For the Good of the State

‘It doesn’t matter what the hell he thought!’ Henry Jaggard was beyond arguing the toss with subordinates. ‘I want Audley out, Garry. And I know Jack Butler will fight for him—you don’t need to tell me that.’ He overrode Garrod Harvey brutally. ‘All the better if he does: we need that. Because Audley’s sacking is what’s really going to pull R & D into line—Audley is the real heart of R

& D, not Butler. If we can get Audley, then we’ve got it all—

Glamis, Cawdor and the whole kingdom—’

‘ Henry—’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘And I know everyone admires him. You admire him—and Tom Arkenshaw does… And, damn it, I admire him too, Garry— I know!’ Even now, in spite of everything, he knew that he would sincerely regret Audley’s passing: over many years Audley had probably done more good for the state than either he or Garrod Harvey ever would. ‘But he’s got to go. Because it’s not only what I want: it’s what the Minister wants, and it’s what the FCO wants.

And, with what you’ve got, it’ll have to be what Downing Street will have to want this time. Do you understand, Garry?’

‘Yes.’ Garrod Harvey stared at him. ‘But no, Henry.’

‘No—’ Harvey’s uncharacteristic obstinacy took Jaggard flat back.

‘What d’you mean— no?’

‘I do understand.’ The stare was fixed immovably. ‘But it’s not on, Henry. We can’t do it.’

Jaggard opened his mouth to blaspheme, but then he amended the sound. ‘What d’you mean—?’

‘I talked to the Americans—to Colonel Sheldon, at Grosvenor Square.’ Garrod Harvey moistened his lips.

‘He asked to see me. But in any case I had to warn him—that his man inside the Soviet Embassy was at risk. And I also wanted to know why he’d put him at risk, by sending down those two women to tip off Audley, Henry.’

‘Yes?’ Jaggard watched Garrod Harvey touch his lips with the back of his hand, as though he was afraid, and was suddenly afraid himself.

‘Mose—Colonel Sheldon… he’s nobody’s fool. And he knows Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State David Audley—they worked together ten years ago, Henry.’

Jaggard pushed his fear down. ‘I know that. And Sheldon likes him

—’

‘Liking doesn’t come into it. Mosby Sheldon threw away his man, and saved Audley, because the CIA rates what Audley’s doing—

and what R & D is doing—as of the highest importance.’ Nod.

‘The work they’re doing on the Gorbachev “Order of Battle” is considered crucial to the whole nuclear disarmament dialogue: what they’re feeding the President comes from agreed joint Anglo-American intelligence. And R & D is the best part of that, according to Sheldon. Because he’s one of Admiral Stansfield Turner’s fast- track promotions. So he rates analytic intelligence as the most important human function, now that their orbiting satellites can do all the old conventional spy functions.’ Nod. ‘It’s who the new men are, and how they think, that matters—not where the missiles are, and what they are… Liking just doesn’t come into it, Henry.’

Henry Jaggard began to feel old. Up until this instant he had thought of Audley as old. But now he included himself in the same condemnation.

Garrod Harvey seemed to have forgotten his bad back, too.

‘Sheldon knew exactly what was coming—he knew it all: Zarubin and the Poles—and that poor Polish priest— are just water under the bridge to him… the Thames, or the Vistula, or the Moskva—all just water.’ Nod. ‘And he’d heard all the rumours, too—the Irish joke, and the Polish joke… And he wasn’t laughing, Henry.’ Nod.

‘What he told me was that the Americans aren’t going to stand by Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State and see Audley put down—Audley and Research and Development both. They don’t want it—and they won’t have it.’

Jaggard waited for a moment, until he was sure that Garrod Harvey had got all his bad news off his chest, which must have been discomforting him considerably more than his squash-player’s back all this time. But he also used the moment to compose himself, as he sensed the red warning signal of his own anger shining brighter even than the flashing amber of fear. ‘ They won’t have it, Garry? They won’t have it?’

Garrod Harvey swallowed. ‘Sheldon’s a good friend of ours, Henry.’

‘I know what he is. And who he is. But I don’t think he outranks me yet—never mind the FCO… and the Minister—not in this, anyway.’ He watched Garrod Harvey for another moment. ‘So—?’

Garrod Harvey touched his mouth again. ‘He’ll go above you, Henry. Or… the Ambassador will. To the top, Henry.’

There had to be more. ‘To the PM?’ There had to be a lot more.

‘To tell the PM that the CIA London Station won’t have an incompetent British officer disciplined? An elderly incompetent officer?’ Much, much more. ‘Who has let the KGB put one over on us, in our own back yard—to our own very considerable diplomatic embarrassment?’ He had to shake his head there. ‘Just because the elderly—elderly and incompetent—officer still does useful work on his good days?’

Garrod Harvey’s chin came up, reminding Henry Jaggard unbearably of his father, who had also been gutsy in a tight corner.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State