Games Traitors Play Read Free Page B

slower, but it would be easier to start, and the man was already out of sight, the noise of his engine fading fast. It also held a certain appeal for Marchant. For years, the Mobylette was made under licence in India. A few months before his father finished his second posting in Delhi, the family had presented Chandar, their cook, with one, to replace his old Hero bicycle. Chandar used to maintain it lovingly, showing Marchant, then eight years old, how to start it, both of them laughing as Chandar pedalled furiously in his chef’s whites until the engine coughed into life.
    Marchant checked that the Mobylette’s wheel forks weren’t locked. Nothing he had done since his arrival in Marrakech had aroused any attention from the authorities. That was part of the deal, one of the conditions he had agreed with MI6 in return for being sent to Morocco and allowed to operate on his own. He hadn’t wanted back-up or support. It was, after all, a very personal quest: family business, as his father would have called it. Marcus Fielding, the professorial Chief of MI6, had agreed, knowing that if anyone could find Salim Dhar, it was Marchant. But Fielding had warned him: no drinking, no brawls, no break-ins, nothing illegal. He had caused enough trouble already in his short career.
    Marchant had kept his side of the bargain. For three months, he had stayed off the sauce, savouring life outside Legoland, MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall. The CIA had prevented him from leaving Britain in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, but after a frustrating year, Fielding had finally prevailed, much to Marchant’s relief. London was no place for a field agent.
    He had studied hard in Marrakech’s libraries, researching the history of the Berbers and taking the opportunity to reread the Koran. It had been required reading during his time at Fort Monckton, MI6’s training base on the end of the Gosport peninsula. But he read it now with renewed interest, searching for anything that might help him to understand Salim Dhar’s world.
    In the cool of the early mornings, he had gone running through the deserted medina. The first run had been the hardest, not because his body was out of shape, but because of the memories it brought back: the London Marathon, Leila, their time together. He had returned after two miles, in need of a stiff drink, but he managed to keep his promise to Fielding. After two weeks, he no longer missed the Scotch. In a Muslim country, abstinence was easier than he had feared it would be. And he realised that he no longer missed Leila. It felt as if life was starting anew.
    In the year following Leila’s death, he had been unable to go running. He had missed her every day, seen her face wherever he went in London. The coldness that had encased his heart since he arrived in Morocco had shocked him at first, but he knew it had to be if he was to survive in the Service. His trained eye had spotted one suicide bomber amongst 35,000 participants, but he had failed to identify the traitor running at his own side, the woman he had loved.
    Now, though, he was about to cross a line, and for a moment he felt the buzz he’d been missing. It was hardly a big breach, but if someone reported a foreigner stealing a Mobylette, there was a small chance that the local police would become involved. A report might be filed. He would show up on the grid, however faintly, and he couldn’t afford to do that. London would recall him. He would be back behind a desk in Legoland, analysing embellished CX reports from ambitious field agents, drinking too much at the Morpeth Arms after work. But he couldn’t afford to lose his man.
    He glanced up and down the street. No one was around. He sat on the Mobylette, which was still on its stand. He checked the fuel switch, then began pedalling, thinking of Chandar as he worked the choke and the compressor with his thumbs. The engine started up, and he rocked the