The Mission Song by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page B

and welcomed me to what he was pleased to call the honourable company of sound-thieves.

    I will say at once that Mr Anderson’s efforts to dampen my ardour were futile. Crouching in a soundproof cubicle, one of forty, in a secure underground bunker known as the Chat Room—with suave Barney our floor manager in his coloured waistcoats watching over us from his cantilevered balcony—and he calls it meat and potatoes? Girls in jeans to fetch and carry our tapes and transcriptions and, contrary to the known rules of political correctness in the workplace, our cups of tea as well, while one minute I’m listening to a top-ranking Acholi-speaking member of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda plotting by satellite phone to set up a base across the border in East Congo, and the next sweating it out in Dar-es-Salaam docks with the clatter of shipping in the background, and the cries of hawkers, and the in-out hum of a wonky table-fan that’s keeping away the flies, as a murderous bunch of Islamist sympathisers conspire to import an arsenal of anti-aircraft missiles in the guise of heavy machinery? And the very same afternoon being sole ear-witness to a trio of corrupt Rwandan army officers haggling with a Chinese delegation over the sale of plundered Congolese minerals? Or bumping through the honking traffic of Nairobi in the chauffeured limousine of a Kenyan political mogul as he wangles himself a massive bribe for allowing an Indian building contractor to cover five hundred miles of new road with a single paper-thin surface of tarmac guaranteed to last at least two rainy seasons? This isn’t meat and potatoes, Mr Anderson. This is the Holy of Holies!
    But I didn’t let the gleam show, not even to Penelope. If only you knew! I would think to myself, whenever she slapped me down in front of her bosom friend Paula, or went off for one of her weekend conferences that nobody else seemed to attend except her, and came back very quiet and content from all the conferring she’d done. If only you knew that your stuck-in-the-rut, toy-boy husband was on the payroll of British Intelligence!
    But I never weakened. Forget instant gratification. I was doing my duty for England.

    Our Ford Mondeo had skirted Berkeley Square and entered Curzon Street. Passing the cinema, Fred pulled up at the kerbside and leaned over the back of his seat to address me, spy to spy.
    ‘It’s down there, mate,’ he murmured, tipping his head but not pointing in case we were observed. ‘Number 22B, green door hundred yards up on the left. The top bell is marked HARLOW like the town. When they answer, say you’ve got a parcel for Harry.’
    ‘Will Barney be there?’ I asked, momentarily nervous at the prospect of confronting Mr Anderson alone in an unfamiliar environment.
    ‘Barney? Who’s Barney?’
    Chiding myself for asking unnecessary questions, I stepped onto the pavement. A wave of heat rose at me. A swerving cyclist nearly knocked me over and cursed. Fred drove off, leaving me feeling I could have done with more of him. I crossed the road and entered South Audley Street. Number 22B was one of a row of red-brick mansions with steep steps leading up to their front doors. There were six bell buttons, dimly lit. The top one read HARLOW like the town in faded ink. About to press it I was assailed by two conflicting images. One was of Penelope’s head six inches from Thorne the Horn’s fly as she gazed dotingly up at him with her breasts peeping out of her new designer suit. The other was of Hannah’s wide eyes not daring to blink, and her open mouth silently singing her joy as she squeezed the last drops of life out of me on the sofa-bed in her nun’s cell.
    ‘Parcel for Harry,’ I intoned, and watched the magic door open.

    I haven’t described Mr Anderson’s appearance beyond remarking on his similarity to Brother Michael. Like Michael he is a man complete, at once tall and bearish, the features as permanent as lava stone, every movement an