The Old Vengeful

Audley watched Mitchell attentively. 'Does that surprise you?'

There was something not quite right, not quite healthy, about the big man's glance. 'I don't know. Should it?'

'You know her better than I do.' Audley was almost casual.

'Granted she knew he was lying to her—that he couldn't have talked to me . . . and there were a lot of other things she put together ... it was still a pretty drastic thing she did—for a spinster schoolmistress, don't you think?'

Yes, it was! thought Mitchell. But because the treason of that thought hurt him he reacted against it instantly.

'She's been through some pretty drastic experiences—for a spinster schoolmistress.' He thought of himself. 'Maybe she was tired of being pushed around by everyone.'

'Yes . . .' Audley sounded disappointed. 'And then there's the bloodline, of course ...'

'The bloodline?' Mitchell added Commander Hugh Loftus, VC to the list of pushers-around—perhaps him most of all!

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Audley nodded. 'By Loftus, out of Varney: a captain's daughter and an admiral's grand-daughter. . . What my daughter would call 'a shield-maiden'. Or don't you go on that sort of thing much?'

Mitchell smiled. 'My father was a conscientious objector—

remember?'

'That's right.' Audley was unabashed. 'And your grandfather a battalion commander at twenty-eight. So you come from a line of fighters one way or another, which illustrates my point.' He reached for his brief-case. 'I've got some interesting stuff for you here, telexed from Washington by our kindly CIA cousins.'

'What?' The sudden change of subject threw Mitchell for a second, then he recalled Audley's technique. 'Oh?'

'Yes. It's all rather comical, really . . .'

'Comical?' Mitchell watched him extract a folder from the case. 'Comical' wasn't a word he'd have chosen.

'Yes. . .'Audley flipped open the folder and peered at its contents. 'Our kindly cousins are to blame for our present predicament... If they hadn't got wind of Project Vengeful, neither Moscow nor London would have run scared—they would simply have converged on their collision course, and you and I ... and Miss Loftus and Comrade Aske . . . would not have become involved.' He turned a page. 'But they did, and when the President gave Project Vengeful to the Prime Minister he also instructed our CIA cousins to give us every dummy3

assistance, as befits their old wartime allies.'

'What's comical about that?'

Audley looked up. 'What's comical, my dear Paul, is that the first request we made was for them to disinter facts from the year 1812, when we were last at war with each other. And that tickled them no end—in fact, Howard Morris sent me a special SG: 'Have given this Immediate Maximum Effort classification—like Amy Carter's homework'.' He shook his head at Mitchell. 'What those poor innocent American academics made of Howard's IMAXEF teams arriving on their doorsteps I simply cannot imagine.'

Mitchell refused to be drawn further.

'Wilder gave us two lists of names.' Audley consulted the folder again. 'Living Americans who might be able to tell us about dead ones, as he put it.'

Mitchell weakened. 'Why Americans?'

'Ah . . . well, he knew you and Aske were in France, because I told him . . . And when he knew that he said I ought to check the American end, just to be on the safe side.' He scanned the page under his nose. 'I've never heard of any of his live Yankees here, but some of the other names . . . Abraham Timms at the top, naturally . . .'

'Tom Chard?'

'No—no Tom Chard here. But Amos Ratsey, Jas. O'Byrne, Octavius Phelan—aren't they the fellows from Miss Loftus's Vengeful box?'

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'What about them?'

'Nothing about them—they did unearth a couple of references to a Michael Haggerty, who was an associate of an equivocal Irish American named Jim Burns . . . and there's a Michael Haggerty in the Vengeful list. But it's a common Irish name, and they've got nothing more at all on him than that. Whereas they've got a lot on Abraham Timms ... It seems he became quite a distinguished man in the later post-war period—' self-taught scholar and naturalist; corresponded with Sir Joseph Banks and John James Audubon; issue one son, Thomas Chipperfield Paget Timms, note names' —that's what it says: ' note names' —' he looked at Mitchell '—the names are rather touching, don't you think?

His fellow escapers?'

'Yes.' Mitchell frowned. 'What did the cousins find out about them?'

'Nothing, I'm afraid. There's only Timms, and Haggerty—

two mentions, associate of the egregious Burns, who was a merchant of some sort, always lobbying Congress to make war with the filthy British—no—no, the really interesting one

—and also the most surprising one—is the one you least expect, which shouldn't be there at all, Paul.' Audley