THE LOOKING GLASS WAR by John LeCarré

The girl’s voice began again on the loudspeaker, it could only have been a few minutes since the last announcement. Once more the children stopped talking and listened. The arrival of flight two-nine-zero would be delayed at least another hour. Further information would be given as soon as it became available. There was something in the girl’s voice, midway between surprise and anxiety, which seemed to communicate itself to the half-dozen people sitting at the other end of the waiting room. An old woman said something to her husband, stood up, took her handbag and joined the group of children. For a time she peered stupidly into the twilight. Finding no comfort there, she turned to Taylor and said in English, “What is become of the Dusseldorf plane?” Her voice had the throaty, indignant lilt of a Dutchwoman. Taylor shook his head. “Probably the snow,” he replied. He was a brisk man; it went with his military way.

Pushing open the swing door, Taylor made his way downstairs to the reception hall. Near to the main entrance he recognized the yellow pennant of Northern Air Services. The girl at the desk was very pretty.

“What’s happened to the Dusseldorf flight?” His style was confiding; they said he had a knack with little girls.

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “I expect it is the snow. We are often having delays in autumn.”

“Why don’t you ask the boss?” he suggested, indicating with a nod the telephone in front of her.

“They will tell it on the loudspeaker,” she said, “as soon as they know.”

“Who’s the skipper, dear?”

“Please?”

“Who’s the skipper, the captain?”

“Captain Lansen.”

“Is he any good?”

The girl was shocked. “Captain Lansen is a very experienced pilot.”

Taylor looked her over, grinned and said, “He’s a very lucky pilot anyway, my dear.” They said he knew a thing or two, old Taylor did. They said it at the Alias on Friday nights.

Lansen. It was odd to hear a name spoken out like that. In the outfit they simply never did it. They favored circumlocution, cover names, anything but the original: Archie boy, our flying friend, our friend up North, the chappie who takes the snapshots; they would even use the tortuous collection of figures and letters by which he was known on paper; but never in any circumstances the name.

Lansen. Leclerc had shown him a photograph in London: a boyish thirty-five, fair and good-looking. He’d bet those hostesses went mad about him; that’s all they were, anyway, cannon fodder for the pilots. No one else got a look in. Taylor ran his right hand quickly over the outside of his overcoat pocket just to make sure the envelope was still there. He’d never carried this sort of money before. Five thousand dollars for one flight; seventeen hundred pounds, tax free, to lose your way over the Baltic. Mind you, Lansen didn’t do that every day. This was special. Leclerc had said so. He wondered what she would do if he leaned across the counter and told her who he was; showed her the money in that envelope. He’d never had a girl like that, a real girl, tall and young.

He went upstairs again to the bar. The barman was getting to know him. Taylor pointed to the bottle of Steinhager on the center shelf and said, “Give me another of those, d’you mind? That’s it, the fellow just behind you; some of your local poison.”

“It’s German,” the barman said.

He opened his wallet and took out a banknote. In the cellophane compartment there was a photograph of a girl, perhaps nine years old, wearing glasses and holding a doll. “My daughter,” he explained to the barman, and the barman gave a watery smile.

His voice varied a lot, like the voice of a commercial traveler. His phony drawl was more extravagant when he addressed his own class, when it was a matter of emphasizing a distinction which did not exist; or as now, when he was nervous.

He had to admit: he was windy. It was an eerie situation for a man of his experience and age, going over from routine courier work to operational stuff. This was a job for those swine in the Circus, not for his outfit at all. A different kettle of fish altogether, this was, from the ordinary run-of-the-mill stuff he was used to; stuck out on a limb, miles from nowhere. It beat him how they ever came to put an airport in a place like this. He quite liked the foreign trips as a rule: a visit to old Jimmy Gorton in Hamburg, for instance, or a night on the tiles in Madrid. It did him good to get away from Joanie. He’d done the Turkish run a couple of times, though he didn’t care for wogs. But even that was a piece of cake compared to this: first-class travel and the bags on the seat beside him, an Allied pass in his pocket; a man had status, doing a job like that; good as the diplomatic boys, or nearly. But this was different, and he didn’t like it.

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