They had reached Borowitz’s offices. Borowitz swept through the anteroom and turned on his heel just across the threshold of his private room. Dragosani came to a halt facing him, stared at him accusingly. ‘What is it you’ve got up your sleeve – Comrade?’
‘So you’re still accusing people of trickery, eh, Boris?’ said the other. ‘Will you never learn your lesson the first time around? I don’t need to resort to trickery, my friend. I give orders, and you obey! This is my next order: you’re going back to school for a few months to brush up on your English. Not only the language but the entire English system. That way you’ll fit better into the embassy over there. Max will go with you – and I’ll bet he learns faster, too. After that, when we’ve made certain arrangements -a little field trip . . .’
‘To England?’
‘Exactly. You and your partner. There’s a man over there called Keenan Gormley, Ex-MI5. “Sir” Keenan Gormley, no less. Now he’s the boss of their E-Branch. I want him dead! That’s Max’s job, for Gormley has a bad heart. After that -‘
Dragosani saw it all now. ‘You want him “interrogated”,’ he said. ‘You want him emptied of secrets. You want to know all about him and his E-Branch down to the last detail.’
‘Right first time,’ Borowitz gave a sharp nod of his head. ‘And that’s your job, Boris. You’re the necromancer, inquisitor of the dead. It’s what you get paid for . . .’
And before Dragosani could answer, completely expressionless for once, Borowitz closed the door in his face.
A Saturday evening in the early summer of 1976. Sir Keenan Gormley was relaxing with a book in his study at home in South Kensington, an after-dinner drink on the
occasional table before him, when the telephone rang in the house proper. He heard it, and a few moments later his wife’s voice calling: ‘Darling, it’s for you.’
‘Coming!’ he called, and sighing put down his book and went through. As he took the telephone from her, his wife gave him a smile and returned to her own reading. Gormley carried the telephone to a wicker chair and sat down before glass doors which stood open on a large, secluded garden. ‘Gormley here?’ he said into the mouthpiece.
‘Sir Keenan? This is Harmon. Jack Harmon in Hartlepool. How’s the world been treating you ail these years?’
‘Harmon? Jack! How the devil are you!? My God! How long’s it been. It must be twelve years at least!’
‘Thirteen,’ came the answer, tinny with the effects of static. ‘Last time we spoke was at that dinner they threw for you when you left “shhh! – you know who!” And that was back in ‘sixty-three.’
‘Thirteen years!’ Gormley breathed, amazed. ‘Where does time go to, eh?’
‘Where indeed? Retirement hasn’t killed you off, then?’
Gormley chuckled dryly. ‘Ah! Well, I only half-retired, as I believe you know. I still do this and that in the city. And you – are you still stout as ever? I seem to remember you’d got yourself the head’s job at Hartlepool Tech?’
That’s right, and I’m still there. Headmaster? – Christ, it was easier in Burma!’
Gormley laughed out loud. ‘It’s very good to hear from you again, Jack, especially since you seem in such good health. Now then, what can I do for you?’
There was something of a pause before Harmon finally answered: ‘Actually, I feel a bit of a fool. I’ve been on the point of calling you several times in the last week or so, but always changed my mind. It’s such a damned strange business!’
Gormley was at once interested. He’d been dealing with ‘strange businesses’ for many years now. His own fine-tuned talent told him that something new was about to break, and maybe it was something big. His scalp tingled as he answered: ‘Go on, Jack, what is it? And don’t worry that I may think it daft. I remember you for a very level-headed chap.’
‘Yes, but this is very – you know – difficult to put into words. I mean, I’m close to this thing, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and yet -‘