The Berlin Assignment Read Free Page A

getting through to the bare bones of a culture and an uncanny ability to predict political decisions.”
    Talk of Lecurier pushes Hanbury once more into Heywood’s thoughts. Hanbury also had chameleon qualities. He disappeared into Berlin the way Lecurier vanished in Peking. Like Lecurier, Hanbury wrote some acceptable reports. Heywood remembers the Berlin reports. They caused a stir. But similarities ended there. Lecurier and Hanbury diverged, as Heywood often pointed out, when it came to flair. Hanbury plodded, whereas a worldliness propelled Lecurier. Yet despite Hanbury’s lack of flair, Heywood always liked him, as he did Lecurier – perhaps even more.
    Shifting his great frame, Heywood slaps at a mosquito on his thigh and wipes his forehead on a shoulder. He’s been sweating profusely. A pungent odour is developing. “Ever read one of Lecurier’s reports?” he asks, knowing Stepney hasn’t. “They were special, they really were. He created an extra dimension, a sense of history in the making. He started off in Athens when the Colonels ran the place, then he was in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, but he really came into his own in Indochina. His work on Cambodia was gripping. It even circulated in Washington. His style was to take a few telling facts, then draw a big picture. His syntheses had energy and ease. I suppose that characterized his night work too, I mean, when he lay down with localladies. He lived in an enviable world, always injecting order into what seemed all screwed up and crazy. From Cambodia he was sent to South Africa. The issues there were immediate. The business community was squealing about our apartheid sanctions. The Government needed someone who could charm the captains of industry, yet convince them the sanctions would never come off. There were fewer questions in the Commons once he stared down the bankers.”
    â€œWe were much too holier-than-thou with those damn sanctions,” says an annoyed Stepney, beginning to drum his glass. “The Brits and Krauts left themselves more manoeuvring room.”
    â€œThey had more historical investment,” Heywood replies dispassionately.
    â€œWe have a habit of misunderstanding investment generally,” counters Stepney, “so no wonder we never get around to having any that you could call historical.”
    Heywood is not inclined to be drawn in, not on investment and especially not on sanctions and apartheid. He fills his lungs for a dramatic finale. “Lecurier’s end was tragic. His vehicle was rammed by a rhinoceros while on safari and he sustained mortal injuries. That was the official line. Actually, early one morning he was stabbed in a lung as he left a public house in one of the townships, whereupon he drowned in his own blood. We were concerned, of course, that the embassy would be wobbly at a crucial time. Hanbury turned out to be a passably good chargé. After Berlin, who would have expected it?”
    The truth about Lecurier stuns Stepney. “Holy shit,” he swears softly. “So it wasn’t a rhino?”
    â€œNo,” Heywood confirms harshly. For a moment he thinks he may have gone too far. The real version of Lecurier’s death was always closely held. The trade commissioner is melancholy for a minute, then says, “I’ve heard Hanbury was a tower of strength managing the funeralarrangements. Sounds almost unbelievable.”
    â€œWe’ve all heard that, Manny. There could be some exaggeration.”
    â€œI guess so. Did you know, I worked with him once. We were on a task force investigating the impact of high sugar prices on the economy.” This link, though decades old and tenuous, allows the trade commissioner a judgement. “When I knew him he gave an impression of treading water. He worked, but he never progressed.” The Investitures priest approves of the analogy. In the Priory, Hanbury routinely had a look