Part 29 (1/2)
”When the line to Merryman went dead we instructed Warsaw to try to reach Voltaire direct,” Frankel continued. He paused. ”Voltaire is sick.”
Brotherhood let out an angry laugh. ”Voltaire? He hasn't had a day's sickness in his life.”
”His Ministry says he's sick, Jack, his wife says he's sick, his mistress says he's sick. He ate some bad mushrooms, gone to hospital. He's sick. Official. They all say the same.”
”I'll say it's official.”
”What do you want me to do, Jack? Tell me something I should do that you would do yourself and I have not done. Okay? It's a blackout, Jack. Like a silence everywhere. Like a bomb fell.”
”You said you'd keep filling the letter boxes,” Brotherhood said.
”We filled for Merryman yesterday. Money and instructions. We filled.”
”So what happened?”
”Still there. Money and instructions so much he want. Fresh papers, maps, you name it. For Conger we put up two visuals, one for call us, one for evacuate. One curtain on a first floor, one light in a bas.e.m.e.nt window. Is that correct, Jack? Does that accord with the agreed procedures?”
”It accords.”
”Okay. So he doesn't answer. He doesn't call, he doesn't write, he doesn't run.”
For five minutes there was no sound but the sounds of waiting: the sighing of soft chairs, the striking of lights and matches and the squeaky-soled footsteps of the boys. Kate glanced at Brotherhood and he smiled confidence back. Bo said, ”We're thinking of you, Jack,” but Brotherhood did not reply and he was certainly not thinking of Bo. A bell rang. From the platform a boy said, ”Conger, sir, on schedule,” and trimmed some dials. A white pin-light winked above his head. The second boy dropped a switch. n.o.body clapped, n.o.body got to his feet or cried, ”they're alive!”
”Conger operator's come in and say he's ready to send, Bo,” Frankel said gratuitously. Behind him, the boys were moving automatically, deaf to everything outside their headphones. ”Now we make our first transmission. We use all tape, no handwriting. Conger does the same. Accelerated Morse, we unroll it both ends. Transmission takes maybe one and a half minutes, two. Unroll and decode takes maybe five.... See that?...'We are ready to receive you. Talk.' --this is what we say to him. Now Conger is talking again. Watch the red light left, please. It burns, he's talking--he's finished.”
”Wasn't very long, was it?” Lorimer drawled, not to anyone in particular. Lorimer had buried agents before.
”Now we wait for the decode,” Frankel told his audience a little too brightly. ”Three minutes, maybe five. Time to smoke a cigarette, okay? Everybody relax. Conger's alive and well.”
The boys were transferring spools, resetting instruments.
”Let's just be grateful he's alive,” said Kate, and several heads turned sharply, remarking this unaccustomed display of feeling from a Fifth Floor lady.
The grey spools were rolling, one on to the other. For a moment they heard the unrhythmic piping of Morse code. It stopped.
”Hey,” said Lorimer softly.
”Run it through again,” said Brotherhood.
”What's happened?” said Kate.
The boys rewound the spools and switched again to forward. The Morse resumed and stopped as before.
”Could it be a fault the other end?” Lorimer asked.
”Sure,” Frankel said. ”Possible his winder's on the blink, possible he hit some bad ionosphere. In a minute he comes through again. No problem.”
The taller of the two boys was pulling oft” his headphones. ”Mind if we decode, Mr. Frankel?” he said. ”Sometimes when they've got a hitch they tell us about it in the message.”
On a nod from Frankel he s.h.i.+fted a spool to a machine at the far end of the bank. The printer began chattering immediately. Nigel and Lorimer moved quickly towards the platform. The printer stopped. Nigel magisterially ripped out the sheet and held it for Lorimer and himself to read. Brotherhood was already striding down the aisle. Mounting the platform, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the script from their unresisting hands.
”Jack, don't,” said Kate under her breath.
”Don't what?” Brotherhood said, suddenly out of patience with her. ”Don't care about my agents? Don't do what exactly?”
”Tell them to print another copy, will you, Frankel?” Nigel said smoothly. ”Then we can all look at it together without shoving.”
Brotherhood was holding the sheet before him. Nigel and Lorimer had meekly arranged themselves to either side of him and were reading it over his shoulder.
”Routine intelligence report, Bo,” Nigel announced reading aloud. ”Promised length, three hundred and seven groups. Actual length so far forty-one. Subject, restationing of Soviet missile bases in mountains north of Pilsen. Subsource Mirabeau reporting ten days ago. Mirabeau in turn reporting her Soviet Army boyfriend codename Leo--Leo's done us rather well in the past, I seem to remember. Message reads as follows: Subsource Talleyrand confirms empty low-loaders leaving area-- message ends in midsentence. Obviously the winder. Unless, as you say, his signal hit freak conditions.”
Frankel was already giving orders to the taller boy. ”Send them 'Your signal garbled.' Do it immediately. Tell them we want a rerun. Tell them if they can't transmit now we'll remain on standby till they can. Tell them we want a roll-call of all members of the network. You got set phrases for that or you want I draft something?”
”Tell them d.a.m.n all,” Brotherhood ordered very loud. ”And stop crying everybody. No one's hurt.”
He had thrust his hands into his raincoat pockets. He was halfway down the aisle. Nigel and Lorimer were still on stage, a pair of choirboys clutching their hymn sheet between them. Brammel sat stoically upright in the auditorium. Kate was staring at him, not stoical at all.
”You can tell them you want a roll-call or a rerun, you can tell them to abort, you can tell them to jump in the Vistula. It doesn't make a dime of difference,” said Brotherhood, ”Poor man,” said Nigel to Lorimer. ”They're his Joes, you see. It's the strain.”
”They're not my Joes and they never were. You can have them with my blessing.” He looked around him for men with sense. ”Frankel. For Christ's sake. Lorimer. When this service catches someone else's Joe, if it ever does these days, what does it do? If he's willing to be played, we play him back. If he's not we send him to the Tower. Is it different now? I wouldn't know.”
”So?” said Nigel, humouring him.
”If we decide to play him back, we do it as naturally and as fast as we can. Why? Because we want to show the opposition that nothing has changed. We want it seamless. We don't hide his car and close his house. We don't let him or his daughter or anybody else vanish into thin air. We don't ignore dead letter boxes or invent fatuous stories about people eating bad mushrooms. We don't sandbag radio operators in the middle of their high-speed transmissions. That is the last, the very last thing we do. Unless.”
”I don't read you, Jack, old boy,” Nigel said, whom Brotherhood had deliberately ignored. ”I don't think anybody does, to be truthful. I think you are very naturally upset and you are getting a bit metaphysical, if you don't mind my saying.”
”Unless what, Jack?” said Frankel.
”Unless we want the opposition to know we're rolling up their network.”
”But why would anybody want that, Jack?” Frankel asked earnestly. ”Explain to us. Please.”
”Why not explain it another time?” said Nigel.
”There never was a b.l.o.o.d.y network. They owned those networks from day one. They paid the actors, wrote the script. They owned Pym and near enough they owned me. They owned all of you as well. You just haven't woken up to it.”
”Then why do they bother to tell us anything at all?” Frankel objected. ”Why send us a fake interrupted signal? Why rig the disappearance of the Joes?”
Brotherhood smiled. Not kindly, not with humour. But he did turn to Frankel and he did smile at him. ”Because, old boy, they want us to think they've got Pym when they haven't,” he said. ”That is the only he they've got left to sell us. They want us to call off the hunt and go home to our high tea. They want to find him for themselves. That's the good news of the day. Pym is still on the run and they want him as much as we do.”
They watched him turn and stride down the aisle and slide the locks back on the padded door. Poor old Jack, they said to each other with their eyes as the light went up: his life's work. Lost all his Joes and can't face it. Dreadful to see him so cut up. Only Frankel seemed to wish he hadn't gone.
”Have you ordered the rerun yet?” said Nigel. ”I said have you ordered a rerun?”
”I'll do it now,” said Frankel.
”Good man,” said Bo appreciatively from the stalls.
In the corridor, Brotherhood paused to light himself a cigarette. The door opened and closed again. It was Kate.