Our man in Camelot

common sense cancelled despair: there had to be more in this than mere cat-and-mouse cruelty. Sir Frederick Clinton was too important to waste his time merely putting the boot into the CIA, no matter it was a recognised international sport.

'The Novgorod Bede? I never heard of it.'

'He never mentioned it?'

'No, he didn't.'

'He doesn't seem to have told you very much, your friend.'

'Well… not about what he was doing.' This was treacherous ground. 'We just talked about Arthurian history in general. I never knew for sure he was really on to something until after he was killed.'

'So you didn't know he'd discovered the site of Mons Badonicus?'

Mosby shook his head cautiously. 'I still don't know that for sure. It was—well, it was just an inference from what he told my wife… plus the stuff he left behind with us.'

'The evidence—yes. We'd very much like to examine that, Captain.'

'Help yourself. It's in the trunk of my car.' Mosby raised a mental prayer that Howard Morris's ground-bait— lifted from a dozen obscure museum collections—was as authentic —and as untraceable—as he had claimed it was.

'Ah, I don't mean what you showed David. You mentioned some other material… bones, and so forth.

Could we send someone to collect that?'

Even more treacherous ground: the other material existed strictly in Howard Morris's ingenious Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

imagination. So they had to be stalled—'

'Sure. Only I'd have to go with them— I've stored it next to my surgery on the base. I'd only just started examining it.'

It was the best he could do, but it was pretty thin. The truth was, however good his own cover, the Davies part of his story had never been designed to be tested to destruction by the British themselves.

Already the hairline cracks in it were beginning to show.

But the man Roskill's words on the phone to Sir Frederick— I think he's a good liar— meant that those cracks were still suspicions, not certainties; and there were limits to how far the British could go with a serving officer in the USAF, no matter what they suspected he might be, particularly if they really had checked up with the Station Chief in London. In fact, the worst they could do was to ship him home as an undesirable, and that still gave him a margin of time to play with.

Except that margin was a wasting asset, he sensed that as he felt their eyes on him. And the only thing to do with a wasting asset was play it to the limit; attack was not just his last line of defence left, but his plain duty.

He stared back at Sir Frederick. 'Now come on, Mr—Sir Frederick—it's time someone answered some of my questions. Like why I'm supposed to be a liar—and a CIA man—for for a start. And what the hell I'm supposed to have done that's so awful.'

The Number One Dragon smiled thinly at him. 'And where Mons Badonicus is?'

'And that too, yes. Did he really find it?'

'Is that all?'

Mosby thought for a moment. 'I'd like to see my wife.'

The Dragon nodded. 'Well, that I can certainly do.' He extended the nod to Roskill. 'Hugh, would you ask Mrs Fitzgibbon to bring Mrs Sheldon along here as soon as she's through. And you might see if they can manage a cup of tea for us at the same time.'

And cucumber sandwiches, Mosby thought irrelevantly, looking at his watch. It was already past five; he wondered if anyone had bothered to tell Billy Bullitt that his American guests, like Miss Otis, wouldn't be keeping their engagement with him.

'Well, David?' Sir Frederick switched to Audley. 'What do you think now?'

Audley's pale eyes flicked over Mosby, giving no hint of what was behind them. 'I haven't changed.

What doesn't make sense can't be right.'

'As your old Latin master used to say… I know—

'Est summum nefas fallere,

Deceit is gross impiety.'

David sets great store by the observations of his long-defunct Latin master, Captain Sheldon… Do you know where we are now?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Do you know the name of this place?'

'No, I don't. Your men forgot to tell me.'

'Weren't you curious about it?'

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

Mosby shrugged. 'I guess I was relieved—just so it wasn't a police station. So what's special about it?'

'If I tell you it could delay your departure somewhat. Would that bother you?'