The Tamarind Seed by Evelyn Anthony

Author:Evelyn Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Loder’s chief in London was a retired industrialist, who had picked up a title for services to industry after the war, and a D.S.O. plus bar for services of a very distinguished kind during it. He was not an imposing man, not tall or distinguished looking. He had thinning hair and thick spectacles; the only relic of his Army career was a small, neatly trimmed moustache.

He had been a Regular soldier, with peace-time experience of intelligence in the Middle East and India; he had a reputation for flair and personal courage. During the war, when Military Intelligence distinguished itself early on by some disastrous blunders, and the amateurs at S.O.E. were forming into a body, he was then a Brigadier who became incorporated into the larger S.I.S. which fell under Naval direction. He proved to be that rarity in the espionage field, a man of immense courage, who was too intrinsically clever to get caught and die heroically. He was a superb organiser, and with his experience in active operations, not, alas, shared by some of the other Intelligence heads of sections, he knew how much to ask of his agents and how best to use them. He had gone into industry when the war ended, where he applied his talents to various public companies with distinction, and was knighted at what seemed the end of his public life. At that point he became the head of the entire Secret Intelligence Service and moved into the hallowed premises in Queen Anne’s Gate. He gave Loder an appointment late on Friday afternoon. His predecessor would never have graced the office after lunchtime. He had considered the weekend a sacred institution, which nothing short of war should be allowed to interrupt.

‘Sit down, Loder. You look well. Washington agreeing with you?’

‘Yes sir. I get along all right.’

‘Sorry to drag you back at such short notice. We’ve had a No. 1 memo from the Foreign Sec.’ He had a habit, which offended Loder, of shortening words. ‘There’s a real row brewing up. But we’ve got to keep it very much in the family. That’s why I had your wife’s name used on the cable.’

‘I understood that, sir. I let the Embassy know she was ill and I had to come back. It was all covered my end. What’s the trouble?’

‘Middle East. Bloody plague spot it is, too; never anythings but crisis with those people—Jews, Arabs, they’re all the bloody same. Anyway, briefly, there was a move, initiated by the State Department, to get a mediator from Israel to meet one of Egypt’s boys; all completely unofficial, nobody supposed to know, you get the idea? Right. Nothing ventured nothing gained, etc. The Israeli Government was willing, so long as nobody could say they were climbing down; they had a special man lined up to do it; the Arabs had let it be known that an Egyptian might just happen to be on neutral ground at the same time, and provided nothing official was known about it either, the two of them could talk.

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