“To claim the body?”
“To get the film,” Leclerc repeated hotly.
“That’s an operational job; Avery’s not trained.”
“They were younger than he in the war. He can look after himself.”
“Taylor couldn’t. What will he do when he’s got it; bring it back in his sponge bag?”
“Shall we discuss that afterwards?” Leclerc suggested, and addressed himself once more to the others, smiling patiently as if to say old Adrian must be humored.
“That was all we had to go on till ten days ago. Then came the second indicator. The area around Kalkstadt had been declared a prohibited area.” There was an excited murmur of interest. “For a radius of—as far as we can establish—thirty kilometers. Sealed off; closed to all traffic. They brought in frontier guards.” He glanced round the table. “I then informed the Minister. I cannot tell even you all the implications. But let me name one.” He said the last sentence quickly, at the same time flicking upwards the little horns of graying hair that grew above his ears.
Haldane was forgotten.
“What puzzled us in the beginning”—he nodded at Haldane, a conciliatory gesture at a moment of victory, but Haldane ignored it—”was the absence of Soviet troops. They have units in Rostock, Witmar, Schwerin.” His finger darted among the flags. “But none—this is confirmed by other agencies—none in the immediate area of Kalkstadt. If there are weapons there, weapons of high destructive capacity, why are there no Soviet troops?”
McCulloch made a suggestion: might there not be technicians, Soviet technicians in civilian dress?
“I regard that as unlikely.” A demure smile. “In comparable cases where tactical weapons were being transported we have always identified at least one Soviet unit. On the other hand, five weeks ago a few Russian troops were seen at Gustweiler, farther south.” He was back to the map. “They billeted for one night at a pub. Some wore artillery flashes; others had no shoulder-boards at all. They moved away southward early next morning. One might conclude they had brought something, left it and gone away again.”
Woodford was becoming restless. What did it all add up to, he wanted to know, what did they make of it over at the Ministry? Woodford had no patience with riddles.
Leclerc adopted his academic tone. It had a bullying quality as if facts were facts and could not be disputed. “Research Section has done a magnificent job. The overall length of the object in these photographs—they can compute it pretty exactly—is equal to the length of a Soviet middle-range rocket. On present information”—he lightly tapped the map with his knuckles so that it swung sideways on its hook—”the Ministry believes it is conceivable we are dealing with Soviet missiles under East German control. Research,” he added quickly, “is not prepared to go so far. Now if the Ministry view prevails, if they are right, that is, we would have on our hands”—this was his moment—”a sort of Cuba situation all over again, only”— he tried to sound apologetic, to make it a throwaway line— “more dangerous.”
He had them.
“It was at this point,” Leclerc explained, “that the Ministry felt entitled to authorize an overflight. As you know, for the last four years the Department has been limited to aerial photographs along orthodox civilian or military air routes. Even these required Foreign Office approval.” He drifted away. “It really was too bad.” His eyes seemed to be searching for something not in the room. The others watched him anxiously, waiting for him to continue.
“For once the Ministry agreed to waive the ruling, and I am pleased to say the task of mounting the operation was given to this Department. We selected the best pilot we could find on our books: Lansen.” Someone looked up in surprise; agents’ names were never used that way. “Lansen undertook, for a price, to go off course on a charter flight from Dusseldorf to Finland. Taylor was dispatched to collect the film; he died at the landing field. A road accident, apparently.”
Outside they could hear the sound of cars moving through the rain like the rustling of paper in the wind. The fire had gone out; only the smoke remained, hanging like a shroud over the table.