Sion Crossing (4 page)

“Indirectly—yes.”

“Indirectly?” But, born killer or not, the man was a trained historian, with a doctoral thesis on his favourite bloodbath to prove it. “What does that mean?”

“It means … George Francis Robert Henderson.”

“Who?” He was going to be late for the senator, but he had sacrificed too much to withdraw now.

“G. F. R. Henderson. York and Lancaster Regiment. Oxford, Sandhurst, the Staff college. Born 1854, or thereabouts. Died 1903.”

“Get to the point, Mitchell.”

“I’m there, Oliver. Henderson was the brains in our Staff college in the 1890s. Somebody asked him in ’97 who, among the latest batch of hopefuls, was going to make it to the top. He fingered Douglas Haig. He taught most of the top ’14–’18 men.”

To Latimer, that didn’t sound like a recommendation. “So what?”

“So what do you want? The American Civil War?”

Latimer winced. “Yes.”

“That was Henderson’s speciality. He made his name with it—he
rescued
it. Fredericksburg. Grant in Northern Virginia … the big biography of Stonewall Jackson. They were studying the Franco-Prussian War before he came on the scene, because that was the most modern war—
and
, of course, the Prussian army was the top army. The fashions proved that; spikes on the top of helmets were the ‘in’ thing. We wore them … so did the Americans for that matter, with their dress uniforms, when both sides in their Civil War had worn little French képis a few years before—” Mitchell stopped abruptly. “But Henderson—he realized that it was the American war that pointed to the shape of things to come; citizen armies and entrenchments—he caught a whiff of the Somme in Northern Virginia in ’64 and ’65.”

Latimer looked at his watch again. But this was the pure gold of enthusiasm, not to be discouraged. “He did?”

“Close enough. Of course, he didn’t get everything right. He couldn’t quite believe his own evidence about small-arms fire … and the end of cavalry—that died harder in theory than in practice … and he’d only an inkling of what artillery was going to do.” Mitchell sniffed. “You know they had machine-guns in the American Civil War, Latimer—at the very end?”

Latimer cleared his throat non-committally. “Yes?”

“And barbed-wire. And aerial observation. And—” Mitchell stopped again. “Just what is it that you want, Latimer?”

Caution had replaced enthusiasm: perhaps the fellow was remembering belatedly how much they disliked one another, thought Latimer. But however true that might be, it wouldn’t do this evening. “This … Henderson. He sounds a remarkable man.” He offered Mitchell the thought with unaccustomed diffidence, like an olive branch.

“He was. History scholar at Oxford before he took the Queen’s shilling. But he died tragically young. Caught a bug, or something, just when he was taking over as Roberts’ Director of Intelligence in South Africa.” Mitchell couldn’t fight his own enthusiasm for the subject. “But it was his teaching that counted. And that was where the American Civil War came in, you see. The way people think now, he maybe didn’t rate Sherman’s operations in the West as important as they really were—it was Grant’s war of attrition in the East that counted for him. But I’m not so sure that he wasn’t right, at that … Bruce Catton—he described Sherman’s March to the Sea as the nineteenth century version of the World War Two bombing offensive … If it was, then he only had soft civilian targets to take out, and no Confederate Luftwaffe to contend with after Atlanta. So he was lucky. It was Grant who had Lee’s Panzer divisions to fight.”

Latimer could make little sense of that mixture of wars and warriors. And who was Bruce Catton?

But time had run out.

“Well—”

“But either way, you can maybe relate what Henderson taught to what happened: Grant in the Wilderness—Haig on the Western front … and maybe Montgomery and Eisenhower too … with Patton as Sherman, and Rommel as Robert E. Lee—”

“Yes.” Latimer cut him off decisively. “Well … that’s interesting, Mitchell.”

“Is it?” Curiosity underlined the bantering tone. “What is this … argument … ?”

“I’ll tell you some other time. I’m most grateful to you. But I must go now—good night to you, Mitchell.”

Latimer replaced the receiver and snatched up his unfinished letter, knowing that he was late for his appointment.

The club steward was hovering just outside his purloined office, with a slightly pained look on his face.

“I’m sorry to have been so long, Mr Wilberforce.” Latimer stuffed the letter into his pocket. There would be time enough for that later, if he was not too late. And it was galling to think that he had promised Mitchell some sort of explanation, whether it was too late or not.

“That’s all right, Mr Latimer, sir.” There was also curiosity in the steward’s face. But then he probably had a pretty shrewd idea, however vague and uninformed, of how
Mr Latimer
,
sir
was employed. Club stewards always knew too much. “Your … ah … guests have arrived sir. They are waiting for you in Room 12, on the second floor, to the left of the staircase.”

Guests? Plural?

“Thank you, Mr Wilberforce.”

Plural—of course. Senator Cookridge would not be abroad in a foreign city unescorted: he would be discreetly surrounded by Special Branch men, armed to the teeth, as well as his own people. That was to be expected in these dark times.

He took the stairs at a run, aware that he was already sweating slightly. But that, he realized, was not so much because of the excess weight he carried as because of the unaccustomed excess excitement at the prospect ahead. He was not used to the sharp end of the business, that was a fact: he was used to calling tunes for other men to play. Yet, more than that, he was going in unbriefed and uninformed, and he was even less accustomed to doing that.

Senator Cookridge
: the sad truth was that he knew little more about the Senator than what Howard Morris had told him.

Must slow down. Late or not, it would never do to arrive out of breath, with a sweaty palm for the Senator to shake.

Bruce Catton
—who was he? A historian, presumably.

He had over-estimated his ability to become an instant expert on the American Civil War, that was plain.

Generals Sherman and Grant and Lee … and Haig and Montgomery … and Patton and Rommel—and Henderson—

He rounded the turn of the staircase. On the landing at the head of the stairs above him was a man in a dinner jacket.

Mustn’t pause—just take it easy, like in the old forgotten days of long ago.

Henderson
—would he have been another general? Probably not, if he had just come from a Staff College lectureship to that last appointment—what was it?

He exchanged a blank glance of unrecognition with the dinner-jacketed man. The man was youngish and broad-shouldered and short-haired, and he wasn’t doing anything rather obviously. Or rather, with that curiously characteristic see-through expression, he was trying to follow his profession as unobtrusively as possible, simply keyed-up to react to the slightest hint of any hostile action on Latimer’s part—to react so quickly that he could overtake such an action in spite of the disadvantage of having to react to it.

Latimer smiled inwardly as he turned towards the left, at once cooled and slightly exhilarated by his conclusion. He had never had to act or react himself, except intellectually to the stimulus of information or orders received, requiring him in turn to make decisions and give orders. But the old knowledge hadn’t quite deserted him—hadn’t damn-well deserted him at all!

There was another man down the passage ahead of him, also dinner-jacketed, but standing with his back to a door—the door to Room 12, for sure—and not pretending to be anything other than what he was.

Henderson would have been a Colonel. Probably a full colonel, like Colonel Butler … Or, since Butler had refused further promotion in the army, because of that prim conscience of his, just possibly a brigadier.

Not that it mattered. Because all that mattered was that this was rather fun, really: to act out of character and out of his accustomed rôle, which had somehow deepened from a groove into a canyon into which his career and his ambitions had both descended to his disadvantage. Because, here and now, for once he had nothing to lose that he hadn’t lost, and everything to gain, which—in a year or two—he might still gain, if he played his cards right in the next ten minutes. And it was having so few cards to play that made it such fun, really.

He stopped in front of the second man, who was built … like a London double-decker bus, was his first thought. But Audley, who liked to shock his listeners with occasional obscenity, used for effect, would have said
like a brick shit-house.
And this was (which was another happy thought) an opportunity which Audley should have enjoyed—

“Excuse me.” He gestured with a finger to shift the brick shit-house out of his way.

The brick shit-house made the grave mistake of looking down the corridor, while not moving an inch.

Latimer allowed himself to follow the look, and was rewarded by a view of the first man turned towards them with his dinner jacket unbuttoned, ready to leap into the two-handed firing position which the distance down the corridor required.

Amateurs
, thought Latimer derisively. They could have hired actors to play these rôles, and managed just as well. Perhaps that was something he could tighten up in his own rôle as Deputy-Director.

“My name’s Latimer. Oliver St John Latimer—” It occurred to Latimer suddenly that this whole charade might be occurring because they had expected Audley “—I’m here instead of Dr Audley.”

“Yes, sir.” The brick shit-house was Special Branch, the voice betrayed. “Could I see your identification, sir?”

“Yes … of course.” Latimer remembered to extract his credentials gingerly, with thumb and forefinger, because the man down the corridor would undoubtedly be a good marksman, however unobtrusive he might be.

The Special Branch man scanned the face before him, and then its likeness, and then returned it. “If you don’t mind, sir—?”

Latimer raised his arms. They really were shutting the stable-door to check the horse after it had very obviously not tried to escape. But they were right, of course.

“Thank you, sir.” The Special Branch man stood aside, and then tapped his pre-arranged safe signal—
tap
…
tap-tap
—to
Open Sesame.

It was an ordinary club bedroom, decidedly spartan, even a little threadbare, in keeping with the admirably low annual subscription required of members.

“
Mis
ter
Lat
imer—” The room blanked out as the Senator advanced towards him “—or should it be
Doctor
Latimer—?” The Senator thrust out a welcoming hand even as he left his greeting in the air.

“Mister will do.” Latimer just had time to wipe his palm before he grasped the hand. Oddly, the hand was as sweaty as his own had been, although bigger and stronger.

“But … Doctor of Philosophy, is it?”

“English literature, actually.” At this moment Oxford was a far cry. “‘D.Phil.’ is a rather generalized signal for postgraduate work, Senator.” Latimer took the room in quickly. The Senator was weather-beaten but well-groomed, and impressive in full evening-dress, with a wedge of miniature decorations on his breast. And there was another dinner-jacketed young man, bespectacled and not quite so big as the man on the landing, but out of the same general mould, away on the right, and prudently out-of-range in a single glance.

“Uh-huh?” The Senator nodded. “But philosophy is the name of the game, I guess—your game and mine:
the love and pursuit of wisdom, or of knowledge of things and their causes, theoretical or practical
—that’s what the book says, and if it isn’t the Good book, it’s the next best thing … Right?”

Another actor, thought Latimer. More like than unlike the American on the landing—only unlike in that he was a better performer, with his lines at his fingertips.

“You could say that, sir, I suppose.” Self-interest, rather than mere politeness, prompted the answer. He must cultivate this skill with foreigners, as he had not done before.

“I could—and I will.” Senator Cookridge looked quickly towards the young man. “Okay, Bob—just you give us some time, then—okay?”

“Yes, sir.” The young man drew a breath. “Though it’s time we’re running short of, sir.”

The Senator waved a big hand. “You let me worry about that, son. There’s all that London traffic out there to delay us. The North Atlantic-goddam’-Fellowship can wait a few minutes for the United States of America.”

“Yes, sir.” The young man jutted his chin. “It can wait a few minutes because HRH will be five minutes late. But not more than that. Which gives us ten minutes at the outside …
sir
.”

“
Okay.
Then don’t take any more of my minutes, goddam’it! You just join King-Kong out there—
right
?”

The Senator watched the young man depart, then turned to Latimer with a shake of the head. “Protocol, he calls it! You suffer from that, Mister Latimer?”

“I suffer from a lot of things, Senator.”

“I’ll bet you do!” The Senator tossed his head. “And now from me, eh?”

“And now from you, Senator.” Truth, where it could be used as an ally, was always to be preferred. For truth carried the deceptive labels of honesty and sincerity on it. “What do you want from me?”

The big American looked at him. “Well, that’s straight—I like that. So maybe we can do business after all, Mister Latimer.”

“You had your doubts, did you?” The way things were going, perhaps honesty and sincerity need not be false.

Another look. “Straight both ways, then. Yes—I had my doubts. And I still have them.”

Straight both ways then. “You were expecting someone else?”

“I was. A man named Audley. A history man—right?”

This sudden onrush of truth and honesty was positively disconcerting. “A history man … originally. And just about the best man we’ve got, in terms of pure intellect.” But there were limits. “He has his … disadvantages, of course.” He shrugged.