Stealth

25

They were on port and Stilton when Lance surprised Stone, and possibly everyone else, by asking Felicity, “Do you wish the brigadier returned to your service in one piece?”

“My desires conflict with my duty,” Felicity said without missing a beat, “as it is seen to be by my betters.”

“You surely must not wish to have your service used as a dumping ground for the unsuitable,” Lance said.

“Certain members of the government find us useful for that purpose, at least on this occasion. What would you do in my position, Lance?”

“My service would regurgitate that man into the lap of whoever sent him to me.”

“We British are less direct,” Felicity said, “especially when dealing at the ministerial level.”

“Do you suspect the foreign minister? Specifically, I mean, not as part of a group.”

“I would not be shocked to find his fingerprints on the transfer document.”

“Put another way: Do you think the FM has something to fear from his freshly minted brigadier?”

“The FM has been married to the same woman for more than thirty years, and during that time, has bestirred himself to sire a single son and heir, now twenty-eight, a chinless wonder who is employed in the nether ranks of his ministry, as a kind of greeter and handler of visiting dignitaries from beyond Calais.”

“And what has been scribbled in the margins of your file on the FM over the years?”

“Let me put it this way,” Felicity said. “There have been no rumors of women in his life.”

“I see.”

“I expect you do, Lance.”

Lance sipped his port and nibbled at his cheese. “Is there a member of his staff who has outlasted all the others over time?”

Felicity thought about it. “There is,” she replied. “One Sir Ellery Bascombe, a baronet, who was in the FM’s class at Eton — and who has personally attended him ever since the fourth form. I’ve heard them referred to, once or twice, as ‘the old married couple.’”

“And does Sir Ellery have any naval connections?”

“After Eton, the young man was not able to find a place at a suitable university, so the family sent him off to Dartmouth, where he was a classmate of Timothy Barnes — and Roger Fife-Simpson. He graduated, after a fashion, but was not commissioned, so the FM, then a party functionary, took him in. He has been a body man to his mentor, now the FM, in one form or another, since that time.”

“Does he travel with the FM?”

“Nearly always.”

“Ah,” Lance said. “Perhaps you have found your way to the heart — or the jugular — of the foreign minister.”