the city.

Maxim shared a car with the British ambassador, Tyler and a stolid middle-aged captain with careful eyes who came from the Sыretй Publique.

"Has there been any reaction here, yet?" Maxim asked.

"There was a small demonstration outside the embassy a couple of days ago," the ambassador said. "And I believe today…" he nodded at the captain.

A shrug. "A few protestors with notices were at the main gate of the airport. Nothing of importance." Speaking English, he had a dull flat voice like a government document.

"Do they know where the talks will be?"

"They will guess. Senningen is the only place. It is not the Luxembourgeoise to worry about, it is the terrorists from the outside. We have changed the hotels, but…" Another shrug.

"Thank you," Tyler said firmly, staring at Maxim.

For real secrecy they should all have arrived in darkness, to hide the national markings on their aircraft; they should have stayed at some easily defended, unexpected, country house; they should have travelled – if at all – using all sorts of decoy cars and helicopters. But as George had said, to try and paint back on all the secrecy that had been stripped off would make the talks seem even more sinister. Whatever Moscow really felt, Washington was showing alarm and despondency. Now they could only hope for security and forget secrecy.

The hotel was elderly and comfortable without trying to be grand. But on the short ride in from the airport, Maxim had guessed that Luxembourg liked things tidy rather than magnificent.

The men shared a suite of three rooms – Mrs West was just down the corridor – a drawing-room bracketed by two bedrooms so that any visitor had to come into the drawing-room first. Tyler took one bedroom, Maxim and Quinton the other, not very enthusiastically. For the moment, the Sыretй captain kept watch.

Quinton got even less enthusiastic when Maxim took off his jacket.

"Great Heavens, man, have you been wearing that thing… I mean on the plane and with the ambassador!"

"Yes." Maxim wriggled his shoulders inside the wide straps of the shoulder holster. "And I shall be wearing it all the time I'm with Professor Tyler."

"Who told you that you could?"

"Number 10."

That was the Word of Power. "Well, I just hope you know what you're doing. I didn't know you'd got the beastly thing at all."

"You're not supposed to notice. D'you want the bathroom first?"

"No, go ahead…" Quinton sat on the edge of the bed, shaking his head in little shivery movements. And he didn't even know he'd missed Maxim shifting the gun to his raincoat pocket so that he could get off the aeroplane with a sensibly buttoned-up coat. Or changing it back in the hotel lift.

It wasn't his fault. You see what you expect to see, and ninety-nine per cent of the world doesn't expect to meet people carrying concealed weapons. The one per cent constitute the problem.

That evening there was a buffet supper, an informal first meeting of the delegations, at another hotel across in the old town, near the station.

Given time to look around, Maxim saw, as they ran out on a long bridge over one of the city's sheer-sided ravines, just what George meant about vertigo. Down there, far down, was a gentle river in formal gardens and flanked by-a sprawling village, its lights winking mistily in the blue dusk. But above, the stolid palaces and offices stared at each other across the quarter-mile canyon as if it simply wasn't there, something they would rather not see and certainly not talk about, like a nasty birthmark.

The supper was quiet, restrained. Tyler and the French delegate knew each other, but from what Maxim could hear, they stayed away from the topic of the talks. He spent most of the time talking jigsaw German and English to a Luftwaffe colonel who was dogsbodying the German main delegate. At ten o'clock, the party began to melt away.

They had come in one car – Mrs West had either not been invited or ducked out – and as they reached it, Tyler said: "You go ahead. I'm going to walk for a bit."

"For God's sake," Maxim said.

"I'll be all right."

"I have to make sure of that."

"What's happening?" Quinton demanded. "You can't wander off around here, Professor."

"Just getting a little night air," Tyler said soothingly. He headed off deliberately in the opposite direction to the parked car.

The Sыretй captain and Maxim swapped looks, then Maxim hurried after Tyler.

"You don't have to wet-nurse me day and night, you know, Harry."

"I'm hired to be around."

"Fine. I'll show you some of the sights."

Five minutes later, Maxim saw his first 'sight'. It was a basement in a side road, near the station, and if it wasn't a small room it was too small for the quadrophonic barrage of music battering them from the speakers. Most of the room was dim and vague, lit with candles in wax-dribbled bottles on the small tables. A disc jockey sat at a turntable booth at one side of a tiny stage, lit by a single spot. A few couples danced jerkily in front of him.

They sat down at a table near the back wall, and Maxim stared at Tyler through the gloom. Was this what professors dreamt of behind the Tudor brick walls? It might have seemed exotically wicked to somebody who'd just sailed a yacht single-handed around the world, but to anybody else it was a simple trap for tourists, fleas and fire.

A waiter with LA BOOGIE printed on his T-shirt weaved across, lit their candle and spotted their nationality immediately.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he shouted against the music. "What may I bring you?"

"Harry?" Tyler asked.

"A beer."

"No beer. Sorry." The waiter's voice hardened.

"Scotch, then."

"I don't think so," Tyler said. "Not in here." He smiled at the waiter and then let go a fluent, nicely cadenced speech in French. The waiter stiffened and his eyes glinted wider in the candle-light. After a few seconds he was nodding, then suggesting, finally agreeing happily. He wiggled away again.

"They do quite a nice local wine," Tyler said. "And even in places like this, they're proud enough to serve it properly. I hope all this-" he waved his hand "-doesn't shock you?"

"Only the price. I've been seventeen years in the Army. Places like this follow you around like flies."

Tyler winced slightly in the dim light. "Of course, but whenever you've had enough, you can always head on home and I'll follow…"

"Professor, that's one thing-"

"John."

"Professor. I'm supposed to be your security. I can't walk out on you. We shouldn't even be here. If you were recognised-"

"I've kept my glasses on," Tyler said mildly. "I've never been photographed in them."

Maxim just stared. The waiter clanged the bucket with the wine in front of them and laid out three glasses.

A girl pulled a chair into the space between them and sat down, looking quickly from one to the other. "Vous кtes Anglais, n'est-ce pas? Merveilleux…" She wore a dark low-cut sweater, that was the first thing anybody would, or was supposed to, notice about her. She also had a narrow, curved face like a puffin, with big wings of blonde hair dragged back over her ears.