Our man in Camelot

'Which may not be very clear to you and me, but seems clear enough to the experts. Sheet Two, if you please, Hugh—'

… usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis qui prope Sord'num hostium ex Durnovaria Arturo habetur nossissi-maeque ferme de furciferis…

Mosby stared hypnotically at the word Arturo.

'The free translation of which, more or less,' continued Audley, taking the third sheet into his own hands, 'reads as follows :… until the year of the siege of the enemy hosts from Dorchester-on- Thames by Arthur at Badon Hill, which is near Salisbury… They aren't absolutely sure about Dorchester-on-Thames, because they only know its Saxon name. So they've worked on a comparison with Roman Dorchester in Dorset. And technically 'Sord'num' is the monkish abbreviation for Sorviodunum, which is Sarum, just outside Salisbury. But historically and militarily the whole thing fits rather well then, with the Saxon army coming down the Icknield Way right from Cambridgeshire, picking up men as they moved along from one stronghold after another right to Dorchester, their big base on the Thames— and then striking at the main British army in the south and biting off more than they could chew.' He looked at Mosby. 'Can you identify the passage—the original passage, that is?'

He was deliberately ignoring the real dynamite, thought Mosby. The dynamite which blew the thing far higher than Badon by itself could ever do.

'I guess it has to be Gildas the Wise.'

'Good man! Gildas it is—the end of Chapter XXV, only with seven new words. And of course, that fits too: the monks of Jarrow obviously had a copy of Gildas to make their own copies from, because Bede used it. And their copy had something like that Cambridge gloss in it—the one everybody ignores as corrupt. And so it was. But not quite.'

'Plus Arthur,' said Mosby.

Audley drew a deep breath. 'Plus Arthur. You've put your ringer on what really matters. And what ties Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

our hands completely.'

'What d'you mean?' said Shirley. 'I thought it was Badon that was driving everyone crazy.'

'Uh-huh.' Mosby shook his head wearily. 'Badon's a big thing—just knowing where it was will change a lot of history books. But they always knew it existed. Arthur is the real blockbuster: the first absolutely conclusive historical proof that puts him squarely on the historical map. Not somebody everyone wants to believe in, but a real person. Right there in—'

He stopped as the full significance hit him. He stared at Audley with the beginning of panic stirring in him. 'You have got the Novgorod Bede—or the Israelis have?'

'No.'

The question dried up in Mosby's mouth.

'Klaverinsky apparently went for a swim, and never came back,' said Audley. 'His rooms were ransacked—Billy Bullitt checked with an Israeli air force general he knows, who checked with the police. Nothing was stolen. Except what they didn't know was there.'

That was the final pay-off: suddenly everything clicked into place in Mosby's brain, like the tumblers of a time- lock which no one had been able to pick until too late.

It was all a con. The KGB hadn't been planning any action against the USAF in Britain. That had just been the come-on to get them stirred up. The thing had been planned against the CIA itself from the start

—the ultimate dirty trick. And everything they'd done had only helped to make it dirtier—and deadlier.

Operation Bear had already been completed.

'So there's no evidence?' said Shirley. 'No evidence at all,' agreed Audley.

'Then it's just Billy Bullitt's word against the CIA's?' Her voice started strongly, but the confidence began to fade from it as she spoke.

'That's right, honey,' said Mosby. 'Just the word of a man who'll be believed—and who's telling the whole goddamn truth—against a bunch of people who'll never be believed in a million years. And no proof.'

'What d'you mean, he's telling the truth?'

'Telling the truth—telling the truth, that's what I mean. Bullitt is telling the truth: every damn thing that's been fed to him he's telling truthfully. And there's nothing on earth we can do to prove otherwise.

In fact every bit of circumstantial evidence—every death, every fact—says we've got to be lying in our teeth.'

'My God!' said Audley in an appalled voice. ' My God!'

'What's the matter, David?' said Frances Fitzgibbon.

Audley stared at Mosby. 'You are the CIA, aren't you?'

'What the hell did you think we were?'

'Mose!' Shirley cried. 'Are you crazy?'

'Crazy? I'm not crazy—I've become sane, honey. We've been suckered—led right up the garden.

Framed.' He swung back towards Audley. 'Who the hell did you think we were? You never bought that cock-eyed story I told you this afternoon? Not in a pig's eye!'

Audley blinked at him, every bit as embarrassed as Shirley had been earlier. 'I have to admit it, Captain Sheldon. Until nearly midday today I thought you were just a dentist interested in Arthurian history. I didn't know anything else— I've been on leave for four months.'