Our man in Camelot

'Bloody allies is right,' murmured Frances Fitzgibbon.

'He's a CIA man?' said Mosby. 'Harry Finsterwald?'

'Harry Feiner, Captain.' Frances Fitzgibbon corrected him with the air of a little schoolmarm trying to straighten out a big stupid pupil. 'We caught up with him yesterday when we were inquiring into the death of the man who supplied Major Davies with his books, an old man named Barkham.'

'You mean he was murdered—that old man?' said Shirley.

'It looked like natural causes, Mrs Sheldon. But now we're not so sure… What we are sure of, from what his assistant says, is that Mr Barkham was visited by Harry Feiner and a coloured man several days ago. And they were checking up to find out how much Major Davies told him.'

'And whatever it was, it was too much,' said Roskill.

'So we put two men on to Feiner this morning, and those two men are now missing,' said Frances Fitzgibbon.

The late afternoon sun slanted in through the tall windows, blazing on the legs of a suit of armour which stood sentinel on one side of the door—

And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot

—reminding Mosby of the lines he had learnt so recently in his role of Arthurian enthusiast. And reminding him also, more terrifyingly, that it was the same sun which had shone so brightly on the bodies of the two British security men in the churchyard.

Nightmares in daylight were bad; and nightmares in sunlight were worse. But worst of all were nightmares that weren't nightmares at all, but reality.

'You know, I do think he's beginning to catch on,' said Roskill. 'He looks quite sick.'

'Well, I'm still lost,' said Shirley huskily. 'Because you just can't mean that the CIA's going round murdering people—innocent people.'

'Why not, Mrs Sheldon?' asked Frances.

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

'Why, we simply don't do that sort of thing.'

'Not in Vietnam?'

'In Vietnam?' Shirley floundered beautifully. 'But this isn't Vietnam—this is England.' She looked around her as though for confirmation. 'This is England.'

And it could hardly be more England than right here, thought Mosby bitterly: Camelot House, in the midst of its green parkland. The heart and capital of King Arthur's Avalon.

'It's England,' Frances nodded. 'And it's a foreign country, just like Vietnam. Where Harry Feiner cut his teeth, among other things.'

'I don't believe it,' said Shirley obstinately. 'And I won't believe it. We're on the same side—we're allies. And I don't mean like in Vietnam, either. That was different.'

'It certainly was—for the Vietnamese.'

'Your politics are beginning to show, Olga dear,' said Roskill lightly.

'Olga?' Shirley frowned. 'I thought it was Frances?'

'Ah, but haven't you noticed the striking resemblance to Olga Korbut? The shape and size—the delicate sense of balance? The swift karate chop?'

'Children—children!' Audley intervened. 'What Mrs Fitzgibbon means, Mrs Sheldon, is simply that the CIA is concerned with the welfare of the United States. There's nothing in their so-called 1947 Charter about being kind to foreigners—and nor should there be. National security won't run in tandem with international relations—they trip each other up.'

'Doesn't run awfully well with the Ten Commandments either, and that's a fact,' said Roskill.

'Whatever Olga thinks.'

'Don't paraphrase Lenin at me,' Frances snapped back.

'Wasn't thinking of Lenin—it was Allen Dulles, who ran the CIA when you were playing with your dolls. 'Obedience to a higher loyalty' was what he called it.' Roskill nodded amiably to Shirley.

'Meaning, you can fight as dirty as you like if it's for your country.'

' 'My country, right or wrong',' murmured Mosby.

'That's what it used to amount to, you're right. Nice convenient double standards all round—Germans bomb Coventry, that's terror bombing, we bomb Hamburg, that's area bombing. They have wicked U-boats, we have brave submarines— life was a great deal simpler in the old days. But not any more, because now it works the other way round.'

'How d'you mean?'

'Because we have the U-boats now, and they have the submarines, my dear fellow.'

Mosby looked suitably puzzled.

'What he means,' said Audley, 'is that if the Russians— the KGB, that is—play dirty, no one takes much notice. But if the CIA plays dirty and gets caught, then there's likely to be a major scandal. You only have to look at the headlines over here, never mind in the United States. And exactly the same applies to… us… if we play dirty.'

'Which leaves us both with the Eleventh Commandment— 'Thou shalt not be found out—or else','

added Roskill. 'Which the CIA has jolly well transgressed with a vengeance over Badon Hill,