first ball that afternoon was short and Max pulled it to square leg. The tennis ball flew through Pallesson’s open door and crashed into some photographs on his windowsill. It startled the hell out of him.
‘Did that carry?’ Max asked Pallesson as he retrieved the ball.
Pallesson could barely mask his contempt.
‘For God’s sake, can’t you grow up?’ Pallesson spat. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? You think everything’s a bloody game. You’re not the school hero any more, Ward. Maybe you should think about that. Maybe you should think about why you’re going bloody nowhere.’
‘So I can put that down as a six then?’ Max replied nonchalantly as he wandered back to his crease. He resisted the temptation to throw a ‘It’s not going to kill anyone, you know’ line, at the murdering little creep. If he was going to play Pallesson, he had to be smarter and more disciplined than his quarry. And he had to play to win.
The thought of Pallesson relentlessly climbing the diplomatic ladder terrified Max. The higher he got, the more disastrous the consequences would be. Max knew that Pallesson’s loyalties lay with himself. He would betray his country in a heartbeat. He had to be stopped.
Gower’s innings came to an abrupt end when the ambassador made an unscheduled entrance. Smith managed to lose the tennis ball and look industrious, but Max was still tapping down the carpet with his bat when they came face to face.
‘Oh, you’re in today, are you?’ the ambassador asked. He had an air of superiority about him and enjoyed being a hard arse. Most of the staff were intimidated by him, but Max thought he was a pompous, pen-pushing prick.
‘Ah, Ambassador. Good to see you.’ Max smiled.
The ambassador didn’t smile back. He was on the verge of asking Max why he was holding a cricket bat, but he knew he’d be on the receiving end of something flippant.
‘How’s Mrs Ambassador? All well? You must both come to dinner one night,’ Max suggested. He didn’t get a reply.
When Max got back to his desk, a harassed-looking Data Dave was waiting for him holding a USB key. Everyone called him Data Dave; indeed Human Resources were probably the only ones who knew his surname.
‘We need this translated yesterday. It’s the last twenty minutes of an arms deal. Sadly, that’s all the tech boys could recover. There’s Belgian, Dutch and Afrikaans in there. Should be a doddle for you, Ward.’
Max shook his head with mock resignation.
‘And if you can work out where the arms are coming from, then that would be great too. There’s nothing flashing on any of their standard routes.’
Max took the key and waved goodbye to the next two hours of his life.
Max was about to head off for the evening when a text message arrived on his phone. He wasn’t going to look at it right away, but something told him it might be in his interest.
U fancy a drink tonight? it said anonymously. That’s a bit strange, Max thought. But he was intrigued.
Well, give me a clue, he replied.
Arthur gave me your number. I’m sucking my pen, was the instant reply.
Max smiled as he looked up from his phone and glanced around the office. In the far corner, a very pretty, if slightly overweight, brunette was sucking her pen.
Well? she texted as Max hesitated.
Where did you have in mind? Max replied, even though he wasn’t sure this was a particularly good idea.
Anywhere with a cold bottle of champagne.
Max and Louise ended up drinking two bottles of champagne in the bar of the Hotel de l’Europe. There had been a frisson of expectancy about their conversation.
Finally, Louise said, ‘Shall we go now?’
‘Where did you have in mind?’ Max replied noncommittally.
‘Your bed, of course,’ Louise said, dropping her hand on to Max’s thigh.
Max drained his champagne glass to buy time.
‘Louise, that would be very nice, but I’m very unreliable. Here today, gone tomorrow. Very unreliable.’
Louise gave him a broad smile. ‘Don’t panic, Max. I don’t want to go out with you. I have a perfectly nice boyfriend in England, as a matter of fact. So don’t take this personally. Ever heard of a one-night stand?’
Max suddenly admired Louise. Direct, uncomplicated and thoroughly honest. And no games. He’d been up front with her, and she with him. Perfect.
‘Louise,’ Max said seriously, looking into her eyes, ‘why aren’t there more women like you?’
By happy coincidence, Louise had the next day off. Max made her a cup of tea, but she showed no interest in leaping out of bed.
‘I have to get to the airport. London today. What’s your plan?’
‘My plan is to lie in your bed until I can think of something else I’d rather be doing. Why don’t you get back in for ten minutes?’ she suggested, pulling at his arm.
‘Can’t think of anything nicer, but I’ll get shot if I’m late. So to speak.’
‘Max,’ Louise said, ‘can we do that again?’
Max kissed her on the bridge of her nose.
‘Well, you’d better check with your boyfriend first, don’t you think?’ he suggested, with an air-kiss on his way out the door.
‘You’re good,’ she shouted after him, and rolled over to go back to sleep.
London
Max was used to curious looks when he was stuck in slow traffic. Most people had never seen a DMC-12 before.
John DeLorean had manufactured the light sports cars in Northern Ireland in the early eighties. The gull-wing doors and stainless-steel panels of the DMC-12, combined with a chassis designed by Colin Chapman at Lotus made the car totally unique. And as the company had gone bust fairly quickly, not many of the cars were now driving around London.
One of the punters who used to bet with Max’s dad had given him the keys when he couldn’t settle his account. Which was a slightly double-edged sword. On the one hand, the car was worth a few bob. On the other, Houston, Texas, was the only place you could get spare parts for it after an American company bought up the wreckage of the company. But the car had memories for Max and he wouldn’t drive anything else until the day the spare parts stopped arriving.
As he sat in the West London gridlock, Max’s mind drifted back to his first meeting with Tryon in a dimly lit vodka bar under the Leninsky Prospekt in Moscow. Tryon, the elusive overlord who had no title, but seemingly no superiors either.
After Max had witnessed Corbett’s execution, he’d thought long and hard about his course of action. In the end he’d gambled on Tryon being the right superior to inform. Because if he’d chosen the wrong man – one potentially compromised by Pallesson – he would place himself in dire danger. But it had been Keate who had introduced the two of them, so he felt safe knowing that he was dealing with a friend of his old tutor.
Tryon hadn’t said much. He’d acknowledged that he’d received an anonymous allegation that Pallesson had murdered Corbett. He’d refused to divulge why he was certain it came from Max. Having listened to the whole story with an impassive face, the old hand had simply stood up and left.
Until Max’s orders had come through to move from Moscow to The Hague, he’d wondered whether Tryon had been running Pallesson from the very beginning,