Sion Crossing (20 page)

“All those years ago,” said Audley. “And Bill Macallan was a back number—invalided out, officially … and genuinely.” He paused. “And then last year we got a Debreczen tickle. In fact, we hooked someone who’d been on the inside at Debreczen, on the staff there—an Irishman—”

“David!” said Butler sharply.

“Oh—
Christ
, Jack!” Audley rounded on him. “If you really don’t trust him, we might as well pack up and go home.”

Butler sighed. “It isn’t a question of trust—as you well know. It’s a question of procedure. There are a lot of names in the Debreczen file—the ones with question marks, remember?”

“Well, let the Beast look after that.” Audley pointed at the equipment at Butler’s elbow. “It’s good at censoring things.”

“Debreczen isn’t in the computer yet.” Butler turned away from Audley. “I’m sorry, Mitchell. This has nothing to do with you personally.”

“That’s okay.” Mitchell smiled helpfully. When Audley was in this mood, he was apt to be self-destructive, and that wasn’t a mistake he himself was about to make with Butler. “No problem.”

“Okay, okay!” Audley raised a hand. “
No
Irishmen—forget I said ‘Irishman’, even though half the world knows what happened last year—
their
quarter as well as ours—ours including the CIA
and
the BND … but—okay! So you want me to go on, Jack—without Irishmen?”

“If you can manage to do so prudently—yes.”

Mitchell caught himself almost frowning at Colonel Butler, the man’s refusal to explode was so remarkable. For he was by no means always equable, and he certainly wasn’t awed or afraid of anything that walked upright on two legs under the sun. So there must be a reason—

He looked at Audley. “Stop pissing around, David. You were trying to explain a coincidence for me, weren’t you?”

“Yes …” Audley eyed Butler balefully “… ‘no Irishmen’ is really rather appropriate … yes.” At last he came back to Mitchell. “So Debreczen was ‘a sensitive affair’ while you were still a scrubby schoolboy smoking furtive cigarettes behind the sports pavilion. And I’ve hardly thought about Bill Macallan since that time.” The jaw tightened. “But the Debreczen came up last—late last summer … And we nearly had it again, but we screwed it up again.” Audley lifted his chin. “Or, to be exact, I screwed it up. Because I had a man … a man who could have told us all about it. And I lost him.”

Butler stirred. “We all lost him.
They
lost him, too.”

So the Irishman was dead. But, more than that, this was why Audley was so unmanageable—“
I screwed it up
!” And Butler being understanding only made matters worse, of course: the Colonel was trying to damp down glowing embers with a bucket of petrol.

“Yes.” Audley glowered at them. “And that suited them just fine.”

Mitchell was trying to remember what had happened late the previous summer. He had been doing the groundwork for the Cheltenham deep vetting with Del Andrew … and Audley had been on one of his elongated leaves, allegedly researching a learned article for some old professor’s
festschrift
… But then Audley
had
turned up, out of the blue, to take the whole thing over from them at Cheltenham.

“No. It didn’t suit them fine,” Butler disagreed. “They didn’t know how much he’d told you before … he had his accident.”

Audley
had
been in an odd mood at Cheltenham, remembered Mitchell. Not exactly chastened, but not quite the usual self-confident Audley. Although, of course, he had soon recovered from that.

“Which was in fact sod-all.”

“But they don’t know that.” In his private debate with Audley, Butler changed the past tense into the present. “They know we never identified all the men who attended those Debreczen courses, David.”

Debreczen—

“But there’s your coincidence anyway, Paul.” Audley shrugged. “Old times—new times … After last year I don’t like being reminded again of Bill Macallan so soon, even if he is dead. And I don’t think Howard Morris liked the reminder either. Because—”

The buzzer on Colonel Butler’s console cut off the rest, but Butler took no notice of it. “Because, David?”

“Howard was in on our Debreczen business last year, Jack—remember? The same coincidence must have occurred to him, you can bet on that.”

“Perhaps.” Butler touched the console. “Yes?”

“Cable here, sir. We’ve got something you ought to see … hear, I mean, sir.”

Mitchell felt a bit guilty about poor old James, who had done his duty, and had been rewarded with extra work for his pains, as a result of his own machinations. But then James was Royal Navy and old-fashioned, so he probably didn’t mind—he probably hadn’t even made the connection.

“Very well, James.” Butler thought for a moment. “You’d better come on up.”

James
, thought Mitchell—to Butler James was always
James
, while he was usually
Mitchell.
So he didn’t need to feel too guilty, on second thoughts.

“But it’s still all hypothesis.” He found himself arguing against the real existence of the mystery he had raised, playing the devil’s advocate against himself. “If Senator Cookridge is above suspicion … and he simply wanted David to unravel a historical conundrum for him?” And if it was all a “wolf-wolf” nonsense, which he had irresponsibly cried in the hope of embarrassing Oliver St John Latimer, he would have done himself no good at all! But the logic was inescapable. “Howard Morris was the obvious man to soften up David. They’d have told Cookridge that in Grosvenor Square … And the rest—it’s more hypothesis than coincidence, really.”

They both looked at him, but he couldn’t make out what they were thinking. What he had to remember was that they were a couple of very wily old birds, and when they were together their different virtues more or less cancelled out their different vices.

“Of course, I don’t really know whether Debreczen is animal, vegetable or mineral.” Better to hedge his bets, therefore. And it was the memory of Debreczen, from long ago, that was ruffling their feathers, like the memory of some legendary monster—

He assumed his inquiring expression. “Would Oliver know about it?”

Audley looked at Butler. “He’d know about Debreczen well enough. But he wouldn’t connect Lucy Cookridge with it.”

That just about worked out, Mitchell computed. Latimer was a few years younger than Audley, but he’d joined the service a year or two before, poached by old Sir Frederick from the Treasury. In fact, in those far off days and in very different spheres, Audley and Latimer had been the old boy’s
enfants terribles
of intelligence research.

The buzzer at the door announced James’s arrival: James was not a door-pummeller.

“I didn’t remember her, Jack.” Audley ignored the buzzer. “And I was a hell of a sight closer to Macallan than he ever was.”

The same mental print-out advised Mitchell that Audley knew a lot more about Debreczen than Butler did, notwithstanding the Beast’s embargo. Because back in those deeps of time Butler had still been a serving soldier, at the uncomfortable sharp end of the retreat from empire.

“Yes.” Butler released the door lock, and waited for James Cable to appear. “Well, James—what have you got?”

“Something rather odd, sir.” James advanced to the desk in order to deposit the file on it. “I thought you’d want to know.”

“What does ‘odd’ mean?” Audley had never been impressed by James’s impeccable manners. “Uneven? Singular? Exotic? Bizarre? Egregious?”

Butler drew the file towards him, opened it, frowned, and then closed it before Mitchell could steal a glimpse.

“What’s Mulholland got to do with this?”

“Sir—”

“Mulholland?” Audley sat up.

Butler looked at Audley. “What do you know about him?”

“Geneva. The non-aligned conference in ’79.” Audley could always be relied on to know more than he ought to. “Sweden in ’81. And he was working for the French then.”

It was an AF dossier, that file. So Mulholland—wasn’t that a good Scottish-Irish name?—was a freelance … a
condottiere
whose lance was anything but free, going rather to the highest bidder. But the Scots and the Irish had always been drawn to other people’s quarrels, no matter whose.

“Angola last year—working for the South Africans.” Audley grinned. “The Boers paid him in gold, so the story goes. And he earned every ounce of it. He’s a hard man, is Mulholland.”

Butler transferred his thunderous frown back to James.

“I didn’t think you’d want him on screen, sir. Not with his record.”

So James didn’t trust the Beast either! Under his armour of dutiful naval innocence, James was no slouch. Which, of course, was why he was here now.

“Yes.” Butler was neutral again. “Just answer my question.”

“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant-Commander Cable’s battle-flags fluttered proudly. “Further to your instructions of yesterday, I had the passenger lists of all American flights checked for Dr Latimer’s name—”

“We know where Dr Latimer is, James.”

“Yes, sir. But last night, when Audley came back, we added Miss Lucy Cookridge to the search, with the same priority.”

“That was me, Jack,” said Audley. “We don’t know a single bloody thing about Miss Lucy Cookridge—and that’s a fact.”

“We do now.” Considering that he must have been up half the night, James was as chirpy as a sparrow, thought Mitchell enviously. But that was because his liver was in better condition.

“Did she come in with the Senator?”

“No, Dr Audley. She came in two days before. On a Baltimore flight—but Baltimore connects with a lot of Delta flights from Atlanta. And she went back to Atlanta on a flight before Dr Latimer’s.”

“And Mulholland?”

“Yes—” James rolled an eye at Colonel Butler, and was rewarded with a nod “—that’s where I ran slap bang into the Special Branch … In fact, I’ve slapped a ‘hold’ order on their report, and they’re arguing with Chief Inspector Andrew at the moment—”

“They made him on entry?” That part of Butler which was not disturbed by Mulholland’s appearance was reassured by the Special Branch’s efficiency, Mitchell suspected from the Colonel’s tone.

“And exit. He came in on her Baltimore flight, and went out on the same Atlanta one.” James nodded. “He’s on the pink list, so they were scared in case he made contact with anyone dodgey, naturally.”

Naturally. One swallow didn’t make a summer, and pink list characters—the soldiers-of-fortune who had no sacred cause except to find another paymaster—were regular birds-of-passage through London, en route to their next job. It was only when they started to transact business locally that the Branch went into top gear.

“And did he?”

“No, sir. At least, not so far as they’re aware.”

“Was he with her?” Mitchell advertised his presence again.

James brightened, friend to friend. “Who else? He is a minder, after all—and in the Rolls Royce class: bloody expensive, and the noisiest part of him is his wrist-watch.” The Lieutenant-Commander very nearly smiled. “If I wanted to keep my daughter safe in foreign parts, and I could afford the best … I’d hire Winston Spencer Mulholland, Paul.”

Butler leaned forward. “What evidence?”

“Adjacent seats, sir.” James had been expecting this question. “Booked at the same time. Same hotel—also adjacent rooms, with connecting door. And he never let her out of his sight … except when she was dotting in and out of the embassy in Grosvenor Square … presumably to see her stepfather, sir.”

“He didn’t go in?”

“No, sir. But he’s probably a bit leery of having his name and number taken by them, with his record.” James blinked. “Not that he’s got a bad conscience, or anything like that—don’t get me wrong, I mean.”

“What d’you mean?”

James drew breath. “There’s nothing against him, at least not in our book. And he came in on his own passport, bold as brass.” He cocked his head at Butler. “I mean, he must have reckoned he’d be spotted—he’s a professional, as Dr Audley so rightly said … And that means he used us for extra insurance, for whatever he wanted to insure the Senator’s daughter against.”

“Which was?” Butler pursued his question. “What did he do?”

James spread his hands. “He just watched over her, sir—”

“So what did
she
do?” Audley cut in.

James was not so happy now. “Well … she went to the embassy, several times … And she went to Selfridge’s, presumably to do a bit of shopping.” Distinctly not so happy. “She dined in her room at the hotel—”

“So they watched
him
.” Audley paused. “Not
her
.” He looked at Butler. “So we don’t bloody-well know what
she
did, is what that means, Jack.”

James took another breath. “Not quite. Because we know she didn’t go to the Oxbridge on Friday night. The last night she stayed in the hotel.”

“And Mulholland?”

“He was there too. And then they both flew out very early next morning.”

Audley looked at Butler. “Just one phone-call—to let her know that Oliver had taken the bait. One of Cookridge’s heavies could have tipped her off. On an internal line there won’t be any record.”

Mitchell unwound again. “But why, David?”

Audley raised an eyebrow. “Why? Christ, Paul—I don’t know
why
—
I just know Mulholland
, that’s all. And that’s enough.”

“Because he’s an expensive bodyguard?”

Audley made a face, “Well … that would be enough to frighten me—if it’s a minder she needs.” He leaned forward, and pushed the Mulholland file up the table towards Mitchell.

He noticed that Colonel Butler was not objecting. So MULHOLLAND,
Winston Spencer
, whoever he might actually be, was at least less sensitive than DEBRECZEN, wherever the hell that might actually be, or once have been.

“Have a look,” invited Audley.

Suddenly Mitchell felt bolshie, even against his better judgement. Maybe Colonel Butler wasn’t playing games, because that wasn’t his style; and although James knew more than he was saying, he was merely keeping his own counsel, which was fair enough—it was impossible to dislike James. But David Audley
liked
playing games.