“Thank you, sir,” Peter Christopher responded stiffly. “Mrs Hannay’s injuries are on the mend, sir. As you know, my wife was unhurt. Although,” the younger man sniffed, biting back what he had been about to say before settling on a mildly accusative: “the same cannot be said for Chief Petty Officer Griffin.”
It was the quiet, seething courtesy in what Peter Christopher said next that stung J. William Fulbright, in the moment and whenever he thought about it later.
“But for Jack’s bravery and courageous self-sacrifice my wife and Rosa Hannay could very easily have been killed due to the negligence of the police and the other local and federal law enforcement officers into whose hands we had been so unwise as to trust ourselves.”
Peter and Marija had already been visited at the Embassy by the Chief of the Philadelphia Police Department, Commissioner Howard Leary, one of the shortest policemen Peter had ever met. The man was barely an inch or so taller than Marija. Marija had been Marija, utterly charming. Peter had been moody and churlish, communicating in terse monosyllables for which his wife had gently chastised him after Leary had departed.
“That was deplorable,” the Secretary of State agreed with no little gravitas.
“Quite, sir,” Peter concurred. In truth his mood had not been improved by a meeting earlier that morning with Rachel Piotrowska — the woman he had previously known as Clara Pullman — whom, it seemed, was now an openly acknowledged officer of the newly formed National Security Service, of which GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 had become subordinate branches under the directorship of Sir Dick White. Clara, or rather, Rachel, had been a little vague about the purpose of her visit to Philadelphia which was par for the course with spooks. Presently, she was ‘talking’ to Rosa, ‘just to tie up a few loose ends’, presumably concerning the ‘Malta end’ of the big lie that he and the two wives had been asked to live in the wake of Samuel Calleja’s execution. To ‘facilitate’ this little tête-à-tête Peter had been ‘asked’ to send Alan Hannay on ‘an appropriate errand’ for a few hours. Much as this was intensely galling he had sent his friend — if they had not been close, good friends before they came to America they were most assuredly that now — over to the Navy Department building in Camden to organise a ‘proper visit’ by Marija and himself early next week; a publicity exercise with photo shoots and such like to persuade the American public that the hero of the Battle of Malta did not hold any grudges against the tardy late arrival of the US Navy.
Actually, he did not hold any such ‘grudges’, and certainly not against the ‘American public’ or ‘people’. His war had started in early December last year in the gun line bombarding Santander in Northern Spain, turned grim the next day when Talavera was bombed off Cape Finisterre, and red hot in the fire fight inshore at the Battle of Lampedusa. The fight to save the USS Enterprise south of Malta in February already seemed an awfully long time ago; and the events of the Battle of Malta after which he had been pulled out of the cold drowning sea by American sailors who had dived into the flotsam of Talavera’s sinking to tie a line around him, well, all that was very nearly just a bad dream. The last six months had rushed past in a blur and in the middle of it he had found, met and married the love of his life. Occasionally, he wondered if he had already lived his life and that everything that happened in the future, would be in some way diminished by what he had lived through and against the odds, survived these last few months. However, those were thoughts only for the darkness. When he was with Marija he had no doubts that the best of his life was still to come and that as sure as night followed day, sooner or later he would find himself again standing on the bridge of another big grey warship. Although, hopefully never again leading his people into the jaws of death…
Rachel Piotrowska would be talking to Rosa and Marija, who had insisted on being present during the ‘interview’, about Rosa’s dead first husband. She would want to know, to double and triple check each and every one of Rosa’s memories. Who had Samuel met? Who had he spoken to or of, his movements, habits, what he said in his sleep, on and on forever? It must be intolerable for Rosa not to be able to confide a single word of this, any of it to Alan. The worst of it was yet to come; one day the wreck of HMS Torquay would be raised from the bottom of the Grand Harbour where she had lain since January — her back broken by a Red Dawn saboteur’s demolition charges — and on that day human remains would be discovered. Later those remains would be identified as those of Samuel Calleja (1932–1964) and buried, with due ceremony and presumably no little public fanfare. Samuel Calleja, the story would go, had been an innocent dupe of evil men and in years to come nobody would connect the execution of a Soviet parachutist for war crimes on 6th April 1964 at Paola Prison, with Marija’s brother, and Rosa’s husband. Or that at least was the great plan concocted by the Ministry of Information because the country needed heroes and heroines, princes and princesses and whatever the players thought about it, they owed it to their people to accept and to play the roles which fate had randomly assigned to them.
Peter hated having to lie to Alan Hannay.
It felt like betrayal even though it was his duty.
It was duty which had made him drive Talavera into the big guns of those Soviet warships off Malta less than two months ago; and it was duty that compelled him to go along with the lie.
“Marija and Rosa survived, sir,” Peter Christopher told the Secretary of State. “That is all I care about. That, sir,” he added, “is the end of the matter. Marija and Rosa would be mortified if this unfortunate incident was allowed to in any way further sour the relations between our two countries.”
The British Ambassador decided to take charge of the meeting.
“I have asked Sir Patrick and Sir Peter to be present,” he explained with brusque courtesy as he waved the other men towards a circle of chairs near the high, old-fashioned windows that allowed sunshine to fill the room with warmth each afternoon. “Sir Patrick will minute whatever we have to say to each other, Secretary of State.”
“This meeting is better ‘off the record’, Ambassador,” Fulbright objected.
“Circumstances make that impossible, I fear.”
The four men sat down, the Chargé d'Affaire picked up a large lined hard back notebook and a propelling pencil. Sitting next to him with the US Secretary of State fulminating to his right Peter Christopher had no idea what he was still doing in the room.
“You wanted to speak to me,” Lord Franks prompted. “You have the floor, Mr Secretary.”
Fulbright had requested the United Kingdom’s Ambassador attend him ‘at his earliest convenience’ at the State Department Building in downtown Philadelphia; Oliver Franks had politely declined that invitation. Acting against his own better judgement on orders from Oxford — orders that came from the very top — he had informed the Secretary of State that: ‘I am to convey to you that since it is obviously unsafe for representatives of the Unity Administration of the United Kingdom to travel the streets of Philadelphia at present, that I must, respectfully suggest that you call on the Embassy.”