by Craig Thomas
"OK — a rotten log seems about right."
They sat on the green-coated log in the spaces between the more exotic fungoid growths. Walsingham picked at one, lung-like, then at another the texture and colour of rolled pastry. His fingers were vaguely, senilely destructive. "Entirely appropriate," he answered softly.
"They're all dead. Just like you wanted it, really."
"Oh, no," Walsingham replied quickly. "You were the one who stirred the ant-heap with a stick. On behalf of Goessler." Walsingham's breathing refused to return to normal. Quick, short breaths, as superficial as the relationship of a mayfly to the pond water beneath it. He felt reluctant, and — yes — afraid in the company of this man. He was totally unlike Michael McBride, his father. A superficial physical resemblance, naturally, but nothing marked on the almost bland face except recent tiredness, recent extremity. Even now, he seemed somehow — irresponsible? His innocence as Goessler's pawn forced a comparison of guilt upon Walsingham which made him uncomfortable with himself. Self-esteem, self-confidence both seemed to evaporate.
"You should have buried it all a lot deeper — the hole wasn't big enough to hide what you had to hide. It was all your operation, from first to last, I guess?"
Walsingham's face made the admission with involuntary muscles.
"Yes," he said after a long silence. "I proposed the sinking of the convoy, and Churchill accepted it. It seemed to be a necessity to me at that moment in time, in that situation." He paused, but then hurried on, sensing his physical proximity to Michael McBride's son like a cold wind on his frail skin. "I had nothing to do with the death of your father. That—"
"I know. You would have, if it had helped, but Drummond got there before you. If it had become necessary, you'd have had him killed."
"I liked your father—" Walsingham's voice tailed off as he admitted the inadequacy of the statement. "He was very likable," he added, almost to himself.
"Yes." McBride looked down into the trees for a moment, but in abstraction rather than alertness. Then he returned his gaze to Walsingham. The old man felt McBride's eyes glancing over his face and body in tangible, icy contacts. There was an evident repulsion in McBride's expression. "All men who fight wars are like you, right? Necessity. Then in peacetime it's national security. You make me sick."
Walsingham's face was livid with anger. "You sanctimonious American puppy! Your countrymen were collecting money for the war effort by organizing charity bazaars and dances at the very moment we were in danger of being overrun by the Nazis. You have no room to talk!" As soon as he paused, he seemed to become calmer by an effort of will. His anger had made him more human, more comprehensible to McBride. His thin strands of white hair and his lined face made him less dangerous. "I'm sorry," Walsingham continued. "You could not be expected to understand. Let us get down to the business in hand. As you say, I did not take sufficient care to expunge the evidence of what was done. You have collected a great deal of it. You intend to write a book." Walsingham's thin smile suddenly alerted McBride to the man's intelligence, his superiority of mind, his ruthlessness. It was the American's turn to be disturbed, edgy. He scanned the trees swiftly, knowing as he did so that he would never see the rifleman — if there was one.
Walsingham added: "Were you in fact to write this book of yours, you would be charged with the murders of Goessler and Lobke. You would be convicted."
McBride shivered, then nodded. "And if I keep quiet?"
"Then there would be no need to detain you further, or to charge you. You would be free to go. I would see you onto the aircraft at Heathrow myself." Walsingham attempted an ingenuous smile, but it was an evident false note and he withdrew it from his features.
"Sounds easy. There's a man down there, right? Insurance?" McBride nodded down towards the thicker trees.
"Yes, there's a man down there. As you say, insurance. For my safety."
"It's all for your safety." McBride looked over his shoulder, then back at the trees. A noise? Squirrel or shrew, or the marksman? He wondered about Walsingham, and how desperate he was, and he felt very, afraid. Then Walsingham was speaking again, with a new urgency.
"Have you deposited any evidence with anyone, McBride? I must have all your papers, your notes, lists of people you have seen—"
"What's the matter with you, Walsingham?" McBride reached very slowly into his jacket and removed the carbon copies he had made the previous evening. "I've written to my bank in Portland, Oregon, and to my agent in New York. Also this morning I rang my agent in London inquiring about an advance against royalties for the British edition of Gates of Hell. I said I'd ring again this afternoon."
He waited, his skin crawling, his hands flattened, turning white, on the damp bark of the rotten log. He could be swatted now, removed, eliminated. He had no doubt that Walsingham would do it, had planned to do it. The carbons the old man was studying appeared insubstantial, ineffectual. The bullet would pass through his frame as easily as through those papers. Come on, come on—
"I see. Your American agent would, in the event of your sudden demise, be authorized to receive the documents from your bank, and expose their contents. To the New York Daily News in the first instance, I presume?" There was a livid lightning-flash of hatred on Walsingham's face for a moment, a second of decision, and then the slow relaxing of the hand that held the papers, so that it rested nervelessly on the log beside McBride's hand. The decision had been unmade, altered. McBride wiped his green-stained hands together with relief.
"Make a beautiful noise and a very bad smell, mm?" he asked with adopted lightness, after he had cleared his throat.
What was that? Anything— nothing? Had he lost—?
"This creates something of a problem," Walsingham said with chilling calm. Lost—? "Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be insuperable. We should have to persuade your agent that your death was an accident. The CIA or the FBI would assist us there, I should think?" Walsingham's confidence was growing. Then your documents, your confessions, would moulder on in the vaults of the Citizens" Bank of Portland, undisturbed—" Walsingham had raised his hand to mop his now dry brow. McBride watched the gesture in disbelief.
"My agent in London!" he shouted. Walsingham's hand hovered. "If I don't call this afternoon, he talks to New York. The papers will be out of my bank before you can stop them, and it won't be an accident."
Walsingham sat with his hand still hovering near his brow. Hate and fury crossed his old face like new streams following old, dry courses. McBride studied the trees in panic, then glanced over his shoulder. He had only a moment. Walsingham, in a few seconds, would make the irrational, irreversible decision to have him eliminated. Walsingham's face was now an agony of indecision.
"I don't believe you—" he said.
"Can you afford not to? You're about to retire. I won't talk, to anyone, until after you're dead and in your grave, loaded with honours you don't merit. I'm leaving now. Just keep your hand on your forehead until I've gone." Walsingham chewed his lower lip. His hand fell limply against his brow, and with an effort he held it there. Time, time, McBride thought. Given time, he'll see sense. He'll lose his nerve. Just let me get away from here— "The only way you can expose me is by revealing your own rotten part in things. You won't care about the meetings, or about
Ulster, but you'll care about that. You won't want to have to shoot yourself to avoid the scandal." McBride moved behind the log, watching the sweat break out along Walsingham's forehead, around the crumpled ball of the handkerchief. The old, veined hand was shaking. Slowly, McBride backed up the last yards of the slope to the brow of the hill. "Just take it easy, Walsingham," he called out. "I'll keep my word—"
He was on the long, whale-backed hilltop, and his car was only hundreds of yards away, down in the trees. He felt a curious lightness in his stomach, and began running.
Behind him, Walsingham transferred his handkerchief — glancing in distaste at its grey dampness — to his left hand, and the marksman stepped out
of the trees, rifle lowered.
"What happened?" Exton asked when he reached the log. "Why didn't you give me the signal? I could have killed him easily. You were in no danger, at any time."
"He'd written letters," Walsingham offered, his gaze avoiding Exton's eyes and their contempt. "I had to settle for the original trade-off. He'll keep silent if he wants to live."
"As you will?" Yes, it was there, in Exton's voice. The unfamiliar tinge of contempt. Walsingham felt old, older than ever before. He looked up, mustering authority, perhaps merely recollecting it.
"As I will, and you will, Exton — and so will all of us."
Distantly, they heard an engine start, and then the noise of a car accelerating away from them. To Walsingham, the noise was both a relief in the present and a distanced, humming threat from the future. But, it was settled. McBride would let him live out his days, basking in respect and honours. It would have to do. His old body, old nerves, had settled for it when he faced Michael's son.
The sound of the car faded and disappeared on the morning air.
About the Author
Craig Thomas has been described as "a master storyteller" and "one of the finest action writers working today". His fourteen best-selling novels have consistently attracted praise and that sincerest form of flattery, imitation, since he is generally credited with creating the genre of the 'techno-thriller' with his novel FIREFOX (1977).
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