Free Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett Page A

identify a threat and take steps to neutralize it.
    Yes, he would make the rendezvous. But not in the way they expected.
     
     
     
    THERE WERE STILL CROWDS in the West End of London, despite the war; Faber wondered whether it was the same in Berlin. He bought a Bible at Hatchard’s bookshop in Piccadilly, and stuffed it into his inside coat pocket, out of sight. It was a mild, damp day, with intermittent drizzle, and Faber was carrying an umbrella.
    This rendezvous was timed for either between nine and ten o’clock in the morning or between five and six in the afternoon, and the arrangement was that one went there every day until the other party turned up. If no contact was made for five successive days one went there on alternate days for two weeks. After that one gave up.
    Faber got to Leicester Square at ten past nine. The contact was there, in the tobacconist’s doorway, with a black-bound Bible under his arm, pretending to shelter from the rain. Faber spotted him out of the corner of his eye and hurried past, head down. The man was youngish, with a blond moustache and a well-fed look. He wore a black double-breasted raincoat, and he was reading the Daily Express and chewing gum. He was not familiar.
    When Faber walked by the second time on the opposite side of the street, he spotted the tail. A short, stocky man wearing the trenchcoat and trilby hat beloved of English plainclothes policemen was standing just inside the foyer of an office building, looking through the glass doors across the street to the man in the doorway.
    There were two possibilities. If the agent did not know he had been followed, Faber had only to get him away from the rendezvous and lose the tail. However, the alternative was that the agent had been captured and the man in the doorway was a substitute, in which case neither he nor the tail must be allowed to see Faber’s face.
    Faber assumed the worst, then thought of a way to deal with it.
    There was a telephone booth in the Square. Faber went inside and memorized the number. Then he found I Kings 13 in the Bible, tore out the page, and scribbled in the margin, “Go to the phone booth in the Square.”
    He walked around the back streets behind the National Gallery until he found a small boy, aged about ten or eleven, sitting on a doorstep throwing stones at puddles.
    Faber said, “Do you know the tobacconist in the Square?”
    “Yerst.”
    “Do you like chewing gum?”
    “Yerst.”
    Faber gave him a page torn from the Bible. “There’s a man in the doorway of the tobacconist’s. If you give him this he’ll give you some gum.”
    “All right,” the boy said. He stood up. “Is this geezer a Yank?”
    “Yerst,” Faber said.
    The boy ran off. Faber followed him. As the boy approached the agent, Faber ducked into the doorway of the building opposite. The tail was still there, peering through the glass. Faber stood just outside the door, blocking the tail’s view of the scene across the street, and opened his umbrella. He pretended to be struggling with it. He saw the agent give something to the boy and walked off. He ended his charade with the umbrella and walked in the direction opposite to the way the agent had gone. He looked back over his shoulder to see the tail run into the street, looking for the vanished agent.
    Faber stopped at the nearest telephone and dialed the number of the booth in the Square. It took a few minutes to get through. At last a deep voice said, “Hello?”
    “What is today’s chapter?” Faber said.
    “One Kings thirteen.”
    “Most inspiring.”
    “Yes, isn’t it.”
    The fool has no idea of the trouble he’s in, Faber thought. Aloud he said, “Well?”
    “I must see you.”
    “That is impossible.”
    “But I must!” There was a note in the voice that Faber thought edged on despair. “The message comes from the very top—do you understand?”
    Faber pretended to waver. “All right, then. I will meet you in one week’s time under the arch