A Matter of Honour (43 page)

“Around midnight tonight.”

“Do you always give a girl so much notice?”

The young KGB officer standing in the
adjoining box had caught most of the conversation. He smiled when he recalled
Major Romanov’s words: “The man who brings me the Tsar’s icon need have no fear
for his future in the KGB.”

Adam jumped back in the car and drove on
until he reached the outskirts of Beauvais, where he decided to stop at a
wayside
routier
for a quick lunch.

According to the timetable he had picked up
from the Hertz counter, the ferry he wanted to catch was due to leave Boulogne
at three o’clock, so he felt confident he would still make it with about an
hour to spare.

He sat hidden in an alcove by the window
enjoying what might have been described in any English pub as a ploughman’s
lunch. With each mouthful he became aware that the French ploughmen demanded
far higher standards of their innkeepers than any English farmworker was happy
to settle for.

As he waited for his coffee he took out
Albert Tomkins’s papers from his inside pocket and began to scrutinise them
carefully. He was interested to discover exactly how many weeks he had been
claiming unemployment benefit.

Through the window of the inn he watched the
first of the cyclists as they pedalled by.
The athletes’
muscles strained in their determination to remain among the leading group.
As they shot through Beauvais, Adam was amused by the fact that they were all
breaking the speed limit. The sight of the competitors reminded him that he was
expected to attend the final part of his medical for the Foreign Office
tomorrow afternoon.

Romanov read the decoded message a second
time.
“Scott returning Geneva.
Check German girl and
bank.” He looked up at the senior KGB officer who had handed him the missive.

“Does Mentor think I’m that naive?” said
Romanov to his Parisian colleague. “We already know from our agent in Amsterdam
that he’s now on his way towards the French coast.”

“Then why should Mentor want to send you in
the opposite direction?”

“Because it must be him who’s been briefing
the Americans,” said Romanov coldly.

Romanov turned to the colonel who was
standing by his side. “We know it can’t be Dunkerque, so how many other
possibilities are we left with?”

“Cherbourg, Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, or
Calais,” replied the colonel, looking down at the map laid out on the table in
front of him. “My bet would be Calais,” he added.

“Unfortunately,” said Romanov, “Captain
Scott is not quite
that
simple. And
as the motorway takes you direct to Calais, the captain will expect us to have
that part of his route well covered. I think our friend will try Boulogne or
Dieppe first.”

He checked the timetable the Second
Secretary had supplied him with. “The first boat he could hope to catch leaves
Boulogne for Dover at three, and then there’s one from Dieppe to Newhaven at
five.”

Romanov also checked Calais and Le Havre. “Good.
Calais left at twelve this morning, and as he phoned the girl after twelve he
had no hope of catching that one. And Le Havre doesn’t leave until seven
fifteen tonight, and he won’t risk leaving it that late. Assuming we can beat
him to the coast, Colonel, I think Captain Scott is once again within our
grasp.”

Once Adam had left the
relais routier
it was only minutes before he began to catch up with
the straggling cyclists as they pedalled on towards Abbeville. His thoughts
reverted to Romanov. Adam suspected that his agents would have the airports,
stations, autoroute and ports well covered. But even the KGB could not be in
fifty places at once.

Adam took the Boulogne route out of
Abbeville but had to remain in the centre of the road to avoid the bobbing
cyclists. He even had to slam his brakes on once when an Italian and a British
rider collided in front of him. The two men, both travelling at some speed,
were thrown unceremoniously to the ground. The British rider remained ominously
still on the side of the road.

Adam felt guilty about not stopping to help
his fellow countryman but feared that any hold-up might prevent him catching
his boat. He spotted the British team van ahead of him and speeded up until he
was alongside. Adam waved at the driver to pull over.

The man behind the steering wheel looked
surprised but stopped and wound down the window. Adam pulled up in front of
him, leaped out of his car and ran to the van.

“One of your chaps has had an accident about
a mile back,” shouted Adam, pointing towards Paris.

“Thanks, mate,” said the driver who turned
round and sped quickly back down the road.

Adam continued to drive on at a sedate speed
until he had passed all the leaders. Then, once again, he put the car into top
gear. A signpost informed him that it was now only thirty-two kilometres to
Boulogne: he would still make the three o’clock sailing comfortably.

He began to imagine what it might be like if
he could survive beyond Monday. Would his life ever be routine again? Jogs in
the park, Foreign Office interviews, workouts with the sergeant major and even
the acknowledgment of the part he had played in delivering the icon into safe
hands. The problem was that he hadn’t yet decided who had safe hands.

A helicopter looking like a squat green
bullfrog swept over him; now that would be the ideal way to get back to
England, Adam considered. With help like that he could even make it to Harley
Street in time for his medical for the Foreign Office.

He watched as the helicopter turned and
swung back towards him. He assumed that there must be a military airport
somewhere nearby, but couldn’t remember one from his days in the army. A few
moments later he heard the whirl of the blades as the helicopter flew across
his path at a considerably lower level. Adam gripped the wheel of the car until
his knuckles went white as an impossible thought crossed his mind. As he did so
the helicopter swung back again, and this time flew straight towards him.

Adam wound the window up and crouching over
the top of the steering wheel, stared into the sky. He could see the
silhouetted outline of three figures sitting in the helicopter cockpit. He
banged his fist on the steering wheel in anger as he realised how easy it must
have been for them to trace a car signed for in the one name they would
immediately recognise. He could sense Romanov’s smile of triumph as the chopper
hovered above him.

Adam saw a signpost looming up ahead of him
and swung off the main road towards a village called Fleureville. He pushed the
speedometer well over ninety causing the little car to skid along country
lanes.

The helicopter likewise swung to the right,
and dog-like followed his path.

Adam took a hard left and only just avoided
colliding with a tractor coming out of a newly ploughed field. He took the next
right and headed back towards the Boulogne road, desperately trying to think
what he could do next. Every time he looked up the helicopter was there above
him: he felt like a puppet dancing on the end of Romanov’s string.

A road sign depicting a low tunnel ahead
flashed past them and Adam dismissed the melodramatic idea of trying to make
them crash; he didn’t need reminding that it was he who was proving to be the
novice.

When he first saw the tunnel he estimated it
to be sixty or seventy yards in length. Although it was quite wide, a
double-decker bus could not have entered it without the upstairs passengers
ending up walking on the bridge.

For a brief moment Adam actually felt safe.
He slammed on the little Citroen’s brakes and skidded to a halt about thirty
yards from the end of the tunnel. The car ended up almost scraping the side of
the wall. He switched on his side lights and they flashed brightly in the
darkness. For several seconds he watched as approaching cars slowed down before
safely overtaking him.

At last he jumped out of the car and ran to
the end of the tunnel where he pinned himself against the wall. The helicopter
had travelled on some way, but was already turning back, and heading straight
towards the tunnel. Adam watched it fly over his head, and moments later heard
it turn again. As he waited, two hitch-hikers passed by on the other side,
chatting away to themselves, oblivious to Adam’s predicament.

He looked across desperately at the two
young men and shouted, “Were you hoping to thumb a lift?”

“Yes,” they called back in unison. Adam
staggered across the road to join them.

“Are you all right?” Adam heard one of them
ask but he could hardly make out which one as his eyes had not yet become
accustomed to the darkness.

“No, I’m not,” Adam explained simply. “I
drank too much wine at lunch and because of a cycle race the road is just
crawling with police. I’m sure to be picked up if I go much further. Can either
of you drive?”

“I only have my Canadian licence,” said the
taller of the two youths. “And in any case we are heading for Paris and your
car is facing the opposite direction.”

“It’s a Hertz Rent-a-Car,” Adam explained. “I
picked it up on the Rue St Ferdinand this morning, and I have to return it by
seven tonight. I don’t think I can make it in my present state.”

The two young men looked at him
apprehensively. “I will give you both one hundred francs if you will return it
safely for me. You see I can’t afford to lose my licence, I’m a commercial
traveller,” Adam explained. Neither of them spoke. “My papers are all in order,
I can assure you.” Adam handed them over to the taller man who crossed back
over the road and used the car lights to study Albert Tomkins’s licence and
insurance before carying on a conversation with his friend.

Adam could hear the helicopter blades
whirling above the tunnel entrance.

“We don’t need the hundred francs,” the
taller one said eventually. “But we will need a note from you explaining why we
are returning the car to Hertz in Paris on your behalf.” Adam pulled out the
colonel’s pen and, feeling remarkably sober, he bent over the hood of the car
and scribbled on the back of the Hertz agreement.

“Do you want to come back to Paris with us?”

Adam hesitated fractionally. Couldn’t they
hear the noise too? “No. I have to get to Boulogne.”

“We could drive you to Boulogne and still
have enough time to take the car to Paris.”

“No, no. That’s very considerate. I can take
care of myself as long as I feel confident that the car will be delivered back
as soon as possible.”

The taller one shrugged while his companion
opened a rear door and threw their rucksacks on the back seat. Adam remained in
the tunnel while they started up the engine. He could hear the purr of the
helicopter blades change cadence: it had to be descending to land in a nearby
field.

Go, go, for God’s sake go, he wanted to
shout as the car shot forward towards Boulogne. He watched them travel down the
road for about a hundred yards before turning in at a farm entrance, reversing,
and heading back towards the tunnel. They tooted as they passed him in the
dark, disappearing in the direction of Paris. Adam sank down on to his knees
with relief and was about to pick himself up and start walking towards Boulogne
when he saw two figures silhouetted at the far entrance of the tunnel. Against
the clear blue sky he could make out the outline of two tall, thin men. They
stood peering into the tunnel. Adam didn’t move a muscle, praying they hadn’t
spotted him.

And then suddenly one of them started
walking towards him, while the other remained motionless. Adam knew he could
not hope to escape again. He knelt there cursing his own stupidity. In seconds
they would be able to see him clearly.

“Don’t let’s waste any more valuable time,
Marvin,
we already know that the limey bastard’s heading
back to Paris.”

“I just thought perhaps...” began the one
called Marvin in a Southern drawl.

“Leave the thinking to me. Now let’s get
back to the chopper before we lose him.”

When Marvin was only twenty yards away from
Adam he suddenly stopped, turned around and began running back.

Adam remained rooted to the spot for several
minutes. A cold, clammy sweat had enveloped his body the moment he realised his
latest pursuer was not Romanov. If one of them hadn’t referred to him as a ‘limey
bastard’, Adam would have happily given himself up. Suddenly he had become
painfully aware of the difference between fact and fiction: he had been left
with no friends.

Adam did not move again until he heard the
helicopter rise above him. Peering out, he could see outlined against the arc
of the tunnel the Americans heading back in the direction of Paris.

He staggered outside and put a hand across
his eyes. The sunlight seemed much fiercer than a few minutes before. What
next? He had less than an hour to catch the boat but no longer had any
transport. He wasn’t sure whether to thumb lifts, search for a bus stop, or
simply get as far away from the main road as possible. His eyes were
continually looking up into the sky. How long before they reached the car, and
realised it was not him inside?