Slave of Sarma

Chapter One

It had been misting all day and, as London's lights began to go on early, a dark brown fog crept in from the Thames. Pavements were shiny and treacherous, slimed by fallen leaves. Fog horns on the river were raucous and surly, their mood matched by that of millions of Londoners as they began the vespertine shove into tube and train and car. A dour day, in all, with Indian summer gone and the drear of winter upcoming.

At 391/2 Prince's Gate, Kensington, the mood was no less dour.

The house was tall and narrow, of early Victorian vintage. It had been in Lord Leighton's family since he could remember. But because it was at times rented, at times idle, His" Lordship was inclined, until reminded by his agents, to forget that he owned it. The district was no longer fashionable - a matter of little concern to Lord L, who was not very fashionable himself - and it was J who had seen the possibilities. J ran the affairs of MI6A, a most special branch of the Special Branch. J was also immediate superior to Richard Blade, who at the moment was at his cottage in Dorset and, with another foray into Dimension X coming up, was not alone.

J was not thinking of Blade. He sat by a glowing coal fire, a glass of scotch and soda balanced on one impeccably clad knee, and watched the two men duel. J's money was on Lord Leighton, but he had to admit that the Right Honorable Hubert Carrandish was no mean opponent. Carrandish was a Member of Parliament from the West Riding area in Yorkshire, and he reminded J of a well-dressed and articulate rodent. J, a fair man, did not go so far as to equate the MP with a rat; there were, after all, other species of rodent. As he listened, keeping out of the battle, J felt himself becoming increasingly liverish. What the Yanks called an upset stomach. This Carrandish, with his broad Yorkshire speech - surely an affectation, because the man was Oxford - was dangerous. Not in himself, perhaps, but in what he represented. Snooping.

The Right Honorable gentlemen was chairman of a committee. A House of Commons committee set up expressly to scrimp and save and cut corners and, in effect, to halt waste and preserve the Queen's Purse. He was very good at his job.

Now he said, "I have a great deal of authority, Your Lordship, and more than adequate funds and personnel. I pride myself that I work hard. I have been nearly a year on this job. I have had, I think, more than a little success in ferreting out waste and extravagance in government."

Lord L dumped cigar ash on the carpet and stared at the man with yellow bloodshot eyes. Never a patient man, and not taking to fools, so far he had been patient. J knew why. This Carrandish was no fool.

"What you manage to save," Lord L said, "will just about pay for the cost of saving it, eh? That's been my experience. You chaps organize your bloody committees to investigate other committees and the end result is that in the end nothing is saved. Or accomplished. Time and money spent and nothing to show for it, eh?"

J smiled at the fire. Lord L was trying to lay a false trail.

The MP from Yorkshire was having none of it. He was not a drinking man, or a smoking man - possibly because both cost money which could be better spent - and now he pushed away his untouched glass and an empty ashtray and leaned over the table toward His Lordship. He clasped his long bloodless fingers and his eyes, fairly close to a long nose, glinted at the old man in the ragbag suit.

"None of that, sir, is relevant. As you must know. This interview was arranged, with your very gracious permission, so that we might speak in private and without public record. I came, in fact, to ask you one specific question."

Lord Leighton brushed a wisp of white hair away from his high balding forehead. He sat a little sideways in the tall-backed chair - this eased the eternal pain in his hump - and his leonine eyes studied his inquisitor with a mingle of wariness and contempt.

J felt a moment of compassion. This was his work, really, not Lord L's. Yet he could not intervene, even if circumstances had allowed it. Lord L had warned J, in no uncertain terms, to butt out!

"Then," said Lord Leighton, sounding like a much-tried and very patient lion, "get on with it, man. Ask your bloody damned question and get it over with."

J began to feel a little sorry for the Right Honorable gentleman. Lord L's temper was beginning to slip.

Carrandish was not an easy man to bully. He slapped his hand on the shiny surface of the table and some of the respect in his tone had gone.

"I have asked the question, Your Lordship. I have asked it at least six times and in half a dozen ways. So far I have received no intelligible answer."

Lord Leighton reached for a box of cigars. "Are you implying, sir, that I have gone bonkers? It is possible, I suppose. I am an old man and I work very hard. Long hours, you know. I get very little sleep, not nearly what my doctor tells me I need, and I never have eaten well and then of course there are all the aches and pains that come with old age. Our brains begin to deteriorate as we grow older and - "

The MP's patience had already deteriorated. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. His smile was gelid, his gaze flinty, as he said, "That is just what I mean, sir."

Lord L, still holding on to his temper, contrived to look like an idiot. "Mean? Mean what? I don't understand what you mean. Not at all. Not to be wondered at, I suppose. None of you young people know how to talk these days. Nor write, for that matter. Can't think what they teach up at the schools these days. Now in my time - "

J suddenly understood that the MP had received a reprieve. The storm was being held off. Lord L was enjoying himself.

Carrandish was not. J watched with interest as the man made one last great effort.

"I had no intention of implying, sir, that you have gone, er, bonkers. Not at all. I merely - "

"Senile," said Lord L cheerfully. "I suppose that must be it. Pity, but it comes to all of us. And now, Mr. Carrandish, I am afraid I must ask you to excuse me. I am tired and I am sure you have other things to do, more important things, than talking to a doddering old wreck like me."

The MP raised his eyes and stared at the ceiling beams for a moment. J struggled with his desire to laugh.

But the MP was tough. "I would like to put the question to you once more, sir, if you don't mind. Just one last time. I may?"

"What question?"

Carrandish closed his eyes as if in silent prayer.

"With your permission, sir. Once again - I have isolated some three million pounds. What we on the committee refer to as vagrant funds."

"I like that," said His Lordship. "Vagrant funds. Very well stated. Good use of language. Maybe I did you young people an injustice."

Carrandish raced ahead, his eyes glazing and a dew of perspiration on his pale brow: "Some of the vagrant funds quite naturally gravitate to Secret Funds, sir. That is well known and is not questioned. But there are vouchers and they must be signed and the entire process of vouchering must be carried out to its final conclusion so that Her Majesty's books can be balanced: I am sure, Lord Leighton, that you see this."

His Lordship, who hated shaving, stroked a stubbled chin with fragile, liver-spotted hands. He smiled. And when this old man, this high boffin, this chief of all Britain's scientists, smiled, he could be very charming indeed.

He nodded. "I can see that, Mr. Carrandish. Indeed yes. Any fool, and I am not quite that yet, can see that we can't have all those pounds lying around unaccounted for. What I don't see, Mr. Carrandish, is why you come to me?"

Mr. Carrandish pounced. J admitted his error. The man was no rodent. Mustela furo. The weasel family.

"Over a million and a half pounds of the vouchers in question, sir, have been signed by you."

His Lordship sighed. "I am getting senile. Signing things and not remembering it." He glanced over at J. "You may have to see about putting me away, old man. Straight off to the looney bin."

J, by herculean effort, kept his face straight. He shook his head, said nothing, and the uneasiness grew in him. He was beginning to get a professional feeling about this little farce.

Carrandish, stern, looking as much like Britannia determined as his thin features would accommodate, patted his forehead with a square of handkerchief and forged ahead.

"You do understand, sir, that I am as much bound by the Official Secrets Act as y - as anyone. I would have to be, to have access to the accounts, the bookkeeping, relevant to the Secret Fund. You do understand that, sir?"

The old lion was growing surly again. "Of course I understand it," he snarled. "What in the bloody hell has it got to do with me?"

Carrandish kept charging into the cannon. "But the vouchers, sir! You signed them. Over a million and a half pounds' worth. For what, I haven't been able to find out - the purchase orders appear to be coded, so masked that the nature of the materials, or services, whatever, are hidden. I run into a blank wall every time I come anywhere close to finding out what that money was actually spent for. Your own signature, sir, is barely legible. But it is your signature. I had it carefully checked by an expert. So, in sum, and putting it as simply as possible, Your Lordship, you have spent a million and a half pounds of Her Majesty's money for something that I cannot find. Something that cannot even be explained. Money that has, apparently, gone down a drain and even the drain has vanished. I have a right to know, Lord Leighton. I am empowered to - "

Lord Leighton stood up. He clung to the table for a moment, to give aid to his polio ruined legs. His gaze was lethal, but his voice was level and courteous.

"And I, sir, am empowered to ask you to leave now. I can't answer your question. Good evening, sir."

Carrandish had also risen. He nodded sullenly, glared at J as though he were the real malefactor, picked up his briefcase and marched to the door. He bowed slightly to the old man and ignored J.

"I can," he said, "ask the same questions in the House, you know. And you, Your Lordship, can be called upon to answer them under oath. Good evening, gentlemen." The door closed just a bit harder than was necessary. J stirred the fire with a poker. He said, "He might do that, you know."

Lord L, in his chair again and already working on some papers he had taken from a desk, snorted. "He won't. I can see to that. I'll get on to the Prime Minister tonight and see that our little man is put on a false scent. Harry will cooperate to the fullest. He knows how important Dimension X is to us."

J dropped a few lumps of coal on the fire. He replenished his glass with a splash of soda. He went to a tall window and stood gazing out at Prince's Gate Crescent. Street lights were on and macintoshed pedestrians drifted in and out of the nimbi like damp ghosts. A few last stubborn leaves hung despondently from stark branches moving in the wind like dark mobiles. J dropped the heavy drape into place and went to prowling the room.

The table top was already littered with sheets of paper. Lord Leighton scratched industriously away with his pen. J prowled back and forth over the worn Oriental, crossing and recrossing before the fire, wishing he had his pipe. He concentrated better with his pipe. But his favorite was in the shop, being repaired, and he had forgotten to bring a spare from Copra House.

His Lordship glanced up from his work. "For God's sake, man, stop pacing like a tiger. And stop looking so worried. I told you - the Prime Minister will put a spoke in the Carrandish wheel. More than likely Harry will have the man in for a little chat. They'll have a sherry or so and Harry will tell him to keep his long nose to himself and that will be that."

J stopped prowling long enough to chunk up the fire. He scowled at the flames. "I doubt it will be that simple, Lord L. The Prime Minister will have to tell him something - "

The old man chuckled. "Harry will think of something. He's a good liar. Made it to the top in politics, didn't he? Now do be a good fellow and let me concentrate. I may be getting senile after all - I have a simple nanosecond equation here that a babe should be able to solve and I'm having trouble. Very upsetting, that Carrandish type, very."

J regarded the old scientist with affection and exasperation. England's top man of science he might be, but in certain matters he was a babe in arms. He knew nothing of the jungle in which J and Richard Blade must work and survive. Lord Leighton reigned high in his Ivory Tower, lost amid his giant computers, thinking in symbols that only a few men could understand, enmeshed in cybernetic jargon, screened from the real and dirty world of plot and counterplot. The world of bullet and knife and noose and poison. "I don't like it," J said.

Lord L dropped his pen. He pushed his papers from him. "Don't like what? Get it off your chest, man, then go away and let me work. Get on to Blade, for one thing, and tell him I want him here in two days' time. Now - what don't you like?"

J resumed his pacing. "Carrandish will go the Prime Minister, Lord L, and since he is already bound by the Official Secrets Act, and as nosy as a ferret and as slithery as an eel, my guess is that the PM will end up by telling him about Dimension X Project. As the most effective way of shutting him up."

Lord Leighton nodded. He pulled one crippled leg over the other and sought comfort for his hump. "So, J? You may be right. It would be the most effective way of stifling the man. But why worry - Carrandish may be a bother, I agree, but that doesn't make him a traitor."

J despaired of making the old man understand the laws of averages and permutations - as they applied to espionage. To J's way .of thinking only two men could really keep a secret, and even that was chancy. Bring in a third man and you no longer had a secret.

"My point is," he said gloomily, "that Carrandish will be just one more who knows about Project X. And there are far too many now. The thing is getting out of hand and I just don't know how much longer I can promise absolute security." If, he thought, there is such a thing.

His Lordship tut-tutted a moment, then agreed that J might have a point. "But you must have foreseen this, J. You knew that PDX was going to grow and need more money and more personnel and material. Even I saw that and I" - his smile was faint - "I am not a very practical man, as you know."

J nodded. "I have taken every bloody precaution I could think of. I know my job, Lord L, and I have done it. And it hasn't been enough - this Carrandish comes straight to you, like a hound after a hare, and starts blathering about vouchers and unexplained money. That shouldn't have happened, Lord L. Something was overlooked - there should have been a cutoff somewhere and there wasn't."

Lord L was sympathetic. "Someone in your organization made a mistake, J. It happens. I have to read off my assistants a dozen times a day. But don't let it fret you - you can't be everywhere and do everything."

"You can tell that," said J fervently, "to the bloody Horse Marines! Maybe I can't be everywhere and do everything, but I've got the responsibility just as though I could. I am responsible to you and to the Prime Minister and to Her Majesty - "

Lord Leighton clapped his gnarled old hands. "Hear-hear. The man is going to make a speech after all. But not here, J, please! Go down to Hyde Park corner and make it and let me get on working, eh?"

J smiled a little sheepishly as he went to the chair where he had left his bowler and mack and umbrella. He bent to tug on a pair of stretch rubbers, American made.

"Sorry," he told Lord L. "But I am nervous these days. I am in a nervous profession anyway and all this PDX, on top of my other duties, may just be a little much. I don't know, Lord L - maybe I'm getting on for work like this. I think more and more about retiring."

His Lordship snorted. He had heard talk like this before. "The thing for you to do," he said, "is to take a little holiday. Go down to Dorset and join young Blade. I'm sure he can find another totsy for you. That's it, J. Take a few days off. Get drunk. Knock off a policeman's hat. Have Blade find you a totsy and have an orgy. Then, when you're over your hangover and remorse, you can get back to your job."

It would not be overstating to say that J was a little shocked. He stared at the white-haired gnome, a look of doubt on his well-bred Establishment features.

Lord Leighton chuckled maniacally. "You look like you've just been goosed by the Queen, man!"

J's jaw dropped. His false teeth glinted in the firelight. The old scientist chuckled again.

"Blade is having a go with the totsies, isn't he? Ever since his girl, Zoe? Since she found another chap?"

J nodded. "I suppose so, Lord L. Really, you know, I don't pry into the private lives of my people. I - "

"The hell you bloody don't," said His Lordship inelegantly. "Don't give me that cock, old man. I'll bet you know every time they go to the WC."

By now J had regained his composure. "Not always," he smiled. "Now and again they manage to nip in without me knowing about it."

Lord Leighton, having seen J smile, scowled. "Then go and check, man. One of your agents might be doing number two now and you in the dark about it. Go find out. Let me work. And have young Blade up here in two days, remember. I've only a few more adjustments to make on the master computer and we can send him out again. His fourth time, eh! Should be smooth as silk this time. I'm looking forward to it."

On his way back to the dingy office in Copra House, while the taxi crawled through fog, J wondered if Richard Blade was also looking forward to his next trip into Dimension X. There was, sighed J inwardly, really no way of knowing. Richard Blade did his job, performed his duty, and let it go at that. He didn't talk about it.

As the taxi slowed and became jammed in traffic, as the fog seeped in a crack of window and spread tentacles like a dank brown octopus, J's mood began to sink once more. He did smile once as he recalled Lord L's bawdy attempt to cheer him - the old man did have prescience in other than scientific matters - then his mouth dropped. He was worried. Things had gone too well for too long. His stomach pained him and that was a sure sign. The truth was, J admitted as he stared at a flashing Bovril sign without seeing it, that the Project, PDX, was due for trouble. Law of averages. Inexorable. You could never get away from it.

How true. When J got back to his office in Copra House the proof was waiting on his desk.

Richard Blade had left Moscow.