Wotan was in a thoroughly bad mood. This Lindsay business confirmed all his worst suspicions about Ackerman. The man was not only a slimy Jew, but also an oafish incompetent into the bargain. The Lindsay kidnap fiasco would cost the Teutonic Order nothing in cash terms, because nothing had come of it. He saw no good reason to pay towards the cost of a catastrophe. But he had lost a considerable amount of face, and the political impact might be incalculable. The British were bound to take umbrage, and sharp protests were probably already winging their way westward across the Atlantic. Fiascos also created material for coups d’etat, and sometimes coups de grace, and he knew that younger members of the Order had begun plotting to send him into retirement, and perhaps into an unwonted grave. So he sat in the back room of the Berlin police station, drumming his fingers impatiently on the table, with his growing irritation tempered by a little anxiety, though as Grand Master he would never have admitted to anything so craven as fear. Ackerman was making him wait, and it was a bad sign, a mark of disrespect. This Lindsay business must be resolved, and quickly – the Englishman must be tracked, and hunted, and caught, and eliminated.
His two bodyguards stood behind him, and watched his fingers drumming, and were both thoughtful. Wotan had let himself be wrongfooted by a stupid English journalist: it was the misjudgement of a man growing old. The Order had a mission to strive towards a new Reich, and should be no place for feeble minded pensioners. One put his hand to the gun nestling in a holster under his armpit, but his companion frowned slightly. The Grand Council of the Order was due to meet soon, and the assembled Knights would be discussing the future. It was still too early for progressive measures.
Ackerman arrived with two men of his own. The situation was deteriorating with every telex. Martins and his team had been locked up by the British, and the Aerocommander had been impounded, whilst London and Washington haggled. The Brits were demanding a cash payment for mounting a major police operation, coupled with access to full details of CIA operations throughout Germany – West, East and Berlin. CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, was fighting a delaying action, but the White House was growing impatient, and London seemed very likely to get most of what it was seeking. Ackerman suspected that men on the spot might then be called on to pay a very heavy penalty for protecting national interests, and perhaps even a supreme penalty, because Langley had recently become paranoid about operational failures. He had heard whispers of men being sent to the ‘Nam on terminal missions, and he feared that his days might be numbered. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he sat himself at the table facing Wotan.. He did not feel safe, and he was not about to take shit from any kind of goddamed Kraut.
‘Okay, what do you want?’ He spoke in English, without preamble, biting out his words, and his jawline was set hard.
Wotan’s eyes were chips of blue ice. ‘Lindsay muss erledigt werden.’
Ackerman flinched. ‘Erledigt’ meant eliminated. But it was also a word found over and again in the files of WWII extermination camps, stamped across entries for Holocaust victims, and it was an insult to all humanity. He prepared to get to his feet again, shaking his head. Wotan was wasting his time. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Sie wollen es nicht.’ It was a statement, and judgement.
Ackerman stared at the seated man in black, with his great silver cross, and all the pressures building inside him suddenly coalesced. He was not going to be spoken to in this way, by some stupid Kraut nazi revivalist on a CIA payroll, for all the world as though he were a servant, or perhaps a camp inmate. He leaned forward, his fists resting on the table, and both his bodyguards instinctively slid their hands inside their jackets, because they could scent a storm wind rising. ‘Listen, you damn Kraut. I’ve got Langley giving me sixteen kinds of shit because your goons fouled up. Lindsay can go and do what he damned well likes. I’m having no fucking part of it.’
Now Wotan’s two men were tense.
‘It was your plane, Jew.’ Wotan spat out his words, and now he was speaking in English.
Suddenly four men were holding guns in their hands, and the atmosphere in the room was electric. Fate was poised to toss a coin, and the coin had victory engraved on one side, and death on the other. Four men watched each other, and each waited for a sign.
The sound of a door opening, and the sharp click of a safety catch being disengaged, broke the silence. A police inspector stood in the doorway at the end of the room, holding a machine carbine braced against his hip, and two more armed policemen stood behind him. The four bodyguards hesitated, glancing at the inspector out of the corner of their eyes, trying to guess how he would decide.
The inspector’s face was neutral. He looked at each of the four men in turn, but his eyes revealed nothing. Then he gestured briefly with his own gun. ‘Put your guns away, all of you.’
For a moment the room seemed frozen in time. Then the four bodyguards reluctantly replaced their weapons. It was not often that a man came so close to a choice between victory and death.
The inspector stepped back. ‘Now, get out of here, the lot of you, and stay out.’
Wotan rose from his seat and strode to the door. He did not look back at Ackerman. He would have Lindsay hunted, and Lindsay would die, and his death would be a reassertion of his mastery. Ackerman walked out of the room quickly, followed by his two companions. Never, never again, would he have anything to do with this evil man.
Major Jones liked the ‘In and Out’, the Army and Navy Club in Piccadilly. The big leather armchairs in the smoking room were a good place to rest and relax, and much better for pondering weighty matters than some shoebox of an office at the security services building in Curzon Street. Curzon Street’s coffee was also vile. It was early Monday evening, and he was ensconced in a corner with Winstanley and a couple of very senior men from the Foreign Office and the Home Office, and the man from the FO was trying his best to keep a straight face.
‘Where was he now?’
‘Put him on a plane to New York.’ Major Jones had detailed Lindsay’s adventures in Berlin, West Germany, London and Suffolk, and enjoyed telling the tale. He had even offered Lindsay a job. But he kept this to himself.
Tarrant, the man from the Home Office, pursed his lips in disapproval. He was a career civil servant, with a security brief, and knew his statutory regulations inside out. Lindsay was a common or garden criminal, no more, no less, and should have been locked up. ‘You say you returned his money?’
Major Jones nodded. He was growing thirsty for something rather stronger than coffee. But Tarrant was a dyed-in-the-wool puritan, and single malts must wait.
Tarrant scowled. The whole thing was most irregular. He must pen a sharp memo to the Home Secretary in the morning, and copy it to the Treasury. The FO was breaking all known bounds.
Lascelles, the man from the FO, smiled gently. He outranked Tarrant, but saw no reason to play a heavy hand. ‘Come, come, Christopher. Lindsay’s not a criminal, he’s a good thing. He’s done us a very useful service by nailing some nasty people in Berlin.’
‘Breaking the law can never be a good thing, Permanent Secretary.’ Tarrant’s voice was tart. He was a solid Northerner, from a solid grammar school and red-brick universaty background, and both despised and mistrusted moral short-cuts. Lascelles and Jones had taken the law into their own hands, and Winstanley must call them both to account.
Winstanley feigned deafness. Somebody very important was on his way to the club, and he suspected that Lindsay now ranked as no more than a pawn. Tarrant was being damnably irritating, but then red brick men always were. He would be ruled out of court, if things went right, and good men would be able to get down to some serious drinking.
He saw a figure approaching across the smoking room and got to his feet quickly. One always stood for a Minister of the Crown.
Lascelles and Major Jones, who were both facing towards the smoking room door, rose with equal alacrity. Tarrant, who had his back to the door, watched them with a slightly bemused look, but then shot to his feet as well.
Charles Wakeham, the Foreign Secretary, was above all an elegant man. He might have been a touch heavier than he should be, but his suits always echoed the very best Savile Row sentiments. He had not yet dined, but he intended to dine well – good dinners were ministerial perks. He nodded affably to Lascelles and Winstanley, inspected Major Jones quizzically, and ignored Tarrant.
‘Right, this Lindsay business.’ His tone was jovial, and Tarrant looked as black as thunder. He was one honest man surrounded by members of a public school and Oxbridge mafia, and knew that he was about to be trampled. But Wakeham was a Minister of the Crown, and he was powerless.
Major Jones began to reprise his account of Lindsay’s adventures, but Wakeham lifted a ministerial hand. ‘Yes, yes, yes, I’ve already read your briefing. Good stuff. But is this place dry all of a sudden?’
He looked at the four men enquiringly. A smokingroom steward already stood attentively at his elbow. Ministers of the Crown are men to respect.
Lascelles was a career diplomat, and a well-travelled man. He chose a really dry fino. Winstanley opted for brandy and soda, making Lascelles wince visibly, and Major Jones chose a large single malt, Skye’s finest. Tarrant made a face. He did not approve of drinking during working hours.
Wakeham beamed. He had enjoyed a good afternoon, an excellent afternoon, and he had no time for misery.
‘Come on, come on.’ He fixed Tarrant with a commanding stare. The man was plainly a killjoy. Tarrant reluctantly ordered a half pint of bitter. Wakeham waited for the drinks to arrive, signed the chit with a flourish, in best ministerial style, and leaned back with a large single malt of his own. It was a benison, and Major Jones smiled to himself.
‘Well, we’ve got the Yanks in the bag.’ Wakeham beamed again. ‘I’ve talked to Harry the Hamster on the phone, and they’ve caved in completely. We’ve sent this man Martins back to Germany in a straight jacket – he apparently drank himself silly, and then cracked up. His two companions went with him. Washington is going to pay us a very substantial sum for all the bother they’ve caused, and we’re keeping their plane as a souvenir. Harry has also agreed with the President to purge the CIA. We’re going to work much more closely with them in Germany from now on, and their man in Berlin has been given rather a tricky job in Vietnam.’
Wakeham looked solemn for a moment. Harry the Hamster was the American Secretary of State, and had promised that the CIA’s man in Berlin would not last long. It seemed rather a drastic option, but then one could never quite understand Americans. He took a large sip of whisky, and stared at Major Jones. ‘Where’s Lindsay now?’
‘Flying first-class to New York, sir.’
Wakeham frowned. ‘Isn’t that rather drastic? Lion’s den?’
‘He’s on his way to the Bahamas, sir. The only flight to Nassau left some time earlier, I thought it best to get him out of the country as quickly as possible, didn’t want him talking to any journalist chums.’ Major Jones did not look at Tarrant, but he knew that he was scoring points.
‘Hmm, yes. Good thinking.’ Wakeham nodded approvingly, and it was an imprimatur. ‘We don’t want him harmed.’
‘No, sir.’ Major Jones had already telexed an old friend, now a top man in the Bahamas Police Force, and planned to follow through with a telephone briefing. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him.’
Wakeham nodded again. Everything was really going very well. ‘What about his friends? Weren’t there some girls? And a photographer?’
‘Read them the Riot Act, sir. Top secret, national interest, all that sort of thing.’ Major Jones did not mention also dividing up a substantial sum of cash, lifted from Martin, and originally intended as payment for Wotan’s hired thugs. Some things were best quietly tidied away.
‘And the journalists who were with Lindsay in Berlin?’
‘D Notice,sir. They can’t write a thing.’
‘Good, good.’ Wakeham beamed. Everything had been neatly arranged, and HMG had profited greatly. He looked hard at Lascelles, Winstanley, and Major Jones in turn, but he did not looked at Tarrant. ‘How about a spot of dinner? I’m told the claret here is quite fine.’
Tarrant got uncomfortably to his feet. He knew when he was not wanted. But he would still pen his sharp memo, and copy it to the Treasury. Regulation was the backbone to good government, and flouting the law was a path towards chaos.
Wakeham watched him walk away across the smokingroom and drained his glass. ‘These damned grammar school and redbrick type are always so pompous.’ He spoke as though musing to himself, but it was a statement of unity.
Whilst men of state sat drinking at the Army and Navy Club, Lindsay drank at the first class upper deck bar on a BOAC 747. One side of him was jubilant, because he was off on an adventure again. But he also had an underlying feeling of wistfulness, almost regret. Major Jones had paid for a good lunch and commandeered a police van to ferry himself, Lindsay, the four girls – including Melanie – and Cormack back to London. He had allowed Lindsay just an hour to shower, and change, and pack, remaining seated all the while in his livingroom, and had insisted on Aileen sitting with him. Then he had ferried Lindsay to Heathrow. But he had relented a little before leaving the flat, waiting in the hallway whilst they bid each other farewell.
They had stood looking at each other, and it had been a moment of embarrassment, until suddenly Lindsay had realised that Aileen was trying hard not to cry. He had taken both her hands in his, and for the first time in a very long while in his life had been completely stumped for words.
‘I’m being silly, I know I’m being silly.’ Aileen had begun to sob openly. ‘But we had such a braw adventure together, and now you’re going.’
‘I must.’ Lindsay had felt a heel. But the Bahamas had called, and London no longer seemed safe.
‘I wanted to celebrate with you.’ Now her hands held his tightly, almost despairingly. ‘I only met you yesterday, and we’ve been rushing around ever since. I wanted to have some time with you, just you on your own.’
Her eyes had held his very directly, and Lindsay had bent to kiss her. She had clung to him, and he had wavered for a moment. But Major Jones had coughed discreetly in the background.
‘You will come back?’ Aileen had held on to his hand as though fearing never to see him again.
Lindsay had smiled a little shamefacedly. ‘You’ve got the keys to this place.’ Then he had turned away, and left his flat without looking back.
Heathrow had been an anti-climax. Major Jones had sailed them both straight past Customs and Passport Control, sharing a quick malt in the departure lounge, and shaken Lindsay’s hand. He had also returned Delahaye’s gun, barring the doorway to the men’s toilets as Lindsay buckled the holster back into place.
‘You may need this.’ His blue eyes had almost twinkled. Then he had shaken Lindsay’s hand again, and it had been a Godspeed.