War Game (3 page)

In the case of the Standingham gold, therefore, the sum which Mr. Ratcliffe will receive depends not so much on the value of the gold, which is easily established, as on his ability to establish original ownership to the satisfaction of the coroner’s jury.

Audley glanced from the newspaper cutting to his wristwatch. Although they had been cruising along for nearly ten minutes they had somehow contrived to stay quite close to the airport: somewhere just ahead of them a Jumbo was straining to get airborne, engines at full thrust. Like his own worst suspicions.

Naturally they would have known, because they knew him, that he would arrive back from Washington tired and dishevelled and desperate to get back to the loving quiet of his home and family. More, they would have known that he had confidently expected to do just that, because that had been the deal: two weeks of tranquillity at home in deepest Sussex to complete his report (which could be done in less than one) in exchange for a barely endurable month of American high summer among old friends who could no longer afford to trust him as they had once done.

And most of all, because of that, they would know that he would be mutinous to the limits of loyalty about taking any new assignment before the present one was discharged.

“Very interesting.” He handed back the cutting to Stocker politely.

All of which meant they were very sure of themselves, that had to be the first conclusion.

“Did you read about it in the States?” Stocker inquired with equal politeness.

“There was a story in the Washington Post. I didn’t read the British papers in the embassy, they’d only have depressed me.”

Stocker delved into his brief-case. “There’s another cutting here.”

“I don’t want to read another cutting. I want to go home.” Audley kept his hands obstinately in his lap. He noticed as he looked down at them to make sure they were obeying orders that his thumbs were tucked into his fists. According to Faith that was a sure sign that he was miserable, uncertain and vulnerable, and consequently in need of special care and protection. And although he mistrusted his wife’s instant psychology as much as he enjoyed her interpretation of the duties it imposed on her it was an interesting fact that one couldn’t punch anyone on the nose with thumbs in that position.

“In due course,” said Stocker.

Audley re-arranged his thumbs. Not that punching Stocker would do any good whatsoever; besides, Stocker was quite capable of punching back.

“I’ve a lot of work to do,” he said.

“I know. Your report on the current state of the CIA.” Stocker nodded. “Sir Frederick told me.”

“Did he also tell you it was for the Joint Chiefs?”

Stocker smiled. “Yes, he told me that too, David.”

The Christian name was an olive branch.

“Well, Brigadier—“ Audley trampled the olives—“it isn’t going to get done by remote control. I intend to write it now, while it’s fresh in my mind. Could be it’s not without importance.”

“I’m sure it is. But this is more important.” Stocker lifted the second cutting. “In fact if your time in Washington hadn’t run out today we would have brought you back today anyway—no matter what.”

“We?”

“Sir Frederick and I.” Stocker paused. “And others.”

“Others?”

Any chance of a reply to that question was blotted out by the roar of another big jet. This time the noise was almost unbearable, with the brute force of the sound vibrating the car as it slowed down at the entrance to a lay-by on its nearside. There was a police car—a large, vividly-striped Jaguar—parked in the entrance so that there was only just sufficient room for them to squeeze by. The uniformed man at the wheel raised his gloved hand to Stocker’s driver, beckoning him on.

It wasn’t a custom-built lay-by, Audley realised. Once upon a time, before the runways had swallowed the fields, this had been the line of the main road lurching in a drunken meander between the quiet hedgerows, Chesterton’s rolling English road to the life. But when the new highway builders had amputated this unnecessary loop they hadn’t bothered to grub up the tarmac, and now the unrestrained hedges had sprouted into trees which screened it from the passing traffic. But for the jets, it would have been an admirable place for love in the back seat.

But there was no love in this back seat, nor would there be any waiting for him in the back seat of the car parked in the shade of a gnarled crab-apple tree, an anonymous new wedge-shaped Leyland 2200 of the sort he and Faith had contemplated buying in the autumn, in patriotic replacement for his rusting old 1800. In a more peaceful, more honourable world he would be returning to her now.

He waited until the jet thunder had become a distant rumble.

“Others?”

The Joint Chiefs … among others. “Uh-huh? You mean Sir Frederick and you and the joint Chiefs … and others … all cried my name with one voice in their hour of need?”

“Something like that. Something very like that.” Stocker was so sure of himself that he was prepared to be magnanimous. Audley recognised the tone. Magnanimity was the civilised victor’s final body-blow to the defeated.

“I’ll bet.”

“You should be flattered, David. This is an awkward one, but you have the right equipment for it.”

Audley strained to make out the features of the man in the back of the 2200. “I have the right equipment for rape, but I’ve no intention of letting anyone make a rapist of me, Brigadier.”

“That wasn’t quite what we had in mind for you.” Stocker was almost genial now. “It’s your brain we need, not any other part of you. You won’t even have to do much leg-work—I’ve detached Paul Mitchell and Frances Fitzgibbon to do all that, directly under your orders. And you can have anything else you want within reason, short of the Brigade of Guards.” He paused. “If you like you can choose your field co-ordinator too.”

Now that was flattering, thought Audley. To be given two bright field operatives who had worked with him before was commonsense. But to be allowed to choose a co-ordinator was patronage on a grand scale.

Unfortunately it was also rather frightening.

“We’ll give you Colonel Butler, if you like.” Stocker actually smiled as he baited the hook with the best co-ordinator in the department. “He’s free at the moment.”

Audley was saved from not knowing how to react to that by the opening of the 2200’s rear door. The mountain was coming to Mahomet.

“It’s entirely up to you, anyway,” said Stocker mildly, offering the second cutting a second time. “And naturally we’re not going to insist on anything. But … well, you read this first, David, before you make up your mind.”

They weren’t going to insist. Audley watched the 2200 as though hypnotised. Of course they weren’t going to insist; with his own money and what he could earn—Tom Gracey had as good as promised a fellowship for the asking—he could flounce off in a huff any day of the week.

The pressures were much more subtle than that, though.

The occupant of the 2200 stepped out of the shadow on to the sunlit tarmac.

Of course they weren’t going to insist. They didn’t have to.

He took the cutting—

A TON OF GOLD FOR RED CHARLIE

Half a lifetime’s professional interest in newspapers identified the typography instantly: this was the popular version of the dignified story he had read earlier.

Dressed in a flowered shirt and with his long hair curling trendily round his collar, a 26-year-old revolutionary told last night of his amazing discovery of Cromwell’s Gold—a whole ton of it.

But Charlie Ratcliffe, who inherited near-derelict Standingham Castle in Wiltshire only six weeks ago, is not yet willing to reveal how he found the treasure which is likely to make him one of the richest men in Britain.

Audley looked up as Stocker opened the car door for the man from the 2200.

“Thank you, Brigadier. No—it’s all right. I’ll sit here.”

The Minister drew open the extra seat from its fastening on the partition which separated them from the driver. “There’s plenty of room, I shall be perfectly comfortable … Did everything go satisfactorily?”

“Yes, sir. We were in and out in five minutes.”

“Good.” The Minister turned to Audley. “I must apologise for the unorthodox approach, Dr. Audley. At least you were spared the usual inconveniences. And it was necessary, you understand.”

“Of course, Minister.” At least the man didn’t try to sugar the pill with a diplomatic smile, thought Audley, which saved him from the pettiness of not smiling back. But then this one was the best of the bunch, and more than that a good one by any standards; he wouldn’t smile in this sort of situation unless he encountered something worth smiling about. “Or let’s say I’m beginning to understand.”

The Minister stared at him for a moment, as though he had expected a different reply. Then he nodded. “But you were reading one of the cuttings. I think you’d better finish it before we go any further.”

Audley stared back into the cool, appraising eyes behind the thick spectacles before lowering his own to the fragment of newsprint. There were times when it wasn’t disgraceful to be out-stared, even diminished. In that better—and nonexistent—world which he had been mourning a minute or two back this man might have been the leader of his party, rather than a senior member of an embattled flank of it. Half his mind struggled with the printed words and the meanings beneath them—

… treasure trove inquest shortly to be held.

And in the meantime an inquest of another kind—of suspected murder— stands adjourned. Its subject is James Ratcliffe, Charlie’s cousin …

—while the other half grappled with the Minister’s presence and the meaning beneath that.

Politics. They were the nightmare grinning on every intelligence chief’s pillow; the wild card in the marked pack, the extra dimension in a universe which already had too many dimensions. In his time he had watched the Middle East and the Kremlin as he was watching Washington now, and their politics were to him never more than academic matters to be assessed only in terms of his country’s profit or loss.

But British politics were different. And so were British politicians, even this man for whom he was already half-inclined to break the golden rule of non-involvement.

… however. But country memories are long, and for the price of a pint in the oak-beamed public bar of the Steyning Arms the locals will still tell you the tale of Cromwell’s Gold and the bloody siege of Standingham Castle on the hill above— the gold for which so many treasure hunters have searched in vain …

He needed time to think. Time to figure the forces required to bring the Minister to a lay-by behind some bushes at the end of a runway.

But there was no time. He re-read the last three paragraphs as an act of self-discipline before looking up.

The same stare was waiting for him. One reason the Minister was here was to see in the flesh the man who had been selected for a particular job. There was no substitute for that.

“I’ve heard quite a lot about you, Dr. Audley,” said the Minister.

“None of it true, I hope,” said Audley.

“Exaggerated, perhaps. Or it may be that you’ve had more than your share of luck over the years.”

“I wouldn’t deny it. But then … wasn’t luck the chief qualification Napoleon looked for in his marshals?”

“Yes, it was.” The Minister nodded. “But I’ve always preferred Wellington to Napoleon, myself.”

Audley smiled. “As a general, I hope. I seem to remember that he was a deplorable politician.”

“True.” The smile wasn’t returned. “And the moral of that—?”

Audley shrugged. “Good generals usually make indifferent politicians. One should stick to one’s profession after the age of forty—I think that I should be just as … unlucky … if I became involved in politics at my age, don’t you think?”

The Minister regarded him thoughtfully. “Yes, very probably. In fact neither of us should seek to meddle in the other’s —ah—sphere of activity. If we both agree on the broad principles there’s a lot that should be taken on trust, wouldn’t you say?”

The oath of allegiance was being put to him more quickly than he had expected, thought Audley. But at least it was phrased in the best feudal spirit, with the acceptance that loyalty was a two-way obligation.

“For example—“ the Minister continued smoothly “—whatever political mistakes the Duke made he did lay down one guiding principle for times of crisis, a rule to which I wholeheartedly subscribe: ‘The King’s government must be carried on’. I intend to see that it is carried on, and that is why I’m here now.”

Audley tried another smile.

“I’ve said something that amuses you?” The Minister frowned.

“No, Minister. I was smiling at myself for jumping to the wrong conclusion for your being here.”

“Indeed? Which was—“

“That otherwise I might have gone off to sulk in my tent. I didn’t want to go to Washington in the first place—not simply because I don’t like to spy on my friends, but because I don’t like being buggered about. Because I know why I was sent, in fact.”

Stocker gave a warning cough. “David—“

“No, Brigadier. If the Minister has heard quite a lot about me he may as well hear this too. I’m a hard-liner in East-West relations, Minister. I dislike the Russians, and I hate Communists. And with the Helsinki nonsense coming up my face didn’t fit at all—I’d become an ancestral voice prophesying war. Or if not war then treachery. So I was banished to the New World with the promise of a fortnight’s extra holiday after that, and then a choice of research projects on NATO security. Which promise is about to be broken as thoroughly as any of the undertakings the Soviet government may have appeared to give at Helsinki. And Sir Frederick Clinton knows that
that
just might have been enough to break the camel’s back.”

“You’re beginning to sound suspiciously like a prima donna, David,” said Stocker.

“Beginning? Brigadier,
I am a
prima donna. If you insist on giving me damned difficult arias—like this one—“ Audley waved the newspaper cutting “—I’ve no choice in the matter. So if you want someone else to sing this, you get whoever you can. But if you want me to sing it, then you damn well have to put up with me, temperament and all.” He turned back to the Minister. “So?”