‘Will you accept my reassurance that, in the present case, your own name is known to only three people?’

‘What about the shipment of arms?’

‘That was known to a whole raft of folk, coming in the way it did as a standard bit of intelligence. But all this is straying off the point, Cal, because the only real one is: are you in or not?’

‘Sorry to be a spoilsport, old chum, but it’s chapter and verse or no can do. I need to know where you stand with those for whom you work and what the risks of exposure are once an operation is in place.’

Peter drained his drink and stared out to sea for half a minute, obviously weighing up the odds of being open, and his voice was low and for once forcefully earnest as he finally spoke.

‘I am going to tell you, because I trust you, Cal, but I do want you to know there is not another soul in the world to whom I would impart what I am about to say.’

‘I’m flattered,’ Cal said, his surprise evident. ‘Given we have not always seen eye to eye and we have been, how shall I say, on opposite sides of most arguments.’

Peter now looked like a man who had been put on an embarrassing spot, not blushing exactly but close to it; if there was one area where he was utterly typical in the possession of a national characteristic, it was in anything to do with any revelation of personal regard for another man.

‘I don’t dislike you, if that is what you are driving at, which was not always a statement I could readily and honestly have made before our little escapade in Hamburg and what followed. You are, without doubt, one of the most awkward buggers it has ever been my misfortune to deal with, but I do not think you will betray a confidence.’

Having gone as far as he was prepared to nail their relationship and got a complicit nod he felt secure to carry on. ‘When it comes to how bad things are in SIS I have not told you the half of it. In order to seal off the possibility of being wrong-footed, Quex has set up a separate bureau.’ Seeing the eyebrows rise at the name, Peter added, ‘Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, boss of MI6, or SIS if you prefer. “Quex” is his nickname.’

‘I won’t ask why.’

‘I am part of that bureau, code-named Operation Z, which is housed in a separate set of offices to the main body—’

Cal cut across him. ‘And in order not to alert those considered unreliable you cannot use the normal facilities of the main organisation, like the acquisition of false documentation on which to travel?’

‘If I had asked for a false passport it would have set minds wondering about what I was up to.’

‘Which should be none of their business.’

‘My dear chap, when it comes to being nosy SIS would not give ground to the most assiduous suburban curtain twitcher – hardly surprising when you consider it, given the job we all do entails sniffing out secrets other people want to keep.’

‘In the end, obviously, even taking those precautions did not work, Peter, and if what you have just told me is true, then where you had come from and where you were headed to was definitely leaked in London, and whoever did it either knew or guessed what you were on the trail of.

‘It saddens me to say that you are very probably correct, though I’m damned if I know how or whom.’

‘You went to Brno and, I presume, talked to the SIS contact there?’

‘I did.’

‘Then some bugger did as you did and put two and two together. Christ knows there’s not much more there to interest British intelligence in Brno other than an arms factory. Who, apart from you, is staffing this new lot?’

‘A couple of chaps like me, dragged back in, and even they are being kept in the dark about what I’m up to, just as their operations are a mystery to me. The idea is to avoid those on station at the various embassies as well, and seek to get information from the people carrying out business in those places in which we are interested. Naturally, what most are doing is legit, but one who is not, such as your good self, could be a priceless asset.’

‘Your idea?’ Peter nodded. ‘I take it this old lot are not too enamoured of what your boss is up to with his new incarnation.’

‘They’re bloody livid.’

‘Enough to seek to queer the pitch and get you and I killed?’

‘Not me, old boy, for in their wildest dreams they would not imagine that I would get so close to the actual movement of weapons.’

‘Me, then.’

‘In your case it would, to such people and should the information surface, be a pleasure to have done so. You may well see yourself as some kind of “holy warrior”, but you might be surprised at the number of folk that observe you in quite a different light.’

‘They don’t seem to be too fond of you either, Peter, because whatever you say, you too could have been killed and no one seemed concerned enough to tell you so.’

‘Sadly, no.’

‘But the question remains, say I agreed to go back to Czechoslovakia, what am I looking to do?’

‘Find the means to stop Jerry,’ Peter replied, ‘and for the love of God do not mention the Russians again.’

Now it was Cal’s turn to stare into the middle distance for several seconds, while he weighed his words. ‘Perhaps your best hope lies in Germany, not Czechoslovakia. Adolf is round the bend but I got a hint from a contact in Prague his generals are not. What they don’t want is another war until they are good and ready, and that to them means another ten years at least.’

‘SIS is more interested in what you think about the Czechs.’

‘While I think you need to get back to London and find out who set the Jeunesses Patriotes on to your mission, because someone did and they did not give a damn how many people might be killed in the process.’

‘And you?’

‘Gentlemen,’ called the dark-skinned steward, before Cal could respond, ‘the captain wishes you to know that dinner is about to be served.’

‘I need to know,’ Peter insisted.

‘And I need to eat, sleep on it and think.’ Seeing his companion swell with the air needed to blast him, Cal added, with exaggerated politeness, ‘And I do think it would be bad manners to keep our host waiting, don’t you, old boy?’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lying in an upper bunk inside a stifling cabin, with Peter Lanchester gently snoring below him, his nasal rasping accompanying the steady rhythmic thud and vibrations of the ship’s engines, Callum Jardine was thinking, and not of the dangers he might face in doing what had been asked of him; one question that mattered kept recurring, without him being able to nail a definitive conclusion: could he be of any practical use?

He did have some contacts in Czechoslovakia and they were pretty good, the most important in this regard being the twin heads of both Czech Foreign and Domestic Intelligence whom he had met very briefly – he suspected they were determined to check him out, which was a necessary precaution for a country threatened by powerful neighbours.

The one who approximated to the head of MI5 had been a rather brusque character called Colonel Doležal, whose only concern was that the weapons should get off Czech soil as soon as possible, without wind of the shipment getting to any other body than those who were the end recipients, while he sought assurances that once delivered the secret would remain that.

The Foreign Intelligence chief he had found the more amenable, but that was, he suspected, because General František Moravec wanted something. In that murky world of international espionage and gunrunning, especially where money was involved, the notion of truth was not a given – people lied or acted for profit and sometimes did not care a damn what mess they left behind.

He had found the Czechs to be pretty straight as a rule – there had been no requirement for bribes – and in any case, people like Moravec did not provide aid in clandestine operations for payment.