The Old Vengeful (2 page)

Audley nodded approvingly. “That’s good, Paul—I accept that—all of it. But now we need more field work.”

“
More field work
—?” That approval and acceptance, and then
more field work
could mean only one thing. “So you know something that I don’t know—that I couldn’t know—?”

“Of course! I’ve no wish to waste time and money either, Paul.”

For a second Mitchell was tempted, but only for that one second. “Well … I’m not a field man now—you know that, David. The Dublin tour was my swan-song—you know that, too.”

“Yes.” They both knew that, and Mitchell was pretty sure that Audley had always known why, after Frances Fitzgibbon’s death, he had taken the job. And, when he thought about that, it was a strike to Audley, and an unpaid debt too, that the big man hadn’t vetoed his private war with the KGB in Dublin. Vendettas were usually grounds for disqualification, not promotion.

“Yes.” The fleeting look of remembrance, of that shared sadness, confirmed Mitchell’s suspicion. “But this time you’re the square peg for the square hole, Paul. I wouldn’t have asked for you otherwise.”

“Bannen would do as well—I like him, David.” It was odd how liking a man could be a reason for endangering him. “James Cable would be even better—he’s Navy … and I can’t even swim very well!” Mitchell grinned. “And I’d guess you need a naval man for this one.”

“Cable’s busy …” Audley cocked his head “… and aren’t you into naval matters, in your next book?”

As always, Audley was disconcertingly well-informed. “First World War naval matters. I hardly think—“

“That will do very well! There was a
Vengeful
at Jutland—sunk, of course … but then
Vengefuls
tended to have a submarine tradition— the last of them was actually a submarine, I believe. But fortunately it was transferred to the Greek navy before anyone could submerge it permanently … But the First World War will do well enough, for a start.”

Mitchell sensed the job closing in on him, like the infantry subaltern who had volunteered for the safety of the RASC in 1915, because he knew how the internal combustion engine worked, and found himself commanding one of the first tanks on the Somme.

“What is it that you know, that I don’t know, David?” That was the crucial question—the tank question!

“Some of it you do know: the PM went to Washington a fortnight ago.”

Mitchell knew that: the Marine band had played on the lawn outside the White House, and the BBC had transmitted the sound of the music and the platitudes.

“They got on rather well—they exchanged gifts—the special relationship was renewed.” Audley closed his eyes for a moment. “The PM gave him cruise missile promise, and the okay on Poland … And the President gave
us
a top secret—an ultra-secret—from the CIA’s inside man in the Kremlin, whom they’ve just pulled out one jump ahead of the chop—a
Politburo-KGB
liaison officer, no less.”

That was more like it: now they were into the real business of the Research and Development Section, which had nothing to do with routine security checks on long-retired and palpably innocent naval heroes and everything to do with hot potatoes which no one else wanted to touch.

“It seems that some time back their man got a sight of a list of KGB projects to which the Kremlin was giving operational approval.”

“Projects?”

Audley nodded. “Just the names—no details. But of course project names are the real thing. And we know these are the real McCoy because there were six of them, and the Americans have confirmed their five as being in progress.”

“And the sixth was British?”

“The sixth was British.”

Mitchell thought for a moment. “How long ago is ‘some time back’?”

“You can assume that ours is in progress too.”

He thought again. “But if the Americans have identified theirs … and pulled their man out since … everything he ever handled will be compromised by now, I’ll bet. In which case won’t they abort?”

Audley shook his head slowly. “The received wisdom is that they won’t. They always accept higher risks than we do … besides which they may not have twigged yet—the man hasn’t been out long, and the Americans did try to cover his departure in confusion. So we may have a little time in hand.”

More thought. It was certainly true that the Russians took greater risks, partly because their resources were so much greater and they could afford to squander them, and partly because of the dominance of military men among the planners, who subscribed to the Red Army’s belief that no defensive position could be held against attackers who were ready to pay the price for taking it.

“What was our project name?” The jackpot question was overdue.

“I’ll come to that in a jiffy.” Audley smiled at him, and the smile hinted at an odd mixture of satisfaction and apology. “There are some complications to this one, Paul.”

First the bad news, thought Mitchell. And then the worse news. “I can see that. If the President gave this to the Prime Minister as a gift, then she’ll want results—she won’t want egg on her face. No wonder no one else wanted it!” That last was a guess—but no guess really: this was what R & D was for, and Audley himself was notoriously attracted to eccentric and dirty jobs—they were what he got his kicks from.

“Oh—of course
that
…
” Audley waved a hand vaguely “… that goes without saying. But there’s an internal political angle to this one. Which I ought to explain to you since it will affect you, Paul.”

“Oh, yes?” The reason for that apologetic cast was on its way.

“Master Oliver St John Latimer wanted this job, you see—“ Audley’s unlovely features became unlovelier “… he’s consumed by this strange compulsion to
shine
for our masters … or our mistress, in this instance … to
shine
—and he has a strong competitive instinct.”

What Oliver St John Latimer had was ambition: with the noble, honest and decent Colonel Butler as acting-Director of Research and Development, the Director’s job was up for grabs, and Oliver St John Latimer wanted it.

“And you don’t want to shine, of course?” said Mitchell nastily. “You don’t want to be the next Director?”

“I don’t give a stuff, either way—no.” Audley was impervious to nastiness. “I don’t want to be the next Director, or the Duke of Plaza-Toro, or the Kabaka of Buganda, or the Akond of Swat—Jack Butler is a perfectly good Director—his overwhelming qualification for the title is that he doesn’t want it, if you ask me.”

The irony about that, thought Mitchell, was that it was probably true. And the other and greater irony was that Jack Butler favoured Audley for the very same reason, so rumour had it.

“But, as it happens, Latimer would have made a dog’s breakfast of this one—Butler’s quite right, as usual—Latimer’s a high IQ plodder: he can set up an operation much better than I can, but he’s no good at this sort of thing—this is something else, I suspect.”

So Audley had won … if this particular prize could be called
winning
. “So where are the complications, for God’s sake, David?”

“Season your impatience for a moment—the
complication
is that you can’t take this one single-handed, and Master Latimer is as artful as a cartload of monkeys—“

“I’ve not got a partner?” Mitchell’s chest expanded: Frances had been his partner, and Frances slept in a little country churchyard now—now and forever. “I don’t
want
a bloody partner—“

“Not a partner. More … a bodyguard—a driver … someone to watch your back and do the chores, Paul. And he’ll be good at all those things, I assure you.”

He—?

“No!”

“Yes. Do you know a man named Aske? Humphrey Aske?”

“Aske?” Mitchell ran the tapes. There was a new Special Branch man taking over from Cox—Andrews—
Andrew
…
and an Agnew, who was half-French and a Hull University Law graduate … Aske—Christ!—
Aske
!

“He’s a—he’s a—oh,
shit
—“ Mitchell ran out of words, into outrage.

“Odd? Queer? Gay?” Audley raised an eyebrow. “A cupcake? I heard that word recently, from one of our newer recruits—you know of Humphrey Aske, then?”

“David—no, for God’s sake—“

“I might have known you’d know him. You always know too much, Paul.”

“I’ve only seen him a couple of times—I’ve talked to him once—“

“But once was enough? Tchk, tchk!” Audley tutted at him. “Prejudice is a terrible thing! And since it takes all sorts to make a world—and particularly
our
world—has it never occurred to you how useful the Askes of this world can be, once we’ve stopped trying to sweep them under the carpet?” He gazed at Mitchell. “What was he doing, when you encountered him?”

“He was poncing around in records.” Mitchell recalled his incredulity from that encounter.

“In the Balkan Section? He has been covering one of their embassies—probably the Bulgarian … the old Bulgarian heresy?” Audley was at his most maddening. “That’s one of Master Latimer’s areas of activity, and he’s one of Latimer’s creatures. That’s why we’ve got him now—or you have.”

More incredulity. “Latimer isn’t—?”

“No. Latimer
isn
’
t
. Latimer is neither homo nor hetero, so far as I can observe. He is merely and unfortunately very smart, in this instance. So I’m afraid you have Aske as your back-up.”

“Why not Bannen? I like him.”

“Because Bannen doesn’t have the right qualifications. Aske does—and Latimer has kindly made him available, because he wants to know what I’m up to … and Jack Butler is being obstinately fair-minded, because Aske needs more field experience at the sharp end, to qualify for promotion.” Audley gave Mitchell a wicked look. “But you don’t need to be nice to him, or to let him into your confidence. He’s just there to hew wood and draw water for you, and to die for you if he has to.”

That was altogether too close to the bone: there was no answer to that, only another pang of remembrance.

“Now … the project.” Audley dismissed the complication of Aske as though the truth had exorcised it. “It was
Project Vengeful
—and the
Vengeful
was in English, not Cyrillic, so there are no semantic or etymological arguments about ‘avenger’, or ‘vengeance’, or ‘vindictive’, even though they were all Royal Navy ships in their time too.”

Loftus of the
‘
Vengeful
’
, thought Mitchell automatically.
But that was two-thirds of a lifetime ago—

“There were twelve
Vengefuls
—the twelfth was a submarine in ‘44, but that’s being attended to elsewhere, and you don’t need to worry about it. You’ve drawn the other eleven, and I want you to eliminate them … or not, as the case may be.”

Ridiculous
, thought Mitchell.

“And Loftus was the expert on all of them. So you will start with him,” said Audley. “Or, seeing that he’s dead, you must start with his daughter—even if it means playing mixed hockey!”

ELIZABETH ONLY BECAME
fully aware of the handsome young man after an intermediate sequence of more casual emotions.

There was a Victorian mirror on the bric-a-brac stall, opposite her own bookstall on the other side of the gangway—a big, ugly old thing, mahogany-framed, solid as an old battleship and as unsaleable—it had been on the same stall in the previous sale, and hadn’t sold that time either, and wasn’t going to sell this time at half the price. But now he was looking into it, and he was looking at her.

The first time, she had put it down to accident—to the accidental adjustment of the mirror; then, when she noticed that he was still looking at her, she put it down to brief curiosity—to the discovery that he could stare into it without being noticed, without knowing that she had observed his curiosity. But the third time, after she had moved down her stall and had then come back to her original position beside the cash-box … then he was still there, and she began to wonder what it was that held his attention.

It couldn’t be the cash-box, because his suit fitted too well for that—a nice summer suit that was never straight off the peg—that suit was too good for what there was in her cash-box, and so was his haircut; even the three young tearaways from Leigh Park, whom she had observed casing the stalls earlier, had dismissed the box at a glance as containing too much silver and too few notes.

But then it couldn’t be
her
, either—that was equally unlikely, to the point of being ridiculous, even though she now represented a very great number of banknotes—because he couldn’t know
that
…

Or could he?

She began to day-dream pleasurably along the lines which dear old Mr Lovell at the solicitors’ had sketched obliquely, even though he was unaware of the half of her good fortune. It still amused her, the new deference—not plain Elizabeth any more, now that she was an esteemed client and not Father’s messenger; she was still plain Elizabeth herself, but in Lovell, Cole & Lovell she had become Miss Loftus; and dear old Mr Lovell, who had never been unkind to her, had tied himself into a Gordian Knot trying to warn her of the temptations and pitfalls waiting to ambuscade her, now that she was a woman of modest wealth and property, and all alone.

There were people, he said—

(He was still watching her: she was sure of that now!)

There
were people
—old Mr Lovell couldn’t bring himself to say
men
, just as he would not have dreamed of telling her that she was no oil painting even if she now had a golden frame—there were
people
who might come to her with … ideas … She must be careful of the company she kept, careful of new friends who might not be friends at all, careful …

Some hope! thought Elizabeth: it was she herself who had all the ideas—even silly ideas about impossibly good-looking young men who watched her surreptitiously in mirrors at church fetes—mysterious young men like the hero in that Mills and Boon romance she’d confiscated from Angela McManners last term, when Angela should have been deep in Lockyer’s
Habsburg and Bourbon Europe
for her A-level.