1967 - Have This One on Me Read Online Free

out his handkerchief and dabbed his temples.
    ‘Yes. Sit down. Mala. I want to talk to you.’
    ‘Is something wrong?’
    Worthington thought of Suk’s crumpled body lying on the floor in his sitting room with The Forsyte Saga by his side. He looked at Mala, feeling a pang of pain and frustration. Even at forty-seven, and after eight years of celibacy. Worthington could still think regretfully of the pleasure a girl like this, with her body could give him. Comparing her to Emilie, remembering his wife’s gross fat and her meanness sickened him.
    ‘I have to stay here for a few days.’ Worthington said as Mala, looking bewildered, sat down. ‘I’m sorry ... I have to. There are things I have to do. There are things you must do.’ He leaned forward, his face twitching. ‘I have to stay here.’
    ‘Stay here?’ Mala gaped at him ‘But there’s no room! You - you can’t possibly stay here!’
    ‘I have to. I promise you I won’t be a nuisance. It is only for a few days, then I will be leaving Prague. Without your help, I can’t leave.’
    ‘But there is only one bed.’ Mala waved to the small divan standing in an alcove. ‘You can’t stay here!’
    How simple it would be, Worthington thought bitterly, if she offered to share her bed with me. But why should she?
    She doesn’t love me. Who am I to her?
    ‘I can sleep on the floor ... there’s nothing to worry about. You can trust me ... I just have to stay here.’
    Mala regarded him, her eyes opening wide. Seeing how white he was, seeing the lurking fear in his eyes, she said, ‘Are they looking for you?’
    Worthington nodded.
    ‘Yes,’ he said.
     
    * * *
     
    Captain Tim O’Halloran leaned back in the chair. Tall, broad shouldered with light blue eyes, a hard mouth and a red fleshy face, he was in charge of all the C.I.A. agents in Europe and was Dorey’s right hand man
    Dorey, sitting behind his desk, fiddling with a paper knife, had told him of his meeting with Cain. O’Halloran had listened, his hard face expressionless, knowing that Dorey would come up with some kind of solution. He had tremendous faith in Dorey.
    ‘So there we have it,’ Dorey said, putting down the paper knife. ‘If Malik catches Worthington, both Cain and Mala Reid will be blown. Worthington must be liquidated. Who can do it?’
    ‘Mike O’Brien,’ O’Halloran said without hesitation. ‘He can fly out tonight on a diplomatic passport ... no trouble at all. By late tonight or by tomorrow morning, he will fix it.’
    Dorey frowned, thought, then shrugged.
    ‘All right Tim, go ahead ... fix it.’ he said and waved to the telephone.
    He drew a bulky file towards him as O’Halloran began to dial a number. He was still reading the file when O’Halloran put down the receiver.
    ‘You can consider it done,’ O’Halloran said quietly.
    Dorey nodded and continued to read. O’Halloran sat back and waited. While Dorey examined the file, his thin face tight and pale, O’Halloran thought back on the years he had worked under this man. He was perhaps a little kinky to O’Halloran’s thinking, but there was no doubt that he was brilliant, shrewd and utterly ruthless when the cards went down. O’Halloran decided in the brief minutes that it took Dorey to sign his name on the clipped-in page of the file that he would rather work for Dorey than anyone else in the C.I.A.
    Dorey pushed the file away and then looked up, his eyes studying O’Halloran through his bifocals.
    ‘We now have to replace Worthington,’ he said. ‘I think Jack Latimer would do, but Cain isn’t optimistic. They will be watching for a replacement. Cain thinks Latimer could get blown before he even started.’
    ‘Latimer is our man,’ O’Halloran said. ‘Suppose I talk to Cain?’
    ‘I’ve talked to him. Cain always makes sense.’ Dorey put his fingertips together. ‘Malik is there. Do you remember Malik?’
    ‘Who doesn’t?’ O’Halloran said, straightening in his chair.
    ‘Yes ... Malik