Walter unsavoury, in some way he still had the Pole’s weakness for eccentrics.
‘It’s a Sunday. Imagine she’s English. Would you expect her to be going to church?’
‘She’d definitely have given the problem a good going over,’ said Landau to his great surprise before he had time to think of an answer. ‘She might have said there was no God. She might have said there was a God. But she wouldn’t have let it drift away from her like most of us. She’d have gone for it and come to a decision and done something about it if she thought she should.’
Suddenly all Walter’s quaint ways had resolved themselves into a long rubbery smile. ‘Oh you are good,’ he declared enviously. ‘Now do you know any science?’ he continued as his voice again soared into the clouds.
‘A bit. Kitchen science, really. What I pick up.’
‘Physics?’
‘O-level, not more, sir. I used to sell the course books. I’m not sure I’d scrape through the exam, mind, even now. But they did enable me to improve myself, put it that way.’
‘What does telemetry mean?’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Not in English, not in Russian?’
‘Not in any language, sir, I’m afraid. Telemetry has passed me by.’
‘How about CEP?’
‘The what, sir?’
‘Circular-error-probable. My goodness, he wrote enough about it, didn’t he, in those funny notebooks that you brought us? Don’t tell me CEP hasn’t stuck in your mind.’
‘I didn’t notice it. I skipped. That’s all I did.’
‘Until you came to his point about the Soviet knight dying inside his armour. Where you stopped skipping. Why?’
‘I didn’t come to it. I happened to come to it.’
‘All right you happened to come to it. And you formed a view. Is that right? Of what the writer was telling us. What view?’
‘Incompetence, I suppose. They’re no good at it. The Russkies. They’re duff.’
‘Duff at what?’
‘The rockets. They make errors.’
‘What sort of errors?’
‘All sorts. Magnetic errors. Bias errors, whatever those are. I don’t know. That’s your job, isn’t it?’
But Landau’s defensive surliness only emphasised his virtue as a witness. For where he wished to shine and could not, his failure reassured them, as Walter’s airy gesture of relief now testified.
‘Well I think he’s done terribly well,’ he declared as if Landau were nowhere within earshot, flinging up his hands again, this time in a theatrical gesture of conclusion. ‘He tells us what he remembers. He doesn’t make things up to spin a better tale. You won’t do that, will you, Niki?’ he added anxiously, uncrossing his legs as if his crotch were nipping him.
‘No, sir, you may rest assured.’
‘And you haven’t? I mean, because sooner or later we’d find out. Then everything you’ve given us would lose its lustre.’
‘No, sir. It’s the way I told it. No more, no less.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Walter to his colleagues in a tone of simple trust as he again sat back. ‘The hardest thing in our trade or anybody else’s is to say “I believe.” Niki’s a natural source and rare as hen’s teeth. If there were more of him , nobody would need us .’
‘This is Johnny,’ Ned explained, playing the aide-de-camp.
Johnny had wavy greying hair and a broad jaw and a file full of official-looking telegrams. With his gold watch-chain and tailored charcoal suit, he might have been a foreign barmaid’s vision of an Englishman but he certainly wasn’t Landau’s.
‘Niki, first we have to thank you, pal,’ Johnny said, in lazy East Coast American. We the larger beneficiaries, his munificent tone suggested. We the majority shareholders. I’m afraid Johnny is like that. A good officer, but unable to keep his American supremacy inside its box. I sometimes think that is the difference between American spies and our own. Americans, with their frank enjoyment of power and money, flaunt their luck. They lack the instinct to dissemble that comes
‘It’s a Sunday. Imagine she’s English. Would you expect her to be going to church?’
‘She’d definitely have given the problem a good going over,’ said Landau to his great surprise before he had time to think of an answer. ‘She might have said there was no God. She might have said there was a God. But she wouldn’t have let it drift away from her like most of us. She’d have gone for it and come to a decision and done something about it if she thought she should.’
Suddenly all Walter’s quaint ways had resolved themselves into a long rubbery smile. ‘Oh you are good,’ he declared enviously. ‘Now do you know any science?’ he continued as his voice again soared into the clouds.
‘A bit. Kitchen science, really. What I pick up.’
‘Physics?’
‘O-level, not more, sir. I used to sell the course books. I’m not sure I’d scrape through the exam, mind, even now. But they did enable me to improve myself, put it that way.’
‘What does telemetry mean?’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Not in English, not in Russian?’
‘Not in any language, sir, I’m afraid. Telemetry has passed me by.’
‘How about CEP?’
‘The what, sir?’
‘Circular-error-probable. My goodness, he wrote enough about it, didn’t he, in those funny notebooks that you brought us? Don’t tell me CEP hasn’t stuck in your mind.’
‘I didn’t notice it. I skipped. That’s all I did.’
‘Until you came to his point about the Soviet knight dying inside his armour. Where you stopped skipping. Why?’
‘I didn’t come to it. I happened to come to it.’
‘All right you happened to come to it. And you formed a view. Is that right? Of what the writer was telling us. What view?’
‘Incompetence, I suppose. They’re no good at it. The Russkies. They’re duff.’
‘Duff at what?’
‘The rockets. They make errors.’
‘What sort of errors?’
‘All sorts. Magnetic errors. Bias errors, whatever those are. I don’t know. That’s your job, isn’t it?’
But Landau’s defensive surliness only emphasised his virtue as a witness. For where he wished to shine and could not, his failure reassured them, as Walter’s airy gesture of relief now testified.
‘Well I think he’s done terribly well,’ he declared as if Landau were nowhere within earshot, flinging up his hands again, this time in a theatrical gesture of conclusion. ‘He tells us what he remembers. He doesn’t make things up to spin a better tale. You won’t do that, will you, Niki?’ he added anxiously, uncrossing his legs as if his crotch were nipping him.
‘No, sir, you may rest assured.’
‘And you haven’t? I mean, because sooner or later we’d find out. Then everything you’ve given us would lose its lustre.’
‘No, sir. It’s the way I told it. No more, no less.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Walter to his colleagues in a tone of simple trust as he again sat back. ‘The hardest thing in our trade or anybody else’s is to say “I believe.” Niki’s a natural source and rare as hen’s teeth. If there were more of him , nobody would need us .’
‘This is Johnny,’ Ned explained, playing the aide-de-camp.
Johnny had wavy greying hair and a broad jaw and a file full of official-looking telegrams. With his gold watch-chain and tailored charcoal suit, he might have been a foreign barmaid’s vision of an Englishman but he certainly wasn’t Landau’s.
‘Niki, first we have to thank you, pal,’ Johnny said, in lazy East Coast American. We the larger beneficiaries, his munificent tone suggested. We the majority shareholders. I’m afraid Johnny is like that. A good officer, but unable to keep his American supremacy inside its box. I sometimes think that is the difference between American spies and our own. Americans, with their frank enjoyment of power and money, flaunt their luck. They lack the instinct to dissemble that comes
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