"Goodbye, Mr. Shaw," she said in a voice he could hardly hear. "Take care of yourself."
A cold evening sleet lashed London as the diesel engine of a black Austin cab knocked to an idle in front of a large stone building in Hyde Park. Shaw paid the driver and stepped out to the pavement. He stood for a few moments, ignoring the particles of wind-driven ice that pelted his face, staring up at the ugly edifice where he had once worked.
The windows were dirty and streaked and the walls bore soot and pollution from half a century of neglect. Shaw thought it odd that the building had never been sandblasted as had so many others around the city.
He climbed the steps and entered the lobby. A security guard matter-of-factly asked to see his identification and checked his name against a list of scheduled appointments.
"Please take the lift to the tenth floor," said the guard. "Someone will meet you."
The lift trembled and rattled as it always had, but the operator was gone, replaced by a panel of buttons.
Shaw stopped the lift on the ninth floor and walked into the corridor. He found his old office and opened the door, expecting to see a secretary busily typing in the front area and a man sitting at his desk in the rear.
He was numbed to find the two rooms empty except for a few pieces of dusty litter.
He shook his head sadly. Who was it who said you can't go home again?
At least the stairway was where it was supposed to be, even though the security guard was no longer there. He climbed to the tenth floor and stepped out behind a blond girl, wearing a loose-fitting knit dress, who was facing the lift.
"I believe you're waiting for me," he said.
She whirled around startled. "Mr. Shaw?"
"Yes, sorry for the delay, but since this is a bit like old home week I thought I'd take a nostalgic tour."
The, girl looked at him with ill-concealed curiosity. "The brigadier is waiting for you, please follow me."
She knocked on the familiar door and opened it. ""Mr. Shaw, sir."
Except for a different desk and the man rising behind it, the bookcases and fixtures were the same. At last he felt as though he was on home ground.
"Mr. Shaw, do come in."
Brigadier General Morris V. Simms extended a hand that was firm and dry. The peacock-blue eyes had a fluid friendliness to them, but Shaw wasn't fooled. He could feel their gaze reading him like a computerized body scan.
"Please be seated."
Shaw sat in a tall-armed chair that was hard as marble. A rather unimaginative ploy, he thought, designed to place the brigadier's callers with an uncomfortable handicap. His former chief would have cursed such amateurish pettiness.
He noticed that the desk was untidy. Files were carelessly piled, several of their headings facing upside down. And there were indications of dust. Not spread evenly on the desk top, but in places where dust was not supposed to be. The upper rims of the In and Out baskets, under the receiver of the telephone, between the edges of papers protruding from their file covers.
Suddenly Shaw saw through the sham.
First there was the missing elevator operator who used to ensure that visitors went where they were sent. Then the missing security guards who had patrolled the stairways and acted as receptionists on every floor. Then there was his deserted office.
His former section of the British Secret Intelligence Service was no longer in this building.
The whole scene was a mock-up, a stage erected to act out a play for his benefit.
Brigadier Simms dropped stiffly into his chair and stared across at Shaw. There was no giveaway expression on the smooth soldier's face. It was as inscrutable as a jade Buddha.
"I suppose this is your first trip to the old haunt since you retired."
Shaw nodded. "Yes." He found it strange to sit in this room opposite a younger man.
"Must look about the same to you."
"There's been a few changes."