James Munro - Die Rich Die Happy

James Munro - Die Rich, Die Happy

* Chapter l *

Philip Grierson drove to Queen Anne's Gate, and all the way ham Chelsea his mind was doing sums about petrol. The Lagonda did fifteen to the gallon, and at her age that wasn't too bad. Even so, it meant five and sixpence just to go to the ofBce and back. Garage, three pounds a week. Insurance, two pounds a week. Maintenance another thirty bob. Odds and ends another pound. Altogether his transport cost him at least six-fifty a year, and he couldn't fiddle half of it back on expenses. He would have to ask for a rise.

He parked in the mews behind the house then went in by the front door, past the row of brass plates: Dr. H. B.

rington-Low, Lady Brett, Major Fuller, the Right Rever-end Hugh Bean. None of the bells below the nameplates worked. Grierson pressed the bell marked "Caretaker," and the door opened at once. The man who opened it wore over-ill;. ar.d a caretaker's air of grudging y)oJiteness. He was short, muscular, and fast-moving, an ex-Commando sergeant who, to Grierson's certain knowledge, had killed three men. Beneath the overalls he carried a Smith and Wesson and a Commando knife. From time to time, Grierson was obliged to practice unarmed combat with him. He found the sessions invigorating but painful.

"Morning, guv," said the caretaker.

Grierson, still absorbed in mental arithmetic, scowled.

"That's right," said the caretaker. "His Nibs came in early this morning. He wasn't happy either."

Grierson went up the stair to his office, the flat marked Lady Brett. His secretary was already waiting for him, a mass of correspondence and memoranda before her. Grierson thought of the day when he had first been asked to join Department K, and had learned to his astonishment

that M.I.6 had been watching him ever since he left the Royal Marines. The dry little civil servant who had approached him had warned him that Department K was the most ruthless branch of the service, the branch that tackled the jobs that were too dangerous—or too dirty—for anyone else to handle, and Grierson had almost wept with joy. Well, he'd had his share of danger, and of dirt, for that matter. But always in between there was paperwork, mountains of it. He frowned again, and his secretary, a grim widow, remorselessly efficient, reflected for the millionth time how beautiful he was, and crushed the thought down ruthlessly.

"Conference at eleven," she said. "Just one item—the Middle East situation. I've got all the documents here." Grierson sighed. "Mr. Loomis said I had to tell you—" She hesitated.

"Let's have it verbatim," said Grierson. "I'm used

to it."

The secretary said, her voice expressionless: 'Tell the lazy bastard to get his bloody facts straight, just for once." She paused. "Mr. Loomis was not in a good mood," she added. "I should do as he says."

Grierson toiled at his homework until five minutes to eleven, then went to stand outside Loomis's office and to remember, as he always did, the other identical times when he had waited outside the door of his headmaster's study. As the sweep second hand of his watch passed the hour, he raised his hand and knocked discreetly, then went in at once to Loomis's growl.

Loomis was vast: a gross monster of a man with a face the color of an angry sunset, pale manic eyes, red hair dusted with white like snow on a wheat field, and an arrogant nose. Grierson had known him in two moods only, insultingly surly or savagely rude. Today it was to be the second. He wondered why he worked for this bitter-tongued mastodon, and decided there was only one possible reason. Loomis did his job superbly.

"You're on time then," Loomis snarled. "You must want something.''

Grierson abandoned all hope of a rise.

"No, sir," he said.

"So long as it isn't money," Loomis went on. "I had a memo from the Treasury. No more money. You'd think it was the P.M.'s blood." He opened a drawer with a fat man's deliberate economy of movement, and took out a map.

"I wish it were," he said, and swept the map open, weighted its corners with ashtrays, a desk lighter, an ebony ruler, then pointed at it with a meaty forefinger.

"This," he said, "is the Middle East."

"Yes, sir," said Grierson.

"And that's the last fact I'll tell you that you know already, so don't try any more of your polished irony on me," said Loomis, then the forefinger stabbed again.

"Aden, Kuwait, Muscat, Oman. On our side. Good chaps. Yemen. Against us. Bad chaps. But they have their own troubles. They don't bother us. Here's what bothers us." The finger stabbed again, at a small almost square area south of the Yemen, biting into the Aden Protectorate. Zaarb. 'The autonomous Republic of Zaarb. Tell me about it, Grierson."

"Zaarb's going to go Red," said Grierson. "The Communist Party is the only one with any power, and the place is stacked with Chinese technical advisers. When it does go, it'll be Chinese Red, not Russian. The same as Albania. Even Nasser doesn't like it."

"And we'll be up the creek," said Loomis. "Why?"

Grierson hated Loomis in his Socratic mood.

"Zaarb's right next door to Aden; and God knows we've got enough trouble there. Besides, it's one vast oil well," he said. "We—Great Britain, I mean—own 47 /2percent of it. So does Zaarb. The other 5 percent belongs to a Greek millionaire. Chap called Naxos. He always votes with us, which is why we've been able to protect the oil fields with troops."

"Nearly right," Loomis said, "but not quite right enough. Naxos has always voted with us so far. He might be persuaded to change his mind."

"But why on earth should he?" Grierson asked. "If he votes with Zaarb they'll nationalize him."

"He could be made to," said Loomis.

"But is that so tragic? We're getting far more oil from Kuwait anyway," Grierson said.

"My God, you're bright this morning," said Loomis. "It's important for prestige reasons, sport. We got ourselves kicked out of Egypt—we can't afford to be kicked out of anywhere else. We got a treaty with Zaarb that still has forty years to run. That treaty says we can take oil out, and put troops in for our protection. And that's what we'll do. Zaarb can nationalize itself puce for all I care. The troops will stay. And there's another thing." His forefinger descended again, blotting out a long strip of territory that buffered Zaarb from the Yemen. "There's this back of beyond here. Calls itself the Haram. What d'you know about that?"

"There's nothing there, sir. Mostly scrubland, mountains, and very hostile tribesmen. They want to be left alone and they shoot very straight, so why bother?"

"It's been thought," said Loomis portentously, "I won't say by whom, but it's been thought these bloody-minded straight shooters might be a help if ever we had a to-do in Zaarb. Create a diversion, d'you see? So I sent a man out there, a very good chap. Fluent Arabic, used to the desert, sound knowledge of local customs, all that. The tribesmen caught him in two days. Sent his body to our embassy in Zaarb. Upset the Ambassador so much he nearly forgot his cliches.

"Our chap got one message out. Shortwave radio. Trouble was there was an electrical storm at the time. Screwed up the reception. All we got was five words— 'pottery,' mountain,' 'executive level,' and what we think was 'Englishman,' then finish. I hope they killed him quick, poor bastard. You know what it means?"

Grierson shook his head. The only words with a context were "executive level." They meant that there was danger in the Haram, a threat of violent menace that could be countered only by the specialist talents of Department K.

"No more do I," said Loomis. "But our feller thought it was our cup of tea—this thing he'd found. Then there's Naxos. The millionaire. His agreement with us comes up for renewal next month, and there's rumors somebody may try to kill him, d'you see, and we feel he'd be much better off living. And so would we, so he's our cup of tea too. And then there's Craig."