Declare

impassively, all thought of Sainte-Chapelle and his days at St. John’s school dispelled. Somehow it had not ever occurred to him that Noah’s Ark might still be whole and accessible; and the news that the holy vessel was the dwelling place of things like the monsters he had seen in those past years was inordinately depressing. “You were,” he said, “asking about Theodora.”
    “Yes.” The Armenian nodded and rubbed his forehead. “I wonder why Theodora led you to believe your Armenian infiltrators were imaginary.”
    Hale sighed, remembering one item from the list of his coverstory crimes as Theodora had summarized them in the conference room at Number 10 Downing Street five days ago: Oh yes, and you took money from a now-deceased Russian illegal to break a couple of their agents out of a Turk prison and smuggle them safely back across the Soviet border; the illegal kept no records, so it can’t be disproved. There’s a good deal more, you’ll be briefed in Kuwait.
    He did it so that my name would be on the SIS orders, Hale thought; I would certainly have been more circumspect if I had known that this “infiltration” was not only real but in effect a cooperative deal with the Russian secret ser vice! Even back then, in 1948, the old man was laying the groundwork for my eventual disgraceful cover story, in case it might one day be needed!
    And he remembered again his suspicion that Theodora intended to “establish the truth about him,” have him assassinated, after this operation was completed.
    “Why would he lead you to believe that?” Mammalian repeated. The man’s hands were clenched into fists on the table. “And why would he nevertheless give you my correct name?”
    “Well, since it turns out you were a real person, I suppose I needed your correct name to put through the SIS paper-work consistently,” said Hale. “As to why he let me believe you were a fiction, invented to fool the SIS—I don’t know. I suppose so that I’d know as little as possible, if the SIS or the KGB were to question me.”
    It chilled him now, in this disorienting 1963, to realize that he had been hiding from both services, in 1948. And he was even more of a fugitive from both now.
    “But he deluded you,” Mammalian said, “and freed me, so that the Russian Ararat operation could take place. You weren’t to know that he wanted the operation to happen, wanted your men to run into opposition! Perhaps he was working for the KGB! Perhaps he is still!”
    “No, that wasn’t it.” Hale rubbed his hands over his face. “He did want the Russians to awaken the djinn, but I’m sure he didn’t know about your… about the ambush you set up for us.” Set up with Philby’s help, he thought. “Theodora believed that our Shihab mete-orite couldn’t kill the djinn until they had… opened their gates to your party, and in that way become vulnerable to our attack. The possibility of effective opposition from—you—was a regrettable necessity.”
    Mammalian was nodding, but skeptically. “That was and is true, that about the opened gates. Even buckshot bounces off, when the gates are closed. But I wonder if he is still deluding you—I wonder if he stage-managed it so that you would kill those two men last week in England and predictably flee to Kuwait, where we would predictably approach you.”
    Hale’s chest was cold, for Mammalian was getting far too close to the truth—and he forced himself to frown as if at a difficult chess problem. “You think he’s running me now ?”
    Mammalian laughed softly. “And perhaps for the KGB! I don’t accuse you of dishonesty, my friend. I’m confident that if he is running you now, it is without your knowledge. I will certainly make sure that your Shihab stone is ground to powder and sifted into the sea! And even so, I may advise that we abort the operation. What did you learn from the Kurds?”
    Hale’s mouth was dry at the thought that the operation might be canceled, that he might not get a chance to avenge the men he had led to their deaths on that wild night fourteen years ago—in spite of what he had told Mammalian earlier this evening, he did want vrej , vengeance—but he forced a laugh. “How could he have had me followed—”
    “That is my worry, Andrew. What did you learn from the Kurds?”
    Hale wished for hot coffee, but didn’t dare ask for it directly after a hard question; he had learned about Cassagnac’s precious amomon thistle from the