The Contract by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online Page B

wooden banister. He walked around the hall, and his feet sank into the pile of the carpet, his eyes on the pictures that were strewn over the timber panelling. They'd have plotted the subverting of the Bolshevik revolution in a place like this.
    Nothing would have changed. Extraordinary people, these hidden creatures of the Service. Perhaps the pond they now looked into was too filthy, too slimed for their own hands, and so they needed a contract man to do their work, they'd have an outsider in for the job. And afterwards they'd let him wash and perhaps they'd wave a polite farewell and perhaps they would say he had done well and let him stay for more.
    ' I hope you slept well, Mr Donoghue?'
    Johnny spun round. Caught off balance, caught dreaming. Henry Carter was standing in the doorway that led to the dining room.
    'Thank you, yes ... I didn't know anyone else was up . . .'
    'We didn't want to disturb you, we thought we'd let you wake in your own good time.'
    Johnny looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes to eight. He blushed.
    There's some breakfast in here, if you'd like it,' Carter said. 'We don't usually have much at lunchtime. It'll keep you going till the evening. Mr Mawby's coming down then.'
    Carter showed Johnny into the dining room. They sat down by the window.
    Of the four other tables only one was occupied. A boy with a face that once had known the sun and a man opposite him who toyed with his teacup, heavily built and expressionless. Neither spoke.
    The housekeeper emerged from a far door, advanced across the linoleum floor.
    'Eggs and bacon for Mr Donoghue, I should think, Mrs Ferguson,'
    Carter said.
    Johnny agreed. That was the way it was going to be. He would be told his rest hours, told his work, told what to eat. Carter leaned forward, conspiratorial. 'Over there, that's the lad we're working on. Junior interpreter on the Soviet delegation of the disarmament chat in Geneva.
    Defected a bit over a week ago because the English girl he was taking out said she was pregnant and life couldn't go on without the two of them being together. It's not him that interests us. His father's the prime one.

    Dad was taken to the Soviet Union after the war along with a truckful of scientists and he's made his name there on the ATGW programme . . .
    you know what that is, Anti-Tank Guided Weapons.'
    Memories for Johnny, memories of 'I' Corps days. ' I know.'
    'He's specialised in MCLOS, you read that?'
    Johnny nodded. ' I know what that is.'
    'Well that's about all I can tell you.' Carter chuckled. 'Nothing changes in the Service. There are the princes, the God Almighties . . . that's Charles Mawby, and there are the carriers of pitchers of water. I lug buckets around and do what I'm told and that way if it spills then I don't get it in the neck . . .' Carter paused, looked again at Johnny, and keenly.
    'You were a German specialist in Intelligence?'
    'Army Intelligence.'
    'But a specialist in German theatre?'
    'For seven years.'
    'Fluent?'
    'Grade five.'
    'What does that mean ?'
    'Grade four and five classify you as having colloquial capability. It means you can pass as a citizen.'
    There was a little gleam of understanding from Carter, as if another jigsaw piece had slid into place. The housekeeper carried in a laden plate for Johnny. Carter seemed not to notice, absorbed in what he had heard. Johnny began to eat, fast and without finesse.
    ' I was listening to what the two who brought you here last night were saying, you were upstairs unpacking your bag.' Carter was now companionable, sympathetic. 'They said that you had a bit of bother over in Ireland . . .'
    'Right.'Johnny, mouth full and brusque.
    'Well, that's all behind you.'
    If it could ever be behind him, if it could ever be forgotten. Maeve O'Connor aged 15 years, not old enough to wear mascara, the girl blasted to death by the single shot from Johnny Donoghue's Armalite. It would never be forgotten.
    Johnny finished his food, swilled the last of his coffee and