A Bitter Field (13 page)

‘You are implying that if he found out about Jardine being in Prague, he might not bother to let me know?’

Quex paused, having stated the obvious, albeit with a palpable air of disbelief.

‘As long as you keep me properly informed, we will be able to deal with any problems that arise and, I might add, McKevitt’s a clever bugger, who will reckon that anything coming from you is tainted and that will only excite his interest. Best leave him alone, Peter.’

Given the nervous state of František Moravec, the leaving of the cathedral was a damn sight more cautious than the arrival. Vince was well behind Cal as he reprised his sightseeing act on the Charles Bridge. When he stopped in front of the statue of St Elizabeth and managed to look both up and back Vince was very obviously smoking and made a point of shoving out his cigarette to flick off the ash; they had a tail.

That did not say who it was, it could be that Moravec had put somebody to keep an eye on them, but to accept that as the case was a bad idea; it was safer to think the worst, to suspect that by meeting with the head of counter-intelligence he had laid himself open to scrutiny by someone whose aims were not benign.

It also appeared that Moravec might be right: he was not able to operate unobserved in his own capital city. Cal made no attempt to identify who was doing the following – Vince had spotted him and would give him a description later – but it did mean that he
would need to act upon it. Had anyone overheard the exchange in the church? Unlikely, they had spoken in near-whispers.

Sauntering on, still playing the tourist, Cal peered at buildings and statues. He had no intention of leading their man back to where he and Vince were staying, but made instead for the Ambassador Hotel, even if such a place carried with it the risk of him being recognised, being, he knew, the chosen watering hole of all the foreign correspondents.. A five-star establishment, it had a precious asset: more than one entrance and exit, which made losing a man on his own easy.

The lobby was abuzz with conversation being carried out in several different languages and, like every luxury hotel he had ever entered, there seemed to be an overabundance of well-dressed women, some, no doubt, of dubious purpose. But it was busier by far than the Savoy in London; diplomats too used the Ambassador, and right now every country in Europe felt they needed to have folk in place outside their embassy staff to tell them what was going on.

Cal moved through to the desk, engaged one of the receptionists to ask an innocent question, then went to one of the bank of lifts and allowed himself to be taken up to the fourth floor. He immediately dropped one floor and took another lift, a different one with a different operator, back down to the lobby and without looking around made for a more discreet exit, which took him through a residents’ lounge.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty, if it isn’t my old pal, Doc Savage.’

The cracked American voice, reminiscent of someone with a bad throat, might have been behind him but he knew it to be female, just as he knew who it was, though such knowledge brought him
no more pleasure than the nickname she had once regularly used to insult him – the moniker of some inane American cartoon character he had never heard of or read.

Walking on and ignoring it was not an option; he had to turn round and be smiling broadly as he did so. The last time he had seen Corrie Littleton she had been in some distress, in the latter stages of a recovery from a wound caused by an Italian bomb, pale-faced and all skin and bone, not that she had ever been fulsome; he had once decided she was rangy rather than skinny.

Now she was very obviously recovered and was no longer clad in slacks and a masculine sort of shirt-blouse he remembered as standard dress, but in a smart grey suit, jacket and pencil skirt, with an expensive handbag and shoes to match. Her hair, slightly reddish on the side of auburn, which she had worn loose, was now carefully arranged under a pert hat.

‘Corrie,’ he responded.

‘Cal …’

He moved forward with speed, immediately taking her arm to push her towards a clutter of settees where they could sit down.

‘Hey, buster.’

Cal’s response came out of the side of his mouth as a desperate whisper. ‘Do shut up for once, there’s a good girl.’

‘Hell, your manners ain’t altered.’

‘Let’s sit and talk.’ She tried to resist being put on her backside but he was too strong, and he made sure their backs were to the door he had just come through. ‘And don’t use my bloody name.’

‘Oh.’

‘That’s right.’ There was no need to say he was here on the same kind of business he had been doing when they first met and Cal did
not bother to try and explain. Corrie Littleton might be a pain in the posterior but she was not dumb. ‘What in the name of creation are you doing in Prague?’

She responded to his low tone of voice in a similar vein. ‘Working, which I kinda guess is what you are doing too.’

‘What kind of work can you be doing here?’

‘That, from you, is typical, like a woman can’t do any work. I am here reporting for
Collier’s Weekly
.’

‘You’re a journalist?’

The reply had all the sarcasm he recalled so well. ‘I always knew you were smart.’

‘How did you end up doing this?’

‘Thank Tyler Alverson. I thought if he could do it, so could I, and I must say he was sweet when we got back stateside. He put me on to people who could help, though that had to wait till I had fully recovered.’

Alverson had been with them both in Ethiopia and Cal had come across him in Madrid as well, when the city was under siege. A
long-in-
the-tooth self-confessed hack of a foreign correspondent, he was a man Cal liked and admired; he was also a fellow who was to be found where there was anything approaching action.

‘Don’t tell me, he’s here too.’

‘As far as I know he’s in Berlin, though he might turn up in Prague to slam your guy Runciman when he’s finished pussyfooting around.’ Her raised crooked two fingers, on both hands, implied parentheses; the look in her eye was implicitly one of scepticism. ‘He’s supposed to be assessing the situation, as if we don’t know what it really means. Damn bastard’s been here for weeks and all he’s done is play footsie with the Germans.’

‘He might not have done, the situation’s complex.’

Cal replied in that positive manner, even though he did not believe his own words. He had really only said them to give himself time to think, because Corrie Littleton’s presence might present a complication. A reporter, she would be bound to want to know what he was up to, as would Tyler Alverson if he showed up.

‘You staying here?’ She nodded. ‘Room number?’

‘One of the best, 48.’ Seeing that the praise did not register, she added. ‘Overlooks Wenceslas Square.’

‘OK. I am going to leave, but I will call you.’

‘How about you give me your contact number and I’ll call you.’

‘No.’

‘I could yell out your name, let the whole world know you are here.’

‘You could, but if you want to guarantee I clam up, that would be the best way to do it. I will call – and tell Tyler if he shows up that I will talk to him too, but not to shout out if he sees me, and that goes for Vince Castellano.’

‘He’s here too?’ Her eyes narrowed in a face that was attractive, if not conventionally beautiful. ‘Sounds as if you and Vince are involved in something juicy.’

‘Or maybe nothing at all, Corrie.’

‘The Doc Savage I recall was not that kind of guy.’

For once, that nickname did not annoy him; it would allow him to communicate without the use of his name. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Give Vince my regards.’

His cockney friend was pleased with the message – he and Corrie had always got on – though Cal was less enamoured with what Vince had
to tell him about what the fellow tailing them had done, in fact he was mystified.

‘Sod went straight to the phone after you went up in the lift and I sidled over to see if I could cop the number he dialled. Missed that, but the bugger was loud enough to overhear his voice, not what he was saying, though. The thing is, guv, whoever the sod was talking to, he was doin’ it in English.’

T
he telegram Cal Jardine composed and sent off to London was gobbledegook to anyone but Peter Lanchester; sent to his home address to avoid complications it was delivered before six in the evening. It told him he had made contact with those who could help and asked if anyone from the embassy might be tailing the head of Czech Intelligence and how many operatives were in place.

Unbeknown to both, such was the nervousness of the British state regarding events in Czechoslovakia that the sister service to the SIS had people in place to monitor that kind of traffic between the two capital cities. If MI5 did not know the contents of Cal’s message or whom it was from, they knew to whom it was addressed.

Part of their job was to compile a list that kept the SIS Central European Desk informed. The register of the day’s traffic was thus passed on to Broadway where the recipient’s name set off the bells
with the man who ran it; normally he was above that sort of thing unless it was deemed important.

Following on from Peter’s previous trip to Brno and the subsequent trail that led to La Rochelle it smacked of conspiracy and produced in Noel McKevitt the kind of expletive-filled apoplexy he reserved for times when he was alone and unobserved, the kind that turned the air blue and had those outside his office exchanging looks and shrugs.

They were messing about in his patch again without telling him and there could only be one reason for such behaviour – they were acting to achieve something he could not support and the only thing he could think of was some kind of attempt to embroil the country in Central Europe that went against Government policy.

It also, after a period of thinking, occurred to him that unravelling that might give him some leverage to demand answers to any number of questions, and that had him send off a message to the station chief in Prague, basically asking him to check on new arrivals of British nationality in the capital or Brno, journalists and diplomats excluded, as a Code One priority – there should not be too many with the continuing crisis.

Then he turned to flicking through his address book for the number of an old colleague, asking for an outside line; this was not a call to risk being overheard by the switchboard.

‘Barney, it’s Noel,’ he said into the telephone, having forced himself to calm down. ‘Sure, I was thinking it’s a long time since we shared a jar and a chat an’ it being Friday and all …’

The recipient of the call, Barney Foxton, had been in his job long enough to know what that meant: I want to ask you questions I dare not pose over the telephone; and that led him to speculate what it
might be about – not for long – given he knew the post McKevitt held.

‘Both been snowed under, Noel,’ he replied.

That was followed by a short pause that allowed time for speculation. The Ulsterman must want something and Foxton was speculating about his own needs in these troubled times; what could MI6 have that might be of use to him, something for which he could trade?

‘I was thinking,’ McKevitt continued, ‘that we might have a pint. How about that nice little snug bar at the Salisbury in St Martin’s Lane?’

Good choice,
Foxton thought: a busy pub and homosexual haunt on the corner of an alley that joined two main thoroughfares, a tiny bar with two doors, one to the street and another to the main saloon, a load of mirrors so you could keep an eye on everyone who came and went without actually looking at them and a clientele that would be too busy with their own concerns to care about anyone else’s.

‘Why not?’

‘This lunchtime, say one o’clock?’

He’s keen,
Foxton thought, having failed to drag up anything he could ask for; still, a favour in the bank usually paid off in time so, provided what McKevitt was after did not pose too many problems, he would help if he could.

‘See you there, Noel.’

Peter Lanchester had looked at his deciphered message and wondered what he could do about the major part of it. He had no idea why the Prague station might be following the head of Czech Intelligence
to find out who it was he was meeting, while added to that was the certain knowledge that probably the only man in London who had any clue about the answer was Noel McKevitt.

Asking would get him nowhere, in fact it would only alert the Irish bugger to the fact that he was messing about in his pond again, so it was with some surprise that he got a mid-morning telephone invitation to come over to Broadway for a chat, that accompanied by an explanation that left him unconvinced.

‘You know, Peter, I think I let my annoyance get to me the other day. It will not come as a surprise to you that people like me are a bit unsure what Quex is up to with your new set-up.’

Now I am suddenly ‘Peter’
. ‘Perfectly natural, Noel, but I can tell you without a shred of doubt any worries you might have are misplaced.’

‘An assumption that it would be best to operate on, would you not say? So why don’t you pop over and we can talk about what you picked up in Brno and beyond.’

‘I’m not sure I picked up any more than you will already know and what we have already discussed.’

‘Only one way to nail that, given I don’t know to the last T what you found any more than you are aware what I am familiar with …’ The rest was left up in the air.

‘Is this about running guns, Noel?’

Peter heard a single sound that he supposed was laughter, though it equated more to a cough. ‘Not my concern; as you know, my patch is Czech land and environs but you have been there and I have not, at least for years, so …’

It was too much of a coincidence; I get a telegram from Prague, then a call from McKevitt, but if that was the connection, turning
down the invite would make him even more suspicious than he clearly was already.

‘Can’t do this morning, how about after lunch?’

‘Best make it three-thirty, then, I have a meet arranged that might take me till then.’

He was still pondering on that when the door opened and a messenger entered with a slip of paper, which was handed over, an answer to his request to Quex to be told how many people were on station for the SIS in Prague.

Usually it would be two at best for such a troubled location, more likely one in normal times, it being a bit of an intelligence backwater, while the likes of a major capital might run to a trio or even four if there was trouble brewing. Prague at present had six, four having been hauled in from the neighbouring stations at the request of McKevitt after the May mobilisation of the Czech army.

It was quite indicative of the surprise Quex had felt that he had followed the number six with three exclamation marks; that meant the Ulsterman had increased the Prague staffing without clearing it with his boss, which was stretching his level of accountability somewhat. Would Quex have him in for a haul over the coals or would he do what normally happened, quietly seethe and say nothing, putting it in the memory bank for a later date?

There was never a good time to run an external intelligence service but now was particularly bad, given the way appeasement was pulling things in two directions. By its very nature MI6 required as staff people who, though they might rank as misfits, could think for themselves and often act without instructions, while keeping
your cards close to your chest, even with colleagues, was essential. The idea in theory was that everything came together at the top; in practice it was often the very opposite.

Yet Peter’s main concern was to get an answer to Cal. He had said it was important, so the first stop when he left the office at lunchtime was the post office, where he sent a telegram with the single significant letter.

Moravec came on the phone for a second time, again not identifying himself, to arrange another meeting at the same location and time, surprised when Cal insisted on knowing which entrance he would use. It was only catching him on the hop that got an answer, as well as the hint no meeting was possible without the information.

The question came about through what had been talked about the previous evening, once they had established that Cal had not been followed back to the Meran Hotel; what to do about Corrie Littleton was less pressing than nailing what was happening with Moravec.

Vince was adamant there had been no sign of a tail on the way to the cathedral, only afterwards, which implied Cal had been picked up because of the meeting and possibly tailed speculatively rather than because of any direct suspicion, though why that should be someone who was English was too much of a mystery to even go near.

Yet could they assume that the man who had followed Cal had been alone? Had someone stayed with Moravec, which implied the kind of resources that had prompted the telegram sent to London? With or without an answer something had to be done about it. Cal
had been lucky to get clear once, it would be tempting providence to expect to do so twice.

‘The only solution, guv, is to get there ahead of your man and see what he brings with him.’

Cal nodded slowly. ‘If it’s two we leave without making contact.’

‘And if it’s only one?’

All that got was a slow grin as Cal picked up the phone and asked to be connected to the Ambassador Hotel. The card from the restaurant where he and Vince had eaten was on the table, and once he got through he arranged to meet Corrie there that evening, though when she asked the name he was obliged to spell out both that and the address; Czech was a language that imposed that on visitors.

Wanting to get to St Vitus’s Cathedral early he and Vince took a cab to the main railway station, then after a walk through the concourse they exited to take another up to Hradčany, paying the cab off away from the castle and entering to take up a position which gave them a good view of the huge open square before the Golden Gate entrance to the church.

Too extensive a space to be crowded on a weekday, they spotted Moravec easily as he walked into the square – from what they could see, without minders of his own. It was Vince who pointed out the man following him some twenty paces back, the same ‘geezer’ he had spotted on Cal’s tail the day before. It still did not make sense to either of them but that was by the by; the man had to be got rid of to avoid a repeat.

Moravec went straight in through the high and imposing doors, followed by his tail and in turn by Cal and Vince, who split up once they were inside, making their way up separate sides of the nave. The
Czech Intelligence chief was by the same pillar as before and as he opened his mouth to speak Cal cut him off.

‘Why would anyone from British Intelligence be tailing you?’

‘I not understand.’

If the explanation was swift, Moravec’s smile was slow, though he did nod with understanding as Cal related how the man had been overheard on the phone. As they were speaking Vince was approaching the very same person outside one of the numerous small chapels, a smile of enquiry on his face and a cigarette in his left hand, which he waved before his lips and pointed in the universal signal that he wanted a light.

If his man were a staunch Catholic he would object that to smoke in a cathedral was sacrilege, disrespectful in the extreme. He wasn’t, because he nodded, patted one of his pockets, then reached into it, his eyes on those of the still silent Vince and so unaware of the clenched fist that was just about to crack him right on the point of his jaw.

In the seconds that this silent exchange had taken place Moravec had gone from a smile to a low chuckle. ‘English? The language none in my office speak. German yes, French too, Czech obviously …’

If smoking in a cathedral was uncouth, shouting at the top of your voice had to come a close second. Vince was looking over a lit match, the cigarette in his lips, fist poised and his feet in place for the very necessary stand and balance that you require to deliver a blow that would knock out a man.

It got to be no more than an extended twitch, because he heard his name and the following ‘No!’ echoing around the huge church, in a voice so loud and reverberating that it must have stopped every other
visitor in their tracks and made those saying their prayers wonder if God had decided to speak to them.

That had Vince looking around and shrugging in embarrassment, before holding up the cigarette and spinning away. He had taken only a few steps when he saw Cal walking hurriedly towards him looking concerned, an attitude that evaporated as he observed that Vince’s proposed victim was still standing. Yet concentration was not allowed to slip – they did not address each other, Cal doing a forgotten-something mime before retracing his steps, Vince on his heels.

‘He’s Moravec’s minder,’ Cal hissed as soon as they were out of view. ‘He only followed me to see if I went back to the embassy.’

‘He came close to being a crock of shit.’

‘Swearing in a church?’

‘I like that,’ Vince replied, irritated. ‘I can’t swear but I’m allowed to knock a bloke spark out. So what’s happening?’

‘Don’t know yet. I best go back and find out.’

He did, but Moravec was gone.

Like most pub conversations between two middle-aged fellows, that in the snug of the Salisbury began with old times and old campaigns, their connection going back to the days when as younger men they had sought to thwart the intentions of the Irish Republican Army in the Six Counties of Ulster, just work for Foxton but a cause close to his heart, blood and religion for Noel McKevitt.

That lasted through the consumption of one of their two pints of bitter; the second took them on to the situation and the prospects of war in Europe, which was where McKevitt wanted to be. ‘It’ll come, Barney – and, by Jesus, I hope we are ready for it – but not over
anything I deal with in my area of responsibility and not for several years yet, if I have anything to do with things.’

‘Can’t be sure, though, can we?’

‘Let me tell you, it’s damn near official policy, man. Chamberlain knows what’s right, and I have that from the lips of a cabinet minister friend of mine.’

That was accepted; Barney Foxton did not ask who or how McKevitt came by such a high-level source, one he could refer to as a friend.