The Avenger- Thomas Bennet and a Father's Lament

by Don Jacobson

  On top of that, although he could not have imagined such a betrayal, if M had discovered that Preacher had played him false and had, thus, endangered the Realm, he would have ordered active measures. He would not have himself done the deed, but as M, he, if necessary, would have emulated the Old General. That towering figure was a man who, when asked about doing his duty, retorted, “if the safety of the nation counted on the Prince Regent’s sudden and permanent demise, I would pull the trigger myself!”[xxvi] However, as a father, the Earl of Matlock could not.

  Both Robard and Schiller were relatively new to the Secret Services and the range of tradecraft that had been honed to a fine point during the war. However, each man had been engaged in multiple “ultra” level operations on behalf of his respective countries during that same conflict. None-the-less, both were amazed at the detail and context supplied by Fitzwilliam to his commander. The peculiarity of the attack also impressed them, and they made their opinions known. Fitzwilliam sought to explain.

  “Agent Rose created this attempt ‘by-the-book.’ She had several specific criteria she needed to fulfill. She had scouted the terrain and knew exactly the best place along that cliff for an attack to have the greatest degree of success,” he began.

  “She would have immediately disqualified any location inside of the village: too public. She was on an assignment not a suicide mission. Killing me in the pub would have been a crime impossible from which to escape. Nor, could she count on me walking home by myself.

  “That she needed to get me out of town is clear enough. Probably wanted to dispose of my corpse where nobody could discover it. The cliff overlooking the water fit that bill perfectly.

  “To a casual observer, this suggests that she was following protocol. Except that she was not.

  He continued his dissertation by noting, “I draw from her failure to kill me a few inferences that lead me down a different path.

  “Rose was in a hurry. Why?

  “Finding that specific stretch of trail took a bit of work. Not too much. An experienced skirmisher like Rose would have spent perhaps a day looking outside of town for an appropriate place to lay in wait. That puts her in the area at least on Friday the 5th.

  “However, if I were doing the job, I would have preferred two or three days to reconnoiter. She would have, should have, done the same. She did not.” he stated.

  “She seems to have settled on the location without understanding the unusual nature of the context within which it rested. More time spent would have uncovered the unstable nature of the slope. I knew about it because I have lived in the area for months.

  “That Rose did not means that she could not have been here considerably earlier…say on the 1stor the 2nd.

  “The ferry coming up from Scotland into Stromness is becoming more regular as replacement parts and fuel have become plentiful in the past two months, but it is still indifferent as to schedule.

  “I recall being surprised to hear its whistle on Wednesday as it had not arrived any of the earlier days this past week.

  “I would wager she arrived in the Orkneys on that ferry. She must have been waiting for departures from Scrabster for several days. Check the run dates and I imagine that you will discover no ferries crossing the straits from the 30th to the 3rd.

  “And, then she scarpered out of town as quickly as she could. A single woman, a stranger, would have attracted too much attention. She could not have blended into the surroundings of the town. She had to get away from prying eyes and curious questions that would have aroused suspicion. Would anyone care to wonder if a bicycle went missing late Wednesday? If we search around, I imagine we will discover it nearby her bolt hole where she went to ground after dark.

  “She would have spent the 4th seeking out her kill zone. Then she would have taken the 5th to observe my habits. The 6th was D-Day,” Fitzwilliam stated.

  He looked around the group. The Earl had settled onto a metal bench welded to a bulkhead and was sitting with his head tilted back, eyes closed. However, Fitzwilliam knew that the man was not asleep, but rather removing all extraneous inputs as he listened to and processed Preacher’s analysis. Schiller and Robard were focused upon each word as if they were back in the war listening to a final pre-mission briefing by the intelligence boys.

  Richard now had reached the heart of the matter.

  “I will be honest with you: if Rose and I had been planning this during the war, we would have allowed at least five or six days to cover every contingency between insertion and execution.

  “So why did she not do that? Why did she not wait? Why not add those two days and put paid to my account on Monday rather than trying on Saturday? I would be just as dead on the 8th as on the 6th…except that the 8th would have moved the needle—I understand that is a bad pun in this situation—to near 100 percent success. That slope improved my odds from next-to-nothing to about 10 percent.

  “All I can conclude is that she had to act on the 6th. And, since I know…knew…Rose, all I can think is that she was operating under some compulsion that left her with no choice except to make her attempt on the 6th. Otherwise, she would have revised the plan and added those extra days to ensure the outcome.

  “All that remains is for her to explain why.”

  With that final query, Richard subsided. The Earl bestirred himself, opening his eyes, and rubbing his hands along his thighs. He looked up at the three fighters staring down at him and then his focus changed to slightly outside of their circle where Wilson had approached.

  The doctor, long a Five Families’ retainer and Matlock’s godson, looked expectantly at M who granted permission to speak with a nod.

  “I heard what Mr. Fitzwilliam said at the end. I heartily agree with him that Agent Rose was operating under some sort of compulsion or suggestion.

  “Whatever it is, I will not quibble. While I was away in India and Burma, I did get whiffs of what you SOE folks were up to as you tried to harden your agents against torture. I am not asking for any sort of confirmation, as I imagine this whole conversation is beyond hush-hush, but allow me to speculate.

  “I believe that it would be remarkably valuable to have agents who, when faced with awful circumstances, would be able to wall off portions of their minds…those segments which contained the details of networks, missions, and targets. Then, they could present a pristine personality, utterly real, although different, that could, without any pretense, convincingly—and truthfully—reply to every question put to them without arousing the suspicions of their interrogators. They simply would not know and could not access the part of their mind which did possess the vital information no matter the stress to which they were subjected. There is a fair chance that either unconsciousness or death would have intervened before those internal barriers crumbled.

  “This is what I think has happened to your colleague, gentlemen. She arrived at a point where she could no longer function in her original state. She then split her personality with one part isolating itself behind protective walls while the other was subjected to whatever harrowing duress happened to be on her captors’ menu.

  “I arrive at this conclusion because this young lady’s body shows every evidence of being severely abused for at least a year. Somewhere within that collection of scars, bruises, and broken bones was that bridge too far.

  “But, t’is her mind that concerns me.

  “You see, she is not unconscious. She is awake…well, as awake as one can be and not respond to external stimuli. I would call this a fugue state. Her eyes respond to light. Her pulse and breathing are regular and at normal rates. Her extremities react when prodded with sharp objects.

  “Yet, she does not respond to verbal commands. Nor does she reply to any question I pose…or even offer an indication that she has heard it.

  “The personality which attacked Mr. Fitzwilliam is gone: or at least not near enough to the surface to control her body.

  “As for her original, dominant personality, I have no wa
y of assessing when—or if—it will be willing to take charge.

  “Thus, at this moment, she is awake, but not present,” Wilson finished.

  The Earl considered the doctor and appreciated the man’s intuition. He had hit the heart of the matter and demonstrated The Countess’ faith in younger man’s perception.

  T’was not for nothing she sent him to Edinburgh and his brother to Chicago. Liam’s boys—both of them—have proven once again that antecedents, be they lesser or better, have no bearing on ability. This Dr. Wilson, here in front of me, leads me to believe that the other one, working with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, would offer equally stimulating insights, but these would be into the building blocks of the universe.

  Yet, M could not reveal all his crown jewels: neither to Wilson nor to Schiller and Robard. Richard already knew.

  Perhaps later when all of them are fully committed to being as much a part of my official family as being my son, nephews, and godson.

  Time to move.

  Matlock stood and quickly turned to a handset hanging on the bulkhead. Pulling it to him, he pressed the button and spoke into the mouthpiece, “This is the Admiral. I would speak to the Captain.”

  The command to get under way given, the denizens of the sick bay felt the ever-present vibration of idling diesels increase in intensity simultaneous with the rush of footfalls in gangways and across decks. Then the subtle sense of a ship in motion became apparent as the destroyer followed a course which led it between the moored aircraft carriers and battleships and out through the narrow opening between the opposing tugs pulling back Scapa’s great antisubmarine net.

  As the Ulysses surged into the open waters beyond the harbor, the twin turbines were cranked up to maximum power as Full Speed Ahead was ordered by the Captain in response to the second half of M’s order. The compartment’s deck tilted sternwards as the great propellers slashed the morning chop, driving the ship forward at an ever-increasing rate. All the men in the room, long acquainted with the sight of destroyers, a bone in their collective teeth, charging through the fleet in pursuit of U-Boats or other malevolent creatures, pictured the great white mustaches curling away from the ship’s bows as it made its way south.

  

  The engines had long settled into a consistent thrum which lulled the three youngest men into that which all soldiers can do at the drop of a hat—a deep, dreamless sleep. Wilson perched on a low wooden stool adjacent to the head of his patient’s bed, his head bowed and bobbing from time-to-time as the plates beneath the compartment echoed as the North Sea battled good Cammell Laird Merseyside construction.

  M, however, had neither the inclination to doze nor the patience to sit.

  He began the perambulations of the limited metal box that others would have instantly recognized as the Fitzwilliam March. Just as the Countess, Lady Kitty, was known for her remarkable forces of concentration, which she suggested was a Bennet trait most present in her elder sister Lizzy, Fitzwilliam men had always paced when they were mulling a particularly intractable problem. Since there were no ports through which he could stare out while marshalling his thoughts, the Earl was prevented from engaging in what Miss Austen alleged was Sir Fitzwilliam Darcy’s favorite form of retreat.

  Thus, he measured the sick bay with his long and lanky stride.

  He wrestled with the implications of Richard’s revelations.

  Turning Rose into a killer of Englishmen demanded time and resources including a secure location…commodities that were utterly non-existent in the great wasteland that was Europe. T’was likewise clear that the resources required to get a programmed Rose from where-ever she had been held on the Continent had been substantial. Both factors evidenced a clear desire to strike out; for what reason, Matlock was as of yet unsure.

  Of what he was certain was that his son, the retired agent, was not a target of opportunity, but rather the sole focus of a complicated operation. There were many other SOE agents who had resurfaced in more easily reached locations than Stromness in the Orkney Islands. If some die-hard Nazis had desired, they could have murdered in London—or Paris—or Berlin. That they did not told him that there was something special about The Preacher, Richard Fitzwilliam, or both.

  Usually the wealth of the Five Families protected them from casual or even causal depredations. However, and the Earl well-knew the story of his Grandmother and how she had become the target of Professor Moriarty, they were not invulnerable to concerted efforts undertaken against them, especially in these still-unsettled times. The Fitzwilliams had collected their share of enemies over the centuries.

  Yet, logic dictated that t’was more likely that The Preacher and not Fitzwilliam was the target.

  There must be something in his war record that will reveal why Rose was sent to his doorstep.

  M’s ruminations were interrupted by a pounding on the dogged hatch. Both Robard and Schiller were instantly awake, booted feet hitting the deck simultaneously. The two shepherds stood and moved to the hatch which they undogged and opened a few inches. A murmured conversation and a slip of paper was thrust through the gap.

  Denis took possession and turned to Matlock saying, “Message, sir. T’is in code so I will have to work it.”

  Since he was no longer in harness, Richard, awake now, could only sit back and watch the scene play itself out. His father—either as Matlock or M—would decide if he should be brought into the loop. He rose and stationed himself next to the doctor and watched Eileen’s vacant, but still entrancing, sky-blue eyes stare toward the bunk above her.

  Robard appropriated a dressing table and he spread the flimsy on the bare metal surface. Then he took the codebook offered up by Schiller to translate the key and then the contents. As he did so, his face became grayer and grayer. Then he slid the original across to Schiller and silently asked him to use the book to undo the ciphered missive a second time.

  Schiller had been part of the Darcy branch just long enough to comprehend the significance of what appeared beneath his pencil.

  Both men looked at one-another and then, as one, moved toward where their elder had stopped. Robard handed his version to M. The last two words, brutal in their finality, words crushed the elder man’s soul.

  Persephone explosion. Sunk in one minute.

  Six miles off Deauville jetty.

  No survivors.

  All the pieces clicked into place for M as he passed the devastating note to Richard saying, “This, I think, explains it all. I was to be aboard.

  “Whomever planned this sought to decapitate our family in one fell swoop.”

  Then the father sagged toward the beige linoleum and into the arms of his son and now-heir.

  Book Two

  Pastorale

  (Rosa chinensis)

  patetico

  (with deep feeling)

  My different personalities leave me in peace now.

  Anna Freud

  Chapter VIII

  Longbourn Estate, Hertfordshire, October 28, 1814

  Thomas Bennet was an unhappy man. His disquiet, though, was not the result of what many Meryton friends would have assumed it to rise from: Mrs. Bennet’s famous nerves. His lady wife had calmed considerably since their eldest daughters had married. Longbourn was generally quiet with Lizzy and Jane living in Derbyshire and Kitty gone these past three years. Mary was still off at Rosings serving as godmother to little Annie Fitzwilliam, although she would likely bring the infant to Longbourn for the holidays to forestall any further attempts by Lady Catherine to reassume control of the estate through her grand-daughter.

  However, Lydia had taken up lodging once again at her ancestral home given that Wickham was on detached duty, serving with Fitzwilliam and the Duke in Vienna. Thomas suspected Mary’s hand in that affair—Lizzy and Jane were much too involved in their Derbyshire lives as mothers and wives. Yet, the noise level had not increased with his youngest’s tenure at the manor house.

  Perhaps t’was the moderating influence
exerted by Mrs. Wickham’s particular friend Mrs. Wilson. Or, perhaps…and Thomas suspected this to be a much more reasonable assumption, t’was the lingering impact of the message delivered by the Countess during that remarkable Twelfth Night period after Christmas 1811.

  In any event, Mrs. Bennet was not condemned to sit alone at home waiting for one of her neighbors to call. Whenever the urge to shop captured her attention and a mission to Meryton was declared to be in order, she was blessed with willing accomplices in the form of the two military wives.

  Bennet’s discontent rose from something else in his wife’s nature: her maternal feelings. Frances Lorinda Bennet missed their fourth daughter, Kitty, gone now nearly three years. Thomas had leaned upon his lord of the manor excuse of having sent the youngster to seminary in Cornwall for far too long. Mrs. Bennet had been complaining that she was quite put out that Kitty never wrote and never visited. More recently, she had begun hinting that, since she had seen the sights of Derbyshire and the Lake District in the last year, she might find a lengthy visit to the south and west to be to her liking. Bennet had come into his bookroom more than once to find his wife curled up in Lizzy’s chair, a book on Salisbury Cathedral or the Great Stone Circle or Weymouth in her lap.

  Then she would pierce his heart with those sky-blue, nearly purple, eyes of hers and repeat her desire to travel in that direction…with the possibility of seeing Kitty hanging in the air between them.

  While he had been content to ridicule the mother of his children for more than a decade after that horrible summer in the Year Zero, Bennet had himself changed much over the past three years. He had found her present nature to remind him of the bright, vivacious woman who had entranced him back in ’90.

  If I had to do it all over again, of course I would drop to a knee and beg for her hand. But, I would treat her differently. She is a sweet rose who needs a man to cherish her. Having watched how Darcy and Bingley love my girls…and from what Lydia has told me of her newly-reformed Wickham…I would spend less time in my bookroom and much more in her company.