Stealth

28

Later the same day, Dame Felicity presented herself at the Foreign Office and was announced to the minister. She was made to wait a half hour before being admitted to the inner sanctum, which was not alarming but customary. On entering she found the minister at his desk, reading and signing documents, ignoring her. She took a seat.

“I don’t recall asking you to sit,” Sir Oswald said, still not looking at her.

“I don’t recall being asked to stand,” Felicity replied tartly.

Now he looked up at her and put down his fountain pen. “I have, less than an hour ago, received a letter of resignation from your service of Brigadier Roger Fife-Simpson.”

“Well, the proper thing to have done would be for him to send it to me, then allow me to pass it up to you, but my relief is such that I will overlook the transgression.”

“He says you tried to have him killed,” the foreign minister said.

“Foreign minister,” Felicity said icily, “if I had tried to have him killed he would now be in a box in the churchyard at the Royal Naval College, after having been accorded full military honors.”

“I did not bring you here to joke,” he said.

“What made you think I was joking?” she asked.

Sir Oswald slammed his pen down on his desk. “Goddammit, Felicity, I will not tolerate insubordination from you!”

“Then sack me!” Felicity riposted at a similar volume. “Or leave me to stock my service with the best people, not castoff blackmailers like that horrible little man! Those are your choices, do with them as you will!”

“What do you mean, ‘blackmailer’?” Sir Oswald demanded.

“I don’t think I have to explain the term to you, Ozzie, nor to your faithful companion since your days at Eton.”

“How dare you speak to me that way!”

“I am forced to such daring,” she said, “in the circumstances. Instead of your outrage with me, you should, perhaps, devote your energies to explaining things to the prime minister after Fife-Simpson has put a flea in his ear. I’m sure, given his past, that will be his next move.”

Sir Oswald diverted his eyes and sagged a little. “All right,” he said, “let us be frank.”

“I don’t believe I have been less than frank,” Felicity replied.

He turned back toward her and made a placating motion with both hands. “All right,” he said, “what do you have on Fife-Simpson?”

“Well,” Felicity said. “Let me see.” She was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps you have been regaled, at some point, with Fife-Simpson’s story of how he killed two IRA men and harmed three others in a Belfast public house — this in his youth, of course.”

Sir Oswald sighed. “He made sure someone else told me about that occasion.”

“It never happened,” Felicity said. “At least, not the way he tells it.”

Sir Oswald leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. “Tell me,” he said.

So Dame Felicity apprised the foreign minister of the true events on that day and cited her sources.

“Does Tim Barnes know about this?”

“Sir Tim was his companion on that day and saved his life by summoning a team of military policemen.”

“Why were they together?”

“One of them, I’m not sure which, had expressed a keen interest in finding a pub he had heard about which catered to, shall we say, a more effete clientele than that found in your typical Belfast watering hole. They stupidly wandered into the wrong pub.”

“And you think Tim has been a victim of Fife-Simpson?”

“Yes, and I believe he remains so. Why else would he press Fife-Simpson on you and, thus, me?”

“And after Tim saved the man’s life!”

“Quite so.”

“Then he must be dealt with,” Sir Oswald said, slapping his palm on the leather top of his desk.

“Then he should be dealt with carefully,” Felicity said.

“How?”

“I think it would be best for us not to converse on that topic again. We should just let nature take its course.”

“Yes,” Sir Oswald said, “but with a boot up nature’s arse.”

“Quite.” Dame Felicity took leave of the ministry and got into her waiting car. She sat back as she was driven and allowed her mind to wander, in the manner that it wandered when it was required to dream up an operation. Her frontal lobe zeroed in on a house in Cap d’Antibes, in the South of France, which had been in her family since her grandfather’s time. She had used it in an operation a couple of years before, which had allowed her to renovate it and wire it for video and audio at her ministry’s expense, and since to maintain it with a two-person staff. She picked up one of her two phones, the scrambler one, and dialed a number from its contacts list.

“Barnes,” a pleasant voice said.

“Scramble,” Felicity replied.

“Scrambled,” he said, after a moment.

“Tim, it’s Felicity. How are you?”

“I’m quite well, Felicity. We very much enjoyed our evening at Windward Hall, and a note has gone off to Mr. Barrington to that effect.”

“I’m so glad,” she replied. “Tim, I suppose by this time that you have heard of the departure from my service of our mutual... acquaintance.”

“Word has reached me. He was very upset, and when he gets upset, unfortunate events sometimes follow.”

“My very reason for calling,” Felicity said. “I believe I have found a way to avoid unpleasantness in this matter.”

“How may I help?”

“Please write down this address and phone number.” She dictated, and he copied.

“Got it. What next?”

“That is the address of a very pleasant house in Cap d’Antibes that we sometimes use as a safe house for friends of our firm who are in jeopardy of one thing or another. It is cared for by a houseman and his wife, a very good cook. I would like you to offer it to our acquaintance for a holiday, sooner rather than later.”

“I can do that, and tell him that it belongs to friends.”

“Yes, and their names are Sir John and Priscilla Dover. You served with him somewhere or other. I’ll leave you to flesh out the details. The caretakers are Marie and Oskar.”

“All right. Then what?”

“Apprise me of his arrival and departure dates at Nice airport. And tell him he will be met by a car and driver. Also, you might mention to him that spa services, including a particularly well-recommended massage therapist, are available on-site. There is a list of phone numbers in the center desk drawer in the library. You may also tell him that food and drink will be provided, and that there is a private beach for his use.”

“You make it sound wonderful,” Barnes said.

“On some other occasion, I would be pleased for you and your wife to use it.”

“Thank you so much, Felicity,” he said.

“Thank you for your assistance, Tim.” She hung up as they pulled to a stop at the rear entrance of her service. Back at her desk she buzzed Mrs. Green.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Take a letter to Brigadier Fife-Simpson.”

“Please go ahead.”

“‘Dear Sir: Your resignation is accepted with immediate effect and without undue regret. Kindly deposit your credentials and weapons with the commissionaire on your way out.’ Type that up for my signature, then deliver it to him. If he is out, leave it on his desk.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Green replied, with a hint of pleasure in her voice.