For the Good of the State

Tom’s mouth opened, but then closed again as he concentrated on negotiating the track’s final constriction—a little bridge so narrow and scarred by previous too-close encounters with vehicles that he feared for the Cortina’s rusty wings—so that for that moment the idea of Zarubin in his wider setting, as the KGB’s religious expert, slipped away from him.

‘Phew! What a place!’ said Audley in an oddly stilted voice. ‘“The Pleasant Isle of Aves”, no less!’

‘What?’ Once over the bridge they were on a wider road, although the remains of its ancient metalling was hardly visible among its pot-holes as it led them towards a scatter of vehicles parked beside a huddle of cottages at the far end of the meadow.

‘Kipling, dear boy.’ Audley craned his neck to take in the scene.

“This isn’t quite Stalky country— Dunsterville country, I should say… But it’s tucked away well enough to qualify, eh?‘ He twisted in order to examine their line of approach. ’No coaches, and precious few tourists… But, if old Nikolai isn’t romancing us, this is where Major-General Zarubin’s paternal ancestors scratched a risky and uncertain living, fishing for the fickle shoals of herring in olden times.‘ He came back to Tom. ’Herring, wouldn’t it have been? Didn’t they catch herring hereabouts, off Lynmouth, before they caught tourists in season?‘

‘Did they?’ Tom noted the cars (an elderly Land Rover, scarred from the bridge; a decrepit Austin 1100, resting on its collapsed Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State springs; a vintage Volkswagen Beetle, waiting for a collector to find it; and the same spanking-new Montego he had noted outside the Green Man last night, in which Professor Panin and his hit-man had kept their last rendezvous); while, at the same time, he expanded Zarubin’s role: not so much an expert, rather a removal man— a remover of turbulent and inconvenient priests from the scenes of KGB action?

‘Of course they did!’ Audley sniffed, but in derision and not because of his cold. ‘Herring was the fish, in the old days: it fed the poor and it manned the Royal Navy—they ploughed it into the fields, even… But I don’t expect you’ve ever eaten a herring, eh?

No “herrings-in-tomato-sauce” for you, even! Fish fingers, more like—eh?’ But now he had also taken in the cars, as he freed himself from his safety-belt, as Tom parked on the end of them, beside the Montego. ‘But at least we’re in the right place, anyway.’

Tom released his own belt. ‘But where’s Zarubin, then?’

‘Huh! He’ll be walking his father’s old path, along the cliffs—like old Nikolai said he would.’ Audley gave him an old-fashioned grin, and shook his head in agreement. ‘I know, I know! The idea of Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin cherishing a sentimental conceit for any-bloody-thing… let alone for his ancestral past…

that’s not likely, I do agree, Tom. But, then, most of the things people do, when they can indulge the luxury of doing those things for their own gratification…’ He shook his head again ‘… The truth is that Panin’s got us by the short hairs, and he knows it.

Because even producing Zarubin for our inspection—producing him privately, face-to-face like this, away from the official Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State embassy circuit… I could never resist the opportunity, just in case it offered us a dividend.’ He pushed open the door, and swung one leg out of it. ‘But offering us a name, into the bargain—you tell me, Tom: what would you do?’ He fixed Tom irrevocably. ‘After what’s already happened back there, in that damned abattoir of his?’

Tom saw the ultimate conflict of interests clearly, between himself and Audley—between the minder and the minded, whose interests were more often than not fatally opposed when it came to risk-taking. But to that he also had a standard answer. ‘If I were you, David—that is, if I were as pig-headed as you, but perhaps a bit more sensible… if I were you, I’d send someone else instead of me

—’ He raised his hand quickly ‘—because it might be safer for all concerned, is why: not cowardice, but plain common sense.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not a target. At least, not on my own I’m not.

But if you are… then we both are at risk. So let me go instead of you.’

‘Mmm…’ Audley looked down the mouth of the combe, towards its U-shaped opening to the sea. Then he smiled at Tom across the bonnet of the car. ‘I must admit that I did toy with that convenient get-out myself, not so very long ago. And… not so much because I really believe in its logic, as because I have an absurd hankering to see my unborn grandchildren one day.’ Only then he shook his head back at Tom. ‘But it won’t do, I’m afraid… and I’m afraid that “afraid” is right. But for two reasons, I’m afraid, anyway.’ He stopped abruptly, and pointed down the combe again. ‘Do you see where the path goes up the hillside, beyond the cottages—on the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State right there? That’ll be what they call the “Somerset and North Devon Coast Path” on the map, I shouldn’t wonder—eh?’

Tom had already noted the map and observed the zigzag line.

‘What two reasons?’ It was useless to argue, but he must make the attempt.

“The odds are that he won’t talk to you—Zarubin won’t.‘ Audley started to climb into his raincoat. ’I brought an umbrella, didn’t I? I put it in the back somewhere—?‘

‘Then he can talk to you some other time. On our terms.’ There was a huge ugly burn-mark on the big man’s sleeve—on both sides of the sleeve, in fact; with a puncture mark in its centre—and there must be several other such marks elsewhere on the coat, for a guess. ‘On our terms, when you’re good and ready, David.’

Audley reappeared triumphantly from the car, brandishing the umbrella. ‘I knew it was there… But I am ready, dear boy. And never more so than now.’ He stepped away from the car. ‘Come on, then.’

Tom watched him sniff the wind, and despaired. “That’s only one reason.‘

‘No, it isn’t.’ As it wasn’t actually raining the old man busied himself with furling the umbrella neatly, as though for a stroll up Whitehall. That is the other reason, exactly: if I let the bastards frighten me now, I’ll never walk free again—don’t you see?‘ He stabbed the umbrella decisively into the mud at his feet, looking at Tom with a quite uncharacteristically pleading look. ’Don’t you see?‘

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Tom saw—and saw suddenly to the uttermost part, which he had never glimpsed so clearly before. But he couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘If they want me dead, then I am dead,’ said Audley disarmingly.

‘But if they don’t… and I don’t go and find out what they do want now… then I shall have to move house, and take all sorts of quite demoralizing precautions—at least, until Jack Butler can read the riot act to them… And I’m damned if I’m going to put Jack to that sort of trouble.’ Another grin. ‘And I’m also damned if I’m going to let them make me a coward-dying-many-times-before-his-death, too! I’m damned if I’m going to let Panin do that to me, in fact.’

The grin vanished utterly. ‘So let’s go and find out what the old devil’s really got up to then, Tom—right?’

So they walked.

Their walking was unreal, but on one level of experience its unreality was no new experience for Tom: the routine precautions he had superintended in the past, even in nominally peaceful parts of the Middle East, had always been fraught with similar tension; and in the Lebanon, where each side was against itself, as well as the middle and the mirror-image extremes, unreality was the only reality within the killing-zone.

But what was different here, and more unnerving, was the far greater unreality of a landscape in which only nature and the elements were violent, with no eyeless ruins and twisted wreckage, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State but only a coastline beaten by the fierce winter gales and the unconquerable sea itself the same natural path along which Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin’s father just might have walked, from Brentiscombe Point to Lynmouth long ago, before he had walked all the way from the Caspian Sea to Moscow long ago, long ago, long ago!

‘It’s amazing how the wind hits you, and then misses you, isn’t it!’

Audley puffed slightly, from the steepness of the path, as they completed the first zig-zag up the hillside. ‘I wonder whether he really did.’

‘Who—’ Puffed or not, the old man was always difficult to keep up with ‘ — who did? And did what?’

‘But it’s quite blown my cold away.’ Audley stopped for a moment, and drew the salt-sea wind into his lungs.

‘The wind?’ And, as always, Audley was hard to keep up with on another level. ‘Who did what?’

‘Zarubin pere.’ Audley nodded at the wrinkled, white-waved water, which was already far below them. ‘God help sailors on a day like this! Whether he was a simple sailor-lad, o’ertaken by great events—a great war and a great revolution, to name but two—

and cast ashore in a far foreign land… And you can’t get much further or more foreign than the Caspian, at the mouth of the Volga.’ He cocked an eye at Tom. ‘What a story—if it’s true!’

‘Yes.’ This time he managed to start walking alongside the old man, trying to match stride for stride. ‘I was thinking the same Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State thing. If it’s true.’

‘Uh-huh. It would be nice to think it was, somehow.’ Audley nodded as he walked. ‘Pity that we’ll never know now.’

‘We’ll never know?’ Tom cocked his own eye at the skyline above them. The steep hillside wore a combat jacket of browns and greens, the russet of last year’s bracken mixed with the winter-worn dark gorse and lighter grass and broken by rocky outcrops.

‘Won’t we?’

‘Panin’s a careful man. If it wasn’t true he’d make it so, for our benefit, just in case. He’s a man who likes to mix certainty with risk, I think—or the other way round.’

‘But why?’ Far down below, on the green floor of the combe, he could see two tiny figures in red anoraks—children at this height, but they might easily be adults—circling two toy black-and-white cows in the meadow; while above him the skyline and the whole landscape was empty. But in this well-camouflaged country the only certainty was risk, was all he knew. ‘Why, David?’

Audley said nothing for a dozen yards or more, as they followed the path across the hillside, over a stone culvert through which a stream splashed, noisy but invisible under the bracken. ‘Who knows? If this is really Zarubin’s country, then Panin must have thanked his lucky stars, because he’d know I couldn’t resist such a tale, never mind the bait. And if it isn’t… well, the same pretty much applies, whichever way the game’s played: I did the dirty on him, once upon a time. So it’s only history repeating itself, with a few cosmetic variations. He knows — and he also knows that I know. And so on, ad infinitum— it’s no use trying to make sense of Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State it: it’s only like peeling a large Spanish onion, which makes me weep, but never makes me sad.’ He half-turned towards Tom in mid-stride, and patted himself vaguely in the midriff. ‘All we can do is keep our powder dry, like Jack Butler always says… and hope for the best, eh?’

Tom remembered two uncomfortable things almost simultaneously, and was further reminded of both of them by the additional burn-marks which Audley’s flapping raincoat revealed during the half-turn: the dead Pole’s little pistol, which Audley had palmed as ‘evidence’, would be about as much use in these conditions as a peashooter (even supposing the old man could still point it in the right direction, and not shoot himself in the foot); and, in these same conditions, his own Police Smith and Wesson, in his own hand and with five rounds remaining, provided only marginally more protection, if that.

‘Yes.’ He grinned foolishly at Audley. There was no point in voicing his professional doubts now. All he could do was hope for that best of Audley’s, while the stretch of path ahead of them was still empty. (Only Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and Visiting KGB

Generals, went out in such wind-and-rain.) And the gorse-broken skyline was still equally empty above them. ‘You’re right, David.’

All the same, he scanned their surroundings even more carefully—

only to discover instantly that the zag of the zig-zag behind them was no longer empty, however innocent: there was a head-scarfed woman there, with a child hidden in a push-chair, accompanied by a youth encased in a green anorak carrying an enormous red-and-yellow kite—clutching it with evident care, and obvious difficulty, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State since it was doing its best to hang-glide him into space already from the less-windy stretch of the path below.

‘What’s the matter, Tom?’ inquired Audley.

‘Nothing.’ If the bloody child soared into the skyline under his bloody kite, then that would have to be a problem for his idiot mother. All Sir Thomas Arkenshaw and Dr David Audley needed to do was to get round this last bit of pathway, in order not to be able to witness the tragedy, with the wind taking care of the mother’s anguished cries.

‘What?’ Audley was oblivious of women and children and kites.

‘Nothing.’ Tom erased them too. ‘I was going to say… you don’t really think Panin’s up to more violence, surely?’

‘Hah!’ Audley breathed in gratefully. ‘No, I don’t, Tom.’ He supported this pronouncement with another huge breath, cold-free, taken into the teeth of the wind. ‘Instinct tells me not. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, to be honest.’ Another huge breath. ‘Because age has made a coward of me.’

‘What?’ Partly it was because the wind made the old man almost inaudible. But also Tom couldn’t resist taking another look at the Mad Englishwoman and her family. (And she was trying to button up the protective hood of the baby’s push-chair now, while the Awful Child was wrestling with his kite.)

‘What I’m depending on—’ Audley almost shouted the words ‘—

is that Panin will know that Jack Butler will hold him responsible if anything unpleasant happens to me, no matter how it seems. Just as

—’ The wind gusted strongly, carrying away the rest of his words.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State And if anything unpleasant happens to us? Tom wondered momentarily, although he already knew the answer to his own fate: the doom of bodyguards down the ages, long before King Harold’s household thegns had died to a man round his body, was part of the contract of service. Even if Willy Groot shed a tear for him she would still reckon he’d only got what he asked for in his line of work.

Somehow Audley had got ahead of him again. ‘What—?’

The old man stopped, and stared around for a second, and then turned. ‘I said “Just as Jack will hold me responsible for whatever happens otherwise”, Tom.’ He gave Tom a hard look. ‘And Henry Jaggard will hold you responsible also, eh?’

The wind dropped, suddenly and freakishly, so that Audley’s final shout came out unnaturally loudly, us though to emphasize what had been in the back of Tom’s mind ever since he had come to his decision. Then, even more suddenly, its full force hit him again at the corner of the path where it reached the coast at last, almost stopping him in his tracks.

‘Yes—’ Not so much the wind as the whole glorious panorama of the North Devon coastline took his breath away, with headland after headland plunging uncompromisingly into the sea, with the promise of deepwater directly beneath them: an indomitable coast against which the wind and the waves beat endlessly but in vain.

But Audley was still staring at him, partly blocking his view of the path along this coast and finally concentrating his mind at the same time. ‘I shall resign, of course,’ he said.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Yes?’ Disappointingly, the big man accepted this shock-horror revelation with only mild interest. ‘Why?’

It was on the tip of Tom’s tongue to tell the truth, that he was fed up with the accumulated risk of being an accidental and secondary target while trying unsuccessfully to make obstinate old buggers like Audley himself take the most basic precautions. But then he saw that it wasn’t quite the real truth.

‘I can’t work for a man I’ve betrayed.’ He liked the harshness in his own voice. ‘I should have quit an hour ago, and left you to get on with your damn “Nikolai” by yourself. But I promised your daughter, in a moment of weakness, that I’d watch over you, David.’ Looking at Audley now was like looking at a coin with hate on one side, and love on the other, when the coin was balanced so that he could see neither side. ‘I’m keeping faith with her now—against my better judgement.’

‘Ah!’ Still only mild interest. ‘The old thankless task! Believe me, boy—I do understand. Because I’ve been there too, myself.’ The old Beast-smile returned, moistened now by the fine mist of rain which was stinging Tom’s own cheek, hard-driven by the wind.

‘So just answer me this one question, then: who would you betray—

your country or your friend?’

As well as irritation bordering on anger, Tom felt the rain driving cold into his exposed eye. ‘That’s a ridiculous question, David. It’s bad enough to have to risk my neck for you. But I don’t have to put up with humbug as well.’

‘No.’ The smile twisted downwards. ‘But just this once—just this last time… can’t you humour your dear mother’s old friend?’ The Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State smile vanished. ‘And then no more questions.’

That Mamusia’s old flame played dirty right to the last question was absurdly comforting, somehow: it made the outcome of that old, long-resolved contest between Audley and Father, in which Father would always have played a straight bat (just like William Marshall in Ranulf of Chester’s day) quite astonishing. But it also confirmed every loving thing he had ever thought about Father in that same instant.

‘All right.’ He wished Audley would get out of the way, so that he could see the path ahead; but this answer must clear that obstacle too, anyway. ‘Since this is my country it’s no question. But if it was Poland… that might be more difficult. But in this country… if my so called “friend” was British, then he would have already betrayed me, and all my other friends, so he’d be a traitor, and

“betrayal” doesn’t describe my reaction to that, when I blow the whistle on him. Or, if he’s a foreigner… then he’s a false friend and an enemy—I might still honour him then, but “betrayal” still doesn ’t apply, just the same, when I get him in my sights—‘ In spite of all the wind (or perhaps because of it), a sudden tingle in his nose made him sneeze. ’Is that what you want? “My country”—

right… before my “friend”— wrong? ‘

Audley shook his head. ‘It was just a question.’ He stepped aside, leaning into the wind, which flapped his bullet-ridden raincoat around his knees, to reveal the path behind him as well as the bullet-holes. ‘I already had my money on the answer. And there’s a place for you in R & D when you want it, is my answer to that, Tom.’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State The cleared path had a foreground, and a middleground, and a background, snaking round the next headland. But there was only the middleground, really. Because there, where the path cut into a cascade of dead bracken and heather and gorse which fell from the skyline above down into the invisible sea far below, three men were waiting for them.

Three—?

Instantly, he sorted them out: saw, but didn’t count, Nikolai Andrievich Panin, muffled against the wind and dark-overcoated still; saw, but dismissed, his little Major, who was better-protected in a short rainproof jacket like the Barbour which Willy had been wearing, wherever Willy might be, but somewhere mercifully safe now; and saw, and only saw, the third and last and first figure most of all, raincoated like Audley.

‘You watch Sadowski, Tom.’ Audley shouted his whisper at close quarters. ‘I don’t trust Panin… But Sadowski is a bloody hit-man!

Remember?’ He touched Tom’s arm, propelling him forward.

‘Remember?’

‘Yes.’ Tom let himself be propelled on to the foreground of the path, where a trickle of water from the hillside above had reduced the path to a morass churned up by footprints and hoofprints; although all he could really concentrate on as he squelched forward was that first figure.

The mud gave way and slid treacherously underfoot, but he could still only see Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin standing four-square on the path, in what might have been his father’s country, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State and his grandfather’s, before the two world wars had demoted and promoted his line: another tall, raincoated figure, almost as broad-shouldered as Audley himself, waiting now to make them that offer which Audley had chosen not to refuse, with the headlands behind him already fading into the rain-squall which was sweeping into them, and over them, out of the infinite greyness of sea-and-sky which filled half their world.

He lifted his hand, to keep the driving rain off his cheek and out of his ear, and also so that he might hear what Audley might say, as the gap between them decreased step by step; and, at the same time, reached across his chest and felt the weight and shape of the Smith and Wesson; and finally glanced up to scan the gorse-broken skyline above them.

Odd that there was still a scatter of yellow flowers on this sea-blown wuzzy, when there hadn’t been a single flower on the gorse at Mountsorrel: and some of these were winter-browned at the edges (he saw each complex flower with a photographic clarity which surprised him); but others were blooming freshly, defying wind, and winter equally, against all the odds, while all the lower ground-hugging heather flowers were long-dead and colourless—

‘He’s a big bugger, isn’t he!’ Audley’s words, when they came, were utterly inconsequential. ‘I wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark alley in Berlin—either side of the Wall!’

Almost as big as you are—or maybe even bigger! The thought twisted through Tom’s brain, challenging him to wonder what Audley himself had been like in his own dark alleys, years ago, in the dark ages.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘He doesn’t even look like a Russian.’ Audley hissed his final useless judgement into Tom’s protected landward ear in the instant that he quickened and lengthened his stride across the last few yards, to the man himself, thrusting out his hand in a classic gesture of false friendship. ‘ General Zarubin! Good morning to you. ’

A shaft of light—it wasn’t true sunlight, but it was something more than the murk which had shrouded them so far—lightened the two big men as they met, as Zarubin matched Audley with his own hand: it was a strange unnatural light, like the light of Limbo, between Heaven and Hell—

‘ Dr Audley—’

Time accelerated and slowed down, spiked on now and on for ever afterwards simultaneously, as the two meat-plate hands reached out towards each other, with an empty yard separating them which would never be bridged as the Major-General seemed to throw himself forward, on to hands and knees, to stare through Audley with blank astonishment in the same now-and-never instant that the bright red blossomed from his white shirt on each side of his tartan tie, and the blood gushed out of his mouth like vomit—

Tom hit Audley with his shoulder, every ounce of his weight spinning the big man sideways against the overhang of the hillside, above the path, even before General Zarubin’s dead body finally subsided into the mud.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘ Oooff! ’ The sound of Audley’s breath and his own mingled as they both fell, binding them together into oak-tree-and-ivy flailing together in their fall, with no thought for afterwards. But then Tom’s training (never before exercised like that), and Audley’s lack-of-training (still uninformed from yesterday’s bullet, and still unbelieving), turned them both into a confusion of threshing legs and arms, all trying to re-establish their independence.

‘For Christ’s sake—!’ Audley mouthed the words into his ear.

‘Shut up!’ Tom pushed him down as he tried to sit up, pressing his face into the stony bank below the yellow-flowered gorse. ‘God—!’

God was not an appeal: God was the sight of Nikolai Panin still standing up in the open, above the still-twitching body of Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin, as though the rest of his life had minutes to spare, not seconds. ‘Get down, man! For God’s sake—!’

Panin threw away another precious second in shifting his surprised look from the hillside above to Tom. Then he hunched himself ludicrously, as though to make a smaller target, and sank to his knees beside Zarubin.

To hell with him! thought Tom, as Audley pushed and heaved beneath him. He could take his bloody chances!

‘Damn you, Tom! Let me up, damn you!’ Audley swore at him.

‘You stay right where you are.’ Tom kept his elbow on Audley’s neck as he watched Panin raise his comrade’s body slightly, and simultaneously tried to remember the instant of the bullet’s impact.

Because there was a dark mark no bigger than a shilling high up on the broad expanse of Zarubin’s back, just above the shoulder-Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State blade: so the high-velocity bullet had come downwards steeply, shattering flesh and bone, to blossom that huge exit-wound where the shirt had reddened—had come downwards from not far away, and not more laterally from some distance greater ahead of them—

He couldn’t hold the big man down much longer—

That was right! Because the three men had been hugging this same overhang above the path, where the wind hadn’t been so fierce, when he had first glimpsed them.

So the killer hadn’t killed before because he hadn’t had a clear shot until Zarubin stepped out to greet Audley—

Christ! The next thought rolled Audley away from him, even as he cleared the Smith and Wesson from its holster. ‘Get down, David!’

‘What the devil—?’ Even in the instant of his release Audley picked up his panic signal, and shrank into the overhang obediently.

‘Where’s Sadowski?’ Tom snarled at Panin.

‘Sadowski?’ The Russian let go of Zarubin’s shoulder, and the body dropped back into the mud as though gravity finally had a stronger claim on death than on life. ‘Major Sadowski is doing his duty, Sir Thomas.’ He looked down at the blood on his hand with evident distaste. But then calmly wiped it off on the dead man’s raincoat before looking up again at Tom. ‘Just as you are doing now.’

The freak wind suddenly howled around them, swirling the sharp raindrops into Tom’s face from a new direction, half-blinding him.

Tom—‘ Audley’s voice came from behind and below him ’— go!‘

‘No!’ Panin straightened up, still on his knees but fumbling into his Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State raincoat. ‘Your duty is to protect us, Sir Thomas. Let Sadowski—’

‘Shut up!’ Audley’s voice was level with Tom now, and it was deep-frozen with pure hate. ‘And if you find what you’ve got inside there, I’ll shoot you in the guts, I swear to God—as God is my witness!’ The old man’s voice modulated, as though he was surprised by his own passion. ‘I’ll shoot you in the guts, Nikolai…

because after all these years the only thing I can remember is to shoot low—so I may actually shoot your balls off instead— go, Tom! ’

Panin froze. Then swayed, as another gust shook him; but swayed like a frozen dummy nevertheless, unmoving even though moving.

‘That’s right.’ Thick velvet suddenly coveted the steel. ‘Now the hand comes out— slowly… ever-so slowly… that’s right! ’ Audley drew a deep breath. ‘God! You were bloody close then, I tell you!

Because it’s been forty years… well, maybe thirty years, give or take… But I never was very good with small guns. Okay with 75-millimetres, but no good with 9-millimetres… Go, Tom—for God’s sake, while this old devil and I frighten each other equally—go on, Tom! Go!’

Standing up on the path, even for an instant, also frightened Tom.

But then the beginning of returning logic steeled him to take a full look at the skyline above him, with the loss of precious time already also spurring calculation as he did so: Sadowski had gone straight up into the wuzzy, somewhere behind them — but why?

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Go on, Tom—go find out what he’s up to, there’s a good chap.’

Audley had his voice almost back to the conversational level. Yet somehow that sounded louder than a shout inside Tom’s head as he moved obediently to the order.

Sadowski wasn’t protecting Panin, as he ought to be doing—

The overhang, where the cliff-path had been cut from the living rock of the hillside, soon petered out. But then the gorse-wuzzy was still old and impenetrable as he searched for an opening further along as he followed the path round the headland, its sharp spikes and brown-frosted yellow flowers mocking him—

Like Sadowski, he wasn’t protecting his man now, so what the hell was he doing?

There was a gap just ahead, at last—

There was something very wrong here: he had promised Henry Jaggard implicitly, and Cathy Audley explicitly, not to do what he was doing; and he was risking his own life in breaking those promises. But, in the midst of what was now a huge disaster, David Audley had given an order, because his instinct was to fight disaster, to the last gasp and the last bullet—and—and by sweet Jesus Christ!—that was his own Polish instinct, too!

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Now there was the gap in the wuzzy—a gap where a summer-fire had burnt it back long ago, to let the heather and the bracken get a stronger foothold for a time until it could re-establish itself—so that was the way he would go—

The dead wuzzy and heath and bracken gave place suddenly to a crumbling stone wall, reinforced by a sheep-proof wire fence.

Over the wall and the fence: there was smooth hillside grass now, liberally sprinkled with sharp-focused sheep-dung and smaller rabbit-droppings, with the curve of the headland above him and the full fury of the wind at his back, driving him upwards towards the crest; indeed, even as he let the wind drive him, he saw real sheep away to his left, huddled against the inland line of the wall, and also the white danger-signal tail of a rabbit bobbing off to his left, into a square wall of windswept gorse—

But there was no other living thing, either ahead or left-and-right, as he came towards the high point, with the whole coastline behind him fully revealed and stretching into far rain-mist: this, almost to the very yard, where that dimpled trench-line marked the edge of the gorse square, must have been where the old Romans had built their signal-station, with this superb view of any Irish raiders sailing up the Bristol Channel—although in this bone-cutting wind it must have been more a punishment-posting than a mere watch-keeping duty—

Another ten yards, and he would be at the high-point of the ditch, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State where the ancient palisaded-and-revetted gateway must have been, with a high watchtower somewhere inside that wuzzy, all built with timber brought up from distant inland wooded valleys with great labour and organization far surpassing anything Ranulf of Caen and Gilbert of Mountsorrel could have managed more than a thousand years later, in a less efficient age of the world—

And then he saw them: and saw them both together, on the corner of another sheep-wall-and-fence inwards from the Roman signal station, but not in those other ages of Romans and Normans safely dead, but in his own now, with his own death shouting —

Which way?

They saw him almost in the same instant, perhaps by chance, or perhaps because they were being properly careful: it didn’t matter, because in his own age, if he gave that damned Green Machine rifle a clear sight, he was dead now—and the odds against him clogged his throat with fear even as he tried to make a decision—

Which way? Because if he went back the way he had come, the curve of the hillside would still give them a clear view as he reached the stone wall again, which was higher on this side, so that he would have to climb up it—

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State The thought became its own decision: there was a narrow band of grass between the gorse-wuzzy of the Roman fort and the steep bracken-and-heather below him, and his legs were already anticipating his brain’s instructions, already running him where he needed to go, automatically twisting and jinking him like that frightened rabbit which had itself showed him how to take cover in the wuzzy.

But he wasn’t going into the wuzzy like the rabbit: the gorse was old and thick on both sides of him, and even if he could break through it (which he didn’t think he could, anyway), it would slow him down too much—or it might even stop him altogether. And that was all the man with the rifle needed—

(‘The Green Machine’, Audley had called it, of course: ‘They had a break-in and lost a couple—’: and they had one in the car now—

but the other was up there on his flank somewhere! Damn, damn damn!)

He had to keep moving: so long as he was moving sideways—then he had a chance. Not even the best marksman liked deflection shooting: marksmen liked sitting targets—

But the damned wuzzy was still too high on either side, and he could feel the land falling away under his feet with each rabbit-bound. So what he was doing now was running back the way he’d come, parallel to the invisible path below him and the great grey sea itself. So this route would trap him on the very point of the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State high ground, on that last straight stretch after the zig-zags had brought them up from Brentiscombe meadow. So… he must bear right—must take the risk that they were on an interception course above him: once down in that heather-and-bracken, among the stone outcrops, then he’d have a chance as they came over the skyline in their turn, because he still had his gun—

Even as he changed direction the slope in front of him seemed to drop away and the whole combe sprang into view far beneath him, with its tiny houses huddled under foreshortened trees and the line of model cars parked beyond them. But in the very instant that he saw the combe a bullet cracked viciously—cracked and double-cracked—the sound was above him, yet also somehow behind him and ahead of him too in the same fraction of time before the howling wind carried it away.

As Tom threw himself forwards he already knew that he could never keep his feet on such a descent, but he managed an impossible succession of downward rabbit-leaps towards the nearest outcrop before the ground slipped from under him on the rain-sodden bracken. Yet even then, by some acrobatic miracle, he contrived to control his slide for another twenty yards, first on his bottom and then on his back, until one foot suddenly snagged in a deep-rooted patch of heather, twisting him sideways with an explosion of pain. And then earth and sky whirled, and he was rolling and tumbling helplessly, grabbing— grabbing—

Christ Jesus! He’d lost the gun!

Heather and bracken tore his hands as he tried to slow his descent, but then the hopelessness of recovering the weapon opened them Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State again, even though he felt that it was like letting go of life itself as he slid and tumbled the last few yards to drop over a miniature cliff on to the path below.

The fall jarred stars in front of his eyes for a moment—red and yellow stars, seen hazily through blurring rain and sweat. But then they weren’t stars at all: they were a huge red-and-yellow kite, straining to escape from their owner up the path, a few yards away.

‘Get away! Get away!’ Tom screamed at the boy as he tried to struggle to his feet. ‘Get away!’

The kite and the boy parted company: the kite soared upwards and outwards, and the boy seemed to disappear outwards and downwards, over the edge of the track. And Tom cried out in anguish as his ankle grated and gave way under him.

He fell on his side, and for a second he wanted only to curl up into a ball and disappear. But then his brain ordered hands and knees—

hands and knees if not feet, Tom!

He heard himself cry out again in agony as he righted himself and the broken bones of his ankle screamed at him. And then it was too late.

It seemed hugely unfair that Major Sadowski had made the same descent somehow intact: the Major should have fallen too, and lost his gun, and even broken his bloody neck, thought Tom angrily.

But Sadowski hadn’t. And neither had the man in the combat jacket, who swam into view—unfocused and then focused—with the white eyes in the blackened face and the rifle in his hands. And that was unfair, too.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State In fact, everything was unfair—even being killed on his hands and knees on a muddy path was unfair. And his ankle hurt like hell, too

—

He wiped his sweaty face with one hand, hypnotized by the muzzle of the gun in Sadowski’s fist, which was pointing at him. But then, inexplicably, it wasn’t pointing at him as the man in the combat jacket said something—or started to say something as Sadowski shot him at close quarters, spinning him clear off the path.

Tom frowned uncomprehending at Sadowski, watching him replace the gun methodically in its holster. Then the Major took three steps and started to reach down for the rifle, which his murdered comrade had so suddenly relinquished.

‘ Leave it!’ shouted a shrill voice from far behind Tom.

The Major froze for a second, his hand halfway to the rifle. Then his head moved slightly, so that he was staring past Tom, up the path towards the sea.

The urge to turn himself in the direction of Sadowski’s stare and towards that weird far-off imperious voice, yet at the same time keep his eyes on the Major himself, was too much for flesh-and-blood: wishing to do both taxed Tom’s enfeebled powers of decision so that he attempted to do both, and ended up by doing neither as he exerted pressure again on his smashed bones and was facing uselessly into space across half an empty mile, towards the zig-zag path on the hillside on the other side of the combe, as the blinding pain and the explosive chatter of a machine-pistol confused his senses.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State The distant hillside blurred and the treacherous wind took the noise and spread it into infinity, so that the echo was only inside his head instead of reverberating up and down the combe and far and wide over the high empty Devon coastline. But it froze him nevertheless, just as the strange shrill voice had held Major Sadowski for that lost moment in the past, before he had come to what Tom knew— knew without needing to understand—had been his final and inevitable decision, because that had always been the Major’s game—

Kill, or be killed!

The far hillside became crystal-clear, so that Tom could observe with detached interest that it was steeper than his own, with less vegetation and with avalanches of rocky scree; and thought (light-headedly) that if Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin (who was dead) had climbed that way, then maybe Major Sadowski (and maybe the man-in-the-combat-jacket, with the black-face-but-white-eyes) wouldn’t be dead; but he hadn’t, and they were—he was, and they were… so now Tom Arkenshaw—so Tom Arkenshaw, against all the odds—

He lifted his bad ankle again. And, though it still screamed out at him, he was almost grateful for the pain’s reassurance that he was still in his own world, the world of the living, as he contrived to look over his shoulder at last—

He saw the child’s push-chair first, on the bend in the patch where it turned to follow the coastline a dozen yards away, almost on the very spot where he said ‘I shall resign’ to Audley, five hundred feet above the great grey angry sea, so very recently—so very Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State recently and so long ago for Zarubin and Sadowski and the camouflaged man… for them, in fact, it had been the rest of their whole lifetimes—

The head-scarfed mother detached herself from the overhang, still holding the machine-pistol stiffly at the ready, ignoring him and her empty push-chair equally as she sidled step-by-careful-step across the path—the old professionally well-balanced step, ready for anything: he had seen that before, the fluid careful body, the steady gun and the watchful eyes! But he had never really been in that class, in which preservation was not a sequence of precautions, but a violent pre-emptive action against the terrorists—

She reached the edge of the path, and took one quick up-and-down glance over it, only to confirm what she already knew while hardly taking her eye off the path over Tom and beyond him, just in case (and just in case was another hallmark of the pro)—

But now, at last, she looked at him, and advanced towards him.

And, just as he was testing the idea that maybe she wasn’t a woman after all, she smiled at him, and he knew that she was, of course: it wasn’t just that remembered voice, and certainly not the smile, it was everything about her which made her a woman.

‘Hi there, Sir Thomas.’ She was late-thirties at close quarters, but not noticeably hard-as-nails. ‘I’m Shirley.’

Tom felt at a disadvantage. ‘Hullo… Shirley.’ Part of the disadvantage was a feeling of intense gratitude. Which, because she had only been doing her job, made him also feel foolish. But there was also the fact that he couldn’t stand up: as she moved cautiously past him and he tried to keep her in sight his broken Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State bones reminded him painfully of his fall. ‘I’m afraid I’ve broken my ankle.’

‘Is that a fact?’ The path was empty except for the rifle which Sadowski had reached for in vain. But she wasn’t interested in that.

‘Is there anyone else up there, Sir Thomas?’ She watched the hillside as she spoke.

‘No.’ The pain made him catch his breath. ‘There were just the two of them.’

Two?‘ She shifted her attention to the outside edge of the path.

’Hmm… well that surely makes two.‘ She studied what he couldn’t see for a moment, then she peered further back. ’You can come on up, Wilhemina.‘

Tom’s disadvantaged feeling expanded into embarrassment. He should have known, of course—children, clogs or kites, none of them were Willy’s scene. But chiefly it was obstinate disobedience which came naturally to her.

‘Wilhemina!’ This time Shirley shouted the name. ‘Come on up!’

‘I’m coming—I’m coming!’ Willy sounded angry, rather than scared, in the distance. ‘I fell halfway down the hill, darn it, Shirl!’

Tom sat up with difficulty, holding his injured leg with both hands unsuccessfully. Not that he was about to regain much dignity, with his knuckles skinned and bloodied by his fall through the gorse, and his face not much better, by the feel of it.

‘Hmm…’ Shirley stared down at him. But there was a surprising lack of disdain in her expression. ‘You got the other one, huh?’

Tom hid his surprise beneath his pain. But then he realized that she Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State must have been round the point of the path when Sadowski had killed his comrade: she must have been covering Audley when the freak wind had carried the sound of Sadowski’s shot—or one of the shots—back to her; and Willy had been behind her, and therefore been closer to this point; so Willy had arrived here first—

was that it?

Quite deliberately, he let the bones grate again, and cried out in genuine agony.

Tom honey! For God’s sake—! ‘ Willy’s anguished cry also came to his rescue.

‘He’s okay.’ Shirl’s voice was coldly matter-of-fact. ‘He’s just hurt his ankle—that’s all.’

‘Tom honey!’ With the hood of her anorak down and her hair out she was Willy. ‘I thought you were shot!’

‘I’m all right.’ She was going to fuss over him, and he liked the idea of that because it gave him time to think. ‘Honestly I am, Willy,’

‘Oh, Tom—you’re a mess!’ Her eyes were dark with concern,

‘You’re not fit to be allowed out on your own—that’s the truth!’

What Tom thought first, as she brushed his own hair out of his eyes, was— I’m the only one who knows what really happened, in all its confusing completeness—

And then the thought betrayed him: in the second place it wasn’t quite so confusing now—

But he looked at Shirley, with sudden knowledge conferring power greater than pain. ‘Is Audley all right?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘When I last saw him he was just fine.’ Shirley rewarded him with a look of undeserved professional approval. ‘I think he was quite enjoying himself, maybe.’

Tom tried to concentrate on her, to the exclusion of Willy’s perfume and her soft solicitous touch. ‘Enjoying himself?’

‘Yeah.’ Shirley shared one efficient minder’s secret with another less-efficient minder. ‘Dr Audley likes winning, Sir Thomas.’

“W — ‘ Tom caught the word before it betrayed him, and turned it into a very different word. ’ Willy… I love you, Willy.‘ But, as he changed the word, it became the absolute and ultimate truth. ’Do you love me, Willy?‘

Wilhemina Groot considered the wreck of Sir Thomas Arkenshaw critically. ‘I don’t know about love, Tom honey. But someone has got to look after you— that I do know!’

This was what mattered, in the third place, after knowledge and power. And, also, Willy Groot would know how to keep Mamusia in her place:. ‘Will you become the umpteenth Lady Arkenshaw, in Debrett’s, and Burke’s Peerage, Willy?’

The wind and rain swirled round them, and Tom felt the wetness of the puddle in which he was sitting chill his backside. But that was a minor discomfort compared with the importance of Willy Groot’s decision, which would decide Tom Arkenshaw’s fate—and possibly Dr David Audley’s fate, and the future of Research and Development, and that preux chevalier Colonel Jack Butler with it… and maybe even Henry Jaggard too… but bugger all of them!

Tom Arkenshaw first— first and last!

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Tom honey! I thought you’d never ask—‘

‘ Christ O’Reilly! ’ Shirley exploded. ‘We’ve got two dead men within spitting distance—and a Russian with diplomatic privilege just round the corner—’

‘Shut up, Shirley,’ said Willy. ‘ Yes, Tom.’ She turned to Shirley at last. ‘Being married to Tom will never be dull: he’s a full-time job.

He’s half-Polish, you see—half good Anglo-Saxon-Anglo-Norman, but half Polish. It’s a great mixture: half of him is steady and calculates both ends against the middle—but half is into charging the machine-guns on horseback… Isn’t that the truth, Tom honey?’

Tom thought of Sadowski, who had charged his last machine-gun in vain. But then he thought of David Audley, who had calculated everything exactly in the end—even including Tom Arkenshaw himself.

‘More or less, Willy—yes.’ But what he actually thought was…

being married to Willy Groot would never be dull either, although it might be uncomfortable at times; but then being married—

professionally married—to David Audley would be much the same; but now they had both asked for his hand in marriage, and they both needed him, albeit for different reasons: so who was he to go against the vote of the majority?

He smiled at Shirley. ‘I can give you a telephone number to ring, to clear up the mess. And I think I shall also need a stretcher, to carry me back to civilization.’

Or, anyway, what passed for civilization, in an age as dark as that Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. And in so dark an age the prudent man must look to his own interests with the greatest care.

‘I’d like to talk to David Audley, too,’ he added. ‘There are things he needs to know.’

PART THREE

Winners and Losers and Winners

In the event, it was Garrod Harvey who began the inquiry into ‘The Exmoor Massacre’, not Henry Jaggard himself.

However (as Jaggard was at pains to explain very quickly), this was not because the whole thing had been his (Garrod Harvey’s) idea in the first place, but rather because his (Henry Jaggard’s) view of Research and Development was all too well-known; so that if justice was to be seen to be done (if not actually done), it would be far more distinctly seen to be so if it resulted from a recommendation from below rather than a simple act of joyful obedience on his (Henry Jaggard’s) part to a Ministerial and FCO

ultimatum.

Which was the truth, up to a point.

By then the mortal remains of Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin—

the victim of a tragic heart attack while en route to a tour of the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Westland helicopter works at Yeovil—were themselves en route to Moscow, accompanied by his grieving comrade, Professor Nikolai Andrievich Panin. And the Gorbachev appeasers in the FCO, who knew exactly what had happened to the General’s heart, had expressed ‘I-told-you-so’ delight at the Soviet Embassy’s friendly desire to hush up the whole affair, subject only to the punishment of whoever had been responsible for such lax security on the British side; which quite properly pointed to the serving up of David Audley’s head on a platter, suitably garnished with a lettuce leaf, two radishes and a carrot Julienne, in the Nouvelle Cuisine manner.

So the outcome of the inquiry was cut-and-dried, and every prospect was pleasing on the surface. But in retrospect Henry Jaggard still shuddered at the risks he had taken in going along with Garrod Harvey’s lateral thinking, for he was by nature a belt-and-braces man. And, also, he had wind of certain rumours which were going the rounds beneath the surface, which most disconcertingly combined outrageously inaccurate elements with disturbingly accurate ones; so that it was to these rumours that he turned the conversation first, when Garrod Harvey came back from his exploratory interview with Colonel Jack Butler, following his final de-briefing of Sir Thomas Arkenshaw…

‘Yes.’ Harvey pushed a chair across the carpet towards the desk, and lowered himself into it gingerly, as though in pain. ‘Well, there are basically two of them, with variations: there’s what might be called “the Irish joke” and “the Polish joke”.’ He flexed his Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State shoulders cautiously. “The Irish joke appears to have emanated from somewhere in the Special Branch, and is simple and circumstantial, and quite amusing. But wildly wide of the mark, in more senses than one.‘ He paused for an instant, in order to concentrate on his right shoulder. ’Whereas the Polish one is much more ingenious, Henry. But not nearly so funny, because it is substantially true, I rather think.‘

It was reassuring that Garrod Harvey had done his homework properly as usual, thought Jaggard. ‘And that’s the one David Audley himself has put abroad, I take it?’

‘Well… actually… no. I rather think his was the Irish one.’ Harvey stopped flexing his shoulder. ‘He has quite a few friends in the Branch. In fact, although he has a lot of enemies, he does also seem to have a surprising number of friends, Henry. Particularly in Grosvenor Square.’

‘Indeed? Well they’re not going to be able to help him now.’

Special Branch friends or American friends, he must expect Audley to take defensive measures. ‘But you have the truth from Tom Arkenshaw, Garry?’

‘I… have an undoubtedly true account of what happened.’

Harvey’s answer carefully amended the question. ‘And I’ve had a little talk with Colonel Butler, He was really extremely affable—’

‘Affable?’ Affability had never been one of Jack Butler’s faults in the past.

‘Helpful, then.’ Harvey stretched again. ‘I’m sorry, Henry: I played squash with a purveyor of the Polish non-joke last night, and he Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State beat the hell out of me—I’ve been in agony ever since… No, what I mean is that Butler admits quite frankly that this wasn’t David Audley’s finest hour. And so does Audley himself, apparently.’

‘He does, does he?’ Now Henry Jaggard’s suspicions were fully-armed, so that he was more than ever determined to settle his doubts first. ‘Tell me the Irish joke, Garry.’

“The Irish joke? Okay, then: it’s apparently a version of the Connaught Ranger’s defence, when he was accused of murdering his corporal—back in the Duke of Wellington’s time, during the Peninsular War: he said he hadn’t really murdered the corporal, because he’d been aiming at his sergeant, but his musket threw the ball wide by a yard.‘ Garrod Harvey looked a little disappointed.

That’s a joke, Henry.’

‘Thank you for telling me. I’m laughing inside.’

Garrod Harvey started to shrug, but then his squash-playing injury hit him again. “The word is that the Irish—the INLA—have had Audley on their list for years, ever since that fellow O’Leary was shot, up north somewhere. And there was an old IRA man named Kelly who was killed more recently, down in Dorset somewhere—‘

‘Audley had nothing to do with his death. Neither did we.’

‘This is the rumour, Henry. Which is that Audley’s worked his way to the top of their hit-list. So they were waiting for him when he met Zarubin on Exmoor.’

‘Ah!’ Jaggard had heard that: the Irish were being blamed for the Exmoor Massacre, but he had not picked up the exact details. ‘A case of poor marksmanship, do you mean?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State This time Garrod Harvey’s pain wasn’t physical. ‘Mistaken identity, actually. Because it seems that Audley and Zarubin are about the same build. And they were both wearing Burberry raincoats. So this Connaught Ranger shot the corporal instead of the sergeant, Henry. And then Zarubin’s escort went after him, and also got shot. But the Americans had two of their people on hand—

two women actually, so the story goes… And one of them shot the Paddy before he could correct his mistake. End of Irish joke.’

It sounded like an inside story—but not quite. ‘Nothing about those two “Irishmen” in the house at East Lyn, whom we had to bury?

Or about their Polish passports, and all that “Sons of the Eagle”

literature that was found there? Or is that in the Polish joke—?’

Garrod Harvey didn’t move his aching shoulders. ‘Nothing about them. Or about poor old Basil Cole, either—no! But there is some good Special Branch corroborative detail, all the same, Henry.

Which isn’t so funny, actually.’

Actually… Basil Cole wasn’t so funny, thought Jaggard. ‘What detail?’

‘It seems… it seems… that the INLA took a shot at Audley just the day before, down in Sussex. And missed, so rumour has it.’ For a moment Garrod Harvey looked into space above Henry Jaggard’s head. ‘It is certainly a well-known fact that there were road-blocks out over half Sussex on that day, with the police and the Special Branch as thick as bees in June… or whenever bees are thick.’ He gave Jaggard a blank look.

That was nasty. ‘I thought that was merely an anti-terrorist exercise, Garry?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Yes.’ The look was still blank. ‘But one about which David Audley might have had certain suspicions, in the end.’

That was enough. ‘Tell me the Polish joke. Or non-joke—?’

‘Non-joke. And Audley doesn’t really come into it—Professor Nikolai Panin has the leading role. And Viking very nearly has another leading one.’

That was even nastier. ‘I can see that it isn’t a joke. Go on, then.’

Garrod Harvey stared at him, like a man trying to remember a joke, but afraid that he hasn’t got the punchline clear in his mind. ‘It begins with General Zarubin becoming surplus to KGB

requirements… or surplus to alleged Gorbachev needs, anyway…

ever since they killed that Polish priest so incompetently—’ He focused on Jaggard ‘—this is still the rumour, Henry. It’s not what I’m saying, you understand—?’

‘Of course.’ But there were limits to credibility. ‘But I don’t see how that was a KGB problem—if that’s what you mean—?’

Garrod Harvey continued to stare at him, but no longer blankly.

‘Zarubin was Panin’s problem. But he also had another problem, Henry—just as you did, actually.’ He cocked his head slightly. ‘In a way it’s almost a mirror-image situation—almost exactly.’

‘A mirror-image?’ Now that he thought about one of his worries, Jaggard could see the force of the analogy. ‘How’s that?’

‘Well… it seems that they knew they had a problem, in the London Embassy—just as you suspected.’ Garrod Harvey adapted himself to Jaggard’s frown. ‘They knew they had a leak somewhere. So Panin decided to use Zarubin as the expendable bait in a trap: he let Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State slip certain information at certain levels, and waited to see how it all turned out.’ He nodded. ‘And Viking picked up his bit, and passed it on to us.’

Jaggard experienced his own twinge. But it was of excitement, not of pain. ‘But we didn’t act on it, Garry.’

‘We didn’t—you were absolutely right—’ Harvey almost stuttered over his agreement ‘—right to give them Audley instead of Viking, that is.’

That wasn’t how Jaggard wished to remember his decision. ‘That wasn’t quite what we did.’ It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Harvey that he’d backed Audley against Panin himself. ‘But go on, Garry—?’

Harvey nodded enthusiastically. ‘So we didn’t tip him off But the Americans did—right?’ Another nod. ‘ Their man in the Embassy tipped them off… And they sent down the 7th Cavalry—or the daughters of the 7th Cavalry—to look after him. And thereby blew their man—do you see, Henry?’

Henry Jaggard saw. And also saw many beautiful advantages from his vision, like a flower blossoming in slow motion, as Viking obtained a longer lease of life from the CIA’s error. But, at the same time, his less-sanguine self saw innumerable predators and parasites attacking his flower. ‘Oh yes? And just where—where exactly— do the “Sons of the Eagle” come into this? I grant you they weren’t Irishmen, Garry. But whoever they are, they are now extremely dead. So who were they, then?’

Garrod Harvey nodded. ‘Ah! That’s the really clever bit—the pure Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State bloody-minded Panin bit! Because the “Sons of the Eagle” are the deal Panin made with General Jaruzelski’s Fifth Bureau, which provided him with both his hit-men and his cannon-fodder, and all his window-dressing—like the passports and the forged Solidarity literature. Because the Fifth Bureau was only too pleased to kill Zarubin for him—the general knew too much about their involvement in the killing of the priest, and they could close that file when they closed his file… And they dreamed up the “Sons of the Eagle” as a bonus, as well as a cover, so that they could hang a terrorist charge on Solidarity into the bargain.’

‘And have their men massacred?’

‘Oh… they weren’t in on that part of the deal, Henry: the so-called

“Major Sadowski” wasn’t a Fifth Bureau man—he was pure KGB, with a Polish accent. . a bear in eagle’s feathers. All he was doing was killing Poles, which is an all-the-year-round sport for Russians. And for Panin it was merely making sure that there wouldn’t be any inconvenient witnesses around, just in case we had the place staked out after all—’ Once again Harvey caught a shrug just in time ‘—I mean, he wasn’t keeping his promise… so why should he expect us to keep ours?’

‘Hmm…’ Jaggard was still captivated by the Viking bonus. Until this moment he hadn’t given the man more than another month, before he’d have to be extricated. But now, if he was run cautiously… or even allowed to lie fallow for a few months… his working life might be greatly extended, and perhaps even all the way back to Moscow. ‘So the Americans have lost their man, then?

A pity…’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Oh, they got him out in time. I rather think they guessed he was already on borrowed time in there. But they have lost him, in effect

—yes.’

Jaggard felt generous. ‘Well, it wasn’t any of their business. But we owe them one now, nevertheless.’ Then a thought struck him.

‘They weren’t the originators of the Polish joke by any chance, maybe?’

Garrod Harvey shook his head and winced. ‘I think not, actually.’

‘No?’ Jaggard saw that Harvey’s ‘thinking not’ was only the brown wrapping covering certain knowledge. But then he also saw that if this ingenious and circumstantial account of the Exmoor Massacre was neither Audley’s nor the CIA’s work… then maybe Viking wasn’t so safe after all, damn it to hell! ‘You’re not about to suggest that this is all KGB disinformation I hope, Garry?’ He heard his disappointment roughen the question. ‘Yet still substantially true?’

Garrod Harvey held his head steady. ‘It does rather look that way, I’m afraid.’

‘Why—’ Jaggard controlled his voice ‘—why should they want to give us so much?’

‘It’s a very good question—I agree.’ Garrod Harvey was genuinely uncertain now. ‘But what I think is… everything didn’t quite go the way they planned it, you see…’ He trailed off.

But Henry Jaggard saw once again, and all too well. Because no plan, however good, ever survived the cold plunge into reality still warm and dry.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Harvey met his scrutiny. ‘It’s possible that the shot we took at Audley unsettled them—’ He held up his hand.

‘It had to be clone, Henry. Because we had to concentrate his mind… for our purposes. But they didn’t know about that—just as we didn’t know about Basil Cole. And the Americans turning up must have unsettled them even more.’

Jaggard waited.

‘But the real balls-up was when Audley ordered Tom Arkenshaw to go after Major Sadowski—and Tom obeyed his order. Because it seems that Panin was going to put a stop to that, only Audley threatened to shoot him on the spot, himself.’ Harvey drew a breath. ‘So Tom saw Sadowski giving the sniper a friendly “hullo”

when they should have been shooting it out.’ Harvey almost smiled. ‘The irony of which is that Sadowski was probably only trying to get close enough to make sure his bullet went in the right place. Whereas the sniper had a rifle, and didn’t need to do that—

so Tom knew at once how the land lay: that they were in it together. And, of course, they both went after him then. And finally, to clinch it, when they had him at their mercy Sadowski obligingly shot his sniper-friend first.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘Ah… well, Sadowski was a real pro, whatever else—or whoever else—he was. He hardly said a word in front of Tom, so it’s possible that he recognized him from somewhere, and didn’t want to risk his Russian-accented Polish in front of him. But if he was a slow talker he was a fast thinker, Tom reckons. So he wanted the sniper’s bullet in Tom, and his bullet in the sniper, for the autopsy.’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘He could have told the sniper to kill Tom, surely.’

This time Garrod Harvey forgot not to shrug, and paid the price for shrugging. ‘If you want a thing done properly… And what Tom Arkenshaw also thinks is that the Major liked his work. And in his own line of work he’s met one or two of the breed, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Jaggard remembered his duty belatedly. ‘He’s all right, is he—

Tom?’

‘All right?’ A shadow crossed Garrod Harvey’s face. ‘Sir Thomas Arkenshaw has a badly-broken ankle and a heavy cold—for both of which David Audley is more or less responsible. But he thinks Audley’s quite a man, nevertheless.’

‘Yes?’ That had always been a danger, on the debit side of the special connection Arkenshaw had with Audley which had made him the man for the job. ‘But you haven’t any doubts about his report, Garry?’

‘Oh, no.’ Harvey managed a carefully-controlled nod. ‘It’ll be as full and honest as you could wish for, Henry—right down to Audley’s continued insistence on going it alone whenever Tom advised him against it.’ Another controlled nod. ‘Audley behaved exactly as I predicted, in fact.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then—’ But Jaggard saw that it wasn’t ‘—

isn’t it?’

‘He also told Audley everything that happened, after he’d gone after Major Sadowski.’ Garrod Harvey’s lips compressed. ‘And he admits that he also told Audley that he was reporting back to you, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Henry.’

‘He—?’ In that instant Sir Thomas Arkenshaw’s name moved from the black to the red side of the tablet in Henry Jaggard’s mind, marked now for No further promotion. But then he knew that he wanted to know more about the fatal admission. ‘How did he come to admit that? You pressed him—?’

‘He volunteered it of his own accord.’ Something close to approval was in Garrod Harvey’s voice. ‘Sir Thomas Arkenshaw is a medievalist, like David Audley. And I may be wrong, but… it was almost like a formal act of defiance—or whatever the old medieval Arkenshaws did, when they renounced their feudal allegiance, and moved from one side to the other, in the old days.’ Garrod Harvey didn’t shrug, but rather twisted himself uncomfortably for a moment. ‘You also have to remember that he’s half-Polish, Henry.

They’re an unpredictable lot, in my experience.’ Harvey raised an eyebrow. ‘Eh?’

There was something damnably not right with Garrod Harvey this afternoon. And, as Jaggard trusted Harvey more than he trusted most men, that was much more worrying than Sir Thomas Arkenshaw’s medieval Polish practices. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Garry?’

The eyebrow came down. ‘Tom Arkenshaw isn’t very pleased with us, for having done what we did to him. And he’s also deeply humiliated—professionally humiliated—by what happened… “I ran like a rabbit” , is how he put it.’ Another controlled nod, ‘And he has been trying to protect people like Audley—and Zarubin—

from people like Panin and Sadowski… maybe for too long.’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Another nod. ‘We worry about all the killers there are loose in the world, who can pick and choose their killing-grounds at leisure.

But we don’t give much thought for the poor bastards who are expected to out-think the killers—or put themselves in the way of the bullet when they don’t.’

That simplified the message. ‘It’s called “battle-fatigue”, Garry.’

Jaggard nodded wisely, without pain. ‘We’ve just got to rest him up, that’s all.’

‘It’s too late for that.’

‘How is it too late? Has he resigned?’ That, at least, would simplify this problem. Though Garrod Harvey was right, of course, in his general thesis; and that would bear further inquiry in the future. ‘He’s resigned—?’

The same shadow which had crossed Garrod Harvey’s face before now recrossed it. ‘He’s asked for a transfer to Research and Development, Henry.’

‘He’s what—?’

Another controlled nod. ‘Colonel Butler knows about it. And he says that he’s very ready to give Sir Thomas Arkenshaw a try.

Because he’s one down on his establishment, since last year.’ Then Garrod Harvey held his head very steady. ‘He already has the necessary endorsement from his Selection and Recruitment Adviser. And I don’t need to tell you who he is.’

In a perverse way Henry Jaggard felt himself warming to David Audley, and not for the first time: it would have been disappointing if the man had let himself be beaten too easily, with no unexpected Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State tricks in his bag. Yet also he was glad because such tricks made what had to be done that much easier—because before there had always been a nuance of regret, that he had to break someone useful and loyal because cruel necessity had overtaken him. But now, by his actions, Audley had not only deprived him of any real certainty about Viking, but had also ruined Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, who had been marked for promotion. ‘Well, if Audley thinks that’ll save him he’s about to learn otherwise, Garry!’

Garrod Harvey’s face was suddenly a picture. ‘Henry—’

‘No!’ He had all that he needed now. ‘There are five men dead—

five dead men to account for. Which is a bloody massacre, by any standards. Or six… if you count the man Cole—’

Harvey shook his head, forgetting his back. ‘You can’t count Basil Cole, Henry. That was Panin making sure Audley didn’t get whatever advice Cole might have given him—’ His mouth twisted

‘—or maybe it was even Panin making sure that Audley would never let go—I don’t know… But Panin would have known that Audley would go to Cole first, in any case. And—’

‘It doesn’t matter what the hell he thought!’ Henry Jaggard was beyond arguing the toss with subordinates. ‘I want Audley out, Garry. And I know Jack Butler will fight for him—you don’t need to tell me that.’ He overrode Garrod Harvey brutally. ‘All the better if he does: we need that. Because Audley’s sacking is what’s really going to pull R & D into line—Audley is the real heart of R

& D, not Butler. If we can get Audley, then we’ve got it all—

Glamis, Cawdor and the whole kingdom—’

‘ Henry—’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘And I know everyone admires him. You admire him—and Tom Arkenshaw does… And, damn it, I admire him too, Garry— I know!’ Even now, in spite of everything, he knew that he would sincerely regret Audley’s passing: over many years Audley had probably done more good for the state than either he or Garrod Harvey ever would. ‘But he’s got to go. Because it’s not only what I want: it’s what the Minister wants, and it’s what the FCO wants.

And, with what you’ve got, it’ll have to be what Downing Street will have to want this time. Do you understand, Garry?’

‘Yes.’ Garrod Harvey stared at him. ‘But no, Henry.’

‘No—’ Harvey’s uncharacteristic obstinacy took Jaggard flat back.

‘What d’you mean— no?’

‘I do understand.’ The stare was fixed immovably. ‘But it’s not on, Henry. We can’t do it.’

Jaggard opened his mouth to blaspheme, but then he amended the sound. ‘What d’you mean—?’

‘I talked to the Americans—to Colonel Sheldon, at Grosvenor Square.’ Garrod Harvey moistened his lips.

‘He asked to see me. But in any case I had to warn him—that his man inside the Soviet Embassy was at risk. And I also wanted to know why he’d put him at risk, by sending down those two women to tip off Audley, Henry.’

‘Yes?’ Jaggard watched Garrod Harvey touch his lips with the back of his hand, as though he was afraid, and was suddenly afraid himself.

‘Mose—Colonel Sheldon… he’s nobody’s fool. And he knows Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State David Audley—they worked together ten years ago, Henry.’

Jaggard pushed his fear down. ‘I know that. And Sheldon likes him

—’

‘Liking doesn’t come into it. Mosby Sheldon threw away his man, and saved Audley, because the CIA rates what Audley’s doing—

and what R & D is doing—as of the highest importance.’ Nod.

‘The work they’re doing on the Gorbachev “Order of Battle” is considered crucial to the whole nuclear disarmament dialogue: what they’re feeding the President comes from agreed joint Anglo-American intelligence. And R & D is the best part of that, according to Sheldon. Because he’s one of Admiral Stansfield Turner’s fast-track promotions. So he rates analytic intelligence as the most important human function, now that their orbiting satellites can do all the old conventional spy functions.’ Nod. ‘It’s who the new men are, and how they think, that matters—not where the missiles are, and what they are… Liking just doesn’t come into it, Henry.’

Henry Jaggard began to feel old. Up until this instant he had thought of Audley as old. But now he included himself in the same condemnation.

Garrod Harvey seemed to have forgotten his bad back, too.

‘Sheldon knew exactly what was coming—he knew it all: Zarubin and the Poles—and that poor Polish priest— are just water under the bridge to him… the Thames, or the Vistula, or the Moskva—all just water.’ Nod. ‘And he’d heard all the rumours, too—the Irish joke, and the Polish joke… And he wasn’t laughing, Henry.’ Nod.

‘What he told me was that the Americans aren’t going to stand by Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State and see Audley put down—Audley and Research and Development both. They don’t want it—and they won’t have it.’

Jaggard waited for a moment, until he was sure that Garrod Harvey had got all his bad news off his chest, which must have been discomforting him considerably more than his squash-player’s back all this time. But he also used the moment to compose himself, as he sensed the red warning signal of his own anger shining brighter even than the flashing amber of fear. ‘ They won’t have it, Garry? They won’t have it?’

Garrod Harvey swallowed. ‘Sheldon’s a good friend of ours, Henry.’

‘I know what he is. And who he is. But I don’t think he outranks me yet—never mind the FCO… and the Minister—not in this, anyway.’ He watched Garrod Harvey for another moment. ‘So—?’

Garrod Harvey touched his mouth again. ‘He’ll go above you, Henry. Or… the Ambassador will. To the top, Henry.’

There had to be more. ‘To the PM?’ There had to be a lot more.

‘To tell the PM that the CIA London Station won’t have an incompetent British officer disciplined? An elderly incompetent officer?’ Much, much more. ‘Who has let the KGB put one over on us, in our own back yard—to our own very considerable diplomatic embarrassment?’ He had to shake his head there. ‘Just because the elderly—elderly and incompetent—officer still does useful work on his good days?’

Garrod Harvey’s chin came up, reminding Henry Jaggard unbearably of his father, who had also been gutsy in a tight corner.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘No, Henry—you don’t understand. What I mean—’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Jaggard’s spirits rose again.

Viking might yet be salvaged, even if only for a few more months.

But, almost more than that, he liked the way Garry Harvey was at last refusing to be overawed. ‘The Americans value R & D. Well, so do I—and I’m not proposing to dismantle it, just to bring it to heel.’

‘But Audley—’

‘I value Audley too, Garry. So I won’t let him be disgraced. I’ll do it decently—damn it, I’ll even get him a “K”, if that’ll satisfy all his friends: he can be “Sir David Audley”. And we’ll make him a consultant into the bargain—tell Sheldon that, Garry.’ But he could see even as he spoke that Garrod Harvey’s bayonets were still obstinately fixed and pointing at him. ‘What the devil do they want?’

‘They want no change, Henry.’

Enough was enough. ‘Well, they damn well can’t have it. And that’s flat. Audley goes. With or without a knighthood.’

Garrod Harvey cocked his head slightly. ‘To please the Minister?

And the FCO?’

‘And to please me.’ Garrod Harvey’s change of tactics wasn’t going to change Henry Jaggard’s mind now: this was one time when he had to fight the Americans.

‘Yes.’ The slight head-movement seemed to remind Harvey of his shoulder again. ‘And it’ll please the KGB too—having you on their side, Henry.’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Jaggard stared at him.

‘And the Minister. And the FCO.’ Garrod Harvey blinked. ‘A pretty impressive Anglo-Soviet alliance, Professor Panin has put together; nothing like it since 1941, Henry.’

Jaggard stared at him.

‘Why did Panin ask for David Audley, of all people?’ Garrod Harvey didn’t wait for an answer. ‘He had a perfectly good plan—

the Polish joke: get rid of Zarubin and flush out a traitor, all-in-one? He could have asked for an office-cleaner from the Foreign Office to take him down to Exmoor. But he didn’t. He asked for a load of unstable dynamite, in the person of David Audley—and then he deliberately primed Audley ready to explode: by murdering one of Audley’s old friends?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘That was one hell of a risk to take, because Audley may be old, but he’s not stupid. So… asking Audley doesn’t make sense, Henry. At least, it doesn’t if the Polish joke was the only one he intended.’ The slow shake stopped. ‘But supposing there was also a Russian joke—a joke he didn’t intend to tell us?’

‘A Russian joke?’ Jaggard wasn’t laughing inside or outside now.

Harvey nodded again. ‘Panin needs to bring off something difficult, for his own sake. Zarubin was no great problem—and if they knew there was a traitor in the London Embassy… that didn’t require Audley us a catalyst— much too dangerous, Audley.’ From nod to shake. ‘Audley’s not a bit of cheese. He’s not a mouse, either—he’s a bloody tiger, Henry: he needs a big tiger-trap, is what he needs.’ Garrod Harvey watched Henry Jaggard make all the final connections. ‘So what happens, if you—and the Minister Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State and the FCO—get what you want? Audley gets thrown out… and, whatever you say, that’ll totally dislocate R & D for at least six months, and maybe even longer. Maybe even for ever, perhaps?

And that really would be a feather in Panin’s cap.’ The slow, irritating shake recommenced. ‘Henry, we were trying to shibbuwich David Audley and R & D with him. But suppose the KGB was trying to do the same thing?’

All Jaggard could do now was stare.

‘So if the American Ambassador says to the PM “Whose side is your side on, for God’s sakes?” , then what the hell are we going to say?’

Henry Jaggard felt the old sour taste on his tongue in that instant, which was all the more bitter because he knew that he was still right, even in defeat. ‘And you believe this?’

No nod, no shake. ‘It doesn’t matter what I believe. All that matters is that it fits better than anything else. Plus the fact that Panin has always wanted to get David Audley.’ Garrod Harvey almost smiled. ‘Tom Arkenshaw says that they were mostly quite unbearably polite to each other—right down to the last moment, when Audley pulled a gun on Panin, and said he was going to shoot off his balls first. And Tom says Panin knew that was God’s truth: he says it was like Mowgli and Shere Khan in Kipling —

Tom knows his Kipling too. And that’s what really makes me think it may be the way it is, Henry. I’m sorry, but—’

‘Shut up!’ Henry Jaggard knew that the only way to survive defeat was to face it quickly. And, with what Garrod Harvey would Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State undoubtedly report, defeat was now certain; because Garry wasn’t about to let his own head roll with Henry Jaggard’s. Which, with this Prime Minister of all others, it undoubtedly would.

‘Henry—’

‘No!’ Jaggard didn’t need to hear any more, he just needed a little time to think.

‘But Henry—’ This time it was the look on Jaggard’s face which cut Garrod Harvey off.

Audley was behind the American action, of course. As always, it wouldn’t be provable, but it was nonetheless certain. But there was no use gnashing his teeth over that: they—and the Russians too—

had set out to shibbuwich the man, only to be shibbuwiched themselves.

And that was that. All that mattered now was to survive.

‘It’s all right, Garry.’ He smiled at Garrod Harvey, a with all necessary mental adjustments no sooner calculated than made. ‘I’ll deal with the Minister and the rest of them. Fortunately, things haven’t gone too far yet. So I shall be able to recommend an informal protest to the Soviet Embassy. And you can reassure Mosby Sheldon—you can tell him that I entirely agree with him.’

Garrod Harvey blinked. ‘I’ll do that. But I was going to tell you…

about Colonel Butler, Henry.’

‘Ah, yes…’ Jack Butler would also have to be appeased, of course.

‘I’ll have a word with Colonel Butler too.’ At least he understood now why Butler had been so uncharacteristically affable: once the Prime Minister learnt that R & D had been a specific KGB target Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State (and Audley could be relied on to let that piece of information leak upwards, for sure), then Butler’s stock would go even higher in Downing Street.

‘It isn’t that, Henry.’ There was a curious expression on Garrod Harvey’s face; it was not embarrassment, yet he was embarrassed all the same.

‘Yes, Garry?’ Jaggard felt that he was ready for any shock now.

‘You’re not about to ask for a transfer to R & D, are you?’

The expression vanished. ‘Good God, no!’

‘Well, that’s all right then.’ Jaggard concealed his vast relief.

‘Don’t worry, my dear fellow. Audley has won, and we have lost.

But it was my fault, not yours. It was a good idea… and we haven’t lost for ever.’

Garrod Harvey took a breath. ‘That’s just it, Henry, We haven’t lost at all— we’ve won, Henry.’

‘We’ve—?’ Henry Jaggard was so taken aback that the final word failed to arrive.

‘We’ve won.’ Garrod Harvey nodded. ‘I said Colonel Butler was helpful.’ He nodded again.

‘ “Affable”—’ Jaggard cursed himself for interrupting. ‘Go on, Garry—go on!’

‘Yes… well, he said that he felt R & D was getting too isolated—

that this business on Exmoor was a good illustration of how dangerous such isolation could be, with his most valuable officer going in blind and risking his neck like a subaltern in the trenches.

So he wants to integrate his work much more closely with what Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State you need in the future.’

Henry Jaggard opened his mouth. ‘God bless my soul!’

‘Yes.’ The next nod was so vigorous that it hurt. ‘Regular meetings

—joint policy briefings, the lot.’

‘God Almighty!’

Garrod Harvey swallowed. ‘There is a price, though.’

Henry Jaggard came down to earth. ‘A price?’

‘He thinks we should be a lot more accountable. So if he comes into the fold he’ll be bringing the Stansfield Turner CIA recommendations with him: he says that if we don’t meet Parliament halfway, Parliament will come and get us.’

So that was the way the land lay, thought Jaggard. ‘I see!’

And then he did see. Or, at least, he began to wonder whether David Audley might not be behind this last joke also: the very obvious wheeling-up of a huge Trojan horse to the as-yet-unbreached walls of British Intelligence, with Audley himself inside it. The trouble was, he couldn’t decide whether it was an attack or the last, best defence of Research and Development.

‘I see.’ What he needed was time. ‘Well, I’ll go and talk with Colonel Butler, Garry. We’ll sort something out.’

For the time being, he decided R & D was best left well alone, to its own devices.

THE END

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

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Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State