War Game (31 page)

A sudden ragged volley of musketry burst out below them in the valley.

“Ah! Now the battle’s starting,” murmured Audley, looking at his watch. “And not more than five minutes behind schedule, too… . Yes, gold is one thing —see those fellows down there?” He took a casual step sideways and caught Ratcliffe’s left arm in a tight grip just above the elbow. “I think it would be as well if we pretended to watch them.”

Ratcliffe tried to move his arm, wincing as the grip bit. “You’re hurting my arm,” he said in a surprised voice.

“Yes, I know I am. But the pain will help to concentrate your mind on what I’m saying—please don’t struggle, you’ll only hurt yourself more.”

Charlie Ratcliffe graduated quickly from surprise to incredulity. “You’re a fucking madman—
ouch!
”

“No I’m not. But I am very strong, and if you don’t relax and listen I’ll cripple you.” Audley pointed with the telescope in his free hand. “Now—see those pikemen with the blue flag? They make a brave show, don’t they?” He increased the pressure. “Don’t they?”

“Yes—bloody hell!—yes.”

“Good. First gold, as I was saying. Then treason. Then murder. And then gold again. That’s what we’ve got in common, Charlie lad.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Next time you say that I’m going to hurt you a lot, Charlie. So just look to the front and listen. What I have to say is very much in your interest, I promise you that.”

Charlie gritted his teeth. “You have to be joking.”

“Joking is the very last thing I’m doing. I don’t like you, lad—but I need your help. And you need mine—look to the front!”

Charlie made the start of a sound and the first twitch of a movement, and then thought better of both. It was beginning to occur to him that if this was madness he was dealing with there might be method in it.

“Your gold first. I know all about it, from A to Z. I know where it came from, and how it was planted—understand?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Madrid - Cartagena - Tunis - Odessa -Moscow… . Standingham.”

Ratcliffe still managed to register a proper mystification, but he couldn’t control the muscles in his arm.

“I know how you set up Nayler, and I know about the Dawlish letter. And about the Paris meeting, and the other little side-trips—I know about them.”

The muscles were like whipcord now, tensed under his hand so that he had to tighten his grip to hold them.

“And I know about Swine Brook Field —that was my old friend Tokaev I presume—and about the Ferryhill Industrial Estate … which was a very much better organised operation—the police haven’t tumbled to it, I can tell you that. And you did me a good turn there too, getting rid of that nosey Special Branch man—I’m grateful for that.”

The musketeers’ fire-fight was reaching it’s climax, with the dead being carried away behind the clumps of pikemen to recover surreptitiously and rejoin their regiments as reinforcements. Death in the early stages of a Double R Society battle was clearly a tidy and economical business.

“But I’m not going to bore you with what you already know, lad. Your treason doesn’t interest me any more—nor the murders you’ve ordered either. It’s my treason that interests me now—and the next killing. And
my
gold.”

Charlie Ratcliffe grunted derisively. “So it’s your gold now, is it?” He shook his head.

“My gold—yes.”

“Oh, no … I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about with your treason and your killing, and all that— hogwash… . But when it comes to gold at least I can begin to understand you. And the answer is—go take a running jump at yourself, fuzz.”

“You haven’t heard the deal yet.”

“I don’t need to.” Charlie’s confidence was reasserting itself, despite the arm-grip. “I should have expected greedy fuzz —or whatever you are. Just because you’ve got a good imagination you think you can make things awkward for me, so I have to buy you off—is that it?”

“I’ve got a lot more than a good imagination.”

“No way.” Charlie shook his head. “Your bunch would like to smear me, I know that. But it takes proof to do that, and proof is what you haven’t got. And the same goes for blackmail on the side— I’ll enjoy giving you a paragraph or two all to yourself in my next issue, Colonel Hog. Not that it’ll surprise anyone— crooked fuzz working for a crooked establishment.”

“You think I’m bluffing?”

“I think I’d like you to let go of my bloody arm—you’re hurting me almost as much as you’re boring me.”

Audley held the pressure steady. “That’s because you don’t listen, Charlie lad. That’s one trouble with you—you talk, but you don’t listen. And another trouble is … you’re not nearly as clever as you think you are.”

“I have trouble figuring out how pigs think—if they do—ouch!”

“That’s enough now. Just listen … I have a deal for you and I have proof for you—and the proof is in the deal.
Listen
!”

His urgency transmitted itself at last. Charlie Ratcliffe stared fixedly into the valley, where the Roundhead musketeers were beginning to withdraw slowly towards their battle line. On the Royalist side, under the cover of their own guns, pioneers were carrying bundles of brushwood towards the marshy ground. The next phase of the battle was beginning.

“I don’t want your Russian gold, Charlie—you can do whatever mischief you like with it, I don’t give a damn. Because you did your seventeenth-century research just a bit too well, but not well enough, that’s why—and I did it better.”

Charlie moved uncontrollably, twisting against the pressure. “What the hell d’you mean by that?”

“I mean, lad—you can keep the Russian gold. And I’ll keep the Spanish gold.” Audley released the arm abruptly as he spoke.

Charlie stared at him.

And stared.

Audley nodded slowly, letting himself smile at last. “That’s right … I’ve found it.” He paused to let the words sink in. “You see, Charlie, you worked it out—you and Professor Nayler worked it out between you.” He paused again. “But the difference between us was that when you’d worked it out you didn’t have to look for it, you just had to work out why it was where you intended to put it … which you did remarkably well. In fact you had me convinced it was the real thing.

“So when I … found out where your gold really came from I couldn’t resist going back over your evidence again—to see if there was a hole in it somewhere—a weakness. And of course there was.”

Charlie Ratcliffe frowned, and the frown seemed to loosen his tongue at last.

“A weakness—?”

“Oh yes … Nayler saw it too, only the gold blinded him to it—quite understandably. But that isn’t the point. The point is—I came up with a different answer. The right answer.”

Charlie’s tongue had stuck once more: his lips moved, but no word escaped before they closed again.

“That’s why I don’t want your gold, Charlie. Because—you could say—I’ve already got your gold.” Audley showed his teeth between the smile. “Which is really quite amusing, because there isn’t a thing you can do about it. I mean … you can’t find the same treasure twice, can you? That’s something neither of us can afford now—too much gold would be as bad as none at all.”

He turned away from Charlie, focusing the little telescope on the battle lines beneath them. With the help of the brushwood which had been trodden into the ooze earlier in the day the Royalist pioneers were making good progress with their causeway. Another five minutes, or ten at the outside, and the assault troops would be able to move.

“And that’s where you come in, lad,” he continued, casually running his eye along the Roundhead line. There was Robert Donaldson, Bible in hand, praying on his knees to the Lord of Hosts just behind the Roundhead guns; and there was little Frances among the band of Angels in the shadow of the trees on his left, watching him; and there, staring at him through his binoculars from his post just inside the wood, was Superintendent Weston.

“You see, we’ve each got our gold, but if we don’t do something about it we’re each going to lose it, I suspect.”

“Why?” Charlie Ratcliffe’s voice was thicker than it had been.

“Why?” Audley’s eye ran back along the battlefield. The man had to be there somewhere, but he could no longer afford to wait for him. “See there—behind your cannon —like a black crow.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to tell you. See that man in black down there?”

Charlie Ratcliffe glanced quickly towards the Roundhead guns, then back at Audley. “Bob Davenport, you mean?”

“Right—and wrong.” Audley lowered the telescope, reaching under his buff-coat for his trouser pocket with his free hand. “Name of Donaldson. Operates out of the CIA’s station in the Hague normally, but working with our people at the moment.” He offered the telescope to Ratcliffe. “He’s been watching you for months.”

Charlie raised the telescope to his eye.

“And watching both of us today, but me particularly,” continued Audley. “Agent Donaldson is just beginning to have his doubts about me, I rather think. … So please don’t stare at him too hard.”

Charlie lowered the telescope.

“One American passport, in the name of Donaldson.” Audley passed the green book over for Charlie’s inspection. “Lifted by me out of his flat yesterday afternoon. Check the picture … and the dates of the Channel crossings.”

Charlie flipped the pages of the passport.

“So what?” he said harshly.

“So Agent Donaldson knows too much about you. And he suspects too much about me.” Audley paused again. “And what is even worse he’s on the way to suspecting too much about our gold.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because I’ve been working with him. All he needs is one cosy talk with Professor Nayler and he’ll have everything I’ve got … which talk is scheduled for this evening To be precise—“ Audley raised his lace cuff “—in exactly thirty-five minutes from now.”

He took the passport from Charlie’s hand. “So you see, Charlie, if our gold is to be preserved one of them has got to go. And for my money it’s got to be Agent Donaldson. So you’re going to kill him for me.”

Charlie’s mouth opened, but Audley forestalled him. “Oh, not you personally, lad. You must get one of those nursemaids of yours to do the dirty work for you— Oates or Bishop, I don’t mind which. There’s not the slightest risk involved, because I’ve pulled all our people off the three of you, as you may already have noticed. … All they have to do is to follow my instructions and it won’t take a second—I set it all up for them last night.”

The distinctive beat of the Royalist drums broke out again on the far hillside, but this time more fiercely—

Tum, tum
, tum-tum-tum—

“Set up what?”

“A shocking accident.” Audley nodded towards the red tent. “The Double R Society is about to have another tragedy.”

“You’re mad.”

“No.” Audley let the edge of desperation show. “If I was mad I’d risk doing it myself. It’s because I’m sane that I’m determined to be in the clear. It’s got to be one of your men who does it—we’ll never have another chance like this. So it’s now or never.”

Tum, tum
, tum-tum-tum—the columns of pikemen were beginning to assemble.

“Donaldson thinks he’s meeting Nayler in the powder tent at half-past five exactly —when everyone’s busy with the battle.”

Audley nodded. “And that’s exactly where I intend to be—busy with the battle— when it happens.”

“When what happens?”

“There’s a First Aid box in the tent, right next to the black powder charge for tomorrow’s explosion. Last night I put a fifteen-minute time pencil in the box—a grey plastic cylinder, to arm it all your man has to do is twist the head anticlockwise and press it down. He’ll know, anyway—it’s standard CIA issue.” He smiled coldly at Charlie. “That was another thing I lifted from Donaldson’s flat. … So that’s all there is to it: twist and press at 5.15, and we both keep our gold. Or do nothing—and we both keep nothing. That’s the deal.”

He gave Charlie one last hard look to go with the ultimatum, and then turned away towards the parapet to examine the progress of the assault.

It was obvious at a glance why the Double R Society found it necessary to rehearse their major operations; the fire-fight had gone according to schedule, and the pioneers had wallowed in the mud to good effect, but the conversion of the lines of pikemen into columns was proving more difficult in practice than in theory. Also, with the advance of the first regiments on to the newly-laid causeways, it was becoming apparent that the width of the column was greater than the width of the causeways.

As he watched, several of the outer files were jostled into the mire, where they quickly discovered that it was one thing to negotiate eight inches of mud unencumbered, but quite another to do so in full seventeenth-century battle order carrying a twelve-foot pike. Nothing could have more effectively illustrated why their ancestors hadn’t attacked on this side of the defences until they were confident that treachery would even the odds.

He took a few paces towards the side of the bastion, where the remains of an embrasure still marked the spot from which old Edmund Steyning had intended that the defenders should enfilade any Royalists who might get as far as the ditch below the curtain wall. Not even Sebastian de Vauban could have sited it better, nor could Vauban have used the ground better to shape a peaceful manor house into a fortress. The old warrior had deserved a kinder fate than a kinsman’s betrayal, no matter what the good cause.

He turned on his heel and faced Charlie, the great cannon between them now, with its flanking pyramids of weathered cannonballs.

“Time’s up. Am I your partner? Or do I go back to Robert Donaldson and tell him the meeting’s off?”

Charlie watched him intently, brushing nervously at a strand of fair hair which kept falling across his eyes. Audley conjured up the image of Henry Digby, and hardened his heart with the memory. “You still have a problem?”

“That would be one way of putting it.” Charlie gave up trying to discipline the look. “I find you … intriguing, as pigs go. But hardly believable.”

“No?” Audley stepped forward and placed both hands on the cannon. Then he lent towards Charlie. “You find greed unbelievable—and you know the feel of gold? I find that even harder to believe.”