War Game (5 page)

“Go on, Dr. Audley,” said the Minister.

Audley shook his head. “There’s no point. If you could take it away from Ratcliffe legally then you wouldn’t be here now. Which means that somehow he’s got you by the short hairs.”

The two men exchanged looks. Then the Minister nodded. “Yes … well, you’re substantially correct on both counts, I must admit. We would prefer not to see a fortune pass into Charlie Ratcliffe’s hands, for reasons which don’t concern you directly … And we naturally did look very closely into the legal possibilities. In fact it was the first thing we considered.”

And that figured, thought Audley with a twinge of personal bitterness. When it came to separating people from their money by fair means or foul, Her Majesty’s Civil Service had nothing to learn from the Great Train Robbers.

“We even contemplated encouraging the Spanish Government to raise the issue of original ownership.” The Minister’s nose wrinkled with instinctive distaste.

“You mean—Parrott’s ownership? Back in the seventeenth century?”

“That’s right.” The distaste was masked now. “But there are certain—ah—legal difficulties in that area.”

Not to mention political ones, thought Audley. To sup at that Spanish table any British politician would require a very long spoon, and a social democrat like this man would never be able to find a spoon long enough for safety.

“In any case there seems to be little doubt that Parrott was the owner, in fact and in law, by inheritance from his father,” the Minister continued. “And that he hid it, intending to recover it later. That presumption is overwhelming.”

“It could have been the other fellow who hid it—Steyning.”

“It makes no difference. Parrott was the owner. And the moment he was dead it belonged to his heir.”

His heir. That was the point, of course; all that flummery from “our legal correspondent” about treasure troves and fine points of English law paled into nothing if there was an heir.

Because then a much older and stronger law could be invoked: that it was someone’s
property
, protected even in this semi-socialist society by the most sacred laws. Only in Charlie Ratcliffe’s own revolutionary Utopia, where all property was theft, could there be any argument about that. Which was an irony because—

“His heirs,” said the Minister. “And their heirs, Dr. Audley.”

Audley had reached the same point of repetition as he spoke, but he still stared across the car incredulously. After three hundred years—after three hundred years, then this was a coincidence which overshadowed that irony as a skyscraper did a mudhut.

“Minister—are you telling me that Charlie Ratcliffe is Nathaniel Parrott’s heir?”

“I am indeed.”

“As well as the Steyning heir?”

“Is that so incredible to you?”

“It’s one hell of a coincidence.”

The Minister shook his head. “Not really. The Parrotts and the Steynings were related and they had a common heir who married a Ratcliffe, that’s all. Unfortunately for us there isn’t a shadow of doubt about the descent either; because although the Ratcliffes have managed to lose practically every acre they inherited, with the sole exception of the land on which Standingham Castle stands, they’ve never failed to produce a male heir, right down to Charles Neville, who is literally the last of the line. With no pretenders and no rival claimants.”

No pretenders and no claimants—and no arguments, thought Audley. Charlie Ratcliffe could hardly be better placed if he had struck oil, not gold: he himself, unaided, had found his own property on his own land.

“The last of the Ratcliffes,” repeated the Minister, “and now the richest. And consequently the most dangerous.” He lifted his hand to adjust his horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose. “And there is apparently absolutely nothing we can do about it. As things stand the coroner’s inquest will be a mere formality, so it seems. And that’s just two weeks from today.”

Audley looked very carefully from one serious face to the other. If what the Minister had said was true, literally true, he knew exactly what the Minister meant.

Only in England … in Britain … here was a Minister of the Crown, holding one of the most powerful posts in the Government, and a very senior Civil Servant, one of the most senior officers of the security service, explaining to him the niceties of a three-hundred-year-old inheritance and their inability to control its fate.

There is absolutely nothing we can do about it and we’re running out of time.

It could only happen in Britain. Or maybe in the United States, for all the scandals of recent years (perhaps even because of them!). And, to be absolutely fair, perhaps still in one or two of the other Western democracies… .

Only in the West, then—the West which Charlie and his kind hated and despised—only there would Charlie and his inheritance present any problem whatsoever. Elsewhere another minister would only have to nod, and another civil servant would take the nod and pass it down the line to someone whose job it was to translate ministerial nods into executive actions for the Good of the State.

But not this Minister, not this Civil Servant. Nor this State, thank God!

And the proof of that, if any proof beyond his own judgement was needed, was that they would never have come to him to get their problem solved. He was even less skilled at committing murders than he was at solving them.

So what the devil did they want, then?

“Dr. Audley.” The Minister’s voice was sharp suddenly.

“Minister?” Audley realised he had been looking clear through the Minister.

“If you’re thinking what you may be thinking, then don’t. There’s to be no killing.”

“Sir—“ Stocker bristled defensively.

“It’s all right, Brigadier.” Stocker’s reaction defused Audley’s anger before it had had time to spark. “You do yourself an injustice as well as us, Minister. So perhaps we’d better get back to your problem … and I would have thought the law was still your best bet there. Better than me, anyway.”

The Minister sat in silence for a moment, as though slightly confused by the reactions he had stirred. “The law?”

“The law’s delay, more accurately. There has to be a fuzzy edge to it somewhere—enough to hold things up, anyway. If you want to stop Ratcliffe getting his hands on ready cash … Is that the object of the operation?”

“It is, yes.”

“And do I get to know why?”

The Minister shook his head slowly. “You don’t need to know that, Dr. Audley. Let’s just say Ratcliffe can cause all kinds of trouble with it on a scale we can’t handle at this moment.”

“Then I would have thought someone would have already supplied him with the necessary funds.”

“But everyone would have known where they came from then. And that would have compromised him totally.” The head went on shaking slowly. “The whole trouble with this money is that it’s … shall we say, respectable?”

Point taken. In revolutionary circles Russian gold and Chinese gold—even at a pinch Libyan gold—was tainted. But Cromwell’s gold had been purified by three hundred years in the ground.

“I see… .” Audley pursed his lips. “Well, in that case I’d let the Spaniards contest it. You don’t need to give it to them—you can argue against them publicly. But you can use them to delay the pay-out.”

“Of course we can. But you’re forgetting your basic economics; we can delay the pay-out in a hundred and one ways, nothing easier. What we can’t affect is the credit. And at this moment Charlie’s credit is as solid as a rock in the City. In fact he’s already negotiating a big loan at a very reasonable rate of interest.”

“That’s where we need you, for a start,” said Stocker. “We can hit his interest rate even if we can’t do anything else. Through you.”

“Through me? How?”

The Minister smiled. “In certain restricted circles you have a reputation, Dr. Audley.”

“Restricted—?” Audley stared at Stocker, aghast.

“Very restricted, naturally,” continued the Minister soothingly. “We wouldn’t be shouting your name from the rooftops. It would be more in the nature of … dropping the word in the right place—that we aren’t satisfied with the situation as it is … and that we are doing something about it.”

“Dropping my name, you mean.”

“Only in the first instance. And only at the very top, of course … where you have a reputation, as I’ve already said.”

“A reputation for what?” Audley was again appalled and flattered at the same time, as well as being intensely curious. To have a fame that could go before one like the rumble of thunder before the storm was gratifying, even if the sound could only be heard by a few; but to risk losing the element of surprise was a very high price to pay for that gratification.

“For what …” The Minister looked to Stocker for aid.

“You make things happen,” said Stocker brutally.

“And that is exactly what we want. Dr. Audley.” The Minister adjusted his spectacles again. “In the matter of Charlie Ratcliffe’s gold, we want something to happen. And we want it very urgently.”

AUDLEY
drove westwards at his own speed, which was slow, and by his own route, which was by every small country road he could follow without too much difficulty. If he was late they would just have to wait for him.

As he drove he reviewed his predicament, and decided he didn’t much care for it. He had a high regard for the efficiency of the police, but if Charlie Ratcliffe had bought himself a pro from London, or even from abroad, then they had never had a proper chance. And on a cold trail he himself stood no chance at all.

A cold trail which had suddenly become important. Well, at least he could understand the urgency of it: once that inquest jury had pronounced its verdict there was nothing anyone could do to stop Charlie Ratcliffe doing whatever it was they feared he would do. And maybe the Minister himself was his next target.

But that wasn’t the real maggot in the apple, just a small bruise on the outer skin of it. The maggot was politics.

The Department
never
involved itself in internal politics, and no matter how much the Establishment feared Ratcliffe’s ability to make a nuisance of himself with a ton of gold in his war chest, that still wasn’t the Department’s business—it was just the Establishment’s bad luck. So someone very heavy must have leaned very hard on the Department—especially after what had happened with Nixon and the CIA.

Which could mean one of two things.

Either—Yes, this is an interesting assignment. So we’ll bring our best man back from Washington … David Audley. Brilliant mind, remarkable record, blah, blah, blah… .

Or—Yes, this is a bastard job—if it goes wrong there’ll be hell to pay, and the odds are it will go wrong. So who’s expendable in the awkward squad at the moment—

There was a cowman in the road ahead, bright in his orange-banded safety jacket, motioning him to stop and give way for a milking herd on their way to the byre. He had noted the
Cattle Crossing
sign fifty yards back, and the tenth of his brain which read the signs had already lifted his foot off the accelerator.

If that was the case—

The first of a stately procession of beautiful fawn-coloured Jerseys nosed her way out of the gate on the cowman’s left.

If that was the case it would be immensely satisfying to give the Minister what he wanted. But it would be much more prudent to aim at an attainable target.

Respectable failure?

No, that would be beneath his honour. He had promised the Minister, and that promise was binding. But he had not promised the Minister he would risk his neck and his career—as he would have done if the enemy had been a foreign one and not a dirty little jackal who cracked the bones of politicians’ indiscretions to get at the scandalous marrow within.

Not failure, then. But he wouldn’t aim at a total victory; he would fight a limited war strictly within the Geneva Convention, dropping no bombs beyond the Yalu and keeping his gloves on all the time. The Minister himself had spelt out the rules after all, so that was fair enough.

The leading Jersey nodded at him in agreement across the bonnet. That was decided then. For once he would behave himself, and, if he resolved that from the outset, he ought to be able to organise the mission without any scandalous incidents.

All he had to do was to operate in a regulation manner, using as many operatives and as much equipment as they would let him have. These could be deployed in complicated operations, while he himself was engaged in exhaustive researches into —into what?

The Jerseys were pouring out now, stepping daintily with their forefeet, but lurching boney hindquarters and distended milk-bags behind them as though their rear halves had been added on from some different and much more ungainly animal.

Into the seventeenth century, of course! Into the Civil War, and the Gold of Standingham Castle—and even into the Double R Society itself. He ought to be able to lose himself safely in all of those without offending anybody very much.

Meanwhile others could research into Charlie Ratcliffe and
The Red Rat
.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what the
Rat
looked like. He had only seen the thing once, together with a report of an investigation into the charge that the underground and semi-underground press was being funded by external subversive organisations.

Which, apparently, it wasn’t … And all he could really remember was the origin of its title, which had derived not so much from Charlie’s own name as from an insult hurled at him during some political rally —You bloody little Commie rat!

Which Charlie, in the best political tradition, had seized on and gloried in—If I’m a rat, then the plague I carry is death to the oppressors of the workers!

Good rousing stuff, that. Much better than the smudgy, crudely-printed character-assassination sheet packed with half-truths, innuendoes and near-libels which had taken its name from that violent occasion.

Audley opened his eyes and smiled at a doe-eyed heifer which had thrust her dripping black nose at him through the window of the car. The rich sweet smell of cow was infinitely preferable to the sour smell of hate and envy that rose from
The Red Rat
’
s
pages.