Undercover by Bill James Read Free Book Online

with double O not the “une”,’ Harpur had answered.
    Maud said now: ‘You’ll have the full backing of the Home Office.’
    â€˜Oh, God,’ Iles said.
    â€˜On the night, who knew what was going on, Maud?’ Harpur asked.
    â€˜Perhaps only Abidan,’ she said. ‘And the chief, L.P. Young, naturally. There was little drugs trading done at the mall. Very unlikely Scray would be there. It appears that Young wanted to fix a suitable route for Tom, so he gets that pitch.’
    â€˜But none of this came out in the trial, did it?’ Harpur said.
    â€˜The trial was about something else entirely, wasn’t it?’ Maud said.
    â€˜And nobody charged for the death of Parry,’ Harpur said.
    â€˜Quite,’ Maud replied.
    â€˜Quite,’ Iles said.

SEVEN
    BEFORE
    I f they decided to kill
,
you had to go along with it
.
Pack law
.
Basic
.
Anyone who went undercover knew this
.
    Yes, of course, Thomas Rodney Mallen did know this, but it was a while before he had to apply such obvious, tidy undercover wisdom to how he actually behaved. You didn’t just stroll into the realm of secret duty and its special, non-stop moral puzzles. And into its special strains and perils – also non-stop. They’d come up with a new name for him, Thomas Derek Parry, and it would take a while to acclimatize. Undercover people often kept their first name, but
only
their first name; and only their first name if it was reasonably common: not Peregrine or Putsy-Pie or Sacheverell.
    For years – decades – as children and young adults at home and in school, present-day undercover officers had responded automatically to that first name. So, to stick with it now in these hairy conditions reduced by a fraction the amount of play-acting needed, and therefore a fraction of the stress. Also, the name helped an undercover snoop hang on to a portion of his or her true identity, and in a protracted operation that could be useful: selfhood sometimes turned shaky then, like:
who the fuck am I?
    Iris and both the children said he shouldn’t take on this change of duties. Naturally, Laura and Steve could have no real understanding of what it was about, but they’d been warned he might have to go away for long spells, and that disturbed them. Also, Tom sensed they’d noticed how his mention of the new duties badly upset their mother. Her agitation spread. Iris was very close to the kids, and they to Iris, so her feelings inevitably reached them; like osmosis, an absorbent process, but faster. Tom thought this was how a good family should be, but it did mean that on some issues he’d feel outgunned, three to one, which now and then pissed him off. Now.
    Their objections wouldn’t make him change, though. The brass had sent someone to ask Tom to do it, and he’d said he’d do it. You didn’t get ordered into undercover. You volunteered. You accepted, if and when invited. Not many officers
were
invited. The role brought kudos. 1 Tom wouldn’t mind some of that. The role brought a kind of independence. Tom wouldn’t mind some of that, either. Once you’d infiltrated a firm, you had to run things as you wanted them run. Interference from senior officers wasn’t possible, because it might crack the spy’s cover.
    Tom’s willingness – enthusiasm – would make it worse for Iris and the children to take, of course. He’d opted to go. He’d actually chosen to leave them, for who knew how long? He didn’t really think it would be a dolly job and quickly over. There’d be more training, then the slow business of getting into the target crew, followed by the harvesting of information that made the slow business of getting into the target crew necessary and worthwhile.
    Undercover people weren’t supposed to tell even their spouse/partner about assignments. Tom considered this nuts. It would require someone superlatively dim