Sion Crossing

by Anthony Price

  For Katherine

  Sion Crossing

  Anthony Price

  First published in 1984

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  Latimer in London: Temptation

  LATIMER WAS TRAPPED between the devil and the deep blue sea. Coming to the Oxbridge Club had been a mistake, for he almost always met people he disliked there. But some wayward impulse, generated by the minor annoyances and petty defeats of the day, had turned him into it off Piccadilly, and now he was justly served: the bar had been bad enough, and he had retreated from it; so he was caught between the CIA man and a colleague he detested, and he must face one of them—Howard Morris up the stairs or David Audley on the other side of the entrance doors.

  Nevertheless, once identified, the dilemma was not too hard to resolve. The swarthy CIA man would merely nod, looking through him with blank unfriendliness, but Audley might well be amused enough to give him a Judas smile. And after the day’s tribulations that was not to be risked.

  He relinquished the brass handle of the door and turned towards the stairs again, for all the world as though just arriving.

  “Oliver, my dear fellow!” The American’s face lit up, and he took the first marble step down towards Latimer.

  But that was all wrong—Latimer’s own foot, directed upwards, tried to change direction and only just cleared the rising tread. Not the voice … Howard Morris might look like one of Zapata’s lieutenants, but long years on the right side of the Atlantic had anglicized his diction and his vocabulary with monstrous deception … not the voice, but the friendliness was unnerving.

  “Just the man!” The American took another step down, and then another, until further retreat would have been impossibly discourteous, even for Latimer.

  For the first time in his life Latimer looked for Audley’s arrival with relief, waiting for the swish of the heavy doors to rescue him. For Audley and Morris were—almost notoriously were—thick as thieves, exchanging favours and feeding each other with classified tit-bits to their mutual benefit. They would surely be glad to see one another, to his happy exclusion.

  But no swish delivered him, and there came no change in the muted hum of the Piccadilly traffic-jam behind him.

  “Just the very man!” Morris took another step, and then stopped. “Come on up, my dear fellow—come on up!”

  Still no merciful swish. Latimer looked quickly over his shoulder, and was galled to see that there was nobody there now. But he couldn’t have imagined Audley. He had been there, on the outer step beyond the doors. He had been there, but now he wasn’t.

  “Come on up, Oliver!”

  What the devil could the CIA man want? Latimer felt himself drawn upwards inexorably, and now the CIA man was gesturing him up, instead of beckoning.

  “Let’s not go to the bar.” The American cocked his head at Latimer. “There are some dreadful guys there … This time of day, with only a bit of luck, they may serve us a crafty drink in the library, if there’s no one about.”

  Such exact knowledge clearly indicated that the CIA man was an Oxbridge member, and not just a lurking guest. And though he was not, so far as Latimer’s suddenly-fevered recollection of his dossier could recall, either an Oxford or a Cambridge product … yet that still left Trinity College, Dublin … Could he be a TCD man?

  He knew where the library was, anyway. Also, the nod he gave to the white-coated servant hovering at the intersection was born of recognition and experience. But, in any case, no American (let alone a CIA friend of Audley’s) could be taken for granted.

  “Ah!” The CIA man surveyed the empty library with satisfaction. The Oxbridge club library was reputed to be more than adequate on sport and good enough on globe-trotting, but useless on everything else, so that it was usually empty during opening hours. “Over there, I think.”

  Latimer followed the line of the pointing finger, to the most shaded and obscure corner, full of doubt. If nothing could be taken for granted where Howard Morris was concerned, what indeed could be taken by Oliver, my dear fellow?

  Something less than nothing. But it would be rude, when for some reason his instinct was towards politeness, to inquire about Trinity College, Dublin … Besides which, it would be to admit that he didn’t know any better.

  “Let’s do something about that drink—eh?” The CIA man knew where the bell was. “I don’t know about you, but … for me, it’s been one of those days, Oliver.”

  Oliver further cooled Latimer. They had met, and he had raised his eyebrows and moved obediently to commands, but he hadn’t said anything yet … not even Hullo—but Morris didn’t seem to mind.

  And now there wasn’t time for that. On the wink, the white-coated servant had followed them, radar-directed to the biggest tip of the evening.

  “What’ll it be?” Howard Morris gave the man a nod for his usual, whatever it was in the library at this usefully dead hour. He had done this before, that nod indicated.

  “I’ll have—” He didn’t want anything, but he couldn’t say nothing “—the bar red—the French, not the Spanish.” He looked at the American candidly, absurdly strengthened by that trivial decision. “You know, Colonel, I was tempted to say ‘That’s very civil of you, Howard’. But that would be to insult us both, I think.”

  White teeth showed in the brown face. “Yes?”

  “Yes.” Strength, however irrationally, fed on strength: it was a quality which pulled itself up by its own bootstraps, for the most inadequate reasons. “Let’s put it at its lowest level: you’re buying me a drink—and that arouses my curiosity more than my gratitude, I suppose.”

  The CIA man looked at him, but the friendly—almost amused—expression in his eyes didn’t change. “Yes, I can go along with that. But it’s quite simple really. I was looking for David Audley—I heard he might be dropping in here.” He shrugged. “He hasn’t turned up. I thought you might know where he is.”

  Latimer hoped his face didn’t betray his thoughts: it was quite simple—all too bloody simple for words. If the man was in some hole, who but Audley would he want to see? Not Oliver St John Latimer, for sure!

  But that hardly justified a drink in private.

  “Audley?” He echoed the detested name casually to give himself time to think the thought through. It had been on the tip of his tongue to deny all knowledge of, and interest in, the bloody man, and end matters there. But that would hardly deceive the American, who could be relied on to know all about the old rivalries and their recent ironic and humiliating outcome—he might even know of that from Audley’s own lips, for it was a tale Audley would enjoy telling.

  “You haven’t seen him, by any chance?”

  “Yes.” Truth. “Not far from here.” More truth. “But I rather think you’ve missed him.” It would have been easy for the American to ask that simple question on the stairs, without the necessity of this prolonged encounter. That was no less true—perhaps even more true.

  Morris looked at his watch. “So … he’ll most likely be on his way home by now?”

  “Very likely.” The thought was running smoothly now towards its destination. The American’s information had been correct: Audley had been coming to the Oxbridge. And as Latimer himself had prevented the encounter purely by chance—by arriving himself in the club on impulse—the American couldn’t have known that.

&n
bsp; “Yes. And he likes his family weekends.” Morris was thinking aloud, and Latimer could follow his train of thought. “Otherwise … he’s pretty busy at the moment, isn’t he?”

  It was Latimer’s turn to shrug. “I don’t doubt it.” Morris was undoubtedly in some hole, and with very little time to climb out of it, if he was reduced to clutching at Oliver St John Latimer.

  “Still Cheltenham?”

  Latimer said nothing. Cheltenham was highly classified, and it rankled with him that he wasn’t there instead of Audley (and he would not have miked off home every weekend, either). But the possibility that he was about to get some interesting information because of that soothed his rancour somewhat.

  Morris nodded, eyeing him with transparent casualness. “And I take it that Jack Butler’s working you to the bone as well?”

  “Oh … I’ve one or two things on the go.” Now it was certain. And the pure healing joy of it was that what he was about to receive had been intended for Audley. Indeed, it was so just and appropriate that he changed his mind on that instant and reached out into the pit to meet Morris halfway. “Nothing madly urgent.”

  The servant materialized beside them, setting down their drinks on the table.

  “Cheers, Latimer.” The CIA man drank deeply and gratefully from a pewter tankard, then touched away the froth from his moustache with a brown finger. There was some intriguing ancestry there somewhere, thought Latimer. Possibly red Indian? Hadn’t even Winston Churchill some of that fierce blood in him, from his American connection?

  He raised his glass, and, although it was the same stuff as he had drunk at the bar earlier, it tasted very much better. For the first time in a long while he felt better, too.

  Morris set his tankard down. “You know Senator Cookridge is in town?”

  Senator Cookridge. From somewhere in the Mid-West, or the further West … it didn’t matter. Americans were not his business, thank God!

  “You ever met him?” Morris took his silence as an affirmative.

  “No.” He recalled that the Senator headed some American Defence and Security committee—again not his business.

  “No, I guess not. American affairs are not exactly your scene, at that.” The white teeth flashed. “Hell! I’ve only met him once—across a crowded room. Not my scene either. Until now.”

  Latimer felt he had to make some contribution by way of encouragement. “Defence and Security … ?” He took another sip of wine to cover the vagueness of his knowledge. He felt more at home in the Politburo and the Supreme Soviet than the American Senate.

  “Now, he is. Agriculture was his … specialty.” Morris pronounced the word in the British way. “The ultimate weapon—you’ve been out there, Latimer?”

  The man knew perfectly well. “I’ve never been to the New World, Colonel.”

  “For God’s sake—anything but ‘Colonel’.” The American’s eyes clouded momentarily. “The last thing I flew was a P-51—as a captain. I was in sole-command of one man, and he was scared shitless that last time.” The eyes unclouded, and the teeth showed again. “Where Cookridge comes from … you could feed half the world. And heat the other half with the fossil fuel underneath.”

  He was talking about power in more senses than one, decided Latimer. “But now he’s in defence and security.”

  “And political muscle.” Morris paused. “He came to it late, but he’s in it now—he whispers, and it deafens me, you’d better believe it.”

  The ex-P-51 captain was flying scared again, it seemed to Latimer. But, since he himself was still grounded firmly on British soil, with nothing promised or owed, that only made matters more interesting.

  On the other hand, in his helpful vice-Audley role, he could afford to be sympathetic, with all his options still open. “I do believe it.” He couldn’t say ‘Colonel’, but he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘Howard’ even now. “We have something of the same problem … if less acutely, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, I guess you have.” Under stress Morris became less anglicized. “But … the hell of it is, Latimer … I want a favour of you.”

  “A favour?” That was spelling it out with almost indecent clarity—so much so that Latimer was momentarily surprised. For there was not one single reason why Oliver St John Latimer should do Colonel Howard Morris a favour. Morris had never done him any good—Morris was David Audley’s friend and ally, not his.

  “And there isn’t a single goddam’ reason why you should do it—I know.” It was as though the American had eavesdropped on his thoughts. “Not now, of all times. I know that too.”

  He knew that too, thought Latimer a little wearily. And the plain burden of that was … the American knew the still-classified result of the promotion contest—knew that Butler, who hadn’t looked to compete, had been forced to win when Audley had scorned to do so … and that Oliver St John Latimer, who had run the best race, had been fobbed off with second place.

  For Christ’s sake … who wanted to be deputy-director?

  “No, I suppose there isn’t.” He freed himself from further contemplation of the recent and disastrous past quite easily: it had been crowding his thoughts too much over the last few days, with no result itself except to diminish his customary efficiency in the discharge of routine matters. But pure chance might now be offering something which might be of real significance, and he knew he was not going to reject the opportunity. Rather, it concentrated his understanding of the pointlessness of any further analysis of the setback. Because he had not resigned, then he was deputy-director—or would be so in just one week’s time. That was the situation exactly: he would have more money, which he didn’t need, and more power, but not enough of it, and not the power he wanted. But he must make the best of it, and he would start doing that now—right here and now.

  Senator Cookridge.

  Senator Thomas Cookridge, from somewhere in the limitless Mid-West, the world’s granary, who was now chairman of the President’s new Atlantic Defence Committee—in London for a flying visit to meet British defence chiefs: that, together with a blurred photograph of the Senator in The Times, was what he remembered.

  He took another sip of wine, saw that his glass was almost empty, and reached towards the bell. And then looked at the CIA man. “However … be that as it may—” This was the deputy-director speaking, by God! “—just what is the Senator’s problem?”

  Morris met the look, and then relaxed perceptibly in his armchair as the white-coated servant appeared again.

  “The same?” Latimer inquired politely. It warmed him to know that he had moved out of debit and far into credit at a stroke. Perhaps the Americans hadn’t influenced the promotion decision directly. For, flawed though Colonel Butler’s decision might have been—flawed though it had been—he was not the man to let a foreign power’s influence play any significant part in it. Butler’s greatest strength and greatest weakness was that he was an honest man.

  The American nodded, and the nod accepted more than another drink. “Thanks, Latimer.”

  Rather than American influence, direct or indirect, it might very well have been his own lack of American experience and contacts such as this, thought Latimer self-critically. And, to be unmercifully honest with himself, that had been not simply due to his ambitious calculation that treason and danger came out of the East, not the West, but also a matter of personal preference and prejudice. As always, failure and defeat began at home, no matter what external reasons presented themselves at the end.

  But that was in the past now—for now he was in the present and the future. He still had a few precious years over Butler and Audley both, and chance was giving him a promising beginning.

  “It isn’t exactly a problem he’s gotten himself—no.” Morris’s mouth twisted. “It’s … he wants a favour—that would be more accurate. I’m just the middle-man … the messenger boy, to sound you out.”

  On one level that was disappointing. The degree of difficulty and challenge lessened, and the urge
ncy and possible profit with them. But at least, if Morris had effectively lowered the stakes, he had thereby almost certainly eliminated the grosser and more egregious ingredients of scandal too. Sex and violence and corruption, alike the British tabloid newspapers’ preoccupation and the KGB’s opportunity, happily receded: Latimer had been forced to deal with all three all too often, albeit safely at second or third hand; but he had never enjoyed the dealing, or been able to resign himself to them as facts of life.

  “What does he want?” A third level, tantalizingly nebulous, brightened Latimer. Even if it was none of those, it was something which Howard Morris couldn’t handle easily by himself, without this humiliation. And, since Morris was a man of great experience, considerable seniority, and undoubted ingenuity, the lost difficulty and challenge of the first level were reinstated: whatever it was the Senator wanted, it wasn’t going to be easy to give it to him.

  The servant returned, with another glass and another frothing tankard, and a chit to sign. Expansively, Latimer dropped one of the pound coins which had been weighing down his trouser-pocket on to the silver tray; from which it disappeared like lightning, with not the slightest acknowledgement of the excess. If that was the going price of service in the library it was no wonder the man had been hovering for the second round, he concluded.

  “You,” said Morris.

  “What?” Latimer’s hand, closing round his new glass, slopped its contents on the table.

  “He’ll be here in about half-an-hour—” Morris looked at his watch again “—or nearer forty minutes if he’s running to schedule. By the back entrance—there’s a room booked on the third floor, if I give the word. And as he’s due to speak at the North Atlantic Union dinner, you better believe he’ll be on time, Latimer … By which time I’ll be safe on the other side of London, with an unbreakable alibi—and you can surely rely on that, because that’s the way he wants it.” He reached for his new tankard, and drank from it. But this time the line of froth remained on his moustache. “And the way he wants it is the way he gets it, old buddy.”