Read Online A Matter of Honour by Jeffrey Archer - Free Book Online

Adam, quickly taking
back the sheet of paper. “Thank you,” he added. “It was most kind of you to
help.”
    He left the girl and was relieved to see her
shrug resignedly and return to her copy of Time. Adam went in search of the games room.
    When he swung the door open he found a young
man in a World Cup T-shirt and brown suede shorts. He was tapping a table
tennis ball up and down listlessly.
    “Care for a game?” said the boy, not looking
at all hopeful.
    “Sure,” said Adam, removing his jacket and
picking up the table tennis bat at his end of the table. For twenty minutes
Adam had to play flat out to make sure he lost 18-21, 21-12, 17-21. As he
replaced his jacket and congratulated his opponent he felt sure he had gained
the young man’s confidence.
    “You put up good fight,” said the German. “Give
me good game.”
    Adam joined him at his end of the table. “I
wonder if you could help me with something?” he said.
    “Your backhand?” said the young man.
    “No, thank you,” said Adam, “I just need a
paragraph of German translated.” He handed over the middle paragraph of the
letter. Once again, the would-be translator looked puzzled.
    “It’s from a book, so it may seem a little
out of context,” Adam said, unconvincingly.
    “Okay, I try.” As the boy began to study the
paragraph, the girl who had already translated the first section came into the
games room. She made her way towards them.
    “This hard to make out, I am not good
translation for,” the young man said. “My girlfriend better, I think. I ask
her. Liebling, kannst Du dies fur den Herrn
ins Englische?” Without looking at Adam he passed the second paragraph over
to the girl who immediately said, “I knew there was more.”
    “No, no, don’t bother,” said Adam, and
grabbed the piece of paper away from the girl. He turned back to the boy and
said, “Thank you for the game. Sorry to have bothered you,” and walked
hurriedly out into the corridor, heading for the front door.
    “Did you find ‘im, sir?”
    “Find him?” said Adam.
    “Hans Kramer,” said the porter.
    “Oh, yes, thank you,” said Adam. As he
turned to leave he saw the young boy and his girlfriend were following close
behind.
    Adam ran down the drive and hailed a passing
taxi.
    “Where to?” said the cabbie.
    “The Royal Cleveland
Hotel.”
    “But that’s only just round the corner.”
    “I know,” said Adam, “but I’m already late.”
    “Suit yourself, guv,” said the cabbie, “it’s
your money.”
    As the cab moved off Adam peered out of the
back window to see his table-tennis opponent in conversation with the porter.
The girl stood alongside them, pointing to the taxi.
    Adam only relaxed when the cab turned the
corner and they were out of sight.
    In less than a minute the taxi had drawn up
outside the Royal Cleveland. Adam handed the cabbie half a crown and waited for
the change. Then he pushed through the revolving doors of the hotel and hung
around in the foyer for a few moments before returning to the pavement again.
He checked his watch: twelve thirty. Easily enough time for lunch, he thought,
before going on to his interview with the Foreign Office. He headed across the
Bayswater Road into the park at a brisk pace, knowing he couldn’t hope to find
a pub until he reached Knightsbridge.
    Adam recalled the table tennis match. Damn,
he thought. I should have thrashed him. At least that would have given him
something else to think about.
    Romanov’s eye ran down the list of the
fourteen banks. There was still an outside chance that one of them might be in
possession of the Tsar’s icon, but the names meant nothing to him. It was
another world, and he knew he would now have to seek advice from an expert. He
unlocked the top drawer of his desk and flicked through the red book held only
by the most senior ranking officers in the KGB. Manv names had been scratched
out or overwritten as regimes came and went but Aleksei Andreovich Poskonov