«It is. As long as I hold this office, His Majesty's Armed Forces will not be diverted from action against their real enemies to guard against, still less pursue, fairy tales.»
R chose to take those words as a dismissal. He gathered up Blade and Rilla with his eyes and they passed into the outer office.
Rilla's own bodyguards met them to escort her away. Blade took her aside into an alcove for a moment. Her arms went slowly around him, and her head rested on his shoulder.
«When they think it's safe, would you like to come away on a private holiday with me for a few days? I imagine it could be arranged.»
Rilla straightened up and looked at Blade. She was wearing high heels, and her eyes were nearly on a level with his. She looked at him in expressionless silence for a moment, then smiled.
«I would like that very much, Richard. I like the way you asked, too. It seemed you really wanted to know what I felt, and if I had said no you would have said nothing.»
Blade smiled in his turn. «Don't get in the habit of crediting me with virtues I may not have.»
«Ah, but that is one virtue you do have. You do not take me for granted. You are not the first man whose company I have found good, Richard. But you are the first who has not taken me for granted. I could care for you a great deal more than any of those other men, I think.»
Blade felt like telling her that he was not a good man to care for, not with his duties and with the war so close. But she must already know that. If she was setting it all aside…
«Well,» he said. «I think we can talk more of that some other time and place.»
«And more than talk,» she said, kissing him gently. She turned and walked out of the alcove to join her bodyguards.
When she'd gone, Blade and R went out to their staff car. As the car wound its way through London traffic toward the airport, R looked at Blade with a more than usually unreadable expression on his face and said quietly, «We have our evidence about Elva Thompson.»
«Conclusive?»
«Eighty percent.»
That was greater reliability than one could usually expect in intelligence matters. Whatever was about to happen to Elva would probably be well deserved.
A moment passed, and Blade realized that R seemed to be hesitating. That could hardly mean anything but bad news. Blade found himself resenting R's apparent notion that he was weak where Elva was concerned.
«Well?» he said abruptly.
«She is the center of Red Flame penetration of our Division. Not the only person involved, probably. But the key one.»
Blade's head jerked. «Was she responsible for the fake order about not deviating from prescribed routes?»
«She was. That is good, in a way. It means we only need to eliminate a spy, instead of also searching for some dusty-brained idiot who gave that order in perfectly good faith. It was Elva. She'd been around long enough to know all our forms and procedures. It was easy enough for her to insert a false message into the proper channels and set you and-what was his name?»
«Piedar Goron.»
«-up for that trap at the airfield. However, they set the trap for foxes. What they caught was a lion.»
«Thank you, sir.»
«Don't thank me. I should thank you for what you've done on this mission. You've got an absolutely matchless gift for this kind of work. I'll push it all the way up to the Minister of Defense if they don't approve you for lieutenant colonel at least.»
«Yes, but what about Elva Thompson?»
«For the moment, she's where she can do us no further harm and the Red Flames no good. The Norfolk shadow headquarters is still just that. We're not proposing to give the shadow any real substance, either, not as long as she's there. When my estimate is that she's outlived all her usefulness, we'll have her killed. Make it look like an accident, you know. We don't want to tell the Red Flames any more than necessary about our internal security.»
«Quite right,» said Blade. He found it almost a relief that R-like J-could use the blunt, honest word «kill.» Too many intelligence people were committed to euphemisms like «terminate.» Both R and J had the courage to look what they were doing squarely in the face and call it by its proper name.
It was also a relief to know that Elva's fate had been decided. He was not quite indifferent to the idea of her death, not after what there had been between them. He was much less indifferent to all the deaths her treason had caused. Elva Thompson would be no real loss to anyone except her masters in Russland.
R went on. «There's another project I want started, and I want you on it.»
«What's that, sir?»
«Contingency planning for action against the dragons, when they start landing in Englor.»
«When, sir?»
«I believe Miss Haran, Blade. Don't you?»
Blade laughed. «Absolutely, sir. But-isn't this intruding on the Plans and Operations people?»
«It is. But with General Strong's attitude, I doubt if one single lieutenant is going to be assigned to plan how to fight off dragons. That's going to mean trouble when they land, no matter how much planning we can do at Special Operations. But if we do something, it may cut the damage.» He smiled grimly. «Also, it will help tighten the noose around the neck of our mutual friend General Sir Morgan Strong.»
Chapter 19
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Morris, commanding officer of the Second Battalion, Duke of Pembroke's Own Light Infantry, was bored. This was not an uncommon or unexpected situation, even in wartime and even for a field-grade officer. He still didn't care for it.
It was waiting for orders that had become boring. The battalion was assigned to the Seventy-first Infantry Brigade, one of five brigades trained and equipped to operate out of helicopters. Three of the others already formed the First Airmobile Division, assigned to the Eighth Army in Gallia. The rumor was that one more of the airmobile brigades would be assigned to Eighth Army reserve. Would it be the Seventy-first Brigade or the Fifty-ninth, down in Cornwall?
Morris hoped it would be the Seventy-first. After thirty years in the army, it was maddening to come to the edge of war in command of a fine battalion without being sure of being able to take it into action.
He rose from his chair, buttoned up his field jacket, picked up his swagger stick, and headed for the door of the hut. A little walk would put some fresh air into his lungs and perhaps push some of the boredom out of his mind. Then a drink in the mess hall, or perhaps two-no more than that-and then to bed. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the night.
As he did, he sensed something large and dark passing low overhead, something also long and thin. He caught a glimpse of what seemed to be broad wings spreading far out on either side. That made no sense. Neither airplanes nor helicopters made so little noise when they were so low, and who would be coming down in a glider here at this time of night? Who, except-? Then Colonel Morris snatched his sidearm from its holster and broke into a run. The damned Russlanders were staging a glider raid!
He'd taken barely half a dozen steps when a raw orange light flared in the darkness ahead among the tents of the battalion's rifle companies. Screams of pain and terror rose along with the light. Colonel Morris stopped dead, his eyes telling him what was moving among the tents but his mind refusing to register the message.
A dragon towered there among the tents, a dragon that might have escaped from some illustration in a book of tales for children. A fanged and scaled head rose on a long neck, with great yellow eyes glaring out on either side of the long snout. From that snout, orange flame roared like the jet from a flamethrower. Morris smelled the raw, wrenching foulness of methane and gagged as the dragon belched flame again.