THE LOOKING GLASS WAR by John LeCarré

There was a long silence.

Haldane said, “I’m a collator, not an operational man.”

“You used to be operational, Adrian.”

“So did we all.”

“You know the target. You know the whole background. There’s no one else. Take whom you want—Avery, Woodford, whomever you want.”

“We’re not used to people anymore. Handling them, I mean.” Haldane had become unusually diffident. “I’m a Research man. I work with files.”

“We’ve had nothing else to give you until now. How long is it? Twenty years.”

“Do you know what it means, a rocket site?” Haldane demanded. “Do you know how much mess it makes? They need launch pads, blast shields, cable troughs, control buildings; they need bunkers for storing the warheads, trailers for fuel and oxidizers. All those things come first. Rockets don’t creep about in the night, they move like a traveling fair; we’d have other indicators before now; or the Circus would. As for Taylor’s death—”

“For heaven’s sake, Adrian, do you think intelligence consists of unassailable philosophical truths? Does every priest have to prove that Christ was born on Christmas Day?”

His little face was thrust forward as he tried to draw from Haldane something he seemed to know was there. “You can’t do it all by sums, Adrian. We’re not academics, we’re Civil Servants. We have to deal with things as they are. We have to deal with people, with events!”

“Very well, events then: if he swam the river, how did he preserve the film? How did he really take the pictures? Why isn’t there any trace of camera shake? He’d been drinking, he was balancing on tiptoe; they’re long enough exposures, you know, time exposures,” he said. Haldane seemed afraid, not of Leclerc, not of the operation, but of himself. “Why did he give Gorton for nothing what he’d offered elsewhere for money? Why did he risk his life at all, taking those photographs? I sent Gorton a list of supplementaries. He’s still trying to find the man, he says.”

His eyes drifted to the model airplane and the files on Leclerc’s desk. “You’re thinking of Peenemunde, aren’t you?” he continued. “You want it to be like Peenemunde.”

“You haven’t told me what you’ll do if I get those instructions.”

“You never will. You never, never will.” He spoke with great finality, almost triumph. “We’re dead, don’t you see? You said it yourself. They want us to go to sleep, not go to war.” He stood up. “So it doesn’t matter. It’s all academic after all. Can you really imagine Control would help us?”

“They’ve agreed to help us with a courier.”

“Yes. I find that most odd.”

Haldane stopped before a photograph by the door. “That’s Malherbe, isn’t it? The boy who died. Why did you choose that name?”

“I don’t know. It just came into my head. One’s memory plays odd tricks.”

“You shouldn’t have sent Avery. We’ve no business to use him for a job like that.”

Leclerc said, “I went through the cards last night. We’ve got a man who’d do. Trained wireless operator, German speaker, unmarried.” Haldane stood quite still.

“Age?” he asked at last.

“Forty. A bit over.”

“He must have been very young.”

“He put up a good show. They caught him in Holland and he got away.”

“How did he get caught?”

The slightest pause. “It isn’t recorded.”

“Intelligent?”

“He seems quite well qualified.”

The same long silence.

“So am I. Let’s see what Avery brings back.”

“Let’s see what the Ministry says.”

Leclerc waited till the sound of coughing had faded down the corridor before he put on his coat. He would go for a walk, take some fresh air and have lunch at his club; the best they had. He wondered what it would be; the place had gone off badly in the last few years. After lunch he would go round to Taylor’s widow. Then to the Ministry.

Woodford, lunching with his wife at Gorringe’s, said, “Young Avery’s on his first run. Clarkie sent him. He should make a good job of it.”

“Perhaps he’ll get himself killed, too,” she said nastily. She was off the drink, doctor’s orders. “Then you can have a real ball. Christ, that would be a party and a half! Come to the Blackfriars’ Ball!” Her lower lip was quivering. “Why are the young ones so bloody marvelous? We were young, weren’t we … ? Christ, we still are. What’s wrong with us? We can’t wait to get old, can we? We can’t…”

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