Decoy Read Online Free Page B

King’s ships for that month, you’d have spent most of your time censoring the matelots’ mail, adding up mess chits or filling in the returns your predecessor let pile up or getting the additions to the Confidential Books up to date. In other words, my lad, while with ASIU you were helping to beat Hitler, but the rest of the jobs merely keep the Admiralty penpushers satisfied. Right?’
    ‘I suppose so, sir,’ Ned said gloomily.
    ‘ Suppose ?’ Watts exploded. ‘Listen, I was commanding a flotilla of destroyers when they hauled me in for this job. You were simply the number one of a destroyer, and when you finally took command as the senior surviving officer, you had it sunk under your feet by bombers. So now I command a desk and a bag of nuts, including you, Jemmy, the Croupier and the rest of them in that room. Yet their Lordships — and the Prime Minister, incidentally — reckon they’re getting a bargain.’
    He looked round at the kettle, which had begun to boil, and bawled: ‘Joan!’
    She walked in with three small aluminium filters. ‘No need to shout, sir.’ There was just enough emphasis on the ‘sir’ to make it a term of abuse. ‘Kettle takes exactly four minutes to boil…’
    Watts looked at Ned, his eyebrows raised: he was admitting that despite practising on his former wives, he could not win where women were concerned.
    As Joan poured hot water into the filter, spreading a tantalizing smell of fresh coffee across the room, Watts said casually: ‘I met your mother at a party at the Ancasters’ the other evening.’
    ‘Did you, sir?’ Ned kept his reply equally casual.
    ‘Yes. Remarkable company. She has a lively mind.’
    ‘Gets it from her son, sir.’
    ‘We went out to dinner afterwards,’ Watts said, ignoring Ned’s comment. ‘Most enjoyable evening. Best I’ve had for many months.’
    ‘Indeed, sir? She didn’t mention it.’
    Watts glowered at Ned and then saw the comment was humorous, not malicious. ‘She looks so young.’
    ‘Much too young to have a grown-up son, sir.’
    Joan put the filters in front of the men. ‘Now, you two, discuss Ned’s mum out of office hours. This’ll take two or three minutes to drip through.’ With that she left the room again, carefully shutting the door as if to make it clear that Captain Watts would not be disturbed.
    ‘My application for sea service, sir — ’
    ‘Forget it, Ned,’ Watts said quietly. ‘I can’t say anything for the time being except that the Navy — indeed the whole bloody country — faces an unexpected crisis. No,’ he held up a hand, ‘can’t tell you the details at the moment. You’ll hear more about it from the PM tomorrow. Providing,’ he added, ‘the security people get your new clearance through in time.’
    ‘Security clearance, sir?’ What the devil was that all about? Hell fire, he had been at sea only a few days ago shooting at Germans. ‘Has DNI discovered that I’ve been passing trade secrets to the Germans? Seems a bit odd giving me a gong one week and running a security check on me the next!’
    ‘Easy, Ned, easy. T’aint like that at all. And Naval Intelligence, or the Director thereof, has nothing to do with it. This is a different sort of check. The security boys — for the country, not just the Navy — have a set of rules. If Buggins has to see secret documents or receive secret information up to a certain level — say B3 — then he has to have at least a B3 security clearance. If he moves on to other and more secret work, he might need an A2 clearance, and so on. Each needs an increasing depth of checking.’
    ‘I should have thought ASIU rated fairly high.’
    ‘It does — about D7 metaphorically, compared with what is likely to be your next job, which by comparison would be A1.’
    Ned scratched his head. Presumably A1 was the highest security classification. Did it allow you to listen to the PM chatting to President Roosevelt?
    ‘Why would I want an A1 security