The Outsiders by Gerald Seymour Page A

agent, and it was in the darkness. It was in Budapest. It was an entertainment, to kick the head from the dummy in the lay-by. It is why I came to you before the Americans.’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ the Bear muttered.
    With some perception, Liz Tremlett said, ‘You hate them.’
    ‘Very much.’
    The Bear gripped the boy’s arm, just above the raw flesh. ‘The bar in Constanta, tomorrow at five o’clock local. Its name?’
    She wrote it down.
    He stood, and the Bear rose with him, dominating him. He might have realised his movement was intimidating, so a ham of a fist touched the boy’s arm. The gesture was shaken away. Liz Tremlett read it: the boy wanted no favours, only the righting of a wrong, a version of vengeance. Her mind was awash with images of wrongs that could be righted only by such a degree of betrayal.
    They shook hands briefly with the boy, rewarded with a loose grip, devoid of emotion. There was no bonding. They saw him walk feebly across the lobby. The plastic bag, from the chemist down the street, swung from his hand.
    He didn’t look back. They went to the door, stood inside the glass and saw him shambling off. The Bear said, with certainty, that the spooks would ‘have a bloody wet dream fantasising about a walk-in like that’, then shrugged as if she should take that as an apology for his vulgarity.
    She knew the answer, but asked, ‘What would happen to him, Bear, if they knew what he’d done?’
    ‘Just get on with the paperwork.’
    The jeans were down to his buttocks, the shoulders drooped and his hair was tousled. The boy, Natan, went round a corner, and they lost sight of him. Liz Tremlett didn’t wait for the lift but went up the stairs two at a time and hurried to her desk. She slapped the pad down, then started to prepare the message she would send.
     
    ‘Where is he?’ the Major asked, annoyed, holding sheets of paper with scribbled messages. The warrant officer went to find him. The girl was in the bedroom, doing her nails. He paid the Gecko well. All men of influence and authority had a Gecko on their payroll. They were young, without social skills, initiative or women, but they had extraordinary computing ability. They knew the inner secrets of what was planned, but they were welcomed only when their work was wanted. The Gecko did not eat or drink with them when they were away, and sat apart from them on a plane. He was in the front of the car and his opinion was never asked, unless they wanted the intricate details of computer security. The Major would have been unhappy not to have him close. He thought the boy gave him a ‘firewall’ of protection.
    He was brought in – must have been intercepted in the corridor because he carried a small plastic bag. He was dirty and scarred.
    ‘What happened to you?’ Not that the Major had much interest.
    The boy said he had tripped on the pavement. He was not asked whether he wanted to go and clean up or whether his toothache had gone. He was given the notes. He could interpret the Major’s writing, knew the codes and ciphers to be used, and where the messages should be sent. Before he was out of the suite they were talking among themselves, and he was ignored.
     
    ‘I’ve typed the message,’ Liz Tremlett said. ‘What now? I’m still shaking. What do I do?’
    ‘It’ll go to the cipher room and the clerk’ll shift it – he’ll know where to. I’ll run it down to him.’ The Bear smiled.
    She might not have been the brightest star in Foreign and Commonwealth’s firmament, but she was not stupid. She realised that the old marine, for all that he had done combat, was as excited as he had been at any time in his career. Her printer was spilling the pages.
    ‘Did we do all right?’
    ‘I’d say, Liz, you did a bit better than ‘‘all right’’. You did well. My take on it: he made an earth-moving decision to come in off the street, with his future, his very life, hanging on it. He expected to find an intelligence guy,