"All right, love." Audley caved in directly, and so quickly that he took Mitchell by surprise. "She's alive. And she's safe. My word on it."
"Thank you, David." This time Faith Audley didn't catch Mitchell's eye, she stared directly at him as though to confirm the truth of her husband's given word. "And now I'll go back to bed again." She gave them both a sudden tired smile, not of understanding, but of relief. "If you two have things to discuss, the study will be warmer than out here. But don't stay up too long—you both look exhausted."
As Mitchell followed Audley the words began to sink in: alive and safe— alive and safe— alive and safe. He was aware that they were incomplete words, and that they might have other dummy3
implications. But for that moment they were all he could handle— alive and safe was enough for this moment, that was all.
"What's all that on the desk?" said Audley. He took three steps and peered down at the papers. "What on earth are you bothering with this for?" He frowned accusingly at Mitchell.
"You should have been watching over Elizabeth Loftus—not messing with this!"
Mitchell came back to reality. "There was a message waiting for me at Heathrow when our plane landed."
"About this? From whom?"
"From Del Andrew. Or ... not exactly a message—he just tipped me off that CI 6 was sniffing around, and I'd better get my report into the pipeline before they made it official."
"Damnation!" Audley smote his forehead. "That makes two mistakes I've made—three, counting tonight—" he glanced at the grandfather clock "—or this morning . . . God, I'm slipping!"
"What mistakes?"
"Your Elizabeth Loftus, for one." Audley looked at Mitchell keenly. "You like her, do you? That's the reason for this inquisition, is it?"
Steady again. "I think she's quite a woman—if you must know, David. . .Yes—I like her."
"Yes." The look became rueful. "My dear wife told me as much a couple of nights back—she knew, and I couldn't see dummy3
it! I said she wasn't your type, and she isn't . . . But she said I'd better watch out—that you'd get awkward if things started to go wrong."
Curiosity. "And that was your first mistake?"
"That was my third mistake. My first was not to realise quite how bright she really was— is, thank God!" He drew a deep breath. "It never occurred to me that she'd put the whole thing together—or half the thing . . . and the most dangerous half, too! God Almighty!" He shook his head.
Humiliation. What had Elizabeth put together that Paul Mitchell had missed?
And double humiliation: unlike Elizabeth, who didn't know Audley as he did, he ought to have known that there was something to put together, because with Audley there always was. And what made it worse was that, in a sense, he had known all along—
"I really am rather an idiot," said Audley. "I thought I'd got it worked out so well, for once."
"Oh, yes?" If that was the case, then there was no point in exploding, Mitchell decided. "But just tell me one thing, David—I am curious about one thing . . ."
Audley blinked at him. "Yes?"
"Can you tell me what the hell I've been doing?"
"Ah . . ." Audley blinked again, and then looked round the room. "Now ... if we were in the library I could show you, from David Chandler's book on Marlborough. But then, as dummy3
you're a military historian, you won't need to read about it—
you'll know it already."
"Know what?"
"The battle of Ramillies—1706."
"What about the battle of Ramillies?"
"He won it by a diversion: he lured all the French troops to his right flank by attacking there. Then he hit them in the centre."
A nasty suspicion crystallised in Mitchell. "Are you telling me that I've been on the right flank of your army?"
"No . . . that's not the point—" Audley's face creased "—the point is that Marlborough didn't actually tell the troops on the right that the real attack was in the centre, any more than Monty told us in Normandy that our job was to draw off all the German armour so that the Americans could break out elsewhere." He gave Mitchell a twisted smile. "We wouldn't actually have mutinied if we'd known . . . but he was right not to tell us. Because the Germans would never have believed that we were the main attack if we hadn't believed it first ourselves, you see. And, in a way, we were right to believe in it, Paul, because our diversionary bloodbath was essential to the breakout—it was all the same battle. And I like to think, when I remember absent friends, that we had the place of honour in it, if not the glory."
Mitchell's eyes strayed to the reports on the table. "The place of honour" was gift-wrapped bullshit for his benefit. But that dummy3
"diversionary bloodbath" was an accurate description for what had happened on Saturday evening.
Or worse than that, even. "So those three—" he pointed "—I killed them ... as a diversion?"
"Ah . . . no, you mustn't think of it like that. You saved a valuable life—perhaps a very valuable life. It was like saving a child from three mad dogs—you had no choice."
"But it wasn't planned—it wasn't part of any plan?"
"It was better than we'd planned." Audley paused. "We had to convince Moscow that we were chasing the wrong Vengeful
—just for a few days they had to believe we were off in the wrong direction, and we had to give them those days. And you yourself said that the old Vengeful was exactly the sort of hare I'd be tempted to chase—so they thought so too, which was why they let you spot Novikov so easily, of course."
"But they didn't know about . . . those three . . . and Loftus's money?"
"Not a thing. But when they did, they must have been as pleased as I was—that was a pure bonus for both sides."
"But how did they know?"
"Because we made damn sure they did—"
"Wait!" Mitchell felt the plot thickening around him too fast.
"You said 'the wrong Vengeful' . So which was the right one?"
Audley shook his head. "Your old Vengeful was the right one for you, Paul—and it still is." Then he grinned. "But as your Elizabeth knows, I suppose it's unrealistic not to tell you too.
dummy3
And you'll be less trouble knowing than not knowing . . . The real Vengeful was the Shannon, of course."
Of course. Stupid. Obvious. Damn! "The Shannon?"
"We had our own word on that long ago—that the Russians were planning something . . . Not the actual project name, but just that they intended dealing with the next generation of our anti-submarine systems." Audley looked at him. "We don't have many secrets worth having, but if there's one area where we can still claim to be ahead, it's anti-submarine work."
That was true, even if it was only the natural legacy of the past, in which Britain alone of all other countries had twice nearly been beaten by the submarine, thought Mitchell.
"And their plan was made before the Vengeful was renamed?
Before she became the Shannon?"
Audley nodded. "That's right. It was as simple as that." He paused. "So Oliver St John Latimer and James Cable set up a counter-plan. An in-depth anti-espionage system, you might say . . . And that Latimer's a fat slug, but he's a bloody good operator—better than everyone except me, in fact." He gave the grandfather clock a calculating look. "As of two hours from now we're set to take out the biggest Russian espionage operation of the decade, Paul. Not in the full glare of publicity, alas—which was what Jack Butler and I wanted ...