Mike stared at Philpott for a long moment. ‘I’m disappointed you feel that way.’
‘No need to be,’ Philpott said. ‘There is time we can borrow.’
‘Huh?’
‘The ballistics-update course that you and the other members of Task Force Three should be attending from Tuesday next — it’s been put back two weeks.’
Mike looked at Whitlock, who was now sitting beside him. He looked back at Philpott. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘As I promised I would, I gave extended consideration to Reverend Young’s plea. I also spoke to Sufi Gopal in our Delhi office. He spoke without the clergyman’s passion, but his calm words were a good deal more chilling. I’ve decided there is enough criminal rumbling in Kashmir to justify organized UNACO intrusion.’
Mike stared. ‘Really?’
‘It’s what I called the three of you here to discuss. It’s a genuinely worrying picture. There is escalating terrorism, there is drug running, there is the calculated disruption of peaceful development, and there’s the possibility that even a small increase in friction could spark off fighting that would involve Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China.’
Mike was still bewildered at the turn of events. He had been sure Philpott had thrown this one out. ‘You’re saying we can go in as a team?’
‘Indeed,’ Philpott said. ‘I believe a little collective defusing would be in order.’ He passed three clipped documents along the table. ‘These are preliminary strategic manoeuvres worked out between Sufi Gopal and myself. Let me have your comments and any suggested revisions of strategy by this time tomorrow.’
Sabrina frowned. ‘Is that it? Is the meeting over?’
Philpott nodded. They all stood.
‘That means I’ve got to hang about in these clothes for another two hours and still turn up at the Arcadia looking glitzy and fresh.’
‘Go home and take them off,’ Whitlock said.
‘I can’t do that. I can’t take clothes off, then put them on again in a couple of hours. I’d feel like I was wearing stuff that should be in the cleaner’s. And if I feel that way, I’ll look that way. In front of her.’
‘Go shopping,’ Mike said. ‘That’ll keep you on your feet for two hours without noticing it, and you won’t get your duds creased.’
Sabrina beamed at him. ‘Great idea,’ she said.
Whitlock stayed behind when Sabrina and Mike had gone. ‘I spoke to Carl Grubb earlier,’ he told Philpott.
‘The private investigator?’
‘I asked him to keep a watch on the funeral home where they’re holding Arno Skuttnik’s body. Quite a few people have shown up to pay their respects. Other staff from the hotel where he worked, his neighbours …’
Philpott was drumming the table softly. ‘C.W.,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t have volunteered this information if it had been devoid of relevance, am I correct?’
‘I was working up to it, the relevant bit.’
‘Just skip the presentation. What’s the story?’
‘Adam Korwin showed up.’
‘What?’ Philpott’s eyes grew wide. ‘To look at the body?’
‘Grubb was watching from an adjoining room. He said the way Korwin looked at the corpse, he was there to satisfy himself it was who people said it was.’
Philpott shook his head slowly. ‘Can we be sure it was Korwin?’
‘I have the Polaroids. It was him, all right.’
‘I don’t know whether to feel good or bad about this.’
‘It’s intriguing,’ Whitlock said. ‘An old immigrant with no family, no skills, no interesting history, no status you could measure, dies suddenly, and who shows up to run an eye over the body?’
‘Adam Korwin,’ Philpott breathed. ‘Surprise, surprise …’
Korwin was the doyen of US East Coast spy-masters. During the cold war his name had been cited by three Kremlin defectors, and his status as a principal Russian spy-handler had been confirmed by highly-placed Eastern Bloc sources. But Korwin was so good at his job that he had worked for thirty years under the noses of the FBI and CIA without once doing anything even remotely suspicious. To all appearances he was a harmless self-employed upholsterer, and no one could muster enough on him to work up a believable extradition order.
‘What the hell was his connection with Skuttnik?’ Philpott said.
‘That’s my next avenue of enquiry. Assuming you want me to take this further.’
‘I’ll say I do.’
‘It’ll take time. What about Kashmir?’
‘With a touch of re-jigging and enough local help, that’s a job Mike and Sabrina can tackle. Don’t worry about it. Concentrate on the link between the late Arno Skuttnik and the boys from Red Square.’
Lenny Trent called that afternoon while Mike was in the TF3 suite, boning up on the geography of northern India and Kashmir. Maps and books were spread across two tables and a gazetteer lay open on the carpet. When the phone rang he had to dig it out from under the concertina folds of a Delhi street directory.
‘Mike. It’s Lenny. You still interested in pin-pointing the whereabouts of Paul Seaton?’
‘It’s only been one day, Lenny. Of course I’m still interested. I’m flying out to India before the end of the week, so you could say I’m really anxious to get a line on him.’
‘I may have something for you.’
‘So soon?’
‘Idle conversation can be a golden shovel, Mike. You never know what it’ll turn up.’
‘I’ll put that on the cork board.’
‘At lunch today I talked to my colleagues in general terms about what you and I discussed yesterday — the Afghanistan initiative, the way terrorist groups and drug routes have blossomed since the Russkies moved out — and I asked if anybody had ever had confirmation of the alleged drug convoys running from Kashmir down the western territories into the Punjab. Louise, who is in liaison with our north-west Indian contacts all year round, said she’d heard the convoys had stopped. Pakistani Army hotshots on the border had made it too dangerous.’
‘Oh, well…’
‘Hang on,’ Lenny said. ‘Louise then told me she’d heard from a good source that the American guy who led the big convoy was running another one now.’
‘Did she say where?’
‘From up near the Wular Lake region in northwest Kashmir, down the western territories to a destination unknown. It could be Batala or Kangra — they’re places where you’ll find run-on links for any kind of contraband.’
‘Fascinating, Lenny. But it still sounds like hearsay.’
‘You’re not letting me unfold this the way I want,’ Lenny complained. ‘Just listen. When Louise told us about the new convoy route, up pipes Jonathan, our satellite communications guy. He said he visited the Aerial Defence Department’s tracking and reconnaissance centre at Arlington six weeks ago, and they showed him some high-definition photographs, computer enhanced, taken from three miles up. He was impressed, especially by one that showed a suspected bandit convoy in the Pirpanjal Mountains in western Kashmir.’
‘That sounds more promising.’
‘Let me finish. The faces of several of the men in the horse convoy were clearly