Sion Crossing (19 page)

Butler sat up. “And troubles
I’ve
got without
you
playing games, either.”

“Perish the thought, Jack!” Audley scrubbed his face clean. “I am all too well aware of Oliver’s value.”

“David—”

“I even know that old Fred Clinton recruited him at least partly to demonstrate that I wasn’t the only fish in the sea—I do know
all
that. And now he will undoubtedly be your strong right arm, when you’ve licked him into shape—I know
that
too, Jack.” Audley was doing his best to sound sincere. “But the fact is that at this moment he is out there somewhere, quite on his own. And, if I may say so, he’s no single-handed sailor—he’s an organizer and a planner and a trap-setter … In fact, he’s even less of a field-man than I am.”

Mitchell frowned at him. “But David … if Cookridge is okay … do we really have anything to worry about? Apart from which, Oliver’s no fool.”

Audley raised a finger. “Ah … now that isn’t quite what I said, young Paul. Because, given the right circumstances—or the wrong ones, if you like—
anyone
can behave foolishly, including the cleverest of us … you, me … even Jack there—we all have little weaknesses. And if they catch us on the wrong day, or even the wrong moment …” He shook his head. “What made Caesar go to the Forum? What made Napoleon put that idiot Ney in charge of his cavalry at Waterloo?”

“And what is Oliver Latimer’s Achilles heel?”

“That’s easy.” Audley didn’t look at Butler. “In our relationship I have to admit that I am the aggressor—I am almost unfailingly rude to him, as you know.”

That was undeniably true. With Latimer, Audley managed to make even his politeness offensive.

“He probably has many good qualities. But he has one extra ingredient I can’t abide—‘Ingredient X’.” Audley smiled suddenly. “Or, at least, I can’t abide it in my alleged peers, let’s say. I don’t mind it in the next generation, so long as it is decently concealed.”

God! thought Mitchell. That smile was for him!

“Ambition.” He couldn’t resist the word.

“Yes,” Audley turned back to Butler. “Last Friday, of all days … I’d guess he was somewhat depressed, if not totally surprised and disappointed. And then Senator Thomas Cookridge appeared to him out of the blue, Jack. What a chance! And what a feather in his cap—in his new cap—to bring you Senator Cookridge’s friendship and gratitude! The wrong moment—the right temptation maybe?”

Mitchell stirred. “But now we’re back to Cookridge again. And if Cookridge isn’t up to mischief—”

“
Cookridge
may not be.” Audley swung towards him again. “
But someone else could be
.” He shared the idea with both of them. “Cookridge is a new man—a Mid-Western domestic politician called to the colours … Christ! I’ve never set eyes on the man—I only know what the Beast agreed to tell me … Okay—so Mike Bradford has checked him out, and he’s pure white driven snow, all the way from the Arctic to the prairie … But that means he’s mixing with some very dicey characters now, who’ve maybe put one over on him—who knows?”

Butler chewed on that for a few seconds. “So … what
do
you know, David?”

For a moment Audley stared at nothing, which was suspended in mid-air over Colonel Butler’s desk.

“I know that Howard Morris is one scared
hombre
.”

Butler glanced at Mitchell. “That’s one.”

“And it’s a big one. Because old Howard is one part Apache … or Navaho, or some pesky redskin—he claims all sorts of different tribes, according to how it suits him … But he has got a gift for smelling danger when the palefaces only smell the sagebush. And he smells it now.”

“So that’s one.” It was to Butler’s credit that he was prepared to accept the CIA man’s one-part-Indian nose, thought Mitchell. It was not the sort of warning the average British redcoat normally credited.

Audley’s lips compressed. “And I know that this—whatever it is—was designed for
me
, not Oliver.”

Butler caught Mitchell’s eye again, but this time interrogatively.

Mitchell leaned towards Audley. “Would you have fallen for Senator Cookridge, David? Out of the blue—Senator Cookridge?”

The lips compressed again. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, David,” Mitchell pressed him.

“I don’t know.” Audley was pressing himself now. “But … probably not, on balance.” He gave Butler a slightly embarrassed glance. “I’ve had a few spots of bother, going off and doing my own thing … And with Jack just confirmed in the hot seat there, it maybe wouldn’t have been quite cricket …” He brightened suddenly, and came back to Mitchell “… and the American Civil War isn’t my period really, you know. ‘Slavery and Secession’ in School Certificate umpteen years ago and
Gone With the Wind
wouldn’t have been enough to tempt me—apart from the fact that I’m fairly busy in Cheltenham, as it happens.”

“How about gold?” said Butler.

“G—?” Audley had started to sit back, satisfied with his answer’s dishonesty. But
gold
stopped him. “Gold? What gold?”

Butler nodded at Mitchell. “Mitchell put in an inquiry about Sion Crossing. There was an answer which came in a few minutes ago, and they put it on screen for me.” He looked directly at Mitchell.

“What gold?” Audley cut in irritably. “And where the hell is … Sion Crossing?”

“It’s approximately where Oliver Latimer is at the moment: Sion Crossing in Georgia, David,” Butler informed him mildly. “It’s near Smithsville.”

“Oh yes?” Audley controlled his impatience. “Smithsville?”

“Smithsville is the nearest town … or village. General Sherman burnt the place in 1864. And Sion Crossing, too—that was a big cotton plantation.”

“Indeed?” Audley’s apparent lack of interest was now a sure measure of his annoyance. “Well, Sherman burnt lots of places, didn’t he?”

“Yes, I believe he did.” Butler allowed himself a small measure of gratification. “It was in that film, wasn’t it—?”

“Yes, Jack. It was in that film.”

“Yes … well, it seems at some point in time before that, when there was still fighting around Atlanta, one of the banks there shipped out what they’d got in their vaults. But it only got as far as Sion Crossing. And that was the last anyone saw of it.”

Audley waited. “Yes?”

“It was plundered by the Union army, apparently.”

“And?”

“That’s all Mitchell’s Civil War expert has come up with so far.” Butler turned to his screen and tapped a series of instructions into it, his lips moving silently as he recalled the correct sequence of commands for retrieval. “Isn’t that enough for you?”

From where he sat, Mitchell could see the screen fill up. Butler’s fingers hovered over the keys again, and then transmitted another sequence, which brought the printer alongside the screen to chuntering life.

“Enough?” Audley took in the scene with undisguised suspicion.

Interesting
, thought Mitchell, punching the tableau into his own memory for future reference: the bright mind, restless and inquisitive and encyclopaedic, resisting the new technology, seeing it as an enemy and not a liberator—seeing it as the very Beast of Apocalypse … for it had been David who had named Colonel Butler’s computer.

The printer ceased its tuneless song, and Butler ripped the print-out from it and handed it to Audley.

“I think so.” Butler simply dropped the print-out on his desk when Audley failed to accept it. “You do have something of a reputation for striking gold when you look for it, David—actual as well as metaphorical, I seem to recall?” He paused. “And Senator Cookridge has access to such information. So now we can guess at what he’s after—and why he wanted you.”

Audley’s face twisted. “Sod that! It isn’t Cookridge I’m worried about—it’s Bill Macallan.”

“Bill Macallan’s dead and buried, David,” snapped Butler.

“Aye! And a-mouldering in the grave, Jack,” Audley snapped back. “But his soul—or his daughter—may very well be marching on, to trip us up.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it at all.”

“What don’t you like?”

“Coincidences, Jack. That’s the third thing I know for sure—
coincidences.
And I don’t like coincidences any more than Howard Morris does. Okay?”

That was the truth of it, thought Mitchell: Howard Morris wasn’t scared because he had some tincture of Red Indian blood in his veins which gave him an unfair advantage over the palefaces, with their computers and their atrophied instincts. Much more simply, he shared some special knowledge with Audley—and, from the expression on his face, with Jack Butler too.

But not with Paul Mitchell. “What coincidences?” He let them share his question.

“I worked with Bill Macallan in the old days, Paul.” It was Audley—predictably—who answered him. “I told you last night.”

“And quite improperly.” Butler shook his head at Audley. “And in the middle of a crowded public bar … Sometimes I despair of you, David, I really do.”

“And sometimes I despair of you, Jack.” Audley was aggressively unrepentant. “You accuse me of being over-secretive—and then you sit on all your eggs like a broody hen … Besides which Harry Randall was watching over us from behind the bar, anyway. So we were probably more secure in the Old Ben last night than we are now.”

“But Dr Mitchell is not cleared for Debreczen.”

“No? Well, you’d better clear him double-quick then … or put him in chains, because he knows about the bloody place now,” snapped Audley. “Christ! Jack—he
ought
to have known …” Then he weakened suddenly. “Where is Senator Cookridge at this precise moment?”

“About midway between Paris and Rome.” Butler’s arms were feeling their way into the coat of responsibility, which was a garment of many colours.

“But you can hardly ask him what the hell he’s been up to, in any case.” Audley thought aloud. “Short of grossly insulting him … and I wouldn’t like to be the one to do that …”

“No.” If Audley could think aloud, so could Mitchell, decided Mitchell. “And not when we don’t even know that he is up to something.”

“But someone’s up to something, Jack.” Audley, at least, was certain. “Howard Morris scared for
one.
And Howard scared for me—that’s two … And me and Bill Macallan and Debreczen—that’s
three
for coincidence, Jack.”

It was time to push his own interest, decided Mitchell. But all he had to work with was what Audley had irresponsibly let slip last night, that Debreczen was something to do with deep-cover communist sleepers—the agents which the Russians caught when young, and salted away for the future, when they had risen to positions of power and influence.

“Where’s the coincidence?” He rounded on Audley. “For Christ’s sake, David—what did you do, once upon a time?”

Audley faced him. “I screwed it up, young Paul—that’s what I did!” But then he shrugged Mitchell off. “Jack—did they ever rehabilitate Bill Macallan?”

“Not really, No.”

“But some of them never really believed he was crooked—Goldberg, for one … and Bradford had his doubts—Bradford even more than Goldberg: he always maintained Bill had been framed … In the last year—
last year
—when Bill was dying … did either of them go back to see him?”

Butler bridled at that. “We’re not sure.”

“So Bill might have known what happened last year.” Audley turned to Mitchell. “It’s like this, Paul: Bill Macallan and I worked together years ago, in the Debreczen thing—and if Jack doesn’t want to tell you about that in detail, that’s his privilege.” He fixed Mitchell with such an innocent look that it was clear he didn’t want any further public revelation of just what he’d said the night before.

Okay, thought Mitchell:
let’s make that one you owe me, David
!

He looked questioningly at Colonel Butler.

“In due course, Mitchell.” Butler wore his ‘need to know’ restriction face. “It was a very sensitive affair.”

“It was damn near impossible.” Audley’s bitterness no doubt concealed relief. “We were set to find needles in a very large haystack. And, what made it worse … maybe it was the job, or maybe it was something else … we hated each other’s guts.”

A pair of clever arrogant bastards, more likely—each of whom probably regarded himself as the senior partner: when Anglo-American relationships went wrong, that was one of the standard foul-ups. And with Audley’s temperament that would have been a high-risk occurrence in the old days.

“But you did actually find two needles,” said Butler.

“So we did. And then we lost both of them again.” This time the bitterness was genuine, Mitchell estimated. “Mine allegedly committed suicide, and Bill Macallan’s was sniped at long range. And that was another coincidence.” Grimness now, not bitterness. “What old Fred Clinton said … was
one
might be bad luck, but
two
smelt like treason—like an inside job. So we were both for the high-jump then … But I happened to be one of Fred’s own special appointments—he and I both knew I was true blue, you see, Paul.” Audley gave Mitchell a lop-sided smile. “So it had to be Bill Macallan, by simple arithmetic. Two minus one equals one.”

“But nothing was ever proved,” said Butler.

“
We
couldn’t prove anything, is what you mean, Jack.” Again he looked at Mitchell. “The truth is we wanted to fix him one way or another … In the end, his own side did it for us. Someone dug some dirt on him.”

“What sort of dirt?”

“Oh … he was a poor man, and he had money he couldn’t quite account for. And there were one or two other things …” Another shake, almost regretful “… enough to break him, but not enough to bury him. So he got his pension—” Audley looked at Butler quickly “—but they never did rehabilitate him, did they?”

“No.” Butler’s face was suffused with doubt. “But you’re right, David: there were those who thought he’d been railroaded, if not actually framed.”

“To use their own expressions … yes.” Audley nodded. “So it could be that he kept in touch … somehow.” He came back to Mitchell. “And that’s the whole point now, Paul, you see?”

They were talking about the stuff of history, thought Mitchell, remembering his own First World War researches. Because, with the past, truth existed on so many conflicting lines and levels. There were
the facts
, which was what had actually happened, so far as that could be established, because even facts were never absolutely certain. But then there was
the why
and
the how
, which were both infinitely more nebulous. In the end the only certainty was the result.