Lion Resurgent (60 page)

Mazza started to read the file his face whitening with shock as he did so. About half way through the file, he turned one page then broke down, weeping into his hands. “This cannot be true. Anna called him a saint for what he did for us. How could he do this?”

Dunwoody sighed as the Major was led out. He looked at the DNI officer who was dabbing her eyes. “Well, that made me feel like a real swine. Did you notice though? He, his wife and the child all had blond hair and blue eyes. Not that common in Argentina. Remember that circular about any possible link to a Swedish girl who vanished about a year or eighteen months ago? Isn’t she on that list?”

The DNI officer folded her handkerchief away and nodded. “When he saw her picture, that’s when he broke down. We had better tell Northumberland Avenue.”

The Caledonian Club, Belgravia, London, UK

“Well, you said it would be over very quickly once the counter-invasion started. Even my father wasn’t expecting 36 hours, though. He’s impressed and that doesn’t happen very often.” Igrat looked across the table at Sir Robert Byrnes and smiled gently. This would be the last time she would be eating at the Caledonian Club and she was going to miss the exquisite meals she had experienced here.

“Aye, the Army came through aw’right. It has cost us though. Nine ships sunk, six badly damaged and over three thousand men dead. More than sixty aircraft shot down. I tell ye this, Iggie, we cannae do this again now, not for years. Just to rebuild our carrier air groups now will take that much time. And Old Glory is one hell of a mess. I dinnae know if she is worth repairing.”

“Well, you might get some help.” Igrat was suddenly speaking in the flat tones of The Seer and Byrnes knew that this was word he was supposed to be getting, albeit on an unofficial basis. “If your government feels like asking for it.”

“Aye, they might well want to do that. But we’ll pay our way. We’re standing on our own feet now and standing proud at that. I have words for ye too, for your father. The Swedish girl he was interested in? Karyn Sunderstrom? I think we may ha’ a lead on her. The news though will nay be pleasant to hear.” Byrnes relayed the news that had come in from Santiago and from the prisoner reception station on HMS
Argus.
After he had finished, he hesitated before continuing. “Igrat, I do na wish to be rude but ye have seen more of this world than I, by a long shot. How could even that apology for a man have done a thing such a’ this?”

Igrat sighed. Later, alone and privately she would weep for Karyn Sunderstrom but now was not the time and she masked her feelings. “Robbie, the sophisticated people try to deny it, but there is plain evil in this world. Sometimes it is there in little doses we can overlook but just once in a while we meet the real thing in packages so large nothing can avoid it. Astrid is such a man. I have met such people before and I have suffered for it. What will you do with him?”

“He will stand trial for the murder of Postmaster Walsingham. If found guilty, he will go to prison for the rest of his life. If not, he will na’ escape justice. He will be handed over to the Italian Government who have questions to ask about their citizens who disappeared. After they ha’ finished, he will go to Spain and then to every other country that has an interest. If he is imprisoned here, then representatives from those countries will come to us. There is an accounting to be paid for what he did, Igrat. He will pay it in full, I promise you tha’.”

They broke off the conversation as the carving trolley arrived and the waiter sliced off Igrat’s favorite cut of the roasted venison. Byrnes noted that she knew the staff by name now, something that even long-standing members of the Club sometimes did not. By the time their meal was served, Igrat had recovered her composure and looked at her venison with regret. “I really will miss this, you know.”

“You don’t have tae do so. The invitation is always open to ye.” Byrnes looked hopeful but in his heart he knew what Igrat did, that this particular part of their lives was over. For a long time anyway.

“I know and I shall treasure the fact. Just as I treasured my Silver Greyhound but I had to give that back as well when it’s time had come. Now, I’m giving you back to Heather. Tomorrow morning anyway. The war’s over Robbie, and life must go on as it once did. Heather and I have had a little talk and she understands a few things now. Better than she did anyway.”

“She still hates you though.” Byrnes didn’t like to mention that in case Igrat was offended but he was relieved to see her smiling.

“Most women do. It’s men who like me. But, she’ll come around.”
Well, after she forgives me for stealing a traffic light control board from a Royal Rolls.
Igrat thought.
Sorry Robbie, but in the end that angered her more than borrowing you did, especially since she can’t prove I did it.
“I’m leaving tomorrow evening, after the memorial service for the Prince of Wales. I’ll be on the Sonic Clipper back to Washington. Make your peace with Heather, Robbie. This time at least. Who’s next in line for the throne now by the way? Prince Andrew?”

“Aye. Although it will be many years before he gets to sit on it. The Windsors are a hardy bunch.” Byrnes sliced into his Ayreshire ham and dipped the portion in its sauce. “I hope he is a patient man. Now, vashi nush.”

“Slainte Mhor.”

The Seer’s Office, NSC Building, Washington D. C.

“Please sit down, Mrs. Sunderstrom. A few months ago I promised I would hang our ears out in the wind and if we heard any word of your daughter, we would inform you of what we knew. Today, I very much regret to inform you that we have received confirmation that Karyn is indeed dead. She died in the custody of the Argentine secret police. Her body was cremated and the ashes scattered. I am sorry, but the records unearthed during the present disturbances in Argentina are quite conclusive on this point.”

Maja Sunderstrom started to sob. Behind her, Lillith quietly slipped out into the small executive kitchen and made an Irish Coffee. Nell had brought the recipe back from Shannon and the drink had become an office staple. The NSA made its own rules, after all. Mrs. Sunderstrom sipped the black coffee through the thick cream and coughed at the generous dose of whiskey it contained. Eventually she calmed down. “There is nothing left of my daughter?”

“There is one thing. What you choose to make of it is up to you. We know your daughter gave birth to a son while she was in Argentina. That child has been adopted by an Argentine family. They are, according to the British, an honorable family who will do what is right.”

HMS
Argus,
Helicopter Support Ship, South Atlantic

The last Argentine prisoners had been transferred to Uruguay for repatriation and their place taken by released British prisoners on their way back home. Standing on the bridge of
Argus
Commander Michael Blaise still mourned his lost
Mermaid
and those of her crew who wouldn’t make it home. He still faced the ordeal of the traditional court martial for the loss of his ship although nobody believed he would receive anything other than a commendation for his last fight against overwhelming odds. His thoughts were interrupted by the bridge intercom.

“Ops room here. The plot is clear now. That Macedonian trawler turned up again, the
Nikogas Nevidel.
She hung around Stanley for a few hours before dawn and then left.” The speaker’s voice paused. “At least she is supposed to be on the Macedonian registry, Sir, but I can’t find her on it and Lloyds of Bombay don’t make mistakes like that.”

“Funny that. You’re right, Lloyds don’t make mistakes. Not forgetting whole ships anyway.” Captain Anthony Ralph frowned. He didn’t like mysteries.

Blaise sounded thoughtful. “Last cruise we made before West Indies Station was Mediterranean Station, based in Cyprus. We had a lot to do with the Macedonians back then. Even picked up a bit of the language. You know what nikogas ne videl means in that language?”

Ralph shook his head.

“Odd story; a legend really. It means ‘the never-seen.’ The nikogas ne videl is a sort of folk-lore ghost. You can only see it out of the corner of your eye. If you try to look at it, the thing vanishes. And that is a very good thing because the only time you see it clearly is when you are dying.”

HMS Glowworm, King Edward’s Point, Grytviken, South Georgia.

The harbor at Grytviken looked even more like a decomposing scrapyard than it had done before the war. In addition to the wrecks of the Argentine ships that now obstructed the decaying wharves, damaged British ships were anchored, awaiting the temporary patching that would allow them to take the long voyage home. If some of them would be able to take that journey. Looking at
Glorious
it was hard to see her going anywhere. Her island was a crushed wreck, her flight deck plowed up by bomb hits, her hull riven by near misses. HMS
Afridi
was alongside her, helping with the repairs.
Afridi
was an old destroyer, destined for the scrap heap but had been hurriedly converted into a forward repair ship. Now, there were more modern destroyers and cruisers lined up waiting for her help.

Glowworm
was one of them. She was badly damaged enough to need months of repair work, not badly enough to go to the head of the queue. She would have to wait her turn. Lieutenant Baxter was contemplating the prolonged stay when a voice startled him. “Simonstad.”

“Sorry Sir?” Baxter turned to face his Captain.

“We’re going to Simonstad in South Africa for repairs. There’s not enough yard capacity in Britain to repair the ships that need it. So, we’re going to Simonstad when we’re seaworthy. Then back to West Indies Station. The Jamaicans have challenged us to a re-run of the pack gun race on our return.”

Officer’s Mess, HMS Furious, South Atlantic

With the daunting prospect of a blank piece of paper in front of him, Ernest Mullback didn’t know what he wanted to say or how to say it. He’d sat down, meaning to put down everything that had happened during the great carrier battle and the operations that had taken place before and after that struggle, but he couldn’t do it. The experience was too much to grasp, too much for him to absorb himself, let alone try to explain to somebody else. It had come as a profound shock to him to discover that his mind had become turned around during the fighting. Once he had regarded
Furious
and its shrinking air group as being a strange other-world and his home in England normality. Now, it was the gray steel world of the aircraft carrier that was normal and the concept of home and safety the alien other-world.

The facts were easy enough to put down. By the time the fighting had ended, the British carriers had lost 34 of the 40 fighters they had brought and 30 of the 40 bombers. Alasdair Baillie, Paul Carter and Freddie Kingsman had all gone. The truth was that almost everybody he had known in the squadron had gone.
Furious’s
hangar deck was a cavernous tomb now, populated by the ghosts of the pilots and aircraft who had once lived there.
How to explain that to somebody who hadn’t been there?

Mullback was suddenly aware that the world was divided into two groups of people, those who had fought and those who hadn’t. The gap between the two was a yawning chasm that defied easy bridging. The language simply didn’t exist to do it. All the literary works that had presumed to bridge that gap had been judged shallow and trite because they had attempted to convey something that language hadn’t been created to describe. Mullback couldn’t write the letter to his wife that he wanted to write and the letter that he could write, one that she would understand, wasn’t what he wanted to say.

If he couldn’t say what he wanted, he would say what he could. With that decision in his mind, Ernest Mullback started to write home to his wife.

Bastiaan van Huis’s Home, Capetown, South Africa.

“Gesondheid, Bassie and welcome home.” As lady of the household, it was the duty of Linda van Huis to welcome her husband home. She watched her brothers and sisters raise their glasses to her husband standing at the head of the table.

“Gesondheit, broers, susters en vriende. And I ask you to welcome our new friends Shumba Geldenhuys and Zander Randlehoff, who join us tonight for the first time.”

The clan turned slightly so they were facing the two guests and raised their glasses. “Gesondheit, Shumba en Zander. Welcome to our family circle and know it as your own.” Linda smiled as the formal welcome was repeated. The close-knit second generation of the van Huis, McMullen and Vermaak families had caused ribald speculation in the sleazier parts of the world press with scandalized speculation of what went on behind the sealed doors of the family compound. If the American supermarket tabloids and their British equivalents were to be believed, the families spend their time in one long orgy that would have done ancient Pompei proud. In fact, the young couples were exactly what they appeared to be, respectable and almost painfully conventional. Nowhere was it more obvious when they gathered for their evening dinner together. Apart from two couples who supervised the children while they played and monitored the watch on the compound walls, all the family were here, formally dressed for dinner and behaving with an elaborate courtesy that seemed almost a century out of date.

The fact that Shumba Geldenhuys, a Griqua, was one of their guests was the one thing that might have scandalized older parts of the South African community. That was simply a sign of the slow but steady change inside South African society. Even so, Linda van Huis knew that his presence was allowable only at a private function. He would not be at the table if this were a public banquet. That made her uneasy but she was privately convinced that another ten or twenty years would see that change also. In her opinion and that of her husband, that time would not come soon enough.

“Absent friends.” The third of the formal toasts was made. A silence fell on the room as the men remembered those who had gone off to war and not returned. Then, the men seated their wives and took their own places. A bubble of conversation filling the room as the servants started to serve.