Sion Crossing (21 page)

“No.” He kept his itchy fingers away from MULHOLLAND,
Winston Spencer.
“You tell me, David.”

Audley looked sidelong at Butler, which advanced Mitchell’s feelings from bolshie to bloody-minded Stalinist.

He pointed to the file. “Sir—I can read a file a well as the next man. But it takes time … And if Leonard Winston Mulholland frightens David, who seems to know all about him … then what is he doing to Oliver Latimer in Atlanta?”

Audley nodded quickly at Butler. “He’s right, you know, Jack. Mulholland changes our terms of reference.” He transferred the nod to Mitchell. “You don’t fancy ‘hypothesis’ so much now, Paul—eh?”

James Cable made one of his polite naval noises, to attract Butler’s attention.

“Yes, James?” Because he was not the most assertive of men, James only coughed when he had something to say.

“Sir … I agree with Dr Audley—and Dr Mitchell.” He switched to Audley. “I’m thinking … would you recognize Mulholland if you met him, Dr Audley?”

Audley looked down at the file for a moment. “If I wasn’t expecting him … probably no.” He frowned at James. “Not in Atlanta, anyway … But then, I wouldn’t recognize Miss Lucy Cookridge either—or Senator Thomas himself, come to that… . No, I only know of Mulholland incidentally—
accidentally
, if you like. He’s never preached in my parish.”

“Yes.” James came back to the Colonel. “That’s what I thought. So Dr Latimer certainly won’t know him. He may not even know
of
him. And, as Dr Audley says … in Atlanta—?”

What
Atlanta
had to do with Winston Spencer Mulholland, particularly, defeated Mitchell. But, of course, there had been Irishmen and Scotsmen enough, and Scots-Irish, in the Old South in the days of the Confederacy: the peerless General Patrick Cleburne, who had died with his boots off at Franklin because he’d just given them to a bare-footed infantryman, had learnt his trade as an Irish cavalryman in the British Army.

So now
need to know
outranked
playing games
, anyway.

He reached for the Mulholland file.

“He’s right,” said Audley. “Oliver may be damn good, but he won’t know Mulholland from a hole in the road, let alone be able to handle him.”

Mitchell opened the file.

“I ought to be out there,” said Audley, pointing at Mitchell almost simultaneously. “With Paul to mind me, maybe—”

Mitchell’s attention to the contents of the file was momentarily diverted by this suddenly-enticing idea: he had never been to Atlanta—he had been to Gettysburg, and had seen the rising ground on which Pickett’s charge had withered away, to file in memory with the killing grounds of Hastings, and Agincourt, and Mont St Jean at Waterloo, and the quiet villages of the Somme and the Ancre, and the D-Day beaches … But he had never climbed Kennesaw Mountain or marched in the wake of Sherman’s army in Georgia.

“After all, I was
meant
to be out there, Jack.” Audley leaned towards Butler. “Oliver—he’s no more than a bloody
accident
, because Howard Morris had a rush of blood to the head, and took second best …
I
should be there, Jack—because
I’ll
get the message, whatever it is—don’t you see?”

More to the point,
what was happening now at Sion Crossing
—that was what Mitchell saw—

“No, sir!” said James Cable decisively.

Mitchell’s attention was further split, away from the file again, by both Audley’s and Butler’s reaction.

“Why not?” Butler’s mouth opened, but Audley got in first.

James, quite typically, wasn’t stampeded into answering, but took his time to arrange the ships of his task force where he wanted them, to get his Harriers into the air before the missiles arrived. And that gave Mitchell time to look at the first page of the file.

The picture hit him first—full-face, side-face—enlarged long-distance, not mug-shot posed for the camera—

“Dr Audley’s right: he was meant to be out there.” James nodded.

Winston Spencer Mulholland was a negro: he was black as the ace of spades
—

“There isn’t enough time to get him out there now, even if that’s what you want sir.”

Winston Spencer Mulholland. Born Kingston, Jamaica, 5 May 1945—

Mitchell accelerated to multi-dimensional reasoning: born near VE-Day in 1945, Mulholland was
Winston
for the same reason that innumerable British girl-babies had been
Diana
recently, and German boy-babies
Adolf
back in the early 1940s—

Irrelevant—

“There never is enough time,” said Audley. “So that’s a good reason for never doing anything, James.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we shouldn’t do anything, Dr Audley.” James Cable looked down at Audley. “I am merely advising against you going to the United States at this time.”

“And I am merely asking why not?”Audley’s tone became deceptively casual, and Mitchell tore himself away from the grinning black face in the file.

“You are fairly well known, David.” said Butler gently. “In certain circles.”

As little golden-haired children trailed fleecy clouds of glory and innocence, so David Audley was the thunderbearer of trouble and strife in a clear sky when he came unannounced, that was what the Colonel meant, thought Mitchell.

“So my card’s marked.” Not even David could argue with that. “So what about Oliver St John Latimer’s card, then?”

“Dr Latimer isn’t so well known in America—”

“Damn it! He’s the new Deputy-Director, man!” Audley changed his tack. “His unlovely mug-shot will be on the wall from here to Timbuktoo by now—whatever he does, wherever he goes, some poor sod will be paid good money to ask ‘
Why
’. So what difference will I make?”

James composed his expression to one of pure innocence. “Wouldn’t the two of you constitute what you would call ‘unlikely coincidence’, Dr Audley?”

Ouch
! thought Mitchell. Old James was sharper than usual this morning.

“Besides which …” James let go of Audley like a terrier dropping a dead rat, in preference for a live quarry “… Wing-Commander Roskill is in the United States at the moment, sir. He’s actually lecturing on the Falkland Islands—on V/STOL air superiority tactics—at Annapolis … And we do still have an emeritus link with him—we can use him, and trust his discretion—”

“That’s ridiculous!” exploded Audley. “Apart from the fact that Hugh’s got a game leg, and can’t go marching through Georgia the way he goes up and down like a yo-yo in a Harrier—apart from
that
, the Americans know all about his background. So you’ll only be substituting one coincidence for another, is all that will achieve.”

“I have readied Wing-Commander Roskill therefore, sir.” James ignored Audley. “I’ve prepared a hot-line SG, scrambled on his personal key, telling him all we know. And I have laid on private air and ground transport for him, so he can be on his way from Atlanta to Smithsville in a couple of hours. All he needs is the G-word from you, sir.” At last he came back to Audley. “And with one-and-a-half legs he’s still better than most people with two, Dr Audley.”

Audley glowered up at James, and Mitchell thought …
beautiful
—and
beautiful
not only because it was always good to see James at work, but also because that work was cutting David down to size, which never did any harm.

“Quite right!” Butler gave James and David that fleeting glance of his which transferred all responsibility to him, as he reached for his hardware, to activate the Beast’s executive rôle. “In the circumstances, Hugh will do very well.”

Mitchell watched the G-word tapped in, from Whitehall to Washington, and Washington to Annapolis, to launch Hugh Roskill off his comfortable pad towards Smithsville, and Sion Crossing.

“Jack—for Christ’s sake—this is mine!” Audley cracked under the pressure of technology, which had taken away from him the chance of arguing his way into the forefront of the battle. “Oliver’s there—and it should be
me
—and now you’re putting
Hugh
there … and it still should be
me,
Jack.”

“Yes.” Butler stared at the screen, waiting for the Beast to reply. “Of course it should be.”

“Jack—”

“Shut up, David … there’s a good fellow.” Butler waited another second, until the Beast accepted his order. Then he came back to Audley. “That’s done, then … Now—what was it?”

“Cancel it, Jack.” Audley tried to be casual. “All you have to do is make it
NG
not
G
—Oliver isn’t up to this sort of thing … And this is my can of worms—you know
that,
too.”

“Sir—” began James.

Butler cut him off with a peremptory hand. “You’re quite right, David: this
is
your thing—Cookridge wanted you, and you knew Macallan … and, for all I know, you’re probably an expert on the American Civil War—”

“I’m not, actually. But—”

“It doesn’t matter. You can probably relate it to medieval history somehow … But it doesn’t matter—” Butler refused for once to be overborne “—it
is
perfectly your thing …
And that’s why I’m not giving it to you
.” He turned to James Cable. “Right, James?”

“Yes, sir.” James was obviously vastly relieved to be understood. “We don’t know what they’re at, is the way I see it. In fact, we don’t even know who
they
are—”

“So we may lose Oliver St John Latimer?” Audley still wasn’t finished. “And … I admit I hate his fat guts, but it would annoy me rather more than somewhat to have them spilled out unnecessarily—I’ve enough on my conscience as it is …” Suddenly he smiled. “Besides all of which I’ve never been up-country from the coast in those parts, and I can provide you with a perfectly good cover. There’s a very distinguished scholar I’ve corresponded with—he lives in a little town not so far from Atlanta … one that Sherman missed, so it’s full of the most delightful ante-bellum houses, and charming people to go with them, by all accounts … and, Jack, he does just happen to be the world authority on the Mint Julep, you see … And I really won’t be missed at Cheltenham for a few days—”

“No!”
At the best of times Colonel Butler was not a man to be disarmed by a smile, and least of all by one of David Audley’s smiles. “You haven’t been listening to a word anyone’s been saying, damn it!”

“Yes, I have. You don’t want me to go because someone planned it that way. I think that’s a bloody good reason for going—now we know about it.”

“I’m not going to say ‘no’ again, David. I have other work for you—and for you, Mitchell.” Butler’s gaze lifted to James Cable. “Where is Senator Cookridge as of now?”

“Rome, sir.”

“Okay,” Audley shrugged. “But I wouldn’t leave Oliver to Mulholland’s tender care if I were you.”

There was something about that ‘tender care’ which made Mitchell look down at the file on his lap.

Winston Spencer Mulholland was still grinning at him. He looked as though he hadn’t a care in the world. But then, if he was as expensive a bodyguard as James had indicated, he was obviously on top of his job. So—

A name leapt out of the page—then another—

Mitchell’s eye raced through the passage. And now there was another name he recognized.

“Christ!” he exclaimed, and looked at Audley.

“That’s right.” Audley nodded. “For ‘minding’ he charges hours worked plus expenses, with a bonus for delivery alive on an agreed date. But for killing it’s always a lump sum in advance.”

LATIMER FOLLOWED LUCY
Cookridge down the passage from the air-conditioned coolness of the study into the more temperate climate of the immense living room.

His head didn’t ache so much now. After all, it had been a useful morning’s work, topped off by his successful handling of her mild interrogation; and there was this reassuring living room, with its well-filled bookshelves and its elegant furniture and colour scheme, and its pots of exotic greenery sprouting up to the ceiling or cascading onto the tiled floor. The absent couple from whom the house had been rented were clearly persons of taste and respectability; and somehow that, even at the remove of temporary occupancy, bestowed even greater respectability on Miss Cookridge and on the curious mission he had undertaken.

For it
was
a curious mission, and he still had the feeling that there must be more to it than he knew—more perhaps that he had seen, and more than Lucy Cookridge had revealed; in fact, the night before, in the uncertain moments of not-quite-asleep, he had felt very far alike from home and from the certainties and safety of his ordinary life, with its carefully calculated beginnings and ends. But he no longer regretted his actions.

“Kingston?” Lucy smiled at him as she called the name. “Where are you?”

Latimer returned the smile. He had known then, in that moment of doubt last night, how far he had strayed on impulse from his accustomed path. And he had never been a creature of impulse … which might very well account for young Mitchell’s irreverent curiosity about his whereabouts during that routine call.

“Kingston!” Lucy craned her neck towards the dining area.

Latimer studied the bookshelves. Lucy had said last night that the owner was an academic, and the study had been full of scientific work. Here the range was more catholic …

He could not honestly quarrel with Mitchell’s curiosity, he decided. And when he got back to England and took up the Deputy-Director’s reins he might cultivate that young man. Because, properly channelled—channelled away from David Audley’s erratic influence—that young man had possibilities. All Mitchell needed was discipline.

“Miz Lucy!” Kingston’s voice came from far away.

Now …
Kingston
was a much more equivocal character: there was more to that man than met the eye, and maybe a lot more. But, in the meantime, he felt at peace with the world.

“Come here!” Scarlett O’Hara herself could not have sounded more imperious; at least, out of earshot of her mother, who would have admonished her not to raise her voice so at the house-slaves!

“Ah’s a comin’!” The reply mimicked Miss O’Hara’s command, but from the slave quarters.