And he'd done it, just as easily as he might have ordered dinner in a restaurant.
"I'm certain the fraud and the sabotage are linked," she repeated.
"Both companies would have been ruined, the fraud would have come to light, if Artemis had bought 494s and then other airlines had followed suit. The helicopter cancellation was the last straw. They had to act, and act quickly!"
She sat back, stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another.
She poured herself more coffee, her gestures as theatrical and calculated as those of an actress.
She had to persuade Gant and Aubrey and her father that this must be pursued. Its scope, its daring, its moral vacuum affronted her. Her father and Kenneth could have all the comforts of claiming that it was none of their concern, that it was civvy street to them and bore no relation to the battlefield or the intelligence world of the Cold War but not at the price of denying the facts. Her father's expression pleaded with her, as if she could will a self-imposed amnesia. Kenneth was owl-like, patricianly dismissive.
"Nothing to do with you, Kenneth?" she taunted waspishly.
"Other side of the street, someone else's concern?"
"Marian!" her father snapped in the voice with which he had upbraided lapses of good manners during her childhood.
Gant's expression was thoughtful. She suspected that he was more than half convinced Looking challengingly at Aubrey, she asked: "What do we doT After a long silence, Aubrey sighed heavily.
"Very well," he admitted with as bad a grace as he could muster.
"Very well."
He was irritated, as if woken from a nap, having missed the fall of two wickets after a too-good lunch. Marian realised that she had hooked his curiosity like a fish. Her father appeared infuriated that Kenneth had been won over. He wanted nothing more than her safety… Marian suppressed the shiver that threatened to reveal her nerves. That fire
… they had tried to kill her. She breathed slowly, deeply. Even so, Giles was aware of her disquiet. His expression pleaded with her to give it up.
"Kenneth—" he warned.
"Yes, old friend, I understand," Aubrey murmured.
"But these two young people have already excited the curiosity of interested parties, even their counter-activity.
We cannot now leave things as they are. Twice they have tried to kill
Mitchell and—" '-once in Marian's case," Giles said heavily, and then immediately burst out: "But we're talking about Davidherel How can we be discussing the son of our oldest friend in this way?"
Ungenerously, deliberately, Marian snapped: "Who else could be behind it, Daddy?"
The French Coulthard…?"
"Hasn't the brains for it," she retorted.
Then the French."
"It isn't primarily an intelligence operation, Giles," Aubrey smoothed, waving Marian to silence with an angry little flap of his hand. They would do it for la France or la gloireor reasons of state, even for business… but they don't appear to be the prime movers here. They have no direct involvement with the city regeneration scheme and the massive fraud. David's companies do. David is involved in Aero UK, David has met the European Commissioners Marian suspects Lloyd's former superior among them and David is concerned at any and every interest shown, whether by myself or Marian. David…" He shook his head, more sorrowful than enraged.
"You mustn't, Kenneth," Pyott pleaded.
"Giles, I must help if I can." He assayed an ingratiating smile.
"You, after all, couldn't forbid her."
"Clive must never, never be involved, Marian. Or know that any of us are involved." He turned his back on them the moment he finished speaking, as if to disown them, and stared out at Regent's Park in the midday sunshine.
Aubrey asked quickly: "Why do you wish to pursue this, Mitchell? Why are you here, precisely?"
"Are you asking me why I need to do it, or if I can do it?"
"Perhaps both."
Marian was shocked by Aubrey's bluntness, his sudden recovery of concentration.
Gant was aware of her surveillance of him, more challenged by her than by Aubrey.
"Vance built a good airplane. Someone decided they couldn't compete and changed the odds by killing people. Some of them were friends of mine." His admission, to Marian at least, seemed more like a duty than an affection. Then Gant added:
The pilot of the first airplane, Hollis… I couldn't be at the funeral. I should have."
He looked up at Aubrey, his eyes hard.
"When you've taken the bones out of that, yes, I can do it. I know Strickland. He's just one of the psychopaths I've run across. He did these things. For big business, right? So the stockholders aren't disappointed at end of year." Marian saw the utter contempt, his narrow, upright suspicion of politicians and businessmen in suits with manicured hands and dead eyes.
"I can find him. I called a guy in Langley, someone who owed me. They always keep records, especially on people like Strick-land. He called me back when I was on my way here. I have an address in France."
"If you have the address, so do they," Aubrey remarked.
"I guess so."
"I'd like Strickland alive."
I'll try for that." Gant seemed to dislike the idea.
"Strickland is like someone off religious TV. Big business would like him. He would make it easy for them to go down his road. Any suit who needs an edge can have Strickland call by his office, in a jacket and tie, and the arrangements are easy."
Marian realised there was something compulsively moral about his disdain, and it strangely thrilled her, such was its lack of compromise.
"You think your man is using Strickland, right?"
Heavily, Aubrey replied: "Possibly. It does seem so."
"If I bring you the proof you need, you'll just do the English thing, you and the general, and tell him to lay off. Right?"
There isn't another way, Mitchell. This hasn't entirely crossed the border into our country. There are different priorities—"
"Your man crossed over."
"Yes, I think he probably has." He felt suddenly invigorated. He clapped his hands together, startling them, eyes alight. He cleared the fug of moral and emotional considerations as quickly as Mrs. Grey would clear away the crockery that lay on the coffee table.
To work then," he beamed.
"You, my lady, are to maintain a low profile no, I mean that. David is already suspicious of you he must not be alarmed."
"I'm not going to sit on my backside, Kenneth—"
"You must!" he snapped.
"Mitchell, where is Strickland now?"
"He has some place in France a farmhouse. The Dordogne?" He evidently did not know the area.
"You know exactly?" Gant nodded.
"Very well. We'll discuss the details in a moment. Will he be there?"
"He's owned it for some time."
"I remind you again tfieywill know that."
"Sure."
Then we must prepare. I think—"
"Kenneth," Giles said quietly, "I am quite sure your flat is under surveillance." He turned casually from the window. They must have followed Gant here. What do you recommend we do, in the circumstances?"
CHAPTER TEN
Festung Europa "Well, where's the charabanc?" she called with an attempt at gaiety that was utterly at odds with the last, draining effects of shock.
The members of the Commons Select Committee for European Affairs were gathered near St. Stephen's Porch like school-children, awaiting the transport that would take them on their eagerly anticipated outing.
Indeed, there were two members of the Committee old enough to remember having been evacuated as children during the war. They were the ones whose smiles were broadest at the joke she intended to lighten her own mood.