Dead Line by Stella Rimington Read Free Book Online Page B

was regretting his decision. The breezy cheerfulness of the long-legged, squeaky clean American girl who collected him on the other side, with her wide grin of perfect, white teeth and her Good morning, sir , did not improve his humour. Utterly sexless, he thought to himself.
    It was five years now since Fane’s marriage had broken up and Adele had gone off to live in Paris with her rich French banker. In some ways it had been a relief. Quite frankly, he could now admit to himself, she had been a drag on his career. She had never taken to being an MI6 wife. She had had no sympathy with his work or any wish to understand it and was merely irritated by the frequent postings abroad and her husband’s mysterious and unpredictable absences.
    All the same, now she was gone he was lonely. He hated the vulnerability and he disguised it. His thoughts often turned to the MI5 woman, Liz Carlyle. She would be an attractive companion. She understood him, he knew -perhaps too well. She appreciated how important his work was. For a time last year he thought they were growing closer, but now that Charles Wetherby was back, it was damned obvious that he was the one she was keen on. What a waste, thought Fane. A dry old stick, Charles, and too cautious by half. Well not old perhaps, he thought ruefully, since Charles was a good five years younger than Fane.
    Down in the depths of the building, in the CIA station, Andy Bokus was waiting for him in his office with Miles Brookhaven, a young CIA officer whom Fane had met only once, a couple of months ago, when Brookhaven had paid his courtesy calls on arrival in the country. Fane, standing taller than either of them, his heron-like figure clad elegantly in a dark grey suit, his tie sporting the discreet stripes by which Englishmen communicate with each other, surveyed them with his sharp blue eyes.
    He had heard about Brookhaven from Bruno Mackay, who’d met him at the Downing Street meeting about the Gleneagles Conference. Fane could take in the man at once: a classic east coast WASP, Anglophile, another Yank keen to show he was at home in Britain - doubtless, like others Fane had known, Brookhaven would soon be pressing him to sign the book on his behalf at the Travellers Club.
    Bokus he found infinitely more interesting, and harder to read. When it came to Americans he preferred someone who was not trying to be a European, someone like Bokus, who had amused Fane when they had had lunch at the Travellers, by asking for a Budweiser. From the framed team photographs lining the office wall, he saw that Bokus had played American football (unsurprising given his bulk and obvious strength) at some university Fane had never heard of, somewhere in the Midwestern sticks. Perhaps that was the origin of his remarkable accent. He didn’t speak English as Fane recognised it, but rather as Fane imagined a stevedore on the Great Lakes might speak. It was an act - wasn’t it? Behind the beefy, balding exterior of the man, Fane suspected - though he couldn’t be sure; he had dealt with some dozy CIA officers - there lay a first-rate intelligence, one with enough confidence not to need to show itself, except when absolutely necessary. It would be very easy to underestimate Mr Andy Bokus, Fane concluded. He might be as stupid as he looked, but there would be no harm in assuming the opposite.
    ‘Gentlemen,’ Fane said now with a practised smile, deciding that if Bokus could act like a professional football player, he would adopt his most patrician manner, ‘it’s most awfully good of you to see me. I don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time, but I thought you’d want to know a little more about what was behind Sir Nicholas’s intervention at the Cabinet Office meeting the day before yesterday. Perhaps we might withdraw and I will expand a little.’
    This was the signal for the three of them to move into the safe room, that insulated bubble that intelligence stations in embassies keep,