The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré

The network. Osnard needed to hear the progress of each subsource and record it in his notebook. Subsource Sabina, Marta’s star creation and alter ego, dissident politics student with responsibility for the El Chorrillo cadre of secret Maoists, was asking for a new printing press to replace her defunct one. Estimated cost five thousand dollars or maybe Andy knew where to put his hands on an old one?

‘She buys her own,’ Osnard ruled shortly as he wrote down ‘printing press’ and ‘ten thousand dollars’. ‘It’s arm’s length all the way. She still think she’s selling her information to the Yanks?’

‘Yes, Andy, until Sebastian tells her different.’

Sebastian, another Marta construct, was Sabina’s lover, an embittered people’s lawyer and retired anti-Noriega campaigner who, thanks to his impoverished clientele, provided snippets of deep background on such oddities as the underline of Panama’s Muslim Arab community.

‘What’s with Alpha Beta?’ Osnard asked.

Subsource Beta was Pendel’s own: a member of the National Assembly’s Canal Consultative Committee and a part-time dealer in bank accounts looking for respectable homes. Beta’s aunt Alpha was a secretary in the Panamanian Chamber of Commerce. In Panama everybody has an aunt working somewhere useful.

‘Beta’s up country stroking his constituency, Andy, which is why he’s quiet. But he’s got a nice meeting Thursday with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Panama and dinner with the Vice-President Friday, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And London liked his latest, did they? He sometimes feels he’s not appreciated.’

‘It was okay. Far as it went.’

‘Only Beta did rather wonder whether a bonus might be in order.’

Osnard seemed to wonder too, for he made a note and scribbled a figure and drew a circle round it.

‘Let you know next time,’ he said. ‘What’s with Marco?’

‘Marco is what I’d call sitting pretty, Andy. We had a night on the town, I’ve met his wife, we’ve walked the dog together and gone to the pictures.’

‘When are you going to pop the question?’

‘Next week, Andy, if I’m in the mood.’

‘Well, be in the mood. Starting salary five hundred a week, subject to review after three months, payable in advance. Bonus o’ five thousand cash when he signs on the dotted line.’

‘For Marco?’

‘For you, you ass,’ said Osnard, handing him a glass of Scotch in all the pink mirrors at once.

Osnard was making the kind of signals that people in authority make when they have something disagreeable to say. A pout of discontent settled over his rubbery features, he scowled at the cavorting acrobats on the television screen.

‘You seem very sunny today,’ he began accusingly.

‘Thank you, Andy, and it’s all down to you and London.’

‘Lucky you’ve got the loan, then. Isn’t it? I said, isn’t it?’

‘Andy, I’m thanking my Maker for it every day and the thought that I’m working it off puts a spring into my stride. Is there something wrong, then?’

Osnard had assumed his head prefect tone, though he had only ever been at the receiving end of it, usually before a beating.

‘Yes. There is, actually. Quite a lot wrong.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I’m afraid London are not quite as pleased with you as you appear to be with yourself.’

‘Why’s that then, Andy?’

‘Nothing much. Nothing at all, really. They have merely decided that H. Pendel, superspy, is an overpaid, disloyal, grafting, two-faced con-artist.’

Pendel’s smile underwent a slow but total eclipse. His shoulders fell, his hands, which till now had been supporting him on the bed, came obediently to rest at the front of his body, demonstrating to the officer that they meant no harm.

‘Any particular reason at all, Andy? Or was it more the general overview they were taking?’

‘Furthermore, they are not at all pleased with Mr Mickie bloody Abraxas.’

Pendel’s head lifted sharply.

‘Why? What’s Mickie done?’ he demanded with unexpected spirit – unexpected by himself, that was. ‘Mickie’s not in this,’ he added aggressively.

‘Not in what?’

‘Mickie’s done nothing.’

‘No. He hasn’t. That’s the point. For too bloody long. Apart from graciously accepting ten thousand bucks cash up front as an act of good faith. What have you done? Also nothing. Contemplated Mickie contemplating his navel.’ His voice had acquired the saw-edge of schoolboy sarcasm. ‘And what have I done? Credited you with a very handsome bonus for productivity – joke – which, put into plain language, means recruiting a spectacularly unproductive subsource, to wit one M. Abraxas, slayer of tyrants and champion o’ the common man. London’s having a bloody good laugh about that. Wondering whether the officer in the field – me – is a little too green, and a little too gullible to mix it with idle, money-grabbing sharks like M. Abraxas and you.’

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