The Romanov succession

“It’s been laid on for this Friday-nineteenth September. It would be most appreciated if you could make yourself available in London.”

“What time?”

“Sometime in the evening. The arrangements are rather informal-I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes.”

“I should come by rail if I were you-one can’t promise good flying weather in London, can one. Not to mention the Luftwaffe. Do you recall the address I mentioned to you this morning?”

“Yes.” It was a Knightsbridge pub: Cosgrove had said, It’s a contact spot. I chose it at random. If we meet in London we’ll meet there. I’m giving you this now because I shan’t want to specify an address over the telephone.

Cosgrove said, “Five o’clock Friday then. We’ll have dinner and then confer with the Navy. Come alone, of course.”

He didn’t mean that the way it sounded; he meant Be sure you’re not followed.

13

“Really we need cloaks and beards, darling-we ought to be carrying black bombs with sputtering fuses.”

She sat up straight at the kitchen table and twisted her head to ease the cramped muscles. On the table the Clausewitz was dog-eared and the pad beside it was cluttered with pencil-printing and numerals in alternate lines; the numerals stopped two-thirds of the way down. That was as far as she’d got with it. It had taken nearly three hours to do that much.

“Oleg must have stayed up nights to dream this up. Nothing could be clumsier.”

“It’s secure,” he said. “Unless they know what book to use there’s no way on earth to break the code.”

He stepped behind her chair and kneaded the back of her neck. She tipped her face back and smiled, upside-down in his vision; he bent to kiss her.

Then he had another look at his wristwatch. Where the devil was Cosgrove’s radio man? It was getting on for eleven o’clock; the first contact with Vlasov was scheduled in something less than three hours.

She misinterpreted his gesture. “I deplore your lack of confidence,” she said mischievously. “I’ll finish it in time.”

“All right. But where’s that damned radio?”

A chill highland mist hung about the bungalow; he extinguished the parlor lights before he stepped outside for a breath of air. The night was total; the base was blacked out. He heard the disembodied growl of a vehicle moving across the tarmac not too far away; in the mist he saw nothing. If there was a gunman out there good luck to him.

He turned his head to catch the moving vehicle’s sound on the flats of his eardrums. It was on the runway itself and when it stopped it was by the main hangar. The engine idled for several minutes and then he heard it go into gear and start moving again. Back toward the main gate, changing through a couple of gears, never getting into high. It stopped briefly-getting clearance at the gate-and his ears followed it out to the high road. He heard it come forward in the night. The two slitted lights were ghostly emerging from the mist; he stepped back out of the drive.

The lights went out; the ignition switched off. He heard the door open and he spoke merely to identify his presence: “Hello?”

A brief but absolute stillness; then a heavy breath and a stranger’s voice: “Who’s that-who’s that?”

“General Danilov. Are you looking for me?”

“Cor, you gimme such a fright, sir!” A vague shape swam forward in the fog.

“You’d be Cooper?”

“That’s right, sir. Lance Corporal Arry Cooper. You want this rig inside the ouse?”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

It turned out to be a small van. Lance-Corporal Cooper opened the back doors and they manhandled the shortwave transceiver across the lawn into the house.

“Just set it down on the floor and stand still until I shut the door and get some lights on.”

When he switched the lamp on he saw he’d been fooled completely by the voice. He’d expected a weasel-faced little Cockney. Cooper was as wide and muscular as a Percheron draft horse. He had a handsome square young face with a thatch of yellow hair combed neatly across his forehead.

Cooper stood at attention but his eyes roved about the homey little room. I’m sorry I’m so late, sir. It was the fog and all. I lost me way three times. I’m not a native here.”

“I gathered that much, Cooper. Let’s set it up on this table, shall we?”

The wireless set was a bulky monster; it had to weigh a good hundred pounds. The case lifted off like that of a motion-picture projector. Cooper turned the empty case upside-down and it wasn’t empty after all: a thin wire was coiled neatly against the lid, snapped down with leather straps.

“Ave you a ladder then, sir?”

“There’s a stepladder in the pantry. Will it do?”

“Ave to, won’t it.” Cooper was attaching one end of the coiled wire to the antenna lead at the back of the set. Then he carried it toward the front door, paying it out as he went. He waited by the door, not opening it, until Alex brought the stepladder and switched off the lights. Then they threaded the wire out through the window beside the front door and Alex went outside with him.

“D’you mind steadying the ladder for me, sir?”