Adam Hall - Northlight

AT the intersection from Sloane Street into Knights-bridge I put on speed when the lights changed to amber but it was a mistake because the flashing began in the mirror right away and I pulled into the curb and waited with the engine still running. I'd known the police car was behind me since I'd come through Sloane Square but I didn't think they'd make a fuss about jumping the lights on a filthy night like this; there'd been a freezing rain coming down since late afternoon and the streets were black and silver now under the lamps, with reflections across the surface and the gutters beginning to stream.

I let the window down and got out my driving licence to save time. In my opinion, sir, you could have pulled up safely enough at the traffic lights when they changed to amber, and so forth. It was a temptation to show him my bureau card and drive on again without having to go through all the bullshit but it's strictly against the rules if there's no actual emergency.

His face came into the window gap, with rain dripping from his cap peak.

'May I see your driving licence, please?'

I gave it to him, and he checked it.

'Thank you, Mr Gage. I just wanted to be sure who you were.' He handed it back. 'They'd like you to phone in, as soon as possible.'

Nothing to do with the lights.

'All right.' I put the licence away and got into gear. I'd switched off the phone in the car a couple of days ago and started using the Ansafone monitor in my flat, because at this stage three or four weeks after you're back from the last mission they start getting fidgety.

'They said it was urgent,' the policeman said insistently, his face still in the window gap.

I knew that. I'd been mobile for the last ninety minutes and when they couldn't get through they hadn't just given up: they'd phoned the Yard and asked for an immediate all-points-bulletin by radio with my description and number plate Black Jensen Interceptor with cellular antenna and bunched spotlights, BBT1872 and a request to pick me up on sight and tell me to phone base.

I slipped the gears into neutral again and switched the phone on, because there was nothing else I could do and I knew that. We sometimes play with the idea of goofing off somewhere and not answering the phone, but it's like denying the voice of God and bringing down a whole bloody mountainside of fire and brimstone.

'You can stay here, sir, while you call in. We'll look after you.' The lights were still flashing in the mirror.

'Fair enough.'

His face vanished, and I touched out QU-1 and waited.

'Were you switched off?' a voice came.

'Yes.'

There was a short silence. He was the little shit at the operations switchboard, with enough experience to know that I'd broken the rules but not enough rank to tell me.

'Hold on,' he said.

I waited again.

'Quiller?'

'Yes.'

'We want you to make an immediate rendezvous.'

It sounded like Trench this time: cool, impersonal, the tone a shade touchy because I'd been difficult to contact.

'I can't do that.'

He said carefully: 'This is fully urgent.'

'I'm not on standby, you know that. I've got to meet someone at the airport and I'm already running late.'

'This is from Main Control,' Trench said, and left it at that.

Slight skin reaction: gooseflesh. When you've got your phone switched off and they still tell the police to pick you up and then tell you the instructions are coming direct from Main Control it's not because they can't find where you put the fruit gums.

'Why do they want me,' I asked him, 'particularly?'

'It was Mr Croder who told me to find you.'

Cold air was coming through the window, and I closed it. I don't like the cold. Through the windscreen the lights of the police car were sending an intermittent rainbow of reflections across the surface of the road, blue and whiteflash-flash-flashblue, and bone whiteflash-flash-flashwhile my skin reacted again to the nerves. I took a slow breath to steady them.

'Is this the submarine thing?'

'I don't know,' Trench said. There'd been nothing else in the headlines for the last four days. Of course he knew. He was high in the Control echelon, with powers to brief.

'Trench,' I told him, 'I've got to meet this man at the airport. He's a sixth dan coming in from Tokyo and it's my personal responsibility to escort him to the dojo. When I've done that, I'll phone you.'

'You'll have to get someone else to meet him.'

'There's no time. The dojo's south of the Thames, and they'd never reach the airport by nine-fifteen.'

'He must take a taxi, then.'

'We don't leave this man to get his own transport. This is Yamada.'

In a moment Trench said thinly, 'I'd rather not have to ask Mr Croder to come on the line. It shouldn't be necessary.'

The sound of the engine suddenly seemed louder and the lights in the wet street brighter. 'Listen, Trench, I'm not officially on standby and I'm not due to report back for operations until next week and you know that, so you've got a bloody nerve to put out a tracer on me and expect me to drop everything and give up the rest of the evening just because Croder's panicking all over the ops room. Tell him from me that as soon as I've met Yamada at the airport I'll-'

'Wait a minute.'

Silence again, while I tried to cool down. The Bureau is the sacred bull, and if you're in the shadow branch you're expected to make any sacrifice at any time its bloody disciples demand it of you, even unto death. But between missions you're technically allowed to unwind and lick your wounds and try to forget the frontiers and the searchlights and the cry of the dogs getting louder in the night and the thud of boots as the bastards come out of the van at the double with their guns drawn while you look for a doorway or an alley or a bit of wasteground where you can at least try zig-zagging flat out for dear life instead of just standing there with death already creeping into your body because you know that this time they won't let you go again, this time they want you badly and they're going to break you until you talk, until you scream, until you feel the slow surprise in the last remnant of conscious thought that it's happening this way, with the brains beaten out of the skull and the life draining out with the blood instead of the blessing of a cold clean shot from the distance to nail the spine to the dark and leave you hanging there with a shred of your honour still intact because you didn't talk, you didn't tell them, you kept the faith.

Faith in the sacred bull.

The Bureau.

'This is Mr Croder.'

'Good evening.'

'I realize I'm imposing on your free time, Quiller, but something rather urgent has come up.' His voice was heavy, measured and civil. 'It would really be very helpful if you could go along to No. 10 Downing Street with the greatest possible despatch. The PM is meeting some people there, and I'd like you to be present.'

I switched off the engine.

'In what capacity?'

'Quite unofficial. But I'd like you to hear what they're talking about.'

'The submarine.'

There was brief silence. 'Yes.'

The wipers had stopped when I'd switched the engine off, and I watched the rain making serpentine rivulets down the windscreen. We'd all known, of course, that the sub thing would send waves as far as London sooner or later.

'Are you offering me a mission?' I asked Croder.

'Not immediately.'

'When?'

'I'm afraid I can't tell you. There's quite a lot going on, as you can imagine, and things will need time to sort themselves out. But I really would be most grateful, Quiller, if you could do this for me.' He allowed a pause. 'As a personal favour.'

I owed the man nothing. He was chief of Main Control, the administrator, coordinator and organizer of any given number of shadow operations that might be going on at the same time. He was good at this. Before him, Strickland hadn't been: he was too wild, too ready to commit an executive to uncalculated risks, too inclined to influence the control who was actually running the mission. With Croder you felt safer; he saw us as chessmen, yes, to be pushed around; but he didn't push us blindly over the edge of the board, as Strickland had.