A Delicate Truth by John le Carré Read Free Book Online

battle plan. Land and sea
     units converge. Jesus fuck, Jeb, have you forgotten your fucking orders?’
    ‘You know very well what my orders
     are, Elliot. They’re what they were from the start. Find, fix and finish. We
     haven’t found
Punter
, we’ve seen a light. We can’t fix him
     till we’ve found him and we’ve no PID worth a damn.’
    PID? Though he detests initials,
     enlightenment comes: Positive Identification.
    ‘So there’s no finishing and
     there’s no convergence,’ Jeb is insisting to Elliot in the same steady tone.
     ‘Not till I agree, there isn’t. We’re not shooting at each other in
     the dark, thank you. Confirm you copy me, please. Elliot, did you hear what I just
     said?’
    Still no answer, as Quinn returns in a
     flurry.
    ‘Paul? That light inside house seven. You
     saw it? You had
eyes-on
?’
    ‘I did. Yes. Eyes-on.’
    ‘Once?’
    ‘I believe I saw it twice, but
     indistinctly.’
    ‘It’s
Punter
.
Punter
’s in there. At this minute. In house seven. That was
Punter
holding a hand torch, crossing the room. You saw his arm. Well,
     didn’t you? You saw it, for Christ’s sake. A human arm. We all
     did.’
    ‘We saw an arm, but the arm is subject
     to identification, Nine. We’re still waiting for
Aladdin
to turn up.
     He’s lost, and there’s no indication that he’s on his way here.’
     And catching Jeb’s eye: ‘We’re also waiting for proof that
Punter
is on the premises.’
    ‘Paul?’
    ‘Still here, Nine.’
    ‘We’re re-planning. Your job is
     to keep the houses in plain sight. House seven particularly. That’s an order.
     While we re-plan. Understood?’
    ‘Understood.’
    ‘You see anything out of the ordinary
     with the naked eye that the cameras may have missed, I need to know instantly.’
     Fades and returns. ‘You’re doing an excellent job, Paul. It will not go
     unnoticed. Tell Jeb. That’s an order.’
    They’re becalmed, but he feels no
     calm.
Aladdin
’s vanishing act has cast its spell over the hide. Elliot
     may be repositioning his aerial cameras but they’re still scanning the town,
     homing at random on stray cars and abandoning them. His ground cameras are still
     offering now the marina, now the entrance to the tunnel, now stretches of empty coast
     road.
    ‘Come on, you ugly bastard,
show
!’ – Don, to the absent
Aladdin
.
    ‘Too busy having it away, randy
     sod’ – Andy, to himself.
    Aladdin
is waterproof, Paul
, Elliot
     is insisting across his desk inPaddington.
We do not lay one
     single finger on
Aladdin. Aladdin
is fireproof, he is bulletproof. That is
     the solemn deal that Mr Crispin has cut with his highly valuable informant, and Mr
     Crispin’s word to an informant is sacred
.
    ‘Skipper’ – Don again, this time
     with both arms up.
    A motorcyclist is weaving his way along the
     metalled service track, flashing his headlight from side to side. No helmet, just a
     black-and-white keffiyeh flapping round his neck. With his right hand he is steering the
     bike, while his left holds what appears to be a bag by its throat. Swinging the bag as
     he goes along, displaying it, showing it off, look at me. Slender, wasp-waisted. The
     keffiyeh masking the lower part of his face. As he draws level with the centre of the
     terrace his right hand leaves the handlebars and rises in a revolutionist’s
     salute.
    Reaching the end of the service track, he
     seems all set to join the coast road, heading south. Abruptly he turns north, head
     thrust forward over the handlebars, keffiyeh streaming behind him and, accelerating,
     races towards the Spanish border.
    But who cares about a hell-bent motorcyclist
     in a keffiyeh when his black bag sits like a plum pudding in the middle of the metalled
     track, directly in front of the doorway leading to house number seven?
     
    *
     
    The camera has closed on it. The camera
     enlarges it. Enlarges it again.
    It’s a common-or-garden black plastic
     bag, bound at the throat with