Our man in Camelot

unfortunately.'

Mosby fought to keep his puzzled expression steady. For beyond the fear for himself and Shirley, and the helplessness and loneliness of their position, there was forming a terrible doubt. It was no longer a Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

question of how the British could have gotten everything ass-about-face, but supposing they hadn't?

'Let me get you straight—' Shirley spoke more harshly now, as though the same doubt had proved too strong for the Lady Macbeth interpretation '—you are really asking us to believe that our own Secret Service would not only kill—murder—some old man, some innocent old man… and maybe two of your people… but Americans too? Our own servicemen? You're asking us to believe that!'

'The evidence is circumstantial.' Audley stared at her silently for a moment. 'But that's the way it looks.'

'In the cause of a higher loyalty,' said Frances.

'Higher loyalty my fanny!' snapped Shirley.

Roskill started to laugh.

'You think that's funny?' Shirley rounded on him fiercely. 'It's all a big joke—killing people? You have to be sick.'

'I'm sorry, really I am.' Roskill looked contrite. 'But I wasn't laughing at you, and it isn't funny. It was just the look on Olga's face when you said 'fanny'.'

'Huh?'

Mosby cleared his throat. 'It isn't the same part of the body in English as it is in American, honey.'

'It isn't? Well, what is—?' She stopped suddenly and blushed to the roots of her hair. It was the first time Mosby had ever seen her blush.

'You were saying, Mrs Sheldon?' said Audley gently.

'I think I know what my wife was going to say—' began Mosby.

'It's okay, Mose,' said Shirley. 'If that's playing dirty I can take it. I guess they won't take any notice of what I say anyway, but I'm still going to say it. And it's this: if you think we're the sort of people who'd kill a dog just to hush up that we've maybe accidentally messed up a piece of ground where somebody fought a battle a million years ago, then you aren't only crazy—you really do have to be sick. And you can laugh at that if you like.'

Atta girl, thought Mosby fondly. Not a Stephen Decatur patriot, nor even a Sam Smith one, but a pure John Paul Jones— I have not yet begun to fight—even with the ship sinking under her.

'I agree with you, Mrs Sheldon,' said Audley. 'But, alas, it doesn't happen that way. With the KGB

certainly, but not with you Americans, nor with us British. With us both it happens by slow degree, not by wicked intention.'

'I don't get you.'

'I don't expect you to. Take Vietnam, for instance, about which Mrs Fitzgibbon is so very sure… No, Frances. Your view is far too simplistic… I happen to believe that Kennedy and Johnson were both great presidents. And what's more, fundamentally honest men too, both of them. But by degrees they got into

—Vietnam. And My Lai, and all the rest of it.

'And Watergate too, to make a more practical example… It wasn't the original crime—the stupid little break- in—that wasn't even necessary. Somebody simply had a higher loyalty on a much lower level, that's all—somebody took a bad decision on a lower level, and somebody else took another bad decision on a slightly less lower level. And after that one thing led straight to another, and brought the whole house down.'

'But the rottenness at the top was the measure of the rottenness at the bottom, David,' said Frances Fitzgibbon.

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

'Simplistic again. Your rottenness at the top brought the boys back home from Vietnam, Frances. Your rottenness gave Henry Kissinger his chance… But that's all a matter of opinion, and ours is a problem of fact. We have a much more important crisis here and now to resolve—which matters to Britain as well as America.'

'Which is?' said Mosby.

'Which is that the CIA in Britain is in jeopardy, and with it the whole of the American presence here.

And that means in Europe. And that means the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. And that means the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.' Audley pointed at Shirley. 'All because of your little piece of ground where somebody maybe once fought a battle —are the stakes high enough for you now, Mrs Sheldon?

Are they enough to kill a dog for?'

Mosby was astonished at the Englishman's vehemence: it was like discovering that in reality the game of cricket was played not for the sake of the game, but to the death.

'I don't understand,' said Shirley.

'No?' Audley's tone was brutal now. 'Well, I'll tell you. Destroying the site of Mons Badonicus would have been a bit of damn bad publicity for you—for the United States. People care about things like that nowadays, and some of them care passionately even. In fact even I care, and I'm one of your dirty trick players. Because a country's past is the sum of its present, or should be, and I happen to love my country

—even enough to have some of those higher loyalties of Allen Dulles's. Not for England, or Wales, or Scotland, but for Britain.'

'But we don't—' Shirley began.