Vengeance 10 Read Online Free PDF Page A

he had been taught. Another agent would have been welcomed home with the certainty of a CBE in the not too distant future. Instead, he had been accused of damaging relations with Germany. Nonsense, he snorted. But even so, his actions were to be submitted to the scrutiny of an enquiry board, which would surely support Englesby.
    And Memling knew why it had turned out the way it had. He was not a gentleman, moneyed or well connected, all of which were prime requisites for a successful Foreign Office career. What’s more, he had a foreign sounding name and lacked the educational essentials provided by a good school and university. In fact, he lacked a degree of any kind. A month after his father’s business had failed, the old man had shot himself with one of his own shotguns. Memling had often wondered since then if he and his mother could have managed on the small pension. Had he again given in too easily, frightened by future unknowns?
    Along with his hopes for a degree, he gave up his activities in the British Interplanetary Society. No more than a few amateur scientists were scattered among the usual collection of astrology buffs, fantasists, and spiritualists attracted by the grandiose name, but those few were dedicated to a dream, an overpowering vision of man’s future in the vast reaches of the universe. Memling was gathered in during his first year at college. His scientific training stood him and the society in good stead but did not inhibit his dreams of space, the frozen, sun-blasted lunar plains, the wonders of multistar planetary systems, or the heights to which man might aspire once freed from the green but confining hills of Earth. Until his father died, every moment and penny Memling could spare were dedicated to one or another of the BIS projects. Then the demands of his mother’s failing health and a succession of part-time jobs cut short these activities, and he was left with only the pages of science-fiction magazines to sustain his dreams.
    One of his father’s oldest customers was Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair. After the old man’s death, the admiral visited the house to express his sympathies and, on leaving, pressed a card into Jan’s hand and urged him to call at his club. It was a month or better before he screwed up sufficient courage to do so. His reception was exactly as expected; ignored by the members and treated with disdain by the servants, he was on the verge of leaving when Sir Hugh appeared. He led Jan into a private parlour and opened to him a new vista that he had never imagined to exist outside the novels of Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad.
    ‘I have asked you to come and talk with me so that you can consider whether or not you would be willing to serve your country.’
    ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ Jan was completely confused.
    The admiral smiled. ‘I have just begun the direction of a certain department in the government that has to do with intelligence matters. The old-fashioned word is spying. I would like you to join that department.’
    ‘Become a... a... spy?’ He brushed a hand across his forehead, an old gesture signifying his confusion. ‘I don’t know anything about being a spy.’
    The admiral shrugged. ‘Neither do I. Perhaps we could learn together.’
    ‘But why me, sir? I don’t see that I have any qualifications ...’
    The admiral held up a hand. ‘My boy, the days when individuals might ferret out the secrets of a mighty nation as did Davies and Carruthers are fast coming to an end. Today spying, a distasteful but accurate term, is a huge business and takes a good many people to make it go. Now, you take our own spies, of which, I might add, there are more than a few. For the most part they are professional enough. My predecessor saw to that. But since 1918 we’ve tended to go a bit slack. You have a technical education. If ever we must fight another war, that kind of background will be invaluable. Great Britain requires something more than adventurers