Read Online MAMista by Len Deighton - Free Book Online Page B

said Lucas.
    â€˜I agree with Colonel Lucas,’ said the lawyer. ‘During my time in Malaya I saw young soldiers from industrial cities like Leeds adapt to hellish conditions.’
    The research trustee groaned. There were too many people with war experiences on this damned board. If the lawyer started talking about the way he’d won his Military Cross in ‘the Malayan emergency’ they would never get away. He coughed. ‘Can we get back to the question again …?’
    The peer would not tolerate such interruptions. ‘The real question is: one …’ he raised a finger. ‘… Is this board indifferent to the political implications that might later arise …’
    Lucas did not wait for two. ‘Surely the question is entirely medical …’
    The lawyer held up his gold pencil in a cautionary gesture. It irritated him that Lucas should come here in tweed sports jacket, and canary-coloured sweater, when everyone else wore dark suits. ‘It is not entirely medical. We could lay this board open to charges of financing a highly organized and disciplined army that has the declared aim of overthrowing by force the legal government of Spanish Guiana.’
    There was a shocked silence as they digested this. Thenthe investments man stopped doodling on his notepad to wave a hand. His voice was toneless and bored. ‘If, on the other hand, we refuse to send medical supplies to these starving people in the south, we could be described as suppressing that popular movement by means of disease.’
    â€˜I’m going to ask you to withdraw that,’ said the peer, losing his studied calm. ‘I won’t allow that to go on the minutes of this meeting.’
    Without looking up from his doodling the investment man calmly said, ‘Well, I don’t withdraw it and you can go to hell and take the minutes with you.’
    â€˜If the army in the south have money enough for guns and bombs, they have money enough for medical supplies,’ said the man from Birmingham.
    â€˜Ten divisions complete with tanks and aircraft,’ said the secretary.
    â€˜Who told you that?’ asked Lucas.
    â€˜It was a documentary on BBC Television,’ said the secretary.
    â€˜What about all the money they are getting from growing drugs?’ said the man from Birmingham.
    â€˜I saw the same TV programme,’ said the lawyer. ‘Are you sure that was Spanish Guiana? I thought that was Peru.’
    â€˜You can’t believe all that BBC propaganda,’ said the investments man. ‘That TV programme was a repeat. If my memory serves me, it was originally shown back in the Eighties before the Wall came down.’
    The chairman watched them but said nothing.
    What a circus! If it was always like this, thought Lucas, it would be worth the journey up to town every month.
    â€˜Gentlemen,’ said the lawyer in a tone he normally reserved for consulting counsel. ‘While I wouldn’t agree with Colonel Lucas that this is entirely a medical question, I believe we are all beginning to see that we need more medical information before we can make a decision. After all’ – he looked at them and smiled archly before remindingthem how important they were – ‘we are dealing with a great deal of money.’
    Clever the way he can do that, thought Lucas. They were clucking away happily now, like a lot of contented hens.
    â€˜What’s the form then?’ said the man from Birmingham in an effort to move things along.
    â€˜An on-the-spot report,’ said the lawyer. He had the infinite patience that the law’s bounty and unhurried pace provide. He gave no sign that this was the fourth time he’d said it.
    â€˜In any case, we all agreed that the antibiotics should be sent,’ said the investments man, although no one had agreed to it, and someone had specifically advised against that course of action. ‘Let’s send