The Old Vengeful

'Did what?' Belief struggled with disbelief.

'She pressed the button on his safety-belt as she saw the red dummy3

warning reflectors ahead. And then she twisted the steering wheel.'

Paul swallowed. 'For God's sake, David ...'

'Why?' Audley gazed at him. 'Because she's a clever young woman, Paul—and a tough-minded one, too. We both agreed on that, but we still underrated her criminally ... At least, I did. And so did Humphrey Aske—in his case fatally.'

Unwillingly Mitchell began to accept what he was being told.

He had never doubted the steel in Elizabeth's backbone, in spite of her long years of the servitude which she had accepted as duty. But now he had to add a quality of ruthlessness to it which he found hard to take, even if—

' Aske—are you telling me that Aske . . . ?'

'Was one of theirs?' Audley nodded slowly. 'The fact is, your Elizabeth Loftus did what I never imagined she could do: she guessed that the Shannon was the real Vengeful—quite extraordinary!'

'How the hell did she manage that?'

'It was something Professor Wilder said, apparently—she was a bit confused about it ... But then she added up two and two. Only then, unfortunately, she told Aske about it after Wilder had gone, and insisted that he phoned London . . .

Which he pretended to do, but didn't. Because that was the one connection Moscow couldn't allow, of course.'

They stared at one another.

'Yes . . . we've had Comrade Aske tabbed for about six dummy3

months.' Audley sighed. 'Naturally, he was left in place, where he couldn't do any real harm—the usual procedure ... I think the plan was eventually to try and turn him, but I don't think it would have worked, myself. . . Because, gay or not, I have the feeling that Comrade Aske was a hard man under his camouflage . . . But we put him in the bank for a rainy day

—and then this came up, when we needed someone of theirs to keep them well-informed on how far off-target we were.

And he fitted because Latimer had been cultivating him, and Latimer also likes to keep a rival eye on me— everyone knows that, including Moscow, where they all spy on one another just the same way. So we arranged for Latimer to instruct Aske to do just that.'

Mitchell felt a surge of anger. 'You gave me your word that Elizabeth would be in no danger—and I gave her my word!'

'I didn't think there was any danger—'

'Not with Aske?'

'Aske was why there was no danger—that was the point, Paul. Aske was her protection, and yours: as long as he was there, helping you chase the wrong Vengeful, he'd make sure the KGB didn't do either of you any harm—your safety was vital to him.'

'He didn't keep the KGB off us in France, by God!'

'Nonsense! Now you're not thinking at all, man! Aske put them on to you, like Novikov, to reassure us that we were on to something good. They wouldn't have touched you—they dummy3

were there to be seen.' Audley grimaced suddenly. 'The trouble was, the French saw them too. And that wasn't in the script—I wanted us all safe in France, enjoying ourselves, with Aske urging us on to greater and even more useless efforts . . . And that was my first mistake, if you like—

underrating the French . . . But then, I still couldn't imagine how anything could go wrong. You were still hot on the Vengeful—the old Vengeful—or on those fellows who escaped from Bonaparte's clutches, anyway . . . And if you got a bit bolshie I could rely on Aske keeping you up to the mark.' He half shrugged. 'So I whistled up Professor Wilder—I'd had him working on 1812 angles, just in case you didn't come up with anything, ever since Aske first interviewed him, just as I had Del Andrew working on Loftus. But that turned out to be the worst possible thing I could have done, almost.'

Almost! Wilder plus Elizabeth had almost encompassed—

what?

'What was Aske going to do ... with Elizabeth?'

'That's another thing we're never going to know.' Audley gazed at him thoughtfully. 'She convinced herself he was going to kill her, and maybe that was what he was going to do ... that, or have someone else do it—he made a phone call down the road somewhere—an ambush, with a flesh-wound for him, would have bought them time, and he might have thought he'd get away with that.' He paused. 'But it's irrelevant now, in any case. Because I've assured her she was right, and that's what we're sticking to. For her sake, Paul—

dummy3

okay?'

What Mitchell had tried not to think about was staring at him now, with cold eyes: Elizabeth had killed a man, deliberately or not. 'How is she taking it—what she's done?'

Audley reflected on the- question for a moment before replying. 'Remarkably well. Anguished, rather than hysterical. She kept saying 'What else could I do?', and she wept a bit. But all things considered she's pretty steady.'