Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes)

ALSO BY HELEN MacINNES

AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Pray for a Brave Heart

Above Suspicion

Assignment in Brittany

North From Rome

Decision at Delphi

The Venetian Affair

The Salzburg Connection

Message From Málaga

While We Still Live

The Double Image

Horizon

Snare of the Hunter

Agent in Place

Neither Five Nor Three

Print edition ISBN: 9781781161562

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781161623

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: December 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

© 1951, 2012 by the Estate of Helen MacInnes. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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To Naomi with love

To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long ’tis like to be

A. E. HOUSMAN,
LAST POEMS,
XXXV

Table of Contents

I. Thesis

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

II. Antithesis

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

III. Synthesis

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

I. THESIS

1

The dawn came slowly, cold and clear, thinning out the night sky.

It’s coming slowly, Paul Haydn thought, because we are running ahead of the sun. Then he smiled at his fancy as he looked down at the floor of clouds below him. He watched them change from blanched shapeless ghosts into a foaming sea of sun-streaked waves, their curling crests held motionless, poised but never spent. A traveller, fifty years from now, hurtling through the skies, would find that dawns came even more slowly for planes flying westwards. Or would he be travelling in a plane, fifty years from now? Then suddenly, Paul Haydn noticed that the clouds were no longer a sea beneath him, hiding the real ocean. We’re coming down, he thought, at last we are getting near land, we’re getting near America. Yes, there was a stretch of the Atlantic, a dark grey sheet of corrugated iron. He sat up abruptly, stretched his back muscles and his legs.

His excitement, controlled as he tried to keep it, woke Brownlee sitting beside him. The other passengers in the plane—the two congressmen and their secretaries and the brigadier-general who had accompanied them from Berlin, the silent worried sergeant who had joined the plane at Frankfurt, the three ECA officials returning from the Rhineland—were still slumped in sleep, their faces wiped clean of expression, their troubles, their hopes, their failures, their achievements all forgotten.

“Won’t be long now,” Paul said to Brownlee by way of apology. His smile made him younger, more like the Paul Haydn whom Brownlee had first met in London eight years ago.

Brownlee, still not moving, still gathering all the parts of his mind together that sleep had unlocked and left lying loosely around, answered Paul’s smile slowly. He yawned, stretched his arms, eased the muscles on his neck, and rubbed the blood back into his cheek where, as he had slept, it had rested too heavily against the eagle on his shoulder. He said, his smile broadening, “For a man who stayed away so long, you sound pretty eager to return.”

“I guess I’ve been away long enough,” Paul Haydn said. Then his grey eyes looked sharply at his friend. “And what’s amusing you?”

“The difference that eight years can make in a man.”

“Don’t know if I think that’s altogether funny.”

“You wouldn’t be altogether pleased if eight years left no differences.” Brownlee studied Paul’s face. “When we first met in London in 1942, you were a very new lieutenant in a very smart uniform, an enthusiastic young crusader—”

“On the brash side,” Paul amended. He shook his head as he remembered himself then. “At least,” he added, “I’ve learned that life is not all that easy.” Besides, his watchful eyes seemed to say, I’m not the only one who has changed a lot in eight years. Brownlee was thinner and more worried, his hair was almost white now; and yet, since the war had ended, he had been stationed in Washington, not in Germany as Paul had been. When Paul met him in Berlin only a couple of days ago (Brownlee had been taking the congressmen around the DP camps), Paul was as much surprised by the outward changes in Brownlee as he was by their meeting. A lucky meeting, though. If it hadn’t been for Brownlee, he wouldn’t have had this quick transportation home. And a good meeting, too. He liked Brownlee, even if Brownlee had been his superior officer all through the war.

“Yes, life seemed easier eight years ago,” Brownlee was saying. “In spite of everything, it seemed easier. All we had to do was to win that damned war, and then—if we were lucky—slip back into peace. Everything was more black and white, then. You knew where the dangers lay.”

Paul Haydn only nodded. He was glad of the stir around them as the others in the plane were wakened and warned of the landing ahead. He wasn’t going to get entangled in any more discussions. Brownlee was still very skilful at steering the conversation his way.

Brownlee seemed to be concentrating on fastening his safety belt, too. But he was still remembering Paul Haydn in London, eight years ago, excited about his assignment to the Free French and his work with the underground resistance in Brittany. He had done well in that job, including some extremely active service inside Occupied France. After the Liberation, Brownlee had lost immediate touch with Haydn, but he had kept track of him. Captain in Intelligence, examining German prisoners. Then Frankfurt. Assigned to counter-propaganda. Munich. DP camps. Berlin. And the young, smartly uniformed lieutenant with the friendly grey eyes, the disarming smile, the dark close-cropped hair, and the features which had been so regular that they were almost characterless, had become a major with some faded ribbons on his chest. His smile wasn’t so ready, now. The dark hair showed some grey at the temples. The regular features had lost their pleasant anonymity and gained a determined, capable look. Now, too, his eyes were watchful; more serious, less amused by life; less expectant of good, and yet—with Paul’s essential optimism that even Europe hadn’t altogether withered—still hopeful of finding it.

“Why did you stay away so long?” Brownlee asked suddenly.

“Never could get transport.”

Brownlee grinned. “You always had a surprising sense of duty, I remember.”

“What’s so surprising about it?”

“Because you never seemed particularly respectful about anything.”

“I agreed I was a brash young man,” Paul admitted with a smile.

“With the right impulses,” Brownlee said. “And I’m still betting on them.” His tone was light, but his alert brown eyes were serious. “Given any thought to the proposition I made at lunch yesterday?”

Paul Haydn hesitated. “Not too much,” he said frankly. “You weren’t specific enough, I guess.”

“I couldn’t be. You’ve got to see this thing for yourself, Paul. I’m not a draft board, you know. I want volunteers.”

“Look, I’ve done enough volunteering. When I’m finished with the army, I’m finished. I’ve had enough duty to last me the rest of my life.” His face was once more determined, guarded. He turned his head away and looked out of the window.

“This isn’t an army job,” Brownlee said patiently. “Once you’ve had your leave, run around, settled down and started your career again, come and have a chat with me. By that time, either you’ll know what I’ve been talking about, or you won’t care. That’s when you can give me a definite answer.”

“I’m giving it to you now. Sorry, but I’m—look! There she is! Look—will you look at that?” Paul grabbed Roger Brownlee’s arm as if to make sure that he wouldn’t miss this, either.

It was New York, its clear-cut buildings squared and neat, its towers and pinnacles gleaming in the early sunlight, its silent streets running like straight dark threads below the myriad shining windows. It was New York, cool, remote, beautiful.

“We’re coming in too low,” Brownlee said, glancing worriedly at his brigadier-general and the congressmen.

“Suits me,” Paul said. He didn’t take his eyes away from the window. He said nothing more.

Brownlee took his note-book and pencil out of his pocket and wrote quickly. “Tuck this in your pocket,” he said to Haydn. “It’s my telephone number.” He tore the page from his note-book and held it out.