A Delicate Truth A Novel - By John Le Carre Page 0,43

Is he waiting for applause and not getting it? Or is it something in Jeb’s expression that sets him going? Either way, his patience snaps:

‘For Christ’s sake, Jeb. Look at you! You’ve got your guarantees. You’ve got Paul here. You’ve got your green light, and here we are with the bloody clock ticking. What are we actually talking about?’

But Jeb’s voice displays no such disquiet under fire:

‘Only I tried to have a word with Mr Crispin about it, see,’ he explains, in his comforting Welsh rhythm. ‘But he didn’t seem to want to listen. Too busy. Said I should sort it out with Elliot, him being the designated operational commander.’

‘What the hell’s wrong with Elliot? They tell me he’s absolutely top of the range. First rate.’

‘Well, nothing really. Except Ethical’s sort of a new brand to us, like. Plus we’re operating on the basis of Ethical’s intelligence. So naturally we thought we’d better come to you, well, for reassurance, like. Only it’s no bother for Crispin’s boys, is it? Them being American and exceptional, which is why they were chosen, I suppose. Big money on the table if the operation is successful, plus the international courts can’t lay a finger on them. But my boys are British, aren’t they? So am I. We’re soldiers, not mercenaries. And we don’t fancy sitting in prison in The Hague for an indeterminate period of time accused of participating in an act of extraordinary rendition, do we? Plus we’ve been struck off regimental books for reasons of deniability. The regiment can wash its hands of us any time it wants if the operation comes unstuck. Common criminals, we’d be, not soldiers at all, according to our way of thinking.’

*

Here Toby, who until now had kept his eyes closed the better to visualize the scene, wound back the tape and played the same passage again, then, leaping to his feet, grabbed a kitchen notebook with Isabel’s scrawls all over it, tore off the top few pages and scribbled down such abbreviations as extr/rendition, US exceptnls and no int./justice.

*

‘All done, Jeb?’ Quinn is asking, in a tone of saintly tolerance. ‘No more where that came from?’

‘Well, we do have a couple of supplementaries, like, since you ask, Minister. Compensation in the worst contingency is one. Medevac for if we’re wounded is another. We can’t stay lying there, can we? We’d be embarrassing either way, dead or wounded. What happens to our wives and dependants, like? That’s another one, now we’re not regiment any more till we’re reinstated. I said I’d ask, even if it was a bit on the academic side,’ he ends, on a note that to Toby’s ear is too concessive by half.

‘Not academic at all, Jeb,’ Quinn protests expansively. ‘Quite the reverse, if I may say so! Let me make this very clear’ – the Glaswegian Man of the People’s accent taking convenient wing as Quinn enters his hectoring salesman’s mode – ‘the legal headache you describe has been thought through at the very highest level and totally discounted. Thrown out of court. Literally.’

By whom? By Roy Stormont-Taylor, the charismatic television lawyer, on one of his many social visits to the Private Office?

‘And I’ll tell you why it’s been thrown out, if you want to know, Jeb, which you very rightly do, if I may say so. Because no British team will be taking part in an act of extraordinary rendition. Period. The British team will be based on precious British soil. Solely. You will be protecting British shores. Furthermore, this government is on record, at all levels, as refuting any suggestion of involvement in extraordinary rendition whatsoever, past, present or future. It is a practice that we abhor and condemn unconditionally. What an American team does is entirely its own affair.’

In Toby’s racing imagination the minister here casts Jeb a glower of immense import, then shakes his brawler’s gingery head in frustration as if to say: if only his lips weren’t sealed.

‘Your remit, Jeb, is – repeat – to capture or otherwise neutralize with minimum force an HVT’ – hasty translation, presumably for Paul’s benefit – ‘High-value Target, right? – target, not terrorist, though in this case the two happen to be one and the same – with a very large price on his head who has been unwise enough to intrude himself on to British territory’ – hitting the prepositions, a sure sign to Toby’s ear of his insecurity. ‘Of necessity, you will be there incognito, undeclared to the local authorities,