The Special Services men returned the documents. «Everything seems to be in order, sir. May I trouble you for this week's password?»
«Raven,» answered Richard Blade, pocketing his own documents matter-of-factly.
«Countersign nevermore,» said the man.
«Very good,» said Blade.
«Follow me, please.»
The man gestured with his flashlight beam.
The Special Services men led and J and Richard Blade followed. They trudged along an ancient causeway, past a grassy sward that had been, before it was filled in, a moat. They passed through a grove of leafless skeletal trees interspersed with hulking cannons from some bygone era. On their left arose the outer walls of the Tower complex, the top lost in whiteness overhead. On their right, beyond a stout retaining wall, flowed the River Thames.
A ship was out there, heard but not seen, its diesel engines rumbling softly as it went by. A moment later the waves from its wake broke against the shore with a rhythmic hiss.
This was not, J reflected, a site he would have selected for England's most secret project, had he been given the choice. In the afternoons, when the tide was out, that narrow sandy shore became a beach on which antlike hordes of children from Stepney and most of the East End swarmed, laughing and shouting and wading and feeding the ill-tempered swans. Above the beach, in the narrow strip of park between river and wall, tourists from every country in the world strolled and gossiped and took pictures. God, how they took pictures! Once J had seen two Russian sailors taking snapshots of each other in the very shadow of the entrance to the secret project.
«One moment, sir,» said the taller of the two agents. They halted before a heavy grillwork gate beneath the broad archway at the base of Saint Thomas's Tower. The gate was secured by a chain and combination padlock at the center, and the taller Special Services man now busied himself with the tumblers while his partner held the flashlight. Richard leaned forward to watch; J knew Blade could memorize the combination of a lock by watching someone open it just once, and that he practiced this skill whenever the opportunity presented itself.