Strike a Match 2

by Frank Tayell

  “You can’t have come all this way to tell Ruth that she has an appointment,” Maggie said, as Ruth tried to work out the etiquette of the situation.

  “I was in the area. It was because of something you said, actually,” he said, speaking to Ruth. “I was trying to work out why the telegraph wires might have been cut. She told you about that?”

  “She did,” Maggie said. “Did you discover the answer?”

  “No, though I thought I had,” he said. “What do we have that’s worth stealing? Not jewels, not money. There’s food, but why not take that from a farm? Last night a shipment of rifle ammunition arrived from Loch Creigh, destined for the Naval training centre. I thought cutting the telegraph wires might have been practice, and they might try to rob the train.”

  “I take it they didn’t?” Maggie asked.

  “It arrived without incident, which means we’re back to square one.”

  “You think there’s a theft at the heart of all of this?” Maggie asked.

  Mitchell took a sip of coffee. “At the heart of all crimes lies theft. Either of property, of life, or of land. It’s sometimes that the land being stolen is an entire country.”

  “And I know that you got that from a book, Henry,” Maggie said.

  Mitchell grinned and suddenly looked twenty years younger. “We do have a meeting at the embassy,” he said, speaking to Ruth. “So get yourself ready.”

  Ruth went upstairs to dress as the two old friends talked in voices too low for her to hear.

  “Why are we going to the embassy?” Ruth asked, as they cycled toward the waking heart of the city.

  “Yesterday, Riley spoke to Jameson,” Mitchell said. “All she got from him was a claim that the ambassador was as much of a target as the Prime Minister. I don’t know if we can believe him, nor do I know how it helps us. At the university, Kowalski learned that three students and two members of the janitorial staff disappeared during the early part of the year.”

  “They’ve gone missing?” Ruth asked.

  “Missing, at least for us, is a technical term. The students withdrew, and the staff quit. They did it properly, handing in their written notice. The letters gave no reason behind their decision, but before they left, all of them were talking about injustice and the secret threat posed by technology.”

  “Five people. Plus Ned Ludd makes six,” Ruth said.

  “Don’t forget the other telegraph lines that were cut,” Mitchell said. “We’re looking for more than five saboteurs, and there could be an entirely mundane explanation for the disappearance of these five individuals. Perhaps they got it into their heads that the Holy Grail was hidden in a crypt under the British Museum. Or that, before the Blackout, someone in Warwick had invented portable cold-fusion. It wouldn’t be the first time. Besides, why quit when they could feign illness for a couple of days, commit the sabotage, and return as if nothing had happened. They did change back to their ordinary clothes, after all.”

  “But?” Ruth said. “I mean, there is a ‘but’, isn’t there?”

  Mitchell smiled. “Of course. I think that Emmitt was using the university as a recruiting ground in the same way that he used that pub, the Marquis, to recruit Josh Turnbull and Hailey Lyons. If so, it means that after they took off their tunics, the saboteurs no longer had an ordinary life to disappear back into. In the same way that Turnbull was kept at that house after he was recruited, these Luddites are being harboured somewhere.”

  Ruth mulled that over for a quarter of a mile. “So is that why we’re going to see Fairmont?”

  “No. Last night, I got a message from Agent Clarke saying that Fairmont wanted to speak to us.”

  “Why?”

  “That is another good question.”

  The embassy occupied an old four-storey office block to the west of the main railway station. Next to it was a patch of mostly cleared rubble, and next to that was the central telegraph switching station.

  “Where are the wires?” Ruth asked.

  “For the telegraph? They come in underground, through the pipework that once carried the fibre-optic cables,” Mitchell said.

  Next to the telegraph, was the office of the newspaper. Opposite, the road was lined with two-storey terraced houses. It was easy to spot which belonged to the Americans by the Stars and Stripes flying from poles bolted to the brickwork. Those were nothing compared to the flag inside the compound’s gate. The pole was taller than the four-storey embassy, and the flag was at least twenty feet wide at the top. The base was slightly narrower due to a missing corner where the fabric was scorched. Ruth wondered where the flag had come from – it was imposing in a way that the flags hanging outside Parliament weren’t. It offered a stark contrast to the drab office building that didn’t even bear a sign. Though, with that flag, they hardly needed one.

  A pair of soldiers in immaculately pressed old-world uniforms snapped to attention as they approached.

  “Mitchell and Deering, to see the ambassador,” Mitchell said.

  “Sir!” a sentry barked. Mitchell shrugged and opened the door. Inside was a hive of activity. Plastic boxes of every shape and colour were stacked on, and occasionally underneath, far sturdier wooden crates.

  “Are we really going to see the ambassador?” Ruth said.

  “Probably,” Mitchell said. “There’s a lot of guards. Have you noticed that?”

  She had. There were another two inside the entrance, again dressed in that old uniform. As she and Mitchell navigated the maze of boxes to the reception desk against the atrium’s far wall, they passed an open doorway. Inside were at least a dozen men and women, all in a mottled grey-yellow camouflage, with helmets on and rifles held at the ready.

  “They’re not ceremonial,” she murmured.

  “Mitchell and Deering. We’re expected,” Mitchell said to the woman behind the desk.

  “Yes, of course,” the receptionist said. She reached behind the counter, picked up a telephone, pressed a button, held it to her ear, and frowned. “They’ve already disconnected the switchboard. Please excuse me.” She disappeared through a door behind the desk.

  “They have phones!” Ruth hissed. “Working phones!”

  “Not at the moment they don’t,” Mitchell replied. “I’d say it’s an intercom system using the old telephone wires and a mechanical switchboard.”

  “We should get one for Police House,” Ruth said.

  “I hope not. Phone calls are one thing about the old world I don’t miss. Now, remember that this is foreign soil. The ambassador is an ally, but he’ll have an agenda of his own.”

  “So what should I say if he asks about the investigation?”

  “Tell him the truth,” Mitchell said. “He’ll already know most of it. The Prime Minister will have told him. You know they play chess?”

  Before Ruth could reply, the door opened and Agent Clarke stepped into the lobby. Ruth wasn’t entirely sure to which government agency the woman belonged, but she wore her black suit as if it was the dress blues of the Marines standing sentry outside.

  “Good morning, officers. Welcome to America. Come this way.” She indicated a door in a corner of the atrium.

  “I take it you’re moving,” Mitchell said.

  Clarke seemed to consider that. “Yes,” the agent finally said, having given the question far more deliberation than such a brief answer deserved.

  “Where to?” Mitchell asked. Inside the door was a stairwell.

  “Upstairs,” Clarke said.

  “You’re moving all of this upstairs?” Mitchell replied.

  “I mean you should go upstairs,” Clarke said. Ruth reached the first landing before the agent continued. “We’re moving to the apartment block opposite the radio antenna.”

  “The one Emmitt used as his sniper’s nest?” Mitchell asked. “Isn’t that a little ostentatious?”

  Clarke gave a shrug as if to say that while she may have an opinion on that, she wasn’t going to share it with these officers of a foreign p
ower.

  The ambassador’s office was plainly furnished with a quintet of shabby armchairs in one corner, a utilitarian desk in the other, and a grey metal cabinet against a wall. The only decorations, if they could be called that, were five clocks. All showed different times, from four to nine hours behind.

  “Cadet Deering, I wanted to thank you for saving my life,” the ambassador said, as Clarke closed the door. “I understand Jameson informed you the assassination was planned so they could get two birds with one stone, if not one bullet. Personally, I don’t believe that was the only motive. I doubt it mattered which of us died, as long as it was during the broadcast. But you stopped it, and as I’m alive to thank you, I will. Thank you.”

  “It… it was nothing, sir,” Ruth said. “I was just doing my job. But how did you know what Jameson said?”

  “I have my sources,” Ambassador Perez said.

  “He means the Prime Minister,” Mitchell said. “You do, don’t you, sir?”

  “Indeed I do. Friends talk, detective, and what are Britain and America if not friends? And we repay our debts, so if there is anything I can ever do for you, cadet, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Um… thank you,” Ruth said.

  Perez flashed a smile that was gone in an instant. “Now to business,” he said. “You want speak to Fairmont and he wants to speak to you. He asked for you personally, captain. Do you think it’s connected with the telegraph lines being cut?”

  “You heard about that?” Mitchell asked.

  “The sudden absence of any telegrams is hard not to notice,” the ambassador replied, waving at his window. “The street filled with idle staff from their office, and so did the pub at the end of the road. After half an hour, there was an impromptu street-party taking place outside. I would have been tempted to join them if the reason for their lack of work wasn’t so troubling.” He smiled, and Ruth dutifully did the same. “I ask because Fairmont has been under close guard. He’s had no contact except with Agent Clarke and her trusted officers.”

  “And they are trusted,” Clarke interjected. “Sorry, sir,” she added. “But I do trust them.” It sounded as if that was something the two had argued about.

  “You’re worried that his sudden request to talk to me is somehow connected to the telegraph being cut? I couldn’t say until I speak to him,” Mitchell said. “But if you say he’s had no contact, I can’t see how the two events could be connected.”

  “Have you discovered the reason for the sabotage?” Perez asked.

  “The suspect we have in custody acted in protest against technology,” Mitchell said. “A better question is why the sabotage occurred now, and I have no answer to that.”

  “What about you, cadet? Do you have any theories?”

  “Um… no, not really,” Ruth said. “If I had to guess, I’d say that Emmitt was using them as a distraction.”

  “A distraction from what?”

  “I honestly don’t know, sir,” Ruth said.

  “Captain?” Perez prompted.

  “Nor do I, but Fairmont might. You say he wants to speak to me?”

  “Yes, in your capacity as a representative of the British government. Clarke?”

  “Up until now, he’s appeared to co-operate,” Clarke said. “He told us what information he sold and gave us the locations where he met his contacts. All were either outside or in abandoned properties. In short, they led us nowhere. Feeling that he was no longer of any use, we decided he should be sent back to the United States to stand trial for treason. That was when he requested to speak to you. He claims to have tangible information about a real and present threat, but he won’t divulge it to us.”

  “And in exchange, he wants to be set free?” Mitchell asked.

  “Surprisingly, no,” Perez said. “He wants to serve his sentence in Britain.”

  “He hasn’t asked for immunity?” Ruth asked.

  “Intriguing, isn’t it?” the ambassador replied. “Shall we go and see what he has to say?”

  Agent Clarke opened the door. Ruth and Mitchell followed her down the stairs. The ambassador followed.

  “You’re coming with us?” Ruth asked. “Don’t you have anything better to do, sir? I… I don’t mean… I mean…” She stammered to a halt.

  “You mean shouldn’t a high-ranking politician have matters of state to attend to? Yes, but I trusted Fairmont, and he betrayed me. I want to know why.”

  They descended below the ground floor and paused outside a door guarded by a sentry. Clarke took out a key from a chain around her neck.

  “There’s one door and one key. This one,” she said as if proving that Fairmont could have had no unauthorised contact. “There is a guard here.” She unlocked the door and opened it. “And inside.” Another sentry stood by the wall. Judging from the rapid blinking of her eyes, Ruth guessed she’d been dozing in the folding chair before the door had opened.

  “The guard changes every six hours,” Clarke continued. “I bring the prisoner his meals, and he doesn’t get to speak to anyone else.”

  The corridor was lit by freestanding electric lamps, with unlit candles positioned next to each.

  “Are these all cells?” Mitchell asked, indicating a closed door.

  “No, they’re used as storage,” Clarke said.

  “When we took over the building,” Perez explained, “our mission was to encourage Britain to trade with America over anywhere else. I didn’t think we’d need any cells. Fairmont himself was the one who suggested we might. The actions of a guilty conscience, perhaps?”

  “What’s inside these other rooms?” Mitchell asked.

  “Papers,” the ambassador said. “Files recovered from the old embassy in London.”

  “Anything valuable?” Ruth asked.

  “Only to a historian,” Perez said. “They’re destined for the new Library of Congress, just as soon as we’ve built it.”

  “But is there something down here that one of your staff could want to read as a pretext for getting access to the man?” Mitchell asked.

  “No,” Clarke said. “Any request would have to go through me, and no one’s made such a request. He’s in here.”

  Unlike the other doors, this one was metal and appeared to have been recently installed.

  “I’ll need you to hand over your weapons,” Clarke said.

  “Of course. This is American soil, after all,” Mitchell said. He took out his revolver and handed it to Agent Clarke. Ruth did the same. She noted, however, that the captain didn’t remove the small pistol he kept in an ankle holster.

  Fairmont was awake, sitting on a narrow cot in a room that was larger than the cells in Police House but just as sparsely furnished.

  “Nice digs,” Mitchell said. Aside from the bed, there was a bucket and a metal jug. The only other furniture was a row of fixed wooden cabinets that ran along the interior wall.

  “Do you remember me?” the captain asked, as he opened a cabinet door. There was nothing inside.

  “You’re Sergeant Mitchell. You arrested me,” Fairmont said.

  “It’s captain now,” Mitchell said, opening another cabinet door. It too was empty.

  “Congratulations,” Fairmont said. “I assume you’re here because of my offer?”

  Mitchell turned to look at him. “What do you want, and what are you offering?”

  “I’ll tell you everything I know. What I want is to serve my sentence in Britain.”

  “That’s all?” Mitchell asked.

  “Not quite,” Fairmont replied.

  “I thought not. Stop playing games,” Mitchell said. “Give me precise details, or I’ll leave and no one will come back. Start with what you want and what you’re offering, and I’ll see if it’s worth the price.”

  “I’ll serve ten years,” Fairmont said, “and be eligible for parole in five. I won’t go to prison, and it won’t be hard labour, but somewhere remote. Not Twynham. Not one of those mines in Wales or the dockyards in Scotland. Not a ship
, either. It has to be somewhere that I can stand in the fresh air and see nothing but trees and grass. There’ll be no other prisoners, just me and the guards, and they have to be British Marines. You arrange that, and when I’m there, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  “You’ve committed treason and you want to serve five years under house arrest with your meals provided. Presumably you want your guards to take care of the laundry as well.”

  “No, I don’t mind doing that,” Fairmont said. “It’s my own safety I’m talking about. I want to know that I’ll still be alive when this is all over.”

  “Do you have any other requests? Would you prefer a sea view, or somewhere up in the mountains, perhaps?”

  “As long as it’s remote, I don’t care. I want to be safe.”

  “Safe from whom?” Mitchell asked.

  Fairmont shuffled on the bed.

  “Tell us,” Ruth said gently.

  Fairmont bit his lip. “I have to, don’t I?” He swallowed, licked his lips, and took a shallow, ragged breath as if the words were fighting against being said. When he spoke, it came out in a rush. “There’s an organised crime syndicate spreading throughout the United States. I took this job to get away from them, but they’ve come over here. That’s who I’m giving up.”

  “Are they the people to whom you were selling details of those oil fields?” Mitchell asked.

  “Yeah. Donal and Jameson were their agents. If I get sent back to the States, they’ll kill me. It’s the same if I go to prison here. The only way I’ll stay alive is if I’m somewhere they can’t reach me.”

  “And for five to ten years, which is how long you think it will take for us to dismantle this group?” Mitchell said.

  “Pretty much,” Fairmont answered.

  Ruth had been expecting more guile. Perhaps the man truly believed this was his only chance.

  “Tell me about them,” Mitchell said.

  “Then you agree to my terms?” Fairmont asked.

  “No, not yet, and it’s not me who’ll make that decision. The ambassador will have to agree, and so will the Prime Minister. If you persuade me, I’ll persuade them. Start with this organisation. Who are they?”