War Game

Butler's lip drooped. 'There's a nasty solicitor's letter in the post. He should have got it by now.'

'So he should be running scared?'

'Not scared. I don't think this lad will scare easily. But angry

—yes, I think he may well be angry. Because he's not stupid and he can put two and two together.'

'But he can't prove anything?'

'Not a thing. And that's really what's making him angry: he isn't used to the other side playing dirty. But beyond that, he must assume that we're working on something real, and he can't possibly have any idea what it is.'

That was true, certainly. Charlie Ratcliffe had too much at stake to assume they were bluffing, and with luck also too much to tempt him to play it cool in the hope of calling their bluff. If he wasn't off balance yet he was no longer quite steady.

'Good. And the other four?'

Butler drew a deep breath. 'It's really too early to say. If there's a guilty one then he's got the most reason to play innocent, and the innocent ones haven't had enough dummy5

prodding to wonder what the devil's happening. Also, if the innocent ones are guilty of something we're not interested in

—that can be a problem.'

'But you've done some checking on them?'

'Oh yes, we've checked them. But first time round there's nothing anyone could put a finger on.'

'There wouldn't be. And Mitchell swears Lumley is clean, for one.'

Butler nodded, lips tightly compressed. 'Yes, he would. He knows Lumley from the time before he was with us, when he was a research fellow at the Institute for Military Studies.

And I'd be inclined to go along with him there, too. Lumley has the wrong profile for Ratcliffe's purposes. And also he's the one of the four that Ratcliffe has never met, so far as we can establish.'

'But he has met the others?'

'Oh yes. That's about all he has done with Oates and Bishop—

met them. They're not in his regiment, and they don't have his extreme brand of politics, but they're both postgraduate students at Wessex University, which is roughly what he is.'

'Sociology?'

'No. They're both geographers, actually. One's doing a thesis on geology now, and the other's writing a book on meteorology. Ology is about the only thing they have in common that we can find, but it's early days yet.'

Early days. But there were only seven days to the storming of dummy5

Standingham Castle, and after that all days might be too late.

'And that leaves Robert Davenport.'

'Ye-ess. ...' Butler spread the word reflectively. 'That does leave Robert Davenport.'

'' 'Preacher' Davenport.''

'He certainly does his share of preaching—for a foreigner in a strange land.'

'You sound as though you've doubts about Davenport, Jack.'

'Not doubts—reservations.' Butler shook his head.

'Davenport is the obvious one, that's all ... and I don't like obvious ones, they worry me. He fits too well.'

'How does he fit?'

'Right politics, for a start—or right left politics,' Butler growled disapprovingly. 'Left of left, never heard anything like it in my life. Nor has anyone else, I should think.'

Audley smiled, thinking of poor Gerard Winstanley and his ragged band of Diggers, who had once tried to cultivate a tiny corner of common land in Christian brotherhood and humility. That had been much too strong for Oliver Cromwell's stomach too. 'I don't know about that.'

'You haven't heard him talk.'

'Did he talk like that in the States?'

'We're working on that.' Butler bridled at the question somewhat, and Audley knew exactly why: it would ordinarily have been the easiest thing in the world to ask the CIA about dummy5

Davenport, but in this case that might amount to washing their own dirty political linen in an inquisitive neighbour's machine. And with Davenport's radical politics there was the added complication that American intelligence might already be well-established in his home territory, wherever it was, so that any British agent moving into it would have to act with the greatest caution. But caution made for slowness.

'He's a New Englander, from his voice. And he's well-educated—he knows his history,' said Audley.

'We know that. What we don't know is what he's been doing since he left his state university nine years ago.'

'What's he doing over here—we have to know that, for heaven's sake.'