For the Good of the State

by Anthony Price

  Tom had just managed to reach his shoulder, but breathlessness and fish jam left him speechless.

  ‘The trouble is … yes, the only trouble is—’ A growling note entered Audley’s voice ‘—that that bastard son-of-a-bitch back there knows all too damn well that I, of all people, am most likely to swallow any Dunsterforce story—fish jam and all—’ He pointed ahead. ‘But there’s the car, anyway.’ Once again he stopped without warning and faced Tom. ‘So what do we do, then? No time for your beloved back-up now, not even if I agreed to it. Which I don’t.’ He grinned unhelpfully.

  A memory came to Tom, but equally unhelpfully, of Willy’s golden head on the pillow next to his. Willy had ‘had help’, she had said, in getting into his room last night. And the Company would never have sent her so far from home alone, that wasn’t their way—that way, at least, they were careful. So Willy and her Help were maybe ten miles away, and maybe half-an-hour, from Farmer Bodger’s farmyard at this moment; and that was the nearest thing he had to any sort of back-up. But neither Audley nor Jaggard would thank him for calling the 7th Cavalry out on Exmoor.

  ‘Panin hasn’t left us any time, David. I’m not sure that I like that.’

  ‘Hmm … But then he wants to keep everything low key and strictly non-violent … ’ Audley moved his head in a curious circular motion, which was neither a shake nor a nod. ‘And in his state of professional health that has a certain logic to it. Because he can no more afford a scandal than I can … not to put too fine a point on the situation.’ Audley wiped his nose thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes.’ Tom hid behind unwilling acceptance of the old man’s own logic while actually noting that for the first time Audley had conceded the truth of what everyone else had been saying: that he himself was no longer invulnerable. But then he also saw the flaw in the logic. ‘But yesterday wasn’t non-violent, was it?’ And … better to be brutally explicit. ‘Your bullet and Basil Cole weren’t low key, David.’

  ‘Hmm … My bullet certainly wasn’t.’ Audley sniffed. ‘And I wish to God I had Old King Cole at the end of a phone now—we’d know what we were about then—you’re damn right there, Tom! Topping Basil was just too-damn neat … it smells of Panin, no matter how many times he swears to the contrary.’ Nod. Then a succession of small nods. ‘Yes … in the Great Patriotic War he might have been an NKVD hood, but he was also a working staff-officer. So he’d know how blind the front-line is when they can’t get any intelligence briefings about what’s ahead and on the flanks … So I’ll bet he knows I’m running blind as well as scared now, in spite of all the bull-shit I’ve fed him to the contrary. Huh! But we still go on, eh?’

  Once again, in spite of all the other bull-shit which he’d received, Tom warmed to Mamusia’s ancient Beast. Because, for all his pride and bloody-mindedness and plain awkwardness, the old Beast was scared underneath, as he had every right to be. But, in spite of all that, the old Beast intended to go ahead—that was obvious. And in that the old Beast wasn’t disappointing; even, he could see how Colonel Butler might be tempted to return the trust and loyalty which he had received this day—even if it was Audley’s own peculiar variety of trust and loyalty—in exchange for such cavalryman’s courage.

  ‘Huh.’ The old man had completed his logic-versus-flawed-logic process. ‘But we don’t have any choice in the matter, young Tom: there’s always a risk, but we’re in the risk-taking business—we’re the poor-bloody Hotspur nettle-pluckers— “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.” Are you game for that, boy?‘

  Tom didn’t like being called ‘boy’, any more than ‘Darling boy’. But one half of him (and maybe Mamusia’s half, too) shrugged off the diminutive. ‘Yes.’ Only there was still the other half (which was Father’s cautious English half, but in which Jaggard also still had the controlling interest). ‘But I’d like to make a phone-call first, David.’

  ‘A phone-call?’ Audley frowned at him, then at the car, then back at him. ‘To whom?’

  ‘I want to know what they’ve got on your bullet, from yesterday.’ It was reasonable, but there was no harm in making it more so, so he grinned at Audley, and knew to his shame that it was a boyish grin. ‘Besides which … they’ll be expecting me to phone in. But don’t worry: I won’t tell them that we’re about to behave stupidly—I agree that we don’t have any choice.’ Instinct and inclination suddenly combined. ‘You would have done okay in my grandfather’s regiment, David—in … my mother’s father’s regiment, the Ulyani Lancers: they never could resist charging the machine-guns, when it came to the crunch.’

  ‘Hah!’ Audley was plainly delighted with the insult. ‘And you would have done well enough in the old Wesdragons, Tom: The West Sussex Dragoons … Because they were thick as two planks, too!’ Nod. ‘In fact, my old CO … “Kit” Sykes—or Bill Sykes to his friends, of whom I was never one—he used to say … rather like Marshal Foch, of whom he’d certainly never heard, because he boasted that he’d never opened a book in his life, and he hated all Frenchmen as a matter of principle … he used to say, “Don’t worry about the flanks—God only knows where they are, and they aren’t your business anyway. And don’t worry about the rear, because I shall be breathing down the back of your unwashed neck, and there’s nothing behind us except cooks and bottle-washers, anyway. Just go and find out whether there’s anything up ahead between us and the cocktail bar in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, there’s a good fellow! And if there isn’t, then order six bottles of their best Champagne on my account—understood?” ’ The old man’s pleasure in his old soldier’s memory was like a hot bottle in a cold bed in mid-winter. ‘Understood, Tom?’

  ‘Understood, David.’ Only he needed to take his speculator’s profit on a favourable market. ‘But I still need to make my phone-call —I want to know what the cooks and the bottle-washers have been doing—okay?’

  Audley shrugged, and started to move again. ‘No harm in that, I suppose … just so you don’t tell ’em anything. No point in worrying ‘em—old Jack particularly. He worries about me a lot when I’m out of his reach, you know—’ The rest was lost, half-mumbled at an increasing distance, leaving Tom momentarily rooted to his spot by an onrush of sympathy for Colonel Butler, who must surely be as long-suffering as he was remarkable in other respects.

  Then he remembered Dunsterforce, which he would need very soon to explain to Jaggard. The trouble was … getting any sort of straight answer out of the old man in his present elliptical mood (or probably in any mood, come to that) didn’t lend itself to speed; and the last thing he wanted was a lecture on post-World War One Anglo-American policy in the Near and Middle East—he’d had enough of the 1985 results of that old impossible tangle, for Christ’s sake!

  Besides which—

  ‘Wait for me, David!’ But Audley took not a blind bit of notice.

  Besides which what was he going to tell Jaggard? (Audley was already halfway to the car, his raincoat flapping around him like a pair of pale wings; and that reminded him of his original job, and also that he was getting careless: because that almost-white raincoat stood out too much for safety against the faded green of the landscape; and because Henry Jaggard hadn’t told him the half of it—because Henry Jaggard was up to something, and Henry Jaggard couldn’t be trusted!)

  He had no time to tell Jaggard about Willy. And could he tell Jaggard what Audley was doing, when Audley himself still didn’t really know what Panin was up to?

  Bloody Dunsterforce! First things first. (Audley, large and white, had reached the car—and the sooner he was safe inside it, the better. That ought to have been ahead of first: that was more carelessness!)

  He broke into a run, forgetting everything for a moment—

  Audley gave up trying to wrench the car door open and stood waiting for him, getting larger and whiter by the second.

  He reached the car himself finally, breathless and careless, and happily ridiculous. ‘Sorry, David. I locked it.’ The gun under his arm felt huge.

&
nbsp; ‘I know you locked it. But do you really think anyone would steal a heap like this—from a muddy farmyard?’ The-old man regarded him pityingly.

  ‘Just habit.’ Beirut habit, thought Tom, and it was a disturbing thought. But it was a thought he had unthought too easily until now. ‘Go and stand over there, by the end of the barn.’

  ‘Just unlock the door, there’s a good fellow.’

  Tom sighed. ‘Just go and stand by the barn—round the corner of it.’

  ‘What the devil—?’ The old man’s shoulders slumped suddenly. ‘For God’s sake … you don’t really think … ?’ Then he straightened up again. ‘Or are you trying to frighten me? Because you’re succeeding, you know.’

  ‘Good.’ Tom pointed towards the barn. ‘Don’t be difficult, David. I won’t take long.’

  ‘I should hope not! I have wet feet and a cold. And I’m past my prime.’ Audley held up his hand and started backing away. ‘All right, all right—just don’t do yourself an injury. Your dear Mother would never forgive me … ’

  Tom waited until the old man was out of sight. ‘Actually, this isn’t going to be very difficult—can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes—’ Sneeze ‘—no?’

  ‘We parked on nice mud … just hoofprints and our footprints, I think—nice distinctive prints, too!’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Audley. ‘Like Shakespeare said.’

  Tom opened the passenger’s door gingerly. Then he leaned across to the driver’s. ‘What d’you mean—Shakespeare?’ He unlocked the bonnet. ‘Shakespeare?’

  ‘Henry V, dear boy. The night before Agincourt.’

  Nothing anywhere there. Look in the boot. Look under the seats. ‘The night—’ Nothing anywhere: false alarm? ‘— ’before Agincourt?‘

  ‘Uh-huh. Like young Harry said: “Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.”’ Sneeze. ‘Joke, Tom: sole, not soul … Not very good, but the best I can manage in the circumstances: you said “footprints”, and I said “sole”—okay?’

  ‘Very good.’ Check everything again, was the rule.

  ‘Not really. Not in these circumstances, actually, it occurs belatedly to me—bad joke, in fact. Is there a bomb in our car?’

  ‘You can come out now.’ Tom drew a deep breath. ‘False alarm, David.’

  Audley squelched across the yard. ‘But with good intent.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tom knew he was smiling like an idiot. ‘It was a good joke.’

  Audley shook his head, unsmiling. ‘Not if you remember the bit that comes before, where the soldier says that the king has a heavy reckoning to make “when all those legs and arms and heads, chopt off in battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ’We died at such a place‘.” ’ He shook his head again. ‘Bad joke. Forgive me, Tom. I apologize.’

  ‘No need to.’ He had never seen the old man so serious, not even after the news of Basil Cole’s death. ‘I have been getting careless.’

  ‘And I have been worse than careless: I have been playing my little games maybe a little too thoughtlessly of late—Panin’s right. And that gives him the edge on me now.’ He looked at Tom sadly. ‘It’s like my wife has said on occasion: “How can such a clever man as you so often end up being too clever by half?” ’ Sniff. ‘My trouble is … as you get older there are things you can’t do any more, Tom. So sometimes I get a little bored. And then I make a little excitement for myself. So … now I am justly served, perhaps. But you are not.’

  Poor old bugger! Getting older was something Tom had occasionally thought about. But not being older. But now he didn’t know quite how to react. ‘It’s okay, David.’ He patted the Cortina. ‘In Beirut I used to do this all the time, pretty much. It’s all right.’

  ‘It isn’t all right. Being too clever by half is bad enough. But not being clever enough is worse. People get killed when I’m not clever enough. And I’m not being clever enough at the moment, I suspect.’

  That could really only mean one thing. ‘You think Panin’s up to something—apart from protecting Zarubin?’

  ‘Hmm … I’ll tell you something about Comrade Panin, Tom—one of the things we do know about him. He was the pupil of a man named Berzin, who was a professor of psychology in the Dzerzhinksy KGB Centre in the old days. We’ve got a whole book of his lectures in our archives, which some thoughtful person presented to us. Lots of theories, old Berzin had—some of ’em simple and old hat, some of ‘em devious as hell. “Get your enemy to do your work for you”, was one … and one that Panin likes, too. But there was another one I recall, because it’s pricking my thumbs at the moment. Berzin called it his “Benefit Maximization” theory, or some such jargon—he liked jargon. What he meant, though, was that having a main objective in any operation should never preclude subsidiary objectives. In fact, he even referred to “the single objective heresy”: “the successful operative must balance caution and calculation with daring, risk-acceptance and greed for windfall benefits in what may seem unrelated sectors of activity … ” Or something like that—I’m not sure of the translation of “windfall”, but “greed” is the exact word, straight out of the Bible in Russian, apparently.’ Audley nodded. ‘And our Nikolai is nothing if not greedy. Apart from which … if, as he says and I very much suspect, his present position is as uncertain as mine is … he needs to ride home with a whole lot of severed heads attached to his saddle-bow.’

  It was a chilly metaphor, as cold as the metal under his hand, thought Tom. ‘And yours may be one of them, you think?’

  The brutal mouth twitched upwards. ‘Well, apart from Zarubin, I’m the only target around.’ Another twitch.

  ‘But it does occur to me now that if the “Sons of the Eagle” just happened to put a bullet through me … then no one could blame him, could they? That would have the virtue of neatness.’ The twitch became the old familiar Beast-grin. ‘It just occurred to me out of the blue. And it’s probably quite fanciful.’

  The metal was almost burning-cold. ‘We don’t have to keep his next rendezvous, David. We could let him go it alone—’

  ‘Cut-and-run! For him?’ This time the sniff was worthy of the nose. ‘Not on your nelly, Tom! The day I do that for Panin … then he doesn’t have to worry about me ever again. And right now he still does, I tell you.’

  It was useless to argue with him, because his pride certainly equalled Panin’s greed.

  ‘Besides which … I’d never know what he was up to, would I?’ The Beast-grin softened. ‘And I couldn’t abide that—it would make me bully my wife and beat my daughter.’ Audley shook his head almost cheerfully. ‘And we couldn’t have that, could we! So let’s go, then—where glory waits.’

  Maybe the car wouldn’t start, hoped Tom. But he had just looked at the engine under the bonnet, and it had looked the way the garage man said it would—almost as good as the beaten-up Chevy he had used in Beirut.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Audley stopped halfway into the car. ‘What do you want now? Wasn’t it a phone—?’

  ‘I’d prefer you not to wear that raincoat, for a start.’ Better anger than despair.

  Audley raised himself, huge and off-white. ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘It stands out like a—like a fucking sore thumb, David.’

  ‘What?’ The old Audley sparked again. ‘You want me to die of pneumonia, then?’

  ‘Pneumonia would suit me fine.’ He preferred the old Audley, actually. ‘No one’s going to blame me for that. And it isn’t usually terminal these days, anyway. But … suit yourself.’ He ought to have known that the direct approach never worked with the old man.

  But Audley was nevertheless obediently taking the coat off. ‘I shall put it on again if it rains.’ He balled the coat up and threw it into the back of the car. And then looked aggressively at Tom. ‘Which it looks like doing any moment now. Is that all?’

  Tom got into the car, And, of course, it started at the first twist of the ignition key, as he knew it woul
d do. But what he needed, short of the protective back-up he had always wanted, was bloody Dunsterforce, before some bloody telephone.

  He toyed for a moment with the idea of three-point-turning into the farmyard, and bogging down in it. But the thought was beneath him—and it was par for this course that the Cortina wouldn’t bog down, anyway. When inanimate things were against one, it was useless to fight them.

  ‘Yes.’ He reversed savagely down the track towards the road, knowing that he would stop carefully at the junction, even though there wouldn’t be anything to delay him: if God intended David Audley to rendezvous again with his old comrade, then he would clear the road. Tell me about this fish jam of yours, David.‘

  ‘Ah … ’ Audley was making a dog’s-breakfast of safety-belting himself up as always, oblivious of all nuances when it suited him. ‘Ah! Now what you really need to know, young Tom, is the story of Major-General Lionel Dunsterville, who was indirectly responsible—if not ultimately responsible—for serving up the jam … Which, of course, was good Beluga caviare, as the Comrade Professor well knows—and knows well that I know too, of course. Which is the problem—’

  The car bumped and lurched over the pot-holes. And even if it hadn’t it was going to be a bumpy ride, because the old bugger was already playing his games again, in spite of everything—

  But it wasn’t, somehow. Not even though they came to a tatty, old-fashioned (but unvandalized) phone-box on an impossible blind corner on the ujpper edge of a hillside village only five or ten minutes away from Bodger’s Farm; which must therefore have been well within the range of Gilbert de Merville’s forced-labour net, when he’d been raising Mountsorrel.

  And, even, it was Audley who broke first, trying to snap the thread of his own inconsequential tale, out of fish jam (which the sailors had hated), and the long-dead, far-flung past, from Devon to the high passes of the North-West Frontier, and back to Devon again, and on to the equally distant Caspian Sea, off Enzeli in Persia, and Baku in Transcaucasia, and Astrakhan on one of the mouths of the Volga.