The Envoy Read Online Free PDF Page A

cause. The auxiliaries beat to death two of my uncles in Dublin Castle.’
    Kit remembered hearing some of his British counterparts refer to the Irish as ‘Bog Wogs’. The engrained mutual bitterness surprised him – and he was ashamed of exploiting it. Once again, Kit thought of MICE. For Driscoll, it wasn’t just money: he was a man with a grudge, another word for ‘ideology’. ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Kit, ‘you’ve got any diving gear?’
    Driscoll shook his head.
    ‘You’ll need some.’ Kit slipped a roll of banknotes into Driscoll’s coat pocket. ‘That’s five hundred pounds – as much as an English labourer makes in a year. You’ll also need some of that money for buying a van and paying for hotels.’
    ‘I still haven’t said I’m going to do the job. And you haven’t told me what it is?’
    ‘We want you to help us drop the Brits in the shit – as deeply as possible.’
    ‘In Ireland?’
    ‘No, in England, in Portsmouth Harbour. And since you haven’t asked, any work you do for us has to be completely sterile – no fingerprints leading back to Washington.’ There were other rules too: the ones called ‘sanctions’ that formed the unspoken bond between handler and spy. Driscoll knew that if he blabbed or displeased, it wouldn’t be MI5 or Special Branch who left their calling cards, but Protestant gunmen. Sanctions aren’t betrayals, they’re rules.
    Driscoll blew on his hands and rubbed them together. ‘So what’s the deal?’
    ‘Have you heard of Commander Lionel Crabb?’
    ‘Of course, everyone knows Crabby. He’s a real character and a damned good diver too – the best the Brits have got.’ Driscoll paused. ‘You want me to hurt him?’
    ‘Only if he gets in the way.’
    Driscoll stopped and peered into the darkness.
    ‘Something wrong?’ said Kit.
    ‘I don’t like killing other divers – even if they are Brits.’
    ‘Like I said – only if he gets in the way. The job isn’t about killing Crabb, it’s about fucking up Britain’s foreign policy.’
    ‘I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.’
    ‘In the middle of April,’ said Kit, ‘a Russian cruiser called the Ordzhonikidze and two destroyers are going to dock in Portsmouth harbour. The Ordzhonikidze is carrying First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin on a goodwill visit to Britain. The people I work for want to destroy that goodwill.’
    ‘How does Crabb fit into this?’
    ‘A British intelligence organisation intends to send Crabb on a spying mission to see what the Ordzhonikidze has under her hull. The dive is a serious breach of diplomatic protocol. If the Russians find out, it could cause an embarrassing international incident.’ Kit paused and waited.
    ‘There’s more to it than this,’ said Driscoll. ‘Otherwise, you wouldn’t need me. You would just tell the Russians directly.’
    Yeah, there’s a lot more to it.’
    ‘What is it you want me to do?’
    Kit looked directly at Driscoll. The Irishman’s eyes were hidden in the gloom, his damp pale face shone like a skull in the weak light. ‘I want you to put limpet mines on the bottom of that cruiser – and I want Crabb and the British government to get blamed for it.’

Chapter Two
     
     
    She was looking out to sea. Kit knew it was her, even from a distance . She seemed a head taller than the fishermen’s wives who milled about between the sheds on Aldeburgh beach. Simple, understated, elegant. She was wearing a headscarf, a white turtleneck sweater and dark glasses: American incognito via the Latin Quarter. She reminded Kit of Jack Kennedy’s wife. The Kennedy marriage was one of those mistakes that you can’t do anything about, like when Jack got starboard and port confused and steered his PT boat across the bows of a Jap destroyer. Never mind.
    Kit didn’t speak until he was almost behind her; near enough to smell her perfume: jasmine, citrus and sandalwood. He imagined her, still