London-Vauxhall Cross, Office of the Chief of Service 17 September 1404 GMT Crocker found Barclay in the small sitting area away from the desk, in his armchair, loading the bowl of his pipe. On the table before him were a tea service, china and silver, and a short stack of reports that he'd apparently been going through. Crocker approached, waited respectfully, folder in hand, to be acknowledged.
Barclay took his time about it. He finished filling the bowl, then set the pipe, short-stemmed and stubby, on the table. He closed the jar of tobacco, placed it back on the stand at his side, then took up his book of matches. He retrieved the pipe, put it to his mouth, sucked experimentally, gauging his work thus far. The match flared and the flame jumped higher as he drew it down into the pipe. The clouds of smoke that rose were blue and smelled of latakia and Cavendish.
When the pipe was going, Barclay discarded the match in the wide ashtray beside the service tray, then extended the same hand to Crocker, waiting to be handed the report. Crocker gave him the folder, a blue one marked for internal distribution.
"You may sit," Barclay said, opening the file against his knee, beginning to read. He didn't look up. He'd yet to look at Crocker at all, in fact. "Help yourself to tea."
"Thank you, sir."
Crocker took the couch, fixed himself a cup, dropping two sugars in, stirring. Pages rustled as Barclay turned them, drawing on the pipe. It didn't take him long to finish, to close the folder and set it beside the others on the table.
"All Stations notified?" Barclay asked.
"As per the Deputy Chief's directive, as of oh-nine-oh-one this morning."
"You listed her as AWOL, not rogue."
"All we know is that she failed to report for work today," Crocker explained.
"I know what you did, Paul." Barclay took the pipe from his mouth, examined it in his hand. It was black briarwood, aged and well used.
Crocker didn't say anything. A denial was possible, he supposed, a flat-out defiance to C's face, but Crocker knew Barclay well enough to know that it wouldn't work here.
"She's put one of Kinney's in the hospital," Barclay said. "Were you aware of that?"
Crocker wasn't, and it surprised him; he'd have expected the number to be much higher. "Then Kinney's been lucky."
"Certainly the woman receiving treatment doesn't think so. She cracked two of her ribs, Paul, and may have caused internal injuries as well as a concussion."
"She restrained herself," Crocker said.
"I know," Barclay said. "So did Wallace."
Crocker nearly showered tea all over the table. "I'm sorry, sir?"
"You didn't know?"
"She's with Wallace?"
"Apparently, yes. The Deputy Chief received a call from Jim Chester at the School. Apparently, Wallace has gone missing, failed to turn up for his classes this morning. Chester sent a man round to his flat in Lee-on-the-Solent, found his car gone and the flat locked up tight."
"According to his last Personal and Intimates, he was seeing a woman in Portsmouth."
"Chester contacted her. The woman informed him that her relationship with Wallace ended three weeks ago."
"May only be a coincidence."
"Yes, I considered that as well. But the gentleman from Box in the room next to Chace's victim positively identified his assailant as Tom Wallace."
"Where did this happen?"
"Ashford International. They took the Eurostar; they could be anywhere in Europe by now."
Crocker nodded, agreeing. Germany or France, most likely, but that would only be their first stop. "I dispatched the Geneva Number Two, Alasdair Gerrard, to the residence of Minder One's mother, Ms. Annika Bodmer-Chace, this morning. Gerrard reported back that Ms. Bodmer-Chace hasn't had any contact with her daughter since the winter of last year. Gerrard has the residence under surveillance. It's possible she's headed there."
Barclay shook his head, sucking on his pipe thoughtfully. After releasing three more plumes of smoke, he said, "What did you tell her?"
"I'm sorry, sir?"
"No more nonsense, Paul." Barclay glanced at him, then away. "You're extremely clever, and that's the reason you're still in this job and not packing up your office or opening a station in Iceland. I cannot prove, of course, that you ordered her to run, nor can I prove that you directed Poole and Lankford to assist her. Both shall claim, if asked, that they were acting on orders from their Head of Section, rather than from D-Ops, and that they had no idea that what they were doing might be against the best interests of the Service. Neither can I prove that you removed travel documents for Chace under the work name Dorothea Palmer. Or that you supplied her with two thousand pounds from the Ready Fund. I cannot prove any of it."
Barclay moved his gaze back to Crocker, and the stare was vicious.
"That does not mean, however, that I do not know those things to be true."
Again, Crocker didn't respond. There was nothing to say to it anyway. He wondered if, despite C's words, he wasn't going to be wandering Whitehall before the end of the day, trying to find new employment.
"Now," Barclay said. "What did you tell Chace?"
"Nothing, sir. She came to me yesterday morning. She said that Box was targeting her for some reason, and did I know why. I assumed she was under another random security check and therefore could neither verify nor deny it. She left my office, and that was the last time I saw her. It wasn't until last evening that the Deputy Chief informed me of the reasons for the surveillance, and by that time, she'd already gone rabbit."
"You're saying the CIA didn't inform you?"
"Why would they, sir?" Crocker asked. "As I understand the situation, it's in the Americans' interests that Chace be rendered to the Saudis as much as it is in ours and the Israelis'."
Barclay's eyes narrowed as he thought on that, then he nodded slightly. "Why indeed. But why go to Wallace? What is she planning?"
"I wish I could tell you."
"Do you?"
Crocker stared at Barclay. "She's the Head of the Special Section, sir. She's one of the best, if not the best Special Operations officer working in the world today. My Minder Two has just over a year's experience under his belt, and my Three is still so new there's packing material stuck to his clothes. Without Chace, our covert action capability is crippled. It's bad for the Service."
"So you're saying, had she stayed, you would have rendered her to the Saudis willingly?"
"Of course not. I'd have done everything I could to keep her."
"At the expense of the Government's agenda?"
"As I tried to explain to the Deputy Chief, the Government's decision is grotesquely flawed. And the problem still remains, sir. If Chace is apprehended and delivered to the Saudis, no agent working for us anywhere in the world will ever trust us again. Once they find out-and they will find out-our credibility will be shattered. How can we expect our agents to put their lives at risk, knowing that, when expedient, we'll abandon them to their enemies?"
"That expediency is part of our mandate," Barclay said.
"Not at the risk of cutting our own throat."
"Where's she heading?"
"I have no idea. She knows how to run, we'll have a damn hard time finding her. And with Wallace it'll be twice as hard, because he's as good as she is. Whatever she's up to, we won't know until we get the after-action distribution."
"I see." Barclay sucked on his pipe, realized it had gone dead. He leaned forward, tapping the bowl into his palm, then dumping his palm into the ashtray. The pipe went back in its stand beside the tobacco jar. "Is that all you have to say on the subject?"
"There's nothing more I can add, sir."
"Very well." Barclay settled his stare on Crocker again. "Then let me say this: HUM-AA is planning an offensive, an offensive that we could very well bring to a halt before it begins by delivering Chace to the Saudis. There appears to be no mean average of fatalities for suicide bombings, but assuming that HUM-AA knows what they're doing-and from our personal experience, that seems a safe assumption-they will certainly target critical services and installations. There will be people murdered, probably dozens, perhaps hundreds. Men, women, children. British, American, Israeli. Civilians, civil servants, soldiers.
"Lives we could have saved, had we delivered one person," Barclay concluded. "Had we delivered Chace."
He leaned forward, took up the papers on the table, settled back in the chair. He waved his free hand at Crocker, not bothering to look up.
"You may go, Paul," Barclay said.