A Summons to London
ロンドンへの召還
Three days after the drop, a coded arrived at the station marked for Hale's eyes only.
The message was short, and its very shortness was a warning he could not ignore.
He was to return to London at once and report to the Deputy Director in person.
In the trade, such a rarely meant ; far more often it meant a quiet ending.
An officer who was to be trusted received praise by , whereas one under was called home.
Hale read the order twice, then burned it in the sink, watching the paper curl into ash.
He knew the well, for he had once sat on the other side of that table.
The suspected man would be met at the airport by two polite strangers who never quite smiled.
He would be driven to a house in the country, offered tea, and questioned for weeks.
Whereas an innocent officer could explain a mistake, a hunted one had to explain his own thoughts.
Nothing he said would be believed, because the purpose of the questioning was not truth but .
If he obeyed the , he would be walking willingly into a room with no visible door.
If he refused it, his flight alone would be read as the they were waiting for.
Either way, the of the service had begun to turn, slowly and without any .
That was the cruelty of it: no one hated him, and yet everyone would help destroy him.
He thought of Crane, his old mentor, who had first taught him to read a man's silence.
Crane was to the review board, which meant the was very likely already written.
Hale poured a glass of thin Berlin brandy and forced his racing mind to slow down.
He had perhaps forty-eight hours before his absence at Heathrow would be noticed and reported.
Forty-eight hours to find the leak, or to vanish into a city that swallowed men whole.
Obeying meant death by paperwork, while running meant death by , and both looked the same.
Yet somewhere in the station a traitor was watching to see which mistake he would make.
Hale decided he would make neither, at least not the one they expected of a guilty man.
He would answer the in his own way, on his own ground, at his own hour.
First, though, he needed to know exactly what the file in London already said about him.
And to learn that, he would have to break one of the oldest rules of the service.