Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton Page A

back into the lake and hammered the surface into steel. The traffic moving slowly along the lakeside stopped, started and then stopped again. There was no hooting, no flashing headlights, no arguments, no complaining. The citizens of Geneva are as well adjusted as its clocks. It was 10 A . M ., but the city was silent except for the rustle of banknotes and the ticking of a couple of billion wristwatches.
    â€˜You were a fool to come here. And so was I.’ He pushed the bowl of cornflakes away untouched.
    â€˜You came because you knew I’d make plenty of trouble for you if you didn’t come. I came because I had to.’
    â€˜You came for yourself! This isn’t official; it’s just for yourself. And it’s bloody dangerous!’ His upper-class voice was pitched high and slightly querulous, like some customer complaining about the caviare in Harrods.
    â€˜Well, it’s too late now, Aziz.’ I poured some tea for him and he gave me a wintry smile. Aziz was working for the World Meteorological Organization headquarters on the Avenue Giuseppe-Motta. His masters here in Geneva would have been astonished perhaps to discover that he was a senior analyst for Egyptian Intelligence. But certainly his masters in Cairo would have been devastated to hear that he’d been on London’s payroll for nearly ten years. ‘And anyway,’ I said, ‘this one is
going
to become official. Believe me, it is.’
    â€˜You said that in New York.’
    â€˜That was different,’ I said. ‘You got nineteen thousand dollars out of that one. This time it’s free.’
    â€˜I’m glad you told me,’ said Aziz. He sniffed. He was a bird-like little man, with thinning hair, large eyes and a nose like a ploughshare. His dark skin was inherited from the Sudanese peasant girl who bore him, while the chalk-stripe worsted, the hand-made shoes and public-school tie were worn with the aplomb he’d learned from the Egyptian mine-owner who acknowledged the boy as his son. The small turquoise pinned into his tie was taken from a mine that has been worked since the first dynasty of Egyptian kings. For such a man it is not easy to adapt to the stringencies of a nationalized land and high taxation. ‘There will be no money this time?’ He smiled. ‘Surely you are not serious.’
    â€˜Champion,’ I said. ‘Steve Champion.’ I gave him a few seconds to think about that. ‘I need help, Aziz, I really need it.’
    â€˜You must be mad.’
    I pushed him a little. ‘London’s request for the Libyan trade figures, the Sinai supplementaries, the Kissinger stuff and the analysis you did in December. That all came through me. You must have stashed away a quarter of a million dollars over the last three years, Aziz. And most of that stuff was a doddle, wasn’t it? It’s the easiest money you ever earned, Aziz. And all of that came through me.’
    â€˜What are you fishing for – a percentage?’ He poured himself more tea, and took a long time spearing the slice of lemon, but he never drank the tea. He toyed with the thin slice of lemon, and then dipped it into the sugar, popped it into his mouth and looked up guiltily. I smiled.
    â€˜You’d better let me phone the office,’ he said. He looked at the gold quartz chronometer on his wrist, and touched his diamond cufflinks to make sure they were still in place. I suppose that must be the problem with diamond cufflinks, apart from the way they slash the red silk lining of your Savile Row suits.
    â€˜Go ahead,’ I said. ‘I don’t care how long it takes. We’ll have room service send lunch up here. I’ve spent half the night checking this room for electronic plumbing.’
    He looked around the austere Swiss hotel room that cost as much per night as the average British worker received per week. He shuddered. ‘It won’t take that long,’ he