For the Good of the State

by Anthony Price

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

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

  ‘Mose—Colonel Sheldon … he’s nobody’s fool. And he knows David Audley—they worked together ten years ago, Henry.’

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

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

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

  Garrod Harvey seemed to have forgotten his bad back, too. ‘Sheldon knew exactly what was coming—he knew it all: Zarubin and the Poles—and that poor Polish priest— are just water under the bridge to him … the Thames, or the Vistula, or the Moskva—all just water.’ Nod. ‘And he’d heard all the rumours, too—the Irish joke, and the Polish joke … And he wasn’t laughing, Henry.’ Nod. ‘What he told me was that the Americans aren’t going to stand by and see Audley put down—Audley and Research and Development both. They don’t want it—and they won’t have it.’

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

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

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

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

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

  Garrod Harvey’s chin came up, reminding Henry Jaggard unbearably of his father, who had also been gutsy in a tight corner. ‘No, Henry—you don’t understand. What I mean—’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Jaggard’s spirits rose again. Viking might yet be salvaged, even if only for a few more months. But, almost more than that, he liked the way Garry Harvey was at last refusing to be overawed. ‘The Americans value R & D. Well, so do I—and I’m not proposing to dismantle it, just to bring it to heel.’

  ‘But Audley—’

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

  ‘They want no change, Henry.’

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

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

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

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

  Jaggard stared at him.

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

  Jaggard stared at him.

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

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

  Harvey nodded again. ‘Panin needs to bring off something difficult, for his own sake. Zarubin was no great problem—and if they knew there was a traitor in the London Embassy … that didn’t require Audley us a catalyst—much too dangerous, Audley.’ From nod to shake. ‘Audley’s not a bit of cheese. He’s not a mouse, either—he’s a bloody tiger, Henry: he needs a big tiger-trap, is what he needs.’ Garrod Harvey watched Henry Jaggard make all the final connections. ‘So what happens, if you—and the Minister and the FCO—get what you want? Audley gets thrown out … and, whatever you say, that’ll totally dislocate R & D for at least six months, and maybe even longer. Maybe even for ever, perhaps? And that really would be a feather in Panin’s cap.’ The slow, irritating shake recommenced. ‘Henry, we were trying to shibbuwich David Audley and R & D with him. But suppose the KGB was trying to do the same thing?’

  All Jaggard could do now was stare.

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

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

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

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

  ‘Henry—’

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

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

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

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

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

  Garrod Harvey blinked. ‘I’ll do that. But I was going to tell you … about Colonel Butler, Henry.’

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

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

  ‘Yes, Garry?’ Jaggard felt that he was ready for any shock now. ‘You’re not about to ask for a transfer to R & D, are you?’

  The expression vanished. ‘Good God, no!’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then.’ Jaggard concealed his vast relief. ‘Don’t worry, my dear fellow. Audley has won, and we have lost. But it was my fault, not yours. It was a good idea … and we haven’t lost for ever.’

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

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

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

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

  ‘Yes … well, he said that he felt R & D was getting too isolated—that this business on Exmoor was a good illustration of how dangerous such isolation could be, with his most valuable officer going in blind and risking his neck like a subaltern in the trenches. So he wants to integrate his work much more closely with what you need in the future.’

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

  ‘Yes.’ The next nod was so vigorous that it hurt. ‘Regular meetings—joint policy briefings, the lot.’

  ‘God Almighty!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The End