Sion Crossing

by Anthony Price

  Morris grimaced at Audley. “Well … that was where the old bastard wanted it. I warned him.” Then he cocked his head, as though suddenly curious. “It hasn’t occurred to you that if I was up to something … or maybe if he was … then we’d have gotten up to it less publicly?”

  The old bastard?

  “It did cross our minds—yes.” Audley showed no sign that he too was wondering who “the old bastard” might be. “But no doubt you all had your reasons, we decided.”

  “Oh, sure.” There was an edge of irritation in the American’s voice. “He didn’t want to be late for dinner with His Royal Highness.” He gestured abruptly. “His goddam’ dinner!”

  The barman materialized in front of them. “Yes, sir?”

  “What?” Morris blinked at the man.

  “Same again, sir?”

  Morris looked at him. “Why not? Okay, Harry—‘Through the bottle’s dazzling glare I see the gloom less plain’.” He nodded at the barman. “‘And that I think a reason fair to fill my glass again’.” He grinned at Audley and raised his glass. “My namesake wrote that, you know, David? So here’s to Captain Charles Morris, of the army of His Britannic Majesty King George the Third, God bless him.” He drained the glass and handed it to the barman. “Though I guess the Captain’s tipple was port, more likely.”

  Dinner with His Royal Highness? That certainly reduced the options in an identification of one old bastard among so many who fitted the description.

  “Yes …” Audley lifted his untasted glass of sherry and then put it down still untasted. “But dinner wasn’t one of the reasons we were seeking you, Howard—any more than we’re interested in King George the Third and the Revolutionary War. It’s Mr Lincoln’s war we’re curious about, aren’t we?” He regarded Morris quizzically. “The War Between the States?”

  Morris grimaced again. “Hell, David! I told you it was private—”

  “Not any more, it isn’t—”

  “I mean, you don’t have to ask me, goddam’ it!”

  “I don’t see anyone else around to ask.”

  “You don’t? For Christ’s sake—all you have to do is ask—” Morris stopped abruptly, staring at Audley. “Oh God!”

  The barman reappeared, with another sherry and another Guinness as well as Howard Morris’s umpteenth pint.

  “I’ll put it on your slate, sir—right?”

  “Yeah, Harry. On my slate.” Morris continued to stare at Audley, but did not speak again until the barman had retired. “Is he all right?”

  “He—who?”

  “Don’t shit me around. Is Latimer all right?”

  “So far as we know.” Audley looked at Mitchell for confirmation, then back to Morris. “Is there any reason why he shouldn’t be? The War Between the States is over, isn’t it? I thought the shooting stopped at Appomattox Court House in 1865, didn’t it?”

  “Where is he?” If Howard Morris was lying, then he was a beautiful liar, thought Mitchell as the American spread the question between them with a frown. But then he would be a beautiful liar, of course. “Is that it? He’s gone? And … he’s gone, and you don’t know where?” Morris drew a breath. “That bitch!”

  That bitch?

  Now they had an old bastard and a bitch. And a Royal Highness. And that ought to triangulate matters well enough.

  “Not exactly.” Audley ignored the bitch. “That is to say … he has gone. And we only have an approximate idea of his whereabouts.” Audley smiled suddenly, almost disarmingly, with one of those rare sweet smiles of his. “It’s funny, really.”

  “Funny?” The American said the word, but Mitchell echoed it within himself.

  “Ironic.” Audley paused. “We’re not a department with a lot of rules, as you know … We have to have room to breathe in—space for a little freedom of action … even a little eccentricity, you might say—eh?”

  Neither Mitchell nor the American said anything, for Audley was usually the one who needed that sort of room.

  “About ten years ago … ten years, it would be—Cathy was a new baby at the time … I went abroad with her and Faith. It was just a whim—” Audley shrugged diffidently “—mostly just holiday, to show Faith the Roman parts of Rome, not those dreadful baroque monstrosities … But I did want to check up on something—” another shrug “—and … there was a bit of quite unforeseen difficulty with the locals there. Quite unforeseen—otherwise, of course, I’d never have taken Faith and Cathy, you understand?”

  There was some truth there, as far as Audley’s wife and child were concerned. But there was also some considerable understatement, Mitchell suspected, relating to events which had occurred a year or two before he himself had been seduced from the scholarly safety of the 1914–18 War-to-end-all-wars.

  “Anyway … the point is that I had somehow omitted to tell anyone where I was going, so when things blew up at this end … which they did with a vengeance … there was a certain amount of ill-founded concern, which Master Oliver St John Latimer did his best to transform into departmental panic, for all the world as though I was absconding with the petty cash.” Audley finally nerved himself to taste one of his sherries. A strange expression crossed his face and he scanned the array of bottles behind the bar just as the barman returned. “They changed the rules after that.”

  “Everything okay, sir?” inquired the barman.

  “Thank you, Harry!” Audley smiled again. “A most unusual sherry. Bulgarian, would it be?”

  The politeness of the question reassured the barman. “I expect so, sir. It comes out of a barrel.”

  “Just so!” Audley turned back to Morris. “They tightened up the rules after that, and Oliver St John Latimer is a great one for rules. So I don’t doubt he’ll be ringing in again some time … And, in the meantime, I’m not one to make a crisis, let alone a panic, out of a transitory problem. That’s the irony, if you like.”

  Mitchell studied the American closely, and was not reassured by what he observed, since the American himself was drinking again. He reached for his second Guinness.

  Morris put his glass down, and wiped his moustache delicately with a single finger. “That’s just the little irony, old buddy. There’s a bigger one than that.”

  “Tell us, Howard.” Audley spoke gently. “Because we’ve got two men on each of the exits, and another in the car outside, and as they’re all probably on overtime—if not overtime-and-half, on a Saturday evening—I would like to send them home, for the taxpayer’s sake.”

  “Huh!” grunted Morris. “But I’m buying the drinks on my private slate.”

  “Are you? But then everything you seem to be doing these days is private, isn’t it?” Audley leaned across the bar and waved at the barman. “Private meetings—private reasons—private drinks … Harry, could you dispose of these Nicaraguan sherries, and bring me a pint of Colonel Morris’s best bitter?”

  “Pint coming up, sir!” Harry waved back.

  Morris pointed accusingly at Audley. “You think we’re up to something—you do, don’t you, David?”

  “I don’t think any such thing. Mitchell here thinks that—I don’t.”

  “Mitchell.” Morris zeroed in on Mitchell. “You know what they say about you, Doctor Mitchell?”

  That was a challenge not to be ducked. “That I know too much? That’s what I’m always being told, Colonel.”

  The reply crest-felled the American. “They say you’re a smart-ass, Mitchell.”

  The pint arrived, but the barman looked at Mitchell. “Anything more, gentlemen?”

  The barman knew his job, and Mitchell liked men who knew their jobs.

  “I’ll have another Guinness. And you can put a pint in for Colonel Morris—and for my friend here.” He nodded at Audley.

  The barman studied Mitchell for a moment. “I know you, don’t I, sir—?”

  “You do, Harry.” Mitchell watched Howard Morris.

  “Yes …” Harry grappled for a moment with his professional memory. “
The Dominoes League—Mister … mister … Paul—? Paul?”

  “We beat the home side. I had a damn good partner—remember?”

  Harry beamed back at him. “That’s right, sir—Mr Procter and Mr Mitchell … And your ladies did just as well in the darts match—and your lady was a Miss Elizabeth, right?”

  Touché, thought Mitchell. “I wish she was, Harry.” But there were other matters in hand now. “And put one in for yourself while you’re about it.” He put a note on the bar. “You see, Colonel, I’ve been privatized too. This pub’s in my territory, that’s all.”

  The Colonel nodded slowly, adding Mitchell to the full reckoning for the first time.

  “But you’re right—and David isn’t quite right.” They had to hit the American hard from both sides, now that he was in a vulnerable salient.

  “Oh … yeah?” Morris shied away from another ‘oh-ho’.

  “Yes. I do know too much. And I don’t think you’re up to something … although by ‘you’ I don’t necessarily mean you personally.” Mitchell smiled. “I mean … with the old bastard and the bitch … We’d like you to put our minds at rest, Colonel.”

  That was the old military rule: if you don’t want to destroy your enemies completely, because you may need them as allies in the next campaign, then leave them one road open on which to retreat from the stricken field in good order.

  Howard Morris looked from one to the other of them, and then at the cheerful Saturday evening occupants of the bar in general. Perhaps he was reviewing the celebrated Special Relationship between his United States and their United Kingdom. And perhaps he was also remembering his own Special Relationship with David Audley, his long-time friend and longer-time official ally. But it was more likely, thought Mitchell, that he was thinking about the heavies outside the two exits.

  Harry arrived with the drinks, including his own. And, having swept Audley’s sherries from sight, he raised his glass to Mitchell. “It’s Doctor Mitchell—that was a good win you had that night Doctor! Cheers!”

  Morris fixed a jaundiced eye on him. “Harry …”

  “Yes, Colonel?”

  “Have you ever heard of Catch-22, Harry?”

  Harry thought for a moment. “No, sir. Is it a drink?” He raised an eyebrow. “A cocktail, is it?”

  “Yes,” said Audley. “It has a hemlock base. Do you have any hemlock?”

  Harry ran his eye over the bottles behind the bar. “No, sir. Would Crême-de-Menthe do?”

  “Probably.” Morris sighed. “Harry, would you give us some privacy? These two gentlemen are about to screw me for all I’m worth. I won’t bleed, but it may not be a pretty sight. So bug off, there’s a good fellow.”

  Harry took them all in, finally coming back to Morris. “Well—that’s life, sir: there’s always someone waiting for the chance. Usually it’s the tax-man.” Then he brightened. “Just don’t forget you’ve got a pint in with Dr Mitchell—right?”

  Morris watched the barman depart. “With a hemlock chaser … Okay, David … so someone’s up to something. But not me—and I don’t know what. And that’s straight.” He started his latest pint.

  Audley drank, and then nodded. “But you said ‘Catch-22’, nevertheless?”

  “Oh—sure! Whichever way it goes, I’m going to lose. Because someone is up to something—”

  “Someone American.” Mitchell pretended to know a piece of common knowledge, which was either the old bastard’s identity, or that bitch’s, or both.

  “But you were the middleman, old buddy,” said Audley. “You’re not exactly a virgin waylaid on her journey home to the YWCA, are you?”

  Morris’s features twisted. “That’s not far from the goddam’ truth, actually. And I’m about to be screwed, either way—I’m resigned to that.”

  Audley leaned forward. “I could take that as a kind of insult, old friend. We didn’t start this, remember?”

  “Uh-huh. You didn’t start it—I didn’t start it. But if I don’t come clean with you, you foreclose on my mortgage—” Morris glanced at Mitchell as though he well knew the author of his misfortunes “—and if I do … then Senator Cookridge will sure as hell have me run out of this town on a rail.”

  Senator Cookridge? Mitchell just had time, warned by if I do, to hold his expression of well-informed politeness.

  “Uh-huh!” Finding no comfort in Mitchell, Morris turned back to Audley. “So it seems I’m caught between a rock and a hard place, then.”

  “Not necessarily.” Audley shook his head quickly.

  Cookridge?

  “No?” The tiniest flicker of hope crossed Morris’s face. “Go on, David—?”

  Cookridge? Christ! That raised the stakes! And, in raising them, it accounted for the American’s resistance to their pressure. And—Christ! He musn’t look so hard at Audley to see if he had made the same connection!

  He buried his face in his Guinness glass.

  “Me?” Audley’s voice hardened. “It’s you who should be talking, not me.” He shifted his glance to Mitchell, and then back to Morris. “And if you’re wondering about how long you can stall us … we’re already into injury time, old buddy.”

  “I’ll bet.” Morris accepted the situation. “But what I was actually wondering about … is just how much you really know, David?”

  “How much do we know?” Audley sniffed at the question, as though he didn’t fancy the smell of it. “We know about the Senator … we know about ‘the old bastard’.” He sniffed again. “We don’t know nearly enough about that ‘bitch’ of yours, to be honest.” He flicked a smile at Mitchell. “And we know a hell of a lot about the American Civil War—or ‘the War Between the States’, if you prefer … or ‘the War for Southern Independence’, or whatever you like… . But again, not nearly enough—will that do?”

  Morris gave him an evil smile. “You don’t know about Lucy? Now that surprises me!”

  Audley gestured abruptly, nearly upsetting the nearest glass. “Oh, for God’s sake, Howard! Friendship is one thing—”

  “Friendship?” Morris fired the word back at him. “It’s my neck, buster—not yours! And thanks to me, by God!”

  “Thanks to you?” Audley frowned.

  “This time you owe me—you really owe me—my God, you do!” Morris chuckled insincerely. “You know where you should be?” Morris pointed at Audley. “You know where?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Uh-huh.” The finger waved negatively at Audley. “You tell me where you think Oliver St John Latimer is first. Then I’ll tell you where you should be. Okay?”

  For the first time Mitchell wondered whether it was all the beer that Howard Morris had taken on board which was talking. But somehow he didn’t think it was.

  “Very well.” Audley was deadly sober, anyway. “We think he’s in the United States.”

  “You think?”

  “Cut the bullshit, Howard. He may be there—and where should I be?” Beyond sobriety, Audley was deadly serious now.

  “Okay.” Morris picked up the message. “You should be wherever he is, David.” His mouth tightened. “Instead of him.”

  “Instead?”

  “That’s right. Instead.” Morris stared at Audley unblinkingly. “He wanted you—”

  “He?”

  “Senator Cookridge—now who’s bullshitting?” Morris’s face twisted. “He wanted you—the great David Audley, the historian—the finder of lost things—the picker-up of unconsidered trifles … the great and good friend of the United States of America.” The finger came up again. “He wanted you, David—and he wanted me to get you. So … now do you see the joke?”

  For a moment Audley said nothing, and they were in a private silence in the midst of the bar’s hubbub.

  “You mean … you disobeyed orders?” The joke appeared to puzzle Audley.

  “They weren’t orders exactly. He asked me to do him a favour, that’s all.”

  “Which you didn’t do.”

  Morris sh
rugged. “I did my best, in the time allowed. He wanted you quickly—I went to the Oxbridge because I heard you’d be there. But you didn’t turn up.”

  Mitchell stirred. “But Latimer did turn up?” There was something not quite right about this. “So you approached him instead?”

  Morris looked at him. “Yes, Dr Mitchell. Like they say, a bird in the hand, is it?” He smiled at Mitchell. “Or is it Hobson’s Choice?”

  “He asked for me, Howard?” Audley was frowning more deeply now. “Specifically for me?”

  “Uh-huh.” Howard drank some more beer. “For the celebrated David Audley, no less.”

  “Go on.”

  “Go on—where?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Howard.” By the look on his face Audley had reached Mitchell’s unless. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Okay.” The glass was empty. “I got a call from him yesterday. I was doing my weekly thing at Grosvenor Square … like telling Schwarz what he didn’t want to hear, and wasn’t going to believe, about Greenham.” The American’s mouth twisted under his moustache. “No matter … I got this call, which gave Schwarz a nasty turn, because the Senator farts, and they all smell roses—it was bad news to Schwarz that the Senator even knew of my existence.”

  “You know Cookridge?”

  “Never set eyes on the old bastard. But he sure knows about me.” Morris paused. “And he sure knows about you, old buddy. Like … he knows we have a passing acquaintance, for instance.”

  “What else does he know about me?”

  “Oh … he dropped some names.” Morris glanced at Mitchell for a fraction of a second.

  “Go on. What names?”

  “Well … let’s say he knows your wife’s maiden name, huh? And there was one of our guys you worked with once—a certain Major Sheldon, who pulled teeth for the USAF down Salisbury-way a few years back—and a few KGB teeth too—remember?” Morris smiled at his friend. “And he said you were an authority on Civil Wars—yours and ours.”