Confessional - Jack Higgins [50]
'He isn't on the active list?'
'No, sir. We used him as a bagman mainly, though there was an incident in East Berlin three years ago when things got out of hand and he behaved rather well.'
'I remember now,' Ferguson said. 'Supposed to pick up documents from a woman contact and when he found she was blown, he brought her out through Checkpoint Charlie in the boot of his car.'
'That's Alex, sir. Short service commission in the Welsh Guards, three tours in Ireland. Quite an accomplished musician. Plays the piano rather well. Mad as a hatter on a good day. Typically Welsh.'
'Get him!' Ferguson said. 'Now, Harry.' He had a hunch about Martin and suddenly felt much more cheerful. He helped himself to one of the bacon sandwiches. 'I say, these are really rather good.'
*
Alexander Martin was thirty-seven, a tall, rather handsome man with a deceptively lazy look to him. He was much given to smiling tolerantly, which he needed to do in the profession of investment broker which he had taken up on moving to Jersey eighteen months previously. As he had told his wife, Joan, on more than one occasion, the trouble with being in the investment business was that it threw you into the company of the rich and, as a class, he disliked them heartily.
Still, life had its compensations. He was an accomplished pianist if not a great one. If he had been, life might have been rather different. He was seated at the piano in the living room of his pleasant house in St Aubin overlooking the sea, playing a little Bach, ice-cold, brilliant stuff that required total concentration. He was wearing a dinner jacket, black tie undone at the neck. The phone rang for several moments before it penetrated his consciousness. He frowned, realizing the lateness of the hour and picked it up.
'Martin here.'
'Alex? This is Harry. Harry Fox.'
'Dear God!' Alex Martin said.
'How are Joan and the kids?'
'In Germany for a week, staying with her sister. Her husband's a major with your old mob. Detmold.'
'So, you're on your own? I thought you'd be in bed.'
'Just in from a late function.' Martin was very much awake now, all past experience telling him this was not a social call. 'Okay, Harry. What is this?'
'We need you, Alex, rather badly, but not like the other times. Right there in Jersey.'
Alex Martin laughed in astonishment. 'In Jersey? You've got to be joking.'
'Girl called Tanya Voroninova. Have you heard of her?'
'Of course I damn well have,' Martin told him. 'One of the best concert pianists to come along for years. I saw her perform at the Albert Hall in last season's promenade concerts. My office gets the Paris papers each day. She's there on a concert tour at the moment.'
'No she isn't,' Fox said. 'By now, she'll be half-way to Rennes on the night train. She's defecting, Alex.'
'She's what?'
'With luck, she'll be on the hydrofoil from St Malo, arriving Jersey at eight-twenty. She has a British passport in the name of Joanna Frank.'
Martin saw it all now. 'And you want me to meet her?'
'Exactly. Straight to the airport and bundle her on to the ten-ten to Heathrow and that's it. We'll meet her this end. Will that give you any problem?'
'Certainly not. I know what she looks like. In fact, I think I've still got the programme from her concert at the Proms. There's a photo of her on that.'
'Fine,' Fox told him. 'She's phoning a contact of ours when she gets into Rennes. We'll warn her to expect you.'
Ferguson said, 'Give me the phone. Ferguson here.'
'Hello, sir,' Martin said.
'We're very grateful.'
'Nothing to it, sir. Just one thing. What about the opposition?'
'Shouldn't be any. KGB will be waiting at all the obvious bolt holes. Charles de Gaulle, Calais, Boulogne. Highly unlikely they'll be on to this one. I'll hand you back to Harry now.'
Fox said, 'We'll stay close, Alex. I'll give you this number in case of any problems.'
Martin wrote it down. 'Should be a piece of cake. Make a nice change from the investment business. I'll be in touch.'
He was totally awake now and decidedly cheerful. No hope of sleep. Things