Scimitar SL-2

Most of the men still standing in the corridor had a distant idea of the truth of that creed. And most of them believed it was probably true. And that everything would be fine, so long as the U.S.A. held the biggest gun of all. But if ever there was a U.S. President who could have used Arnold Morgan in the next office, it was surely the forty-seven-year-old Charles McBride.

And as Arnold’s footsteps faded from the building, General Scannell muttered, “Jesus. I don’t know what’s gonna happen now.”

And Harcourt Travis added, “Neither, General, do I.”

A few hours later, Admiral Morris and Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe sat disconsolately in the rear seat of the Navy Staff car driving back to the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland.

“Hard to believe he’s gone, Jimmy,” grunted the Agency’s Director.

“I just can’t seem to accept it.”

“Nor I.”

“It’s not gonna be the same anymore, is it?”

“Nothing is. It’s gonna be worse. Because right here we got an incoming President who does not understand what kind of threats this country might face. He thinks we’re all crazy.”

“I know he does — can you imagine, sir? Getting some secretary to call up and tell Admiral Morgan he’s fired. Bloody oath.”

“God knows who he’ll replace him with.”

“Oh, he’ll probably come up with some nice little social worker, team leader in the Peace Corps or something…Jesus, I can’t believe this is happening.”

Jimmy Ramshawe shook his head.

“The trouble with Intelligence,” said Admiral Morris, “is that you need someone in Government who starts off believing you are not some kind of a dumb ass and who will listen, knowing that you speak from the kind of experience he simply doesn’t have. Otherwise there’s no point having a vast Intelligence network that costs billions to run. Not if its top operatives are wasting half their time trying to prove the unprovable to guys who are supposed to be on our side.”

“I know, sir. That was the best thing about Admiral Morgan. He never dismissed what we said, always took it into consideration at least. He was some kind of a bloke, right? The best I ever met.”

“And the best you ever will meet, young James.”

The two men rode in companionable but somber silence to the northwestern suburbs of Washington and then out into the country to Fort Meade. Once there, the Director headed to his office, while Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe retreated to the chaos of his own paper-strewn lair for one of his favorite parts of the week.

Thursday afternoons. For thirty-year-old Ramshawe it represented a couple of hours of pleasurable study. It was the day his personal newspapers arrived: the Daily Mail and the London Telegraph; The Age from Melbourne; the Sydney Morning Herald; and the Toronto Globe.

All of them were full of snippets of news — diplomatic, military, government, society, finance — stuff you would not necessarily find in the Washington Post or even the Wall Street Journal.

Curiously, there was one page Jimmy loved above all others. It was the Court and Society page of the London Telegraph, a somewhat glorious mishmash of esoteric events, starting with the daily routine of the Queen and the various members of her family who were paid by the British Government’s Civil List.

Her appointments were listed, as were those of Prince Philip and Prince Charles. There was reported all manner of obscure educational events and appointments at England’s great public schools and the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. There were lists of mourners at important memorial services, lists of medals, awards, and appointments for the Navy, Army, and Air Force, including Commonwealth Services.

There were records of service reunions, announcements of important engagements, weddings, and funerals. An “In Memoriam” column in which service families annually remembered officers who had fallen in action, often as long as sixty years previously.

Jimmy regularly devoured this page, making notes that he would later transfer to his private computer file, say, for a new Flag Officer Submarines, Royal Navy; for example, he would fill in the new man’s name and career highlights, just in case Fort Meade needed this information in the future. Quick cross-reference. Instant knowledge. Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe was the consummate Intelligence professional.

In the Telegraph of Monday, January 5, there were a few items that amused him, and a few that caused him to scribble hurriedly, but there was one word that almost caused him to spill his coffee.

“Murdered,” it said. Right there in the dreariest of Universities sections. A small down-column paragraph announcing the appointment of a new Senior Lecturer at the Benfield Greig Geohazard Research Center at University College, London. Dr. Hillary Betts, a volcanologist, replacing Professor Paul Landon, who was discovered murdered in West London last May.

“Murdered! Streuth,” said James. “Never saw that bloody word on this page before. Like seeing a stripper illustrating a prayer book.”

Instinctively, he went online, looked up the London Telegraph, and keyed in a search for Professor Paul Landon. To his surprise, a sizable front-page headline in the edition of Monday, May 12, appeared.

PROFESSOR PAUL LANDON MISSING

World’s Top Volcano Expert Vanishes after Royal

Geographical Lecture

There followed a detailed story of Professor Landon and his achievements, followed by a police report on his failure to return home to Buckinghamshire after addressing the Royal Geographical Society on the evening of May 8.

There were quotes from the Royal Geographical Society’s General Secretary, and from colleagues at University College, and of course from his wife. But no one had the slightest idea what had happened to him.

Three days later Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe found out for himself. The front-page headline over all eight columns on Thursday, May 15, read:

PROFESSOR PAUL LANDON FOUND MURDERED

Washed Up on Thames Island — Two Bullets to the Brain

In the opinion of the police pathologist, Paul Landon had been shot twice in an “execution-style” killing, and then dumped in the river. The coxswain of a London Rowing Club eight had spotted the body washed by the flood tide onto Chiswick Eyot, a small island landmark for racing shells, halfway along the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race course between Putney and Mortlake.

There were, as yet, no suspects, but there was no doubt in the minds of the Metropolitan Police. This was a cold-blooded murder, though why anyone should want to kill an apparently harmless academic remained a total mystery.

Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe liked mysteries. And for the next hour, he scrolled to and from various editions of the Telegraph, spanning the early summer to the fall. He found the inquest, the funeral, a feature on Professor Landon’s area of expertise. But he never found a single clue as to why the hell anyone should want to kill him.

He switched to the London Daily Mail, a more adventurous downmarket tabloid, which might have come up with a different, more original idea. No such luck. For the week after the professor’s disappearance, the Mail was totally preoccupied with two murdered London policemen