Stealth

27

Over breakfast the next morning, Lance told Stone and Rose about Fife-Simpson’s experience at the CIA and Camp Peary.

“Was he badly hurt?” Rose asked.

“His injuries were almost entirely to his ego,” Lance replied. “I thought a little humility might help him in his instruction of trainees at Station Two.”

“I was one of them,” Stone said, “and I hope you’re right.”

“Who is this Wu fellow?” Rose asked.

“Probably the best street fighter in the world,” Lance replied, “with or without weapons. I once temporarily gave that title to another of our instructors, but Wu brought a quick end to his supremacy.”

“Where did you find him?”

“In the Army, where we find a lot of our operational people,” Lance said. “During basic training he was housed in a barrack full of racist recruits who challenged him to fights. He worked his way through them in a matter of days. His drill sergeant, who was afraid of him, called an intelligence officer to the base. After an interview, we whisked him away to Camp Peary, and we’ve never let him go.”

“So, Fife-Simpson is not the fighter he tells everybody he is?” Stone asked.

“No, but he is hardly helpless,” Lance said. “He is probably the equal of our average instructor at Camp Peary, and if you should ever be provoked into a fight with him, my advice would be to shoot him in the head immediately.”

“I think I’ll start by asking Felicity not to bring him to dinner again,” Stone said.

Felicity was halfway through her morning at work when her secretary announced Brigadier Fife-Simpson.

“Ah, Roger, back from your travels? Is that a bandage on your forehead?” She waved him to a chair.

“Nothing serious,” he said, “though it could have been.”

“Could this be the result of an encounter with a person called Wu?” she asked.

“It was,” he replied, “and I am not grateful to you for putting me in that position. I could have been badly hurt.”

“Roger,” she said reprovingly, “it is my information that you were armed with a knife, while Wu had only his bare hands to defend himself. And it is my recollection that, when training recruits at Station Two, you gave them actual knives for them to practice killing each other.”

“I did that for their own good,” he said primly.

“Then perhaps the people at Camp Peary thought you needed an attitude adjustment,” she replied.

“I, indeed?” He sniffed. “I was trundled about their headquarters like a foreign tourist, then sent down to their training establishment and humiliated.”

“Well, you were a foreign tourist, but I suppose I must apologize for them,” Felicity said, mock-soothingly.

“I think you and Lance Cabot hatched this plot between you,” he said. “I just want you to know it didn’t work.”

“May I remind you,” Felicity said, “that I am your superior at this service?”

“And I am a brigadier general of the Royal Marines,” he nearly shouted.

“Perhaps you are not aware,” Felicity said coldly, “that my position here carries the military rank of full admiral?”

“I apologize,” Fife-Simpson sputtered.

“As, indeed, you should. I expect you are also unaware that your presence in my service was pressed on me from above.”

He reddened. “Perhaps it was believed that my presence here might lend some organization and weight to this service.”

“We are quite well organized, I assure you, and we bear such sufficient weight that you might suddenly find yourself training recruits from south of Calais in how to be British officers and gentlemen. Would you enjoy that?”

“I would not,” he muttered.

“Then perhaps you could suggest a more agreeable use for your presence here?”

Fife-Simpson was suddenly at a loss for words.

“Then go back to your office, think it over, and write me a memo on the subject of how you might be more important to our purposes,” she said. “Good day.”

Fife-Simpson got up and left the room, mustering as much dignity as he could manage.