Samson 06 - Charity by Len Deighton

Author:Len Deighton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-04-16T01:17:39+00:00

He waited until the door was closed. ‘About last night: the dead man.’ He looked down at the neatly arranged contents of his document case. ‘I thought you should know that the Soviets had been dealing with that German renegade for years; at least two years.’ Bret said this like a sudden and surprise announcement. It was clearly something he wanted over and done with quickly.

Bret looked up at me and waited for this to sink in. I nodded and noted the way in which the Swede, who had risked his life for us countless times, had suddenly become a German renegade. I noted too that Bret had done his homework since last night, when Dicky had had to clarify the misnomer to him. ‘Well?’ he said, waiting for me to reply. The D-G sat staring into space, as if this exchange was nothing to do with him.

‘The Swede was desperately short of money,’ I said in his defence. There was a silence. It was of course the wrong thing to say.

‘A lot of our people are desperately short of money,’ said Bret, and let the implication go unspoken.

‘But he wasn’t exactly one of our people,’ I said. ‘Not exclusively. We didn’t give him enough money to get his exclusive services. He contracted. He was the best of all our arm’s-distance contractors. He was dependable. He never let us down.’

‘No,’ said Bret. ‘He let them down; that was the trouble. He tried to sell them what was rightfully theirs; they don’t like that kind of freebooting. That was why they wasted him.’

‘Could you explain that, Bret, please?’ the D-G said.

‘Killed him,’ explained Bret. ‘He betrayed the Soviets and they killed him.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said the D-G.

Hearing his master’s voice, ‘C’ awakened and crawled along under the table until he brushed against my feet, sniffing and snorting. Making sure it was unobserved, I gave the dog a firm push with my shoe, and it retreated a few paces along the table as far as Bret. It sank down with a groan and went back to sleep. Bret guessed what I had done and fixed me with an accusing stare. I suppose he was unhappy to suddenly have the dog resting against his legs, but he didn’t complain about it.

I said: ‘Am I permitted to hear more detail about this?’

‘They brought in a hit man from Dresden,’ said Dicky proudly. ‘We have been monitoring the whole circus for days. Two local toughs were used. Then the fellow from Germany arrived on an early flight to brief them. He took a rented car to Wimbledon, paid off his two English thugs and was back in Berlin again before the Swede’s blood had dried.’

‘Two thugs?’ I said. ‘Where did they clean up?’ Squeaky’s reasoning had convinced me that it was too clumsy and messy for a contract killing.

They didn’t want it to look like a professional job,’ said Dicky. ‘That was specified in one of the messages we intercepted. It’s new, reformed Gorby-Russia these days.

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