BREAK POINT
                          Michael Shea

  This title first published in Great Britain 2001 by SEVERN HOUSE
PUBLISHERS LTD Originally published 1982 as Tomorrow's Men.
  Copyright © 1982 by Michael Shea.
  All rights reserved.




                               Preview

   Four o'clock on a late September afternoon and the leaden sky hung
heavy over the west of the capital. Here and there, despondent clusters of
pedestrian activity spawned around the remaining ill-stocked shops and
street-markets. Visitors from the recent past would have found a
disturbing absence of traffic; for security reasons as much as because the
stringent petrol rationing, few private cars were permitted in central
London, while, by the kerb-sides, lay the mangled and vandalised relics of
a more prosperous age. What traffic noise there was was engendered by
the police and nation security forces, the scout cars of the riot troops, the
screaming ambulances and the fire engines whose sirens constantly
interrupted the sullen tranquillity. Where it still existed, public transport
consisted of elderly, slow-moving Leyland buses with their windows
covered in mesh as guard against missiles. Additionally, by night, the food
lorries came into the centre of the capital in convoy, guarded doubly
against hijacking and common looting.
  At a corner of the Old Kent Road, by a church that stood in
abandonment by God and man, the remains of a Jaguar lay askew, as if in
some obscene mechanical coupling with the shell of a humble Ford
Cortina that was crushed beneath it. Close by, a squad of tattooed and
shaven-headed Paramilitary lads caught a young Pakistani woman and
were playing with her. She was crying but not struggling too much, since
the men were fairly good-natured. Watched and spurred on with cat-calls
by their colleagues, three of them were on the point of dragging her in
through the broken church door when a black Mercedes pulled in fiercely
alongside the littered pavement. A few yards behind it, a back-up
Mercedes, over-filled with heavies, stopped and waited with its engine
running. The Commander, a powerful bull of a man with the scars of some
not so ancient street battle thrashed in deep scarlet across his forehead,
jumped out. Two bodyguards emerged after him. All three men wore the
familiar black leather topcoats, each with a Union Jack smartly stitched to
the upper right sleeve, the symbol of the United Action Movement.
   'Let that Paki go. No fraternisation. You know the rule,' the Commander
bellowed. 'No more damned fun and games for you three. For a week,
d'you hear? No parades; no night raids; membership-card duties at hq.'
   The three men stood silently to attention as the Commander berated
them. The man's voice was powerfully staccato, the words abrasive, but
the accent still carried traces of elitist, upper-class vowel sounds. The
other Paramils who had automatically lined up in a squad, dressed off to
the left in threes, smart in their brushed grey denim uniforms. The Paki
girl had taken her chance and disappeared, torn dress clutched around
her nakedness. If there were any spectators watching the scene, they were
well hidden.
  'Who's in charge?'
  'I am, Sir,' one of the men, a tight little Cockney responded.
  'Jeffries, isn't it?'
  'Yes, Sir.'
   The Commander crossed over to him and, in a gesture of basic but
effective power, swiped him across the face with the back of his hand.
Jeffries flinched but otherwise did not move. 'You're no longer in charge of
this squad, Jeffries. I won't have indiscipline. Lucky you're still listed.'
  'Sir.'
   'We pick precise targets for Number Seven Command. You do only as
you're told. I won't have indiscriminate hooliganism. We've a job to do.
Concentrate on essentials.' The voice maintained its clipped, unyielding
inflection.
  'Sir.'
  'Your schedule? What is it?'
  'Commie picket line at the photo processing lab.'
  'Damn you, Jeffries. Get over there. The Riot Unit is outnumbered. At
the double. Commandeer a bus if you have to, d'you hear?'
  'Sir. At once, Sir.'



   The same day; ten minutes to midnight and a different scene. The heavy
afternoon sky had broken into a violent drenching thunderstorm which
had eventually rolled itself out. The air was clear and fresh, the trees
drippingly revived, the ground soft and treacherous underfoot.
   The rambling mock-Tudor house stood well back from the edge of
Ealing Common. Barbed wire and mesh fencing topped the high garden
walls, floodlights illuminated the neatly kept garden and a remarkable
array of aerials bedecked the roof. Inside the house itself and to the right
of the front door was the cloakroom that served as a guardroom. A large
street-map of central London, stubbed with multi-coloured position pins,
occupied one entire wall of the little room and on another was a series of
party banners proclaiming eternal vigilance against the threat of a
Communist take-over. 'If it happened,' one bold-type poster questioned,
'could you look your son in the eye and tell him that you did
nothing—nothing to prevent it?' On the third wall, beside the mirror
which hung over the cracked washbasin, was sellotaped a large, defiant
photograph of the Commander, taken against the background of a
triumphant Union Jack.
   Two Paramils were on duty in the room, or supposed to be, for one was
asleep and the other had taken too many measures from a bottle of looted
whisky. From a portable radio came soft mood music. One of the three
telephones rang.
  'Headquarters Number Seven Command? Recce squad reporting. All
quiet. No sign of reprisal groups,' said the voice at the other end. 'Tell the
Commander . . .'
   'That you, Bert? Bert, isn't it?' The guard's words were only slightly
slurred. His colleague stirred softly in the battered arm-chair, but slept on.
  'Hey — it's you, Geoff? You've got a cushy number tonight . . . Fuckin'
good punch up that. We showed those Commie bastards what loyalty
means. They won't show their faces at that picket line again.'
  'The cops. The frigging comrades are saying the cops were on our side,
that they stood by, watched us do it. Just saw their spokesman on the TV .
. .'
  'Forty of 'em hospitalised. Lucky it wasn't busier at the mortuary. We
don't need no cops' help.'
       'Maybe it's frigging true though . . .'
  'Maybe. They don't like them Commie bastards neither. No way do
they.'
       There was a pause.
       'See you, Bert.'
  'See you, Geoff. Hey, how's the Big Boy tonight? Living it up, is he? Any
spare birds up there?'
  'I don't want no talk like that,' the guard was suddenly aggressive. 'Talk
gets around.'
  'Sorry, Geoff. Hey, did you get your mitts on some of that Scotch? Fancy
that store leaving all that booze on the shelves. Serves 'em right, eh?'
       There was a pause.
       'Night, Bert.'
       'No offence, Geoff?'
       'No offence, Bert.'



  In a comfortable room upstairs, behind locked and sound-proofed
double doors, the Commander was entertaining. The heavy, tightly drawn
curtains discreetly hid the steel shutters that were permanently barred
over the windows, and the only visible sign of outside tensions was the
warning light and alarm buzzer over the doorway.
   In his towelling bathrobe, the Commander's guest looked much less
impressive than on a television screen or on the floor of the House of
Commons. Now he was an intent spectator. Of what it was difficult to see
with all the intertwining, but there were four or five girls on the floor in
front of him, doing what they were doing in style.
   'Discreet, are they?' whispered the Minister nervously sipping at a
straight malt and pulling his robe close around an ever-increasing paunch.
       'Well paid,' said the Commander. 'And we have additional Safeguards
...'
  'I'm sure you have,' said the Minister softly. 'All doubtless
tax-deductible.'
  'Take your pick. I'll have the rest.' The scar tissue across the
Commander's forehead gleamed alternately white and crimson.



   Outside, in deep shadows cast by the sodden, vandalised trees of the
common, the man whom Fleet Street and the television commentators
had nicknamed 'The Brother', to match his opponent, the Commander's
title, stood waiting. With him were thirty hand-picked men.
   His real name, which few used or even knew, was Paul Verity, Verity the
enigma. Borstal boy, Workers' Revolutionary Party, trade union militant,
'the idealist with the burning mission', the leader writers said. Yet they
always failed to explain or come to grips with the mission, limited as they
were by the terms of traditional political jargon. Paul Verity was too much
of an individual to be a Communist, certainly too much of a loner to be a
'brother' to anyone other than in name. But one thing he had was
leadership. It was a peculiar charismatic quality in him that quelled
argument and inspired loyalty though never affection. What the
Commander achieved by violence and his own forms of discipline the
Brother obtained by less dramatic but more effective means. The one was
a bear with a cudgel, the other had feminine strengths, a vixen, with
stiletto claws and eyes that were equally deadly. In more law-abiding
times neither man would have ranked higher than a street-gang leader,
with only the other and society itself to fight. Now it was different. To each
had been given that most dangerous and emotive of all weapons, a cause;
for each, that cause was backed by a wider national organisation that
invested both of them with even more power and influence, particularly in
the London area.
  Paul Verity stood still, the hood of a dark anorak framing his thin,
hyper-alert face. He and his men waited one hour, then a second. A scout
party reported the arrival of the girls and of an unidentified man in a
Government Humber. At twelve thirty the men moved, quietly, unhurried,
taking their pace from the man who led them. They had prepared their
ground well. They knew from their mole which wall, which alarm switch,
which wire to cut, which key, which door. In their black face masks and
overalls, they looked like nothing more than dancing shadows as they
crossed the well-tended lawn. The guard, Geoff, along with his sleeping
partner, was pulped with iron bars and bicycle chains. It was a little too
noisily done and the Commander and his guest were able to get away by
an even better-planned escape route through a cellar at the rear of the
house. The five girls had another fate in store for them which in part
appeased the Brother's men for the failure of their revenge mission.
  Paul Verity himself did not go in for such things.



                                   One

   Despite the violence of the streets, there were still those who came to
the Royal Festival Hall to listen to great music, for on the South Bank life
remained cultured and sedate. It was a last expression of the sort of
atmosphere which Londoners had created for themselves during the
Second World War, even at the height of Hitler's Blitz, the feeling that,
Fuehrer or no Fuehrer, culture had to survive, be supported and enjoyed.
At another, more popular level, in Soho and the West End, there were still
a few theatres and cabarets playing to full houses, despite the fact that the
rest of British society seemed intent on bleeding to death from
self-inflicted wounds.
   From above, unseen, the murmur filtered down as the audience
departed from the vast auditorium. As Lou Gregory heard the applause
die away, he felt drained in the aftermath of the powerful music. He
moved slowly, his leg aching, and he was almost alone in the orchestra pit
by the time he had finished rearranging his sheet music and bedding his
viola, well wrapped in a soft cloth, into its battered case. As an
afterthought, he stopped at the music library and picked up a copy of the
following evening's score and slipped it into his briefcase. It had been
some time since he had played anything by Grieg; above all, he was
conscientious and there would be time to practise at home before the
morning's rehearsal.
   The dressing room was crowded. He hesitated for a moment in the
doorway, eyes behind their pebble glasses half-closed against the strong
fluorescent light. One of the horn players, a man who had always kept a
gentle eye on his frail yet talented colleague, came up and offered him a
drink from a hip flask. 'You need a pick-me-up, Lou,' the man said kindly.
'Best the Balham black market could produce.'
  'No . . . No thanks. All I want is a good night's sleep,' Lou heard himself
say. Deep down he knew he needed more rest than that.
  Then, with some strange, improbable timing, came the voice he knew
and a firm unmistakable hand on his shoulder. Lou's eyes lit up and
tiredness dropped away. It was for him the ultimate tonic. He turned to
come face to face with his other self.
  'Max, Max . . . When did you get here? I thought you were...'
   'The late flight from Oslo.' The familiar voice was of a more
self-assertive tone and dimension than was usual in the dressing room.
The twin brothers embraced. One or two members of the orchestra looked
across, exchanged understanding looks, and went on with their gossip.
Lou was popular; they could have no doubts, from the identikit face, who
the stranger was. They had heard much about Lou's prosperous brother
Max over the years, years of long separation in two lives that had once
been so close.
  'Good news. Clear ten days before I have to get back to New York.
Leisurely Christmas together . . .'
   'Christmas? How...? Just a moment. Just a moment. Let's . . . let's get
out of this damn place.' Lou stuttered with emotion as he began struggling
into the ponderous, once elegant coat with its collar of moulting fur. Max
came round behind him to calm and help as he had always done. Lou
fussed until he found his knitted fawn scarf, wound it unfashionably
around his neck, then stuck a dusty black Homburg too low on his head
until his ears pressed absurdly outwards. Now he was ready for the icy
London night. Only then, still myopically blinking with unconcealed
pleasure, did he notice that his brother was lightly clothed in cord jacket,
sports shirt and slacks.
  'Your overcoat, Max?'
  'Just like Mother, Lou. Always were. Don't fuss. It's warm after Oslo.
Tropical compared with the Forties rig I was on this morning.'
   'A coat. Ah, wait. . . I have that old brown one in my locker. I was going
to get the night watch to give it away.'
  'I bet you were. I remember it from student days.'
  Lou bustled off to reappear moments later with a rough tweed coat.
Max reluctantly took it. 'Like as two peas,' the horn player said to a
colleague as Lou waved goodnight and the two men left the dressing room.
  Likeness there was up to a point in intellect and features, but the
brothers were far from similar in life style, interests and physique. Lou
thought, talked, lived for his music. He was not a great soloist but had
played with moderate success in many of the world's orchestras, and was
known and liked within his limited circle. Under the fur-lined coat, the
stiff white shirt and the evening dress, the body was oily white, too tired
and wasted for his fifty-five years. Max, by contrast, whilst he liked
listening to music, particularly when his brother was playing, had been
built for power. Robust and tanned, he was the perpetual bread-winner
who had paid for his brother's last years at the Royal Academy of Music
after their school-teacher father had died. Abrasive and ambitious, Max
was well fitted for his role as head of the Gregory Institute, one of the most
competitive think-tanks in the whole United States. He was the
international super-consultant of whom it was said that he was listened to
by more premiers, sheiks and presidents than any man not in high
government office.
  'Bus or walk, Max?'
  'Lou, you look dead beat. Let's pick up a cab. How's your leg?'
   'No, no. Not for me. Any case . . . taxis are like gold dust these days. The
leg's fine. Not nearly so stiff now . . .after the operation. The night air ...
seeing you again ... A walk is what I need. Keep exercising it, the doctor
says.'



   From the Festival Hall there is a pedestrian way along that part of the
Thames Embankment which is paved with great grey concrete slabs. In
the past it was always thronged after a concert; now it was deserted.
Across the icy river, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament shone their
lights inadequately through a first flurry of snow that was dusting a sheen
of purity over the litterstrewn stones. Somewhere downstream, the
ever-haunting sound of a ship's siren echoed. Below, on the river itself, a
police launch patrolled the polluted waters, its engine thudding
rhythmically against the tide. It was a London night through which Alfred
Hitchcock might have stalked.
   By Westminster Bridge, deserted except for a solitary double decker bus
with its mesh-covered windows, the two brothers turned down below the
high perimeter fence that encircled St Thomas' Hospital. As they passed,
from the far end of the bridge, a blaze of searing light swept its inquisitive
beam to and fro across the roadway. A fierce shadow was suddenly cast by
one of the jaded stone lions that guard the Headquarters of the Greater
London Council. The searchlight came from one of the check points which
the Grenadier Guards, who had long abandoned their bearskins and
scarlet tunics for more levelling khaki, now manned at the entrances to the
safe area around Whitehall and the tarnished Mother of Parliaments. The
southern Embankment of the Thames was well lit at that point; the
Victorian cast-iron lamps, fashioned in the shape of huge dolphins, had
unsightly but effective arc lights strung in a row between them.
Everywhere the obnoxious litter of the run-down city lay as evidence of the
continuing strike by the majority of its public service employees.
   'I never walk on my own these days,' Lou was saying. 'One of the last
joys of London is out for me now. I travel by bus everywhere. It's safer.'
  'Which pack would I side with if I lived here?' responded Max Gregory.
'Hell if I know, Lou. I'm glad I'm through having to choose any more. It's
bad enough in the States.'
  'You vote?' Lou was aware of his brother's political cynicism.
   'In the event, no. But there's usually a smattering of justification for
favouring one lot over the other.'
   A hundred yards in front, a bend in the wall created a shallow pocket of
shadow that seemed all the more intense because of the brightness of the
arc lights around. It was sufficient to hide two figures who stood in
silence, blending with the night, waiting for the brothers as they
approached.
   'My suitcase; I saw it come out of the baggage chute. Then, when I went
to get it, it had gone. Someone had lifted it... I had to fill in a claim form,
which is why I missed the concert.'
  'Airline incompetence. It'll turn up. Was there much . , .?'
  'Clothes, my coat, a few papers and ... a present for you.'
  'For me?' Lou Gregory looked across, an expression of childish
gratification on the prematurely ageing face.
  'Don't worry. I can replace it.'
  'What. . .?'
  'Tut, tut, Lou. Wait till Christmas morning.'
  Lou began to laugh, but it was a sound that died in his throat.
   'What's ...' He grabbed his brother's arm as the two figures moved out
of the shadows.
  'Relax. They look like ordinary policemen to me.' The brothers walked
quickly on, making to pass the officers.
  'Evening,' Max said agreeably.
  'Not so fast.' One of the policemen moved to block their way. Max noted
that both had their gun holsters unfastened.
  'Papers. I'll look in that violin case too . . . and the briefcase.'
  'What's the matter . . .?' Max began.
  'Leave it, Max,' Lou said. 'It's normal. These bombs. There have been
two or three today already.'
  'Five,' said the policeman bleakly. He thumbed through Lou's identity
book, then took hold of Max's US passport. It was an offence, punishable
by up to three months in prison, to travel without papers. Two years ago,
when identity books were first issued to every adult, it had been different.
The other officer rummaged through the sheet music in Lou's briefcase,
then turned to search the viola case. His methods were far from gentle and
the instrument nearly fell out onto the ground. Aghast at damage being
done to such a valued possession, Lou jerked forward to catch it.
   The policeman reacted urgently, hand dropping automatically to hover
by his open holster. 'Keep your distance, you. I won't harm the bloody
thing.'
 'Right,' barked the other officer. 'Up against the wall - both of you.
Move.'
   The brothers did as they were bid, standing feet apart, hands
outspread. They waited. They waited for five minutes that seemed like
hours, hands freezing against the harsh stone. Max turned his head
slightly to try to look at the policemen. One of them had a gun, the other
was muttering into his two-way radio.
  'Can't you search us and let us go? My brother's not well . . .' Max began.
   'Face the bloody wall. Move again and we'll take you in,' came the
response.
  'Gently, Max,' whispered Lou. 'Gently.' Ten minutes passed. The
policemen still made no move to search them. It had begun to snow quite
heavily, and Max, for the first time, appreciated his brother's coat. Then
came a bleep from the police radio followed by the crackle of a message
that was totally inaudible to the brothers.
   'OK. You can go now. But make direct to Vauxhall. No turning off. Both
sides have gangs out in force. You've been warned.'
  'Thank you, Officer,' said Lou softly. The brothers moved on along the
Embankment, their feet indenting the fresh snow. 'That copper was
nervous as hell when you . . . He thought you were going to attack him,'
Max said.
  'Can't blame him. A hundred police killed this year in London alone.'
   'Can I talk about that, Lou? Why not come back with me? With your
contacts you'd get a job in New York, easy. Until you do — my apartment. .
. you like New York and I'm not often there. You'd have it to yourself.'
  'My contract with the orchestra has six months to run. Not going to
sponge on you. Not any more I'm not.'
   'Come off it, Lou. I miss seeing you. We . . . we do so well together.
While the troubles . . . till the London scene cools a bit. Worried to hell
about you living where you do.' For a moment Max Gregory betrayed
feelings that he had long trained himself to hide.
  'I'm all right. Need to be careful, that's all.'
  'But see. . . Oh, never mind. Hey, let me take that viola for a bit. You've
got enough with your briefcase.'
  'I can manage.'
  'Give me.' Max took the viola case, taking the decision as he always had
done for the only person who mattered in his rigorous life.
   Behind them, back along the Embankment, one of the policemen was
standing with a civilian who was dressed in the standard garb of the
plainclothes men from Section Nine: brown felt hat and grey
military-styled mackintosh. The other policeman had disappeared.
   'Brothers — twins. Identical birthdates. One's a musician. He's carrying
a fiddle in a case,' reported the policeman.
  'What else?' asked the man in the felt hat.
   'The musician's wearing a brown coat. The other, with the US passport,
is dressed in a heavy coat with a fur collar and a black hat.'
  'Right. Report back to Section Nine. Now.' The civilian turned and
walked away.
  'Hell . . . was it the other way around?' the policeman thought as he
watched the departing figure merge into the thickening snow. He
shrugged. It would work out the same in the end.
  The brothers had reached the network of streets by Vauxhall Bridge. All
around there the buildings were arson-gutted, reeking of social decay.
  'We must take a bus from here, it's safer,' said Lou. 'That policeman
was...'
  'Have you food?'
  'Not much.'
  'I'll get some eggs and bacon. There's a corner shop that still appears to
be open over there.'
  'You'll be lucky, 'said Lou. 'They'll be out of anything fresh.'
   'We'll see what enough money will buy,' said Max. 'I won't be a minute.'
He walked rapidly across to the shop, still clutching the viola case. Lou
watched him, suddenly feeling very much alone. Perhaps New York wasn't
such a bad idea. He was no hero. He would tell Max that he had changed
his mind. The orchestra's contract had a break clause. He limped over to
follow Max into the shop.
   Suddenly there were five of them, young men, none older than twenty.
Close cropped or shaven heads, identical grey jumpsuits, they stood silent
in a precise line between Lou and the barricaded shop-front. He moved
forward. They would stand aside. He was defenceless; an elderly lame
musician. They pushed him over easily, then went into him with
steel-capped boots. There was surprisingly little noise after the first blow
but they kept at it, burying the shattered spectacle glass into the face and
eyes, going for the throat, stomach and groin.
   Inside the ill-stocked shop, the unshaven shopkeeper turned down the
sound on the television set to hear what the man in the brown tweed coat
wanted. His other hand rested discreetly on the little shelf below the
counter where, beside the button that controlled the automatic lock on the
door, a handgun lay at the ready with its safety catch off. As the noise of
the television died leaving a flickering black and white Western epic
rolling soundless across the screen, the two men became aware of the
scuffle outside.
   'The gangs again. I'll bolt the door shutters,' said the shopkeeper
picking up his gun with a sudden burst of speed and coming out from
behind the counter. 'You can wait here till they've gone. With luck they'll
leave me alone but they don't like no strangers.'
   'Lou...Max Gregory turned with something approaching a roar, and
beat the man to the door handle. Outside, the youths were kicking at a
dark misshapen bundle lying on the fresh clean snow. Gregory turned
again and, with an agility born of desperation, seized the gun from the
startled shopkeeper's hand. He was still absurdly clutching his brother's
viola case in the other hand as he ejected himself back into the street.
With a torrent of base invective the shopkeeper slammed the door behind
him, bolted the shutters, and extinguished all the lights.
  Outside, two of the young men turned to face Max. 'Fuck off, fiddler. We
don't want you,' one said.
   The two youths, now joined by the other three, advanced on Max
Gregory in a viciously contracting semi-circle. They were laughing, for
they had not seen the gun. Suddenly one darted forward and with a
well-aimed kick from his steel-capped boot knocked the viola case hurtling
from Gregory's grasp. The box struck the snow-coveted ground and burst
open. The youth bent forward, peered contemptuously at the viola, then
brought his foot down, crushing the instrument into an ugly mess of gut
and sheer edges of lovingly polished wood.
   'The hero come to rescue 'is fuckin' brother, 'as he?' The leader of the
pack spat his words in mockery. 'Well, well. Too late, man. Too fuckin'
late. They said Maxie boy there would be tough. You're the weak one, they
said. So you should be really easy. Are you easy, Lou?' The leader laughed
and turned to seek appreciation from his colleagues who cat-called back in
unison: 'Easy . . . Easy.'
  'Well, in that case, fiddler . . . Goodbye.'
  The youths paced around him slowly, like jackals sizing up their prey,
waiting for him to freeze in some primitive fear. Behind them the street
was totally deserted though there were those who, with the shopkeeper,
watched the developing scene through unwashed windows and through
gaps in faded curtains.
   Gregory moved first and fast, spinning out an arc of death, pulling the
trigger again and again. The youths, caught by surprise by the noise and
the spattered fire, turned and ran—or three of them did, for the other two
lay dead or dying at his feet. Stepping over a prostrate body which was
already painting the snow dark red beneath it, Gregory bent over, lifted
his brother's broken body and carried it across to the shop door. He did
not need to look closely to know that he carried a corpse. There he gently
laid his brother out across the broad top step with the old brown coat
folded as a useless pillow under his head. Then he straightened up,
knocked, then hammered and shook the bars. And because the shopkeeper
would not open up, he shot through the locking bolt, pulled aside a
shutter, broke the door and climbed in. He found the light, then the
terrified shopkeeper hiding in a back room, then a telephone. Before he
left, he stopped briefly by the body at the door, his head bowed, his eyes
dry.



  Eventually a police squad and an ambulance came screaming through
the snow to take Lou and the two youths to the mortuary. Of Max Gregory
there was no sign. As a matter of routine, the police pulled the shopkeeper
in for questioning. They wouldn't even let him lock up his shop first, but
then they were busy that night as every night and no one actually got
round to interrogating him. He was released in the bitter, early hours of
the next day and went back to start, weary but resigned, clearing up the
pitiful remnants of his looted shop.
   The mood of the times was such that the incident did not even warrant
a report in the press.



   The condition of the times was also such that official screening of
passengers departing from Heathrow for Paris the following morning was
arbitrary and lax. Nonetheless, the CIA's Head of London Station
accompanied by the Head of the London Bureau of the Gregory Institute,
a partially reformed alcoholic called Mason, personally saw Professor Max
Gregory to the plane and reconfirmed his Air France Concorde booking
from Charles de Gaulle Airport on to New York, Kennedy. It was a further
measure of Gregory's importance that the Station Head had himself
delivered a message from the White House which finally persuaded
Gregory that nothing was to be gained by his remaining in London to face
a multiple homicide charge. Through intermediaries, the CIA would
ensure a proper burial for his brother Lou.
   In the departure lounge, Mason emerged with the mislaid suitcase.
Perhaps the papers it contained had been tampered with, but to the
inexpert eye, even the top coat, even the gift-wrapped antique brass and
walnut metronome, were intact. Which accounted for everything except
that a gang of hoods had been set to kill a man and had killed his brother
instead.



                                  Two

  New York: one month later to the day. Below its green glass shade the
desk lamp spilled a pool of light across the neat piles of computer
print-outs, agency reports and teleprinter tear-sheets on the polished
mahogany surface. From the window came a brasher reflection from a
huge neon sign high on a building on the other side of Madison Avenue.
The only other illumination in the office emanated from the flickering blue
and white television screen where Reuter's News Service flashed its
abbreviated summary of the day's catalogue of tragedies.
   Framed by a wall of overladen bookshelves, Max Gregory sat, slouched
low in a leather easy chair. All around him were signs of comfortable taste:
it was more an academic's study than the functional nerve-centre of the
Gregory Institute. A report, bound in a neat black folder with the one
emotive word Secret red-stamped diagonally across it, lay neglected in his
lap as he watched the late item of news appearing, line by line, in front of
him:
London, Wednesday, January 19: Prime Minister Hunt summoned the
British Cabinet into emergency session today amid the chaos of a general
strike, galloping inflation and further rumours of an attempted left-wing
coup.
   There was a pause, the screen cleared, then came the follow-up:
Leftist bombers struck at several Government targets in central London.
At least forty people reported killed or injured. Massive right-wing
counter-demonstrations in the streets of several major British cities.
   Again, after a gap, the screen refilled:
State Department is following events closely. Remaining American
subjects in Britain are being advised by US Embassy to stay off the streets.
   The British story was replaced by one about a gigantic earthquake in
China. Many thousands were reported dead.
   Gregory pulled himself out of his chair with more appearance of effort
than his fifty-five years justified and crossed his office to turn off the set.
Distant tragedies lost their proportion and China was a far-away land of
which he knew little. To him, even after fifteen years of self-imposed exile,
Britain was still Britain, even if it was enmeshed in an apparently
inevitable process of self-destruction. Unread in his hand he held the
secret file which had come, like so many of the other reports lying on his
desk, from the CIA, who were the generous backers of the most important
of the Gregory Institute's current research projects. They provided money
and raw information, and Gregory, accepting it as part of the great
American way of government, fed back reports and analyses to CIA
Headquarters at Langley, Virginia. For public consumption, his project
was on UK oil reserves, but a secret protocol signed by Gregory and by
Admiral Cassover, the Director of the CIA, laid down a wider and more
significant brief for the Institute. It was, in a nutshell, a covert operation
to monitor and assess all political and economic developments in the UK
for the CIA. For they were back in the big intelligence league again after
the long, lean, over-exposed Nixon-Ford-Carter years, and who better to
master-mind such a project for them than Professor Gregory, a man of
British extraction who could come and go at will, who could meet people
at every level in British political life without being an identifiable agent of
the US Administration? Gregory refused to feel himself a traitor to his
background by holding this extra brief; he was, after all, a mere searcher
after truth, or that at least was his justification to the only person to
whom he was answerable on this score: himself.
   Gregory moved from the television set across the deep carpeting to the
picture window and stared down the forty prosperous storeys to where the
evening traffic laboured its way up Madison Avenue. While Britain was on
the brink, New York, away below, with all its problems, was still very
much alive and well. But for him, for the thousandth time in only a month,
the two, the present and the past, were intermeshed, dominated by the
memory of a shapeless human bundle on snow-flecked cobblestones. At
that moment he was only remotely aware of the present: raucous sirens of
the NYPD and the bull-horns that backed up the flashing lights of a fire
engine as it forced a path between reluctant automobiles two blocks away.
Gradually the noise grew fainter, leaving behind the distant sound of tyres
on wet asphalt and the horns of jamstuck drivers impatient to gain their
destinations.
   It was eight in the evening and most of the Gregory Institute staff had
left for the day. One or two of those closest to Gregory had looked in on
their way home to exchange last minute views on the current state of
Britain. They were the same colleagues who, knowingly or unknowingly,
had contributed to the current CIA Personality Assessment on Gregory
that had been produced for Admiral Cassover before the secret protocol
had been promulgated. The overwhelming view of all those who worked
with him was that, though it would never be allowed to affect his
judgement and there was little evidence to support it, even he must surely
be upset by what was happening over there. Yet he was an utterly private
man, the assessment read, a loner who never allowed his defences to slip.
Even when he had returned from London a month ago, several days had
had to elapse before his colleagues discovered, via CIA Liaison themselves,
that he had so recently witnessed his brother's assassination in a London
street. Such ice-cold lack of emotion simply reinforced the views of
Gregory's colleagues. They had long appreciated the need to match the
impersonal correctness of his relations with them, that feelings were
strictly out of court at the Institute, that employees were expected to be
hard-nosed, dispassionate analysts of world crises, followers of the rule
that to get personally involved in a problem was bad per se and only led to
emotion-biased judgements. Gregory had never sought their sympathies
just as he rejected any intrusion by them into his private beliefs.
   Turning to examine his professional and private life style, the CIA
Assessment noted that during the office day he was demanding, brilliant,
abrasive, offering in return all the qualities of leadership that, in fifteen
years in an alien city, had brought him to the top of one of the hardest
professions of all—the sale of intellect. They had been years through which
he had pulled himself up from near poverty and had, equally ruthlessly,
dragged with him the old-fashioned firm of business consultants he had
bought. That firm was now far from old-fashioned, and, with its name
changed to the Gregory Institute for International Affairs, it was among
the best financed and respected think-tanks in the field, competing
vigorously with the Rand Corporation and the Hudson Institute in selling
talent and acting as super-consultants to the highest bidder. All this in a
country and a city where success is the pre-eminent value.
   Gregory's co-workers were unable to volunteer to the CIA much
information about him outside the office and away from the policy
lunches and weekend seminars that were the only semi-social extensions
of his office discipline. At various times some of them reported that they
had tried to get through to him by inviting him to their Long Island villas,
or for weekends at their New England academic retreats. Only old man
Riverton, the former president of the business consultancy Gregory had
taken over, had his invitation accepted. Riverton had refused to cooperate
or confirm the story that the weekend had not been an entire success and
that thereafter he had kept relations with his protege strictly within the
office walls. If Riverton had been saddened, as others said, by failing to
reach an understanding with his junior, he kept this to himself but he did
make it clear that he knew the worth when he saw it of the younger man's
abilities as a manager and his genius as a public affairs analyst. Who was
more accomplished than Gregory at spotting the value of a proposal or
developing a concept before anyone else had focused on it? The CIA
Personality Assessment noted that the only occasion when long-term
colleagues remembered a display of anything approaching warmth had
been some years previously when Max Gregory's twin brother had come
from London to visit him and he had been shown round the Institute.
Then there had been smiles and glasses of sherry and brief humanity and
a glimpse of the bachelor who felt for someone other than himself.
   Again, some years ago and in less permissive times, the assessment
noted, lurid stories had gained currency of Gregory having been seen in
unconventional surroundings with even more unconventional escorts. For
a brief season, his name appeared in the gossip columns of The Post and
News, with him branded as constant companion to one of the more
notorious actresses appearing at that time off Broadway. The facts were
many-sided: the actress had pursued him and had publicised their almost
non-existent affair to satisfy her agent's bid to add intellectual glamour to
her reputation. Gregory's life, by contrast, had been a mixture of
all-consuming work at the Institute, punctuated by rare, short-lived affairs
that were kept entirely private.



   Gregory pulled himself away from the window and went to sit behind
his desk where he began to study the secret CIA file he had been holding.
The first two documents in it were standard daily intelligence reports
from UK regional stations.
Report CZ 91/11/84: Belfast, Ulster: Wednesday, January 19: Political
leaders in Northern Ireland are monitoring the situation in mainland
Britain with ever-increasing concern. The Reverend Sean MacArthur,
Leader of the Centre Unity Party, has issued a statement urging his
political colleagues in Westminster to show every restraint in reacting to
the current situation. 'I speak from bitter experience,' stated the Reverend
MacArthur, 'when I say that nothing is to be achieved by giving support
either in verbal or in practical terms to the street-corner leaders and
gangs who believe that violence is the only means of achieving their
political ends.'
Worried by events on the mainland disturbing the relatively peaceful
situation currently prevailing in Ulster, the Commander-in-Chief of the
UN Supervisory Force in Northern Ireland, Colonel Ahmed El-Araf, echoed
this view when he addressed an inter-denominational rally in South
Armagh today. The rally was also attended by the leader of the All-Ireland
Protestant Movement and Dublin's Minister for Ecumenical Affairs, Mrs
Isobel Levy.


Report CZ 92/8/84: Glasgow, Scotland: Wednesday, January 19: A
number of houses in the prosperous West End of the City were destroyed
by fire last night in one of the worst outbreaks of sectional violence in
recent weeks. There were three so-called commando raids into fashionable
Bearsden again yesterday, leading to widespread arson and looting. A
number of deaths have been reported, but given the breakdown of
effective communications between police and the residual emergency
services in the west of Scotland, precise figures of those killed and injured
are impossible to obtain. Appeals by Church leaders for calm have so far
failed to have any noticeable effect. Clydeside and the greater Glasgow
conurbation is now in the twelfth day of an all-out general strike.
Electricity and water supplies are continually being interrupted, and it is
reported that food supplies are failing to reach many central areas of the
city. By contrast, the black market is flourishing...


  The third input in the secret file was an even more delicate excerpt,
dated eleven days previously, from British Cabinet Committee Minutes on
UK oil resources. It would, Gregory wondered, be interesting to know how
the CIA had acquired it, whom they had bought it from and for how
much. But for the present it was content that mattered. The first page of
the minutes listed the composition of the committee, something he knew
was crucial information when one was assessing the value to be put on any
report on any subject, anywhere.


Energy Resources Sub-Committee; Tuesday, January 8; Eleventh
Session; Fifth Meeting: Chairman: Prime Minister. Present: Secretary of
State for Energy, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State for
Scotland, Minister for industry, Minister without Portfolio. Secretary of
Sub-Committee: Miss Eileen Byrne, Cabinet Office, Whitehall, London,
SW1.


   He paused in his reading, closed his eyes and rested his head against
the leather back of his chair. That name . . . He remembered the British
girl with the auburn hair because she had stood out from all the others:
ten, eleven years ago, and she had been a post-graduate student at
Columbia, researching a thesis on energy policy and paying her own way
through college by working as an Assistant Economist at the Gregory
Institute. Of medium height, when she stood close to him as she eventually
did, she had reached to just above the level of his shoulder . . . Her?
   Gregory had been alone in his study. In his outer office, beyond a
discreet door plate which read 'Office of the Vice-President', Eileen Byrne
had stayed late to try to catch up with her employer's highly demanding
workload. At short notice she had moved in to take the place of his elderly
permanent assistant when the latter had to go into hospital with an
infection of an unused area of her inner anatomy. Eileen told him later
how fortunate she thought herself to have the chance to work for such a
well-known man, and that, from the outset, she had been intent on
showing what a good permanent replacement she would make. Much later
she admitted to social objectives as well, since the icy arrogance of her
employer had, over the few weeks that she had been at the Institute,
produced a reverse effect on her. A severe hairstyle and overlarge
intellectual spectacles, the blue-stocking symbols of those years, were
carefully deployed so as not entirely to disguise her potentially attractive
body.
   When she entered the room that particular evening, Gregory had been
staring out of the window, and if he was aware of her, he made no move
until she began to rearrange an already well-ordered desk top. A
methodical man, he was about to turn round and express irritation, but
she had spoken first.
  'Everything OK, Professor? Is there anything else?'
  'No, thank you. Good night, Eileen.' He did not face her and his voice
was dismissive.
    'I think . . . I'm managing to get the hang of things. Quite some pressure
. . .' She had been a little thrown by continuing to address Gregory's back.
  'Yes, fine. Just fine.' With reluctance he had turned round, his head
bent at the angle at which he had been staring down into the avenue far
below. Thus he found himself focusing less on her face than on her body
where he saw, readily enough, that one too many buttons on her white
shirt-front was undone.
  'Good night,' he repeated.
  She stood her ground. 'I'm enjoying it,' she said, a fraction lamely,
unwilling to give up without a struggle. She told him later that she had
seen the direction of his eyes and had stared back at him, willing his
coldness to evaporate. He had looked hard at her then, realising how
young she was, that she was only looking for some personal contact. But he
saw too that she had ambition and intellect, both of which were great
aphrodisiacs in Gregory's attitude to women. She would probably be an
avid reader of women's cult literature on such things; now she would also
have to face old-fashioned masculine indications of lust.
  'Good night,' she had said, turning towards the door.
  He had smiled. 'You've been working hard. Sit down. Tell me about
yourself. Where d'you come from in Britain?' He paused. 'A drink? I'm
about to have one. Scotch OK?' He had not waited for any of her replies
but began pouring out whisky from a decanter at a corner cocktail
cabinet.
  'I... yes ... London . . . Thank you,' she said, taking the proffered glass.
She had remained standing.
  'Enjoying New York, are you? How long have you been here . . .?' His
questions were not ones which required or were given time for answers.
He continued to stare at her as she raised a hand to do up a recently
undone button.
  'I wouldn't bother. We're both adult, are we not?' Before she had time to
grasp what he was saying, he'd moved on again. 'Let me guess:
twenty-three?'
  The hand fluttered back to her side. 'Nearly . . . next month.' With her
other hand she had held her glass and sipped compulsively.
  'And tonight you stayed . . .' He noticed for the first time, even in the
dull light, how green her eyes were and the soft sheen of her auburn hair.
  'I... er ...' she began.
  'We are both adult . . . British . . .' he repeated, then suddenly had
chosen to become arrogantly direct. 'So ... we both know why you stayed.'
  'I don't ... I wouldn't jump to conclusions.' She took a further gulp from
her glass.
  'If one doesn't jump at them they change.' He moved a little way
towards her and she drew back. 'I think I. . .'
  'Oh I don't think so. You don't want to do that. Not now; not after all
that effort.'
  'What do you mean?'
   He came up quite close to her and waited in silence for some moments
as if sizing her up. She had not moved, as if aware of the inevitable.
  'Yes or no?' he asked, then without waiting, brought his hand up
suddenly behind her neck, pulling her forward, almost savagely. He kissed
her, she began to struggle, then went limp as he dominated her. Equally
suddenly he let her go and she almost fell. He stood back after that,
watching her, then turned and went over to his leather arm chair and sat
down. Leaning back, legs slightly apart and stretched out lazily in front of
him, he looked across at her.
  'Lock the door.'
  'I must. . .'
  'Do you want to stay or don't you? The Ops Room boys are still here.
When they know I'm working late, they often burst in with the latest
tapes.' The matter-of-fact statement threw her even more. She turned and
did as bidden.
  'Now the blinds.' He continued to watch impassively as she pulled the
cords to close the slats. By now he could have told her to do anything and
she would have done it. He told her what he wanted.
  'Please . . . please . . . not like this.'
  'You may go if you wish.'
  She hesitated, then began, first blouse, then her smock, then the rest.
She stood to face him.
  'You're quite . . . you have a fierce style.'
  'Style?' At last he laughed, almost kindly. 'And you like it . . . you have a
good body. Now take your spectacles off; unloose your hair . . . There,
that's better. Why do academic women feel the need to hide it all?'
  'Please. . . not like this,'Eileen repeated, coming hesitantly towards him.
She shivered, showing how young she still was.
 'Yes, like this. Stay where you are. I like it. You like it. That's what
matters. Now turn . . .more. . .And round. . . now, down . . .'
  'Oh, I can't. . .'
  'Now over to me. . . See. . . you do it well. Over here. . . right over . . .'



   She was crying as she left and did not return his 'Good night, Eileen.' By
the end he had softened a great deal and had kissed her gently. He told
himself that it was more as an insurance policy to gain her silence than
from any real feeling, If she came back ... he would have to speak to
Personnel Section and have them find him a new temporary assistant,
ugly and old.
   But even in the cold light of the next day he did not do so and she had
stayed working for him until she gained the mastery of him. Three months
after that she left.



   Eleven years on, Gregory poured himself a whisky and settled at his
desk to read the forgotten British Cabinet Committee Minutes. Below the
list of committee members came the single sentence conclusion.
The Committee agreed that, provided foreign development finance
continues to be forthcoming, is not discouraged by or can continue to be
insured against current UK domestic disorders, the overall prospects for
future North Sea oil production, particularly in the Unst fields, remain
good. Signed: Eileen Byrne, Secretary of Sub-Committee.



                                  Three

  Two hours later he was still at his desk when the intercom light flashed.
  'Yes? . . . Yes. You have him on the line now? . . . Tell him I'm coming.'
  Gregory thrust his way out of his office, along the dimly lit Corridor and
through the swing doors into the neon brightness of the Ops Room. A
young clerk at a computer console glanced up, then went back to his
programming. He had been warned not to cross eyes with the boss.
  'You're tired, Mason.' Gregory eased himself into the high steel chair
opposite the Institute's newly installed videophone.
   'Damn these machines. We'll need make-up before dialling a call in
future . . . Yes, hell knows I'm tired. Twenty-one-hour day, third day
running. Three a.m. and no way finished, Max.' Mason, as head of the
Institute's London Bureau, was one of the few who first-named with
Professor Gregory.
   Gregory moved his eyes from the screen to take in the battery of digital
clocks that showed world time, then swung back to watch Mason's
pockmarked, unshaven face.
  'What's sterling going to do when London opens?'
  'Only one thing . . . down . . . if it opens, that is. Word is that the
Chancellor may keep the Bank and the exchanges closed tomorrow . . .
today.'
  'With your salary in dollars ...'
  'It's the only thing that keeps me here. You know that, Max.'
  'So what else is new?'
  'Cabinet meeting broke up half an hour ago.'
  'And?'
  'They don't matter any more.'
  'What happened?'
  'It got worse, that's all. They came out talking to the press and to
anyone else who would listen, trying to prove how right they are.'
  'What about?'
   'Street gangs wildly out of control — there was a mini-war again
tonight; accusations of the police siding with the United Action
Movement; rumours of ministers in secret negotiation with extremists;
the BBC being attacked by both sides for lack of impartiality. They're on a
hiding to nothing with all these problems. Then there's the army. With
them it's only a short step from assisting the Civil Power in
strike-breaking and combating political terrorism, to the generals wanting
much more power when the troops do get called in.'
  'Military coup?'
  'One current option.'
  'And behind it?'
  'Why should anyone be? Anarchy. Plain anarchy.'
  'What's Hunt's solution? He's no political eunuch. Didn't he ...'
   'Eunuch . . .? You don't know what happened to Hunt tonight?' Mason's
eroded face stared back questioningly from the screen. 'Of course not. It
would miss your evening news bulletins. So ... watch while I play a chunk
of video news film.'
   Mason's face cleared itself from the set. After a few moments a picture
came on line: a civic banquet in some still prosperous outskirt of London.
Ladies in sensible hats were in the majority at the elegant tables, though
there were a number of local dignitaries including a mayor who was
sporting a chain of office across his ample chest. Then, heralding the guest
of honour's arrival, nervous officials and a phalanx of implacable security
men entered the dining room. The well-modulated voice of the BBC
commentator described the scene as, to a burst of cheering, Harold Hunt,
the pudgy, horn-rimmed British Prime Minister, moved to take his place
at the rostrum. To Gregory, sitting thousands of miles away in New York,
Hunt's whole manner, the heavy smiles acknowledging the applause,
reeked of self-complacency as it had always done even before the man's
most recent return to power. Like a bad actor, this particular would-be
world statesman had come out of retirement, like a poor man's deGaulle,
to save a nation that was almost beyond salvation.
  Gregory noted that the Prime Minister spoke without notes; his phrases
were so over-used, he would know them by heart. 'I am most grateful,
Madam Chairman, Mr Mayor, for inviting me here today. I am sorry I
could not make your meal, but looking on the bright side, coming in at the
end of it is it were, at least my speech won't give you all indigestion.' The
laughter followed obediently on cue, the PM paused, then turned heavily
serious: 'There are, Madam Chairman, those who would divide our people.
There are those who think they can lead by ever more violent means, that
politics is made on the street corners. The press and television, interested
only in the sensational, give too much coverage, too much status to street
gangs and their leaders . . .'
   Gregory had already had enough of Hunt's nasal north-country
platitudes when it happened. The BBC cameraman, with prize-winning
dedication, caught every detail of what followed. His lens was combing the
increasingly somnolent faces of the well-dined suburban audience as they
reacted to the Prime Minister's words which flowed as a dirge of
background sound. Suddenly a young man was standing amongst the hats
and the white and silver of the tables. He shouted meaningless, inaudible
slogans, until he drowned his own words with the rattle of fire from the
sub-machine gun which he swung from his hip. The cameraman held his
ground and the lens recorded everything, the screams, the panic as people
threw themselves to the floor, the gun jamming, the crowd moving in and
jumping on the youth, well-polished shoes kicking, Gucci handbags
flailing. Then, too late, the camera watched as the security men, handguns
at the alert, moved into action. With the continuing screams as
background sound, the film moved to show, coldly and without surprise or
compassion, death horridly set out along the high table — blood and red
roses intermingled.
  The screen cleared and Mason's face reappeared. He spoke without
emotion. 'Hunt was found huddled below the lectern, unhurt, totally and
absolutely unhurt. Seven others killed and about the same number
wounded.'
  'Left or right wing?'
   'Does it matter? Another "anti". Probably Marxist-Anarchist. Badly torn
and beaten by the crowd. Point is, Hunt was in no mood to chair any
Cabinet meeting. Even the law-and-order gang couldn't get him on their
side. He just sat there mumbling to himself.'
  'I get the mood. Useful for tomorrow.'
  'What's tomorrow?'
   'Washington: White House. Cassover wants me to go down and support
him, I guess. Auerbach and he are in the midst of another spat about what
to do about Britain, and I'm to be fall guy in front of the President.'
  There was a pause, then Mason decided to risk his other piece of news.
'They got nowhere in tracing the origins of the louts you killed.'
  The response was as cold as they come. 'Tell me when I see you. I'm
coming over on Tuesday. Book me in somewhere close.'
  'Not very clever if you do. The police want to talk to you. They were
angry when you skipped.'
  'I'll be a judge of that. Tuesday, OK?'
  'Whoopee,' said Mason. It did not look as if he was even trying to smile.



   As Gregory was driven home to his East 57th Street apartment later
that night, his mind was still at work revising the final chapter of his
best-known book, Britain at the Brink. The publication of the book had
earned him both a great deal of public praise and also the CIA contract in
the United States, but it had attracted an equally virulent amount of
criticism in Britain itself. 'Cheap and unbalanced polemic by a turncoat
British would-be political analyst,' The Times had called it in one of the
kinder pieces of criticism levelled against it. 'Who is this man Gregory,
with his vicious and ill-considered manifesto for despair?' screamed an
Express leader. By contrast, Gregory himself still believed it to be a
moderate analysis of irrefutable past events which had inevitably led to
the present state of near anarchy. All he felt he had done was to describe
what had happened and then add a foretaste of things to come. The early
chapters had taken Britain from the 'toothless bulldog lacking a role'
phase, through the decade and a half of the Northern Ireland crises, ever
increasing inflation and the mounting millions of unemployed. Then had
come the race riots and the anarchy of the streets that the authorities had
for some time managed to contain and isolate in areas of metropolitan
decay.


The introduction, [Gregory had written] of proportional representation
into the voting system was only one of the factors that did indeed, as its
critics had warned, bring about a fragmentation of the traditional
Westminster party structure. In terms of active politics there are
consequently now only three major groupings that matter in Britain
today, each of them, in itself, a constantly changing coalition of a number
of small parties or political movements. The centralist Government under
Premier Hunt, the Central Democratic Alliance (CDA), is largely
composed of former Liberals, Social Democrats, right-wing Labourites
and left-of-centre Tories. While there still are Conservative and Labour
parties in existence, each with numbers of MPs nominally at Westminster
(the House of Commons was suspended indefinitely after the riots in the
Chamber early last year), the two other real groupings are those on the
extreme right and left of the political spectrum, both of which have their
power base in the streets, rather than through any democratic process. Of
these, the first, the Commander's United Action Movement (UAM), has, as
its main policy objectives, a massive build-up of Britain's defence
capabilities, a tough law and order programme including internment and
forced labour camps for 'socially undesirable elements', repatriation of all
West Indian and Asian minorities, the outlawing of the Communist Party,
and stringent government controls over national resources such as North
Sea oil and gas, to avoid these assets falling into the hands of non-British
companies and individuals.
By contrast, the left-wing coalition, the People's Socialist Coalition (PSC),
under 'Brother' Paul Verity, is a loose neo-Marxist, anti-fascist grouping
which has maintained close ties with extreme left-wing groups in Eastern
Europe. While it has standard communist elements in its programme
—state ownership of all industrial production, state control of the unions
and the labour force, withdrawal from NATO and all other
Western-capitalist treaty obligations, and the introduction of a massive
social welfare programme, it is also distinctly nationalistic in outlook,
which is a measure of the Brother's strong personal influence on its
politics. It too, for example, believes in keeping North Sea oil entirely
British owned . . .


   The bitter conclusion to Gregory's book, and one that he felt no need to
revise, was that the CDA coalition of 'moderate, sensible men and women'
had been too long in coming and had failed to stem the flood of industrial
war and class and race hate. Against this sorry background, there was one
additional destabilising factor which had removed the safety-valve from
that society: the violence that had once thrived in Northern Ireland had
anaesthetised the British public, through the media's constant
sensationalising of dire events, to the extent that they had become totally
apathetic and inoculated against violence and death. Politicians and the
man in the street had both relied too long on 'the good sense of the British'
to save them from tragedy. Now, according to Gregory's bitter analysis, it
was almost too late, with Britain poised on the brink of catastrophe.



                                  Four
   They were mainly identikit men, business executives, government
officials, administrators, though there was a scattering of feminine
leavening in the two or three immaculate women from, at a guess, the
same dull professions. All had neat briefcases and carried copies of the
New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or early editions of the
Washington Post. No sign of the Daily News on this flight; no ordinary
people, no students, tourists, shopkeepers, mistresses on the seven a.m.
Eastern Airlines shuttle to Washington.
   Max Gregory perched on a hard plastic bench into which someone had
burned a series of neat holes with the end of a cigarette. He was irritated:
irritated by the late arrival of his driver which had meant missing the first
section of the shuttle, irritated by the ink smudge on his hands from
reading the New York Times, irritated by the lead editorial which was
preaching, as so often, with no solution to offer:


The trends that have bedevilled Britain since the Second World War have
dramatically worsened. Only a short time ago, we, along with the
American Irish community at large, were elated when Westminster at last
brought relative peace to Ulster. But at what price. Now Britain is not only
the sick man of Europe, it is itself critically divided. The benefits from
North Sea oil have led neither to an increase in stability nor to economic
prosperity but have been accompanied by vicious political turmoil. The
left has marshalled the unions into an ever more powerfully militant and
violent force, causing US investors to seek other less volatile areas in
which to place capital.


   The loudspeaker called the departure of the second section. Gregory
folded the newspaper, picked up his briefcase and coat and edged into
line. Slowly, with boarding pass in hand, he advanced up the
sound-proofed mounting ramp and into the cramped plane. Settling
himself at a window seat, with difficulty he re-opened the paper and
forced himself to continue with the editorial. It was not that the Times
line was wrong or particularly unbalanced, just full of empty rhetoric.


The right-wing, even those less extreme than the camp-followers of the
so-called 'Commander', calls for harsh totalitarian methods to deal with
the strikes and lawlessness which their own policies encourage. Racism
and the call for interment of the 'Enemies of the State' (a phrase
increasingly used to describe any striker or demonstrator), these and the
encouragement of paramilitary vigilante groups are strident parts of the
political platform of the right. More dangerously, some senior military and
police officers, frustrated in their attempts to control metropolitan
hooliganism and faced with increasing sectarian violence in Scotland and
Wales, are reported to be siding with extreme conservative leaders. On the
left are the familiar neo-Marxist ideologues and their running dogs . . .
such as we have seen so often elsewhere around the globe . . .


   A large fat man in a rumpled blue-shot suit plunged into the
insufficient seat beside Gregory, bulging the centre armrest and
pressuring him even tighter against the window. 'Whoops.' he wheezed in
a very English voice, 'shuttle planes ain't built for the big 'uns.'
   Gregory responded with an imperceptible nod as he struggled but failed
to regain his fair share of the seating. Arms pinned in front of him, he
attempted to renegotiate the Times into a readable position but could not
turn the pages and was again forced to face the offending editorial.


The State Department continues to hold that this is a domestic British
matter ... no direct concern of the US Administration . . . White House
anxiety . . . there are dangers . . . Western Alliance . . . old and trusted ally
. . . tragedy of great historical. . . dangers of intervention . . .


   Eyes heavy, Gregory let his head drop back with the paper crumpled
unhappily in his lap. The best of a bad start would be to sleep and dream
of spacious executive jets. Cassover would have, sent a plane if he had
asked.
   'I know you. You're Lou Gregory's brother.' The heavy voice in his right
ear was unmistakably Yorkshire. Any other topic would have brought a
derelict response aimed at killing any further attempt at conversation. As
it was, Gregory turned his head as far as he could and came face to face
with an uncertain smile and a fair quantity of bad breath.
  'Yes, yes. Twins you were. Could hardly miss you, could I? Reddich . . .
Jimmy Reddich. French horn. Off to join the Washington Symphony.'
  'I... yes... Max Gregory.' They struggled to shake hands.
  'How d'you do, Max . . . Saw you only once. That night, I'm afraid.
Seems ages ago, but it can't be more'n a month . . . You came to pick Lou
up. God, we all talked about how happy he was . . . Later that was, when
we heard. We all liked Lou.'
  'Yes.' Gregory gave up his contortionist's attempt to look at his
companion. He had also given up the idea of sleep.
   'Everyone liked Lou. Good, competent instrumentalist. That leg of his —
he must have been in constant pain. But never heard him complain. How
d'it happen?'
  'Bad fall on ice. Multiple fracture.'
  'He had the luck.' The fat man sighed into a brief silence. 'Wait a
minute. You vanished, didn't you? Disappeared. They were looking for
you. Said you had wiped out...' Gregory felt the huge bulk stirring uneasily
beside him as memories were revived.
  'Hey. Wait. They said you had shot. . hey. . .wasn't that it? God... Oh
God.'
   Gregory could feel the man staring at him. He could imagine the
horror-struck face but did not turn to look and kept his eyes firmly on the
clasp that held up the little collapsible tray in front of him. Maybe the man
would move, would shout for the stewardess, would point a finger at a
reputed mass-murderer. No such luck.
  'Say. . . They deserved it. We all thought so. Musicians may not be the
most... er ... belligerent of people, but by God, what they did to Lou ... It
was you, wasn't it?'
  'It depends what you mean.'
  'No, no. Don't say anything. I don't want to know. But they did think . . .'
He paused.
  'Yes? Who thought?'
   'Yes, yes. The police. Then Section Nine of the Security Squad
interrogated us all, to find where you were. The leader, of the orchestra
that is, he was closest to Lou. He went round to Lou's flat late the next day.
In ruins. Someone had been right through it.'
  'I heard.'
  'Spect you pulled out . . . came over here quick. Can't blame you. Lou's
death helped me make up my mind too, sure enough. Took up this
Washington offer within the week, I did. I'm no quitter, but.. .'
  'What was that about the Security Squad?' Gregory forced himself
sideways in his seat in a renewed attempt to view the profile of the man
beside him: a heavy, sweating face, unhealthy swinging jowls and no chin.
   'I dunno. They talked to Frita—he was second trombone. He knew one of
them. They were real "heavies". They told Frita there was some Russian
link in the killing. You must know.'
  'News to me. What else did they ask?'
   'I dunno. A lot's happened since. I forget. I've been so thrown around by
this move here. Different pace Stateside, don't you know. And I wasn't
involved. Not me. It is almost a month now, isn't it?'
  'Just over.'
  'Just over, eh? Count the days, one does, with something like that. The
heavies frightened the leader and Frita. . .They were throwing their weight
around, you see.'
  'You don't remember more about what they said about the Russians?'
  'I don't. . . I don't remember nothing more. Nothing.'
    The fat man dried up after that. Gregory tried to draw him further but
the fat man sank deeper into his seat, spilling his bulk into ever greater
overflow and was silent. It was only when they arrived at Washington and
the fat man had, with much effort, levered himself out of his tortured seat,
that he addressed Gregory again. 'Nice to meet... I mean . . . well I'm sorry
. . . very sorry. We all liked Lou, you know. We really did.'



  'This is the CBS News with Edward Airdale.' Almost the only watchable
programme came on screen. How many times had the grand old man of
American television retired as anchorman and then had to come back in
response to the ratings battle and to public demand?
   Gregory lay stretched out on his hotel bed, shoes off, shirt unbuttoned
to the waist. To hell with Cassover, Auerbach, the lot of them. They had
kept him waiting all day with an endless flow of excuses. 'Dr Auerbach is
with the President. . .' 'Admiral Cassover is still at the NSC . . .' 'The
President is at a Pentagon briefing.' The crisis this time apparently was
that in China, over a million were now reported dead in the earthquake,
the epicentre of which was in the Province of. . . where was it? Auerbach,
Cassover and the President were working on how the US should respond
to an unexpected Chinese request for massive American aid.
  In the middle of the morning the Secretary of State sent an assistant to
Gregory's hotel to apologise in person. 'The Secretary of State is extremely
sorry. He is looking forward to a full discussion with you later, after lunch .
. .' Then came telephone calls: 'four o'clock . . .', 'six o'clock', 'seven o'clock'.
'Professor Gregory, you would be better to stay in Washington overnight if
that isn't inconvenient.' 'Overnight . . .' To hell with them all.
   His eyes narrowed. He needed a Scotch, but not quite yet. He sat up on
the bed and, ignoring the television, picked his way listlessly through a
bundle of intelligence reports he had brought with him. The trouble with
the CIA was that their UK Filter Unit was ineffective and the most basic
intelligence material came through to the Institute unchecked. Gregory
had brought some examples with him to take up with Cassover if time
allowed.


Report CZ 991/8/84: Riot gear for police. After nine months' debate,
traditional 'Bobby' helmet finally abandoned in favour of Intermex
Stormtroop Model K, complete with shatter-proof vizor and
neck-protector. Anti-molotov suiting and riot guns firing rubber chain
now issued all, repeat all, metropolitan forces . . .
Report CZ 821/9/84: Water contamination. Allegations of deliberate
left-wing depurification of Merseyside drinking-water supplies have been
vehemently denied by spokesman for Waterworkers' Union . . .
Report CZ 1012/9/84: Food convoys. Reappraisal of convoy security has
been called for following hijacking of five lorries and contents in East
London dock area, Saturday night. Food stocks and emergency medical
supplies in the area are consequently running drastically low. On the black
market most commodities are, by contrast, easily available. No serious
attempts by metropolitan authorities to deal with illegal food dealing have
been reported.


  In the verbatim series of foreign press coverage of the British crisis,
Gregory turned to select one with a Moscow dateline.


Following from CIA for oripass Gregory Institute: Text of Pravda article
dated today Thursday, January 20: 'The Soviet Politbureau rejects
allegations emanating from Washington and Bonn that they have in any
way involved themselves in the struggle by the working-class peoples of he
United Kingdom against the resurgence of fascism in hat country. The
Soviet people deplore attempts to suggest that it has financed the efforts
of the peace-loving People's Socialist Coalition, though it will continue, as
must all those involved in the fight against neo-colonialism, imperialism
and fascism, to give moral support where it can. Additionally, it condemns
the backing being given, both in money and weapons, by international
capitalism to the so-called 'Commander' and his storm-trooper thugs of
the UAM. It warns those responsible for fuelling the hatred and the
attacks on the British working classes that the Soviet Union cannot and
will not stand idly by and watch neo-nazism and warmongering capitalism
reassert itself.' The Government of Prime Minister Harold Hunt must use
all the power at its disposal to destroy the evil of fascism before it is itself
destroyed . . .


   Gregory threw the reports back on top of his open briefcase and allowed
his thoughts to wander. He had a most reliable address to follow up in
Georgetown. There was a lady who had never failed him. Soon he might. . .
His attention moved back to the television screen where CBS, still unaware
that the US had been asked for aid, gave one minute thirty seconds of
their evening news to the Chinese earthquake. In global terms it was
important, otherwise they wouldn't have given it ninety seconds and put it
as first foreign item. The standard piece on the developing world energy
crisis took the next place, then came a hotel fire in Las Vegas. After the
ads came Britain. Edward Airdale, everyone's favourite grandfather with
his slanting, kindly eyes and a microphone buttonholed neatly on his tie,
was talking in a sad, almost English voice, about a great old country gone
mad. That Britain that 'had lost an Empire . . .' now seemed totally intent
on 'weaving its own shroud. The great mass of sensible British people were
flitting around with minds like wool, playing or watching cricket and
saying "oh dear" while the mother of democracies burned around them.'
Fine, homespun political analysis, Gregory thought as he lay on his bed,
watching the newscaster shed earnest tears over Britain on the brink. 'And
today brought further reports of conflict in that decaying society, as Mark
Rudin reports from London,' said Airdale wisely.
  Gregory weakened, got up from the bed, poured himself the needed
drink and settled back to watch the film which was of bodies lined up on
some anonymous rain-soaked London street. Behind the corpses the
camera picked out a group of soldiers in riot gear and helmets, with the
perspex face shields pushed back so that they could have a smoke and a
chat. Not one of them was paying any attention as a little old lady in black
pulled and turned her way along the neat line of bodies that lay stretched
out waiting to be identified. The CBS cameraman with astute,
award-winning skill, picked out the old lady holding back her tears, the
soldiers smoking and the corpses on the wet tarmac. Then the camera
panned up to take in the face of Big Ben.
  The telephone rang. Gregory picked it up, listened, grunted, then
replaced the receiver. He got up, showered, changed his shirt and put on a
suit and tie for the late night summons.
  'And that's the way it is this Thursday, January 20. This is Edward
Airdale for CBS News. Good night.' Gregory leaned over and pressed the
button on the set. The screen went blank.



                                  Five

   They stood marshalled on the terrace outside the french windows. 'OK.
Let's get this charade over quick ' growled Auerbach. A personal adviser
nodded obediently, two Secret Servicemen stood aside and the Secretary
of State pushed his way into the Oval Office without knocking. Gregory
followed, shook hands with the President who stood smiling by the door,
then moved to his allotted seat with his back to those famous bulletproof
windows that produced, by repute, such a curiously distorted view of the
wider world beyond.
   Besides Gregory there were seven other people in the office. Three were
senior White House or State Department aides, one was a hyper-attractive
stenographer, one Admiral Hugh Cassover, Director of the CIA, and one
the Secretary of State, Dr Frank Auerbach. The last man, and by any
account the least gifted of them all, was the stooped, wispish figure who
was the President of the United States of America. Contrary to
conventional wisdom about how presidents act and power is manipulated,
none of the men in the room were at his bidding. Rather it was that the
President had had his evening spoiled by the demand for this meeting,
because his advisers wished to use him and his authority. He was puck,
they had the sticks, and it was now a matter of alliances, teamwork and
tactics into which net he was finally homed. But the ceremonial
play-acting that is part of every nation's decision-taking process had first
to be followed through.
   'I have twenty minutes,' said the President with a brief demonstration
of authority, as he swung himself round behind his desk to face his
visitors. No one had ever denied the Washington Post story which had
appeared when the President first took up office: that his policy making
had begun with a directive that his swivel chair should be specially
built-up to give him a throne-like stature over those who would sit around
him. That the President needed every available stage prop was a view that
Gregory shared as he watched and wondered, yet again, at how such a
physically nondescript man, with all his inadequacies on constant public
display, could end up as the nation's Chief Executive.
  'Twenty minutes till bed-time. My grandchildren won't forgive me if I
don't say good night to them.' The skin on the President's face creased
until the eyes almost disappeared. The result was the famous smile which,
through the long presidential campaign, had hidden from the electorate
the dull incompetence of the real man within.
   'Ten minutes is all Britain's worth right now,' responded the Secretary
of State with a matching leer that revealed much more than the line of
uneven, tobacco-stained teeth. Gregory had to force himself to look at the
speaker who sat in the place of honour on the right of the President.
Under an angry turbulence of red hair that was every political cartoonist's
joy, Dr Auerbach had always given Gregory the impression of being both
devious and menacing. They had known and disliked each other at Yale
many years earlier when Auerbach was Dean of Political Studies. Now,
with academic life behind him, Auerbach had acquired the State
Department, which, with a weak president like the present one, left him
with almost absolute power in the making of American foreign policy.
   The President beamed around the room, then, speaking from notes,
launched himself into a trite little speech. 'Professor Gregory, as you know,
we, the US Administration, wish to do everything in our power to help the
United Kingdom to recover, both politically and economically. It is
necessary not only for the future of Western defence and stability but also,
dare I say, Professor, for the future of civilisation itself. That is why the
Administration and particularly the CIA have underwritten your, our,
common research project. It is one that we value greatly as an extension of
the governmental process of this great nation of ours. I, er . . . hope and
trust . . . ,' the President faltered, ' . . . that we can continue to work closely
on this project for our . . . er . . . mutual benefit and for that... er ... of
society at large. Er . . . Frank, over to you.' The President sat back, a
contented look on his face at a job well done, a case well put.
   Auerbach leaned forward in his chair. 'Thank you, Mr President,' he
said, then turned and addressed Gregory. 'Cards on the table, Professor.
The President is, on CIA advice, considering asking you to step up your
operation in the UK. That's why you were asked here today. Against State
Department advice, CIA propose that they should double the amount of
sponsorship money available to the Gregory Institute. Your aim from now
on would not just be to analyse the British predicament and its energy
resources, but to help find solutions. I, with respect, believe that that is
the Administration's job, not yours.'
   'Fact is, things are getting worse. We need all the expert help we can
buy from ...' At the interruption, Dr Auerbach turned irritably to focus on
the uncertain figure of Admiral Cassover. The CIA Director's reputation
was coloured by his habits. One was that he seemed incapable of finishing
a sentence, as if he wished to keep his audience guessing at his intentions.
Another was that Cassover would polish his bald pate rapidly with the flat
of his right hand as he spoke, both trade marks of a man who had been
selected for his patent honesty to become head of the Augean stables that
were still the core of the intelligence community of the United States of
America. The Washington Post had called him a big kindly frontman, the
former war hero and football champion who was still bull-chested enough
to carry his many rows of military decorations with conviction. The other
story was that he had been appointed with Auerbach's specific blessing. A
not over-brilliant director for the CIA would mean that Langley would
always come second in the traditional battle with the Special Services
Section of the State Department.
  'Agreed,' Auerbach responded. His eyes darted from person to person
around the room as he weighed up who was with him and who against. He
was a man who lived by conflict, and if it did not exist he created it.
'Agreed,' he repeated, in a tone that suggested the precise opposite. 'No
one's disputing you, Admiral. Your reports tally exactly with those of State
Department.'
  'The same sources . . . ours, though State Department tends not to
acknowledge the fact.' This time Cassover made sure everyone got the
whole message.
  'Now then, tut, tut,' said the President, as if already with his
grandchildren.
   'We're working together very closely, Mr President,' said Dr Auerbach,
shifting his style to one of sweet reason. 'What we're here to discuss, the
Admiral will remember, is what conclusion we may draw from the British
situation, and how Professor Gregory and his Institute may be able to help
with solutions. We're agreed it's getting worse, but does it matter? Why
does the state of Britain matter to the US of A?'
 'It matters a great deal to us. We felt we should disturb your evening,
Mr President, because ...' Cassover hesitated, '. . . race riots, violent
picketing, neo-fascist parades supported by the police, all this, taken
together, poses a threat to our economic and political standing in Western
Europe, the balance of power, NATO defence capabilities and so on. Then
take the oil factor; Professor Gregory's already working for us on a specific
project on oil reserves. As one of the most prominent experts on the
British political mood he believes we have to act now . . . He shares my
belief that we can't just . . .' As his words dried up Cassover picked up his
folder of briefs with a ball-player's huge hand and waved it in the empty
air in front of him.
  'We could indeed just.' Auerbach's red hair bobbed up and down
aggressively as he stressed the last word. 'We could do lots of things or
nothing. We could send in the Sixth Fleet. We could get all hot under the
collar and tell Prime Minister Hunt to get a grip. Ask him to issue sten
guns to his wonderful police.'
  'The police are all armed these days,' Gregory interjected. As soon as he
spoke he realised it was a mistake. The last thing these people wanted was
more facts. Auerbach and Cassover stared at him with equal distaste.
   'A message, a personal message from you Mr President, from you to the
Prime Minister, would certainly strengthen his resolve.' Cassover pressed
ahead undaunted. 'We have also considered sponsoring a UN resolution
calling for a United Nations force to help in metropolitan riot control,
which would take one problem off Hunt's back. Another major financial
loan could help the economy get going once again. All these options are
worth urgent consideration.'
   'The answer to these is no, no and no,' interrupted Auerbach, showing
increasing irritation. 'The first, with respect, Mr President, would do no
good. I'm sure poor Harold Hunt would appreciate the gesture, but you'd
be wasting your time. And as for the hoary old idea of a UN force it would
be Cyprus or Korea all over again. A thankless task, with us Americans
taking all the burden and we'd have a helluva hard job keeping the
Russians out. It would most likely give the Kremlin a toe-hold in Western
Europe and more ammo for their "human-rights-is-also-a-western-issue"
line. It's like it was with Ireland. The Paddys kept on killing each other
whatever we did since they had centuries of habit to live up to and it was
only when they decided for themselves that enough was enough that they
came to their senses. As for the Admiral's loan idea: with the amount of
good money we've poured after bad, quite apart from what Treasury
would say . . .'Auerbach paused and turned to face Gregory. 'The Professor
is a considerable expert on the UK. Does he go along with this? Does he
really see any of that crap making a jot of difference?'
  Gregory saw that he was being set a trap and began cautiously. 'With
other world sources so uncertain, North Sea oil supplies are increasingly
important. If we sit back and let Britain pull itself to pieces, who's going to
control access?' To emphasise his point he brought the flat of his hand
down on the arm of his chair with more force than he intended.
   'Why not?' responded Auerbach, with a suitably withering look. The
Secretary of State had been brought up on Kissinger's doctrine of
European inconsequence; he was now about to add his own touch of
malice. 'Precisely why not, Professor Gregory? The multinational oil
companies will continue to get it out to us even if Britain does go up in
flames. So why does Britain really matter to the US? We don't need their
defence capability, such as they have left after using it in riot control,
fighting fires and delivering groceries when everyone's on strike. The
situation's not even affecting our trade. We're selling as much to them as
we've ever done.'
  'Leaving aside oil. Secretary of State, a further deterioration could, as
Admiral Cassover said, affect the whole European balance of power. With
Britain in ruins, there's a gaping hole in the Euopean end of the Atlantic
Alliance. Don't you think the Russians would exploit that just as much?'
answered Gregory, with matching ice in his voice.
  'Right,' broke in Cassover. 'Professor Gregory has a real grasp of . . .'
   'Professor Gregory — you're British, aren't you?' asked Auerbach,
carefully reacting to the Cassover-Gregory line-up. 'Balance of power' was
a phrase which the President might think he understood.
  'I'm an American citizen,' said Gregory. He knew at once what was
coming.
   'But born, raised and educated in Britain. Fifteen years here in the
States, isn't it, Professor? America's gain; Britain's loss. We all agree. And
your brother . . . That was very sad. Very sad. You know from experience
about the rule of the hardhearted thug. Professor. You remember, Mr
President, about the Professor's brother. The Professor is an unrivalled
expert on the British political situation and he mustn't let his recent tragic
loss affect his judgement as to what to do about it.'
  The President took a point that he could scarcely have missed. 'Yes
indeed. Very sad . . . Now, I think,' he said, it's the youngsters' bed-time. If
there's nothing else, gentlemen, I'd better be going. My grandchildren are
very demanding, you know.'
  The President stood up and so did everyone else. Cassover looked as if
he was about to explode but then thought better of it. Gregory considered
telling the President the facts about his brother's death, and of his
growing convictions that he had been the real target of the thugs because
his work for the CIA had leaked, but he too controlled himself.
Explanations achieved little when the damage was done. He would also
swallow his anger at Auerbach's malicious suggestion that he lacked
impartiality.



                                    Six

   Auerbach was already over an hour late for the meeting but this time
Gregory had Cassover for company as they sat waiting in the Secretary of
State's ante-room at the State Department. Aides and secretaries flitted in
from time to time to ensure a plentiful supply of coffee.
  'He always keep you waiting like this?'
  'When he's with the President. China again. I should be at my desk
working on it too.' Cassover seemed remarkably composed despite the
delay but even he kept glancing at his watch.
  'You accept it?' Gregory queried.
  'Being kept waiting? . . . This time, yes. Britain's more important in the
long run. Auerbach knows I want something from him, so he can afford to
be a bit late.'
  'What game was he playing last night? One moment he was totally anti
your proposal, down-playing the British crisis generally, and the next he
appeared to give in to my getting more involved.'
  'Game-playing, as you say. Auerbach thrives on antagonisms. But he
knows he's lost this round.' Cassover continued to demonstrate a
remarkable degree of resignation.
  'What's that?'
  'Better wait till he tells you, Max; it's part of my deal with him. You see,
he's annoyed, since generally his first objective is to get the President to
rubber-stamp his blank cheques, if you see what I mean.'
  'I don't see.'
  'Auerbach believes that it's better to keep detail away from the
President, that it just confuses the mind of the Chief Executive. So he was
mad as hell at me for setting up the meeting with you. We should have
fixed everything first and told the President afterwards.'
  'What's the "everything"?'
  There was a long pause. At the end of it Cassover ignored Gregory's
question and asked another. 'You're planning to go to London soon?'
   'Tuesday. I want to get the oil project over and done. You're footing the
bill, so we've both got an interest in seeing an early finish. And even with
your global preoccupations you wouldn't expect me to forget Lou. I can't
accept not knowing who did it and why.'
   'I suppose,' Cassover grunted. 'But better to wait till the London police
have cooled off looking for you, Max. We're not that desperate for the oil
project. A few more weeks and . . . Any case, CIA Head of London Station
is against any idea of you returning now. He says you'd be asking for a
heap of trouble.' He stood up and walked over to where a silver tray of
drinks lay on top of a glass-fronted bookcase.
  'What's yours?'
  'Not now, Admiral. Too early.'
   'Clear head for Auerbach? Right you are. But I will. It's nearly mid-day.'
With inordinate care he mixed himself a very dry Martini, then went on:
'You'd be foolish. Head of Station can't guarantee to protect you all the
time once you're there. . .'
  'Why should I expect him to?'
  'You're valuable ... to us, that's why. Let the situation settle a bit more.'
  'If it does that, it'll give the police more time on their hands to look for
me. But it won't. It's going to get worse, a lot worse. I have to see people in
the Ministry of Energy and elsewhere in Whitehall who simply won't be
there once London finally starts burning up.'
  'We'll see . . .' Cassover broke off as irritation at last began to show
through. 'Where the hell is Auerbach? I haven't got all day.'
  'Nor have I,' said Gregory, 'but that's the way it's been these last
twenty-four hours.'
  An aide slipped into the room on cue. 'Secretary of State's on the way
over from the White House, Admiral. He's sorry to have kept you.'
   'Sure, sure,' said Cassover, giving an extra polish to his pate with the
flat of his hand. 'Sure he is.'
  When the aide eased back out of the ante-room, Gregory stood up and
went to join the Admiral by the drinks tray. 'I know your people have other
things to do,' he said. 'But have they dug up anything more?'
  'Oh, yes, your brother. I... say, I thought I'd tell you later what we'd
found.' Cassover paused.
  'Kind of you to think about it.'
  'I didn't mean that,' the response was soft. 'I don't joke about death.
After years in the navy I realise it's the only unfunny part.'
  'So?'
  'There's increasing evidence that they were after you that night. . .'
  'I said that from the start.'
  'Wait a minute. At first Head of CIA London Station didn't listen when
you suggested it wasn't a mugging.'
   'He was sympathetic and sceptical. Equal doses. He didn't hear what
those thugs in grey said, so I couldn't blame him. Why should anyone be
after me just because you're sponsoring my project? Should Head of
London Station think different?'
  'He does now.'
  'Why?'
    'A CIA planning paper got picked up ... lost if you like. We still don't
know who took it or when, but it went all right. Head of London himself
discovered the day after you left that it hadn't been logged out of Registry;
it just wasn't there. I was angry about that.'
  'Planning paper? On what?'
  'You.'
  'I see. But I've always assumed the British Government knew about my
present. . . that I was working for the CIA. That's hardly a death licence,
even today.'
  'Not the British.'
  'Who then?'
  'The Kremlin.'
  'The Kremlin. So why the hell should they be upset with me. They've
probably known about the oil project for months.'
  'Sure they have.'
  'For Christ sake, Admiral. What are you on about? The men that got
Lou were the Commander's UAM thugs.'
  'Or dressed to look like them.'
  'Go on.' Gregory stood stock still, watching the other man intently.
  'There's an extremist Marxist hit-squad. We've identified a number of
them . . .'
  'Who?'
 'It's not the who you should be interested in, it's the why.' Carrying his
martini, Cassover moved away from the drinks cabinet towards a window.
  'Is that meant to be a lead to what the President said about me and
London?' Gregory was about to explode at the way the Admiral was
playing him, but at that moment the State Department aide burst into the
ante-room again. He was somewhat out of breath. 'The Secretary of State
has arrived. He'll see you both now, Admiral. . . Professor . . . ?'
  'Coming right in,' said Cassover. Then he paused. 'I'll let Auerbach tell
you, Max.'



   The three men sat slung in deep leather and steel easy chairs at one end
of the office. At the other end, two of Auerbach's assistants were poised on
hard upright chairs taking notes.
   'Really sorry,' repeated the Secretary of State for the third or fourth
time. The sentiment did not improve with repetition. 'OK, let's get on.
Now you tell me how you think this British thing really is ... No, wait.' He
turned to one of his men.
  'Send a wire. For Jack, for the Ambassador in Moscow. Tell him to lay it
hard on the line there that the amount of aid we're giving China changes
nothing. OK? Nothing. Straight, good, old
out-of-the-bottom-of-our-star-spangled-hearts charity . . . OK? Tell the
Embassy to lay that on as thick as they like. We don't have no political
motivations; just charity. If the Kremlin believe that they'll believe
anything. But at least because we've explained it to them nicely, they'll
wipe their tears and feel a bit better.'
   As one of the secretaries left to send the wire, Auerbach settled back in
his chair, and, pulling back his lips in his version of a smile, revealed the
uneven yellowed teeth. 'Now where were we? Oh . . . Oh yes, Max. Britain,
that was it.'
   Gregory sat stone-faced at the little show of power-politics that, he
suspected, had been put on at least in part for his benefit. Auerbach was
telling him to set the British problem in context or he'd be knocked into
place. That was Auerbach's style.
   'Yes. First, let's have your current analysis, what you want me to hear.
And, sorry Max, but if you can wrap it into the next ten minutes, say
fifteen, so much the better. There just ain't enough time in a day.'
   Gregory looked at Cassover and bit back his temper. He was being
provoked and tested, but knowing Auerbach's style there must be a reason
for it. That was the way the Secretary of State operated and Gregory knew
he had to play the game all the way. So he went through the British
predicament again from lesson one, explaining the idealism that led to the
extreme left's drive to bring about a neo-communist state, the
centre-moderate's failures, and the fortification of the right-wing backlash
which had increasingly moulded itself on the Mosleyite black-shirts of the
thirties.
  Auerbach stirred in his chair. 'OK, OK, Max. Junior High School stuff.
That's for the record.' He waved in the direction of his staff man. 'My boy
there has got it all down for you. Now let's get on.'
   Gregory remained calm, playing it long and presenting his case in an
unusually pedestrian way in an attempt to draw Auerbach, realising that,
as usual, personalities and the conflicts between them were about to cause
more decisions to be taken or not to be taken than the facts allowed.
  'We went through all that with the President last night. Where's the
advance?' Auerbach interrupted.
  'The advance is that the situation's got worse.'
  'I know that too. I read the telegrams.'
  'My interpretation of it has changed.'
  'Aha! It has, has it? The news hadn't reached me.'
   Gregory bit his lip and bypassed the sarcasm. 'Secretary of State, I
believe that the British Government would have been able to hold the
situation steady and our oil supplies and other interests would be
safeguarded if only . . .'
   'The basic good sense of the Brits, eh? The sort of inherited wisdom and
justice that made you all what you are, Max?'
  'Don't push him, Secretary of State,' broke in Cassover.
  'Professor Gregory doesn't usually worry about things like that. Not
known for his tolerance either. Nor for being so long-winded.'
  'All right, Secretary of State,' Gregory snapped. 'The crisis would not
have escalated without someone or some group manipulating events,
making sure compromise isn't reached, precipitating new riots when
things start going well. Anything to ensure Harold Hunt gets nowhere.'
  'Aha, that's the nub, is it? But Harold Hunt will never get anywhere. You
know he hasn't the intelligence to see he's a fool.'
  'We can agree on that. But it's not just him. There are sufficient
well-meaning men around him.'
  'Well-meaning never solved problems, particularly Britain's sort.'
  'Street leaders of both sides are being used. Some caucus, possibly
inside the the British Establishment but much more likely abroad, is
working hard to bring Britain to the brink.'
  'You're not calling it an invisible hand?'
  'I might even call it that. If I were forced to bet, I'd say it was a classic
case of someone plotting chaos to be followed by the rule of the strong
man.'
  'Clever. Who's your culprit?' Auerbach paused and threw a glance at the
Admiral.
  'It could be one of Britain's former European Common Market partners.
The Franco-German Alliance could, for example, do with the oil and with
picking up some of Britain's traditional trading areas.'
  'No way, Professor. The French and the Germans have their hands full
with their own internal security problems quite apart from trying to keep
the sad remains of the Common Market together. The Italians have a
collapsed economy and about as much street anarchy as Britain. As for the
Dutch and the Belgians, well now they've linked up with the Scandinavian
Free Trade Area they have a bit more stability, but that crowd are all too
nice . . .'
   'OK. The Russians it is, though by and large they've sided with the
Brother's People's Socialist Coalition, and have given them a lot of money
if not weapons.'
  'Got it second time round, Max. As far as the US of A is concerned, the
hand, as always, is a Soviet one. They're the only ones who would really
benefit in the long run from British disunity, even more than they could
ever do by backing the Brother. He's too much of a patriot.'
  'I'm going over Tuesday. If I find out, I'll drop you a postcard.'
  'You go nowhere. If you do you won't come back, because it'll be you,
not your brother, next time.'
  'Look, I've had this out with the Admiral already.' Gregory began to lose
his control. 'I'm doing this research project for the CIA, plain and simple,
like dozens of think-tank analysts have before me. Liberals here may still
call that a sin but it's hardly big news in Britain any more, nor likely to
worry the Russians out of their sleep.'
  'Then you tell me why your brother died, why the people who got him
wanted you? Go on, tell me,' prodded Auerbach relentlessly.
  'Those papers that got lost . . .' Cassover began to speak, then looked at
Auerbach and stopped in mid-sentence.
   'Tell me about them, Secretary of State,' Gregory looked at the two men.
On top of the President's remark there was something coming he did not
like. Auerbach was grimacing and even Cassover wasn't acting to form.
   'They set out precisely what the CIA had in mind for you, which was
nothing directly to do with your oil work. What you just said about the
crisis being manipulated. . .' Auerbach edged into a more comfortable
position in his chair, the yellow leer still clamped across his face.
  'Go on,' Gregory could feel a trap closing round him.
  'We thought that if the Kremlin was to try that game we would want to
react to it hard and fast.'
  'And?'
  There was a pause, then Auerbach hissed, 'I am to inform you that,
whatever my views, the President has personally chosen you as his
top-level liaison man in London.'
  'The US Ambassador . . . You have . . .'
  'Behind the scenes, of course. The Ambassador . . . not a great intellect...
a member of the party faithful and of course we can't remove him right
now, can we? But Premier Hunt's not at all impressed by him and has long
been complaining to us about the lack of high-level liaison between us. So
His Excellency stays, but as front man. As for me, well you might as well
know that I've been against the project, but I'll have to live with it, since
that's the way it's going to be. You, Professor Max Gregory, are the loyal
Brit come home in your country's time of need. You're the President's
personal link with, or if he doesn't go along with it, against Hunt. You can
have what additional staff and money you need — within reason, from CIA
sources.'
  'I want to think about it.'
   'That's a luxury you can't afford, Max; on that the Admiral and I are in
total agreement. And the President goes along with the Admiral's
proposal. He had to show you to him first. For the record, you understand.
It's his decision after all.' He paused and grinned. 'Not Tuesday, but soon,
very soon, Max, you go to London. You're the key from now on. As you said
yourself, America can't let Britain go to pieces, not in the last resort. With
the balance of power and all that, if there's a political vacuum, then by
God the United States must be ready to fill it.'
  Gregory stared at each man in turn They both looked back at him in
their separate ways.



                                 Seven

   Over the next five weeks Britain followed much the same course except
that every day things got a little worse. To the staff of London's
Inter-Continental Hotel, now mainly British since the Spaniards and
Italians had moved on to happier climes, the American correspondents
were vultures. They sat around the bar waiting to pick at the carrion of
the day's events and turn it into copy. They were war correspondents come
to observe the process of one more nation's slide into tragedy, having over
the last year largely replaced the desk-bound bureau boys who had gone
on, like the waiters, to the relative tranquillity of Paris, Bonn and Home.
They were hard men, seen-it-all veterans of Saigon, Beirut, Tehran,
Warsaw and now London. They were waiting for the kill, perched on stools
along the bar of their latest Inter-Continental, speculating on how long it
would be till this city too was burned and bombed into the ground. Until
that day, until they scrambled and fought on to the last USAF plane out,
the bar would be their club, the clearing house for their stories.
   The doyen of the little group was Dan Lateman of AP, fifty-ish, eyes like
little blood-stained pools in a lined white face. He'd been held by the
Vietcong, beaten up by the Ayatollah's men in Tehran, thrown out of
Warsaw by the Russians after the invasion, and a week ago had had shots
fired at him in a Bayswater Street just as he was leaving from an interview
with the Commander. Beside him, balanced on a black-topped bar stool
sat Zarnuk; no one called him by his Christian name, even if they knew it.
Zarnuk of the Washington Post, lips stained brown with nicotine, sat
chewing on the shreds of a dead cigar. A Pulitzer prize lay somewhere in
his past; something to do with China, or was it an interview with Nasser?
Next on the row of perches was Roly Smith, unshaven, unwashed and
crumpled, drinking himself into an early trip to the crematorium with a
salary from Time Inc. And last, a little apart as always and the only one of
them to have stayed on in London from before, was Andrei Jameson from
the Chicago Herald Tribune. He had been in London so long that his
accent was imperceptible and his three-piece suits unmistakable. Two
scotches, one very large martini and a brandy and soda were arranged in
front of them.
   They were men that talked, as they always talked, in shorthand, loaded
with nick-names unknown outside the clique, a checkerboard of
unpolished phrases. They'd seen a lot of the same things that day as every
day: dead on the streets, the latest TV appeal for calm by the Prime
Minister, another march by some group or other towards the barbed-wire
barriers that encircled Whitehall and Westminster. Roly had had a Time
photographer with him: great shots of armed soldiers guarding the gutted
Treasury building at the corner of Parliament Square; of the Reverend
'Mac' MacNair, the fundamentalist cleric who was one of the
Commander's deputies, haranguing a crowd in Hyde Park; of the body of a
Pakistani who had been tarred, feathered and set alight in Brixton; of a
group of young 'soviets' at a political rally in Canning Town. Their moving,
pithy stories were filed and now they could relax.
   Lateman was doing the talking. As usual he was ahead of the game and
could afford to tell them what extra copy he had. He had already wired his
poignant exclusive interview with Harold Hunt. The Prime Minister had
begun reasonably confident and poised, his remarks larded with
traditional cliches about the common sense of the British, and that this
was just a temporary moment of insanity in the great pattern of their
history. 'When the storm dies,' he went on, 'the seas will be calm again',
and Lateman had to force himself not to smile. Overall, the Prime
Minister appeared self-assured, despite the recent attempts on his life.
Then Lateman had interrupted to ask about the other, successful
assassination, that of the Minister of Defence who had been blown to
pieces by a car bomb some weeks earlier. Why had he been a particular
target? Lateman asked. Mention of the murder had had a marked
trigger-effect as the Prime Minister had fought to retain his self-control.
Then, suddenly, it all came pouring out, with the journalist scribbling it
down as hard as he could. His colleagues listened as Lateman read, from
shorthand notes, his resultant assessment of the man and his character.
   Hunt had from the start demonstrated that, deep down, he was not a
complete fool. A politician of the old school, he had grown up in the right
of the Labour Party before joining the Social Democrats in 1981. He
retained a deep belief in democracy and in the House of Commons, and
had long feared the attractions that the extremes of the political spectrum
offered the electorate. His disillusionment with the system had led him to
leave politics for some time, only to re-emerge within the last year to try to
pull his CDA coalition together into some sort of cohesive force. To
Lateman, Hunt's weaknesses were obvious: a personal lack of any ability to
appeal to the public at large, and an equal lack of understanding that the
old system of party loyalties had gone for ever. Hunt had even admitted to
Lateman that he considered the Commander as a democrat gone wrong, a
man with a distinguished military career behind him, who had always
declared himself a strong British nationalist, rather than a fascist. He was
someone, Hunt argued, who had simply gone on from where Enoch Powell
had left off, and who had appreciated the attractions of 'ethnic Britons
right or wrong' slogans and an increasingly virulent anti-communism. In
present circumstances it was hard for anyone to argue against tough
law-and-order measures, something the Commander said he stood for
even though his own street politics created the very conditions in which
civil order was most needed.
   'OK. So?' Lateman's monologue was interrupted by Zarnuk of the Post.
'Another homespun analysis from the man behind the misery. What does
it do except highlight Hunt's lack of leadership?'
   'No praise from me,' said Lateman in a low voice. 'But I got one of the
best off-the-record briefings ever. Right down to who's with whom in
Cabinet. The Social Services Secretary . . . well. Hunt as good as said he's a
pinko. The Home Secretary on the other wing is all for internment of
left-wing leaders ...'
  'The Home Secretary's been after that for a while,' interjected Jameson.
'He's buddy-buddies with the Commander and has secret daily meetings
with the United Action Movement Executive.'
  'That's as may be,' Lateman went on. 'Then Hunt had me listening to his
theories as to who's behind it. He thinks it's all following a pattern.'
  'Conspiracy of chaos? Anarchists perhaps?' asked Jameson cynically.
    'Wrong . . . You know what Hunt thinks? He thinks there's a deliberate
policy by the Soviets to keep things on the boil, wrecking things every time
it looks as if he's having some success, an extreme Marxist action group
pulling the rug away just when the Commander and the Brother feel like
talking, D'you know. Hunt told me that just a few weeks ago both sides
met secretly under his auspices on a navy ship. The Defence Secretary was
the link man who pulled it all together. He was emerging as one of the
stronger characters in the CDA coalition, and if it was chaos people
wanted then he was the best man to waste. It looked as if the Minister had
an agreement at least to call off the street violence, and both sides said
they'd meet again. That was the night the Commander's ADC was
maimed — Major what's-his-name, you remember? That, and blowing up
the Defence Secretary, killed talks dead.'
  'And?' asked Zarnuk after a pause.
  'Hunt told me that both sides assured him they had kept their word.
The murder wasn't the Brother's nor the Commander's doing, and Hunt
believed them.'
  'A third group?'
  'The Soviets — a Kremlin hit-squad.'
  'Why the hell?'
  'Standard Soviet ploy: divide and rule. They learnt it from the builder of
the British Empire.'
  'But surely,' asked Jameson, 'Hunt accepts that Moscow is right behind
the Brother and his People's Socialist Coalition?'
  'Too simple for Hunt,' replied Lateman. 'And I agree with him. The
Kremlin never puts all its eggs in one basket and they're not a hundred per
cent sure that the Brother is their man. He's too much of a loner, that guy,
and when the revolution comes, the last thing the Russkies want is a man
with a mind of his own . . .'
  There was a long pause, then Roly Smith's blurred voice boomed out;
'OK fellas. Another round and this time it's on me.'
  'Good for you, Roly,' said Zarnuk.



   An hour later, they were still there. They had watched the ITN headlines
on the television set mounted at the corner of the bar. With the exception
of a couple of girls chatting to the barman, no one came near them. The
girls were on the wait for some late pick-up, some wayward American or
Arab businessman still in London trying to get his money out before the
end, and they knew it would be fruitless to approach these newsmen.
  Andrei Jameson began talking but if the others were listening, they did
not show it. Not that Jameson minded. He was rehearsing aloud what
chapter two of the book he was writing on his life in Britain would say.
  'In coping with the crisis,' he mused, 'the media themselves have
gradually become more and more polarised. The PSC and the left are
supported by a host of badly printed, party-financed fly-sheets which have
given up any pretence of neutrality. Supporters of the Commander's UAM
can, on the other hand, buy one or two of the former "quality" newspapers
and upper-class tabloids which give the extreme right a well-produced
and well-financed media platform. Rumbling along in the middle, the BBC
and a tiny number of middle-of-the-road newspapers still claim to speak
for reason and impartiality, but given the pressures on them by their own
staffs, who swing to side either with the UAM or the PSC, they too are
subjected to the veto of the extremes quite apart from the censorship
which the Hunt Government also tries to impose on the distribution of all
news.'
  'Great stuff,' muttered Roly incoherently. 'Deathless effing . . . prose.
Long live the freedom of the ...'
   'I remember,' Jameson went on, oblivious, eyes half-closed, 'it was only
last summer I felt that they . . . the British, had already come to the brink.
I was at Lords. That's a cricket ground and I'd been invited to watch
something called the Second Test Match — the night before the
Australians pulled out when their hotel was bombed. I was studying the
crowd mainly, for cricket isn't something for a healthy man to watch. A
big crowd: old men in regimental ties, blazers and moustaches; young
men in open-necked shirts, all of them intent on the slowest of games. Did
you ever read that article I wrote on cricket? It came out as a Newsweek
essay — Roly, you should remember— well, maybe not just now you
wouldn't. I wrote about the tedious boring incomprehensibility of it all,
the soporific normality. Well, that's the way it was that last day of Test
Match Cricket. I wonder if it'll ever come back. They don't play much
cricket now . . . All these people, their minds like cotton wool, watching
the world's most lifeless game, the sleeping-pill of the sporting life. They
clapped and drank from hip flasks and people went in and were out and
there were ducks and no-balls and tea and legs before and long stops and
no one seemed to notice the police in steel helmets everywhere and the
observation post on top of the clubhouse and the guards with SMG's. I
thought for a moment that here was something that was strong and
unflappable in the British way of life. Then I saw the police pulping some
would-be troublemaker with their truncheons. No one took much notice
since some batsman was coming up for his century. It was the epitome of
fiddling while the world burned around them. Riots, revolution, strikes,
murders and what's happening in the Second Test. I realised that these
people would be over the brink before they knew it and that even then
most of them wouldn't notice. It was at that moment I knew it could, it
would happen here, just then at Lords.'
   Roly spilled his drink down his shirt-front and tried to wipe it away
with a clumsy hand. There was a long silence, with Zarnuk staring into
space, unmoving. Then slowly he began clapping. The short burst of sound
echoed down the emptiness of the bar. Lateman laughed: Jameson turned
on his stool, surprised and maybe a little hurt. The girls stood up together
at the far end of the bar, kissed the barman and left without a glance at
the gentlemen of the press.
   After another silence Dan Lateman spoke. He measured his words. 'Odd
little lead out of Washington DC, from my own personal "deep throat" at
Langley. Maybe you guys can help. You know whom I mean by Max
Gregory? Gregory Institute, New York. Now why's he coming here? What's
bringing him to London town? Like tonight?'
  Zarnuk, Jameson and even Roly Smith turned on their bar stools.
Lateman had their attention.



                                 Eight

    Dan Lateman was, as usual, well informed. Professor Max Gregory, in
his as yet unannounced new role as Special Envoy of the President of the
United States, arrived in London on a much delayed Pan Am flight at
eleven-ten p.m. that same evening, Tuesday, March 1. The customs and
immigration officers were on strike and only a handful of senior men were
on duty at Heathrow, and while Gregory had hoped to avoid the VIP
treatment, the lateness of the hour and the unrelieved gloom of the badly
lit building made him grateful when a CIA liaison officer appeared and
swept him through all the formalities unchecked.
  'Head of London Station apologises for not coming out to meet you
himself. Another US businessman kidnapped in Manchester. He's got his
hands full negotiating with the terrorists.'
  'Yes?'
 'Every time any of these groups run out of cash they pick up the biggest
man they can find. Then we do a deal. We never learn.'
  'I suppose not,' said Gregory automatically. When they came through
the double glass gates beyond Customs, Gregory immediately focused on
the familiar pock-marked face of Mason, the Head of the Institute's
London Bureau. Beside him, wearing a chauffeur's uniform that looked
two sizes too small, stood a tall, well-built man with short closely cropped
hair who Gregory placed at once as one of the heavies from CIA London
Station. The liaison man nodded to his colleague and disappeared into the
crowd.
  'Give me that,' said Mason, reaching for Gregory's case, but before he
had time to take it the CIA chauffeur had picked it up with an enormous
hand and strode off with it through the deserted reception area. The
others followed him outside to where a large glistening black Buick was
parked in unique splendour beside the kerb.
  'You could hardly have chosen anything more conspicuous,' said
Gregory. 'The last shiny car in London? Have it changed.'
  'Sure, Max,' said Mason gently. 'CIA trying to make you feel more
welcome, that's all.'
   The CIA chauffeur set off at high speed along the M4 motorway towards
central London. But it began to rain and by the time they reached
Chiswick, visibility was bad and he had to slow down to avoid the huge
potholes that were all too frequent hazards along the dual carriageway.
From the verges, the garbage of years of neglect spilled outwards, adding
its own menace. In the distance, the lights that had once illuminated the
London skyline glowed only intermittently, and Gregory had to fight back
a wave of untypical depression as he sat in silence beside Mason,
speculating about where it had all gone wrong.
   When they reached the crest of the hill where the M4 hits the rump end
of the Cromwell Road, the Buick was forced to a stop at a temporary police
barrier that had been created by parking two armoured personnel carriers
askew across the roadway. A little beyond, Gregory could make out police
in riot gear, while a number of ambulances with wire-mesh over their
windows and warning-lights flashing were parked on the opposite
carriageway. When he lowered the car window he could hear someone,
unseen, haranguing an invisible audience through a megaphone, the
words drowned from time to time by shouting and the chanting of
unrecognisable slogans.
   All at once there was a powerful explosion, and from Earl's Court Road
a ball of flame rocketed into the air. From his vantage point in the partial
safety of the car, Gregory was given a brief glimpse of something that
looked like a body being catapulted through the air and landing, at least
part of it, in a shapeless heap not more than fifty yards from where they
were. As the noise of the explosion died away, it was replaced by screams
and shouts, which the wail of the sirens rose to dominate in their turn.
Then renewed, hostile chanting took over again as, from the far side of the
road junction, groups of rioters, many dressed in the too-familiar grey
denim, appeared from out of the darkness. Waving brickbats and chains,
they charged across the road, hell-bent on some unseen foe. The riot police
were suddenly nowhere in evidence as, in the distance, the packs engaged,
then regrouped. There was a sudden staccato burst of small-arms fire,
then the sound of a police megaphone futilely urging people to disperse.
  'That's enough of the local colour,' Mason barked at the CIA man. 'Can
we move?'
  Despite the traffic that had built up around them and with an ability
that belied his primal appearance, the driver reacted by pulling the huge
Buick round in a sweeping U-turn and, at the expense of a costly dent to
the car in front, mounted the soft verge of the motorway. Across a barren
building site, the tyres tore the ground and chunks of masonry hit the
undercasting, but the driver did not stop till he reached the freedom of a
deserted side street. 'Neat,' said Gregory approvingly.
   'A few moments longer . . . That was your reintroduction to our
incipient civil war,' said Mason slowly. 'One thing we don't do here when
that sort of thing is on the boil is stay and watch. Spectators don't last
long.'
  'I remember,' said Gregory. 'What now?'
   'Wait here till things cool. No point in trying to circle round the area on
a night like this.'
  'How long?'
  'Give it half an hour.'
  'I'm tired,' said Gregory. 'Sleep is what I need.'
   The CIA man killed the lights, got out and shut the door of the car
quietly behind him. Through the Buick's smoked-glass windows, Gregory
could see him take a gun from a shoulder holster and casually slip it into
his jacket pocket.
  'You can relax,' said Mason. 'He's good. He'll keep an eye out.'
  'Then let's not waste more time. Take me through what you've got laid
on.'
  'Tell me one thing first,' said Mason. 'About Lou.'
  'He's dead. Leave it there.'
  Mason failed to grasp Gregory's mood. 'You told me they were the
Commander's men. I don't believe it was them though, I really don't, it
didn't have the Brother's mark either. So who the . . .?'
   'Leave it there, I said.' The vehemence of Gregory's tone bounced Mason
into silence.
   It took both men some minutes to regain their humour, then Mason
produced a rumpled pack of cigarettes as a peace offering. Gregory shook
his head. 'You know me better. Tell me about tomorrow.'
  'There's not much to tell. I thought I'd wait till you came. I've recruited
quite a good little team. Despite the brain drain I've enlisted some bright
men; they know the British economy, oil, trade, urban terrorism, the
security services . . . you name it.'
  'OK.' Gregory cut him short. 'This is what I want. As soon as I've sized
your new people up I want you to set up a meeting with the Commander.
Then the Brother. Then maybe I'll make a few official calls on the
Government.'
  'Anything you say, Max.'
  'How long will it take you to fix?'
  'Like a couple of years.'
  'I'm not joking,' said Gregory softly.
  'You have to be joking,' said Mason. 'No way are the two hard men
going to see you — unless, that is, you have some fantastic excuse you
haven't let me in on.'
  'I don't have any excuse. But I have my brief.'
  'It better be good. You may think that you're a big boy as head of the
Institute but that counts for zero here. They don't believe in research or
theories, just action. You don't joke around when you're fixing to talk to
them. They've picked up a lot of expertise in wasting people who try, and I
can think of pleasanter ways to reach the hereafter.'
  'Like smoking.'
  'I'm not joking either, Max. I sure am not. You pay me a fair sum, but it
would have to be tripled before I go into that lion's den.'
  'You heard. Start with the Commander. Get a message to him,' said
Gregory. 'Tell him you've got a man in from New York who wants to talk to
him. Hint but don't say outright that I'm here representing a group in the
States which may sympathise with him.'
  'Who?'
  'Tell him, say, that some branch of the John Birch Society might want
to send him funds, weapons, what the hell you like. Just get me an
interview.'
  'You must be slipping off your chunk.'
  'Tell me a better way?'
    'The better way is not to begin. It may seem like the Commander runs a
bunch of street-corner bully boys, but he's got an intelligence unit and a
military arm, with a lot of ex-soldiers and the like, that's pulled together a
bag of experience in recent months. He's got his own lines out to America .
. . and the Continent, especially Spain and Germany. He knows his
sympathisers. He'll smell a rat, even if, by any remote chance, your
reputation hasn't gone before you.'
  'OK. Drop that line altogether. Tell him the truth. I want to talk to him.'
  'Speaking for whom?'
  'The President of the United States.'
  'I tell him that?' Mason looked at Gregory incredulously.
  'Will that make him listen?'
  'We could try. Now . . . let's see if we can get out of this damn place.'



   Two days later, on Thursday, March 3, shortly after four in the
afternoon, Gregory entered an elegant town house in a little street off Park
Lane. To prepare himself, he had re-read the CIA file note on the man he
was attempting to meet:


Commander: title adopted by William Joseph Henderson, fifty-nine,
leader of the United Action Movement (UAM). Born Manchester, son of
Scottish fundamentalist pastor and Yorkshire mother; precise date of
birth uncertain. Educated: Manchester Grammar; Services: Royal Navy,
transferred Marines 1950-56 for special service in Cyprus on unspecified
anti-EOKA duties. MC. Mentioned in despatches. Court Martialled for
causing grievous bodily harm to a junior officer and dismissed the Service.
Use of title Commander is therefore illegal. Political career: member
Conservative Monday Club; forced to resign in late sixties because of
extreme views. Local then national organiser National Front. Founder
member UAM which was formed from several extreme neo-Nazi and
right-wing anti-immigrant and anti-communist movements. A gifted
speaker, lay preacher and street activist, he inspires considerable loyalty
among his closest followers, a loyalty also maintained by strong physical
'disciplining' of those found guilty of betraying the UAM's policies and
objectives . . . (See file PF/936/7 for further background reports and
personality assessments.)


   The CIA bodyguard, right hand thrust deep in the bulging pocket of his
overcoat, followed Gregory unhappily into the hallway, while Mason, who
had driven with them, waited where he was in the back of the car outside.
The CIA man fumed as two men in paramil uniforms appeared and
searched them both, politely and efficiently removing the bodyguard's
gun, then showed Gregory alone into a book-lined study where a tall thin
man with a well-trimmed moustache stood waiting in front of a roaring
fire. It was an almost perfect scene, right down to the expensive crystal
decanters on a silver tray and a foxhound asleep on the rug. Only the
sub-machine gun and the box of grenades on a side table took the edge off
the charm.
  The man introduced himself as Colonel Makepeace. 'The Commander is
sorry he couldn't see you, Professor Gregory. He's a busy man though he
always tries to find time for our American friends. I'm his Head of
Information. You'll have to make do with me.'
  'Very grateful,' said Gregory carefully. 'An attractive house, you have.'
  'Thank you. We believe in keeping certain standards.'
  'Not much evidence of gracious living around at the moment.'
  'Sadly not. But we will ensure that it will come again. Now: you
wanted?'
  'I have been asked to come to see you ...'
  'We've dealt with the CIA before.'
  'I'm not CIA.'
  'Your friend outside is.'
  'You're well informed.'
   'One of our areas of expertise. In the sort of situation we find ourselves,
near-war —Professor Gregory — it's essential to be one step ahead. But
right now I'm at a slight loss. I'll be frank; I had understood from our
intelligence sources that you were working for the CIA ...'
  'I was ... I still am, or at least my Institute is at research project level.
But I personally am here on a new, wider assignment. I've been appointed
by the President of the United States as his special envoy to see if there is
any way the US Administration can help, can use its good offices in
assisting Britain find some solution to its problems.'
  The Colonel's response to Gregory's frankness was dry to the point of
acidity. 'The American Ambassador and his well-staffed US Embassy in
Grosvenor Square?'
    'Our experience in the Middle East, and, you may remember, in London
itself during the Second World War, has been that the appointment of
someone with a single function, that of liaison at the highest personal level
. . .'
   'I suppose we can't blame the President. The reputation of your present
Ambassador to the Court of St James's is on a par with ... er ... some of his
less distinguished predecessors.'
  Gregory avoided being drawn into agreeing. 'I'm not here to undercut
the Ambassador or his staff but I am here to listen and to help where I
can. I came to you first.'
   'I understood so. Very well, Professor,' said the Colonel, cutting the
dialogue dead. 'If you want our views, I'll give them to you, whatever your
functions really are.' He made a gesture with his right arm towards a
leather chair by the fireside, and Gregory, after a moment's delay
negotiating his way round the foxhound on the hearth-rug, sank into it.
   Gregory watched the Colonel intently. The latter gave no further
appearance of interest in Gregory's credentials, or so it seemed, but
whatever else he had been well chosen for his role as spokesman. For the
next half hour Gregory sat and listened to a glib but increasingly rabid
outpouring of policy mixed with prejudice. The Colonel began by praising
the 'right-thinking people of Britain' who had been driven to take to the
streets in defence of liberty, in defence of the British way of life, in defence
of white, ethnic purity. The left had asked for it by their use of
undemocratic means in their attempts to usher in moral, political and
above all racial decadence. The country had been dragged down by the
mismanagement of so-called libertarians and wet-minded liberals. The rot
had gone on too long. At last Britain, or some Britons under the
Commander, who was a gifted and far-sighted patriot, had come to their
senses. They had not wanted to form vigilante groups nor take to the
streets, for they believed in the democratic process. But their hands had
been forced by the Communists, the blacks, the Pakistanis. The Colonel
paused and waved an arm theatrically, in a gesture that threw Gregory
back to films he had seen of Germany in the thirties.
  'How much have you really achieved, Colonel?' Gregory asked.
    'Not much yet, Professor Gregory, but we are winning. We will not rest
till we have wiped the Communist scum out of British politics. We want to
make Britain a decent place to live, for decent people. We have, as you
doubtless know, a policy, a financially generous scheme for repatriating all
blacks. . .'
  'You seem to have got rid of the Arabs from central London.' Gregory
did not smile.
   'I suppose you are right,' the Colonel said. 'That is one good thing. But
we still have the enemy within. The so-called Brother, who takes his orders
from Moscow, is trying to sap the moral fibre of this country.'
  'You think Moscow is behind it all?'
  'Who else? At times, admittedly, we are sure they push the Brother
further than even he wants to go. Once or twice we've tried to have a
ceasefire. He's appeared to go along with it, then ... it all falls apart again.
Of course the Kremlin's behind it. They are the only ones to gain. And they
will unless we retain our present highly defensive position.'
  'Don't you fear taking Britain over the brink?'
   'What brink? The nearest thing to a brink was when we were blind and
shackled, when we still allowed the left wing a free rein, and allowed the
trade unions and Trotskyites to have their own way. Then we were at the
brink. Now we are fighting away from the edge. We, the Commander and
all of us in the UAM are determined to ensure that, in the end, Britain will
return to being decent, honourable, upright, racially pure.'
  There was a long pause, then the Colonel changed tack. 'Over to you,
Professor Gregory,' he said.
  'As I said, I have been sent to establish contact ...'
  'I heard you. But to what real purpose?'
  'The President is very concerned at the way things are going.'
  'That raises a lot of questions. Like US interests being at stake?'
  'One of the things I would like to talk to the Commander about.'
     'I will see what can be arranged. Now that we are sure you are not here
on your own account. We had thought that maybe your brother's murder
...'
   'That has nothing to do with my being here,' said Gregory softly. He
stood up.
  'Of course not.' The Colonel smiled drily, shook Gregory's hand firmly,
and showed him out into the hallway where his bodyguard stood waiting.
   In the study, the Colonel picked up a telephone hand-set, pressed a
buzzer and waited. Then he spoke: 'Yes, Sir. Him all right . . . From the
President personally, he says. We could arrange a meeting, on your terms,
Sir, of course.'



  In the street, Gregory joined Mason in the back of the battered Humber
that had replaced the Buick. The CIA man dominated the driver's seat,
seeming even more vast in the smaller British car.
  'How did it go?' asked Mason, looking across expectantly.
  'I got the front man.'
  'As expected,' said Mason. 'By the way, a message for you came on the
CIA net while you were in there. Prime Minister Hunt has heard you are
here. He wants to see you. He's reported to be very angry that you didn't
check in with him first.'
  'I'm not good at apologising,' said Gregory.



                                  Nine

   The prime minister agreed to see Gregory at twenty-one hundred hours
that same evening. Coming direct from what Mason cynically called a
wounded pride meeting with the highly antagonistic US Ambassador at
the Grosvenor Square Embassy, Gregory was twenty minutes late as a
result of the series of security checks he had to submit himself to before he
reached Downing Street. He met the first roadblock by the Whitehall
Theatre, once the home of topless farce; the second was sited opposite the
Horse Guards where, long since, the ceremonial guard had dismounted for
the last time; while at the end of Downing Street itself, Gregory had to
leave Mason and his bodyguard in the car and, after a meticulous body
search, be escorted the rest of the way on foot. Pausing at the door of
Number Ten, he glanced round briefly. Long gone were the tourists with
their cameras; gone too was the curious normality that had once pervaded
this unimpressive little London back street. In its place there were tangles
of barbed wire and anti-bomb mesh, with arc-lights and remote-control
TV cameras constantly searching everywhere. The police on duty at the
barriers wore steel helmets and carried submachine guns; there was one
army detachment permanently sited in an armoured scout-car at the
Whitehall end of the street while another was strategically placed by the
railings opposite the door of Number Eleven Downing Street. Opposite, on
the roof of the Foreign Office, unsightly watch-towers had become a
permanent feature atop the building. As a sad little genuflection to
normality, the two British bobbies outside the door to Number Ten itself
still wore their traditional blue uniforms and helmets, and one even
managed a friendly salute as he opened the door for Gregory, inside the
hall, a uniformed guard accosted him and, after walking him through a
metal detector frame, subjected him to a further body search. 'Sorry about
that, Sir,' said the man, pleasantly.
    A dapper Private Secretary in a pinstripe suit appeared from nowhere.
'Professor Gregory? So glad you could come at such short notice. No ...
Don't worry about being a bit late, Sir. The Prime Minister's quite used to
it. He's waiting for you now. Do come this way.' The accent was
impeccably bland and Oxbridge.
   He was led up a dimly lit flight of stairs and past the long line of
portraits of previous prime ministers which included, near the end of the
row, that of the only woman who for a term had held that high office.
Number Ten, along with most Government offices, functioned on its own
emergency generators, and, as he went, Gregory noted their background
hum as he did the steel riot doors, new since his last visit more than seven
years earlier. Halfway up the stairs, he stood to one side to allow a woman
to pass. Her face, half in shadow, seemed to smile at him. There was
something about her and the way she moved, and instinctively he turned
to watch her go. But she turned a corner and vanished like a shadow and
he was left wondering if the poor light had played tricks with his memory.
  He was shown into the Prime Minister's study. Harold Hunt, shorter
and rather flabbier than his photographs suggested, stood up behind his
desk, hand outstretched. 'Glad you could fit me in, Professor.' The Prime
Minister looked grim and his voice was irritable and brisk.
  'I didn't expect you to know I was here, Prime Minister,' said Gregory,
with a touch of an apology.
  'Friends in high places,' said the Prime Minister. 'Your President rang.
Should I say the American President? D'you still keep your British
passport?'
  'Yes ... I, well . . .' Gregory hadn't expected such immediate hostility,
just as he could have done with some warning that the President was
going to cart him by telling Hunt of his mission so soon. He suspected that
the Ambassador must have put the White House up to it and made a
mental note to watch that particular line-up for the future.
   'I didn't need him to tell me, of course. We may appear to be in a bit of
chaos but I'm glad to say our intelligence services are still working well. A
report came through twenty-four hours ago, reporting your arrival the
other night, and we were doing our own trace when the President's call
came, explaining why you're here. A useful thought, though it would have
been kind to give advance notice. I will not be bullied, Professor. Not by
anyone, even our friends. I'm also informed that the CIA have got you a
clean bill of health from the Metropolitan Police. . . that unfortunate
matter after your brother's death. I'll be blunt: it would never have got
past me if I'd known, self-defence or not. Anyway, it's done. And between
you and me, I'm not too upset. Also . , . well, your being here may just be
useful. Give a little depth to a relationship that's been going a bit stale and
empty. Afraid I don't have too much time for your Ambassador, you see.
Never was one for political appointees. They don't have the depth of
experience of professional diplomats, don't you think?'
  The querulous and jumpy tenor of Hunt's remarks put Gregory
additionally on his guard. 'It's kind of you to see me, Mr Prime Minister,'
he said cautiously. 'I was going to ask to see you, but first I wanted to brief
myself more fully on what is going on.'
  'The Commander . . . so-called?'
  'I haven't seen him.'
  'Not for want of trying, I believe.'
  'I didn't want to waste your time.'
   'You don't spend much of your life doing that. Professor. The Gregory
Institute spends a lot of effort and money working on the British problem.
The "British predicament", I think you call it. It is nice to be thought of as
a predicament —just one more international crisis. It must be reassuring
to be able to sit high up in your office, in Madison Avenue isn't it?,
thinking about poor old Britain as a problem like Cuba, the Panama
Canal, Vietnam, Iran or Poland.' The Prime Minister paused and stared
intently at Gregory.
  'Yes, Prime Minister,' came the subdued response.
  'If you're really here to help, Gregory, don't start by playing games. The
US press have me labelled as one of the weakest prime ministers this
century, but I didn't get where I am without knowing how to judge people.
If your President wants to help with the "British predicament", that's fine.
But keep it clean. If you're his personal emissary, I'll talk to you, but only
as long as you are honest with me, Professor. All above board. If you're
talking to the Commander or the Communists or anyone else, I want to
know. This is my country, d'you understand? I still have some power. And
some self-respect.'
  'Prime Minister, I don't know what you have heard but...'
  'Don't give me that, Professor Gregory. I'll give you only one chance.'
  'I'm not sure what you're driving at. . . The President asked me, with my
British background and the expertise of my Institute, to come here with
an offer of assistance, advice if you like. I don't know what kind of advice
that will eventually be, or whether you'll want to take it. I haven't had
sufficient time to study the problem on the ground. Of course I have all the
reports: my Institute, the State Department and the CIA have all been
working hard on Britain.'
  'I bet you have.'
   'Prime Minister, if this is going to work out we have, as you said, to
start by being honest. Your phrase. Unless you believe in what I'm here
for, there's little point my going on.'
  'Agreed.'
  'Then?'
   'Then let me ask about American motives, since that's what
international politics is all about.'
   'The US Government has a massive interest in the Western Alliance and
the maintenance of the European balance of power. It is one of the highest
priorities of United States policy to ensure that Britain doesn't come apart
at the seams.'
  'Great stuff. . . for a first-year course in politics,' interrupted the Prime
Minister. 'But why?'
  'I've just explained. The balance of power ... A weak Britain means a
weak NATO.'
  'Balls, Gregory. Spheroids . . . Crap. That's not the real nitty-gritty of
why you're here. I know that and if you don't realise it then you're a fool.'
  There was a pause. 'You tell me, Prime Minister.'
  'I know the only reason you, Auerbach and Admiral what's-his-name are
worried and why you've put your shadow of a President up to this little
scheme.'
  'Yes?'
  'You're not interested in whether this particular British Government
survives. But you do want to be about when whatever happens happens
and then you'll be ready to stand and be counted as loyal friends of the
new regime, the first in on the act with fistfuls of dollars at the ready.
International diplomacy's answer to the Vicar of Bray.'
  'With respect, Prime Minister. . .'
   'Don't "with respect" me, Professor. When my civil servants come to me
with that jargon it puts me on my highest guard. Now . . . where was I?
Yes, I know that in the American book almost any British Government is
as good as the next, though a good tough right-wing one would suit you
best. . .'
  'Because I'm trying to get to talk to the Commander doesn't mean. . .'
  'No, of course it doesn't. All sweetness and light and just trying to find
out what fascism is about, aren't you Professor, to help you understand
our predicament?'
  'I tell you, I'm here to act as the President's personal link with you.'
   'With me until I don't exist. Professor. Then the next man, the next
prime minister. And if it's the Commander, well, the Americans are good
at handling fascist dictators, except that the Gregory Institute would be
set the task of finding a new, respectable word to replace fascism and then
get down to telling the world what a good bunch of guys Britain's
latter-day Hitlers are. That so?'
  'Sir. I protest. . .'
   'Protest away. The US Government has one and only one role over here
and that's to keep the Kremlin out. Anyone who's capable of doing that, be
it H. Hunt Esquire or his heirs and successors, is fine by you boys. And as
far as Moscow is concerned it's a vice versa situation, except that in their
case they don't like any of the alternative candidates for power including
the so-called Brother's mob, who, if I'm to believe my intelligence people,
are considered too indisciplined and uncooperative to take any sort of line
from Moscow.'
  'So what conclusion do you draw, Prime Minister?'
  'That the Russians will go to any lengths to avoid a settlement being
reached until they have achieved the right degree of chaos and the right
candidates to run a real revolution over here.'
  'Anything we can do . . .'
   'Generous as always, the Americans. But it needs more than you to solve
our problems.' The Prime Minister stopped for a moment and when he
started talking again he was a shade less hostile. 'We almost seemed to be
getting there on our own. We got a long way with both factions round the
negotiating table. Midnight sessions, beer and sandwiches and even
touches of old-fashioned, good-natured humour. Then . . . bang. The end
of hope came spewing out of the barrels of anonymous guns.'
  'The Russians?'
   'Who else? At one time I thought that they . . . From telephone
surveillance, bugs at the Brother's HQ, we knew that even they think their
Moscow comrades are behind it. That makes the Brother think and think
hard about his Communist allies. That's why I felt there was some real
hope of getting him on board. But then came the killing and we had each
side blaming the other again.'
  'Can't you give them proof of what the Russians are doing?'
   'I'm working on that now. People may think I'm a wet. Well, Professor
Gregory, they don't know Harold Hunt. And I have another card up my
sleeve . . .'
  'Sir?'
  'Oil, of course. North Sea oil. British oil.'
  'Important factor. Prime Minister. But not over-riding, since it only
provides a tiny fraction of total world resources. You'll know I've been
working on a project. . .'
  'Exactly. So you know all about the Unst Field and the blocks around it?'
  'That's part of the Norslag Concession. Low grade stuff. Difficult to
extract. . .'
   A desk telephone gave an urgent bleep. As the Prime Minister moved to
pick it up he turned and said: 'D'you know, Gregory, maybe it's not that
you're a fool, you just don't know . . .' He paused. 'Hello? Yes, what is it? I
said I was not to be disturbed.' Hunt's voice was powerful and, for a brief
instant, Gregory had a glimpse of the hidden determination in him. But a
moment later that judgement fell away as the Prime Minister seemed to
crumple, his face went white and he leaned forward on the desk for
support. Then, after a few seconds' pause, he fell back into his chair, still
clutching the receiver, so that, as he moved, the telephone itself was pulled
off the desk with a crash.
  'What. . .? Where. . .?' the Prime Minister was muttering. 'What did you
say? No, I cannot. . . Yes. Yes, come in, damn you.'
   'Prime Minister?' Gregory rose from his chair and came forward while
the other man sat slumped where he was, still holding the receiver and
staring into space. Two of Hunt's officials burst into the room. One of
them went up to him while the other pulled Gregory aside and whispered
urgently in his ear.
    'You'll have to go now, Professor. It's his granddaughter. Kidnapped
from her parents' flat about twenty minutes ago. Her bodyguard's shot up
... God . . . They even bring children into the war . . .'
       'I'll leave you,' said Gregory, moving to the door. 'Prime Minister, may I.
. .'
   'No, no,' the Prime Minister suddenly sat up. 'Let the man stay. If he
wants to know what's going on here, this'll give him . . . he'll see what a
sick society we have. Oh Christ, my son. . . what he'll be going through.'



   Despite his own cold, unemotional style, Gregory was alive to the fact
that other people had very different ways of reacting to crises in their
personal lives. He had seen world leaders and captains of industry take
far-reaching and heartless decisions that affected the well-being of
countless others in their professional lives, and had watched the same
people fall apart when it came to domestic issues. It was not to be so with
the Prime Minister who, with a supreme effort, galvanised himself into
action, stood up and started bellowing orders at the two private
secretaries, at an Assistant Commissioner of Police who had appeared in
the doorway and at numerous unnamed people at the receiving end of his
loudspeaker telephone. Gregory sat, watched and took dispassionate note
of how Hunt, despite the emotional strain he was under, was successfully
getting the whole security apparatus put on full alert.
   Two hours later he was still there, having learned much about the
workings of the British state and more about its Prime Minister. A bottle
of whisky had been produced and in the last hour over half of it had been
drunk, Hunt and Gregory keeping glass for glass with each other. During
that time and in between phone calls and security briefings, Hunt
gradually dropped his hectoring tone and began to talk in more human
terms about what he had done and was still trying to do to bring reason to
British politics. He appeared to hold little back in describing the long, yet
fruitful negotiations which had been chaired by his former Minister of
Defence and which eventually led to the leaders of both sides agreeing to a
secret meeting on HMS Bulwark, the Royal Naval frigate moored for the
occasion in the Pool of London. Hunt told Gregory, as he had Lateman of
AP, how he himself had taken the chair on that occasion and, after an
all-night session, had managed to get the Commander and the Brother to
agree to call a truce and to attend a more formal meeting of conciliation
at Lancaster House. Hunt had left the ship in the early hours of that
morning believing that he had achieved something and convinced in his
own mind that both leaders shared his view that nothing was to be gained
by continuing with the present strife. A matter of hours later, the
assassination first of the Defence Minister and then of the Commander's
ADC was followed by an upsurge in street violence and a total breakdown
of the brief trust which had been built up at the conference table.
  Gregory tried to question Hunt. 'What d'you think the Russians will do
next?' he asked gently.
   Hunt shook his head wearily. At that moment a telephone call came
through. Hunt jumped up to seize it and the answer to Gregory's question
was lost. It was one more negative report: from the kidnappers there was
silence; no ransom demands, no threats. Around one in the morning
Gregory stood up and tried to leave but as he did so one of the Prime
Minister's private secretaries came in with news that the body of a young
girl had been found in a shallow grave close to the M1 motorway about
fifty miles north of London. Immediately on its heels came a further
message: tests had proved that the body was that of an older child.
  'I'm relieved for you, Prime Minister,' Gregory said softly.
   'Relieved? Are you relieved? About the child's body? Yes . . . I'm sorry. I
don't mean it. Now it's some other parent or grandparent who has the
tragedy.'
 Nothing more was said; and then: 'If you'll excuse me Professor — Max.
Max . . . I'll call you Max. I must get some sleep now,'
   'Yes, Prime Minister. Good night, Prime Minister. Thank you for your
time.'
  Gregory left Hunt alone. Outside the study door the man in the
pinstripe suit, now less dapper and grey with fatigue, was waiting to show
him the front door. Despite the lateness of the hour the staff offices
beyond were full of people and activity and Gregory glimpsed, through one
open door, a desk at which a woman sat, her back towards him. He
hesitated, as if to move forward into the room, but the pinstriped man
showed him firmly out into the night.
  Mason was moaning. 'A hell of a time. Why the devil did you wait so
long? I heard about his grandchild. Poor bugger.'
  'I'll explain tomorrow,' Gregory muttered.
  'I can't wait,' said Mason.
  'You've been to Number Ten quite a bit?' Gregory asked, as they drove
away. He concentrated to keep the question casual and the slur of the
whisky out of his voice.
  'Half a dozen times over the years.'
  "Know the staff?'
  'Some of them.'
  'There's a girl, she's got. . .'
  'For God's sake. Max,' said Mason. 'You're drunk, you lucky sod.'



                                     Ten

  The day that followed was another active one for Dan Lateman. By early
evening he had already put two substantial stories and a background brief
on the wires and the night was still young.


AP, London, Friday, March 4. Dan Lateman reporting Special
Presidential Envoy.
'Spokesperson at Ten Downing Street, traditional town house residence of
British Prime Minister, refused to confirm tonight that US President has
sent Professor Max| Gregory, currently head of prestigious, New
York-based Gregory Institute, as his personal envoy to Premier Hunt,
Informed sources claim this as last ditch attempt by US Administration to
assist centrist British Government efforts to return the riot-torn country
to law and democracy. The presence in tense, bomb-scarred London
tonight of British-born Gregory, has, repeat has, been confirmed by
London Institute's bureau chief, Sandy Mason, who described the
Professor's visit as strictly routine. High-placed Whitehall sources have
indicated, however, that at a secret unscheduled meeting with Premier
Hunt last evening, Gregory brought message of support from the
President for the Premier's efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement of
rightist-Marxist street conflicts. Reports also indicate strong US backing
for all measures directed at maintenance of UK position in NATO and
other Western defence arrangements, inclusive of retaining US military
bases on the British mainland. UK Government sources have also
indicated concern at reports that US Administration and CIA, under
direction of ex-navy hero Admiral Cassover, have been exercised by
evidence of increased Soviet involvement in UK internal affairs. Indication
is that Soviets have indeed been active in support of leftist leaders,
including so-called Brother, repeat Brother, and also, independently, have
fomented crisis by use of ultra-left terrorist squad. Group is identical to
that accused of car-bomb murder of English, correction, British, Defence
Minister at crucial stage in secret left-rightist negotiations on board
British naval ship last month. More to follow.'


AP, London, Friday, March 4. Dan Lateman reporting: Kidnapping.
'British press have now lifted self-imposed ten-hour black-out on news
that Premier Hunt's granddaughter, Elizabeth Jane, ten, repeat ten, has
been kidnapped from her Kensington Gardens, London apartment. Girl's
bodyguard, Maurice McNally, thirty-three, unmarried, was fatally injured
by one of three masked gunmen who broke into girl's apartment while
parents were attending local vigilante-run personal defence course. So far
understood that there have been no, repeat no, ransom demands or other
contact with kidnappers. Rightist and left-wing groups have so far
disclaimed all responsibility for kidnapping. Ends.'


AP, London, Friday, March 4. Background brief by Dan Lateman:
Vigilantes.
'Formation of vigilantes, or "street troopers" as they are commonly known,
on an organised basis, was an inevitable reaction to the escalation of
street violence in urban Britain. First formed in the early eighties, mainly
in decaying inner-city areas, they were to act as a counter-measure to mob
hooliganism and racial unrest. Where law enforcement agencies were
under strain and short of manpower and with military support needed
elsewhere, the civil authorities tended to turn a blind eye when vigilantes
increasingly took the law into their own hands, arguably to protect lives
and property. For some time these groups had a generally calming effect,
but naturally appealing more to right-wing elements they were gradually
subsumed by the Commander's units. Leftists reacted rapidly by forming
their own platoons of "people's militia" to police areas in which they had
high levels of support. Gradually paramilitary uniforms were adopted by
both sides, and while all groups still claim to be unarmed, it is common
knowledge that one qualification for membership is access to a rifle or
handgun. Currently, only in suburban and rural areas do real "community
vigilante" groups operate. Few villages are now without trained units of
citizens who provide local "border guards", patrols and control posts.
Legitimate law enforcement authorities have accepted the situation since
it is one over which they cannot hope to have any control. Ends.'


   At ten thirty-five that same evening, Friday, March 4, the CIA's prime
mole at the Embassy of the USSR in Kensington Palace Gardens, London,
Bucur Popov, passed on the latest batch of photo-copied, top-secret
Russian reports to his American controller. The content of one of these
clearly indicated the Russian Ambassador's puzzlement at the degree to
which the Soviet Union was being blamed for fomenting the current civil
unrest in Britain.


The Soviet Government and people [the Ambassador, as always, chose his
words carefully] have long been accused by capitalists and neo-fascist
governments and their running-dogs of attempting to promote revolution
in many parts of the world. Whatever the justification for such
accusations elsewhere and in the past, as the Politbureau knows and has
agreed, activities on this score in Britain have been very limited indeed
and have been confined to certain financial and propaganda backing for
legitimate Marxist-Communist cells. While lies are to be expected from
the right wing and from the weak centrist Government in order to excuse
the mistakes of its current policies, it is of considerable concern that
several factions of the left, including the PSC Executive, led by Comrade
Paul Verity, have privately expressed the view that the Soviet Union and
its agencies have been responsible for promoting active unrest, financing
assassination squads and other illegitimate activities. Despite the
seriousness of these accusations, I recommend that there should be no,
repeat no, public response to such accusations until further information
from intelligence sources has been elicited as to why they are being made
against the Soviet Government at this juncture and who might hope to
gain from blackening the good name of the heroic Soviet Peoples.
  This was one of very few secret reports on the UK political scene that
the CIA did not pass to the Gregory Institute in New York or to the
President's special envoy in London.



  Five p.m., New York time, on this day of apparently unconnected
events, and in the Ops Room of the Gregory Institute in New York, oil
economist Mick Vanderman, in common with the less dedicated of his
colleagues, was working with some of the pressure off. There was always
the same temptation when Professor Gregory was abroad, and
Vanderman had taken the opportunity to have a rather lengthy lunch with
an old MIT colleague at P. J. Clark's, and had returned to the Institute in a
mood of general well-being and contentment. Tonight he would be able to
get away in time for a shower and change of shirt before taking his
somewhat impetuous girlfriend to see the new Broadway show, to which
that morning's Times had given an intelligently welcoming review.
   Vanderman had not set out to have an idle afternoon for he was
conscientious if not outstanding at his job; he enjoyed the work and was
pleased to have been selected personally by Gregory to work on the British
project. He was of course well qualified for the task, not least because of
his year at the Oil Technology Department at Heriot-Watt College in
Edinburgh finalising his Ph.D. thesis, which had provided him with
first-hand experience of the British contribution. But he felt himself less
than competent and somewhat muddle-headed as a result of his heavy
lunch, when the figures he had left to be programmed reappeared on his
desk. For the second time in two days the computer had turned out a
nonsense —absurd estimates for potentially recoverable North Sea
resources. So, painstakingly, Vanderman set out to check sources,
double-verify Government and oil company predictions and cross-relate to
known reserves. Then he put them through the computer link with the
CIA, but no way did they match. Conclusion: either he or the computer
was at fault, or someone was pushing out a false bundle of statistics, a
massively false bundle.
   In the end he put the tables and the print-out aside, picked up Business
Week magazine and put it in his briefcase. He looked at his watch and
stood up. It was too late on a Friday evening; he would come back and
track down his error in the clear light of a new week.



                                Eleven
   At the expense of two or three minor infringements of the truth,
Gregory extracted from an unsuspecting CIA Head of Station some of the
information he required. She was one of Whitehall's brightest: secretary of
an important Cabinet Committee, well-trusted by the Prime Minister,
unmarried as far as anyone knew, eleven years older but the same Eileen
Byrne.
   With uncharacteristic apprehension he telephoned her at Number Ten
and announced himself. There was an over-long pause, then:'I
half-expected you to call. . . No, I didn't realise it was you; not until
afterwards. That you'd arrived here was only known to a handful of
people.' Her voice was distant rather than hostile, so he followed through
and asked politely if they might meet.
  'I suppose so,' she said. He could discern no emotion whatsoever in her
reply.



   Some of the fashionably picturesque features of Langan's Brasserie in
Stratton Street, the eclectic selection of paintings and the white-aproned
waiters, remained, though its former liveliness of character had been
largely extinguished by the security guards at the doors, the wire mesh
and steel shutters over the windows and the sparseness of the custom. But
somehow or other, despite the shortages, the lack of fresh meat and
vegetables, Mason had told him that they still managed to maintain a
reasonable standard of cuisine.
   The evening started out badly and went on that way for quite some
time. Gregory began it by having a row with CIA Head of Station over
wanting to stand his bodyguard down for the night, but in the end he got
his way. When he met Eileen Byrne as arranged at the restaurant, the
going was cold verging on icy. He had become used to handling bright
American girls and considered that he knew where to begin and where to
end a relationship. In a decade he felt he had never failed to pigeonhole a
new protagonist by type, and once in that pigeonhole the rest was easy.
But Eileen Byrne fitted not at all and his memories of a naive
twenty-three-year-old died an immediate death. He found himself faced
with a hard but not yet hard-bitten adversary; every time he thought he
had her summed up, she changed tack and left him stumbling. Intelligent,
yes; an assistant secretary for economic policy at Number Ten was, by
definition, not likely to be a dunce. Attractive — she had obviously
matured well and now knew how to handle her advantage.
   But the evening was not just his one-sided and increasingly unhappy
attempt at a nostalgia trip; she too, though she hid it better, was curious
about this acceptedly brilliant and powerful man who had suddenly
reappeared in her life. Her memories of him were less vivid than his of her
and she concentrated on the present, a rich, harshly good-looking but
obvious mark-one bastard. She had one major advantage over him which
she would use: she had seen the British Intelligence file on him and knew a
lot about his recent successes, his few failures and all about Lou.
  For the first half hour they exchanged platitudes, then: 'You remember
New York?' he asked eventually.
  'It was an event in my life. You were.' She shrugged uninterested.
  'It was going so well.'
  'Was it? For you perhaps.'
  'Then you disappeared. No warning.'
  'It was the only way. I wasn't strong enough to handle it otherwise.
Then.'
  'And?'
   'And I went back to England and decided to take the Civil Service
entrance exams. Maybe you don't remember. . .what flipped me . . .' She
paused. 'You sent your chauffeur and car to pick me up — bring me back
to your flat to be waiting when you decided to turn up.'
  'I did?'
  'You did.'
  'Bitter?'
  'I suppose so.'
  'It took me a while to realise . . .' he began, looking straight at her.
  'You want me to believe that sort of line?' she asked, looking back at
him, unblinking.
  In different circumstances she might have decided to succumb once
again when he switched into a dominating overture, but that was not the
way she wanted the game this time. As a result they took an hour or so
pacing each other uneasily over the escargots and the lamb in rosemary,
with her defensive, then belligerent, he hostile, then arrogant. They were
both pitching for an early night and each going their separate way.
   The thaw came as the result of an outside diversion. A large, roseate
fellow-diner at a neighbouring table, a man with a loud voice and
demanding habits, had, for unexplained but understandable reasons, a
large plate of cream-topped trifle emptied over him by the fat, blowsy
blonde who sat with him. Both stormed out in dramatic rage leaving
much laughter behind them and the Byrne-Gregory dinner was saved.
Their common mirth was helped by another bottle of house red in
breaking down the barriers, and their eyes met properly across the table
for the first time.
  'Death to memories,' he said raising his glass in a mock toast.
  'Why not,' she replied, with the beginnings of a smile.



   It was ten p.m. London time and five hours behind that in New York
where Mick Vanderman, with much less experience than his boss, was
also having advanced girlfriend trouble. The problem with this particular
girl was that she had ideas above his station with regard to bachelor
Vanderman's status and, more importantly, his salary. The lady had
ambitions for them both which did not include marrying someone with a
grey, nine-to-five job behind some computer at the Gregory Institute. Her
requirements were for a bright young executive who would give her a
modern house somewhere in a fashionable part of Long Island and a
couple of equally fashionable small children to go with it. She wanted an
advance on what they both had had in their Brooklyn upbringing, and
Mick Vanderman was going through a bout of feeling inadequate in the
realisation that he was not living up to her expectations.
   Vanderman knew only too well that he should be sorting out the
complex nonsense he had made over the British oil statistics, but the clear
head required for that task was constantly being waylaid by thoughts of
her. He had got into the habit of calling her frequently to ensure that she
was content, and a considerable amount of the rest of the time he spent
pre-packaging their time together. Tickets to Broadway shows that were
too expensive, roses, boxes of chocolates well beyond his day-to-day
means, and still she had showed a lack of appreciation. With all that in the
forefront of his life, it was easy to put the work of the Institute and
especially the need to reprogramme boring figures of oil reserves very low
down on his list of priorities. Had it not blown into a flaming row the
previous night with her threatening to date an old boyfriend, and his
consequent decision to break it off, at least for the next few hours, there
would have been an important gap in the historical progression. Late that
same evening he had abandoned her in fury and picked up a cab to take
him back to the Madison Avenue headquarters of the Gregory Institute.
   On the fortieth floor there was still a skeleton staff working on major
projects, since, with computers as costly as these, Gregory himself had
insisted on a twenty-four-hour usage programme. Nobody paid much
attention when Vanderman walked in and over to his desk where, in a
ferment of self-righteous indignation building up to remorse, he started
working through the oil statistics in an attempt to drive the girl from his
mind. He began by cross-checking the projected totals for the various
North Sea fields, including the Brent and Forties blocks, which had failed
to tally earlier. Then he played them through again on his desk computer
terminal, checking sources and making one or two matrix runs against
estimates which one of his colleagues had worked out on the fringes of a
Middle East oil project. Finally, in an old-fashioned way, he took up a
pencil and a pad of lined paper. By the end of all this, at three in the
morning, he had forgotten his girl crisis and had proved to himself that
either someone somewhere was fixing the figures or that there was the
most monstrous error in the projected Unst Field totals. Maximum known
reserves in British waters, the absolute maximum, was something in the
region of seventy-five billion barrels. The figures which stared up at him
from his pad showed a projected estimate several times in excess of those
for that field alone. Additionally, the Norslag Corporation, the biggest
operator in the area since their take-over, not only of BP, but also of
British National Oil Corporation interests and much of Burmah Oil, were
showing planned investment figures for their huge Unst concession which
could only be justified if the expected yield was believed to be several
times published estimates. Norslag, with their tax-loophole headquarters
in Paris and Oslo and their reputed under-the-counter deals with the
Soviet Union, were the sharpest of operators, particularly with regard to
investment planning and research. It was bloody absurd. No way could
that block of sea hide such amounts of oil or justify their budgeting.
   Around four in the morning he staggered to a couch in the Institute
canteen and tried to sleep. After a miserable few hours, half-dozing and
worrying more about girlfriend than oil, he returned to the office in a
bedraggled state of mind. In the middle of that confused morning he made
two or three attempts to ring her to see if he could patch things up but
there was no reply. In search of a palliative he went from office to office
seeking out the more sympathetic of his colleagues to try out on them the
oil figures but they were all distinctly unimpressed, and with the scale of
apparent error, were, in their various ways, dismissive. 'You've made some
howling mistake, Kid. Go back to school. Work through it again.' 'If you
can believe that, fellow, you can believe anything. Go have a shave and
shower: that'll wake you up.' 'Look, boy, why don't we talk about it some
time when I've got an hour or two and you've gotten a bunch more work
done on the project.'
   Vanderman brooded for several hours, pulled through some more
checks, failed to make contact with his girlfriend a couple more times,
then at five p.m. New York time, just about the moment Gregory and
Eileen Byrne were leaving Langan's Brasserie, rang Mason in London.
  Mason was blunt. 'OK. You're a good boy, Mick, but make it snappy.
What's on your mind? 1 got so many problems here, most of them
somebody called Max Gregory, so it better be good.'
   'The Unst Field oil figures, Mr Mason, they're all haywire.' He explained
his findings, then went on: 'And there's another thing I don't understand.
The way I read it, the Norslag Corporation have an investment
programme that could no way be justified by known reserves.'
   'Norslag have the best man in the business. So that makes you nuts,'
said Mason. 'Wait till I tell Max Gregory about you, son. Been sniffing
something too strong, have you?'
  'Look Mr Mason, I'm serious. I tell you I have multiple-programmed
these figures and no way do they gel. You try.'
   'This is an open line, Mick. I don't want any eavesdroppers to think we
employ sci-fi enthusiasts. You're telling me that Norslag believes there's
x-times more oil available in the Unst concession than any of us has
known about till now?' Mason's cynicism stretched the Atlantic with
abundant clarity.
   'I'm only telling you what the figures say. That's what I'm paid to do.
I've got figures and I want to check them with CIA at Langley. Can you
give me the go-ahead for that, please?'
   Mason stood behind his desk in the Institute's London Bureau, staring
at the phone. He did not know whether to be angry or to laugh, as both he
and Gregory thought highly of Vanderman,
  'OK, OK, boy. Get these figures over here by safe hand, will you. Then
we'll decide. Don't wire them, because people are curious. What you can
do is . . .'
   That was the moment when the door of Mason's office burst inwards
and a man with a sten-gun appeared, blazing away from the hip. Mason
had no time to look astonished before he was splattered out of view behind
his desk. Then from behind the assailant came the sound of further shots
and an explosion which knocked him flying and the gun out of his hand.
Some time after that Mason remembered that he began, slowly and
painfully, to drag himself towards the flame-filled door. From then on
everything was blank.
   At the Institute, Mick Vanderman stood with the lifeless telephone
receiver in his hand, staring at it as if it was responsible for its sudden loss
of sound. The series of staccato noises before the line had gone dead could
have been interference followed by a break-down, but he sensed something
more substantial than that. Stopping a colleague who was going off duty,
he tried to share his anxieties but the response was gloomily
unimpressive: 'They've had so many strikes in the telecom network over
there it's hardly surprising if the lines go down. Or maybe it's another
bomb at the exchange. Nothing to worry about, Mick. Mason will be back
on line in twenty minutes.'
  'You want to go firm on that?'
   The other man went without responding and Vanderman was left
wondering whether he was making too much, first of the Norslag
concession figures, then this. Whatever else, he would now have to wait
before cross-checking the figures with CIA, Langley. He stood silent for a
moment. Around him was the busy normality of the Gregory Institute; the
clicking of the printers, the rattle of tape machines and the distant hum of
New York City going home for the night.



                                  Twelve

  They paused at the corner of Stratton Street and looked across
Piccadilly to where the lights of the Ritz still sparkled in an impression of
opulent normality.
  'As retribution for having stood down my bodyguard they took away my
Embassy car and driver. D'you mind walking to the Institute offices?
Mason has a car waiting there to take you home. It's only two blocks.'
  'Who's Mason?' asked Eileen Byrne.
  'Head of my London ops. Salt of the earth and bright even when he's
drunk . . . Are we all right walking here?'
  'In this part of London? Yes, it's still well policed.'
   They were aware of the sound of sirens and shouting even before they
turned into Bond Street where the London bureau of the Gregory Institute
was housed in an opulent suite of rooms at the top of an eight-storey office
block. Or where the bureau had been, for, beyond where the street was
blocked by fire engines, they saw at once that the building itself was
already a flaming, red-windowed shell. Arc lights played over the scene,
picking out and dancing with the jets from the fire hoses. As they stopped
in horror, an ambulance tore past them and on into the darkness. There
were no onlookers.
  Gregory started to move forward, but Eileen put out a restraining hand
and grabbed him. 'No. Don't go.'
  'Mason's in there.' He turned, white faced, his voice choking.
  'Whatever's happened, there's no point in you throwing yourself onto
the flames. You realise what'll happen?'
  'What will?'
  'Appearing at the scene of a crime. Automatically pulled in for
questioning. It's always the same.'
  'What crime?'
  'That fire started by accident?'
  'That's my office.'
   'They don't know that and they don't care. I warn you, they arrest on
sight. We're too close even now. Keep back in the shadows.'
  'Mason . . .'
   'What can you do that the firemen can't? We'll go to my flat and ring
from there. You can get on to the Embassy or I'll ask someone at Number
Ten to find out what happened and where this Mason is. No use asking
the people on the spot. I promise you.'
  'I must, and now. I'm going . . .'
   'No. Please. Please, Max.' He again turned to look at her, her expression
and her first use of his Christian name making him hesitate. 'Where's your
flat? Let's go.'
  'South Kensington.'
  'My hotel's in Park Lane. Much nearer.'
  'No, you mustn't go there.'
  'Why the hell not? You're acting like a nanny.'
  'Believe me.' It was an order more than a plea. She was staring at him,
her face lit by the flickering flames from the burning building.
   'What the hell d'you mean? You're hiding something. You knew about
this, did you?' He swung round at her. 'Did you know . . . Did you know
this was going to happen?'
  'Of course I didn't know.' She tried to draw away, but he had grabbed
her arm and held it tightly. 'There's been a lot of talk about you, that's all.
You know that. People don't like you. They've gone to the trouble of killing
your brother and now burning your office, so they won't stop at burning
you too. Please listen: your hotel's the last place to go right now. Look,
we'll have to walk. It's not often . . . that I plead with people to come back
with me.'
  'It s not?' he asked, though it came out worse than he intended.
  'You're a bastard, Max Gregory ... No change.' She turned on her heel
and walked away. After a moment's pause he followed her.



   In the comfortable setting of her flat he began to regain his composure
and look around him. He took in the stimulating paintings on the walls,
the deep chairs, the subtle lighting and an academic muddle of books and
magazines. Having failed to get any sense from the Embassy, or to raise
the CIA Head of Station, he had left it to her and she had now been on the
telephone to Number Ten for the past twenty minutes, patiently coaxing
information from her harassed colleagues. After a lot of hanging on she
was given a partial report on the fire at the Institute: a hundred-pound
bomb, plus napalm, and the building was now totally gutted. Only a
handful of people had been inside at the time; two men, one a security
guard and another suffering from bullet wounds, had been taken by
ambulance to the emergency department of Westminster Hospital. There
was no information on the identity of the second man or of his condition,
nor had anyone claimed responsibility for the attack. 'It has to be Mason.'
   'I seem to remember you lecturing people about not jumping to
conclusions. I'll try casualties first,' she said coldly, still deeply angry at
him for his remark. He watched as she made a number of unsuccessful
attempts to get through to the hospital; the line was either engaged or
rang on unanswered.
    'The surprise is if hospitals answer the phone at all now.' She hesitated.
'I'll try for a duty car to take me there.'
  'Why should you? It's not your concern; and you don't even know him.
I'm going.'
   She paused briefly before replying: 'That's another of your bad ideas. If
they're looking for you and you're not at your hotel, they'll expect you to go
after Mason.'
  'Who the hell are "they" you keep talking about?'
   'I don't have answers like that. That's your job. If you accept somebody's
after you, it's better not to test to see whether I'm correct or not.'
  'What have you heard about me?' he asked.
  'I told you. Successful, trusted by the President of the United States, a
buddy of Admiral Cassover, not best friends with the Secretary of State,
and sent here to help us.'
  'Like the things wrong with GI's: over-paid, over-sexed and over here.'
  She ignored the joke. 'I read the report about your brother and that you
had a gun . . .' she paused.
  'And?'
   'Current assessment: a hard man. I could have told them that. You have
a lot of enemies, in particular one bunch with more venom than normal.'
  'Why does the Prime Minister think I'm a target?'
  'He explained. Our two warring tribes are too interested getting at each
other to bother about transients from your side of the Atlantic. So . . .'
  'A third force.'
  'A Moscow-backed hit-squad with two roles: keeping things on the boil
until the Kremlin is ready and keeping the US in general and you in
particular from having any more to say.'
  'Not a shred of evidence did he offer to back that theory up. He might
have told me more but he cut off when he got the news about his
granddaughter.'
  She shrugged. 'Poor man. He doesn't deserve it. Did he tell you about
the meeting on the ship?'
  'Yes.'
  'I was there. I sat in, taking the record.'
  'Why you?'
   'He likes me. I tell you, he's not as weak as he's painted, but everything's
loaded against him. He had these two men leaving that boat, wanting to
agree, realising the futility of violence. All they had to avoid was losing
face.'
  There was a long silence. Eventually Gregory stood up. 'I have to go.'
  'For God's sake then get that bodyguard of yours to go with you . . .'
   The telephone rang, interrupting her. She picked up the receiver. 'Yes?'
she asked. 'Oh yes, it's you. Yes . . . yes, right, thank you.' She put the
phone back down. 'That was my office. You'll have to forget the hospital
for the time being. There's fighting going on along the Embankment by
the Tate Gallery and the whole area's been sealed off by the army.'
  'What is it this time?'
  'Does it matter?' she said, 'if it's a big one it can last for hours.'
  'For hours . . .'



   She was sitting on the edge of the couch and without being too aware of
it he had sat beside her, unable to leave. She was wearing a white blouse
with a high Russian collar and it was partly transparent so that he was
able to make out the line of her figure beneath it. They sat talking quietly
and waiting. Some time later, he stretched his right hand out along the
back of the couch and gently touched the nape of her neck, but she neither
moved nor responded. He rested his hand there as they continued to talk,
then brought it up slowly, caressing her neck where the auburn hair
merged with the shirt. She turned to face him.
  'Bastard.'
  'No memories, remember.'
  'No memories. I don't need them, I just read it in your file.' She almost
smiled.
  'Revealing classified information gives a mean advantage: there's no file
on you.'
  'That's my only point so far.'
  His hand moved to cup her neck and he pulled her gently towards him.
She resisted a little. 'Don't make me.'
  'Never again, I promise you. Unless you want me to.'
 They were lying side by side on her bed. It was quarter to six on the
morning of Tuesday, March 8.
  He sat up. 'I can't relax without knowing.'
  'You weren't bored waiting?' She turned to watch him in the half light.
  'Not too bad . . .' He was smiling.
  'I understand. OK. I'll try and see how the battle goes. Maybe even the
hospital.'
   Without bothering to pull the sheets around her, she sat up in bed. Her
breasts swayed gently as she reached forward to switch on a side-light and
pick up the telephone. He moved over to play with them.
  'Please. I've got to concentrate.'
   She got the Duty Officer at Number Ten. The advice was firm: the
Embankment battle was still going strong, and there would be no point in
trying to reach the hospital for the time being.
   'I'll try again my way.' Gregory reached across her for the phone, dialled
a number which was answered immediately. 'Head of Station?' he said.
'This is Gregory. About my office . . .'
   The call had wakened him and the CIA Head of Station was neither too
quick nor good-humoured. 'Yeah, I heard,' he said slowly. 'That was eight
hours ago. Since then the world's been trying to get you. Where the hell
are you? I had the Admiral on the phone, mad as an ape that 1 had agreed
to drop your guard. That won't happen again, I can tell you, girl or no girl.
Then we went up scale with the President's office calling. For good
measure I had one of your men from your New York office, one Mick
Vanderman, hollering for you. Urgent.'
  'So I'm sorry. I tried the Embassy after it happened but couldn't contact
you. So I went underground for a bit. It didn't look too safe.'
  'You could have reported in again. Picked up my man.'
  'No time, sorry. What about Mason?'
  'Four bullets, one of them serious, the other three flesh wounds. They
were operating a little while ago. At Westminster Hospital, did you know?'
  'Yes, and about the Embankment fight so I can't get near.'
  'We'll take you. I'll fix it and ring you back. Give me your number.'
  'I'll ring you. I don't give anything these days. Not even to the CIA. Not
with people listening in.'
   'I'm fed to the teeth with you, Gregory. We're meant to be on the same
side.'
  'Better tight than dead. I'll ring you.' Gregory put the telephone down.
'May I ring New York?' he asked. He was still lying half across her.
   'Help yourself,' Eileen said. 'What's an enormous telephone bill between
friends?' She was doing something to him under the sheets.
  'I'll reverse the charges.'
  'I'm not the one that's hard up.'
   He dialled a New York number. It took him several times before he got
through to the Institute. It was one in the morning there but Vanderman
was still at his desk. 'Is that you Mick . . .? Yes it's . . . Mason, yes. Haven't
you heard? The office was blown to bits. Mason was shot up at the same
time . . . Critical. Pass the word around, will you. No I can't give you a
number where I can be reached. Things aren't over-easy here at the
moment. You had something urgent . . .? Oil? Did you say oil? What the
hell are you talking about oil for at a time like this?'
  Eileen was laughing at him as he slammed the phone down.



                                 Thirteen

   Dan Lateman of Associated Press sensed that the US press were getting
more than a little bored with stories of Britain's slide into anarchy, but
this one had a strong American slant and his hunch was that it would pay
dividends to follow it hard. It was potentially hotter than other current
stories with a transatlantic interest, of kidnapped US business executives
or of strikebound American firms pulling their operations out of the UK
for good. Nonetheless he started out cautiously to get the bare facts on the
wires. After that he would start digging the background dirt.


AP London, Tuesday, March 8. Dan Lateman reporting: Gregory
Institute.
'The London bureau of the American Gregory Institute was totally
destroyed by fire last night as the result of a bomb attack. No warning was
given and the identity of those responsible is still unknown. Two people
were injured in the attack including the London bureau chief, Sandy
Mason, fifty-seven, who was working in the building at the time and is
now seriously ill in hospital. Present whereabouts of Professor Max
Gregory himself is a mystery though US Embassy sources believe he is still
in London.
'UK press have already nicknamed the Gregory Institute the "Alternative
Embassy", following confirmation over the weekend of Professor Gregory's
role as special envoy of the President. Attack on the Institute is also being
linked to the murder in London last December of Professor Gregory's
brother. At the time this was believed to have been a case of mistaken
identity with Professor Gregory the intended target but again no evidence
has ever been produced about the reason for that assassination. However,
British and American intelligence organisations are reportedly continuing
to work on the theory that this is part of a hard-line Marxist attempt to
stop increased US involvement in Britain's internal problems. Informed
sources have suggested that news of Gregory's forthcoming appointment
leaked and the attack was an attempt to warn off the US Administration
from following such a course of action. The existence of a Marxist-backed
terrorist squad has long been suspected, but the left-wing People's
Socialist Coalition have denied any responsibility . . .'


   Lateman had been fascinated by the story ever since he had heard that
Gregory was London-bound. The White House had chosen a rank outsider
as special presidential envoy and, despite Gregory's standing in
Washington and his British background, it all didn't quite fit. Then, going
back through AP's files on Gregory, Lateman came across a low-key report
from their Washington bureau, that the Gregory Institute was involved in
a British oil-research project. Lateman liked stories about oil and had a
long-lived and, in the world of the big companies, notorious reputation for
digging out the seamier aspects of oil supply deals. Taken together, these
facts decided him to risk arrest and see what he could find in an early
morning visit to the still smoking ruins of the Institute's bureau in Bond
Street.
   He picked his way cautiously amidst the rubble, waving his press card
whenever he was challenged, until he spotted the officer he was looking
for: he had recently given the Chief of the London bomb-squad a good and
well-publicised write-up. The Chief Inspector even smiled when Lateman
appeared amidst the smoke and ashes.
  'Brought your shovel? What are you on, Mr Lateman?'
  'Nothing much. A little background to this one.'
  'Another bomb. Routine. Nought new in that for you boys.'
  'This particular bomb has blown up part of one of New York's biggest
research institutes. I have an American interest.'
  'I see. Well, the press line won't surprise you: we don't know who did it,
as usual. There's not much left of the building. You can see that also. Two
injured including the bureau chief, name of Mason, who's been rushed to
Westminster emergency.'
  'I heard. Caught in the blast.'
  'No. That's the one oddity. Four bullets in him. Must have happened
before the bomb went off.'
  'Bullets, eh?'
  'You know him?'
  'No, but he's close to Max Gregory himself.'
  'That makes a difference?'
 'You tell me, Chief Inspector. Look, do me a favour: I have a deadline to
meet, so give me a break, or I'll have to go to the hospital.'
   'Sorry. You won't get much there either, even if you do get through the
fighting on the Embankment. They've put a guard on his room, so beware.
The security boys like locking journalists up and asking questions later.'
  'A special guard and you really tell me you don't know more?'
  'Not me, mate. Not my department.'
  'Was it the Brother's lot?'
   'They say not. Not his mark. Bit of a puzzle, but who the hell cares? We
don't have the men or resources to follow these things up any more and all
we do is defuse or pick up the bits. You know how many unsolved cases
there are; you know we don't even bother opening files on some of these
bomb outrages. I tell you, Mr Lateman, strictly off the record, the sooner
the Commander's boys get a grip, the better I'll be pleased. He's not my
cup of tea and he's got too many associations with some of the things my
father died for in the war, but I'd rather have his law-and-order gang than
that bunch of Moscow-directed Commies . . . Don't quote me.'
   'Sure. Nice to run into you again, Chief Inspector. Glad you liked that
article. Syndicated across the States. I'll send you some cuttings.'



   Paint peeled from the walls and ceilings, the floors were littered with
cigarette butts, a trail of blood led across the linoleum at one end of the
corridor and a battered stretcher trolley, with one of its wheels missing,
stood drunkenly in the corner of the reception area. There were about
twenty patients on the wooden benches or lying on the floor of
Westminster Hospital's emergency wing, all of them men, all casualties of
the street battle that was still going on outside. A sour-faced sister
supervised the scene from behind a reception desk while three or four
armed security guards patrolled by the metal-shuttered doors.
   Two of the guards moved forward routinely as Lateman entered. By
slipping down the maze of little back streets behind Horseferry Road, and
constantly retracing his steps when he saw trouble ahead, the journalist
had reached the hospital with remarkably little difficulty. Now, putting his
hands automatically above his head, he submitted to a rough but effective
body search before being allowed forward to the desk.
  'Sandy Mason?' he asked. 'Admitted last night with gunshot wounds.'
  The sister looked up, scowled, then reluctantly consulted her admissions
sheet. 'No visitors,' she announced eventually.
  'I'm a friend.'
  'You heard me. If you want to argue, talk to the duty sergeant.'
  'Where?'
  'Down the corridor, first door on the left past the lavatories. You'll have
some hard talking to do. There's a police guard outside his door,' she
added more helpfully. 'He's badly shot up.'
   Lateman nodded gratefully. 'A lot of that infection around these days,'
he said. He moved carefully along the green-painted corridor, avoiding the
door of the room to which he had been directed. No one stopped him and
harassed nurses and doctors paid little attention as he edged on past high
piles of unwashed hospital bedding. The all-pervading smell of carbolic
could not disguise more human odours, and Lateman wrinkled his nose in
disgust. The red eyes in his lined white face darted nervously from side to
side as he made his way past a disused lift and up a flight of stairs to the
second floor. Good investigative journalists learn to read documents
upside down; Mason's room number on the sister's admission sheet had
been easily visible.
   The Intensive Care Unit was a degree less shabby than the rest of the
building but the foetid smell and the overall sense of greyness persisted,
helped by the fact that half the corridor lights were not functioning. A
post-operative case of indeterminate sex, with its dripfeed bottle hung
precariously above the bed, lay unattended on a stretcher. Despite past
rigours as war correspondent, Lateman hated blood and all forms of
sickness and he averted his eyes. Then, at the end of a long passageway, he
spotted a uniformed policeman sitting on a hard-backed chair outside a
door, reading the Daily Star. A sten-gun rested casually across the man's
knees.
   Lateman backed round a corner out of sight and almost immediately
saw his opportunity: through the open door of an empty office, a white
coat was hanging on a peg by the door. On a table beside it lay a metal
tray equipped with surgical instruments, sterile gloves and dressing pads.
A few moments later, attired in the white coat and carrying the tray like a
professional, Lateman turned back down the corridor and advanced on
the policeman. The latter rose to his feet as he approached, dropping the
newspaper and cradling the gun in his arms.
  'Time to change the poor bugger's dressing again,' Lateman said.
  'The nurse must have done that less than an hour and a half ago,' the
policeman said, glancing at his watch.
   'It's non-stop with wounds weeping like that,' Lateman continued at his
glib best.
  'OK, you can . . .' The policeman moved to let him aside, then paused. 'I
don't know you. Where's your pass? You should be wearing it.'
   Lateman's face fell theatrically and he moved his hand up to the breast
pocket of his white coat where, he had observed, the hospital staff clipped
their laminated photographic passes. 'Damn it to hell. Just changed coats.
I must've left it on the one for the laundry. I'll change it over when I've
finished doing the dressings.'
  'Well ... I suppose so,' said the policeman reluctantly. 'Say, you're not
British. That accent. . .'
  'Right. Canadian, and boy am I waiting to go home, just as soon as I've
sold my house. Have you tried to sell a house these days? I can't give it
away.'
  Lateman put down the tray on a bench and obediently raised his arms
above his head while the policeman ran his hands over him. 'OK. You can
go in. But leave the door open.'
   Lateman slipped through into the tiny unventilated room. The
policeman watched for a moment then went back to his newspaper.
Mason lay in the half dark, eyes open, staring towards the ceiling. At the
sound, he moved his eyes fractionally in Lateman's direction, and raised
his eyebrows enquiringly. 'Not again,' he muttered.
  'Relax,' Lateman whispered, approaching the bed and putting the tray
down on a side table. 'Name's Lateman. Nothing to do with the hospital.
Sent by Max Gregory. He couldn't get here. He smells more trouble and
has gone under cover.'
  'Who are you?' Mason's voice was faint.
  'Dan Lateman. Old friend of Maxie's.' When he got into the swing,
Lateman had no compunction about lying.
  'Maxie, eh? Must be a very good friend.' Mason paused. 'Don't know
you. But the name's familiar . . . somehow.' Hoarse but determined, his
words came with considerable effort.
   'Don't know you either,' said Lateman, cheerfully. 'Sorry about your
little accident. Doctor tells me you are going to pull through fine. You'll be
out of here in a couple of weeks. Idea who did it?'
  'The hell, no.'
  'Or why?'
  'I dunno,' Mason spoke slowly. 'A man came ... I remember a gun then
nothing more. Not until I was here. The building went up, I gather.'
  'A complete write-off, records, everything. Maxie asked me to. . .'
  'What did he ask?'
  'He asked . . . where the oil figures were,' Lateman invented glibly,
playing a sudden hunch.
   'Oil figures?' Mason's face crinkled in puzzlement. 'What does he mean,
oil figures?' He spoke slowly and at times his voice dropped so low that
Lateman had to bend his head to hear.
  'Come on, Mason,' he pleaded. 'Maxie said to ask you. Would they get
the oil figures?'
  'I don't know whether they got any papers. How do I know what they
took and what just got burned up?'
  'I said I would pass on his message, that's all. I'm just trying to help.'
Lateman sounded hurt.
  'I'm sorry, I can't think straight. They keep injecting painkillers.'
  'It was the special figures he asked for.' Lateman tried another tack.
   'Maybe that's what Mick Vanderman — our New York oil analyst —
wanted to talk to me about. He had some mixed-up figures of UK reserves
to do with the Unst field and the Norslag concession.'
  'Go on.'
  'I don't know any more.'
   'Let's leave it. The real issue is who hates your operation so much as to
try to destroy you.'
  'One thing you can tell Max from me: no way do I believe that this is a
Kremlin scenario.' Mason's voice again dropped to a whisper.
  'What was that?' prompted Lateman.
  'I don't know. I just feel. . . God am I tired.'
  'You're doing just fine.' Lateman picked his words carefully. 'You know
where Maxie is right now, don't you?'
   There was a pause. 'I. . . d'you mean you don't? Hey, don't you know
where he is ?' In his agitation Mason moved to sit up and pain shot across
his face. He stared at Lateman, then sank slowly back on his pillows. 'You
haven't come from him. I should have cottoned on. Your calling him
Maxie didn't ring true. Damn these drugs; they slow me like hell. Who are
you then, Lateman? Who the devil are you?'
   'Like I said.' Lateman had not wished to upset Mason and he stood up
to go.
  'Who the hell are you?' Mason repeated. 'What are you doing here?
Christ, you bastard.' He moved again on the bed in a vain attempt to sit
up.
  'Relax. You'll strain yourself. I'm just a journalist, from AP, and on to a
good story.'
  'Lateman: I know that name now. Get out, damn you.'
  'Not too excited. It's bad for you. I'm going. And remember: I could
have been one of those others. I just walked in after all, didn't I? Could
have finished off the job they started. Be thankful for that.'



  As soon as he got back to his office, Lateman sat down at his typewriter
and began hammering out his story.


AP London, Tuesday, March 8. Dan Lateman reporting: Gregory
Institute.
'In an exclusive interview with me from his sick-bed today, Sandy Mason,
Head of rhe London Bureau of the Gregory Institute, claimed that the
attack which totally destroyed the Institute's offices last night and left him
seriously wounded, was not, repeat not part of a Moscow-backed plot. . .


  Lateman got that far, then testily pulled the sheet of paper from the
typewriter, crumpled it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket. There
was no story in the ramblings of a badly injured man. Not yet.



   By contrast, it was four p.m. in the afternoon of Tuesday, March 8
before Gregory made it to Mason's bedside. Lacking Lateman's abilities to
deceive, it took him much longer to get through the police cordons and be
issued with a permit to visit his employee.
   'When and why are you going back to Washington?' Mason asked when
Gregory eventually told him of the decision he had reached. The patient's
face was white and he looked drawn and tired against the crumpled
bedsheets.
   'I'm booked on the TWA flight tomorrow morning. I'm unable to get on
with the job I was sent here to do, the CIA Head of Station can't or won't
help me, and that charade of an Ambassador might as well not exist as far
as I'm concerned.'
  'How long will you be gone?'
   'As long as it takes to get answers and a firm undertaking from
Auerbach and Cassover that they'll back me up all the way. I'm not going
to continue to put my head on the block without at least knowing who's
wielding the axe.'
   'I'd like to know too,' Mason said wearily. 'You don't pay me enough for
this sort of lark. I'm a quiet, peace-loving man. . .'
  'I'm really sorry,' said Gregory softly, looking down at Mason.
  'Can't you talk to Auerbach from here?'
   'I need what they call a face-to-face situation. The rules seem to have
changed, as if I was set up when I came here. Even Hunt hinted at that. So
I'm forced to think that there's a lot more at stake than they ever told me
in Washington, more than just empty words about Britain's place in the
Atlantic Alliance and the balance of power in Europe. As the PM said to
me, that's all first-form politics. Now, if there was something else...'
  'Like what?
  'Like oil.'
  'That creep Lateman was on about oil. He kept asking me about some
special figures.'
  'I remember more and more about Lateman. Oil used to be his
speciality. He was probably just fishing, but then we have Mick
Vanderman gabbling away, and that's not a boy who usually gets too
excited about things. Right now North Sea sources are only of marginal
importance to the US ... But just supposing something's happened out in
that Unst field that the Norslag Corporation have plans to exploit, then
CIA and Washington will know about it too. And that, in Auerbach's book,
would make the health of Britain much more interesting and crucial.'
  'What do you do about that?' asked Mason.
  'Like I said: talk to Auerbach and Cassover on their home ground.'
  'D'you think . . .?' Mason began.
   'All right, I tell you what I think. I've been looking at Britain through a
microscope for years and now I've got a gut feeling that something's
kicking around like this oil story. Someone believes there's enough at stake
to shoot and burn, and they did that either because they were looking for
what we knew or were trying to stall on us getting to know more. Maybe
even Mick's telephone calls triggered their decision to strike.'
  'Answers must all be here in London,' said Mason persistently.
   'If they are, they'll surface. But,' Gregory stood up and began buttoning
his overcoat, 'if Washington is playing games like that, then, I tell you, I
want to know.'



                               Fourteen

   Thirty-six hours later, most of it spent on planes or waiting for
connections, Gregory was back in Washington. Among the first things, he
did when he got back to his Georgetown hotel was to telephone Eileen
Byrne in London, something that in itself would have signalled a
significant change to those who knew him. Three or four times he dialled
but the line failed to connect. Then, at last and to his relief, it rang clear.
When she answered he did not need to announce himself.
  'I was questioned about you today,' she responded, attempting to sound
casual.
  'They knew about us?'
   'Us. . .? It's you that's the big news. Then they told me that I was to be
transferred.'
  'Transferred? Why the hell?'
  'I'm accused of consorting with the devil.' She laughed, though he could
detect little humour in her voice.
  'What sort of people?' Gregory exploded, holding the receiver tightly
and speaking hard at it as if it were in some way to blame.
  'Seriously. I've been moved from Downing Street, that's all, into a less
sensitive job in the Ministry of Agriculture. They suggested that I was your
mistress.'
  'A big claim after only one night,' he said.
  'Don't worry, it was quite pleasantly done.'
  Gregory was aware that she was trying to down-play it all. 'What else
did they ask?'
 'Lots, but I couldn't say anything since I don't know anything, do I?
What else is there to say, except, maybe that ... I wish you were back.'
   A lot of static and feedback had picked up on the line but on top of that
it sounded to Gregory as if she had rehearsed the first few phrases and
then ran out of drive. He had to kill a host of other questions since he
realised the line would be bugged.
  'I... do too,' he said carefully. They were difficult words for him to say
and he put the receiver down after them.



  At first, when he answered the call, Cassover gave every appearance of
being surprised that Gregory was back in Washington.
   'Head of Station got a hard time from me, letting you persuade him to
stand your bodyguard down. Then he reported that you'd totally
disappeared. We were worried. You could have warned us you were
coming back.'
  'Spur of the moment decision. I lay low after the fire.'
  'Yes. Tragic. How's your man?'
  'I imagine you know, Admiral,' said Gregory coldly.
   'Yes, well. . . I've fixed for us to meet in the Secretary of State's office at
six.'
  'You have?' It was Gregory's turn to be surprised, though he had
half-expected that the CIA would have caught up with his movements.
  'I have,' said Cassover. Then he rang off.
   'You're meant to be in London,' said Auerbach, making no attempt to
hide his anger. By a window, Cassover stood watching, nervously polishing
his bald pate with the flat of his hand. 'Of course, we're surprised to see
you back,' the Secretary of State continued. 'You were sent to do a job —
for the President.'
  'I apologise about the lack of warning. But there's one big question I
needed to discuss with you.' Gregory responded firmly.
  'I'm listening.'
  'Who's using me for target practice and why?'
  'That's two questions; you've asked them before and in any case you
could have telephoned. There are special secure lines from the Embassy.'
   'When I'm talking about my security and my life, I like to do it face to
face.'
  'Nice for us too,' said Auerbach bitterly. 'We laid on a bodyguard and
the Admiral was about to do the same for your Institute.'
 'A kind thought but a bit late for Mason. And that still doesn't answer
my questions.'
  Auerbach turned to Cassover. 'You got that paper, Admiral?' Cassover
nodded and produced a red folder which he passed to Gregory.
   It was like any other CIA report that he had seen in the past, except that
this time the subject was himself. From the source markings at the top of
the first page he saw it was an assessment compiled from reports out of
London and Moscow. The first sentence was also the conclusion.


Assessment CZ/A/91/84: Professor Gregory: Targeting.
All intelligence sources and covert evidence point to Gregory and his
Institute being a prime target. In arriving at this conclusion, the CIA
Assessment Staff took the following factors into consideration:
1. The Soviet need to give the clearest of all possible warnings to the US
Administration not to involve themselves further in the UK internal scene.
2. The desire by the Soviets on the other hand not to precipitate matters
to an extent where (they would assess) we would react with equal force.
Thus they wish to avoid direct confrontation of the US Government by
overt attacks on, for example, the US Embassy in London or other
American installations.
3. The Soviet belief that Professor Gregory, because of his background and
contacts, is personally in a very strong position to 'deliver' Prime Minister
Hunt into the US field of influence. They consequently see him as a
specific challenge to Soviet aims and aspirations in London. These goals
remain the overthrow of the remnants of British democracy and the
eventual creation of a Socialist workers state.


The report went on:


The covert mechanism for carrying out Soviet aims in this context is the
continued use of the Moscow armed and trained Eighty-three Commando
which our intelligence sources have identified as the clandestine unit
charged with assassination operations. This Commando has a small,
highly professional membership of not more than a dozen, whose
military-terrorist capabilities are well matched by their political
dedication.


  The assessment ran on for several more pages but most of it was
familiar to Gregory and he was able to skim through it quickly. The two
other men watched him in silence. When he had finished he looked up.
'That all?' he asked shortly.
  'What more d'you need?' Auerbach hissed.
  'Things called facts.'
  'Christ. Who the hell else d'you think is going to want to kill you, for
God's sake?'
  'We'll put a much higher guard on you and your op the moment you get
back to London.' Cassover appeared, as usual, a shade more conciliatory.
   'That is,' added the Secretary of State, moving to open the door of his
office and dismiss Gregory, 'unless you want to terminate the contract.'



  When Gregory had gone, the other two men were left together.
Auerbach stood in silence for a few moments, sizing the Admiral up,
wondering how the CIA would jump. When he spoke, he as always chose
words that could be interpreted in many ways. 'I don't think he'll do any
more, Admiral,' he grunted.
   The other man had a slower mind, but he too knew the options. 'No', he
said after a pause. 'He won't, will he.'



   When Dan Lateman heard that Gregory had left London, he continued
to back his hunch and flew to New York. He drove straight from the
airport to the Gregory Institute where Reception told him that Gregory
himself was not expected back that night, so he took himself off to the AP
Bureau to argue over his expense account and discover whether they'd
agree to pay his fare to the States. He hadn't asked for approval first and
had some hard arguing to do to persuade his editor that he had been
justified in taking the trip when he should have been covering events back
in London. But Lateman was Lateman, the story was hot, and in the end
he was given the benefit of the doubt. After that, he settled down to do
some concentrated research.



   Shortly after eight a.m. the next morning, Thursday, March 10, an
embittered and frustrated Max Gregory slammed his way into his
Madison Avenue headquarters. He considered that his journey to
Washington had been totally wasted and that he had been treated like an
hysterical child by both Auerbach and Cassover. He would have chucked it
all in had it not been for an increasingly emotional mix to do with Mason
in his hospital bed, memories of Lou, relics of British patriotism and, now,
Eileen Byrne. He restrained himself from trying to telephone her; by now
she would be ensconced behind some new desk in the Ministry of
Agriculture. But he did put a call through to the Westminster Hospital
and eventually got grudging confirmation that Mason was still making
slow but satisfactory progress. After that he spent an hour or two working
his way down a bundle of the more urgent office papers waiting for him in
his in-tray before coming to the sealed brown envelope marked
confidential and personal. He opened it and spent the next ten minutes
reading through the detailed contents. When he had finished he buzzed
his PA and asked her to get Mick Vanderman.
  There was a long delay. 'Where the hell is Vanderman? I want to talk to
him, now,' he opened the connecting door of his office and bellowed at the
harassed girl.
   'He's left, Professor. They say he's resigned.' She had been more than a
little nervous of Gregory's reaction when she eventually brought him the
news.
  'What the hell d'you mean, he's resigned? He rang me only two days
ago. He left me this envelope of papers.'
   'That's right, Sir. He stormed in to see Head of Computer Section and
told him that he'd failed to convince you and Mr Mason of something and
that he'd had enough of being ignored. He collected his expenses and a
couple of hours later he handed in his resignation, waiving a month's
salary in lieu of a month's notice. He's quit.'
  'Where's he live?'
  'Head of Computer Section doesn't know. Maybe Personnel.'
  'Get me Head of Personnel. Quick as you can.' Gregory paced up and
down irritably until the telephone rang. He seized it: 'Hello, hello? Yes ... of
course it's me. Tell me about Mick Vanderman. Yes ... I see. Personal
problems as well . . . you think he had girl trouble? Well that doesn't sound
too bad. Where does he live? . . . What d'you mean, you don't know? That's
what I pay you for. Find out from records and ring me straight back.'



                                  Fifteen

   It was a shabby little house in Queens, set back about ten yards from
the road. Around one p.m. Gregory's chauffeur-driven Cadillac pulled up
by the rusting gate and he got out. Stepping around a multi-racial group
of urchins playing in the mud, he made his way up the block concrete path
to the door, rang the bell and waited. Eventually a mousy little woman
opened up.
  'Mick Vanderman live here?'
  'Who wants him?'
  'Gregory's the name.'
  'I'll see.' The woman vanished and there was a long pause. Waiting
impatiently at the door, he could hear whispering in the background and
eventually Vanderman appeared looking tousled and unshaven.
  'I tried to get you by phone,' Gregory began. He kept his voice
concerned rather than angry. 'You get us all excited, then you quit. The
dossier you left for me is quite something.'
  'I... I was going to let you know, Sir . . . talk to you . . . when things
cooled down a bit. I'm sorry,' Vanderman began. While he could be
excused for being taken aback by the arrival |of his unexpected visitor,
Gregory was amazed at the change in Vanderman. The man had never
exuded toughness, but he had been cleverly glib and now he was barely
coherent.
  'I am sorry. . . about a lot of things,' Vanderman paused. 'I ... I ... Did
anyone see you come here?' He looked nervously towards the street where
Gregory's car was parked. 'Did anyone see me?' Gregory echoed the words
unthinkingly.
   'Don't you realise? It was only two days ago, though it seems like years.
They picked me up and held me for most of the day, interrogating me.
Then they started telephoning me at all hours, day and night. I couldn't
keep it up, you know. My girlfriend . . . well I'm back with her and we want
to get married.' The boy was shaking.
  'Sure you do. So somebody's been threatening you?'
  'I'm not saying anything. I'm not working for you and I'm through with
your project, Professor Gregory. Through.'
  'You. . . What did they threaten?'
  'I. . . I've nothing to say, Professor.'
  'Oh yes you have, Mick.' Gregory reached out and grabbed the younger
man's arm. 'You and I are going for a long drive, right now, and have
ourselves an even longer talk. Go get smartened up and let's go.'



   Long Island extends one hundred and twenty miles east-north-east from
Manhattan. Along the southern shore runs the State 27A freeway which
winds through Freeport, Babylon and the Hamptons. A thick dust of snow
billowed across the windscreen as they followed it east and then cut north
onto the Montauk Highway until they reached Montauk itself. Vanderman
sat hunched in the right hand rear seat of the Cadillac, staring blankly out
at the greyness of the day. From time to time he looked round as if to
check whether they were being followed, but after a while he gave up.
'Where are we going?' he asked in a subdued voice.
  'One of the few good fish restaurants that stays open all year. You
haven't had lunch?'
  'I er . . .'
  'Good. You'll enjoy the place. And the wine list.' Gregory was talking to
him in a grown-up matter-of-fact way, as if they were both bound for
some Ivy League dinner. For a while the effort was lost on Vanderman but
when they reached the restaurant, a pleasant wood and glass building that
looked out across the white-flecked waters of a bay, he gradually began to
relax. Then Gregory pushed straight to the core of the problem, firmly but
not to the extent of frightening the boy into violence.
  'Talk it out. What have you really proved?'
   'Proved . . .?' Vanderman hesitated, then shrugged in resignation. 'Well,
I told you that I programmed all the figures you left me, from the oil
companies and from the CIA. I pushed them through the computer again
and again and each time I came up with the same thing: company
statistics add up nicely to the published yield for Shetland and specifically
Unst block estimates, but when I used CIA figures, picked up privately
from the Norslag Corporation, I got a totally different reading. Those ones
projected total Unst reserves as being many times larger than declared.'
   'Defend your case, Mick. We all know the terrific difficulties in
estimating how much oil's buried out there, particularly in the north
Shetland areas where it's in very porous sandstone. Difficult to estimate;
difficult to extract. You told me that in the best areas they only pull out
fifty percent of the stuff, and in the worst it's something less than fourteen.
Then there's operating depth: there's a problem over three-seven-five
metres, right?'
   'Right, or right with existing technology. Point two is that oil companies
are publicly pessimistic. They consistently underestimate amounts of oil
they will be able to deliver from any given field, since, quite reasonably,
they have to plan their investment on the basis of what they know they can
get. They certainly mustn't assume any bonanza without hard evidence
from trial drillings, though secret figures such as the CIA get could be
more optimistic than published ones. With all that said, there's still an
enormous amount of guesswork about future reserves.' Vanderman
paused as a waiter came up with their order.
   Gregory sat back, eyes half-closed, sipping beer from a tall glass,
watching the younger man as he talked on. There was no doubting the
sincerity of Vanderman's analysis; he was beginning to recover something
of his old enthusiasm as well. 'But not to that extent,' Gregory muttered.
'And the projected investment figures are also surprisingly large.'
   'Right again. But wait till I'm finished. Proposition three is that oil
companies cream off fields to achieve maximum profitability, leaving a lot
of oil down there which could have been recovered if development
decisions weren't taken on purely financial grounds in order to maximise
their immediate profits.'
  'Big words . . . And that's always going to happen?' said Gregory,
pausing for long enough to pick at the plate of smoked salmon in front of
him.
  'With existing technology, like I said. But now comes proposition four;
the new one. It's not sci-fi that sooner or later one of the major oil
companies will develop a technique not only to cream off a much greater
percentage of the currently available oil lying close under the seabed, but
will also develop the capability of extracting oil from much much greater
depths than before. And from bad rock. Overall estimates of potential
reserves would then be that much greater, because present estimates are
based on what presently can be taken out.'
   'It's like being back at school. But just supposing the Norslag
Corporation had done it, surely the others won't be far behind? They leak
like sieves and the way they spy on each other makes CIA operations look
like a school playground.'
   'Not if a company really closes ranks and keeps it under wraps. It would
be their big, big secret. But wait a minute. The other thing I did was to
find out whether these surprise figures and investment projections were
also reflected in the evidence from Shell, Texaco, and the other big
American and European companies. Answer, no, but hardly surprising
given that these figures are constantly put to so much scrutiny by Western
oil experts. It would be inconceivable that something of this magnitude
could have escaped unnoticed.'
  'So what's different about Norslag?'
  'Well, they are so multinational, with a hell of a lot being worked on at
their Oslo and Paris HQ's, that they escape a lot of British and US checks
and controls. And, most significantly of all, they have some pretty
suspicious tie-ins with the Iron Curtain countries, particularly Moscow.
What I do know is that they're ploughing a hell of a pack of money into
development technology, and my guess is that though they may not be
able to pull much more out of the sea right at this moment they're
confident they will be able to do so in the next year or so. So they're
planning their future investment on that basis.'
   'Why hasn't all this leaked?' Gregory asked, though he knew the answer
already.
  'It has. To us.'
  'And if we know, the betting is that Moscow does too?' Gregory asked
provokingly.
  'A fair assumption.'
  'And the British? Most of Norslag assets come from BP or used to be
British owned.'
  'In the state they're in, Professor? It's possible, but even if they did,
what could they do with the information?'
   'Hunt gave me the first whiff of this. My guess is ... but how did it leak
to the Institute ... to Mick Vanderman?'
   'You guess from now, Sir. I'd go for it simply being someone's big
clerical error.'
  'OK, bright boy, what conclusion do you draw?'
   'I don't draw any. That's your job, Professor. I'm just paid ... I was paid
to be an oil economist.'
  'You're still on the books, if you want,' said Gregory sharply. 'Right: let
me think aloud. It could be neat to prove some connection between the
possibility — and it still is just a possibility — of vast British oil reserves
and the fact that Britain itself is being kept on the boil. But all we may
have identified is a screwed-up computer and an equally screwed-up Mick
Vanderman.'
  'If you like.' Vanderman grinned. For the first time he was beginning to
enjoy Gregory's catechism.
  'Supposing you're not nuts, and supposing the Norslag group are sitting
on something enormous and have done a deal with the Russians . . .'
  'Still with you,' said Mick Vanderman.
   'That's a hell of a big prize to be offering Moscow with their present
oil-supply problems. They would go to any lengths to ensure it all comes to
them, and Washington would go to equal lengths to stop them.'
  'Right, Sir.'
  'An unstable Britain might help or hinder?'
  'Depends who you're talking about.'
   'As far as the Russians are concerned, they know from decades of
experience that a little money goes a long way in a highly polarised
society. So they set about creating a revolution and then hope that with a
"legitimate" pro-Soviet government in London it's all over bar the
shouting and the Norslag oil is theirs.'
   'Enter Professor Gregory, waving the Stars and Stripes, to take the helm
for the US of A,' said Vanderman.
   'And that is a very reasonable scenario if it wasn't for one unpleasant
fact: why didn't Auerbach and Cassover tell me all this if they knew. And if
they don't know, how do we?'
  'I had thought about that as well.'
  'Tell me, Mick: how much were we paying you?' asked Gregory.



   'Why did you really run out on us?' Gregory broached the question
cautiously, since, while Vanderman had almost totally regained his
self-composure, he knew it would be too easy to frighten him back into his
shell again. They had finished lunch at a leisurely pace and were again
seated in the back of Gregory's Cadillac, driving along the shore road out
of Montauk.
 'I told you: they came at me and questioned me for hours, mainly about
my research.'
  'Who?'
   'The chief interrogator introduced himself as Deputy Head of the CIA's
oil research section. He was pretty bright, though he had a couple of
heavies in tow.'
  'The line of their questioning?'
  'They obviously had been tapping my calls. They asked me why I had
been so keen to get through to you and Mason in London; what it was I
had discovered.'
  'And you told them?'
  'The truth: I'd dug up some strange statistics but that I'd been given the
brush off by you. They seemed relieved at that. Then . . .' he paused.
  'Then what?'
   'They offered me a job. Said I was a bright boy and so on. Laid it on
thick. I said no and it was then they turned nasty. They shot some corny
line about being worried about my leaking information to the Norslag
Corporation. Kept on about its Moscow links. Then they told me: work for
them or they'd get me dismissed from the Gregory Institute on security
grounds. They claimed that you have a deal with them that in return for
getting a CIA contract your employees have to be vetted and cleared.'
  'That's true enough.'
  'So when they eventually let me go, I decided I'd had enough. I'd pack
the lot in,' Vanderman ended simply. As he finished speaking he turned in
his seat and looked out of the car window, suddenly startled. 'Hey, this
isn't the way back to Queens.'
  'It's not, but don't worry, I'm not kidnapping you. We're going ... I want
you to meet a man first.'
  'Yes?'
  'Nils Nielsen.'
  'The geology guy?'
  'That's what we've been talking about, isn't it?'
  'I thought he was in Houston.'
  'He's right here in Montauk. He's got a villa about five minutes away.
He's waiting for us now.'
  'Nielsen is still top of his profession?'
   'In my book, he is. When he made his celebrated break with Texaco he
went through a bad patch and was out of grace with a lot of people. He's
not great on personal behaviour since he does nasty things like getting
drunk all the time. There are some other aspects of his life style which
don't suit some of these big companies, but I don't ask about morals when
I want a good geologist.'
  'Why are we going to see him?'
  'I want him to hear for himself what you have to say.'



   Nielsen was already drunk, very drunk. A half-empty bottle of aquavit
stood in an ice bucket on the once elegant coffee table in front of him, a
broken glass lay on the carpet and books and magazines were scattered
everywhere. Nielsen himself was sitting slouched in a chair, dress shirt
open to the waist and hair plastered all over his forehead as if he had just
been for a swim. He stayed where he was when they let themselves in
through a patio door. 'You bastards took your time.'
  'Nice to see you again. Nils,' Gregory grinned.
  'Have a drink?'
  'Not me. Maybe Mick would like one. You haven't met Mick.'
   Vanderman shook his head slowly. 'No, I haven't met Mick . . .' said
Nielsen, making no attempt to remedy the matter. Instead, he leaned
forward and poured himself another drink. 'What's all this crap about?' he
asked.
  'Oil. I told you the bones of Mick's theory on the telephone. Now I want
you to listen to him and then tell me what the degree of possibility is.
Could there be so much more out there above the Shetlands? Mick
suggests a factor of eight times published returns for the Norslag blocks.'
  'The Norslag Corporation's published statistics ...' Vanderman began
helpfully.
  'Published figures are a load of balls, always have been, always will. It's
the reality that matters, so why the hell shouldn't there be something in it?
You know bloody well that oil companies are like icebergs; they only
declare a fraction of what they have, since they're so damned scared that
the opposition gets their hands on any of their property.'
  'How feasible is ultra-deep well-drilling? Getting round porous rock
problems? Could that lead to these estimates?'
   'Not at the moment . . . No, not feasible now.' Nielsen tried but failed to
stop his words coming out slurred.
  'But?'
  'It will be, soon. Any fool knows that. The real point is whether, once you
drill down a thousand metres below, you actually hit any effing thing.'
  'That's why I came to see you, Nils. Have you an estimate of what could
be at the Unst blocks?'
    'Estimates ... I said, are a load of bloody rubbish. It depends what the
hell you're talking about, doesn't it? Area, size, depth, distance from land
... It depends on a lot of bloody things.' He paused and poured himself
another tumblerful of aquavit, draining it in one gulp.
  'Is that all you've got to say?'
  'Is that all you've got to ask?'
  'No. Mick's got a load of detailed technical queries.'
  'Then don't waste good drinking time, Micky boy. Get on with it, d'you
hear.'



                                 Sixteen

   When Gregory got back to the Institute at eight ten that same evening,
a grey-faced and unshaven Dan Lateman was waiting for him. When he
introduced himself, Gregory made no attempt to hide his surprise and
contempt.
  'I know it's not the best of starts, Professor, but I am here to help,'
Lateman began.
  'Help? After cheating your way in on a seriously injured man and
pumping him for a story? What you deserve is to be thrown out.' Despite
himself, Gregory's curiosity was aroused.
   'I'm beginning to fit the whole package together: you, the President's
strong man in London; Mason; the fire; and now a rather interesting new
slant to do with oil and the Russians. I have my Washington sources and
from them I hear it's all gone rather nasty. It has, hasn't it?' Lateman
stood his ground.
  'You've got two minutes.'
  'Right. I've just flown in from London at my own expense, specially to
see you. You see, I think you need an ally, Professor. You might not choose
me, but I've chosen you.'
  'You're right, I wouldn't choose you.'
  'Would you listen more carefully if I were to tell you that Washington's
decidedly worried about what you might do next.'
  'Out, Lateman.' Gregory stood by the open door of his office, wondering
what was coming.
 'Can I surprise you again? As well as you being unpopular with
Washington there's a Kremlin contract out on you here.'
  'A what?'
  'Ah . . . Caught your interest at last, have I? A contract. Not just over in
nasty old Britain, but here in good old New York City. According to my
Deep Throat in Washington, the Russians are determined to make sure
you don't have any more chance to cause trouble. You think you're a hard
bastard, Professor, but you're not.'
  'Where d'you make up your stories, Lateman? Your bath?'
  'Let me show you my collection of Pulitzers some day. You probably
know I've turned up quite a lot of grubby stories on the energy front over
the years.'
  'You're notorious and disliked. Now I can see why.'
  'Good: you've heard of me.'
  Gregory looked pointedly at his watch. 'You're well over your two
minutes,' he said.
  'I'm offering you help. Give me a minute more.'
  'Well?'
   'Right. You think that you have evidence that the Norslag Corporation
and the Soviet Union are hand in glove in a rather interesting-looking oil
development that's bubbling up off the north coast of Scotland,' Lateman
paused dramatically. 'Surprised I knew? I'll go better than that and let you
in on something that very few people know yet.'
  'Which woodwork did you crawl out of, Lateman?'
   'If that's your attractive way of asking for my curriculum vitae, I'll tell
you. Not more than ten years ago I was energy correspondent for the Wall
Street Journal. I knew my stuff; I knew my people; I had my sources. I've
still got them, Professor, and some are a lot better than your computers.'
Again he paused. 'What if I whispered to you that the CIA know not only
about the interesting developments in the Unst Field and the links
between Norslag and the Soviets but also think they've spotted the
beginnings of a split between these two. I bet they didn't tell you about
that.'
  Gregory moved to his desk and sat down. 'Well?' he said, reluctant to
admit that his curiosity was hooked.
   'Norslag and Moscow are, the CIA believe, far from seeing eye to eye on
future oil marketing policy. They're Western capitalists at heart and while
they sold themselves to the Russians in the early days when they needed
help, now they want a free rein to sell where they like, not to a Soviet bloc
market with a tied price. But the Russians still have them in a
strait-jacket. If Washington could do some wedge-driving and offer
Norslag a way out . . .'
  '. . . In return for guaranteed Western access to this new oil,' said
Gregory, despite himself.
  'We have a cause the dimensions of which world wars are made.'
  'What bait are you trailing, Lateman?'
   'Well, my ambitions are modest. I'm after a journalistic coup that's just
a little bigger than Watergate, that's all; and I want your help. Maybe
you'll give it once you realise that I'm talking sense. More importantly,
you'll help me once you realise that what I said about there being a
contract out on you isn't just me spitting in the wind. You can be wiped
out so easily that no one will even notice. You'll know better than I do
about Auerbach's personal style, and that it's the State Department rather
than the CIA which is doing most of the dirty tricking these days. You've
given him a lot of worries; he thinks Cassover went badly wrong in
choosing you and in his little personal war with the Russians over
Norslag's oil it might not upset him too much if the Communists did zero
you. I repeat: you may think you've still got their confidence and that key
post in London, but your ticket was torn up even before you left the State
Department last night.'
  'That's enough, Lateman, get the hell out . . . Now.' Gregory stood up
behind his desk and turned his back on Lateman.



   When his anger died away, Gregory realised that Lateman's visit had
left him with a lot to think about. The man had showed himself adept at
building on scraps of truth and filling-in with large amounts of intelligent
conjecture. His sources were good and there was no doubt that he was
someone worth watching.
   Had Gregory been looking for confirmation of this assessment it could
hardly have come more quickly. Around eleven that night he called it a day
and set off home to his East 57th Street apartment. He left the entrance of
the Madison Avenue building and climbed wearily into the rear of his
Cadillac. His driver closed the door, got in behind the steering wheel and
switched on the ignition. Nothing happened. The chauffeur tried several
times, then turned apologetically.
  'The hell's wrong, Professor? It was humming a few moments ago.
Starting mechanism's stuck or something.'
    'I'll get a cab.' It was just one more irritation in a day that had had its
fair share of them, and cabs were hard to come by at that time on a wet
night. After some futile minutes of waving, Gregory, coat collar up against
the rain, set off on foot, turning down 54th Street and weaving in and out
among piles of refuse left from a garbage collectors' strike of which Britain
had yet to have a monopoly. At that time of night the street was almost
deserted but, as he passed an alleyway between two brownstones, he
became aware of someone coming quickly up the wet sidewalk from
behind him. He began to move out of the way and immediately things
turned nasty. A tall black youth was close against him, pushing hard, and
it looked like the beginnings of an old-fashioned New York mugging,
particularly when a second man appeared in front, blocking the way. They
had chosen their position well and manoeuvred him to the entrance of the
alleyway where his second assailant became more visible: an
undistinguished Hispanic with a thin moustache.
   The man produced a flick-knife and Gregory decided not to argue. 'OK,
OK. You can have my wallet,' he said reaching inside his jacket pocket.
The men did not respond. Even when he held the wallet out towards them,
they continued to advance. 'Take it,' he said and threw the wallet on the
ground, but neither of his assailants even looked down, the black man
stepping contemptuously on it as he continued to move forward.
  Glancing rapidly over his shoulder, Gregory saw that he was running
out of space; there was only a ten-yard gap to where the walls of the two
brownstones converged on a rotting wooden gate. At the precise moment
that the second man produced a knife, Gregory realised, in a flash of
belated intuition, that Lateman had been right. They were not muggers;
they had ignored his wallet; there were there just for him. His eyes looked
desperately around and over the piles of garbage in the alleyway,
searching for some possible weapon of defence. The men were still a
couple of paces away and why they had not yet pounced was unclear,
though perhaps they wanted to drive him totally out of sight of the street
before finishing him.
   With the gate as his only hope. Gregory threw himself at it, praying it
would give. His first launch failed to make it and the two men moved up to
grab him. But with a second burst of effort and by using his shoulder as a
battering-ram, he succeeded in severing the bolts from the rotting wood,
and in a moment he was through into the yard beyond. The men were now
right behind him, and he saw that he had only twenty clear yards before
the next obstacle which looked like a high and well-maintained set of
railings. It was then that he lost his balance, slithered on the wet concrete
and they fell on him. It was then too that an elderly man appeared at a
side door of one of the brownstones, looked around in puzzlement and,
realising what was happening, gave a shout, pulled a handgun from his
pocket and pointed it at the two men. There was a violent sound and
Gregory's head hit the dripping stone of a protruding wall. He
remembered nothing more.



   He was lying on a couch in a bare room. The elderly caretaker was
bending over him. 'I missed,' he said, regretfully. 'Then they ran away.
They ran away, damn 'em . . . The hell has this country gone to rot. The
Mayor has gotta get a grip on street crime, the blacks and Communists . .
.'
   Gregory grunted. His head was reeling, he felt violently sick and his eyes
refused to focus.
   The old man continued to grumble. 'Blacks . . . cause of everything . . .
can't get a decent job ... no decent housing . . . crime-rate rocketing . . .
Mayor and the Chief of Police sit on their butts doing nothing. In the pay
of the Communists . . . You got an address or telephone? Here, be still. I'll
look for your wallet.'



  An hour later, Gregory was back at his office. The caretaker had rung
and security guards from the Institute came to take him back with them.
The first thing he did, after a doctor had arrived to dress and bandage his
head, was to ring AP. He was put straight through to Lateman. 'All right.
You're on,' he said.
  'What happened?'
  'You were right. That's what happened.'
  There was a silence on the other end of the telephone. 'I was backing a
hunch. I didn't really think it would happen so quickly. You in one piece,
are you?'
  'Fair. You're coming over?'
  'I'm coming over.'
  'And Lateman . . .' Gregory paused. 'Don't expect too much.'
  'No way would I,' said Lateman.



   At eight forty-one the next morning, London time, Eileen Byrne was
picked up for questioning. She was leaving her flat on her way to her new
Whitehall office when a black Austin Princess pulled up beside her. A man
in a tweed coat got out and blocked her way. 'Miss Byrne?' he asked,
tilting his brown felt hat politely.
  'Yes?' She was startled but the man's appearance reassured her.
  'Security police, Miss Byrne. We have a few questions we'd like to ask.'
  'I work at ... Number Ten, you know.' It was a harmless lie.
   'Yes, we know you did. We interviewed you after Professor Gregory
disappeared the other day. We would have come to your office at the
Ministry of Agriculture but . . . we like to do things without embarrassing
you in front of your new colleagues. Come with us, please.'
  'Must I?'
  'You must.'
  The man in the tweed coat politely held open the rear door of the car for
her, and Eileen got in. The man climbed into the back beside her and the
car drove off towards the Victoria Security Service Complex.
   About five years earlier, the authorities had commandeered a dozen
office buildings in Pimlico and around Vauxhall Bridge Road, and had
thrown up a Berlin-style wall of breeze-blocks around the whole area, a
wall which had later been topped with an electrified fence. The forty-acre
compound now housed the intelligence and security services, the police
riot and snatch squads, the SAS and the army's special task units. Eileen
knew that this was also the site of the emergency communications
network which came into play every time London's telephone system broke
down or was sabotaged — an all too frequent aspect of life in the capital.
   The main detention and interrogation centre was housed in a squat,
concrete-faced and windowless building on the Thames Embankment. The
car was driven straight through the steel gates into its underground
car-park, and from there, after the routine security checks and body
searches, Eileen was taken by her escort to a small, white-painted waiting
room where she was left alone. Apart from half a dozen straight-backed
chairs, the room was totally empty. By the light switch was a bell-push
with a typewritten sign sellotaped above it: 'If you wish anything or would
like to use the toilet facilities, please press. There may be some delay, so be
patient.' She sat there, bored rather than frightened, with nothing to read,
and as she'd missed out on breakfast, increasingly hungry as well.
  After an hour's wait a loudspeaker, which she had failed to notice
buried into the wall above the door, crackled out her name: 'Miss Eileen
Byrne. Please report to room Number Zero-One-Three.' The anonymity of
the summons helped to confuse and upset her. She had heard much about
the security police, their reputation for subtle unpleasantness and the fact
that nobody had ever been allowed to prove anything against them.
  Room Zero-One-Three was twenty yards along the green-painted
corridor. She knocked on the door and after a moment a voice told her to
enter. Inside was a thin man with a black droopy moustache and rimless
spectacles, the same one who had interviewed her after Gregory's
departure. He sat facing her from behind a plain gate-leg table. He
motioned her to sit down.
  'Miss Byrne, we talked before about how you met, shall we say
entertained, Professor Max Gregory of New York.' His voice was gentle
and far from hostile.
  'Yes. But why have you arrested me now?'
  'Not arrested, Miss Byrne. Asked to assist with our enquiries as to
Professor Gregory's activities here, that's all.'
  'I see.'
  'May I go on? Were your conversations with him totally social?'
  'I told you. As far as I can remember, they were.'
  'Tell me again. Where did you meet him?'
  'A long time ago. In the States. Then we had no contact until he came to
Downing Street to call on the Prime Minister.'
  'That confirms what we understood, Miss Byrne. How did you meet
thereafter?'
  'He asked me out to dinner.'
  'And then what happened?'
  'We went to his office to get a car to take me home. He was going to ...
well his office was bombed, burnt down, you remember.'
  'Yes. We knew about that. Then what happened?'
  'He came back to my flat.'
  'And?'
  'And nothing.'
  'Miss Byrne, we would like you to be more helpful, please. We believe
that Professor Gregory's presence here was not in the best interests of the
British people.'
  'What part of the British people?'
   'You answer my questions, Miss Byrne. I don't answer yours. Did he talk
to you about oil?'
  'Of course he mentioned it. His Institute is working on some oil project
about Britain.'
  'For the CIA, Miss Byrne. What I want to know is, what did he talk
about oil?'
  'I'm sorry, I really don't know.'
   'Please don't be naive. You were Secretary of the Cabinet Oil Resources
Sub-Committee and are something of an expert yourself. We would hate
to have any unpleasantness.'
  'I hope you're not suggesting I told him anything about the working of
the Committee?'
  'I'm not suggesting you told him anything. But let me ask you
something else: have you seen him since he left for New York?'
  'No.'
   'Has he phoned you? We believe that he may have got through to you
once from Washington, though it's difficult to be sure from the evidence.
Our monitoring systems are not as watertight as we would like. Did you
know that he has tried several times today? No, you wouldn't know that.
You see we believe he's coming back, and if he does we would like to talk
to him. If by any chance we miss him at the airport, and we have problems
with the immigration officers' strike as well, we're sure he'll come to you.
So if you don't feel able to help us over his oil project, at least we would
like you to be at your flat, ready to welcome him. Do you understand?'
Eileen Byrne sat silent with her head bowed.



                              Seventeen

   'When you're trapped in the entrails of a political plot, the only defence
is the threat of exposure.'
  'Sounds very unpleasant,' said Lateman. 'And in any case, that should
be my line.'
    'It's the only reason you're here.' It was just after nine a.m., Friday,
March 11, and Gregory was lying stretched out full length on an office
couch. He had slept fitfully after the doctor's drug dosage but the
painkiller was beginning to wear off and his whole body ached. He paused,
raised one hand and gently felt the large plaster that was decorating his
forehead above his right eye. It covered a spectacular flesh wound, the
most obvious result of his brutal contact with the ground the night before.
'If you want to go on with me,' he went on painfully, 'the bargain is this: no
tantalising little stories put out bit by bit. But the big reveal is all yours at
the end.'
  'Whichever way it goes?'
  'Whichever.'
  'That's what I get out of the deal. What d'you want?' asked Lateman
suspiciously.
   'I want a step-by-step, incident-by-incident record of what goes on, filed
in a way that is totally secure but that can be made public, without any
danger of it getting suppressed, when the need arises.'
  'Or if anything happens to you?'
  'You mean "us". We're together now.'
  Lateman stared hard at Gregory, then slowly nodded in agreement.
  They sat and talked through the evidence with Gregory becoming
increasingly fascinated by Lateman's totally amoral and devious approach.
'Who told you about the Norslag find?' he asked. 'And that there was a
contract out on me?'
  'One thing our deal doesn't cover and that is me letting you in on my
sources. You don't need to know any more than that I have a
long-standing, highly placed CIA contact. Well paid too.'
   'You want me to believe that the CIA knew there was a Russian-backed
hit-squad after me and that they decided to do nothing? That's quite an
accusation.'
   'Don't push it too far. That's not what I said. I was told that the CIA had
just picked up the information, so they wouldn't have had time to decide
what to do. The machine would have had to put it up to Cassover, and him
to Secretary of State Auerbach, before they took a "no action" decision like
that. Even if they'd wanted to, they hadn't had time to be unhelpful and
besides,' Lateman grinned, 'if they were going to be happy to see you
wasted, London is a better execution ground. Here in New York — even
the CIA don't want others to foul their own back yard.'
  'D'you know how they found out about the hit-squad in the first place?'
  'I don't know details. They've a mole, I think — in the Soviet Embassy in
London. They've been playing him a long time.'
  'I wondered where they might be getting some of the Russian stuff they
passed on to the Institute. That's where the Norslag story comes from
too?'
   'I dunno. More likely they've someone planted in the Norslag
Corporation itself. Unlikely that an Embassy source would pick up detailed
figures like that.'
  'You're amazing, Lateman. How much is truth and how much
journalistic guesswork?'
  'As the store promoters say: "check it out". For a start, how about
asking Cassover if you're still on the payroll . . ?'
  The Admiral was said to be unavailable, so Gregory rang Auerbach at
the State Department in Washington. When eventually he got through, the
Secretary of State's voice was firm, distant but not immediately hostile.
  'I hear you've had some trouble up there in New York, Max.'
  'A little accident. You knew?'
  'Heard this morning. Watch you don't make too many enemies too
quickly, Max, or we won't be able to hold things steady.'
  'What's that supposed to mean?'
   'I guess you understand. There's no future in you getting involved ... in
other problems,' responded Auerbach. Just a hint of threat had crept into
his voice. 'Like what?' asked Gregory innocently.
  'Like in oil.'
   'CIA is financing my project in British oil. I can hardly . . . You don't
expect me to stop following around a subject that they're paying me to
research?'
   'Don't you play the idiot. I've been sent the CIA reports by Cassover.
Your man Mick Vanderman, then Nils Nielsen. You've gone off limits.
Stick to your terms of reference.'
  'So I am on the right track, am I?'
   'Look Max,' said Auerbach interrupting. 'I may not have made myself
totally clear. Your Institute's project has been strictly defined. So was your
job in London.'
  'Is or was?' Gregory held the receiver tightly to his ear and waited.
  'Max, you've pushed us too far. The President thinks . . .'
  'The President doesn't think. You and Cassover do it for him.'
  'Very well. As Secretary of State, I have informed the President that I
consider your . . .'
  'You have informed him, have you? . . . You and the Norslag
Corporation have this score together . . .' Gregory changed direction and
put out a shot in the dark.
   'Who's side are you on, Gregory?' asked Auerbach, switching abruptly
from Christian to surname terms.
  'It's not me that's shifting sides. You sent me to do a job without
coming clean on aims. I don't happen to believe in destroying a country to
get our hands on a bit more energy.'
  'Talking about Britain are you? If you are, you're a fool. Nobody's
destroying Britain except the British.' Auerbach's voice was like ice. 'In
any case, what do you think's more important? Even with your
much-acclaimed British background, you've lived here a long time, and
you know how important oil is to us. Iran, the whole Middle East is still in
turmoil. We've got to have our other sources lined up. You may question
our methods, but don't, Gregory, ever dare try judging our aims. If the
British like to pull themselves to pieces that's none of our business.'
 'When you start putting the boot in to help them along, that's another
matter.'
  'We're not doing that.'
  'You're using Britain as a battleground in your under-wraps war with
the Soviets.'
  'Crap. We've every interest in putting Britain back on its feet. Just as
soon as we have things tied up . . .'
  Gregory jumped on the remark. 'Tied up? That sounds to me like an
admission of guilt. You and Norslag, Inc.'
  'You've gone too far now, Gregory,' said Auerbach sharply. 'I'm about to
end this call. But before I do, let me remind you: the British crisis exists;
we didn't make it. It hits our political, military and economic position in
Europe; not much, but it does. These were the reasons we sent you to
London. But we'd be fools if we weren't looking hard at the future as well.
One way or another, you seem to have discovered that the sea areas over
which the Norslag Corporation have rights look massively promising, with
the new technology they've developed . . . And wait till I get my hands on
the man who allowed those forecasts to leak to your Institute . . .'He
paused.
  'I'm not . . .' began Gregory, ready to match Auerbach's anger.
   'Shut up. I'm not finished. You came into the picture, via Admiral
Cassover and against my better judgement, as the best man available to
feed back what we wanted to know about Britain, and, at the same time,
to steady Premier Hunt's hand. Nothing more, nothing less. We did not
seek chaos. That's the Kremlin's game, remember that. And you blew it
quicker than anyone could have guessed.'
  'CIA knew there was a contract out on me here in New York. They did
nothing to protect me.'
  'Slow off the mark, that's all. But as you're still with us, in the land of
the living, let me give you a piece of reassuring news.' Auerbach's voice
came across with the warmth of a razor. 'You're in no danger from the
Marxist hit-squad any more. That is, once they hear — we'll make sure
they do — that you and your Institute have been firmly struck off our
books, Professor Gregory.'
  Gregory started to say something, but Auerbach had already hung up
on him.



  Eileen Byrne spent seven days and nights alone in a cold damp cell
below the Interrogation Centre. The food was as inadequate as the
bedding, she was given no change of clothing and the washing facilities
were limited to a few minutes in a communal bath-house every other day.
But the worst of it all was the boredom, with nothing to read or occupy
herself with and no one to talk to except the white-faced wardresses who
showed no sympathy towards her. All her enquiries as to why she was
being held were met by contemptuous silence.
   It was something of a relief when they came for her around six in the
morning of Friday, March 18. But they were rough with her, and though
unkempt and demoralised, she was far from passive and struggled
vigorously. Two uniformed men took her to an underground garage and
manhandled her into a car. They sat on each side of her in the rear seat
until they reached the apartment block where she lived. One of the two
showed he was enjoying it and was grinning all over his face, particularly
when the buttons of her shirt were ripped open. As they bundled her out of
the car at the other end, she had the brief satisfaction of heeling him
sharply in the groin.' Animal,' she shouted at him. 'Animal.' It would have
built into a nasty incident, but a senior officer turned up as soon as they
arrived which prevented too much further unpleasantness. As she was
brought in she noticed that the door of her flat had been broken open and,
strangely, a workman was already there, repairing the damaged lock. Of
her neighbours there was no sign though she knew they would be
watching through net curtains or cracks in partly opened, burglar-chained
doors.
   When they got her into her sitting room the two uniformed thugs were
called off and the officer spoke to her alone. He was a cold, military figure
with no flexibility in his voice. 'Your instructions are to stay here, to do
nothing and to call no one. Do not use the telephone. We will know. If it
rings, do not answer. We'll know. We'll also know as soon as he arrives.
Don't try to leave, don't go near the windows, don't pull back the curtains.
Otherwise you are entirely free to do as you like. You will find we have
thought of everything. There is plenty of food and drink in your kitchen.'
   She was left alone. She sank into a chair, emotionally and physically
drained, and for perhaps an hour she stayed there, motionless, staring
unseeing at the wall in front of her, questioning how she had suddenly
found herself involved and trapped. Was it really all because of meeting
Gregory again, a man she hardly understood, a man who, she had long
known, lacked ordinary virtues of warmth and humanity? She forced
herself to take a grip, and with a supreme effort pulled herself out of her
chair, went to the bathroom, took off her ripped shirt and turned on the
shower. She felt unclean and was determined to burn all the clothes she
had been wearing while in detention. Standing under the hot water and
letting it sluice over her body, alternate waves of apathy and
determination overtook her. Why should she worry about being forced to
act as bait to secure Gregory's arrest? She was not so involved, so
emotionally attached that the need to warn him came above her freedom.
But then, personally, she felt herself increasingly committed to try and
counter the plans of people who had offended her. As for Gregory, he knew
how to look after himself, his attitude to life would offer no compunction
about treating others in an equally brutal way. She knew only too well how
he could use and abuse people; he had come to try to influence the British
democratic process and he could take the consequences. But for herself,
she felt intensely bitter about the physical humiliation to which she had
been subjected. Years of working loyally for the establishment had brought
her to the upper ranks of the Civil Service, and now her reward was to be
treated like a woman pulled out of the gutter. So much for the once
well-disciplined British security services which had now totally debased
themselves to match the brutality of the streets.
   Apathy was finally driven out by determination. If that was how things
were, then her contract with the system, with Whitehall, was at an end. If
fear was the sole remaining mechanism for the retention of power by
Hunt's Government, the sooner he went the better. Britain was over the
brink; from now on she would adhere to her own principles alone. Her
thoughts were not quite so concise but the effect was the same. To try to
regain her composure, she dried herself, slipped on a towelling robe and
went to the kitchen intending to make herself some coffee. But her hand
shook so much that she gave up the attempt and instead poured herself a
tumblerful of neat whisky. Drinking alone and at that time of day was
totally contrary to her habit but... a bait, that was her role, damn them to
hell.
   In New York, the same seven days leading up to Friday, March 18 were
crucial ones for Gregory and for the fortunes of his Institute. On the
Monday he received formal notification of the termination of the contract
with the CIA. Ironically and by the same post came a letter, signed by the
President, thanking him for his efforts as special envoy. On the
Wednesday he had encouraging news from London about Mason who, he
was told, would soon be well enough to be flown out to the States to
convalesce. All that time Gregory worked and slept at the Institute, and
when he did venture out he was always accompanied by his chauffeur and
by at least one of the Institute's security guards. While he was no expert in
such matters, the guards assured him that they were being shadowed
wherever they went, by whom, in a strangely detached way, he could not
bring himself to care. Throughout the week too, he tried various methods
of getting in touch with Eileen, but her flat telephone rang on unanswered,
Number Ten refused to accept messages from him to pass on to her, and
the Ministry of Agriculture denied any knowledge of her existence.
Eventually, late in the evening of Friday, March 18, he got himself put
through to the CIA's Head of London Station, expecting another brush-off.
Instead he was given the information he was looking for. The shock news
that Eileen had been in detention for seven days because of him, and that
she was now under house arrest, overshadowed any surprise at the Head
of Station's unconditionally helpful response to Gregory's enquiry.



                              Eighteen

   Somewhere near Deptford in south-east London, around a hundred
men and women, huddled in random clusters, were already waiting by a
patch of barren ground that lay between a run-down housing estate and
an abandoned railway siding. Others, who had sought temporary shelter
from the tail of the winter's cold in one of the old passenger coaches
parked on the rails nearby, climbed rapidly out to run forward and swell
the numbers, when, shortly after first light, an elderly three-tonner
appeared and trundled up a side street towards the site. When the truck
had juddered to a halt, the driver and three masked men who had been
hidden in the back jumped out. All were armed with handguns which they
waved threateningly as they moved to stand guard at the rear of the
vehicle, prepared for any possible onslaught by the mob. Black marketeers
were hated and reviled, but this group of customers was anxious rather
than antagonistic; they preferred to stand in an orderly queue waiting for
the hijacked sugar, tea and medicines which they hoped to purchase. For
news had come through on the network that this particular consignment
was a rich one that had been destined for select areas of central London.
From the distance, to the two men who sat watching the scene from the
front seat of their battered car, the queueing people looked less like
shoppers than travellers, each with his or her commodious bag or suitcase
in which to carry away the loot.
  By around nine in the morning of that wet, cold Saturday, March 26,
the black marketeers had sold out and the crowd had melted away. After
the driver and two of the masked men had climbed into their lorry and
driven off, the last of them turned and walked slowly the hundred yards to
where Lateman and Gregory were waiting. Lateman wound down the
window of the Rover as the man appeared.
  'OK?' he asked.
 The man nodded and got into the back seat. 'Not a bad haul,' he
muttered, as he pulled off his mask. 'I'll take you now.'



   They had flown via Quebec to Paris the previous day and then taken the
train and a hovercraft to Dover. Trusting in the inadequacies of the
British immigration system, Gregory was little concerned that the
authorities would be watching the docks and airports for him, but
Lateman's nervous insistence that they travel by such a complex route won
the day. In the event, the immigration officers' continuing strike rather
than the intention of the officials in London and Washington led to their
passing through unchecked.
   At Dover, by proffering large amounts of hard currency —deutsch
marks and dollars — they managed to acquire a nondescript product of
British Leyland and some precious petrol to go with it. But it was a
painfully slow journey up to London. While, by and large, most country
districts had escaped the worst excesses of urban gang violence, many of
the towns and villages near London and other big British cities had been
forced to form their own street troopers or vigilante groups to replace the
police who had been withdrawn to increase the strengths of the
metropolitan forces. These groups tended to be extremely trigger happy in
dealing with strangers, so the two men decided to stick to the main
A2-M2 route which was still patrolled by the national security police. Five
times their car was stopped at police roadblocks where there were
well-disciplined searches for bombs or weapons.. On each occasion,
Lateman's press-card and Gregory's US passport helped them through, the
security police automatically considering foreigners less likely to be either
supporters of the left-wing PSC or the Commander's UAM. But as they
approached central London, the spot checks became ever more frequent
and hazardous, and questioning as to motives for the two men's journey
more intense. At Rochester they were held for over three hours, with the
police telephoning Lateman's office in London to confirm his credentials
before they were allowed to proceed. This last incident made Lateman
insist they needed an escort if they were to reach the city in safety.
  'If I can trace him, I know a man,' he said carefully. 'Not quite a pillar of
society, but he'll do anything for hard cash.'
   The main problem was discovering an unvandalised telephone but
eventually Lateman found one and made contact. Guiding them from the
rear seat, the black marketeer led them through a maze of back streets,
carefully choosing which check-points to go through — ones where, very
obviously, the man knew or could hope to bribe the officers manning
them. By late afternoon they reached the centre of town and Lateman paid
off his guide with a hideous amount of hard currency. They had parked by
the Elephant and Castle in one of the controlled areas which the
Government had set up to ensure that London did not come to a stop.
Large parts of Hyde Park and Wandsworth Common had also been turned
into similar barbed-wire enclosures where each car entering was
subjected to highly specialised anti-bomb searches. From these points on,
commuters were obliged to travel by public transport.
   'I'll take one of the shuttle buses,' said Gregory, if I don't turn up at your
office within a couple of hours, start preparing the story for the wires. Get
it on record.'
  'We don't have enough of the bloody story yet, and without you I won't
get it. Don't be foolish. I told you already that you must stay with the car.
Here in the compound you're reasonably safe. I'll go test the water.'
  'She won't speak to you. Not after you pushing in on Mason.'
  'She will with a note from you. What's the address?'
  Gregory knew he had lost the argument.
  The lift gates had a handwritten 'out of order' sign pinned on them, so
Lateman made his breathless way up the four flights of stairs to Eileen's
door. He knocked firmly and waited. When the door eventually opened it
had a chain lock on it, and Eileen Byrne stared out at him, eyes
unrecognising through the crack.
  'Hi, Eileen. Great to see you again. Just arrived in town,' he bellowed
cheerfully, holding Gregory's note up close so that she could read it.
  The door closed and then after a moment opened wide. 'Yes,' she said.
  Lateman handed over the letter as he walked past her, watching
curiously as she read it again. He saw at once how drawn and tense she
was, her hair unbrushed, her eyes repeatedly darting towards the door. An
open whisky bottle stood on a side table with, beside it, a half-empty glass.
  There were a few moments of silence, then he decided to act it out. 'You
didn't think you'd see me here quite so quickly,' he said glibly.
   'No,' she muttered woodenly, still looking down at Gregory's note.
Eventually she turned and stared at him in silence. He realised that she
was weighing up whether to believe him or not, that she recalled his name
as that of the man who tricked his way into Mason's sickroom.
   Further doubts were rapidly submerged by events. 'Any chance of a cup
of coffee . . . ?' Lateman started to speak but as he began the door burst
inwards and the two heavies with their officer charged into the flat.
  'Professor Gregory ... I have a warrant. Do not try to ... My colleagues
are armed . . .' began the officer.
   Lateman stood his ground, forced a tight nervous smile, and glanced at
Eileen. 'That's the way we thought it could be,' he said.
  'They wouldn't let. . .' Eileen began. She had the beginnings of tears in
her eyes.
   'Enough,' shouted the officer. 'Over there, Miss Byrne. Now, Professor,
as soon as the van comes . . .'
  'Amusing,' said Lateman, his eyes nervously skimming around the
room.
  'What's amusing?'
  'I've been called lots of names over the years. But "Professor"? And
Gregory . . . he's good-looking and big. I am just an ugly little shrimp, they
say.' His voice was brittle and the banter forced.
  A glimpse of doubt passed over the officer's face. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a photograph.
   'Christ's sake. Jesus. I'll have you put away for ever. Impersonation . . .
false impersonation.' The officer stood, puce-faced. Lateman noted that a
vein in the man's neck was pulsing rapidly.
  'Again?' asked Lateman innocently.
  'You know what I mean.'
  'You have it on record? If so you can check back. I never claimed I was
anybody. You jumped to conclusions. I'm Dan Lateman. Everyone knows
me.'
  'You said you were . . . Gregory. I'm taking you in.'
  'No. Name's Lateman.' He shook his head. 'Associated Press. Check me
out. I'm well known at the Foreign Office, and with the Foreign Press
Association. If I don't leave this room a free man, you've got a major
headline on your hands all over the world's press. That I promise.'
   The officer looked nonplussed and was losing face in front of his men.
He strode to the telephone, dialled a number, waited, and then, more or
less accurately, explained what had happened to someone at the other
end. He listened to the response, flushed momentarily, and said: 'As you
wish. Sir,' then slammed the phone down.
  'OK, Lateman, you can go. But it won't help Gregory or Miss Byrne.
She's with us. Oh, . . . Lateman . . .'
   Dan Lateman turned. He had half a smile on his face as the officer
threw a full blow at his chin. He reeled back, hitting hard against a side
table. 'That was for . . .?' He hissed the words through bloody teeth, as he
staggered to his feet.
    The officer stood over him. 'Everything and nothing,' the man said. 'And
it felt good. Now . . . get out.'
  Lateman glanced towards Eileen who had remained locked in a
bewildered silence. 'Sorry,' he winced. 'I'll see what can be done.'
  'Get out of here,' shouted the officer. 'Get the hell out.'



   Anger spots rode high on the cheeks of Dr Frank Auerbach as he read
the flash CIA report out of London. 'Damn that idiot Cassover to hell,' he
yelled at the tirade-worn State Department aide who had brought him the
cable. 'First they let him slip away complete with a range of knowledge
that could do incalculable harm to US interests in Europe. Why the hell
did they not take him out or at least have a heavy watch put on him?
Second, they let him pick up, as prime travelling companion, one of the
top political muck-rakers since Woodward and Bernstein. Third, CIA fail
to follow up British Security's idiot attempt to pick him up at his girl's
apartment . . . Get that bone of an Admiral's butt over here. Like now. 1
want this problem terminated before the Brits or the Reds know what the
hell they're missing.'



                              Nineteen

  He caught the shuttle bus back to the compound, but a bomb scare had
blocked the road just to the south of Waterloo Station and he had to walk
the last half mile. That had the sole merit of allowing him to be as sure as
he could that he was not being followed.
   He found Gregory asleep, stretched uncomfortably across the rear seat
of the Rover with an old blanket over him. 'It worked. They were waiting,'
he said.
  'And you got caught?'
  'Your friend was baiting the trap.'
  'How was she?'
  'Unhappy. They kept her.'
  'Your face?'
  'A very angry thug accused me of impersonation,' Lateman laughed. 'It
could have been worse.' There was a pause, then he went on: 'I could do
with a shower and something to eat. The lack of gracious living's
beginning to tell. I know a hotel.'
  'No hotels if that's the sort of welcome we can expect. I thought it out
while I was waiting: next to an embassy, I reckon your office, the
headquarters of Associated Press, must be one of the safest asylums
around. The British security authorities are unlikely to mount a raid on a
major international news agency, even in present conditions.'
  'Asylum it is. Glad to be of help,' Lateman shrugged.
  The two men reached the AP Bureau in Farringdon Street by nine p. m.
As soon as they were settled, Gregory asked for a telephone.
  'You're broadcasting your arrival?'
  'They'll know in a matter of hours anyway,' Gregory responded.
  'What are you going to do?'
  'Phone Hunt, of course.'
  'Of course,' echoed Lateman gently.
   With traditional difficulty, Gregory got through to Number Ten. 'I'd like
to speak to the Prime Minister,' he began. '. . . Yes, I know it's Saturday.
Yes, I know my credentials have been withdrawn, but I'm sure the Prime
Minister will wish to speak . . . Damn it to hell . . . I . . .' Gregory looked
helplessly at the telephone. It had gone dead.
   'The frustrations of dethronement. Tell you what: let me take the reins
for a bit,' said Lateman. He did not smile. 'Why don't you relax. I'll get one
of my girls to get you some coffee. Decent American coffee. We still have it
flown in.'
   'You're going to do?' Gregory asked, suddenly weary. He felt then as if
he had done something deeply foolish by coming back to Britain, following
his emotions rather than his intellect. It went totally against his training
to act as he was doing; he had become used to power but through
manipulating others, through the machinery of influence. Now, he found
he had only his own resources to fall back on, that he had once again to
learn how to survive unaided by that power that position had given him.
  'I've thought up two options. I think it's time to try to talk to Paul
Verity, the Brother. But first I've remembered another source that might
help. While I'm working on that, why don't you try to pick up more sleep?'
  'A more productive field and you might have done quite well for
yourself,' Gregory said, forcing joviality. 'You've got potential.'
  Lateman threw him a V-sign as he left the office. 'Remember,' Gregory
shouted needlessly after him, 'don't rate your safety outside this building.
They've focused on you.'
   When Lateman had gone, despite the bustle of activity in the AP office,
Gregory felt very much alone. He also experienced a sense of insecurity
that was totally alien to him. As an academic he had never tried to
disguise his contempt for journalism, particularly of the so-called
investigative type. But right now he had reneged on his prejudices. It was
reassuring having Dan Lateman on board.



  He returned around midnight and woke Gregory, who had been dozing
uneasily in a corner chair. 'I used to think,' he said contentedly, 'that CIA
were the pits as regards dirty tricks. Well, these days it's Auerbach's
Special Services Unit that's alive and breathing poison. But the SD boys
don't have the training of the old-style agents. They're full of simple
human frailties and indiscipline and the lusts of the flesh, thank God.'
  Gregory, still heavy with sleep, stared up uncomprehendingly at
Lateman.
  Slowly he explained it all. He had a friend, playing the oldest game on
earth, a girl from his Vietnam war correspondent days, whom he had
helped get out before the final collapse of Saigon. He did not elaborate on
what their relationship had been, only that now they were friends.
   'I got her to New York first and tried to set her up legit. But I failed,' he
reminisced. 'Her mother was a pro and her father . . . well, she thinks he
was French, so heredity won. She moved into a good house, clean, elegant
and one of the best and most expensive in New York. Then she followed a
man here to London and has been regretting it ever since. She says she's
stayed long enough . . . well never mind about that. I really don't blame
her, with her background. Now she caters to all tastes, and I mean all.'
  'What are you on about?' Gregory asked querulously. His tolerance
threshold was low.
   'Just wait . . . I'll tell you. The oldest trick in the trade. My friend, she's
called Louette by the way, well, one of her clients is here at the US
Embassy at Grosvenor Square. Knew her in NYC and now goes to her in
her Mayfair set-up. A man called Bradon. He's head of the SD Special
Services Unit, Auerbach's dirty mob. Not much happens, nothing special,
that is. He just talks, keeps talking to her and half the time she doesn't
understand what he's on about. But she's paid to listen as well as for the
other. He explained it to her once: cheaper and safer for him than pouring
his woes out to some high-class shrink. He needs the release like we all do
sometimes.'
   'And you pick up his stories?' Gregory asked, incredulously. 'From your
girl?'
  'Louette's not my girl, remember. A friend, a good friend. Yes, well
that's the way it is. I haven't used her often. Just once in a while, if it
matched a story I was working on.'
  'Like now.'
  'Like now. Just fed a few prompts to her . . . questions to lead with . . .
and then I waited.'
  'How could you know Bradon would be there tonight?'
  'I didn't and he wasn't going to be. So she phoned him, told him
business was slack and that she was bored. Over like a shot.'
  "I don't believe . . .'
  'Aw, shut-up and listen,' barked Lateman. 'That girl would be
Vietnam-dead if it wasn't for me.'



   A wickerwork screen with a garden of houseplants climbing it divided
the waiting room. Beyond, two partially robed girls playfully flirted with a
dapper, well-dressed client, while at the far end a sensational
dark-skinned woman sat behind the reception desk talking quietly on the
telephone. Whatever he said, high-class brothels were not Lateman's
scene. But this one was as different as it had to be to continue to thrive in
riot-scarred Mayfair. It flourished by catering to a remaining elite both in
position and in taste. A phone call first, followed by a further check over
the answer-phone at the polished mahogany door; both were necessary
before they had let him in. Then there were smiles and a genuine embrace:
Lateman was a friend indeed.
   He was shown into a side room where he sat down to wait. After about
an hour Louette appeared, bent over and kissed him gently on the
forehead. 'OK, my dear. All fixed,' she said sweetly. 'Stage is set ... lighting,
actors ... I hope you enjoy the show, Dan. But don't stay longer than you
need. I'll get embarrassed knowing.'
   In the past she had told him what he wanted to know. This time he was
to be a spectator and was uneasy about it, like watching a member of the
family. He followed her along a plush-walled corridor past rows of
anonymous doors, all of it lit in a subdued pink to highlight the eroticism.
A girl appeared briefly at one door, dressed in a sort of tight leather
corset, and for a moment Lateman had a glimpse of a macabre dungeon
scene beyond. Then Louette showed him into a small, heavily scented
room, furnished only with a couch. The wall facing the couch appeared to
consist of a large darkened window, like a small elongated cinema screen.
   'Lights. Music, maestro please,' she grinned, and held her finger to her
lips. Music there was, soft dreamy music, canned, in the background.
   'Sit and watch. This is your friendly voyeur's paradise,' she whispered,
throwing an electric light switch by the door, then leaving Lateman alone
in the room.
   The room was plunged into darkness but the picture window
brightened to give an uninterrupted view of the adjacent salon: a bedroom
tastefully furnished with skin rugs thrown around in rich abandon.
Bradon, a big man in shirt sleeves and trousers, shoes off, was stretched
on the bed, hands clasped behind his head, staring peacefully at the
ceiling. Then, after a few moments, Louette herself appeared, smiling,
olive-skinned, a delicate and sensuous mix of European and Oriental
blood, and moved to sit cross-legged on the side of the bed, profile to the
hidden window, looking down at him. Lateman noticed that she had
changed into a brief kimono of soft black velvet.
   The music died away and he could hear them talking. For a moment,
with all he had felt for her, a wave of distaste swept over him at this
five-star eavesdropping. Until he heard Gregory's name mentioned. Then
he listened carefully. The girl, with a skill that would have done justice to
the most adroit member of any interrogation team, extracted the story bit
by bit.
   The man on the bed talked of many other things first: problems in his
life and office; staffing; lack of funds; the struggle to deal with the CIA
men in the Embassy who were so anti the SD Special Services Unit,
sabotaging everything they tried to do. 'At times,' Bradon said, 'I wonder
who the real enemy is.' Then his domestic problems came out: a wife, back
in the safety of the States, dully concerned with family; a son at high
school suspected of moving from soft to hard drugs; a daughter who
appeared all but perfection; the hell of a London posting.
  Bradon was gently led on to the subject of Gregory. He began to talk
about CIA Head of London Station. There were problems there, of control.
Auerbach versus Cassover's men: a civil war in all but name and twice as
deadly because it was secret. Things were happening out of schedule and
once or twice the CIA Head of Station had not come clean on an
operation. He'd been caught out, explained himself, but not to everyone's
satisfaction. Things to do with oil and Gregory's brother. Louette would
not be interested.
   For a long time Lateman listened. For a man who believed himself
totally inured to sensation, he found himself deeply shocked by what he
heard. Then at last Louette made her only mistake. She reached over
unthinkingly and laid her hand gently across the leg of the man on the
bed, just above the knee, fingers to the inside of the thigh. The man
stopped talking and rolled over towards her.
  A moment or two longer and Lateman stood up. He wanted no more.



  'It frightens me,' said Lateman eventually. They had left the coffee long
ago, and were well down a bottle of Johnny Walker. It was three in the
morning, London time, on Sunday, March 27.
  'And me,' echoed Gregory.
   'I don't mean that. I'm frightened because for the first time in my life I
feel I know too much. While I was still in the dark, still guessing, I was an
irritation rather than a danger to them. Now I feel I'm moving towards
the truth.'
  'The truth, but no solutions.'
  'The next stage.'
 'As you say. I knew Auerbach years ago. Disliked him heartily and he
me, but I cannot believe that much,' Gregory said.
  'I don't suppose that even now he bears any particular personal
animosity towards you. You were, quite simply, a problem and as
Cassover's choice you were a threat to Auerbach before you even knew you
had been selected . . . Pass the remains of that bottle, will you?'
  'I suppose . . .'
   'I know it,' muttered Lateman. 'According to Bradon, Auerbach, far
from being opposed to the idea of appointing a special presidential envoy,
had his own candidate for the job.' He laughed. 'With hindsight I have to
agree: anyone would have been more amenable than you.'
  'And he went so far as to try to kill?'
   'What's death when the stakes in their secret war are so high? Anyway,
it wouldn't be Auerbach personally. He just required a solution. He wasn't
interested in methods.'
  'They're all servants of one country.'
   'You don't believe that shit, Gregory. You've never been so naive. The
stakes in this little war with the CIA were status, power, ambition. You
were a threat. You had to be removed.'
  'And they got a musician instead. But then why didn't they follow
through, get me later, back in the States?'
  'Don't you understand anything? By that time the CIA had a firm line
on what was happening. You told me how assiduous the CIA Head of
Station was in guarding you. Cassover got in quick and informed the
President about you, and from then on you were totally safe, as long as you
behaved. You were the President's man, Auerbach or no Auerbach.'
  'The Russians . . . the Marxist hit-squad? Everyone kept on about them.
Even Hunt. Cassover was there, nodding his head, when Auerbach told me
they had been responsible.'
   Lateman looked hard at Gregory. He was worried that the man might
lose his grip; it sometimes happened when powerful men were dethroned
and they lost their resilience. 'Of course he was. It's a secret war,
remember. They are loyal on that score if nothing else. Like two children
playing cops and robbers, the fun is gone if parents or other children find
out what the rules are. Now they're united in their desire to wipe you off
their score card altogether. Thus the failed mugging in New York.'
  'Cassover's not like that.'
  'Nor he is, from what I hear of him. The big heroic, clean-front man.
But the ferrets and the foxes are still fighting dirty away down the line
below him. They remember the days of the omnipotent CIA, the Reich
within the Reich that will one day come again.'
   'Come on. Tell me another.' Gregory's voice was slurred with whisky and
tiredness.
  'I will. Here's the meat of what that man told my Louette. I took a
shorthand note. He spoke so fast . . .' Lateman took a notepad from his
pocket and read:


The State Department's Special Services Unit established, financed,
trained and armed the supposedly extreme Marxist Eighty-three
Commando as an agent provocateur to prove to Hunt that the greatest
danger to a Britain poised at the brink was the Soviet Union. The
operation was so skilfully mounted that many of the dozen members of the
Commando were actually dedicated Communists and revolutionaries,
totally unaware of who was financing and directing them. And so, when
the State Department set Gregory and his Institute up as an identifiable
but highly expendable target, there was no need to urge members of the
Commando to move into action any more than they had in their other
terrorist activities which included the murder of the British Minister of
Defence. All these actions were designed to keep things at boiling point.


  There was a long silence, then 'We're running out of whisky,' said
Gregory. His eyes were almost closed.



                                Twenty

  They are still our allies,' said the President, with the determination of a
man who had been told what to say.
   'Sure they are, Mr President.' The Secretary of State responded
cautiously. It was their normal Monday morning meeting, the subject had
been sprung on him without warning and he did not like the look of the
thick folder of briefing material which the President had on the desk in
front of him. White House staffers thinking for themselves again, or ...
Cassover.
  'This Administration only has one foreign policy on the UK, not two.
You and the Admiral's boys really should be ... be in tandem. And I want
you to act real clean from now on. I've heard some nasty tales of the
reverse happening.'
  'Mr President?'
   'You know what I mean, Frank. Prime Minister Hunt —he's no ball of
fire but you should be out to help him, hold his hand, not knock the
ground away.'
  'Me, Mr President?'


Report CZ 6397/181/84. Boston, Mass. Monday, March 28. Mason,
former head of Gregory Institute, London, interrogated immediately on
arrival military hospital here. No, repeat no, information of value has been
identified. Subject has not, repeat not been contacted by Gregory.
According to Mason, latter was, when last heard, emotionally concerned
over continuing arrest of British civil servant Eileen Byrne, on whom see
Report No. CZ 5191/122/84.


  'So we're agreed,' said the Secretary of State.
   'Right,' responded the Admiral. Flanking the head of the CIA at the
round table in the State Department Conference Room, his aides nodded
in unison. It was precisely twelve mid-day on Monday, March 28. The two
men stood, shook hands formally, then sat down again.
  'You were speaking to Stenheim in New York?' the Secretary of State
continued, an unusually conciliatory tone in his voice.
   'A bundle of use that,' said Admiral Cassover, his hand smoothing down
his non-existent hair. 'Reminded me he was Chief Executive of AP, then
lectured me on the fundamental freedoms of the press. Even when I
slipped in that FBI pick-up on his Mafia friends, Stenheim didn't bat an
eye. Said Lateman was too well known to bully. Our assessment: we can't
touch either of them while they are together, sitting in the London AP
office.'
  'Gregory will have to move out sometime.'
  'We're waiting. So are the Brits.'
  'Don't forget: Gregory's done most of the harm he can. It's Lateman who
will go public.'
  'Joint target now, Frank,' said Cassover warmly.



  Later that day, CIA intercepted a routine wire telegram: 'Personal for
Stenheim from Lateman. Grateful your stand and support. Story will be
worth it. We have total exclusive. Regret, cannot, repeat not, break it yet.
Regards. Dan. Message ends.'



  The pile of blankets on the couch stirred slowly, then, gradually,
Gregory emerged from a full twelve hours sleep.
   'The head?' asked Lateman. He had already been about for hours,
up-dating the story that was now locked up again on the top shelf of his
safe,
   'No problem,' said Gregory. 'No problem at all. I needed the purge of
last night.'
  By the time Monday, March 28 drew to a close, Lateman had realised
that Gregory's personal crisis had evaporated. He had been worried the
day before, watching, waiting for the other man to crack, but it had played
the other way and Max Gregory was back in his old form.
  'We know the problem, we know the enemy.' He was now talking as if he
was lecturing at one of the Institute's military strategy seminars.
  'It's too easy to call Auerbach and Cassover the enemies. Britain's its
own enemy. They're just exploiting the situation, ' interrupted Lateman.
  'They're Hunt's enemies; they're our enemies.'
  'Have it your way. Does it matter?'
  'It matters to me. I want to reach Hunt, help pull his act together, by
getting the Commander and the Brother to talk.'
  'Modest ambition. How many divisions do you have?'
  'My mind is enough, helped by Norslag Corporation oil. Get me Eileen
out. Give me that peace and I'll work the rest.'
    'You amaze me, Gregory,' Lateman looked as if he meant it. 'All right,
I'll work on that.'
  'Where will you start?'
  'With the fact that I may just have been ignoring a clue I was given —
about where Hunt's grandchild is.'
  'How did you lose that?'
  'Something said while I was watching that boudoir scene between
Louette and the man from the Special Services Unit. I was concentrating
on the big issues, but he made a remark that suggested that he might
know ...'
  'I don't believe that Cassover and Auerbach go around authorising the
kidnapping of children.'
   'Maybe they don't, but a lot of things get done lower down the tree in
the name of the cause. Maybe even SD Special Services and the CIA didn't
do it. But my hunch is that they know where the child is and like things
the way they are. It's an additional try at weakening the Prime Minister's
resolve.'
  'A hell of an accusation. You can prove it?'
  'No way, but if it's true, I won't need to.'
   'What drives you?' Gregory paused and stared at Lateman. 'Maybe I
should know by now if it's the pursuit of the truth, money or something
else.'
  'I'll read you my lecture some day.'
  'Are you convinced that the child . . .?'
  'Look. Even if it's not true, it may shake other things out of the
woodwork. An old journalistic trick. Watch me do my National Enquirer
act.'
  Lateman picked up the phone and dialled a number. When it answered
he announced himself and after a twenty seconds' hesitation at the other
end, he was put through to the Head of the CIA's London Station. The
man at the other end, who had obviously been woken from a deep sleep,
managed to control his surprise until he got the tone of Lateman's voice.
Then it showed.
  'The Hunt grandchild,' Lateman began. 'I've been given evidence ... an
informer has gone on record about this. When he hears, the President and
the American people are going to be more than a little shocked by this
particular piece of nastiness . . . No, don't interrupt me. The President's a
keen grandfather; some say that he does that better than being President.
You probably know the story, . . . the bigger story I'm on. But right now,
unless you want me to blow this particular piece of sewage, I want that
child released.'
  There was a long silence at the other end.
  'Did you hear me? Good. No, sure I believe you. Not a clue where the
child is ... Get on with it... Yes, I'm sure you know where to find me. Now,
even though it is the middle of the night, I'd say twenty minutes should be
long enough, don't you?'
   Lateman's next call was to Downing Street, where he was put through
to the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. Again he was to
the point. 'Name is Lateman of AP. You may have heard of me. Now listen
carefully. I have hard news on the whereabouts of the Prime Minister's
grandchild, so put me through to the Prime Minister himself. No . . . No
messages. I'm aware that it is the middle of the night: No, now, right now.'
  After some twenty seconds the Prime Minister came on the line.
   'Prime Minister, I've got a deal for you. One grandchild for one lady
whom you know, name of Eileen Byrne. That and an undertaking ... a
promise that you will come here after the child is safe. I ... Professor
Gregory has something to tell you. No ... Prime Minister. You must come
here. You'll understand our reluctance to move. . . Yes, I have full powers
to negotiate.'



   The early hours of the morning of Tuesday, March 29 and a child was
heard crying in the depths of the wood. The drivers of the cars switched
off their engines. The search party strained their ears.
  'Somewhere over there,' someone said.
   They stood peering into the night. Again came the cry of a child, a cry
for its mother.
   'OK. Go ahead,' said one of the men. Car headlights were switched up;
powerful torches were produced, and a group of men moved forward
through the trees in line abreast. After a while the crying stopped and the
child, wrapped in a blanket, was brought to safety. Then cars drove away
into the night.
  At around four a.m. that same Tuesday morning, Eileen Byrne was
dumped from a black van, a block away from AP headquarters in
Farringdon Street, EC4. She had no coat and she too was crying.



  At about seven in the morning Washington time, mid-day in Britain,
Head of CIA London Station received the urgent order to move to a close
on the Gregory case.



                            Twenty-one

   That Gregory and Lateman were permanently camped out at the AP
bureau caused little comment among the overworked journalists there,
since many of them were also living in the office for reasons both of
security and convenience. Additionally, the chief of bureau had been sent
instructions from New York to be as accommodating as possible and he
had subsequently made two rooms, equipped with camp beds and
sleeping bags, exclusively available to them. Food they arranged to have
brought to them from a boarded-up restaurant in Farringdon Street that
still managed to produce reasonable dishes, owing to its owner's reputed
black-market connections.
   It therefore caused no additional ripples when Eileen Byrne arrived,
alone and unannounced, with only the clothes she stood up in. Lateman
immediately arranged to have her taken by car to her flat to change, to
pack a few things and then to bring her back to the comparative security
of the bureau. On her return she ate, she slept and when she awoke again
they talked.
   'The Shah goes, the Ayatollah goes and the Russians get Iran's oil
handed to them on a plate,' Lateman was saying. 'The second Harrisburg
disaster shuts down half the nuclear plants across the States . . . Even
paying three times what they paid for imported oil in 1981 . . .'
   'Nothing new about that,' Gregory interrupted. He sat, a mug of coffee
cupped in his hands as if he was trying to keep warm. 'But it has given
them this relentless crusade to replace their sources. With Presidential
elections next year, everything, anything goes. We've seen it over their oil
purchasing. If it's on the market, they buy it and to hell with the rest of the
world. Morality is thrown aside, but not just for reasons of Nixon-type
political expediency. Americans, otherwise honest, see it as a question of
the survival of their nation and one person, one country standing in the
way counts zero on that scale.' Gregory paused and looked down at Eileen
Byrne, seated at Lateman's littered office desk. She had only just woken
from a deep sleep and was still trying to adjust to her new environment.
    'What is it you're after?' she asked, looking up at Gregory. 'Is it revenge .
. .?' Her voice was low-key.
   'Revenge? No, not that. At least, not that alone. I suppose it's that I
want to know the answers to a lot more questions. Like who really got Lou
killed.'
  'We know that . . .' Lateman broke in.
  'In a funny way I don't think so. They've admitted they stirred things up
here. Maybe they arranged . . . or didn't stop the killing of Hunt's Defence
Secretary because, if he had succeeded in pulling the two sides together,
that really would have queered their pitch before they had the Norslag
deal sewn up. But the precise, all-out assault on my interests . . . Lou . . .
Mason. Some one person was the decision-taker on all that.' Gregory
paused. 'I also still have this other gut aim: to help get this place out of its
mess.'
   There was a long silence. 'How long are we going to stay here?' asked
Eileen eventually. She avoided Gregory's eyes as she spoke.
  'Until Harold Hunt arrives. We've got one solitary chance to get him on
our side.' Gregory moved away from the table and went to stare at an AP
tape machine that was clattering out its bad news in a corner of the room.
  'If he comes,' said Lateman morosely.
  'He promised.'
  'You're so confident? Why?'
  'Because he knows I know Auerbach's game.'



  The journalists in the AP office had every reason to be anaesthetised
against sensation, but even they looked up curiously when Prime Minister
Hunt, accompanied by a private secretary and banked by five bodyguards,
turned up without warning shortly after nine a.m. on the morning of
Wednesday, March 30. He was shown into the private room where
Gregory, Lateman and Eileen Byrne had just finished a frugal breakfast.
  'Sorry about the squalor, Prime Minister.' Lateman stood politely.
  'I'm here for a minimal amount of time, Professor,' said Hunt, ignoring
Lateman, 'so I suggest we talk in private.'
  'My colleagues will stay with me, Prime Minister,' Gregory responded.
   'Just as you like.' The Prime Minister shrugged, then sat down unasked,
his private secretary beside him. Two of the bodyguards stood each side of
the door; the other three had remained on watch outside. Gregory took his
place again at the cluttered breakfast table.
  Gregory did as he was asked and wasted no time in relating to Hunt
everything he knew, then went on to give his analysis of Auerbach's
underlying motives.
  'What are you asking me to do?' asked Hunt when Gregory had finished.
  'Call both sides together again.'
  'They won't come.'
  'If you can deliver the Commander, I'll undertake to persuade the
Brother.'
   'I tell you they won't come. They felt they were let down too badly last
time.'
     'A different ball-game, Prime Minister,' said Gregory confidently. 'This
time you have an identifiable external enemy. Auerbach's trying to do the
big steal of your greatest remaining national asset — oil. Both sides will
understand that only too well. Extreme right and extreme left always unite
on that sort of threat as history has proved again and again. At least try
it.'
  'Why should I accept your advice?' asked the Prime Minister. 'What's
your aim, Gregory?'
  'People keep asking me that, What drives me is immaterial. This is your
option, and remember we're doing a lot of trusting too.'
  Hunt stared at Gregory for some moments then asked: 'Where would
you suggest we should meet?'
  'Your ship again: the best possible place.'
    'Very well. It can do no harm.' The Prime Minister turned to look at his
private secretary, who nodded in agreement. 'Maybe HMS Belfast this
time,' he went on. 'I'll see. It used to be a floating naval museum and is
moored by Tower Bridge. It's been used for high-level meetings before, so
it's secure and ready. What help will you want from me?'
  'Some transport and guaranteed protection, Prime Minister. We're all
high profile targets. Is it on?'
  'All right,' said Hunt quietly. 'I'll give you one single try. I owe it to my
granddaughter.'
  'Do that, Mr Prime Minister. Just that.'



   Late that afternoon Max Gregory, accompanied by Dan Lateman, was
driven in a Government Austin Princess through the deserted back streets
of Brixton. In the front passenger seat beside the driver sat a mousy little
man in a dirty sweater and leather jacket. Behind, a back-up security
Rover, manned by men from the PM's personal protection unit, kept close
to their tail.
  'Left here, then second right past that bomb-site. There'll be a posse
round the corner somewhere, so watch it, I'll have to talk gently to them.'
The mousy man muttered a constant stream of directions through a
mouthful of rotten teeth.
   As they turned, an efficient-looking squad of five thugs, armed with
clubs and chains, appeared across the side street in front of them. To one
side, another slightly larger group of men, huddled round an open brazier,
watched from the partial shelter of a gutted terraced house. As the
Princess pulled to a halt, the five moved round the car in a tightening
circle. The leader moved up as the mousy man wound down the offside
window.
 'Where are you going?' the guard asked roughly, then recognising the
man added: 'Oh it's you, Marty,' he said. 'Who're your friends?'
  'They've come to see the Brother.'
  'I hadn't heard. Is it fixed?'
  'Not yet. But he'll see them. That man's Professor Gregory, a Yank,' the
guide said with a backward flick of his thumb. 'Here to fix a major deal.
The other's called Lateman, a journalist. They've got to see the Brother
urgently, so you better let us through.'
   'Not so fast, Marty. You don't have no appointment so no way can you
go on from here. You know the rules. And who the hell's in that other car
back there? Don't like the look of them.' The back-up car had pulled in
close behind but the occupants remained seated inside.
  'Them's security from the Prime Minister's office,' said Marty soberly.
  'What's this then, Marty? Been going places? That's not nice, is it?'
  'Let me talk to the Brother. We couldn't get to him on the phone. I've to
explain to him. He'll decide.'
 After a few moments' hesitation the leader said: 'OK Marty. Come with
me, lad. The others stay here. Out you get.'
   Marty piled out and followed the guard towards the rest of the picket
who were watching curiously from the warmth of the brazier. From the
car Gregory and Lateman saw one of the group talking into a radio
telephone, then after a few minutes both men returned.
  'OK,' said the guard. 'But you two only. Your fuzz stay here or that's an
end of it.'
   Gregory and Lateman got out, went and spoke to the backup team who
continued to sit impassively in the Rover, and then turned and followed
Marty and the guard down the street. Two members of the picket
automatically fell in behind them. Eventually the little procession reached
a large flat-fronted house set back from the road. Beyond the barbed wire
and high mesh fence Gregory could make out a derelict, unkempt garden.
The leader of the picket pressed a buzzer at the side of the steel gate and
immediately a man with a sub-machine gun slung over his shoulder
appeared from a grey sentry box just inside the fence.
  'Who are they?' he called through the bars.
  'They've come to see the Brother. Marty's with them.'
  'The Brother sees no one unless there's an appointment.'
  'I went through on the radio link. I was told to bring them in.'
  'Have you searched them?'
  'I. . .er. . .'
  'You bloody well know you ought to have searched them before they
came this far. Do it now.'
   The three visitors were indelicately but expertly searched, then: 'They're
clear,' the picket leader announced in a subdued voice.
  'OK. They can come in, but they'll have a long wait. The Brother's in
conference.'
  The three were led into the house and put in a bare room with a single
barred window, the only contents of which were a few rickety wooden
chairs. The all-pervading drabness of the room was backed by a smell of
drains and cabbage, while on the walls were political posters, fly-blown
and torn, proclaiming the workers' revolution. Across the top of the
fireplace the most prominent of them, a red banner, read: 'We the
working people create all material values.'
   'Wait here,' said the guard. He went out, shutting the door and turning
a key in the lock after him.
  'I'm risking my life, you realise,' Marty addressed Gregory, breathing
fumes which rivalled the foetid air of the room.
  'Don't worry,' said Lateman, 'We'll see you all right. We promised, didn't
we, and there's a nice fat bunch of cash waiting for you as well.'
  'Hush,' said the man, looking around nervously. 'They may have this
place bugged.'
   It was dark before the guard reappeared. 'He'll see you now. This way.'
He turned, and the three men followed him out of the room and along a
dark corridor into a large neon-lit office at the far end. There, behind a
trestle table piled high with books and pamphlets, stood the Brother. He
waited, silently, measuring them up, not with hostility but with little
warmth visible on his thin, intelligent face. Then: 'Professor Gregory, I
hear you have a proposition for me.' The voice was high pitched and
almost feminine.



                           Twenty-two

   It was the evening of Friday, April 1. Nine o'clock and in normal times
London's pubs would be at their busiest, but not now. Somewhere out
across the sullen river a steady drip of water leaked from a rusting grey
hull, half-lagged pipes festooned the bulkheads and decking while
somewhere someone was hammering, metal on metal, in a dull rhythmic
thud. Inside the three-ply panelled wardroom of HMS Belfast it was stuffy
and cramped. The air-conditioning had long since ceased to function and
a solitary porthole had been opened to the damp night. From outside
came the many sounds of the river: barges thudding past against the
muddy tide and, above that, the higher pitch of a police launch that was to
patrol in constant circuit of the ship. Inside the wardroom, etchings of
historic naval engagements were screwed to the walls by their wooden
frames, while a glass case in one corner still held tarnished silver-plated
cups and other sports trophies which had once been awarded to the
long-disbanded ship's company. A further display case, containing an
immaculate display of knots weaved in multi-coloured cord, matched a
tinted signed portrait of a very young Queen which hung on the opposite
bulkhead. At the wardroom doorway two sailors stood guard, while a
bearded naval officer with a gun at his belt and a clip-board of papers
silently checked his instructions.
   A young mess attendant appeared bearing a tray of drinks. The two
men who had come with the Brother each helped themselves to tumblers
of whisky; Gregory and Lateman did likewise, but the Brother waved the
tray away. Still wearing the dark anorak that was his hallmark, he was
slouched in a corner chair, watching in silent wait.
   An hour passed. Eileen Byrne went off to catch up on some sleep in a
nearby cabin while Gregory attempted to induce the Brother to talk. At
first he failed, the other man responding with grunts and apparently
remaining immersed in his own thoughts. Later, Gregory again tried to
question him, but this only provoked a short, vicious outburst.
   'Look Gregory, I've come to talk to Hunt and the fascist leaders, not to
listen to your half-baked moralising. You're not involved in this. It's just a
game to you, another programme for your think-tank's computer. It's
always quite a kick seeing blood on the sand through binoculars, ain't it?'
   Lateman stirred uneasily but remained silent as Gregory rose to his feet
and moved to tower over the Brother. But the latter remained unmoved.
'Theatre,' he said, a faint smile showing on his porcelain face.
Imperceptibly his two bodyguards had moved in behind Gregory, while at
the doorway the two sailors looked nervously towards their bearded officer
for his instructions.
   'You want me to . . .' began one of the Brother's bodyguards. The
Brother shook his head dismissively and both men moved back obediently
to hug the wall of the wardroom. 'Harmless,' he said.
   Gregory stared down at the younger man. Here was someone who had
grown up in the mean back streets of south London, a man who could
have jumped either way; anti-black, National Front, another Commander,
or the way he had gone: Marxist, Bennite, militant unionist, Workers'
Revolutionary Party, and now to the People's Socialist Coalition which he
led. The Brother showed himself too intelligent to be a street leader. Here
was someone who knew the power of cynicism and of his own charisma;
here was no time-server to any cause; here was someone who would have
many enemies among the faithful of the real left. In a different era, with a
different social background the man coldly staring back up at Gregory
could have been a Captain in the Life-Guards capable of earning a VC at
Ypres. He demonstrated that almost feminine style of the cat that is a
jaguar at heart, and Gregory knew that here was someone for whom all of
his own talents would be needed to win even the most grudging respect.
So he rose to the unspoken challenge presented by the Brother and
embarked on what he could do best: he put his unasked-for case. Gregory
had always been known as a successful teacher, a professor to whom
students had come because they enjoyed listening and being provoked into
thought, in part because he was adept at adding a touch of subtle drama
to his arguments. But to develop his thesis he needed time, and now he
hoped that the Commander, Hunt and the others would not come on stage
before their cue.
   'Theatre . . . the distant view . . . Right you are.' Gregory remained
standing, looking down at the other man still slouched deep in his chair.
'Can I call you Paul?' he went on. 'Brother is as old-fashioned
Labour-Party and theatrical as you can get.' He moved back a step,
unchallenged and more composed, and turned away from the other man,
as if now unconcerned as to whether he had him as an audience or not.
'Did you know that the "sand" in my case was . . . were the cobbles of
Vauxhall? D'you know what it's like having a brother? Maybe you do, Paul,
but a twin brother? That has to be different, especially if he's killed, not on
a battlefield, not even in a dirty street riot, but kicked to death by steel
boots of shits like . . . And they meant to get me, Paul. D'you know why?
Because I was to be America's strong man, the man to pull the Brits out of
civil war, bang their heads together, make them see sense, make sure they
didn't object to passing all their oil, in a clean well-ordered way, to their
Yank friends. . . . And half of me dead in Vauxhall.' Gregory hissed out the
words, suddenly pivoted on his heel and caught the Brother's eye.
  'Listening, are you, Paul?' He swung round again. 'Your friend here's
getting restless.' The Brother's bodyguard had again moved out
uncertainly from the wardroom wall. 'Tell him I'm just an actor, not worth
the bullet and the effort of feeding me to any fish that have survived the
pollution of the pool of London . . .Where was I? . . . No, Paul. Half of me is
dead, but the other half is going to make this game work. Christ, I am.
And you're going to help me.'
   Lateman watched anxiously from the sidelines, the Brother moved as if
he was going to speak, but Gregory gestured him to silence. 'I've heard it
all, Paul, heard what you're going to say, what your ambitions are for
yourself and for your party. I've heard it all in Moscow, and in Cuba and
throughout red Asia. "To be equal before the law, where wealth no longer
buys its way to power." That's your aim. And your duty, Paul, is,
consequently, to react to the right-wing fascists that roam the streets of
London, to prevent the emergence of a fascist state. By God I'm with you
there. But you took to the streets to fight the battles of the streets, even
though you saw that it was a no-win situation. As for poor Harold Hunt,
well, you despise him and everything he stands for. You know he's not an
evil man, just weak, a man who has tolerated too long such right-wing
aims. And now it's too late, and Hunt is reaping the rewards of his own
ineptitude. But you see, you don't really want the alternative — a workers'
state, communist-style. That would neither suit your individuality nor the
British temperament. You know Britain deserves something more
comfortable and solid. Am I right? A fair deal. That's what you want too.'
   Gregory paused to let the Brother respond, as he knew he would. 'My
turn, Professor. What's your objective? I know what drives you. British
emigrant to the States, picking up a lot of American money, from
anywhere, even taking from the CIA. Then suddenly you're plunged into
reality; your brother is murdered in front of you. Yes, I knew about that,
Professor. I even know who did it. Yeah, the actual people who murdered
him were dressed to look like the Commander's paid mob; grey-denim
people. I know who set them up too. You do also. That's one of the things
that drives you, Professor. I grant that perhaps you do wish to see Britain
back on its feet again. The great expatriate patriot . . . But you're really
motivated by revenge. In a way it's a pity that you didn't keep your "strong
man" role. You might just have done the job well and you might even have
got us to agree to your terms. But you were idealistic, far-sighted enough
to realise that you would still be a puppet, with your masters back in
Washington . . . No, don't interrupt me now, Professor, it's my go. You've
made your point. You see, I will go along with you but it's got to be soon.
I'm not going to wait more than half an hour. I don't like failures.'
   It was then that Dan Lateman pulled himself out of his chair and went
to lift a tumbler of whisky that had been left on a tray on a side table. 'You
two talk the same language,' he said softly. 'Trouble is, we're not at the
Oxford Union now.'



   A police siren howled through the night, then cut out, and this was
followed by the distant sound of shouted commands. A few minutes later
Hunt with two advisers and his squad of bodyguards around him entered
in company with the Commander who, in turn, had three of his own men
with him. Gregory and Lateman stood up politely; the Brother stayed
where he was, slouched unmoving in his corner chair. His own two
bodyguards moved to stand motionless behind him, ready to take their
cue from their leader. Like a medieval knight before a joust, the
Commander barely glanced at the Brother as he took his seat directly
opposite his opponent. His three unintroduced colleagues grouped
themselves to sit in a defensive triangle behind him, while Hunt and his
two advisers, flanked by Gregory and Lateman, quietly took their places to
one side.
  'I don't have much time,' began the Commander, in a voice that was too
loud for the size of the wardroom. 'I don't suppose he does either. In the
past we've wasted too much time talking.'
  'Action it is,' said Gregory. 'Prime Minister, may I?'
  'Go ahead,' said Hunt, softly. He looked grey and worn and his eyes were
half shut.
   It was the first time that Gregory had seen the Commander in the flesh.
War hero at twenty-one; court-martialled some years later for causing
bodily harm to a junior officer; labelled brute, boor and bigot not only in
the left-wing press; called himself the supreme patriot. There was no
doubt that he was an effective leader of his ilk. One of the men with the
Commander Gregory recognised as Colonel Makepeace, with whom he had
had an interview at the UAM's Mayfair headquarters. Another, who was
wearing a dog-collar, must be the fundamentalist cleric, the Reverend Mac
MacNair, who was the Commander's tub-thumping deputy. But it was the
Commander himself, a large, impressively fit-looking man, who physically
dominated the wardroom. It was difficult not to stare magnetically at the
great area of scar tissue on his forehead, the result of some street battle,
which served to impart a sense of brutality to his whole presence. Only the
lips and something about the nostrils suggested to Gregory that hidden
sensuality, gone to leather-and-thong excess, that he had once read about
in the CIA's secret briefing file in Washington.
  The Commander was staring hostilely at Gregory. 'Well, so you're the
Professor, the President's man.'
  'Was.'
  'Equal to me. I'm waiting.'
  'Well, Commander. This is lesson one: knowing your enemy.'
  'Him I know.'
  'Do you? I think all that both of you have done is to camouflage the real
danger, the biggest Britain has had to face since 1945.'
  'If you're going to start on Hunt's invisible hand theory, Gregory,'
mocked the Brother, suddenly sitting forward in his chair, 'then the
fascists and we will do one thing in common — we'll leave.'
  'I haven't started yet. You listen to me both of you,' said Gregory quietly.
  'No, you listen to me,' echoed the Commander in his Calvinistic bull-like
voice. 'I do not intend to stay for any more propaganda. You, Mr Prime
Minister,' he turned to glare at Hunt, 'promised me that you had
something new on offer. You have not learned from the last time, Sir. You
are pathetic. You are finished.'
  'I've learned something,' said Hunt, with a sudden surge of voice.
  'You have?'
  'To keep a good thing when I have it.'
   There was a pause, then: 'Damn it to hell,' yelled the Brother, suddenly
leaping to his feet and moving towards a porthole. 'This bloody ship is
moving.'
   'The what . . .?' said the Commander, pulling himself up rapidly. The
wardroom was indeed shuddering, then the gentle motion and the moving
lights seen through the portholes were suddenly and blindingly obvious to
everyone present.
  'Gentlemen,' said Hunt. His wearied tone had evaporated and he was
poised and alert. 'May I explain that we are on our way out to sea,
courtesy of a couple of naval tugs, since HMS Belfast's engines would have
needed too much time to fix. None of you get sea-sick, I hope. Tell your
men, both of you, to place their weapons on the floor and attempt nothing
foolhardy. Tell them that waving their guns about will do no good since we
have the Seventh Marine Company on board and loyalty is their strong
point. We want to make it a very gentle kidnap.'
  'You bastard. Hunt. If I'm not off this ship in ten minutes, I will . . .'
began the Commander, red in the face and very angry.
   'You will what, Commander?' asked the Prime Minister with continuing
determination. 'You must avoid getting worked up. A man of your age ... a
stroke might set us all back. Now, the sooner we get our joint position
agreed, the sooner we will return to the anchorage and the sooner you may
leave.'
  To reinforce the Prime Minister's warning, the door of the wardroom
burst open and in piled about a dozen marines. Only two of them had
guns, the rest carried short riot truncheons.
  It took about three minutes and a similar number of stretcher loads to
HMS Belfast's reconstituted sick-bay before the street leaders and their
men conceded that they had lost the fight.



   Two in the morning and April Fool's Day was past. They were all
gathered in the wardroom, including Eileen Byrne, who had missed the
worst of the fighting but had now become much involved in tending the
injured. Gregory was doing the talking, the Commander was nursing a
bandage round his right hand, and the Brother, who had more easily
bowed to the inevitable, appeared to be asleep, still in his anorak, still
buried deep in his chair.
   'We have precise evidence to back up what I am saying,' Gregory said.
'A major dis-information effort was propagated by the CIA, a two-year
programme to encourage you to help collapse the Government of Harold
Hunt.'
   'Who ever needed help to do that?' sneered the Commander. Since the
fight these were the first words he had uttered.
   'No opinions, Commander, just facts. Now, fact two: you are sitting on
the biggest oil reserve anywhere outside the Middle East. The Norslag
Corporation, since their series of successful take-over bids during the last
few years, are now the largest operators in the whole North Sea area. They
have developed the technical capability of extracting from very much
greater depths than ever before, and thus they can bring a vast new
reservoir of oil, from the Unst field in particular, into British hands. These
could, if controlled, and according to CIA and my own Institute's
estimates, increase your reserves by up to eight times previous estimates.
D'you realise what that means?' Gregory looked round slowly. The
Reverend MacNair stared hatred back at him, Colonel Makepeace sat in a
tight silence, but Gregory had the Commander's attention.
  The Brother's pale eyes flickered. 'So much science fiction,' he sneered
beneath his breath.
    'So was North Sea oil twenty, fifteen years ago. That was science fiction
too,' Gregory retorted. 'But now the whole direction of State Department
policy, as shown by their attempt to import anarchy into Britain, is to
keep things unstable until they have their own control system tied up
tight. By-passing a weak but basically honest President, a major section of
the US Government is acting in the belief that the oil from the Unst field
overrides anything to do with democracy and political morality. This time
it's not the guys that everyone loves to hate, the CIA, but Auerbach and the
State Department. But while the Secretary of State is the prime mover, the
US Department of Energy is also pushing him hard. There's a lot of role
reversal going on: the CIA are the ones that have been urging caution all
along the line.'
  'I don't like or trust Americans, Professor Gregory,' broke in the Brother
with quiet venom, 'but this is rubbish. It smells like a fabrication created
by somebody motivated against the whole American establishment,
someone like you. It makes me wonder whether you've contrived this
whole scenario as part of your own personal vendetta. Your twin . , . you
know what I'm getting at?' The Brother's pale eyes were wide open as he
went on: 'You convince Harold Hunt, which, as everyone knows, is one of
the easiest jobs. Then, with a little help from that journalist over there,
you entice us here. But you lose in the end, man. That I promise.'
   'With arguments like those, it's no wonder you haven't risen above
street level.' The Prime Minister's unexpectedly cutting interjection
produced a surprised silence which was followed by his producing two
identical green folders and handing one to each of the antagonists. 'In
there you'll find our latest secret reports, intelligence assessments and
coded data about US operations in this country. Following our last
meeting came the assassination of your ADC, Commander, an operation
mounted not by the Brother's men but by Auerbach's men. My Secretary
of State did well until they got him too. All that did was to make sure the
agreement we had reached would die. If you need proof you'll see evidence
of the amounts of money they have spent here, and who the recipients are.
Some considerable time and effort, for example, was used to mount an
extensive bugging operation against your two headquarters, and you'll
find transcripts of conversations you yourselves have recently had with
some of your field-lieutenants. And it's still going on. In addition, the
paper listed as annexe five in the folder is a secret report which we picked
up, which shows their forward planning objectives ate primarily to ensure
that you two do not meet again. There's a lot more where that came from
to show that Professor Gregory is close to the truth.'
   The two men took the files reluctantly and skimmed their way through
them. When they had finished, the Brother passed his folder on to one of
his aides, and, after a moment's hesitation, the Commander handed his to
MacNair.
  'I need time,' said the Commander in a subdued tone.
   'I don't,' said the Brother, unexpectedly. 'I'm giving you one more
chance, Hunt. One more. And I can only speak for myself, since without a
lot of persuasion I won't get my people with me. One more chance.'
   'One chance, is it?' the Commander echoed. 'What do you want if I also
give you it, Prime Minister?'
  'Two organisations are in on the action,' said Gregory, taking the lead
once again. 'One, the State Department; the other, the Norslag
Corporation. We pool our resources and wedge drive.'
  'How?' asked the Commander.
  'We talk to Norslag and make them a better offer. Classical tactic in
business. Commander. Your socialist friends may also like the idea of
dealing with big business on their terms, and winning. With Norslag you
have a company you may just be able to control and that's what you both
are after. Unless you think you can control Auerbach instead.'
  'Who acts? Not him,' the Commander asked, pointing at Hunt.
  'Emergency coalition leading to some form of national government, and
both of you in it. The Prime Minister may have trouble with some of his
colleagues too, and with the House, but...'
  'You're talking political realities and Parliament hasn't been real for a
decade,' the Brother said, dismissively.
   'Auerbach will be on to it in no time and we'll have more riots in the
streets, even if the Brother and I do agree,' the Commander added. 'He
knows how to go one stage further and undermine our authority with our
own people.'
   'The answer,' Gregory interrupted, 'is not to let him know. We push
around a chunk of dis-information ourselves. The report you have in front
of you shows how well the Americans are informed about what you say
over the telephone. If you can agree on the aim, I suggest we spend time
during our sail back up river working out precisely how you are going to
go about it. And the first aim is to make sure the opposition don't realise
that you are going to work together in the future.'
  'We are?' asked the Commander.
  'Just this once,' said the Brother.
  The Commander looked at his colleagues, then nodded his head slowly.
The scars on his forehead gleamed white and scarlet in the dim
wardroom. Outside, the mournful lights of Gravesend flickered through
the remains of the night.



                          Twenty-three
   They're over the brink, Mr President. Latest intelligence reports
indicate both factions poised on countdown to a final confrontation.
Forty-eight hours and we'll have a civil war with the military, except for
some air force units, siding with the Commander's forces.' Dr Auerbach,
sitting in his usual seat beside the President, was flanked on his left by a
couple of advisers. The President himself listened and nodded his head
slowly. It was ten p.m., Saturday, April 2, and lesser mortals were with
their families in front of television sets. The Secretary of State realised
that he had, in the President, a reluctant listener. The head of state would
be thinking of tomorrow, escape to Camp David, church and an afternoon
spent with his grandchildren.
   'Are you sure?' the President asked. 'What's your evidence? This British
fuss has been going on for quite a long time now, so what's suddenly made
it worse?' The inevitable questions poured out on cue.
  'Secret intelligence from sources on both sides. As you know, Mr
President, technical surveillance teams went over last year and they have a
good network of pick-up points at the headquarters of both the United
Action Movement and the People's Socialist Coalition. We know.'
  'What's Hunt doing?'
  'Wetting himself, Mr President. Doing nothing. Sitting in his Downing
Street study doing damn-all. Sir. First of all he survives an attempted
assassination, then the kidnapping of his granddaughter, who fortunately
has now been released.'
  'We didn't have anything to do with that, did we, Frank?'
  'I'm ... I think you'd better stay unbriefed on that, Mr President.'
  'I don't like that sort of thing, Frank.'
   'No, Mr President. She's back with her family again, Sir, so it's OK and
it won't happen again.'
  'Surely the police and the army will keep loyal to Hunt?'
  'Unlikely, as I said. They'll continue to proclaim their loyalty to the
Crown, but now that the run has started, they'll desert him. My judgement
remains that most of the law and order forces will eventually swing behind
the Commander.'
  'With an extreme right-wing Government in power, what will we have
solved? Where will our access to your new North Sea oil sources be then,
Frank? Tell me that?'
   'Intelligence and political assessments again suggest that the large
left-wing element in the UK will fight pretty hard. They'll tear themselves
to pieces. We wait around, then step in and pick up the bits with a big
Marshall Aid type programme in return for full control of their oilfields.'
  'The Russians?'
  'They'll be all right if we give them a slice of the oil. I have some feelers
out with Moscow on that already, Mr President.'
  'What about your think-tank man, Professor . . . what's-his-name?'
  'Gregory. Max Gregory, Mr President.'
   'Yes. What happens to Gregory? What about Admiral Cassover's
strong-man idea?'
   'We had to scrap that, Sir, remember? Gregory turned difficult, got out
of hand, and we had to ... I always disliked the appointment.'
  'Ah yes, I remember the brief. What did you do with him?'
  'Unfortunately, Mr President, he went to ground for a while. But we're
watching him now and I'm expecting to have word any moment. Once we
have him, well I'm afraid we'll have to take him out.'
  'I don't like that, Frank. Gentle there.'
   'Yes, Sir. But you realise, such a lot's at stake, Sir. My Special Services
Unit will handle it very professionally and cleanly. We can't have a
renegade with as much knowledge as he has floating around unchecked. It
would be disastrous for us, and for you too, Mr President. With the
election coming, the Democrats would have a field day and accuse us of
tampering with Britain, our oldest ally. You know how they would slant it,
Mr President... It could ruin everything.'
  'Are you sure the Kremlin won't step in before we do?'
   'Well, Sir, it's still our playground, don't forget. The British are part of
the US area of influence. The Russians may holler a bit but 1 don't see
them doing anything. Once we do our peacemaker act, we'll make it as
kindly as we can towards the British Commies and the left wing generally,
to keep the Kremlin out of the game. Of course there will be problems and
a lot of bodies lying around but it won't have been us that did that. Our
hands will be clean, more or less. Peace keeping, that's all. We might even
get a UN or NATO presence to dress the windows.'
  'I don't like it, Frank.'
  'Nor do I, Sir. You know I don't like violence, nor this sort of dealing.
But the entire economy of the United States is at stake, Sir. We need that
oil. Where else are we going to get it? And don't forget the election date,
Mr President. Eighteen months is a helluva short time. You have your
second term to think of, Mr President.'
  'Right, Frank. You are right. Of course you are right.'
  An aide edged discreetly into the room. 'Admiral Cassover is here to see
you, Mr President.'
  'Can't we keep him out just now?' pleaded the Secretary of State at
once.
  'No, I better have him in,' reacted the President.
   'But it's not his baby, Mr President.' Auerbach stood to emphasise the
point. 'The CIA made a helluva mess with the Gregory business, and it's
State Department's Special Services Unit that is trying to put things back
in order. And Cassover doesn't see how important this energy thing is,
that it's got to override other considerations. Then your election, Sir. . .'
   'Well if you think so,' began the President cautiously, but he was
interrupted by Admiral Cassover bursting noisily into the room.
   'Sorry, Mr President, whatever Auerbach's been telling you, I can tell
you the CIA don't go with it. In the last half hour we've had very disturbing
reports about what's going on over in Britain. Something new, and I don't
like it.'



   In the subdued light of the Oval office, the three men were still talking.
It was half past midnight, Sunday, April 3. 'Very well,' Auerbach was
saying. 'I agree. There is conflicting evidence. Maybe Gregory has
managed to stir things up. But with him rubbed out, and even the
Admiral agrees that we have that fully in hand, they'll fall apart at the
seams within the day. But as additional insurance, what if I try a bit of
personal diplomacy, Mr President? Suppose I fly to Britain and get
together with the Commander. As things are over there, no way is he
going to come over here to meet me and we've got to have a fall-back
position. I get the Commander on our side before it goes too far, offering
to back him right to the hilt with troops, ammunition, money, whatever
he likes. Then we run him if the other plan fails.'
   Cassover angrily polished his head with the flat of his hand. 'Mr
President, my advisers smell a rat, a stinking big rat. The CIA have had a
lot of muck thrown at us over the years for getting too involved. Well, I tell
you, this time we're for staying right clear. If the Secretary of State wants
to risk his professional reputation and put his own political life at risk, I
am not going to stop him. But I'm warning you that this Administration
will blow to hell if anything goes wrong.'
   'I don't need any warnings from you, Cassover,' said Auerbach dryly. 'Mr
President, may I formally ask your permission to go to London? Our
insurance against future oil-supply cuts is at risk; your re-election is at
risk. With the Middle East as uncertain as ever and Mexican and
Venezuelan sources most unreliable, that new North Sea oil in the Unst
field is fundamental. We've got a gift in that oil. It's convenient and
politically secure, and we must not let it slip away from us. If we do, Mr
President, you will lose the election. That I promise.'
  The President concentrated his mind. Election was a trigger-word that
overruled. 'Of course, Frank. If you say that's the only way. I see it. Go
ahead. Now,' he paused, 'if I'm to read the lesson in church tomorrow, I
should say today, I'll have to get some sleep.'



  There were a lot of people waiting at Number Ten to talk to the Prime
Minister when he arrived in his office at eight a.m. on Tuesday, April 5,
but of them all the Commander took top priority. He immediately
explained that he had just received a secret message from the US
Secretary of State, via the Special Services Unit of the US Embassy in
London, announcing that Auerbach himself was flying to the USAF base at
Mildenhall to meet him, and only him. The message said that Auerbach
was now ready to discuss US support for moves to establish a new UAM
government, led by the Commander.
  'The message has come as a challenge to me. It is the sort of thing,
Prime Minister, that I have been waiting for for two years,' the
Commander said.
  'I realise that,' said Hunt quietly. 'But you know what the deal would
amount to, that you head a puppet regime for the United States
Government, a latter-day Quisling?'
  'I wouldn't put it as strongly as that, Prime Minister. But I don't like the
way the offer's come.'
  'I'm glad you showed it to me. . . We go ahead as planned?'
  The Comander nodded.
   At ten a.m. on Wednesday, April 6, a British naval frigate, HMS
Valiant, put to sea. Somewhere in mid-Channel, about an hour out, it
slowed to a stop and waited. After twenty minutes, a powerful
motor-yacht appeared out of the mists from France. Gently the yacht hove
to and a naval barge ferried a group of four men from the motor-yacht to
the frigate. Anastase Grigorias, Chairman and President of the Norslag
Corporation, with three of his top advisers, had arrived for a meeting on
board which was to be chaired by Professor Max Gregory of the Gregory
Institute.
   The men stayed on board for almost five hours. There were many coded
telex messages to the European headquarters of the Norslag Corporation
in Paris. Other cables went to Ten Downing Street for passing to the
headquarters of the Commander's UAM and the Brother's PSC. These
messages were all addressed 'personal' in the name of the recipients. CIA's
London office and its monitoring service at USA airbases throughout
Europe were puzzled by the sudden flow of cables, all in unbreakable
one-time code.
   Eventually, around five a.m. on Thursday, April 7, CIA's Head of London
Station sent a flash message to Admiral Cassover, confirming the CIA
Station, Paris, story that Grigorias had travelled to a secret meeting on a
British naval ship. Admiral Cassover put in a priority call to the President
of the United States of America who was still at Camp David.
  It was too late. The Secretary of State was about to arrive on Airforce
Two, at Heathrow Airport, London.



   Dr Frank Auerbach, flanked by four advisers and about twenty secret
service agents, stood waiting. Economy measures had enforced the twin
discomforts of dim lighting and an absence of any central heating and the
American party kept their top coats on against the mist of the chill airport
dawn that had permeated the neglect of the Heathrow VIP suite. Despite
himself, Auerbach felt unphased by the change of plan that had resulted
from the British air traffic controllers insisting on the VIP flight diverting
to Heathrow because of reported fog at the USAF base. The Captain of
Airforce Two had, privately, also been puzzled since the air traffic control
directions had been repeatedly challenged by the USAF's own flight
controllers. But it was not something with which to bother the Secretary
of State and there was little the Captain could do to challenge his landing
instructions.
  At eight a.m. on Thursday, April 7, Prime Minister Harold Hunt, who
had with him the Commander and the Brother, entered the VIP suite. If
Auerbach's face drained white, it was hidden under his Miami tan and
bushy red hair. He went forward, hand outstretched, and smiled his smile
of yellow teeth.
   'Mr Prime Minister, what a pleasant surprise. You should not have
bothered. So many distinguished people standing together for once. And
so early to get everyone up.
   Harold Hunt spoke quietly but his voice had taken on an unusual
vigour: 'Mr Secretary of State, this building is surrounded by troops loyal
to the British Government. Your plane is also surrounded and its crew
have been disarmed. I would be grateful if you would advise your security
personnel that they should on no account attempt to draw their weapons,
otherwise the consequences could be extremely grave. I have to advise you
further that, because of the behaviour of the official and unofficial services
of the United States State Department, your presence in this country is
unwelcome. You and your party are to return directly to your aircraft.
Flight clearance has already been given for you to take off, after refuelling,
for the United States.'
  Auerbach took a step backwards and the Secret Service men closed in
around him, but no weapons were drawn.
   'Our first intention was to detain you on the basis of various charges,
but the Foreign Office, the Attorney General and the Law Officers of the
Crown strongly advised against such action. Subsequently, I spoke on the
telephone with your President in Washington while you were in flight. I
informed him that in the conduct of its foreign affairs, the State
Department had, with your authority, gone to extremes in interfering in
the internal affairs of this country. Most of the detail came, I believe, as a
genuine and distinct surprise to the President and he claimed to be
shocked by it. I also reminded him of his electorate, as one politician to
another.'
  'What the hell's all this?' exploded the Secretary of State, regaining
some brief composure. 'What are you on about, Prime Minister? Is this
Gregory . . . ?'
   'No charges for our benefit, Dr Auerbach, We have irrefutable evidence
of an attempt of major dimensions to try to take over oil resources which
rightfully belong to the United Kingdom. We have evidence of many of the
illegal activities perpetrated by members of your Embassy and other
agencies in London against the democratically elected Government of this
country. At this moment certain US agents have been detained for
questioning by our security forces.'
   'This is the grossest breach of all diplomatic courtesies.' Auerbach,
disguising bewilderment with fury, banged his fist into the palm of his
hand to emphasise his point.
   'Diplomatic practices have been unilaterally ignored by the United
States Government over a period of several years. As your President
realises, that argument would not hold for long if it were exposed to
international opinion and its effect on your other Western allies would be
equally devastating. The decision I have just announced is one taken by
the full Cabinet of the National Coalition, which met for the first time late
yesterday afternoon. These and other measures adopted by it will help
ensure the continuance of an effective United Kingdom Government, free
from the machinations of those who wish to pervert the democratic
process.
   'Very dramatic . . .' the Secretary of State began, then changed tack. 'Mr
Hunt, you will go down in history as one of the weakest Prime Ministers
that Great Britain has ever known. You have presided over the destruction
of a nation, you and those . . . those street leaders whom you now call your
coalition allies. What the hell d'you think the real democratic countries of
the world will think?'
  'Democracy is a word that comes badly from you, Dr Auerbach. Your
President is coming round to sharing this view. He promised me that he
would consider carefully what I had said, and if he acts as I think he will,
you in turn may find you have a limited future role.'
   'We'll see when I get back to Washington. Without US support and
trade, we'll cut you off like . . .'
   'I have already agreed with your President that you will do no such
thing, Dr Auerbach. We have currently both decided to keep the nature
and extent of Anglo-American differences a closely guarded secret. We
have too much evidence of several actual assassinations and kidnappings,
including one in my own family, and the President knows that to pursue
such a course of retaliation would immediately lead to our making public
all the information at our disposal. Then, Dr Auerbach, you and your
Administration would not last twenty-four hours. You have adopted
policies that make Watergate look like child's-play.'
  The Prime Minister paused and looked at his watch. 'By now your plane
will have refuelled,' he said. 'You have immediate flight clearance.'
                             Twenty-four

   I'm almost ready to file,' said Dan Lateman with satisfaction. 'Then I
book my flight out, to New York, I think, rather than Washington. Until
things cool a bit and I get that Pulitzer nomination.'
  'They may try to stop you, even Hunt may, and until the story breaks
any of us could end up with concrete boots on. Only once it's out are we
safe. American democracy will see to that,' responded Gregory.
   'And me?' asked Eileen Byrne quietly. 'Will American democracy look
after me?'
   'You look pretty down, Eileen,' said Lateman. 'Where's that elation we've
just earned ourselves?'
  'You're talking, both of you, as if it's all over, when you know it's hardly
begun. You, Dan, are going to have to live and work on that story for a
long time yet. And Max . . . Max, I know where you're going.'
  'I hope he's taking you with him,' said Lateman with a grin. He paused
and then turned serious. 'Say, what is this? This is happiness hour, which
reminds me: let's have a drink.' He moved towards the corner of his office.
  Eileen Byrne spoke first. 'Not yet, Dan. Don't you realise that Max is
only halfway there. He's still got his own personal vendetta.'
  'Leave Lou in peace, Max,' said Lateman softly. 'It's too late now.'
  'Not for my peace,' Gregory interrupted. 'I have to know who arranged
the killing.'
  'I'll dig around when I get to New York . . .' began Lateman.
  'There's no need,' said Eileen, suddenly resigned.
  'What d'you mean?'
  'The man you talked about: Bradon, the head of Auerbach's Special
Operation in the Embassy . . .'
  'Eileen . . .' Lateman came forward to her. 'Give him a break; It's all old
now. Leave it.' He put his hand out towards her.
    'Don't. It won't go away otherwise.' Eileen stood up and moved to stand
with her back to the others, facing a wall on which hung a large map of
the UK. 'What you were talking about, Max, your unanswered questions,
I'll tell you,' she said. 'I don't like revenge. Even after all that's happened,'
her voice was quiet and the only noise in the room came from the tape
machine. Gregory and Lateman stood waiting, wondering what was
coming. 'When you first told me about your brother, Lou, I pretended I
didn't know. There was enough bitterness in you already and it wasn't for
me to add to it. But I did know. The security report on the murder came
across my desk in Downing Street long before I met you again. I was
Secretary of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on oil. I saw everything that
related, including reports on you.'
 'Go on, Eileen.' Gregory moved to stand close to her, watching her every
movement.
  'It was a mistake. They wanted you.' She paused.
   'We knew that.' Gregory hardly appeared to be breathing. The knuckles
of his clenched hands showed white. He stood looking at the girl, eyes
burning. She was still standing staring at the wall map.
  'British Intelligence . . . the report I saw, the Head of CIA London
Station. . . He had lost a paper with your name on it.'
  'I know that too. Cassover told me.' Gregory hissed out the words.
  'He didn't lose it. It was taken by the opposition, the man Bradon. He
had no precise orders, but he knew the overall aim. A bunch of his tame
thugs did the rest.'
  Gregory laid his hand on her shoulder as if to turn her to face him, but
she shook him off. 'Your appointment was a huge threat to his strategy. By
getting rid of you before you were even appointed, he tried to prove that
the idea wouldn't work. He arranged things so that the responsibility
would look like the work of one of the street factions. Even when you came
over, he didn't give up. He tried fo remove you by firing your Institute and
getting at Mason. He couldn't go directly for you, could he?'
  There was a long silence. Lateman looked across at Gregory wondering
whether he would hold his control. But when eventually he spoke,
Gregory's voice was outwardly calm: 'If this is true, why didn't the British
say something?' he asked.
  'Hunt decided to wait and see what happened. It's always useful to know
that there are serious splits in the opposition, to sit on the truth until it's
needed.' She faced him straight on and her eyes were wet. 'Now you'll go
and win or lose. One way or other it will be final.'
  'You'd blame me?' Gregory was staring out beyond the net curtains that
draped the windows.
  'I would not,' she said softly.
  He left the AP building at five past midnight on Saturday, April 9. From
Farringdon Street he drove across London towards Eaton Square where,
eventually, he found an unvandalised call-box. He rang Bradon's private
number which Lateman had got for him from his girlfriend Louette.
  'My name's Gregory. I have something urgent for you. Yes . . . Now. I'll
come to your house . . . Yes, alone.' He replaced the receiver, returned to
the car and jumped in.
   The elegant four-storey town house stood halfway along a quiet side
street. The hall light was the only one showing. Gregory went to the door,
rang the bell and a still sleep-ridden Bradon, in dressing-gown and
pyjamas, opened up immediately. Gregory held a gun in his right hand.
  'Out,' he said.
  'But . . .' began the man.
  'Quick as you like.' Gregory gestured sideways with the gun and the
man moved, shutting the door behind him. 'Now, into the car. You're
driving.'
   They moved away at once. They had reached the end of the street when
two police cars, sirens wailing, appeared behind them at the far end and
screeched up to stop in front of the house.
  'Fast, but not quite enough,' said Gregory. 'I thought you'd get some
help in.'
  'What is this? Where are you taking me?'
  'You'll discover.'
  They made towards Fulham and, on Gregory's instructions, Bradon
drove until they reached a cul-de-sac beside a derelict building site.
  'This'll do,' said Gregory. 'Now, get out.'
  The two men left the car, Gregory covering Bradon with the gun. He
ordered him down a narrow alleyway until they could go no further. 'Turn
round,' he rasped. He was fighting to keep control, to stop himself wasting
the other man there and then.
   'Face me. Now we're going to talk. You may briefly think that I'm not in
earnest. If you do, let me tell you I know who ordered the killing, the death
of my brother.'
  'I don't know what . . .' Bradon began. His words dried in his mouth as
Gregory brought his gun up.
 'No time for that. None. We're going to talk. Then ... I may kill you or I
may not.'



                               Twenty-five

   Gradually over that next week, an unaccustomed peace returned to the
battered streets of London. There were still reports of some sporadic gang
violence in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, but elsewhere, British
society was learning to breathe once again.
   Around seven thirty a.m. London time, on Sunday, April 17, Gregory
was driving, unescorted and with Eileen Byrne beside him, to meet
Lateman at AP headquarters to discuss their next moves, prior to Gregory
leaving for Paris later that day. He was not by nature incautious, but with
the main British groups now onside and the American security machine in
Britain thrown into such disorder, he felt safer than he had done for some
considerable time.
   At the end of an almost deserted Fleet Street, a uniformed policeman
wearing a riot helmet and a perspex face-shield appeared in front of them
and waved the car down. An imposing red and black Government crest
was stuck to the centre of the windscreen of the official car which Hunt
had arranged for Gregory to have, so the policeman saluted them, then
explained: Farringdon Street was blocked by extremist demonstrators
who were gathering for a protest meeting against the formation of the
National Coalition. He suggested that it would be much better to cut up
by St Bride's and Shoe Lane. Gregory thanked the policeman and turned
off as he had been advised.
  Inside the car she was questioning him. 'What did you do to Bradon?'
she asked cautiously.
  'He'll live. . . I think.'
  'So how long will you be in Paris?' She said it as if she did not care.
  'Depends,' he answered enigmatically.
  'On what?'
  'On you,' he said. He did not take his eyes from the road as he spoke.
  She threw a quick glance at him. 'How am I meant to take that?'
  He was about to respond, but then: 'The hell. Look at that.' Ahead of
them a small group of men had heaped cobblestones in a menacing pile
beside an almost gutted car that burned fiercely beside a mound of
smouldering tyres. A youth, aged not more than fourteen or fifteen,
detached himself from the rest, ran forward, and threw something
towards them on to the litter-strewn tarmac. The Molotov cocktail
splintered and spewed in a wide sheet of flame.
  'It's a Sunday morning. A bit early for demos,' she said easily.
   What happened happened quickly. They were halfway up a Shoe Lane
lined with desolate office blocks, the ground-floor windows of which were
covered with the universal steel-mesh shuttering and the doors and gates
barred and chained. 'Yes, that worries me. We'll back up and get out,'
responded Gregory. He looked in the rear-view mirror. 'Hell. There's
another pack coming up behind us.'
  Eileen turned in her seat to look. 'Only four or five men. Nothing to
worry about,' she said. 'Pull into the side. They'll leave us alone.'
   Close cropped young men in brushed grey denim, seventy-five, fifty
yards away, advancing in two packs in an ever-increasing trap. The
familiar triggered Gregory's mind as he remembered other jackals with
steel-capped boots stalking their prey in a Lambeth back street. Suddenly
he knew why they were there. He clipped the car into gear and screeched
round in a three point turn to face the way they had come.
  'What are you doing?' Eileen's voice rose to a sudden pitch of fear.
  'One barrier ahead. Only a handful behind.'
  'I tell you: they won't touch us.'
  'You said it. It's too early for a demo but not for a scissors trap.'
  'You don't. . .?' Eileen's voice choked into silence as a further petrol
bomb burst in a spatter of glass and flame a hundred feet in front of them.
The youths paced towards them, sticks and chains dropping from their
hands in prehensile menace.
  'Get down as low as you can, and pull something over your head. I'm
going at them.'
   Gregory waited until the men came a little closer, then plunged his foot
hard on the accelerator and shot up through the gears. The car leapt
forward, straight at the advancing youths. He made no attempt to avoid
them but deliberately bulldozed straight at the middle of the group. He
had a fleeting impression of chains flailing and a brick hurled at the car,
but whether it was that or the flattened face of a man which pulped
against the windscreen and smashed it he would never know. The glass
went opaque and he had to clear a hole in it with his clenched fist. Then a
burst of shots from behind led to more splintering glass and to the car
lurching as the tyres were shot out. He kept going, broadsliding
desperately from side to side down the narrow street and managed to
fishtail round a corner, just out of sight of the pursuers, before hitting a
lamp-post and stalling.
  'Out,' he yelled. 'Keep low.'
   She sat up, shaking her jacket clear of a cascade of glass crystals from
the shattered windscreen. They leapt out of the car together and ran down
the street, away from the mob. She lost one shoe and kicked the other off
to run barefoot, easily keeping pace with Gregory. Then the policeman
who had redirected them was blocking their way, a sub-machine gun at
his waist. His riot helmet had its visor pulled down making him look like
some sinister medieval knight. He raised his gun and there could be no
doubt of his intention. Gregory and Eileen hesitated, stopped, then raised
their hands above their heads.
  'They're after us,' Gregory shouted too loudly at the man, as if he would
not understand. 'We're working with the Government . . . the Prime
Minister. I have a pass.' He moved his hand towards his pocket.
  'Up . . . right up. Keep 'em there,' the policeman barked back. Despite
the riot mask, Gregory could sense the man's nervousness.
  'I tell you, they're after us. They're going to kill . . .'
  'That's right,' said the policeman.
   Gregory threw a look behind at the pack of youths which had turned the
corner and was advancing on them, pacing, spaced well out. After his
tornado drive through their midst, he could hope for no mercy, and with a
choice like that a nervous policeman with a sub-machine gun was the best
of zero options.
    'Run and keep running,' he shouted at Eileen, as he charged, head down
and zigzagging, rugby style. A spatter of bullets erupted, tearing his right
shoulder in hideous pain. But his maddened momentum kept him going
till he hit the policeman straight on, knocking the gun sideways and
snatching it with his uninjured hand from the man's grasp. Then, without
pause, he whirled, gun spewing flame. The policeman fell in a bloody heap.
Checking the gun tight against his side but with his vision partly obscured
by sweat and blood from a pulsing gash on his temple, Gregory kept his
finger on the trigger and backed away from the remnants of his attackers.
  Glancing downwards, he just avoided tripping over Eileen's body which
lay very still on the tarmac. Fighting the bitter pain, he forced the gun
under his upper arm, bent low and caught hold of her. Then, slowly and
unchecked, he started dragging her to the partial safety of a concrete
loading bay which projected from the rear entrance of one of the
newspaper offices that fronted on Fleet Street. Once in the lee of the bay
he crouched protectively over her inert body and prepared to meet them.
   After some moments, eight or ten of them cautiously emerged from
various refuges, and regrouped to search for him. He waited nearly too
long before standing and showing himself, firing until the magazine was
empty. That moment came at almost the same instant he blacked out and
fell, spreadeagled, across Eileen Byrne's body.



   Paramedics, red crosses gleaming on their white-domed helmets,
arrived with stretchers. They wore oxygen masks against the tear gas that
still lingered in the streets. They loaded the living and the dead into
battered ambulances and drove them away down the now deserted street.



   When Lateman was ushered into the study, the Prime Minister showed
little pleasure at seeing him again.
   'I only agreed to see you because . . .' began Hunt, making no effort to
rise from behind his desk.
  'Where's Gregory? What happened to him?'
  'Uh?'
  'Gregory. Max Gregory, and the girl?' Lateman hesitated, then sat down
unasked.
  'Ah yes, the girl.'
  'Well?'
  'To tell you the truth, Mr Lateman, 1 don't know. I really don't know.'
  'But you knew Gregory disappeared after this morning's Shoe Lane riot?
You knew, didn't you?'
   'Yes, I heard he and the girl had lost themselves. Tragic . . . but I don't
know where he is now. Why . . . why don't you ask your Washington
friends?'
  'I have and they don't have him.'
  Hunt moved to the attack. 'Why are you so sure? He's got to be one of
Auerbach's prime targets. Us . . . why should we have him?'
   'That's what I asked myself, Prime Minister.' The ultimate cynical truth
had dawned slowly. Now he was being given the confirmation. 'Gregory
ties up the deal for you but then becomes one hero too many, a man who
knows too much and has made too many enemies. Expatriate Britons have
no part in the Hunt scheme, and as for Eileen Byrne . . . well, she was just
a civil servant.'
   There was a long pause, perhaps a full sixty seconds, while the two men
stared unblinking at each other. Then: 'Have a good trip back to the
States, Mr Lateman.'
  'Yes,' said Lateman woodenly.
  'I can give you lots of proof that the Americans killed him, you know.
After all, they got his brother, didn't they? You know, by the way, that
there's no story for you, none whatsoever. You also know that you have
precisely twelve hours to get out of Britain.'
  Hunt did not take his eyes off the American until he left the room.
When he had gone, the Prime Minister stood up and poured himself a
whisky from a decanter which stood on a side table. Carrying the drink
with him, he slowly left the room.



   Sunday night, April 17, and the bar of the Inter-Continental Hotel was
as deserted as it had been for many months past. But Zarnuk of the
Washington Post was there with Roly Smith of Time magazine. They were
deep in conversation.
  Andrei Jameson of the Chicago Herald Tribune came in and joined
them. 'Double Scotch, heavy on the ice,' he shouted to the barman.
  'A lot going on,' Zarnuk was saying. 'I've gotten a good thick story on
how it built up.'
   Roly Smith nodded his head heavily. 'Looks like there was a major bust
over how far the US Administration should get involved. Crisis talks with
Auerbach broke down before he even left the airport and it's sure put the
Secretary of State's career on the rocks. There's even a story that he's had
some sort of nervous breakdown and that Cassover might take over. Have
to give it to Hunt though, I didn't think it was in him to pull together this
coalition. Where's his strength come from?'
  'You noticed that Gregory came and went?' asked Jameson.
  Zarnuk responded. 'Something in that? Where'd Gregory go?'
   Jameson shrugged: 'Does it matter? He had a part. It was axed, that's
all. You saw the results, only a mini riot in Shoe Lane today. Quietest
Sunday in London in three years and the same in most major cities up and
down the country.'
  'Good performance Hunt put on television, didn't he?' It was Roly
Smith's turn again. 'National press conference and these two dummies,
Commander and Brother, sitting in chairs beside him beaming sweetness
and light all over. I couldn't believe it.'
  'Right. Here we've been, sitting on our asses for months, sending back
copy about this country goin' over and out. Well, you just have to give it to
them. The British have it, whatever it is. Over the brink, then back on firm
ground and they'll be playing cricket again before we know it,' Jameson
added morosely.
  'Did you hear some story about a big new oil find off the Shetlands?'
asked Roly Smith, after a pause.
  'A whisper,' said Jameson. 'Hardly top copy at a time like this.'
  'Don't know,' said Roly Smith. 'People are beginning to talk about
something major.'
  The three journalists turned on their stools as a fourth man entered the
bar. 'Hi there, Lateman. Where you been hiding all this time?' called Roly.
   'Been about. But not much longer,' Lateman said. 'Came in to say that
I'm off. See you fellas around somewhere.'
  'C'mon, have a drink first,' Zarnuk insisted.
  'Just time for one. Then . . . I've got my ticket. New York by tomorrow's
Pan Am flight. The party's over here.'



   Outside on the pavement again, Dan Lateman, red eyes screwed up
tight in his lined white face, stood searching for his car. But it was not his
which careered down an almost deserted Park Lane and hooked him off
the kerb, dragging his limp and lifeless remains some fifty yards before
screaming on into the London night.



                               The End