taking my advice. Keep quiet about this. If they come again, you have arms. I don’t think they will, though. It’s better for them to pretend it never happened, and better if you do, too. I won’t report any of this to the Protection Corps.’
The mayor said, ‘I will be guided by you. Will you break bread with us?’
Miller smiled, ‘No, my friend, because we aren’t here. We never were.’ He turned to Blake. ‘Let’s get going. I’ll drive this time.’
As they moved away, Blake said, ‘Do you think the villagers will do as you say?’
‘I don’t see why not. It’s entirely to their advantage, and I don’t think it’s worth us mentioning it to the Corps because of, shall we say, the peculiar circumstances of the matter.’
‘I’ve no problem with that,’ Blake said. ‘But I’ll have to report back to the President.’
‘I agree. I’ll do the same with the PM. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been informed of this sort of thing. Meanwhile, you’ve got your laptop there, and the information pack you were given by the Protection Corps people includes Russian military field service codes for the area. See what they have on Captain Igor Zorin and the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards.’
Blake opened his laptop on his knees, got to work and found it in a matter of minutes. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Forward Field Centre, Lazlo, Bulgaria. Igor Zorin, twenty-five, decorated in Chechnya. Listings for the unit, home base near Moscow.’
‘Sounds good,’ Miller said.
And then a magic hand wiped it clean, the screen went dark. ‘Dammit.’ Blake punched keys desperately. ‘It’s all gone. What have I done?’
‘Nothing,’ Miller told him. ‘I imagine the sergeant called in and gave his masters the bad news within minutes of his leaving us. It didn’t happen, you see, just like I told you. Except the Russians are being even more than usually thorough. So, is it back to Zagreb for you?’
‘No, Pristina. I’m hitching a lift from there back to the States with the Air Force. How about you?’
‘Belgrade for me, and then London. Olivia’s opening on Friday in the West End. An old Noël Coward play, Private Lives. I hope I can make it. I disappoint her too often.’
‘Let’s hope you do.’ Blake hesitated, awkward. ‘It’s been great meeting you. What you did back there was remarkable.’
‘But necessary. That’s what soldiers do, the nasty things from which the rest of society turns away. Zorin was something that needed stepping on, that’s all.’ And he increased speed as they went over the next rise.
Seated by the fire in the beach house, Blake finished his account of what had taken place at Banu and there was silence for a while and it was Cazalet who spoke first.
‘Well, it beats anything I’ve heard in years. What do you think, Charles?’
‘It’s certainly given the Russians a black eye. No wonder they wiped the screen clean,’ Ferguson replied. ‘It’s the smart way to deal with it.’
‘And you think it could stay that way? A non-event?’
‘As regards any important repercussions. How could the Kremlin complain while at the same time denying any involvement? OK, these things sometimes leak, Chinese whispers as they say, but that’s all. Miller will mention it to the PM, but it’s no different from the kind of things I have to tell him on a regular basis these days. We’re at war, whether we like it or not, and I don’t mean just Iraq and Afghanistan.’
‘One thing does interest me,’ Blake said. ‘According to his entry on the computer, except for the Falklands as a boy out of Sandhurst, Miller spent his eighteen years behind a desk at Army Intelligence headquarters in London.’
‘What’s your point?’ Cazalet said.
‘That was no desk jockey at that inn in Banu.’
Ferguson smiled gently. ‘All it does is show you how unreliable information on computers can be. I should imagine there are many things people don’t know about Harry Miller.’ He turned to Cazalet. ‘With your permission, I’ll retire.’
‘Sleep well, Charles, we’ll share the helicopter back to Washington tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see you for breakfast.’
‘Of course, Mr President.’
Ferguson moved to the door, which Clancy held open for him, and Cazalet added, ‘And, Charles, the redoubtable Major Miller. I really would appreciate learning some of those “many things” people don’t know about him, if that were possible, of course.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Mr President.’
Ferguson lay on the bed in the pleasant guest room provided for him, propped up against the pillows. Ten o’clock London time was six hours ahead, but he didn’t worry that no one would be in. He called the Holland Park safe house and got an instant response.
‘Who is this?’
‘Don’t play silly buggers, Major, you know very well who it is.’
‘What I do know is that it’s four o’clock in the morning,’ Roper told him.
‘And if it’s business as usual, you’re right now sitting ensconced in your wheelchair in front of those damned computer screens exploring cyberspace on your usual diet of bacon sandwiches, whisky and cigarettes.’
‘Yes, isn’t life hell?’
He was doing exactly what Ferguson had said he was. He put the telephone system on speaker, ran his hands over his bomb-scarred face, poured a generous measure of Scotch into a glass, and tossed it down.
‘How were things at the United Nations?’
‘Just what you’d expect – the Russians are stirring the pot.’
‘Well, they would, wouldn’t they? I thought you’d be back today. Where are you, Washington?’
‘I was. Briefed the Ambassador here and bumped into Blake Johnson just back from a fact-finding mission to Kosovo. He brought me down to Nantucket to see Cazalet.’
‘And?’
‘And Kosovo turned out to be rather interesting for our good friend Blake. Let me tell you.’
When Ferguson was finished, he said, ‘What do you think?’
‘That it’s a hell of a good story to enliven a rather dull London morning. But what do you want me to do with it? Miller’s a trouble shooter for the Prime Minister, and you’ve always said to avoid politicians like the plague. They stick their noses in where they
