Billion-Dollar Brain by Len Deighton Read Free Book Online Page A

through the trays.
    ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. I spent all day Saturday going through the “information onlys” and making a précis on tape.’
    ‘I’m sorry, love. This Newbegin business has come up just at the wrong time. Without that we could probably have brought all the desk-work up to date. Have you checked out that all these files are ours, as you so cleverly suggested?’
    ‘Forget the flattery,’ Jean said. ‘Yes; we’ve got rid of some of them, but a lot of it comes up here because of your high security clearance. I have a new idea for that.’
    ‘Give.’
    ‘Well, some of these files marked with secret codings are really not even confidential, but they originated in a secret file, so everything subsequently bearing that file number is automatically secret. If you will authorize me to break some of these omnibus files into sub-files with separatenumbers, a lot of them will no longer be secret and can be handled downstairs. What’s more, it’s much more efficient to have sub-files because two departments can work on two aspects of the same problem at the same time if they each have a subfile.’
    ‘Genius,’ I said. ‘Now I know why I love you.’
    ‘You don’t love anyone. Not even yourself.’
    ‘You know I couldn’t help it. I had to wait until the passport was ready.’
    ‘I spent hours cooking all your favourite things; you arrived at one A.M. ’
    ‘I had all my favourite things at one A.M. ’
    She didn’t answer.
    ‘I’m forgiven?’
    ‘We can’t go on like this indefinitely.’
    ‘I know,’ I said. Neither of us spoke for ages.
    Jean finally said, ‘I know that this sort of work…Well I wouldn’t want you to stop. Even when it’s dangerous…’
    ‘It’s nothing like that, lover. I’m not going to get myself hurt. I’m a cautious coward with too much survival training.’
    Jean said, ‘Even good drivers get killed when amateurs ram them; I think Harvey Newbegin is a clumsy amateur. You must be very careful.’
    ‘Don’t make me even more neurotic. Newbegin has a good record with the Defense Department and the State Department. The Americans don’t hang on to a man that long unless he’s worth his money.’
    ‘I just don’t trust him,’ said Jean with that stubborn feminine intuition. She came close and I put an arm around her.
    ‘Just because he pinched your bottom at the White Elephant Club,’ I said.
    ‘And a lot of help you were. You did nothing.’
    ‘That’s my speciality,’ I said, ‘I always do nothing.’

Chapter 5
    I left the office at six that night. Jean’s brother was on one of his rare visits to London and they were going out to dinner, but Dawlish thought I should stay available. So I went back to my flat and cooked bacon and eggs and sat in front of the fire with Vol. 2 of Fuller’s Decisive Battles and read about the siege of Yorktown. It was a pleasant evening until 8.15, when the phone rang.
    The Charlotte Street operator said, ‘Scramble please.’ Before I had a scrambler fitted I had to do stand-by duties at the office. I pressed the button. Dawlish said, ‘The boy has turned up trumps apparently.’
    ‘Why apparently?’ I said.
    ‘The fellow who followed you is down on the river,’ said Dawlish ignoring my question. ‘We shall have to pass your way. We will pick you up in fifteen minutes.’ Dawlish rang off abruptly. I knew he had the same doubts about Chico’s abilities as I had, but he was determined todemonstrate to me the proper loyal attitude to one’s subordinates.
    Dawlish arrived at 8.37. He was in a black Wolseley driven by one of our ex-police drivers. With Dawlish there was Bernard, one of the brighter of the public-school boys we had recruited of late, and a man named Harriman.
    Harriman was a big, hard man who looked more like a doorman than a lieutenant-colonel from Special Field Intelligence. His hair was black and tight against his bony skull. His skin was wrinkled and leather-like, and his teeth