Our man in Camelot

'Mrs Sheldon—' Schreiner sat up '—we don't even know you. If there is any trouble you are strictly on your own: just an American couple who stumbled into something nasty.'

'Oh, great! The British will believe that, I'm sure.'

'They'll have to. The chief reason you were both chosen for this is that your cover is perfect. The CIA will never have heard of you—we shall invite MI5 to check you both back to the cradle if they want to.

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

You were trained and programmed for just such an operation as this.'

'That's reassuring.'

'It should be. I said the CIA won't know you. The State Department will fight for you as we would fight for any innocent American citizens in trouble abroad.' He nodded. 'But what matters is that the CIA remains uninvolved— completely. The situation is too delicate for us to take more scandal.'

'You mean the domestic business?' Shirley went bald-headed at him.

Schreiner winced as though he'd bitten on a sore tooth. 'Mrs Sheldon, the details don't concern you.'

'When it's my neck that's sticking out they do, Mr Schreiner.'

Schreiner regarded her balefully. Then he sighed. 'Very well—domestic business, as you put it, plus interference in the affairs of a foreign country.'

'We just can't do a thing right,' said Merriwether lightly. 'No way.'

The lighter side of the situation was clearly not evident to Schreiner. 'I used the word 'delicate' and I meant it. The CIA has had too much bad publicity, over here as well as in the States. They gave Watergate a lot of coverage… and after that the business of the domestic espionage. And they know we keep a big CIA presence over here keeping an eye on their trade unions, too… there have been questions about it in the Post story about the East German freighter that was rammed and sunk in the Thames a few years back—the Agency was blamed for that, and it didn't help us one bit.' His voice became increasingly mournful as the litany continued. 'Even the fact that Cord Meyer was a dirty tricks specialist was pretty well driven home by their Press. So we have a new Station Head now—and a new Ambassador at the Court of St James—and we don't want them compromised.'

'But we still have to do our job,' said Howard Morris. 'So if the Russians are mounting an operation against us over here we can't hand it to the British. It's our baby and we're paid to look after it. You understand, both of you?'

Mosbv understood, to the uttermost part. Not for the first time, the Agency was between the devil and the deep blue sea. It could not afford to duck the dirtiest jobs, because handling dirty jobs was its designed function and any failure to handle them would be further proof of its incompetence. But if it glitched a dirty job, then that too would be disastrous—and doubly disastrous at this precise time, when its whole function was being questioned. On this one there would be no mercy either in Washington or in London.

'There's a whole bunch of left-wing Members of Parliament—and some of their journalists who admire the Watergate press job—who are just itching to crack the UK Station wide open,' said Schreiner to no one in particular. 'That's why you are on your own this time.'

Mosby looked at Shirley. So that was why two innocent American citizens, who were not at all innocent, were about to sucker an innocent British citizen, who was also not in the least innocent… It was going to be just like riding point for General Custer in his advance to the Little Bighorn.

'But as to why Audley will help you,' Morris changed the subject smoothly, 'he will because he simply won't be able to resist it. The historian in him will snap at Badon Hill—and the intelligence man in him will snap at the puzzle. It's as near as dammit a psychological sure thing, knowing the way his mind works.'

'Not without tangible evidence,' said Shirley.

'Okay. So that's what we're going to give him, Mrs Sheldon. Tangible evidence.'

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

V

THEY SAT OPPOSITE each other beside the stone fireplace in the big soft chintz-covered armchairs, he with his massive copy of Keller's Conquest of Wessex and she with her Practical Flower Arrangement, the first fruits of which blazed on the hearth between them. Room dusted and polished, drinks and titbits on the sideboard, front door on the latch: the very portrait of domestic respectability waiting to dispense friendly hospitality, as painted by the Father of Lies.

Shirley glanced at her watch. 'It's nearly nine,' she said.

'No sweat.' Mosby lowered Keller, trapping the pages with his finger. There was nothing more to be got from him; like Stenton, he was Anglo-Saxon orientated, conceding the existence and importance of Mount Badon, but relegating Arthur to one equivocal footnote. His heroes were not the unknown Britons of the years of resistance, but the invading chieftains, Aelle, Cerdic and Cynric and the all-conquering Ceawlin.

She frowned at him. 'You're sure he'll come?'

'He said they would—I think they will. Honey, you know the British don't like arriving on time, they think it's bad-mannered.' He smiled into the frown. 'I think we've got him figured right—he won't be able to resist Badon. I certainly wouldn't if I was him. It's the 64,000 dollar question of the Dark Ages.'

'64,000 dollars?'

'Uh-huh. And if you throw in Arthur I'll make it a million.'

'The price of a hill no one can find and a king who maybe never existed.' She stared back reflectively.

'The Sheldon valuation.'

He shrugged. 'Just a guess. You can't really put a price on a bit of truth like that—not that bit of truth, anyway.'

Again she didn't react immediately, but continued to examine him, still with a trace of the original frown.