When Bushell made no move to go, Sir Horace looked at him in some surprise and said, “Is anything wrong, Tom?”
“Oh, not much,” Bushell answered, a sardonic bite to his voice. “I just wanted to thank you for coming and taking the investigation right out of my hands. ‘We need to do this. We need to do that. I’ll tell Sir Martin.’ Thank you very much, Lieutenant General Bragg, sir.”
Bragg held up a placating hand. “Take it easy, will you, please? For now, I’m the senior officer on the scene, that’s all. In a few days, a couple of weeks at most, I’ll be back in Victoria and the case will be yours again.”
“When an admiral comes aboard a ship commanded by a captain, that doesn’t make him ship’s commander, not unless he’s been ordered to take over,” Bushell said stubbornly. “Either this is my case or it isn’t. And you may go back to Victoria, sir, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be running things by telephone and wire. If you’re going to do that, please give me formal orders so I know where I stand. Sir.”
“You can be most exasperating when you’re nominally most obedient, do you know that?” Sir Horace said.
Bushell stood mute.
Bragg sighed. Just for a moment, as he exhaled, his hollow cheeks filled out and made him look like a well-fleshed man. Then they sagged again. He seemed older, more tired, than Bushell had ever seen him.
“What am I supposed to do with you, Tom?” he asked quietly.
He hadn’t intended that as a question to be answered; he’d started to say more. But Bushell, given the opening, charged into it: “Stand back, get out of the way, and let me do my job.”
“It’s not as simple as that.” Now Sir Horace sounded almost pleading. “Don’t you see? This isn’t just a criminal case - it’s a political one, too.”
“I don’t give a damn about politics,” Bushell said. “Find the painting and all the political nonsense goes away, anyhow.”
“If we rescue it, yes,” Sir Horace Bragg said. “If, on the other hand, we cause it to be destroyed, Sir Martin Luther King - to say nothing of everyone else in the NAU and the mother country - will be looking for a scapegoat. Do you really want everyone looking straight at you?”
Bushell’s eyes widened. “Of course I do. Hell, I’ll be looking at myself, too, and pointing a finger at my face in the mirror.”
“You mean it.” Bragg shook his head. At first Bushell thought that was wonder; after a moment, he realized it was more resignation. Sir Horace went on, “It’s no good arguing with you. I’ve known that for years, just as I’ve known you truly don’t care a fig for politics. I’ve always thought you were more able than I am, Tom, but not caring about politics is a fatal flaw for a man in public service. It’s why I am where I am today, and why you are where you are.”
Would changing his nature be worth a lieutenant general’s crown and crossed sword and baton? Would it be worth a knighthood, with the hope of a patent of nobility upon retirement? Bushell shrugged. The questions were irrelevant, since he could no more change his nature than the shape of his face. He said, “I suppose I’ll have to live with that, sir. Now, who is running this investigation?”
“I didn’t come to New Liverpool to take it away from you,” Bragg answered.
“No, sir. But it seems to have worked out that way.” With a quick-snapped salute and a precise about-turn, Bushell strode out of the conference room, leaving Sir Horace Bragg staring at his back. The telephone jangled. Bushell made a typographical error. Muttering a low-voiced curse, he spun his chair around so he could pick up the phone. It was not the first such interruption he’d had today.
“Bushell,” he said.
A woman’s voice spoke into his ear. “I have a long-distance call for you from New Orleans, Colonel, uh, Bushell.” She hesitated over his name, but pronounced it correctly.
“Go ahead,” he said wearily.
“Go ahead,” the operator echoed, and a man came on the line: “Good afternoon, Colonel; I am Chauncey Dupuy, of the Herald-Leader and Picayune.” He sounded like a New Orleans man, with an accent that at first hearing sounded more nearly northeastern than southern. “I wish to ask you some questions about this outrageous ransom demand for the return of The Two Georges.”
“Go ahead,” Bushell repeated. He knew what the questions would be before they were asked, and answered them with mechanical competence. Yes, he had received the ransom note. Yes, the photograph appeared genuine. No, he couldn’t say anything more about it than that. Yes, fifty million pounds was, as far as he knew, the largest ransom demand in the history of the NAU (Dupuy was thorough; not all the newshounds asked that one). Yes, the demand had been passed on to Sir Martin Luther King. No, Bushell didn’t know whether Sir Martin intended to meet it.
“What would you do if it were up to you, Colonel?” Dupuy asked.
“Go on with my work without having to answer some reporter’s questions every half hour,” Bushell answered. “Good day, sir.” With that, he hung up.
He turned the swivel chair back toward the typewriter. After he’d erased his error, though, he hesitated, then spun around to the desk again. He picked up the telephone, rang up the RAM switchboard. He told the operator who answered, “Direct any more calls for me from reporters to Lieutenant Thirkettle, if you’d be so kind. He can tell them as much as I can.”
“Very good, Colonel,” the operator said sympathetically. “I’ll pass the word on to the rest of the crew. Shall we brief the next shift in the same way?”
“Probably a good idea,” Bushell replied after a moment’s thought. “I’m liable to stay on after you’ve gone home.” He was liable to fall asleep in his chair again, too. He thought about ordering a cot sent up and installing it in his office. If things got worse, he would. How could things get worse? he asked himself, and was afraid he might find out.
He knew brief guilt at dumping the reporters in Lieutenant Thirkettle’s lap. But what was a public information officer for, if not to give the public information? And reporters, as they themselves like to brag, were part of the public.
Conscience thus assuaged, Bushell rang the Hotel La Cienega and asked to speak to Kathleen Flannery. After a moment’s silence, the hotel operator replied, “I’m sorry, sir, but Dr. Flannery checked out earlier this morning.”
“Thank you,” Bushell said, and hung up. He hadn’t told Kathleen she couldn’t leave town; he’d had no reason to justify telling her anything of the sort. But she’d be in transit for the next two or three days if she was going back home to Victoria, and so hard to reach. He supposed he could track down which train or airship she’d taken and wire ahead to one of its stopping points, but a moment’s thought told him it wasn’t worth the effort. All he’d wanted to know was her view of ransoming The Two Georges, and her view wouldn’t count. That decision rested on the shoulders of Sir Martin Luther King. Now that he’d given Thirkettle the joy of dealing with reporters, he had some small hope of catching up on the paperwork the reporters had been interrupting. He turned back to the typewriter and plunged ahead. Just as he was beginning to concentrate on the report in front of him, someone knocked on the frame of the open door.
He looked up with a snarl, ready to rend whoever had the temerity to break in on his thoughts at the exact moment when he was starting to accomplish something. Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg, however, was not rendable, not by a mere colonel. “Sorry to bother you, Tom,” Bragg said, as if they had not quarreled a few hours before, “but Sir Martin had summoned both you and me to a meeting in his suite at the Grosvenor to discuss our proper response to the demand you received this morning.”