Circus. Alistair MacLean

a connection. Fawcett?’

      ‘There’s a connection. I may speak freely, sir?’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Well, there are telephone boxes and sacrificial assistant editors – ’

      ‘Don’t be a fool. I’ve already apologized for that.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ Fawcett briefly searched his memory and found no apology there. It seemed pointless to mention this. ‘As you say, sir, there’s a connection. There’s also been a leak and it can only have come from within our own organization. As I said, sir, and as I have explained to these gentlemen, it’s clear that Pilgrim was killed by someone well known to him. There can’t have been any specific leak – only you, Pilgrim, Dr Harper and myself really knew what the intentions were. But any of up to a dozen people or more – researchers, telephone operators, drivers – within the organization knew that we had been in regular touch with Mr Wrinfield. It would be unusual, if not unique, to find any intelligence or counter-intelligence agency in the world whose ranks have not been infiltrated by an enemy agent, one who eventually becomes so securely entrenched as to become above suspicion. It would be naïve of us to assume that we are the sole exception.

      ‘It was hardly top secret that Mr Wrinfield had been in the formative stages of planning a European tour – a primarily eastern European tour – and it would have been comparatively simple to discover that Crau was on the list of towns to be visited. As far as the gentlemen in Crau are concerned – more precisely, the gentlemen responsible for the research taking place in Crau – coincidence could be coincidence but the obvious tie-up with the CIA would be that little bit too much.’

      ‘So why kill Pilgrim? As a warning?’

      ‘In a way, sir, yes.’

      ‘Would you care to be more specific, Mr Fawcett?’

      ‘Yes, sir. No question but that it was a warning. But to make Pilgrim’s death both understandable and justifiable from their point of view – for we have to remember that though we are dealing with unreasonable men we are also dealing with reasoning men – it had to be something more than just a warning. His murder was also an amalgam of invitation and provocation. It is a warning they wished to be ignored. If they believe Mr Wrinfield’s forthcoming tour is sponsored by us, and if, in spite of Pilgrim’s death – which they won’t for a moment doubt that we’ll be convinced has been engineered by them – we still go ahead and proceed with the tour, then we must have extraordinarily pressing needs to make it. Conclusive proof they would expect to find in Crau.

      ‘And then we would be discredited internationally. Imagine, if you can, the sensational impact of the news of the internment of an entire circus. Imagine the tremendously powerful bargaining weapon it would give the East in any future negotiations. We’d become an international laughing stock, all credibility throughout the world gone, an object of ridicule in both East and West. The Gary Powers U-plane episode would be a bagatelle compared to this.’

      ‘Indeed. Tell me, what’s your opinion of locating this cuckoo in the CIA nest?’

      ‘As of this moment?’

      ‘Zero.’

      ‘Dr Harper?’

      ‘I agree totally. No chance. It would mean putting a watcher on every one of your several hundred employees in this building, sir.’

      ‘And who’s going to watch the watchers? Is that what you mean?’

      ‘With respect, sir, you know very well what I mean.’

      ‘Alas.’ The admiral reached into an inside pocket, brought out two cards, handed one to Wrinfield, the other to Bruno. ‘If you need me, call that number and ask for Charles. Any guesses you may have as to my identity – and you must be almost as stupid as we are if you haven’t made some – you will please keep to yourselves.’ He sighed. ‘Alas again, I fear, Fawcett, that your reading of the matter is entirely correct. There is no alternative explanation, not, at least, a remotely viable one. Nevertheless, getting our hands on this document overrides all other considerations. We may have to think up some other means.’

      Fawcett said: ‘There are no other means.’

      Harper said: ‘There are no other means.’

      The admiral nodded. ‘There are no other means. It’s Bruno or nothing.’

      Fawcett shook his head. ‘It’s Bruno and the circus or nothing.’

      ‘Looks like.’ The admiral gazed consideringly at Wrinfield. ‘Tell me, do you fancy the idea of being expendable?’

      Wrinfield drained his glass. His hand was steady again and he was back on balance. ‘Frankly, I don’t.’

      ‘Not even being interned?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I see your point. It could be a bad business. Am I to take it from that that you have changed your mind?’

      ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know.’ Wrinfield shifted his gaze, at once both thoughtful and troubled. ‘Bruno?’

      ‘I’ll go.’ Bruno’s voice was flat and without colour, certainly with no traces of drama or histrionics in it. ‘If I have to go, I’ll go alone. I don’t know – yet – how I’ll get there and I don’t know – yet – what I have to do when I arrive. But I’ll go.’

      Wrinfield sighed. ‘That’s it, then.’ He smiled faintly. ‘A man can only stand so much. No immigrant American is going to put a fifth-generation American to shame.’

      ‘Thank you, Mr Wrinfield.’ The admiral looked at Bruno with what might have been an expression of either curiosity or assessment on his face. ‘And thank you, too. Tell me, what makes you so determined to go?’

      ‘I told Mr Fawcett. I hate war.’

      The admiral had gone. Dr Harper had gone. Wrinfield and Bruno had gone and Pilgrim had been carried away: in three days’ time he would be buried with all due solemnity and the cause of his death would never be known, a not unusual circumstance amongst those who plied the trades of espionage and counter-espionage and whose careers had come to an abrupt and unexpected end. Fawcett, looking as bleak and hard as the plumpness of his face would permit, was pacing up and down the dead man’s apartment when the telephone rang. Fawcett picked it up immediately.

      The voice in the receiver was hoarse and shaking. It said: ‘Fawcett? Fawcett? Is that you, Fawcett?’

      ‘Yes. Who’s that?’

      ‘I can’t tell you over the phone. You know damn well who it is. You got me into this.’ The voice was trembling so much as to be virtually unrecognizable. ‘For God’s sake get down here, something terrible has happened.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Get down here.’ The voice was imploring. ‘And for God’s sake come alone. I’ll be in my office. The circus office.’

      The line went dead. Fawcett jiggled the receiver bar but dead the line remained. Fawcett hung up, left the room, locked the door behind him, took the lift to the underground garage and drove down to the circus through the darkness and the rain.

      The external circus lights were out except for some scattered weak illumination – it was already late enough for all the circus members to have sought their night accommodation aboard the train. Fawcett left the car and hurried into the animal quarters, where Wrinfield had his shabby little portable office. The lighting here was fairly good. Signs of human life there were none, which Fawcett, on first reaction, found rather surprising, for Wrinfield had a four-footed fortune in there: the second and almost immediate reaction was that it wasn’t surprising at all for nobody in his right mind was going to make off with an Indian elephant or Nubian lion. Not only were they difficult animals to control, but disposal might have presented a problem. Most of the animals were lying down, asleep, but