Enigma

studying him carefully.
    'When does he want me to go?'
    'Well, now, you bloody idiot. “Send him back to King's and this time letter the bugger walk” -1 seem to recall those were my specific instructions.' He sighed and shook his head. 'You shouldn't have made him look a fool, Tom. Not in front of his clients.'
    'But he is a fool.' Outrage and self-pity were welling in him. He tried to keep his voice steady. 'He hasn't the foggiest idea of what he's talking about. Come on, Guy. Do you honestly believe, for one minute, that we can break back into Shark within the next three days?'
    'No. But there are ways of saying it and there are ways of saying it, if you follow me, especially when our dearly beloved American brethren are in the same room.
    Someone knocked and Logie shouted: 'Not now, old thing, thanks all the same!'
    He waited until whoever it was had gone and then said, quietly: 'I don't think you quite appreciate how much things have changed round here.'
    'That's what Skynner said.'
    'Well, he's right. For once. You saw it for yourself at the conference yesterday. It's not 1940 any more, Tom. It's not plucky little Britain stands alone. We've moved on. We have to take account of what other people think. Just look at the map, man. Read the newspapers. These convoys embark from New York. A quarter of the ships are American. The cargo's all American. American troops. American crews.' Logie suddenly covered his face with his hands. 'My God, I can't believe you tried to hit Skynner. You really are pretty potty, aren't you? I'm not at all sure you're safe to walk the streets.' He lifted his feet off the desk and picked up the telephone. 'Look, I don't care what he says, I'll see if I can get the car to take you back.'
    'No!' Jericho was surprised at the vehemence in his voice. In his mind he could see, perfectly replicated, the Atlantic plot—the brown landmass of North America, the Rorschach inkblots of the British Isles, the blue of the ocean, the innocent yellow discs, the shark's teeth, set and loaded like a mantrap. And Claire? Impossible to find her even now, when he had access to the Park. Shipped back to Cambridge, stripped of his security clearance, he might as well be on another planet. 'No,' he said, more calmly. 'You can't do that.'
    'It's not my decision.'
    'Give me a couple of days.'
    'What?'
    'Tell Skynner you want to give me a couple of days. Give me a couple of days to see if I can find a way back into Shark.'
    Logie stared at Jericho for five seconds, then started to laugh. 'You get madder and madder as the week wears on, old son. Yesterday you're telling us Shark can't be broken in three days. Now you're saying you might be able to do it in two.'
    'Please, Guy. I'm begging you.' And he was. He had his hands on Logie's desk and was leaning over it. He was pleading for his life. 'Skynner doesn't just want me out of the hut, you know. He wants me out of the Park altogether. He wants me locked up in some garret in the Admiralty doing long division.'
    'There are worse places to spend the war.'
    'Not for me there aren't. I'd hang myself. I belong here.'
    'I have already stuck my neck out so far for you, my lad.' Logie jabbed his pipe into Jericho's chest.
    '“Jericho?” they said. “You can't be serious. We're in a crisis and you want Jericho?” He jabbed his pipe again. 'So I said: “Yes, I know he's half bloody cracked and keeps on fainting like a maiden bloody aunt, but he's got something, got that extra two per cent. Just trust me.”' Jab, jab. 'So I beg a bloody car—no joke round here, as you've gathered—and instead of getting my kip I come and drink stale tea in King's and plead with you, bloody plead, and the first thing you do is make us all look idiots and then you slug the head of section -all right, all right, try to slug him. Now, I ask you: who's going to listen to me now?'
    'Skynner.'
    'Come off it.'
    'Skynner will have to listen, he will if you insist you need me. I know—' Jericho was inspired. 'You could threaten to tell that admiral, Trowbridge, that I've been removed—at a vital moment in the Battle of the Atlantic—just because I spoke the truth.'
    'Oh, I could, could I? Thank you. Thanks very much. Then we'll both be doing long division in the Admiralty.'
    '“There are worse places to spend the war.'”
    'Don't be cheap.'
    There was another knock, much louder this time. 'For God's sake,' yelled Logie, 'piss off!' But the handle started to turn anyway. Jericho moved