Sir Horace Bragg had been installed in an office not far from Rhodes’s; the two captains who had shared it were now squatting with a couple of other officers of similarly unexalted rank. “Good morning, Tom,” Bragg said, looking up from a copy of the New Liverpool Tory. Like all the other dailies, the conservative newspaper headlined the Sons’ demand for fifty million pounds. Bragg neatly folded the paper and set it on his desk. “What can I do for you?”
“You can say good-bye, sir, and wish me luck,” Bushell said.
Behind his reading glasses, Bragg’s eyes widened. He peered over the rims of the spectacles to see Bushell clearly. “My God, Tom, you’re not so upset about yesterday that you’re quitting on me?” he said, something like horror in his voice.
“Quitting on you? No, sir,” Bushell answered. A great many things had passed through his mind since The Two Georges was stolen, but resigning from the RAMs was not among them. He explained what he did have in mind.
Sir Horace took off his glasses and set them atop the Tory. His usually doleful expression grew even more so. “I know why you want to leave, but please reconsider,” he said. “If you go gallivanting off into the wilderness, it will be like cutting off my right hand here.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t see it that way,” Bushell answered. “With you here, I don’t have either enough work or enough responsibility to make staying worth my while. From where I stand, I’m not your right hand now; I’m put away on a shelf. I can’t bear that.”
“Then I’ll go back to Victoria,” Sir Horace said, getting up from his chair as if he intended to start walking that very instant. “I’ll stay in overall charge of the case from the capital, but the day-to-day search here will be in your hands.”
“That’s - extraordinarily generous of you, sir,” Bushell said, touched at the confidence his old friend and present superior vested in him. But, gently, he continued, “It’s impossible, though, and you know it as well as I do. After yesterday afternoon, Sir Martin would never let you go away and leave me at the top of the tree here - and if the thought even crossed his mind, Sir David would talk him out of it.”
“I’ll speak to Sir Martin - ” Bragg’s voice stumbled and faltered. He didn’t imagine he could change the governor-general’s mind, either. He glared at Bushell. “I’m sorrier than I can say that you feel the need to do this, Tom. I would have stayed home had I thought my coming here would make you want to leave. But since you do, I wish you Godspeed and good luck.” He stuck out his hand. Bushell took it, squeezed hard. “Thank you, sir. I’ll bring that painting back.” Without waiting for Sir Horace’s reply, he turned and left the office. He hadn’t even got to the hall before a wide smile spread over his face. He’d been difficult, he’d been stubborn, and he’d got away with it. He hadn’t been up in his own office long before someone tapped on the door frame. He looked up from paperwork to find Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Crooke standing there. “Yes?” Bushell asked, wondering if Sir Horace had sent up the expert on the Sons of Liberty to try to change his mind.
“Lieutenant General Bragg tells me you’ll be leaving New Liverpool to pursue your investigation of the theft,” Crooke began. Bushell nodded cautious agreement, still not sure what the RAM from Victoria had in mind. Then Crooke’s very blue eyes kindled. “Would you be so kind as to consider letting me accompany you, sir? When I bearded Sir Horace about it, he didn’t look happy, but - ”
“ - Then again, he never looks happy,” Bushell finished.
“Well, yes,” Crooke beamed. “In the end, he gave his permission: said he would have told me no if he could, but he didn’t see the way to do it.”
“He told me very much the same thing, but he didn’t find a way to say no to me, either,” Bushell answered. “There’s a certain freedom you find when you defy authority and pull it off, isn’t there?”
“Yes, sir,” Felix Crooke said enthusiastically.
“I’d be delighted to have you along,” Bushell said, warming to that enthusiasm. “Do you have the gear you’ll need? We may be going into rugged country now and again, and I aim to leave New Liverpool tomorrow, by airship if possible. I’ve no idea how long we’ll be gone.”
“What I don’t have, I’ll beg, borrow, or buy when we get where we’re going,” Crooke replied. He hesitated. “Where are we going?”
“First stop I have in mind is Skidegate,” Bushell said. Crooke nodded; he remembered where the little town was. Bushell went on, “From there, I have no idea. With luck, either we’ll find leads there or more will turn up here to give us our direction.” Without luck, he’d be stuck on the Queen Charlotte Islands utterly devoid of ideas, a notion he found too depressing to contemplate. Felix Crooke must have felt the same way. “Capital!” he exclaimed. “I shall have to lay in a mackintosh, then, or something of the sort. I didn’t think I’d need one, coming to New Liverpool in June.”
“I expect we’ll be able to fit you out with one here at headquarters,” Bushell said. “It does rain in New Liverpool, though not in June. I have one question: did you bring a weapon with you?”
“A weapon?” Crooke stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking Finnish. “Colonel, I tell you honestly, the thought never once crossed my mind.”
“Well it bloody well should, for this jaunt,” Bushell said. “The Sons killed Tricky Dick with a rifle. They’ve been shipping more rifles into New Liverpool, how many God only knows. One of the men who actually lifted The Two Georges menaced the guards with a pistol. These are not chaps who play by the rules.”
“You’re right, of course, and I thank you for reminding me,” Crooke murmured. “The need would never have occurred to me if you hadn’t. Even the Sons don’t, or rather didn’t, commonly go in for firearms. Can I draw a revolver from your armorer?”
“If you can’t, we’ll have a new armorer this time tomorrow.”
Felix Crooke smiled. “Capital!” he said again, and looked excited, from which Bushell concluded he’d never been under fire. “Where do I find the gentleman?” Bushell gave him directions. He set off with a spring in his step. Bushell envied him his innocence.
The RAM chief was pounding away on the typewriter when another knock made him spin in his chair. Samuel Stanley had already stridden into the office and now shut the door behind him. Bushell studied his face, then said, “All right, Sam, what’s gone wrong this time?”
“Sir, I have a favor to ask of you.” Stanley sounded so solemn and formal, dread grew to flower in Bushell’s heart. He didn’t remember the last time his adjutant had called him sir, as opposed to chief, when the two of them were alone together.
“Whatever you need,” he said expansively. Only after the words were out of his mouth did he remember the trouble Herodotus said Xerxes the Persian king had found for himself with a similar rash promise. The trouble with a classic education was that you commonly didn’t remember the wise precepts you’d picked up till it was too late to use them.
But Samuel Stanley, instead of asking for the moon, the stars, or something equally unattainable, said, “Sir, when you go after The Two Georges, please take me with you.”