way.’ He indicated a curved path towards the monument, leaving McAndrew to take the straight route.
The Dean was slowing down, just as James had hoped. He had guessed the rendezvous was here and it seemed he was right. He checked his watch. Twenty-five minutes past eight. Meet at the Washington Monument at eight thirty. He could almost hear McAndrew saying it.
He watched him take a seat on a bench among the forty-eight flags of the forty-eight states, and felt the fury bubbling and boiling inside him. This man who had so nearly had him killed, this man who had kept him from his wife and child, this man who through lies and deceit was determined to pass a collective death sentence on the people of Britain.
It would be so easy to have his revenge, James thought. The sprint across this patch of grass would take what, twenty seconds? McAndrew would run but he would not be as fast as James; few men were, despite his wound. He could tackle him at his knees, bring him tumbling to the ground and then it would require the smallest exertion of the fingers to choke the life out of him, to press his fingers to his throat and squeeze. And squeeze…
It would be justified too. Not just as self-defence, but as vengeance — vengeance in advance for the crime of plotting the agony of England, and vengeance for the torments he had already inflicted on James. All he had to do was run a few yards and he could have this man in his hands.
And yet he knew he had to resist that urge. It would not be enough simply to lash out and kill McAndrew. The Dean was here in Washington because he clearly had a plan, an operation involving others, and it was that plan that had to be stopped. Watching the Dean die now would be satisfying, but it would almost certainly leave the threat to England intact.
James turned to Harrison. ‘In a minute or two, someone is going to join him. I need you to tell me who he is.’
‘I’ll have to get closer.’
‘You can get as close as you like. He has no idea who you are.’
Ed Harrison walked ahead, gingerly and, to James’s mind, obviously. He had the studiedly casual gait of the amateur; so ostentatiously nonchalant it was immediately suspicious. It didn’t help that he was identifiable as a reporter from a distance of two hundred yards.
But Harrison was no fool. He had the wit to hang back, so that he was not in McAndrew’s immediate field of vision. Besides, James, his focus still on the Dean, could see that the subject was too preoccupied with his appointment to notice much else. McAndrew checked his watch three times in as many minutes.
At last, another man came into view. He approached the Dean’s bench, slowed, looked down and then appeared to hesitate. McAndrew said something and the man sat down. They then shook hands in a way that struck James as odd, looking straight ahead rather than at each other. But they were certainly talking.
James stared at them, wanting to miss nothing. He certainly did not recognize the second man and, he concluded from McAndrew’s posture and that initial hesitation, neither did the Dean. They were strangers who had nevertheless arranged a meeting.
So fixed was his gaze that only now did James notice that Ed Harrison had rejoined him. He heard him before he saw him, the same fast exhalation. Except this time it was not exertion that made the American breathless, but excitement. ‘You won’t believe who that is,’ he said. He looked back towards the two men conversing on the bench, surrounded by blue sky and fluttering flags. ‘Your Dean is locked in discussion with Hans Stoiber, the most senior diplomat at the Washington Embassy of the Third Reich.’
Chapter Forty-one
James couldn’t help himself. He turned to Harrison, his eyes wide and his mouth open, utterly aghast, before remembering his task and turning back. That man in front of him, just a matter of yards away from him, was a Nazi. Elegantly tailored, well-shod, a man you would pass without objection on one of these Washington streets — and yet a servant of a cruel regime bent on crushing and mastering all of Europe, if not the world. It was one thing to glimpse their planes in the skies, to witness the havoc their bombers could wreak, as James had first hand in Spain, or to see their leaders, Hitler, Goebbels and the others, in black-and-white on a newsreel. But to behold the enemy in the flesh and in colour, so near…
And there was Preston McAndrew, happy to shake this man’s hand, happy to engage in polite chat with him, happy — more to the point — to do business with him. Was there no end to this man’s wickedness? Even the sight of it turned James’s stomach. He could feel his loathing turning into a physical thing, a viscous fluid flowing through his veins and vital organs.
Of course James knew the Dean had come to Washington with evil intent: to prolong Britain’s agony. But he had assumed that his method would be… what? Perhaps some discreet lobbying, a quiet word in the ear of an official or two in the State Department? The scene James had witnessed in the Buchanan Room at the Willard Hotel, those lapel pins on Lowell and the other man, had reinforced that thought. He had expected McAndrew to be engaged in looking up his fellow alumni of the Wolf’s Head Society, doubtless spread throughout the higher reaches of the US government, using that network of old members to advance his cause, patiently putting the case for non- intervention. You’re too young to have served in the last war, he would say to those officials in the administration, as he began to detail the horrors of conflict…
But he had never bargained for this, McAndrew supping with the devil himself. Sitting with the enemy — not America’s enemy, perhaps, not while the US remained so devoutly neutral. But James’s enemy: the enemy of his country.
And then he was struck by a kind of premonition. His parents might have called it a divine visitation. Or perhaps it was just a lucky instinct. Without looking at Harrison, he whispered, ‘Give me the camera.’
Then, in a walk that was stealthy, noiseless and fast, James got closer — though not so close that his camera would be heard. He put the device to his eyes and watched. He snapped once, moved the winder on, then snapped again. As he was moving the winder on again, it happened and just in time for him to capture it on film. In a movement so swift that it was barely noticeable, the German reached into his briefcase and produced a white, foolscap envelope. Just as James pressed on the shutter, the diplomat handed it to Preston McAndrew, who in a similarly unfussy movement slotted it into a slim leather portfolio case which he then fastened and lodged under his arm. They shook hands — which James photographed too — and rose to their feet.
At once, James pivoted around so that should McAndrew happen to look into the middle distance to his right, he would see only the back of a man walking away from him.
James caught up with Harrison. ‘Can you see him? Which way is he going?’
‘West. Towards Lincoln.’
‘Lincoln?’
‘The Memorial.’
James counted to three, then turned and walked in the same direction, wincing to hear the sandy gravel of the path crunch beneath his feet. He could see McAndrew clearly, perhaps thirty yards ahead of them, that same purpose in his stride.
‘Please tell me you got a picture of that,’ Harrison said eventually.
‘I hope so. I pressed the button, it made the right sound. I only hope you put film in the camera,’ he said, handing the machine back to the American.
‘You sure you didn’t become a reporter in England and you’re just not telling me?’
James’s eyes were locked on the Dean, now about to cross 17th Street. Always the riskiest moment in any pursuit, the crossing of a main road. So many chances to lose the subject: he could turn left or right; he could get in a car; he could cross in a break in the traffic, leaving you stranded on the other side.
‘I mean when you said I’d get a story, I didn’t-’
‘We don’t have anything until we see what he does next,’ said James, his voice as firm and unwavering as his gaze.
Now they were by a long, ornamental stretch of water with grass on either side. James estimated the length at less than half a mile, perhaps a third. The sunlight was reflecting off the water, making it hard to see. He used his left hand to shield his eyes, aggravating his shoulder, and forced himself to ignore the pain. All he had to do, he
