Chapter 10 - "Our Old Fox Is Wily."
ILLYA STROLLED purposefully down a corridor where he really had no right to be, bearing a covered tray and looking to neither side. He moved around the vicinity of Waverly's command office until the halls were clear in both directions, then let himself in.
The room was empty, of course. Illya checked the chair cushion, found it untampered with, and looked around. A tall map-board compartment was outlined by cupboard doors in one wall; a glance revealed it to be available for immediate occupancy and Illya took quick advantage. Work the night before had made it habitable-twenty minutes of muffled carpentry and hardware work by the light of a shaded torch had put a wide-angle peephole in the door of the cabinet where it would pass unnoticed as a glass bead half-set in the wood. He produced from his covered tray a packet of sandwiches and a bottle of ginger beer, and placed the tray discreetly in the bathroom.
Everything else went as if he had choreographed it. The two trained killers entered the office stealthily at 12:13 after knocking twice. At 12:16 the Turk placed a plastic capsule gingerly within the springs of the large brown leather chair, moved it experimentally with his hand, and nodded. At 12:17 they cracked the door, looked around, and left. At 12:17:30 Illya had the bolt drawn on the inside of his hide-hole and was scrambling under the chair. At 12:24 he finished his interrupted lunch, and left the office exactly as clean as he had found it. Beneath the cover on the tray he bore rested a bulging packet of thin plastic with a lightly stenciled code number across one end. He passed unnoticed from the command room and down the hall, wondering quietly to himself how long his two pet demons would go unaware that their trap had misfired, and how soon they would begin to become suspicious of continuous failures.
Once again that night he had the dubious pleasure of hearing both ends of a telephone conversation and piecing them together mentally. He'd been scanning the bug in the Thrush suite, as he thought of the assassins' room, when the phone chimed.
"Yes?" Several seconds pause.
"If possible." Several more seconds. "You know the priorities. We will come if nothing interferes."
"Exactly, sir. Good evening." The phone clattered into its cradle and something very like a snort followed the sound closely.
Silverthorne's bug revealed what Illya had expected. It started with the click of the telephone buttons and continued thus:
"You know who this is. Come to my quarters at ten o'clock. I want your help."
"You're using that assignment a little too heavily as an excuse to get out of work I want you for."
"If anything interferes we may just take this whole matter up with the Council."
Four seconds passed, ending with a sudden slight indrawing of breath and the beginning of a muttered imprecation.
High-speed scan showed nothing as the tape sped forward several uneventful hours and stopped smoothly just past a door chime. Familiar voices greeted his tired ears.
The conversation was tiresome, circuitous and politely formal, but it boiled down to a demand by Silverthorne that the two trained Thrush assassins double as a spy service for him.
"I've more or less gone so far as to put money on you, in fact. Dodgson was awfully quick to accept the offer, and he placed the bet high. I'm certain he has some kind of plan he's relying on. It's only one week before the Game is due to conclude-he probably has prepared the outline for his final drive. I must have that outline, without his knowledge."
Silence, while Illya imagined sharp black eyes glancing back and forth, balancing factors and weighing choices.
"We are sincerely sorry sir, that we cannot help you in this. We beg you not to ask us again to depart from the path of duty. Our mission has met with minor setbacks, and we too work within a limited time. Please do not forget which is the game and which is real."
"In other words, sir, if we were caught in something like that, we would be discharged from the Park and our real work would be left undone. One of the Basic Directives is Take No Unnecessary Chances."
"You're experts; blast your mealy-mouthed modesty-you're two of the best in the world! Do you mean to tell me it would be at all dicey for you to do a little looking around in a man's room? He'll have it written down somewhere. I'm not asking you to kidnap him and torture a confession out of him!"
A longer pause, while faint sibilants indicated quiet conferral. "The best we can do, sir, is to promise you that as soon as our first duty has been accomplished we will be completely at your disposal."
"We also beg to remind you, sir, that interruptions delay our conscientious efforts towards this goal." The lighter voice picked up the cue like a trained actor-which in some senses he must have been.
Silverthorne cleared his throat roughly, and his voice itched with barely suppressed anger. "Very well. You will be free to move unencumbered until you finish whatever you're here to do. But I charge you now to report to me as soon as you are free."
The Turk's voice was calm as he said, "Perhaps tomorrow morning, sir. We must see what the day brings."
"So let it be, then. You may go."
They went, and Illya scanned briefly ahead to check that nothing further was said before his subject settled do for the night. His neck was stiff when he finally slipped the light plastic earphones from his head and rubbed his aching ears.
Silverthorne wasn't the type that took well to being frustrated. Would he keep after the Thrush assassins to do his spying, or might he even attempt it himself?
As a guest he had a freedom of movement outside which they, as employees, would be hard put to match. But would he be foolish (or confident) enough to risk the disastrous shame of being caught cheating?
It wasn't enough, Illya thought, that he had to keep two experts from killing Waverly; now he had to help him keep his military secrets. Idly, in the back of his mind, he started calculating time-and-a-half for two weeks, and wondering if it was really worth it.
Illya's suspicions were well founded. The following night his bug played him both ends of Silverthorne's casual afternoon call to Waverly inviting himself over for the evening, and he caught the tail end of a conversation on his last unit that put the last straw on a back-breaking day. The tape came up on the sound of a door opening and voices fading in.
"… to make another try. Perhaps the bungalow again."
"But the window alarms will not make it easy. There is no rush; we have yet eleven days. The food is good, the beds are soft, and the water is sweet."
"Mmmmmmm..."
"It is worth taking the time to do a professional job."
"It is. The bungalow again, then."
"But with care. Our old fox is wily, though he may be off his guard. And his good fortune exceeds my imagination! The disturbance around his cottage, which I insist we should have ignored-and whatever happened to the gas capsule?"
"It must have fallen to the floor and been swept up with the dirt, which means it will be burned or buried. Either way it is unlikely to misfire or to be discovered and linked to us."
"Is it possible we could be spied upon?"
"No. You know the security system here; everything is guaranteed clean!"
The voices faded to and fro as they talked, and at this point the shower was turned on, muffling all other sounds. Illya flicked a switch and the roar rose to a hiss that ended in a second of babble, then silence. Bed time, hit the rewind button.
Illya mentally repeated Mr. Simpson's assurance that the bug would be indetectable while not actually transmitting. He was sure about his own cover as Klaus Rademeyer, but if they found a bug they'd be looking hard enough to pierce it. On the other hand, if they expended their energies in a spy-hunt they'd be a little less inclined to concentrate quite so much attention on getting Waverly.
"Life," said Illya to himself, "is not as simple as crossing a field." And he started dismantling his gear for the night.
Silverthorne arrived on Mr. Dodgson's doorstep precisely at six, with dinner to be delivered at seven. Their conversation tended to steer away from the subject of their Game onto relatively safer topics such as Rhodesian Independence and American Involvement in Southeast Asia.
As they talked idly and toyed with dinner and brandy, Silverthorne used every opportunity to study Dodgson's possessions. Each time his host was absent from the room, he would seize the opportunity to acquaint himself more intimately with several objects. He peered into a vase, glanced under two table mats and ran an inquisitive hand under the edge of the desk. Moving idly about the room he eyed the few books with which the shelves had been stocked from the Park library. They might bear looking into....
In another free moment he checked the backs of three pictures, taking care that each was hanging straight when he left it. His dark eyes darted around the room, considering the upholstery-too hard to get at; concealed paneling-worth a check later; the books-they'd take time to search; the bricks of the fireplace-a good bet.
He would have to gain access to the cottage some time when the occupant was out for several hours. A master key was no problem, and the built-in burglar alarms were probably identical with his own. The next afternoon, then. Dodgson would be at the Lodge from two o'clock until the dinner hour for a physical therapy session.
"The problem, of course," said the host as he returned to the room, "is that the British blockade doesn't seem to be effective."
"On the contrary," Silverthorne said, picking up the interrupted conversation smoothly, "there is every reason to believe the continental subtle attritions are having their effect already."
Only the drone of insects in the trees broke the forest stillness as Silverthorne easily let himself into #35 and looked around its carpeted quietude as he eased the door shut behind him. A small device came out of his pocket as he moved to the fireplace.
For several seconds he occupied himself running it carefully over the surface of the bricks, then rose, looking around. He passed the gadget along the wall between the main room and the kitchenette, sweeping it in a pattern which covered every square foot. He repeated this across the other interior walls, and then around the window frames in the outer walls.
At last he turned to the bookshelves, pocketing the silent box. Only a few dozen volumes stood there: historical, technical and a few fictional. Carefully, one at a time, Silverthorne took each from its place, opened it and flipped through the pages. Waverly's notes could be on a single sheet of paper, rolled or folded and hidden almost anywhere that would admit of easy access.
A small volume of fiction felt oddly light to his hand when he lifted it, and as he attempted to open it his fingers found the pages fixed together in a solid mass. A moment later he had the cover open and saw the empty hollow space that lay within. He knew almost instinctively that the plans he wanted either had lain here in the past or would lie here in the near future-quite possibly both. He studied the book, turning it over in his hands, fixing its appearance in his mind.
The dust jacket was a muted brown with faded lettering: The Purloined Letter and Other Tales by E. A. Poe, which brought a slight smile to the burglar's face. Somehow typical of the old fox, he thought. What a book to hide something in.
He replaced it, and continued his check perfunctorily. The rest of the books contained no surprises, and the walls behind them proved innocent of concealed spaces. The desk was clean.
He looked once again around the apartment after his quick scan of the two other rooms and nodded. Dodgson could carry everything he needed in the book and consider it safe from discovery. Reasonably safe-but not quite safe enough. Not from Silverthorne.