A Matter of Honour (47 page)

“No, no, don’t disturb her,” said Adam. “I
only rang to fix up a lunch date. Can you tell her I’ll call back later?”

“I certainly will,” she replied. “Thank you
for phoning, Mr Scott.”

Adam replaced the receiver and smiled. Each
piece of the jigsaw was fitting neatly into place but without the colonel’s
help he still lacked the vital corner-piece.

Adam began to put everything Tomkins needed,
including his passport, personal papers and wallet into a large envelope. He
removed the icon from his jacket pocket, turned it over and carefully examined
the little silver crest of the Tsar. He then flicked open the colonel’s
penknife and began the slow and delicate task of removing the crown.

Thirty minutes later, Adam was in the lift
on the way to the hotel basement. When he stepped out, he walked across to the
space where he had parked the green Cortina earlier that morning. He unlocked
the door and threw the colonel’s old jacket on to the seat, then locked the
car, checking all the doors before taking the lift back up to the ground floor.

The manager of the men’s shop in the arcade
had just flicked over the ‘closed’ sign and Adam took his time selecting a
white shirt, grey flannels and a blue blazer, trying them on in their little
changing room.

At nine twenty-three he settled his bill
with the Royal Garden Hotel and asked the doorman to bring the green Ford up
from the parking lot. He waited by the hotel entrance.

As the minutes passed, he began to fear that
the colonel wouldn’t turn up. If he failed to, Adam knew that the next call
would have to be to Lawrence and not Romanov.

His reverie was disturbed by a honk on a car
horn; the colonel’s rented car had been left by the entrance.

“Your car is waiting on the ramp,” said the
doorman, as he returned the keys to Adam.

“Thank you,” said Adam and handed over the
last of the colonel’s pound notes. He dropped the wallet into the large
envelope, which he sealed, before checking his watch again.

He stood waiting anxiously for another two
minutes before he spotted the colonel puffing up the slope leading to the hotel
entrance.

He was clinging on to a small carrier bag.

“I’ve done it, Captain Scott, sir, I’ve done
it,” said the colonel, before he had reached Adam’s side. “But I must return
immediately or he’s bound to notice it’s gone.”

He passed the carrier bag quickly to Adam
who opened the top and stared down at the object inside.

“You’re a man of your word,” said Adam, “and
as promised you’ll find everything you need in there.” He passed over his own
package along with the car keys without speaking. He pointed to the hire car.

The colonel ran to it, jumped in and drove
quickly down the ramp of the Royal Garden Hotel before turning left into
Kensington Palace Gardens.

Adam checked his watch: nine thirty-five.

“Could you call me a taxi?” he asked the
doorman.

The driver pulled the window down and gave
Adam an enquiring look.

“Chesham Place, SW1.
A carpenter’s shop.”

Adam spent twenty minutes looking around the
shop while the craftsman carried out his unusual request. Adam studied the
result with satisfaction, paid him two half-crowns and then walked back on to
King’s Road, to hail another taxi.

“Where to, guv’nor?”

“The Tower of London.”

Everyone was in their place for the D4
meeting at nine thirty and Busch had gone on the attack even before Lawrence
had had the chance to sit down.

“How in hell did you manage to lose him this
time?”

“I must take the blame myself,” said
Lawrence. “We had every port from Newhaven to Harwich covered, but the moment
my man saw Romanov and his henchman leave the quayside at Dover and chase off
down the motorway after the coach he assumed he must have seen Scott. I had
already instructed the senior immigration officer at the port,” he continued, “to
allow Scott to disembark without a fuss. It had been my intention to take over
once he passed through customs. There seemed no reason to change that plan
while we had Romanov under close surveillance. Scott then proceeded to fool
both Romanov and our man at Dover.”

“But we were given a second chance when
Scott got on the train,” persisted Busch. Lawrence stared at the American,
waiting to see if he would admit that his two CIA agents had also lost Scott at
Dover.

“My man was on the train,” said Lawrence
emphatically, “but had only the one opportunity to make contact with Scott
while he was on his own, and at just that moment he was grabbed and badly
beaten up by a bunch of drunken louts – teenagers, apparently -who were on
their way back from a day trip to the seaside.”

“Perhaps we’re recruiting our agents from
the wrong class of person,” said Matthews, staring down at his briefing papers.

Lawrence made no attempt to reply.

“So, as far as we can tell, Scott, the Tsar’s
icon and Romanov are still holed up somewhere in London?” said Snell.

“It looks that way,” admitted Lawrence.

“Perhaps all is not lost then,” suggested
Snell. “Scott may still try and get in touch with you again.”

“I think not,” said Lawrence quietly.

“How can you be so sure?” asked Busch. “Because
Scott knows that one of us in this room is a traitor and he thinks it’s me.”

“Good morning.
Soviet
Embassy.”

“My name is Adam Scott and I need to get in
contact with a Major Romanov.”

“Good morning, Mr Scott. We do not have a
Major Romanov working at the Embassy,” came back the polite reply.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“But if you would like to leave your number,
I will make further enquiries.”

“I’ll wait.
Wouldn’t
surprise me if you find him very quickly once he knows who it is calling.”

There was a long silence at the other end,
and Adam only hoped the shilling he had pressed into the call box would prove
to be enough. At last there was a click, and then Adam heard a voice.

“Who is this?” said the voice, unable to
mask its incredulity.

“You know very well who it is,” said Adam
curtly. “I want to make a deal.”

“A deal?”
Romanov repeated, his voice changing from
one of disbelief to surprise.

“I’ll swap you my icon – which as you so
vividly pointed out is worthless to me – in exchange for your copy, which is
not. But I also require the papers that prove my father’s innocence.”

“How do I know you’re not setting me up?”

“You don’t,” said Adam. “But you’re the one
with nothing to lose.”

The pips began to sound across the line.

“Tell me your number,” said Romanov.

“738-9121,” said Adam.

“I’ll phone you back,” said Romanov as the
line went dead.

“How quickly can we find out where 738-9121
is located?” Romanov asked the local KGB operative who sat opposite him.

“About ten minutes,” the aide replied. “But
it could be a trap.”

“True, but with nineteen hours to go before
the icon has to be in America I don’t have a lot of choice.”

Romanov turned back to the KGB agent. “What’s
the traffic like in London on a Friday morning?”

“One of the busiest times
in the week.
Why do you
ask?”

“Because I’ll need a motorbike and a superb
driver,” was all Romanov said.

Adam could do nothing about the middle-aged
lady who was now occupying his phone booth. He had nervously walked out to
check the bridge when she slipped in. She must have been puzzled as to why the
young man didn’t use the empty box that stood next to it.

He checked his watch anxiously: ten
forty-five. He knew he couldn’t risk waiting a minute after eleven but was
confident that Romanov would have traced where he’d made the call from long
before then.

The talkative woman was another twelve
minutes before she eventually put the phone down. When she stepped out of the
box she gave Adam a warm smile.

Three more minutes and he would have to
phone Lawrence and abort his original plan. He began to watch the Beefeaters as
they patrolled under Traitors’ Gate. Traitors’ Gate – how appropriate, Adam
thought. He had chosen the spot because he could see clearly up and down the
path leading to the drawbridge and felt he could not be taken by surprise. And
in desperation there was always the moat that surrounded them on all sides.

For the first time in his life, Adam
discovered exactly how long five minutes could be. When the phone rang, it
sounded like an alarm bell. He picked it up nervously, his eyes never leaving
the main road.

“Scott?”

“Yes.”

“I can now see you clearly as I am less than
one minute away. I will be standing at the end of Tower Bridge until the end of
that minute. Be sure you’re there with the icon. If you’re not, I shall burn
the papers that prove your father’s innocence in front of you.”

The phone went dead.

Adam was delighted that another piece of the
jigsaw had fallen into place. He stepped out of the phone booth and checked up
and down the road. A BMW motorcycle swerved to a halt at the end of the bridge.
A rider dressed in a leather jacket sat astride the bike but only seemed
interested in watching the flow of traffic as it passed by the Tower. It was
the man seated behind him who stared directly at Adam.

Adam began to walk slowly towards the end of
the bridge. He put a hand in his pocket to be sure the icon was still in its
place.

He was about thirty yards from the end of
the bridge when the second figure got off the bike and started walking towards
him. When their eyes met, Romanov stopped in his tracks and held up a small,
square frame. Adam did not respond in kind, but simply tapped the side of his
pocket and continued walking. Both men advanced towards each other like knights
of old until they were only a few paces apart. Almost simultaneously they
stopped and faced one another.

“Let me see it,” said Romanov.

Adam paused, then slowly removed the icon
from his pocket and held it to his chest for his adversary to see St George
stared at him.

“Turn it over,” said Romanov.

Adam obeyed, and the Russian could not hide
his delight when he saw the little silver crown of the Tsar embedded in the
back.

“Now you,” said Adam. Romanov held his icon
away from his body, as if brandishing a sword. The masterpiece shone in the
summer sun.

“And the documents,” said Adam, forcing
himself to speak calmly.

The Russian pulled out a package from within
his jacket and slowly unfolded them. Adam stared at the official court verdict
for a second time.

“Go to the wall,” said Adam, pointing with
his left hand to the side of the bridge, “and leave the icon and the documents
on it.”

It was Romanov who now obeyed as Adam
proceeded to the wall on the other side of the bridge and placed his icon in
the middle of it.

“Cross slowly,” called Adam. The two men
moved sideways back across the bridge, never getting closer than a couple of
yards from each other until they had come to a halt at each other’s icon. The
moment the painting was within his reach, Romanov grabbed it, ran and jumped on
to the motorcycle without looking back. Within seconds the BMW had disappeared
into the dense traffic.

Adam did not move. Although it had only been
out of his sight for just over an hour, he was relieved to have the original
back. Adam checked the papers that would establish his father’s innocence and
placed them in his inside pocket. Ignoring the tourists, some of whom had
stopped to stare at him, Adam began to relax when suddenly he felt a sharp prod
in the middle of his back. He jumped round in fright.

A little girl was staring up at him.

“Will you and your friend be performing again
this morning?”

When the BMW motorcycle drew up outside the
Soviet Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, Romanov leapt off and ran up the
steps and straight into the Ambassador’s office without knocking. The
Ambassador didn’t need to ask if he had been successful.

“It worked out just as I planned. He was
taken completely by surprise,” said Romanov, as he handed the icon over to the
Ambassador.

The Ambassador turned the painting over and
saw the little silver crown of the Tsar. Any doubts that he might have had were
also dispelled;

“I have orders to send the icon to
Washington in the diplomatic pouch immediately. There is no time to be lost.”

“I wish I could deliver it in person,” said
Romanov.

“Be satisfied, Comrade Major, that you have
carried out your part of the operation in an exemplary fashion.”

The Ambassador pressed a button on the side
of his desk. Two men appeared immediately. One held open the diplomatic pouch
while the other stood motionless by his side. The Ambassador handed over the
icon and watched it being placed into the pouch. The two couriers looked as if
they would have had no trouble in carrying out the Ambassador’s desk as well,
thought Romanov.