“And after you’d talked to your boss?”
Audley shrugged helplessly. “Maybe CIA… but maybe KGB.”
“What?” Mosby felt an insane urge to laugh. “How could I be KGB?”
“We knew they were sniffing around—one of their better-known London men met Airman Pennebaker in London on Saturday. Only we didn’t know where Pennebaker came from until his body turned up two days ago.”
“And then you thought we’d killed him? Oh, brother! I’ll bet you just thought that—another home run for the CIA! And he was the guy that knocked out Davies, too. Man! They really fed it to you, just like they fed it to us… so you thought my function was to make sure the British got in on the act, whether they liked it or not. So you’d get tarred with the same brush—wasn’t that the phrase?” “What’s that?” Shirley said cautiously. “The British just don’t want to be involved, honey,” said Mosby. “If the CIA is playing dirty tricks and cover-ups in Britain, and the MI5 was thought to be helping them—that really would be curtains for them too, as well as us. Once their Parliamentary left-wing got hold of that, it’d be Watergate for them too. And even the Conservatives would never forgive them for helping to re-bury King Arthur into the bargain.”
“Why the blazes didn’t you tell us what you were doing?” said Roskill suddenly.
“Why the blazes didn’t you tell us?” said Mosby. “Because we weren’t doing anything, for heaven’s sakes. We were just trying to find out what was going on.”
“And so were we. I tell you—we’ve both been suckered. It was all laid on before we knew what was happening. They just had one or two witnesses to remove after they’d played their part—like the poor old man Barkham. So now we can never disprove anything.”
“And our two men,” said Frances harshly. “The coldblooded bastards.”
Mosby swallowed. “Yeah, I guess them too.” “Plus one of their own people. And Asher Klaverinsky,” said Roskill. “No one can say they’re not thorough bastards.” “I have my doubts about Klaverinsky now. I rather think he may have lived to fight another day. We only have Major Davies’s word for what he had to say, and we can hardly rely on that.”
“And… that?” Frances Fitzgibbon pointed to the sheet of paper Mosby still clutched.
“The Novgorod Bede?” Audley shook his head. “I don’t think we’re ever going to know the truth about that now—whether it really did contain those extra words, or whether some clever devil thought the whole thing up. They just can’t afford to tell us, so it will have to stay stolen.”
“Probably never left Comrade Panin’s bookshelf,” said Mosby.
“Panin?” Audley frowned at him. “You don’t mean Nikolai Andrievich Panin?”
“That’s the comrade. D’you know him?”
“Panin!” Audley closed his eyes and struck his forehead. “Of course I know him—Panin… Well, there’s our clever devil, anyway. An archaeologist and a historian—this would be right up his street… How long have you known he was in on it?”
“We had word months ago he was dreaming up something against us. That’s why we’ve been watching out for trouble.”
“I see…” Audley seemed almost relieved. “And of course he calculated you would—yes, of course he would. It’s exactly the way he works: starting something, and then letting the other side do all the work for him. And we did it for him.”
“We?” said Shirley sharply. “You mean you’re still on our side?” She looked at Frances. “I thought we were the foreigners?”
“Oh, you are, Mrs Sheldon.” Audley smiled lopsidedly. “But we still need you to defend us—in your own interest, maybe, but we still need you. And so does Western Europe, however badly it may treat you. We need each other, and so long as we do there isn’t really a ‘your’ side and a ‘my’ side, but only an ‘our’ side—not when it comes to standing up to Soviet Russia. Not so long as people like me remember Hungary and Czechoslovakia, anyway. Or Warsaw in 1944.”
For a moment Shirley seemed tongue-tied. Then she shook her head. “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“I’m very much afraid that there isn’t much we can do now—except tell your version and hope someone will believe you.”
“But that isn’t going to be good enough, you think?”
“I’m pretty certain it won’t be.”
Mosby frowned. “But Sir Frederick said ‘your way was the only way left’. What way was that?”
“I was going to expose you to Billy Bullitt as a possible KGB agent. I was going to pull your story to pieces—right from the unbelievable coincidence of meeting me on that beach. That’s why I took the trouble to tell you so much— I didn’t want you to be able to show too much surprise at anything, I wanted you to know too much, just in case you were innocent.”
“And what did you hope to achieve by that?” “Just enough doubt in his mind to delay him releasing the story. I wasn’t trying for an acquittal, just a stay of execution.”
“You mean you were playing for time?” said Shirley. “That’s right. Time to dig a lot deeper.” “So you can still play for time, you can still dig—we’ll help you. We’ll play KGB agents for you, and the UK station will do whatever you want.”
Audley shook his head. “But I don’t want to dig anyrrfore, Mrs Sheldon. I’m afraid of what I’ll find, frankly.” Mosby thought again of St Swithun’s churchyard. “What do you mean—afraid?” said Shirley. “I mean we don’t even know that we’ve found all of Panin’s traps yet. Knowing him, I think it’s possible there are a lot more of them still, and they may be designed to catch us—us meaning the British.” He gazed at Shirley sadly. “Because, you see, we’re not quite caught yet. You are—the CIA is—but we can still survive by throwing you to the wolves. And the fact that we haven’t done so yet is the greatest proof I can give you that blood is still thicker than water.” “But—it wouldn’t be true.”
“Truth is what we can prove—and in this case what we dare to try and prove. But as it is you don’t even have to be proved guilty—you just have to be thought guilty, and that’ll be enough.”
Shirley looked at Mosby. “There has to be another way—there has to be a weakness in their operation.”
“There is,” said Frances Fitzgibbon. “There’s still one weakness left.”
“What is it?” said Shirley.
“Billy Bullitt.”
They stared at her.
“Why is he a weakness?” said Mosby.
“Because he can still change his mind. He can still withdraw the article—and everything they’ve done hinges on that. If he says ‘publish’ they’ve got everything. But if he says ‘don’t publish’ they’ve got nothing.”
Shirley looked around her. “Why, then you’ve got to make him change his mind.”
“Do you think we haven’t tried?” said Roskill. “Do you think we haven’t begged him—just to hold off for a week? Sir Frederick practically went down on his knees. And all the old blighter said was he was sorry to see that MI5 was working hand in glove with the CIA, against the national interest.”
“But it isn’t against the national interest. Why—David said—“
“That’s just David,” said Frances. “Billy Bullitt says he understands if the Americans were thrown out of Britain things would be rough.”
“More than rough, by God!”
“And more than rough,” the little face lifted. “But he says it could be the making of us, having to stand on our own feet. Even being forced to lead Western Europe, which he thinks we can. He says we’ve been alone before—and not just in 1940. He says we were alone long before that, when the Romans left us to the Anglo-Saxons in King Arthur’s time. And then we damn nearly won—we would have won if we hadn’t thrown away Badon Hill.”
Gildas.
And more than Gildas—Arthur himself. Both lined up in an obstinate old fighter’s imagination against giving in to reason.
Bullitt would never believe them, no matter what evid
ence they brought him, because he didn’t want to believe them.
It was a question of forcing his countrymen to regain their honour by standing alone, as they had once stood, in the hope that this time they wouldn’t fail.
Not Gildas. Just Arthur.
Rex quondam rexque juturus—that wasn’t a dream to Billy Bullitt, it was a promise.
“How is he a weakness, then?” Mosby couldn’t keep the despair out of his voice. “He’ll never give in—not even if we threatened to kill him if he didn’t.”
“But the Russians can’t be sure of that,” said Frances. “They’re reckoning on it, but they can’t be sure.”
“Well, they’d be better off if he was dead, then,” said Mosby. “That way, with how he’s got it fixed, nothing could stop the story breaking—‘fact, it’s a wonder they haven’t knocked him off already.”
“Perhaps they don’t know he’s given the story to the Press,” said Shirley.
“Oh, they know all right.” Audley shook his head as he spoke. “Our information is that Fleet Street is already buzzing with the big scandal one of the Sundays has got itself. They even know it has something to do with archaeology.”
“How’s that?”
“Because the word is that the fee is going to Rescue— £20,000 the rumour is. Which with Fleet Street the way it is, is big money. So—big scandal… Oh, they know sure enough.”
“Does he realise he’s in danger?”
Audley smiled grimly. “Of course he does. He doesn’t underrate the ability of the CIA to trace Major Davies back to him—I told you, he was just waiting for you to turn up on his doorstep. That’s why he made his mini-statement to us: he wanted to get the record straight before it happened.”
“Before—“ Mosby frowned, “—before what happened?”
“Before he gave you the opportunity to complete your wicked crime. Part of the deal he’s made with the newspaper is that he gives them a filmed interview they can sell to television—a joint BBC-ITV offer, they have to make. They’ve filmed him in his library already and he’s taping a commentary for the location shots at this very moment.”
“Location shots?”
“That’s right. At 10.00 a.m. tomorrow morning Billy Bullitt will be striding up Liddington Hill in Wiltshire—in his famous red shirt and combat hat—to tell the world where he thought King Arthur’s greatest battle was fought, and why. And why he now knows he was wrong. And at 3.00 p.m.—supposing he’s still alive—he’ll stride up to Windmill Knob, or as near as your barbed wire will let him—“
“You’re joking!”
“I wish to God I was, but I’m not. And what’s more he doesn’t want us around under any circumstances. Protection here he’ll accept, but no protection tomorrow morning at Liddington Hill.”
“But it’ll be—suicidal. That’ll be open country there.”
“True. But then he has a strong sense of the dramatic, and people have been shooting at him off and on for the last thirty-six years without hitting him.”
“Not these sort of people. Doesn’t he realise that?”
“Actually, he does. He pretends he doesn’t, but I do believe he thinks tomorrow is the day.”
“Then he’s absolutely insane. He doesn’t even need to do it—he doesn’t have to prove anything.”
Audley was silent for a moment. “Now there… I think you’re wrong. Prove something is exactly what he needs to do. He knows that if he is killed that really will prove his case—particularly if they get his death on film. But I don’t think even that is the deciding factor with him, not now. It’s much more a matter of honour… he’s going to prove honour is worth dying for. This is his version of the old Ordeal by Battle, the great Arthurian ideal.”
“Insane,” echoed Shirley. “It’s insane.”
“Of course it is. Honour doesn’t make anything true—it’s a mere convention. One of the very best Arthurian tales is about a knight who came to realise that—not Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad, but a bad knight named Sir Aglovale, who learnt the hard way. But Billy Bullitt is so steeped in conventional Arthurian morality that Ordeal by Battle comes quite naturally to him.”
“I just don’t understand you,” said Shirley. “You’re talking double-dutch.”
“No, Mrs Sheldon, you wouldn’t understand. Because it’s one of the better sides of women that they respect life more than men do… But let me put it this way: you remember what the New Testament says— ‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’. Now does that sound like a threat to you?”
“Of course. If you kill you must expect to be killed.”
“Exactly. But to a chivalrous knight it wasn’t a threat at all—it was a marvellous promise. In fact, it was the one thing that made Christianity worth having: no horrible toothless old age, no long-drawn-out agony in a smelly bed—just a good, clean death in the prime of life, and then straight to Heaven, or Valhalla, or wherever.
“Which is exactly the way Bullitt sees it now. He knows he’s had the best of his life—there’s even a possibility it’s running out on him, because it’s rumoured he saw a heart specialist last year sometime, though we don’t yet know which one. But in any case he appears to be ready to collect on that promise, so the risk simply doesn’t worry him. If anything it makes the whole business more attractive: it’s as though he’s challenging us—his life to prove his case. And that makes it a matter of honour.”
Roskill heaved a sigh. “And that’s why we’re beaten.”
Mosby stared at the great coat-of-arms, with its fiery dragon supporters. He wondered whether there had ever been a Sheldon coat-of-arms. It was a pity William Lancelot Bullitt couldn’t wear full armour on Liddington—
The Sheldon coat-of-arms?
Everybody had a coat-of-arms if you went back far enough.
“No.”
“What d’you mean ‘no’?” said Roskill. “I meant—“ Mosby swung towards Audley, “—screw Billy Bullitt’s honour. What about my honour?”
“Your honour?”
“Sure. My honour—and the honour of the CIA.”
“The honour of the CIA?” Frances Fitzgibbon laughed.
Mosby looked at them. “Sure. Do you have to be British to have honour? Is it something lesser mortals can’t have?”
“But—“
“Hush!” said Audley. “Go on, Captain Sheldon.”
“Okay. You said it was a straight challenge. He thinks we’re a bunch of assassins and murderers. Okay—then I accept the challenge. I say we’re not.”
“But how do you accept it?” said Frances. “Do you want to fight him?”
“No. I accept it the way he accepted it. And if he’s a man of honour then he can’t refuse me first go.”
“First go at what?”
“At Liddington Hill. I’ll wear the red shirt—I’ll wear the combat hat. And I’ll prove the truth.” Mosby pointed at Audley. “And you catch the guy that pulls the trigger.”
“Mose—“
“Shut up, honey. I’m challenging Billy Bullitt to his Ordeal by Battle. And he can’t refuse me.”
“What d’you mean—he can’t refuse you? Why not?”
“Because that’s the way the game is played. And once I accept his way of playing it then I take precedence over him because it’s my honour that’s at stake more than his. So if David’s right about the way he thinks he has no choice in the matter.”
Shirley stared at him unbelievingly. “But Mose—if David’s also right about the KGB—“ She stopped.
“Then you get shot.” Frances Fitzgibbon had no scruples about completing the sentence. “And if Bullitt’s right about the CIA you also get shot.”
“But he isn’t right. So then David can scoop up their hit man—in that open country it shouldn’t be too difficult.” Mosby nodded at Audley. “He was probably fixing to try that anyway, and I can make it nice and easy for him by being just where he wants me to be. And then Billy Bullitt can see for himself who’s rea
lly gunning for him, which is going to make him think twice about blowing the whistle on us.”
“But you’ll still be shot,” Frances was frowning now, as perplexed as Shirley.
Mosby continued to look at Audley. “Well—do I get my challenge delivered or not?”
For a moment Audley said nothing. Then he nodded slowly. “You realise that he won’t be bluffed? That he’ll take you at your face value?”
“Of course. It won’t work any other way.”
Again Audley was silent for a second or two. “And you realise I can’t guarantee to cover you? If I keep my men away from the hill so as not to scare them off they’ll be bound to get a clear shot—you realise that?”
“Sure.” Mosby nodded. “I’m counting on it.”
“Very well. You’ve got yourself a deal, Captain Sheldon.” Audley’s voice was almost non-committal, but he watched Mosby shrewdly. “What else do you want?”
“He wants his head examining,” said Shirley sharply. She squared up to Mosby. “Mosby Sheldon, have you gone entirely out of your mind? What in hell’s name are you playing at?”
It was nice to be noticed at last, thought Mosby—even when being noticed didn’t matter any more.
“I’m not playing, honey. Or maybe I am at that: it’s an old Arthurian game, carrying someone else’s shield in to battle. Malory’s full of knights doing that in good causes, on the level.”
She shook her head helplessly. “Mosby—you can’t. You just can’t.” She put her hand on his arm.
“I can.” He smiled at her happily. “Don’t fret, honey. Good knights aren’t allowed to get killed in good causes. The book says so. Leastways, not if they remember to put on their magic armour.”
XIII
BUT OF COURSE they did get killed, Mosby thought for the hundredth time as he opened the car door. Good causes, bad causes, they were all the same to bullets.
And Bullitts?
That was one symptom: irritatingly inconsequential thoughts and an even more annoying inability to concentrate on those important matters which still concerned him.
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