The Night Manager полностью

"What do you mean, demanded by its counterpart in the United States?" he cuts in scathingly. "Control of Limpet has been granted to the Cousins. The Cousins own the operation. The River House doesn't. Why not? It's like to like, Rex. Your own pedantic rule. You drafted it. Now you've got to live with it. If the Cousins are running Limpet over there, so should the River House be over here."

Having struck, he sits back, waiting for a chance to strike again. Marjoram waits with him. And although Goodhew behaves as if he has not heard, Darker's onslaught has stung him. He moistens his lips. He glances at Merridew, an old accomplice, hoping he will say something. Merridew is silent. Goodhew returns to the charge but makes a fatal error. That is to say, he departs from the march route he has mapped for himself and speaks extempore.

"But when we invite Pure Intelligence," Goodhew resumes, with too much ironic emphasis, "to explain to us just why the Limpet case needs to be taken out of Enforcement's hands" ― he looks angrily round him and sees his master affecting boredom, staring at the white brick wall ― "we are asked to share in a mystery. It is called Flagship, an operation so secret, and so wide-flung, apparently, that it permits of almost any act of vandalism in the civil service calendar. It is called geopolitics. It is called..." He seems to wish he could escape the rhythms of his rhetoric, but he is launched and unable to pull back. How dare Darker stare at him like this? That smirking Marjoram! Those crooks! "It is called normalisation. It is called chain reactions too intricate to describe. Interests that cannot be divulged." He hears his voice shaking but cannot stop it. He remembers urging Burr not to go this very path. But he can't help himself. "We are told of some larger picture that we cannot see because we are too lowly. In other words, Pure Intelligence must swallow up Limpet and be damned!"

There is water in Goodhew's ears, and water in front of his eyes, and he has to wait a moment before his breathing settles down.

"Okay, Rex," says his master. "Nice to hear you in form. Now let's talk turkey. Geoffrey, you sent me a minute. You say this whole Limpet thing as perceived by Enforcement is a load of baloney. Why?"

Goodhew unwisely leaps in: "Why did I not see a copy of this minute?"

"Flagship," Marjoram replies in the dead silence. "You're not Flagship cleared, Rex."

Darker offers a more detailed explanation, not to ease Goodhew's pain but to increase it: " 'Flagship' is the code name for the American end of this, Rex. They gave us a very tight need-to-know as a condition of cutting us in. Sorry about that."

* * *

Darker has the floor. Marjoram hands him a file. Darker opens it and licks a prim finger and turns a page. Darker has timing too. He knows when eyes are on him. He could have been a bad Evangelist. He has the gloss, the stance, the curiously Prominent rump. "Mind if I ask you a few questions, Rex?"

"I believe it is a maxim of your service that only the answers are dangerous, Geoffrey," Goodhew counters. But levity is not his ally. He sounds ill-tempered and silly.

"Did the same source who told Burr about the dope tell him about the arms shipment to Buenaventura?"

"Yes."

"Did the same source get this whole thing going in the first place? Ironbrand ― drugs for arms ― a deal's being cooked up?"

"That source is dead."

"Really?" Darker sounds interested rather than concerned. "So that all came from Apostoll, did it? The dope lawyer who was playing all ends against the middle so that he could buy himself out of prison?"

"I am not prepared to discuss sources by name in this manner!"

"Oh, I think it's all right when they're dead. Or bogus. Or both."

Another stage pause while Darker considers Marjoram's file. The two men have a peculiar affinity with each other.

"Is Burr's source the one that's been putting out all the hair-raising stuff about the alleged involvement of certain British finance houses in this whole deal, then?" Darker enquires.

"A single source provided that information and has provided much else besides. I do not think it appropriate that we should discuss Burr's sources any further," says Goodhew.

"Sources or single source?"

"I refuse to be drawn."

"Is the single source live?"

"No comment. Live, yes. That's all I'm saying."

"He or she?"

"Pass. Minister, I must object."

"So you're saying that one live source ― he or she ― fingered the deal to Burr, fingered the dope to Burr, fingered the weapons to Burr, the ships, the money laundering and the participation of British finance. Yes?"