John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels by John le Carré
“Why do we assume that, Murphy?”
“Because that’s when the fleet exited Swatow, sir. We had confirmation from navy int. one hour ago. Column of junks sighted at the eastern end of fishing bed C and easing westward with the wind, sir. Positive identification of the lead junk confirmed.”
There was a prickly pause. Martello coloured.
“You’re a clever boy, Murphy,” Martello said in a warning tone. “But you should have given me that information a little earlier.”
“Yes, sir. Assuming also that the intention of the junk containing Nelson Ko is to hit Hong Kong waters on the night of May fourth, the moon will be in its last quarter, sir. If we follow precedents right down the line—”
“We do,” said Smiley firmly. “The escape is to be an exact repetition of Drake’s own journey in ’fifty-one.”
Once more, no one doubted him, Guillam noticed. Why not? It was utterly bewildering.
“—then our junk should hit the southernmost out-island of Po Toi at twenty hundred hours tomorrow, and rejoin the fleet up along the Pearl River in time to make Canton harbour between zero ten-thirty and twelve hundred hours the following day, May fifth, sir.”
While Murphy droned on, Guillam covertly kept his eye on Smiley, thinking, as he often did, that he knew him no better today than when he first met him back in the dark days of the cold war in Europe. Where did he slip away to at all odd hours? Mooning about Ann? About Karla? What company did he keep that brought him back to the hotel at four in the morning? Don’t tell me George is having a second spring, he thought.
Last night at eleven there had been a scream from London, so Guillam had trailed up here to unbutton it. Westerby adrift, they said. They were terrified Ko had had him murdered—or, worse, abducted and tortured—and that the operation would abort in consequence. Guillam thought it more likely Jerry was holed up with a couple of air hostesses somewhere en route to London, but with that priority on the signal he had no option but to wake Smiley and tell him. He rang his room and got no answer, so he dressed and banged on Smiley’s door, and finally he was reduced to picking the lock, for now it was Guillam’s turn to panic: he thought Smiley might be ill.
But Smiley’s room was empty and his bed unslept in, and when Guillam went through his things he was fascinated to see that the old fieldman had gone to the length of sewing false name-tapes in his shirts. That was all he discovered, however. So he settled in Smiley’s chair and dozed and didn’t wake till four, when he heard a tiny flutter and opened his eyes to see Smiley stooped and peering at him from about six inches away; how he got into the room so silently, God alone knew.
“Gordon?” he asked softly. “What can I do for you?”—for they were on an operational footing of course, and lived with the assumption the rooms were bugged. For the same reason Guillam did not speak but handed Smiley the envelope containing Connie’s message, which he read and reread, then burned. Guillam was impressed how seriously he took the news. Even at that hour he insisted on going straight up to the Consulate to attend to it, so Guillam went along to carry his bags.
“Instructive evening?” he asked lightly as they plodded the short way up the hill.
“I? Oh, to a point, thank you, to a point,” Smiley replied, doing his disappearing act, and that was all Guillam or anyone could get out of him about his nocturnal or other ambles. Meanwhile, without the smallest explanation of his source, George was bringing in hard operational data in a manner that brooked no enquiry from anyone.
“Ah, George, we can count on that, can we?” Martello asked in bewilderment, on the first occasion that this happened.
“What? Oh yes, yes, indeed you may.”
“Great. Great footwork, George. I admire you,” said Martello heartily after a further puzzled silence, and from then on they had gone along with it. They had no choice. For nobody, not even Martello, quite dared to challenge Smiley’s authority.
“How many days’ fishing is that, Murphy?” Martello was asking.
“Fleet will have had seven days’ fishing and hopefully make Canton with full holds, sir.”
“That figure, George?”
“Yes, oh yes—nothing to add, thank you.”
Martello asked what time the fleet would have to leave the fishing beds in order for Nelson’s junk to make tomorrow evening’s rendezvous on time.
“I have put it at eleven tomorrow morning,” Smiley said without looking up from his notes.
“Me too,” said Murphy.
“This rogue junk, Murphy,” Martello said, with another deferential glance at Smiley.
“Yes, sir,” said Murphy.
“Can it break away from the pack that easy? What would be its cover for entering Hong Kong waters, Murphy?”
“Happens all the time, sir. Red Chinese junk-fleets operate a collective catch system without profit motivation, sir. Consequence of that, you get the single junks that break away at night-time and come in without lights and sell their fish to the out-islanders for money.”
“Literally moonlighting!” Martello exclaimed, much amused by the felicity of the expression.
Smiley had turned to the map of Po Toi island on the other wall and was tilting his head in order to intensify the magnification of his spectacles.
“What size of junk are we talking about here?” Martello asked.
“Twenty-eight-man long-liners, sir, baited for shark, golden thread, and conger.”
“Did Drake use that type also?”
“Yes,” said Smiley, still watching the map. “Yes, he did.”
“And she can come that close in, can she? Provided the weather allows?”
Again it was Smiley who answered. Till today, Guillam had not heard him so much as speak of a boat in his life.
“The draw of a long-liner is very modest,” he remarked. “She can come in pretty well as close as she wishes, provided always that the sea is not too rough.”
From the back bench Fawn gave an immoderate laugh. Wheeling round in his chair, Guillam shot him a foul look. Fawn leered and shook his head, marvelling at his master’s omniscience.
“How many junks make up a fleet?” Martello asked.
“Twenty to thirty,” said Smiley.
“Check,” said Murphy meekly.
“So what does Nelson do, George? Kind of get out to the edge of the pack there and stray a little?”
“He’ll hang back,” said Smiley. “The fleets like to move in column astern. Nelson will tell his skipper to take the rear position.”
“Will he, by God,” Martello muttered under his breath. “Murphy, what identifications are traditional?”
“Very little known in that area, sir. Boat people are notoriously evasive. They have no respect for marine regulations. Out to sea, they show no lights at all, mostly for fear of pirates.”
Smiley was lost to them again. He had sunk into a wooden immobility, and though his eyes stayed fixed on the big sea chart, his mind, Guillam knew, was anywhere but with Murphy’s dreary recitation of statistics. Not so Martello.
“How much coastal trade do we have over all, Murphy?”
“Sir, there are no controls and no data.”
“Any quarantine checks as the junks enter Hong Kong waters, Murphy?” Martello asked.
“Theoretically all vessels should stop and have themselves checked, sir.”
“And in practice, Murphy?”
“Junks are a law to themselves, sir. Technically, Chinese junks are forbidden to sail between Victoria Island and Kowloon point, sir, but the last thing the Brits want is a hassle with the mainland over rights of way. Sorry, sir.”
“Not at all,” said Smiley politely, still gazing at the chart. “Brits we are and Brits we shall remain.”
It’s his Karla expression, Guillam decided; the one that comes over him when he looks at the photograph. He catches sight of it, it surprises him, and for a while he seems to study its contours, its blurred and sightless gaze. Then the light slowly goes out of his eyes,
“Murphy, did I hear you mention navigation lights?” Smiley enquired, turning his head slightly but still staring toward the chart.
“Yes, sir.”
“I expect Nelson’s junk to carry three,” said Smiley. “Two green lights vertically on the stern mast and one red light to starboard.”
“Yes, sir.”
Martello tried to catch Guillam’s eye but Guillam wouldn’t play.
“But it may not,” Smiley warned as an afterthought. “It may carry none at all, and simply signal from close in.”
Murphy resumed. A new heading: Communications.
“Sir, in the communications area, sir, few junks have their own transmitters but most all have receivers. Once in a while you get a skipper who buys a cheap walkie-talkie with range about one mile to facilitate the trawl, but they’ve been doing it so long they don’t have much call to speak to each other, I guess. Then as to finding their way—well, navy int. says that’s near enough a mystery. We have reliable information that many long-liners operate on a primitive compass, a hand lead and line, or even just a rusty alarm clock for finding true north.”
“Murphy, how the hell do they work that, for God’s sakes?” Martello cried.
“Line with a lead plumb and wax stuck to it, sir. They sound the bed and know where they are from what sticks to the wax.”
“Well, they really do it the hard way,” Martello declared.
A phone rang. Martello’s other quiet man took the call, listened, then put his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Quarry Worth’s just gotten back, sir,” he said to Smiley. “Party drove around for an hour, now she’s checked in her car back at the block. Mac says sounds like she’s running a bath, so maybe she plans going out again later.”
“And she’s alone,” Smiley said impassively. It was a question.
“She alone there, Mac?” He gave a hard laugh. “I’ll bet you would, you dirty bastard. Yes, sir, lady’s all alone taking a bath, and Mac there says when will we ever get to use video as well. Is the lady singing in the bath, Mac?” He rang off. “She’s not singing.”
“Murphy, get on with the war,” Martello snapped.
Smiley would like the interception plans rehearsed once more, he said.
“Why, George! Please! It’s your show, remember?”
“Perhaps we could look again at the big map of Po Toi island, could we? And then Murphy could break it down for us, would you mind?”
“Mind, George, mind?” Martello cried, so Murphy began again, this time using a pointer. “Navy int. observation posts here, sir . . . constant two-way communication with base, sir . . . no presence at all within two sea miles of the landing zone. . . . Navy int. to advise base the moment the Ko launch starts back for Hong Kong, sir. . . . Interception will take place by regular British police vessel as the Ko launch enters harbour. . . . U.S. to supply op. int. and stand off only, for unforeseen supportive situation. . . .”
Smiley monitored every detail with a prim nod of his head.
“After all, Marty,” he put in at one point, “once Ko has Nelson aboard, there’s nowhere else he can go, is there? Po Toi is right at the edge of China waters. It’s us or nothing.”
One day, thought Guillam, as he continued listening, one of two things will happen to George. He’ll cease to care or the paradox will kill him. If he ceases to care, he’ll be half the operator he is. If he doesn’t, that little chest will blow up from the struggle of trying to find the explanation for what we do. Smiley himself, in a disastrous off-the-record chat to senior officers, had put the names to his dilemma, and Guillam with some embarrassment recalled them to this day. To be inhuman in defence of our humanity, he had said, harsh in defence of compassion. To be single-minded in defence of our disparity. They had filed out in a veritable ferment of protest; why didn’t George just do the job and shut up instead of taking his faith out and polishing it in public till the flaws showed? Connie had even murmured a Russian aphorism in Guillam’s ear, which she insisted on attributing to Karla. “There’ll be no war, will there, Peter darling?” she had said reassuringly, squeezing his hand as he led her along the corridor. “But in the struggle for peace not a single stone will be left standing, bless the old fox. I’ll bet they didn’t thank him for that one in the Collegium, either.”
A thud made Guillam swing round. Fawn was changing cinema seats again. Seeing Guillam, he flared his nostrils in an insolent sneer.
He’s off his head, thought Guillam with a shiver.
Fawn too, for different reasons, was now causing Guillam serious anxiety. Two days ago, in Guillam’s company, he had been the author of a disgusting incident. Smiley as usual had gone out alone. To kill time Guillam had hired a car and driven Fawn up to the China border. Returning, they were waiting at some country traffic-lights when a Chinese boy drew alongside on a Honda. Guillam was driving. Fawn had the passenger seat. Fawn’s window was lowered; he had taken his jacket off and was resting his left arm on the door where he could admire a new gilt watch he had bought himself in the Hilton shopping concourse.
As they pulled away, the Chinese boy ill-advisedly made a dive for the watch, but Fawn was much too quick for him. Catching hold of the boy’s wrist instead, he held on to it, towing him beside the car while the boy struggled vainly to break free. Guillam had driven fifty yards or so before he realised what had happened, and he at once stopped the car, which was what Fawn was waiting for. He hopped out before Guillam could stop him, lifted the boy straight off his Honda, led him to the side of the road, and broke both his arms for him, then returned smiling to the car. Terrified of a scandal, Guillam drove rapidly from the scene, leaving the boy screaming and staring at his dangling arms. He reached Hong Kong determined to report Fawn to George immediately, but luckily for Fawn it was eight hours before Smiley surfaced, and by then Guillam reckoned George had enough on his plate already.
Another phone was ringing, the red. Martello took the call himself. He listened a moment, then burst into a loud laugh.
“They found him,” he told Smiley, holding the phone to him.
“Found whom?”
The phone hovered between them.
“Your man, George. Your Weatherby—”
“Westerby,” Murphy corrected him, and Martello shot him a venomous look.
“They got him,” said Martello.
“Where is he?”
“Where was he, you mean! George, he just had himself the time of his life in two cathouses up along the Mekong. If our people are not exaggerating, he’s the hottest thing since Barnum’s baby elephant left town in ’forty-nine!”
“And where is he now, please?”
Martello handed him the phone. “Why don’t you just have’em read you the signal, okay? They have some story that he crossed the river.” He turned to Guillam and winked. “They tell me there’s a couple of places in Vientiane where he might find himself a little action too,” he said, and went on laughing richly while Smiley sat patiently with the telephone to his ear.
Jerry chose a cab with two wing mirrors and sat in the front. In Kowloon he hired a car from the biggest outfit he could find, using the escape passport and driving licence because marginally he thought the false name was safer if only by an hour. As he headed up the Midlevels, it was dusk and still raining and huge haloes hung from the neon lights that lit the hillside. He passed the American Consulate and drove past Star Heights twice, half expecting to see Sam Collins, and on the second occasion he knew for sure he had found her flat and that her light was burning: an arty Italian affair by the look of it, that hung across the picture window in a gracious droop, three hundred dollars’ worth of pretension. Also the frosted glass of a bathroom window was lit. The third time he passed, he saw her pulling a wrap over her shoulders, and instinct or something about the formality of her gesture told him she was once more preparing to go out for the evening but that this time she was dres
Every time he allowed himself to remember Luke, a darkness covered his eyes and he imagined himself doing the noble useless things like telephoning Luke’s family in California, or the dwarf at the bureau, or even for whatever purpose the Rocker. Later, he thought. Later, he promised himself, he would mourn Luke in fitting style.
He coasted slowly into the driveway that led to the entrance till he came to the slip-road to the car-park. The park was three tiers deep and he idled round it till he found her red Jaguar stowed in a safe corner behind a chain to discourage careless neighbours from approaching its peerless paint-work. She had put a mock leopard-skin cover on the steering-wheel. She just couldn’t do enough for the damn car. Get pregnant, he thought, in a burst of fury; buy a dog. Keep mice. For two pins he’d have smashed the front in, but those two pins had held Jerry back more times than he liked to count. If she’s not using it, then he’s sending a limousine for her, he thought. Maybe with Tiu riding shot-gun, even. Or maybe he’ll come himself. Or maybe she’s just getting herself dolled up for the evening sacrifice and not going out at all. He wished it was Sunday. He remembered Craw saying that Drake Ko spent Sundays with his family, and that on Sundays Lizzie had to make her own running. But it wasn’t Sunday, and neither did he have dear old Craw at his elbow telling him—on what evidence Jerry could only guess—that Ko was away in Bangkok or Timbuctoo conducting his business.
Grateful that the rain was turning to fog, he headed back up the slipway to the drive and at the junction found a narrow piece of shoulder where, if he parked hard against the barrier, the other traffic could complain but squeeze past. He grazed the barrier and didn’t care. From where he now sat, he could watch the pedestrians coming in and out under the striped awning of the block, and the cars joining or leaving the main road. He felt no sense of caution at all. He lit a cigarette and the limousines crackled past him both ways, but none belonged to Ko. Occasionally as a car edged by him, the driver paused to hoot or shout a complaint and Jerry ignored him. Every few seconds his eyes took in the mirrors, and once when a plump figure not unlike Tiu padded guiltily up behind him, he actually dropped the safety catch of the pistol in his jacket pocket before admitting to himself that the man lacked Tiu’s brawn. Probably been collecting gambling debts from the pak-pai drivers, he thought, as the figure went by him.