The Partridge Kite Read Online Free PDF

Height a fraction under six feet; weight twelve stone as of last medical two months ago. Service history, RAF Regiment National Service, transferred after two years to SAS on short service commission. Five years in Hong Kong, Cyprus, seconded to British Embassy Saigon on Military Attach^ staff, unofficially assigned to South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for intelligence feedback. Did not renew commission after fifteen months on-off duty, Ulster. Pioneered the use of the night-sight there and established eighteen kills; previous kill ratings not known.’
    Kellick noticed the figure eighteen had been underlined in pencil by someone in the Department. He made a mental note to find out who and why. A postscript at the foot of the page noted that McCullin had left NI after his photograph had been found in a search on a Provisional HQ in Crossmaglen, South Armagh. It meant his work as a sniper and instructor on night-sights and the new M.10 rifles had been leaked to the IRA. Left with Captain’s rank. Ordnance, one service medal. Since 1974, Tom had been employed on separate contracts by the Department. He’d been away seven months on the last. All had been successful. There had been no kickbacks from inside the Department or from the foreign embassies whose various employees had sometimes been the subjects of Tom’s hard work and marksmanship.
    Kellick gave the file to Fry and went into the kitchen. The sink revolted him. He pulled at the plug-chain. Grease from the cold washing-up water stuck to his hands and covered his wristwatch. It made him want to retch. He’d taken off his shoes but his socks were still wet and his feet were cold.
    He was finding it hard to come to terms with all that he had heard in the past three days. He was very definitely an outer man, a good outer surface man: strong face, good voice, steel tips on the shoes man. And being in charge of Special State Operations had never troubled him before. He’d served a long apprenticeship and he’d never relied on luck to get on: which was fortunate because he’d never had even a mouse’s share of it.
    He’d always coped because it was always so predictable.
    But all that he’d learnt over the past seventy-two hours had shattered that comfortable feeling - the unpleasant combination of fighting an enemy at home with none of the usual let-outs available to him if things went wrong. He had eight years to go to retirement and a knighthood: he meant to enjoy both. A cock-up on a foreign could always be covered. There had been many before and here he was stronger than ever. But a cockup on this one would be hard to hide - he couldn’t expect to smother the Department’s recriminations. Balls this up, and he’d join the holdover list of senior civil servants waiting for a transfer. He walked back into the lounge just as Fry had finished listening to the radio news bulletin. He raised his eyebrows, nodding towards the set.
    ‘No,’ said Fry, ‘no developments. Same headlines, same blanks.’
    Kellick said, ‘The Prime Minister wants us to employ our man through a third party, so there’s no trace-back to him. I can see his point, I suppose.’
    ‘He realised,’ Fry said, ‘that we must pick someone from our own files. How the hell are we expected to employ McCullin or anyone from the A.D. without his twigging he’s working for us?’
    Kellick sat back on the sofa, pulled off his wet socks and began rubbing his feet and massaging the toes.
    ‘That’s the question. Fry,’ he said. ‘Now let’s have the answer!’
    ‘We did something of the kind with Bellinger last year, contracted him through a private detective agency that he occasionally worked for.’
    ‘Does McCullin string for a detective agency. Fry?’ ‘No!’
    ‘Then try and talk some bloody sense, for Christ’s sake!’ Kellick was tired and he never tried to hide his irritability with subordinates.
    ‘But we could invent one,’ Fry came back. ‘We could employ him - proper