Our Game by John Le Carre

Author:John Le Carre [Carre, John Le]
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780340937693
Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 2010-05-22T17:28:52.515000+00:00

"The mafia."

I played my part for him: "The Italian mafia?" I cried. "But, Ockie, they've got all the guns in the world!"

"You're being stupid deliberately. The Russian mafia. Don't you read the newspapers?"

"But Russia's awash with guns and everything else. The military's been selling them off to all corners for years."

"There's mafias and mafias over there. Maybe there's mafias that want something special and don't want the neighbours looking over their shoulders while they buy it. Maybe there's mafias with hard currency who'd like to pay for a little superiority." He studied Miss Pullen's fact sheet, then his notes. "He's a middleman, your Mr. May. A shyster. If he owns more than one demonstration model of anything, I'd be surprised."

"But which mafia, Ockie? There are dozens."

"That's all I know. Mafias. Officially his client is a major nation that wishes to remain below the skyline, so his nominal end-user is Jordan. Unofficially it's mafia, and he's in over his head."

"why?"

"Because what he's buying is too big for his boots, that's why. He's a scrap dealer is what he is, a greasy scrap dealer. Now all of a sudden he's out there with Stingers, heavy machine guns, antitank, heavy mortars, ammunition like there's no tomorrow, night vision. Where he ships it all to is another story. One says northern Turkey, another Georgia. He's cocky. Dined a friend of mine at Claridges the other night, if you can believe it. I'm surprised they let him in. Here you are. Never trust a man with a lot of addresses."

He shoved a sheaf of papers at me, and I stored them in my briefcase. Ushered by Jason to the dining room, we lunched at a twenty-foot oak table and drank barley water while Ockie Hedges successively dismissed intellectuals, Jews, blacks, the Yellow Peril, and homosexuals with a benign and universal hatred. And Tim Cranmer, he just smiled his rent-a-drool smile and munched his fish, because that was what he had been doing for Ockie Hedges these fifteen years: stroking his little man's vanity, riding out his insults, turning a deaf ear to his bigotries, and paying court to his disgusting calling, in the service of a safer, wiser England.

"Flawed from birth is my view. Subhuman. I'm surprised you boys don't have them shot."

"There'd be no one left, that's the trouble, Ockie."

"Yes, there would. There'd be us. And that's all that's needed."

And after lunch there was the garden to admire, not a petal out of place. There were the latest additions to his collection of antique weaponry, which was kept, like fine wine, in a temperature-controlled cellar reached by a lift designed as a portcullis. So it was after four o'clock by the time he stood on his porch with his arms folded, just another childless old tyrant on a hilltop, glowering after me as I climbed into my humble Ford, with the Union Jack behind him sulking on its flagpole.

"That the best your country can do for you, is it?" he demanded, poking his chin at me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.