Ted Bell - Spy

Having completed her cursory evaluation, Miss Guinness smiled.

“Sorry. Alex it is, then. So, won’t you come along with me? We’re up on the fourth floor as you probably know.”

“I didn’t know, actually,” Alex said, happily following her into the lift. “First time he’s invited me to the sanctum santorem.”

“I’ll give you the penny tour later if you have time. There’s a rather contentious meeting going on in his office right now, so he’s slipped out to meet you down the hall in the Salon Privée.”

“Salon Privée? That’s new.”

“Sorry. Inside joke. We use the language of diplomacy around here sometimes to break the tension. It’s what he calls his private study.”

“Splendid,” Alex said, regretting the word as soon as it came rolling out. She was young and bright and beautiful and here he was sounding like some ancient and pompous toff. He was curious about the appealing Miss Guinness. To rise from a Garden Girl at Number Ten Downing to C’s personal assistant at MI6 Headquarters was a dizzying leap.

Hawke, who dreaded small talk, said, “He keeps you very busy, I imagine.”

“Oh, yes. We never close around here.”

“You’re his personal assistant?”

She looked back at him before getting out of the lift. It suddenly went rather chilly inside.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Collecting visitors in the lobby. No, we’re very egalitarian around here. I’m fetching you because I was the only one available.”

“Ah.”

“I hear you were tortured by Indians in the Amazon. Pity, that.”

“Les hommes sauvages, n’est-ce pas?” Hawke said, smiling.

She walked out, her heels clicking smartly on the granite floor and he quickly followed.

“So, Pippa,” Hawke said, struggling to keep up with her pace, “what exactly do you do here?”

“I’m Senior Analyst, Latin American Affairs. It was my field of study at Cambridge.”

“Ah. Fascinating.”

“WELL,HERE we are, then,” Pippa said, leading the way. They had left the granite behind and quickly covered the distance down a thickly carpeted hallway. He certainly didn’t miss the drab Ministry-of-Works green corridors of the old Headquarters. The darkly paneled walls here were hung with lovely nineteenth-century marine art, Hawke noticed, some older Thomas Butterfields scattered amongst the Samuel Walters and the newer Geoff Hunts. He considered commenting on his own meager collection and then decided against. Surely he’d inflicted enough damage already.

Pippa opened one of a pair of double doors and gave him an encouraging smile. “Go right in, Mr. Hawke, he’ll be with you momentarily. He’s on with his wife.”

She smiled again, it was a warmish smile, practiced, and then she left him, pulling the door firmly closed behind her. Only now did it come back to him. Yes. Gwendolyn. He and Congreve had been going up the cantilevered stairs at No. 10 Downing behind her, both of them relishing the sight of Miss Guinness’s spectacular ascent. Seamed stockings, as he recalled…yes. Quite a girl.

Sir David Trulove, his face half in shadow, was seated at a small crescent desk. A brass reading lamp with a green glass shade created a pool of light on the red leather top. He was on the telephone and waved Hawke into an armchair by the fire. Hawke sat, and used the few found moments to take in the inner sanctum of the Chief of British Intelligence. It was a far cry from the old digs at Century House, a short stroll from the Lambeth North Underground, but still uninspired.

C’s small room was finished in gleaming Bermuda cedar panels. All the lamps, paintings, and fixtures were nautical. Above the fire was a not very good portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson wearing the Order of the Nile given him by the Sultan of Turkey. Nelson, Hawke’s hero since boyhood, was also clearly a favorite of C’s. In the famous picture, Hawke knew, the decoration was worn incorrectly, having been sewn on by Nelson’s manservant upside down. Hawke decided he would be ill advised to point out this irregularity to his boss.

There was, atop the mantel, a glass-encased model of Sir David’s last command, the HMS Yarmouth. Hawke, like everyone in the Navy, knew her history. She’d had a narrow escape, down in the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina.

Two days after the British nuclear submarine Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, Sir David’s Yarmouth, along with another destroyer, the Sheffield, had joined the fray in the Falklands. Both destroyers had been ordered forward to provide a “picket” far from the British carriers. A squadron of Argentine Dassault Super Etendards from the ARA attacked the British fleet. The Sheffield, mortally wounded by an Exocet missile strike, had sunk while under tow by Admiral Trulove’s Yarmouth.

Trulove’s destroyer had also been fired upon, but Yarmouth had deployed chaff and the missile had missed. It was common knowledge that the tragic loss of the Sheffield, finally abandoned as an official war grave, still played upon Sir David’s mind. He was convinced the Argentine junta’s decision to go to war over the Falkland Islands had been capricious and an act of outright political convenience. Nearly a thousand British boys had been killed or wounded because an unpopular regime had found it expedient to start a war.

“Lord Alexander Hawke,” Sir David said, replacing the receiver and getting to his feet. “How very good of you to come.”

“Not at all,” Hawke said, rising to shake the man’s hand. “Very good to see you again.” He’d forgotten just what an imposing figure Trulove was when he rose to his full height. He was a good inch taller than Alex, very trim, with a full head of white hair and enormous bushy eyebrows sprouting over his shrewd gray-blue eyes and hawkish nose. Most MI6 chiefs are recognized with a title only upon completing their tour of duty. Trulove had enjoyed enormous success in a private sector career that followed the Navy. This had led to an early knighthood, long before he’d been lured into the spy game.

“You look a bit thin,” Trulove said, looking him up and down. “No Pelham to look after you in the jungle, Alex?”

“Jolly mingy rations out there, I must say.”

“Sit down, sit down, please, Alex. Will you have anything, dear fellow? Whisky? Rum?”

“Nothing, thank you, sir. I was just filling my daily alcohol quota when you rang.”

“Yes, yes. I know. So. Our old friend Chief Inspector Congreve is considering marriage. That’s bloody marvelous. About time he settled down with a good woman. How is dear Diana?”

“You knew? But I just found out myself not four hours ago.”

“Ah. Well, good news travels fast,” C said, and his sharp eyes twinkled. You always had the feeling the man was checking your pulse for irregularities, like a bloody telepathic physician.

“Give Ambrose my warmest congratulations, will you?”

“Indeed, sir,” Alex smiled, trying to imagine who on earth could possibly have overheard his luncheon conversation with Ambrose at Black’s. Surely there weren’t microphones in the salt cellars at the venerable sanctuary?

“Alex, I’m terribly sorry to have interrupted what was no doubt a most convivial occasion,” Trulove said, and all traces of jollity had fled from his face.

“How can I help you, sir?”

C pulled an ancient gold timepiece from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it impatiently.

“I’ll get right to it, Alex. We found a hired lorry parked at Heathrow yesterday afternoon. Terminal 4. Abandoned for at least a week at short-term parking. Hidden under a tarp in the back were a thousand pounds of high explosives on a very sophisticated timer. We found the cache less than a quarter of an hour prior to intended detonation.”