The Secret Servant

"George, you know how compartmentalised we are. You aren't suggesting all the service goes into neutral just because some little bint – who was a sworn enemy yesterday – says we've got one bad 'un in our mob?"
"I don't give directives to your service. That's the Headmaster's job."
"Security," Agnes said doggedly, "is perfection. It's a picture that never gets finished. You keep putting on a dab of paint here, a dab of paint there and you know it'll never be perfect but it's the only picture you're ever going to get to paint. That's security work."
"You've said that before," George said rudely.
"I've said it to every bright young thing who joins us from Oxford and Cambridge and expects to make the world safe for democracy by tapping a couple of phones and getting screwed by some lovely big Russians. And none of them listens either."
George grunted and they walked in silence for a while. Somebody had thrown a deck chair into the lake and a duck was perched on it, as on the topmast of a sunken ship. He pitched the last of his sandwiches at it. "We just have to wait until Harry rings in, if he's still alive."
"He's not going to reach you in the middle of here."
They turned back towards the modest towers and flagpoles of Whitehall, showing above the skeletal trees.
"One thing you might do," Agnes said, "is get a police guard on the Wing-Commander. They could think she talked to him."
"I'll do that."
Maxim rang in soon after two o'clock. "We're in a pub just off the A41."
"How did you get there?" George demanded.
"Hired a car."
"Harry, you do know the police are looking for you?"
"I assumed they were. But I also assumed they'd think we'd steal a car rather than hire one. They haven't got my name, have they?"
"Not from us. All they've put out so far is some vague descriptions." Maxim knew that those things take time: he had spent hours carefully probing at witnesses, trying to work out who was exaggerating, who was really observant, and blending the results to get a likely picture of who had done what. And knowing that the who was using every minute of that time to advantage. Well, now it was his turn.
George said: "They must have a hit team already in this country to get onto you so fast."
"Not necessarily." Maxim told him about Zuzana jumping off the night before.
George swore luridly. "And we're supposed to believe that little bitch when she says that Box 500's been soured? Don't stop the next one who tries to bump her off, it could be me."
"I think she was trying to protect the Wing-Commander's good name. I don't imagine they spent the night playing chess."
"Good name! What did that man do in the Riff-RAF? – command a latrine squadron? He rapes a Bloc agent in Prague, and then…" Maxim held the phone away from his ear while George wound down. A customer on his way to the lavatory gave an odd glance at him and the squawking receiver.
"Anyway, you just stay out of sight and keep in touch." George finished. "And try and find out all she knows about Box 500. We've got our fingers firmly sub judice until then."
They drove on north-westwards, going nowhere in particular. Maxim's first instinct had been to head for the nearest London barracks, show his ID and demand sanctuary. There they'd certainly have been safe from any stray baboons, but the duty officer would have been risking his career if he hadn't reported them to the police the moment there was any suspicion that they were wanted. The Army had to tread very delicately on the toes of the civil power.
For the moment, they really were on their own.
The hired Avenger didn't have a radio, so he stopped and bought a cheap transistor. As nobody had been killed, they only made fifth place on the three o'clock hit parade, and that only because there had been gunfire. Police were still looking for four men and a woman, two of the men believed to be injured…
So I did hit that second bastard, Maxim thought happily. It had been an awkward shot, left-handed, since the Heckler amp; Koch comes with a thumb-rest for a right-handed shooter.
Oh blast. He should have locked himself in the pub lavatory and checked to see how many cartridges he'd got left.
"Did you recognise any of the baboons?" he asked.
"I did not properly see them."
"D'you think they were yours or Mother Bear's?"
"I do not know. Where are we going?"
"Just staying out of London. If I can find a motel, I thought we'd book in there. Is that all right?" He didn't much like the idea, for more than one reason, but it was the only solution he could think of. They had to get off the road, and they had to start talking – privately.
Zuzana didn't seem to mind, but: "We have no luggage." In the scuffle, she'd lost even her airline bag.
"We'll buy something." George had suggested that he always carry a wad of cash – at least Ј50 – and now he was glad he'd taken the advice.
The evidence lay spread out across a scrubbed table in a blank back room decorated only with road safety posters. There was a row of little plastic sachets, each holding a single spent cartridge case or used bullet, and tagged to relate it to a point on the sketch maps and photographs of the 'scene'. Then a larger sachet holding a five-inch kitchen 'knife smeared with sticky blood. All these were waiting for the afternoon bagman to collect for the Lambeth laboratories.
There was also an airline bag with a shoulder strap, without any name or logo on it. Odd, that. The textured plastic fabric probably wouldn't take much in the way of fingerprints, but the young detective constable still unzipped the bag very carefully. At the far end of the table, another d. c. waited to list whatever was inside.
"One packet woman's tights, medium size, unopened. One woman's night-dress, St. Michael's brand, cream polyester…" he held it against himself to judge the length.
"It's definitely you" the other said.
"Say knee length. Worn since washed. One pair green panties, clean, no maker's label. One bra, size 36A, clean. One blouse, embroidered." It was very much embroidered, obviously by hand, and looked old and valuable. "Is this silk? Oh, skip it, we'll get one of the girls to do this stuff." He felt carefully past the rest of the clothes. "One furry animal toy, not much fur on it now, looks as if the ears have been chewed off."
"Should I write all that down?"
"And one file holder of typed papers." He lifted it clear. "In… do you know what language this is?"
The other got up to look. Across the front of the file was stamped in red: TAJNY Then a heading written in ink: VEVERKA and the usual dates and initials that files accumulate.
"I dunno. I'd say Czech or Polish. But I'll bet that red word means SECRET or something like it."
Up till then, both of them had assumed that the shooting had been some Arab terrorist affair or a barney between two lots of villians. But now the compass needle had swung around to point in a totally unexpected direction. The file felt hot to the touch.
"This is for SB," the first d. c. said.
That was pure routine, just as it was for Special Branch to send round for the file the moment they knew it existed. It was also pure routine for them, once they had decided the language was Czechoslovakian, to tell MI5 about it, and for Five to borrow it, since they had immediate translation facilities.