Shadowplay

by Norman Hartley

  ‘I very much don’t want to destroy myself,’ I said. ‘I like to think of myself as a survivor.’

  ‘If you call in Gerry Deighton, you will not survive. If the story is told, it will include many things about you. You may have killed the Allenby story, but the party was real. People will enjoy reading about the sleeping-bag game. I enjoyed it myself.’

  ‘I would have to resign,’ I said. ‘I don’t deny it. But you have a great deal more to lose.’

  I handed him a copy of the note I had prepared for Cox, setting out for him exactly what Deighton should be told. Jacob took it and unhooked a large magnifying glass from the pillar of the rear window.

  I gave him time to read it, then took it from his hands and put it back in my briefcase.

  ‘With that kind of material, you don’t really need a Gerry Deighton,’ I said, ‘but Deighton’s thorough. He won’t let Slade and Rathburg and Kaminski wriggle away easily. And we’ll give him help where he needs it—in Central Europe while he’s looking into Paul’s trips behind the Curtain, for example. When he publishes, the Family will break apart. You won’t be able to keep Paul. Not even buried somewhere in Sellinger Defense Industries. You’ll have to unload him.’

  ‘I do not wish to lose my son.’

  ‘But why,’ I said, ‘why do you want to keep a mole in the family?’

  ‘I am to blame. I pushed him too far. I raised my sons to play rough. I pushed Paul too hard and he turned on me, and on Robert. He fought the way I had taught him. I cannot blame him for that.’

  ‘I won’t let him win,’ I said.

  ‘No, I can see that. I accept that you must win. But you can do that without Mr. Deighton.’

  ‘I’m a survivor,’ I said. ‘I’d like to both win and survive. What are you proposing?’

  ‘You want to keep control of World News. It can be arranged and in improved circumstances. Your contract will be bought out, which will be the equivalent of a substantial cash settlement, then renewed unbreakably for five years. The rest of the package will be generous. Paul will move out, into Sellinger Defense Industries. He will not have the top slot; there will be a period of penance first.’

  ‘And then you find some other way of meddling in World News,’ I said. ‘You’ll still try to use us.’

  ‘The directors who are with us will support a reorganized structure. You can bring in a special advisory board of prestige names to guarantee the agency’s objectivity. That’s your own scheme, isn’t it? You’ve always wanted it.’

  I sat back in the cushions. It was a beautiful offer. My own plans for the agency played back at me, with guaranteed American support. The Sellingers neutralized and the round-the-clock warfare ended. Time to concentrate on building World News the way I had wanted it. And though we hadn’t spelled out the money, I knew we were talking about doubling my own remuneration.

  I glanced at Jacob and I could see he was examining me closely as I thought over the offer.

  He gave me a faint, mirthless smile. ‘I do not like to lose so much. But there are things a man must do for his son.’

  It really was a family matter for him, I thought. He really didn’t care about Starburst or NATO or Western defense. The thousands of people who were roaming around Britain looking for somewhere to protest against his missile cared more about the issue than he did. Starburst was a private matter. Even the concessions to me were really concessions to Paul.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t accept your proposal.’

  ‘What counter offer do you wish to make?’

  ‘I’ll take you to the man who will make my offer for me. He’s close by, less than a mile away. I think we’d better go and talk.’

  Jacob signaled to the driver and we turned down the tiny lane leading to Millards Cross. ‘He’s at Chequer’s Inn,’ I said. ‘Just by the bridge.’

  As we approached, Jacob made no attempt to scan the crowd of people who were enjoying the sun in the white-painted chairs around the ornamental fishpond, and I realized that he could not see that far.

  I grinned at the thought that the old man was having to wait until the very last moment before seeing the huge, raw-boned frame of Andy Doyle, who was sprawled across two chairs under the oak tree, reading the local newspaper with a pocket tape measure in his hand, to measure off the column inches of advertising.

  When Jacob finally saw him, he said, ‘So that’s your position.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want the Sellingers out of World News, lock, stock, and every last barrel. Doyle’s wanted World News for years. As of this morning, he has almost two-thirds of the British shareholding. Enough to give you a fight even without special circumstances. Don’t oppose him, Jacob. Do a deal. That’s what I want.’

  I got out of the limousine and Andy grinned and stepped in to take my place.

  The Cadillac moved smoothly away and I was left standing by the side of the ornamental pond.

  In a few moments Pike’s car appeared with Cox in the back seat and I got in beside him.

  ‘How long will it take?’ he said.

  ‘Not long. They both have all the figures in their heads.’

  ‘What’s Doyle like? Will they get on all right?’

  I smiled. ‘As long as Andy doesn’t accidentally nudge him,’ I said. ‘If he does, he’ll break every bone in his body. Andy’s fine, but a bit too hearty for my taste. The last time I was in Toronto, he wanted to take me ice-fishing.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘You go out and cut a hole in a frozen lake, erect a hut over it, then sit around it drinking Rye with fishing lines dangling in. Someone said it’s as much fun as getting drunk in an ice-bound privy, but Andy loves all that stuff. Snowmobiles, canoes, ocean racing. The great outdoors.’

  ‘What’s he like as a publisher?’

  ‘Very shrewd. Do you know how he started his empire? Bought a small paper in Ontario and said he was going to do it over. While everyone else was planning a dynamic new editorial policy, he designed a cover to keep the snow off the batches of papers when they were dumped in the rural areas. Tripled sales overnight.’ I grinned at Cox. ‘That’s how empires are made.’

  ‘Is he right for World News?’

  ‘Yes. He’s completely straight, right down the line. No interference. Just don’t waste money. He’ll do just fine.’

  Cox heard the catch in my voice, but he pretended he hadn’t noticed. I knew that the questioning had been to stop me from thinking of other things.

  We waited for almost thirty minutes, then the Cadillac glided back down the hill and Andy Doyle got out.

  Pike waited until the Cadillac moved off, then eased the Rover into the small, crowed parking lot.

  Doyle strolled over and the grin of satisfaction on his face was obvious. ‘Hi,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You guys like a drink?’

  Cox stayed in the car and Pike also made no move to get out from behind the wheel. Doyle took the hint and led me into a small orchard where we could be completely alone.

  ‘Is it settled?’ I said.

  ‘Signed, sealed, and delivered. Good price. No hassling around.’

  ‘And does he know the bottom line?’

  Doyle smiled. ‘No, I don’t believe it ever occurred to him.’

  ‘There’s no way he can wriggle out?’

  Doyle’s grin was broadening. ‘Johnny, when I get a pickerel on my line, he stays on my line.’

  ‘So there’s just our part left.’

  ‘Yep. That’s right.’

  ‘You have my letter of resignation already. You wanted suggestions for my successor.’ I handed him an envelope. ‘I’ve given you two names: one inside World News, one from outside. Equally good.’

  We shook hands and I went back to the car. ‘Cox,’ I said, ‘get over and see Deighton. It’s time for me to break the news to the Sellingers that we’re going to publish the whole story anyway.’

  25

  Then I made a mistake: I got too cocky. I wanted to tell th
e Sellingers myself as a final bit of personal revenge, but I didn’t go straight back to Samman’s. I wanted to give Jacob time to brief his sons, so I asked the WN driver who had been standing by at the pub to drive me to Black Oak Ridge, and I went for a stroll in the woods to compose myself for the final confrontation with Paul. I intended to descend on the house just as the Sellingers- were settling down to what Cox always called a Family Planning session, and break the news that the whole story was going to come out anyway and there was nothing for them to salvage and no deals to be made.

  I thought I’d judged the timing nicely, but as we approached the end of Samman’s Lane I saw Pike’s Rover speeding up the ridge road.

  In his hurry to cut us off, Pike almost skidded into the ditch. ‘Come on,’ he yelled. ‘Get in. I’ll explain on the way.’

  As I got in the Rover, I saw that Pike was almost trembling with fury and frustration. ‘I still don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I just don’t bloody believe it. John, I must be getting old. I don’t know how I let them pull a stunt like that. Jesus Christ, I really must be getting past it.’

  Jim caught my look and broke off. He was too old a pro to waste time confronting his own mortality. As we sped down the road, he quickly recovered himself and gave me crisp summary of what had happened.

  After playing her part at Samman’s, Nancy had gone back to the country inn at Selleyfold where she had made her base; her lawyers had gone straight back to London. She’d just been about to sit down to lunch with Pike and Paddy when a Sellinger driver had arrived with a message from Robert, asking for a private meeting. ‘I wanted her to refuse,’ Jim said. ‘It didn’t feel right. They’d found out too easily where we were, for one thing—but Nancy insisted. She said she’d always trusted Robert in the past and it could be important.’

  The driver had phoned Samman’s from the car and Robert Sellinger had driven to Selleyfold to join them. ‘Then they worked a simple double block on me,’ Pike said. ‘The oldest gag in the book and I wasn’t ready for it. Well, to be honest, I was ready, but they were damned good and it was the mood of the meet that threw me.’

  By Jim’s account, Nancy and Robert had seemed to be talking like old friends. They were standing in the lane, close enough to Jim and Paddy to be reassuring without actually being within earshot. They had appeared completely relaxed. ‘Nancy even laughed at one point,’ Pike said, ‘and like a bloody idiot I let it lower my guard. One minute there were just the two of them having a nice matey chat; the next minute there was a Jag streaking out from behind the pub. It sent us skittering, then did a broadside skin and blocked the road right from one ditch to the other. They just abandoned it there. You know what these Kentish lanes are like. Paul grabbed Nancy and they were all away in his car. They really had us over. And now they’re on their way to Heathrow.’

  ‘Heathrow?’ I said, with a chill. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We’ve got Cox to thank for that,’ Pike said.

  As Pike described Cox’s moves, I couldn’t help smiling for all my anxiety. He hadn’t thought like an exec trained in, administration; he’d done it the correspondent’s way: cut corners, to hell with the rules. Just do it.

  When Cox had realized that Pike didn’t have any good contacts with the Kentish police, he had tried first to hire a helicopter from Biggin Hill airport. There wasn’t one available, even with WN pull, so he’d used the phone in my car to call a friend at Capital-194 radio and gotten himself patched through to their weather and traffic helicopter. The pilot wouldn’t come to fetch them, but he’d agreed to a quick detour and spotted the Sellinger car heading in a direction that could only have meant they were making for the airport.

  ‘Cox took your Rolls, because of the phone,’ Pike said. ‘He’s trying to organize something at Heathrow to delay them at the airport. I don’t know what he’s got in mind, but he’s a resourceful young devil, Mr. Cox.’

  I trusted Cox’s resourcefulness too, but it was infuriating not to be able to contact him. There was no telephone in the Rover and if we stopped at a phone booth, we would lose precious minutes. Jim drove almost as fast and as skillfully as Paddy, but there was only a token strip of airport motorway; the rest of the route to Heathrow was a series of suburban high streets strung together and described optimistically as an airport bypass. Without siren or flasher, there was no way of threading through easily.

  Once he had given me the situation, Jim concentrated on his driving and I fretted and tried to anticipate the Sellingers’ next move. Why the hell had they snatched Nancy? What good would it do them? I tried to get inside of Paul’s head. They had to be heading for the United States. America was home ground. Whatever it was he wanted to do with Nancy, it was in the States that his influence was greatest. He obviously wanted to prevent her from exposing him in the divorce proceedings; maybe he had some courts in his pocket there. If he was pushed to extremes, he might even try to make Nancy disappear; they were still husband and wife and there were several places where no one might act on a missing persons complaint if none of the Family supported the complaint. But no, it still made no sense. I had to face it. With Paul, there was no longer any point in looking only at rational motives. He wanted revenge. He needed it. And harming Nancy was the surest way of getting back at me. The thing that puzzled me was, what was Robert doing involved in this harebrained scheme?

  As we came nearer to the airport, the traffic began to thicken. ‘Jim, for God’s sake,’ I said, ‘hurry it up.’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing I can do, John. If I go up on the shoulder or off the roadway, I’ll get stopped for sure and it’ll take me longer to explain.’ He gestured helplessly. ‘Anyway, look at that. That’s not normal afternoon traffic, even for Heathrow. There must be an accident or something.’

  After one more forward burst, the line gradually slowed and finally we stopped altogether, just as we were entering the spaghetti jumble of roads on the fringe of the airport complex. We both got out and I ran up the shoulder to assess the situation. From the brow of the hill, I could see the reason: a group of antinuclear protesters were blocking the six-lane underground road tunnel which funneled the traffic into the Heathrow terminal area.

  There weren’t very many of them—twenty or thirty at most. They were mostly women and some of them were quite old. Two were obviously pregnant and several others had young children with them. They were sitting across the motorway in a pattern which couldn’t easily be broken up without violence. Some police and airport security people had arrived but they were arguing indecisively and didn’t seem sure what to do. Most of the police were young; they would have been children in the sixties and no one had trained them to deal with peaceful sit-ins. They were used to hooliganism and street violence and they would have been happier to have been able to go in with batons swinging.

  Many of the people in the blocked cars had obviously decided that the police weren’t going to act quickly. Those with drivers were beginning to leave their vehicles to try the last half mile or so on foot.

  I left Jim to look after the car and sprinted toward the airport. The direct way was down one hill, then up again, across the huge grassy hummock over the motorway tunnel; it was steeper than it looked and the passengers struggling with luggage looked at me enviously as I raced over the sparse, shiny grass which had turned brown in the heat.

  From the top of the hummock, I could see the main gates of the terminal area and I knew immediately that trouble had broken out inside too. There were policemen everywhere, and a path was being cleared through the snarled traffic to bring more reinforcements from the airport security headquarters on the other side of the cargo terminal.

  At the gates, I looked around for Cox, but saw instead Tim Osman. He was an old WN man who had been a friend for years; he had taken early retirement to found his own little airport news service which acted as our collective stringer at Heathrow. I noticed that he was carrying a small walkie-talkie of the type we had started issuing to World News teams on ma
jor assignments.

  ‘Cox left me to wait for you,’ he said. ‘He’s somewhere in the transatlantic terminal.’ Osman tapped the walkie-talkie. ‘I haven’t been able to raise him for a little while but he’s keeping in touch.’

  In the official parking area by the gate there was a small runabout van with Osman’s agency logo on the side, but Osman ignored it. ‘Too much chaos to drive,’ he said. ‘Cox has quite a demonstration going.’

  ‘Cox has it going?’

  Osman hesitated. We were old friends, but I was president of WN now and I could see he wasn’t certain how far he should cover Cox.

  ‘Well, he didn’t actually organize the demonstration,’ Osman said with a half grin. ‘He just made sure they were here.’

  As we hurried toward the transatlantic terminal, Osman filled me in. Using the telephone in the Rolls, Cox had contacted Marge on the WN switchboard and had her radiopage Rex Turnstall, who was at the tent city near the airport, interviewing the antinuclear demonstrators. After a briefing by Cox, Turnstall had asked the MND leaders there what their reaction was to the Sellinger mission. When asked what mission, Turn-stall had explained that the Sellingers had flown to London to try to have the Starburst test brought forward right to the beginning of the NATO maneuvers. Now they were flying back to Washington to tie up the American end. What was MND’s reaction?

  Osman grinned. ‘You can imagine the reaction. They went absolutely ape. All hands to the airport. They’ve got a very sophisticated communications setup; they use CB radio mostly. They had a couple of hundred people at the airport within twenty minutes and more are coming all the time. There were some Animals too—you know, the antinuclear militants. They flew in from West Germany yesterday and they’re just raring to go.’

  Osman pointed toward the entrance to the multistory garage. ‘There are some of them now.’

  A team of eight figures were walking in procession down the exit ramp of the garage. They were completely anonymous under huge death’s head masks and they were carrying a coffin on their shoulders. The coffin, I noticed, was inflatable: a typical Animal touch. They specialized in what they called hit-and-run guerrilla theater, with instant props which could be easily hidden from the security forces.