"Have you deposited any evidence with anyone, McBride? I must have all your papers, your notes, lists of people you have seen—"
"What's the matter with you, Walsingham?" McBride reached very slowly into his jacket and removed the carbon copies he had made the previous evening. "I've written to my bank in Portland, Oregon, and to my agent in New York. Also this morning I rang my agent in London inquiring about an advance against royalties for the British edition of Gates of Hell. I said I'd ring again this afternoon."
He waited, his skin crawling, his hands flattened, turning white, on the damp bark of the rotten log. He could be swatted now, removed, eliminated. He had no doubt that Walsingham would do it, had planned to do it. The carbons the old man was studying appeared insubstantial, ineffectual. The bullet would pass through his frame as easily as through those papers. Come on, come on—
"I see. Your American agent would, in the event of your sudden demise, be authorized to receive the documents from your bank, and expose their contents. To the New York Daily News in the first instance, I presume?" There was a livid lightning-flash of hatred on Walsingham's face for a moment, a second of decision, and then the slow relaxing of the hand that held the papers, so that it rested nervelessly on the log beside McBride's hand. The decision had been unmade, altered. McBride wiped his green-stained hands together with relief.
"Make a beautiful noise and a very bad smell, mm?" he asked with adopted lightness, after he had cleared his throat.
What was that? Anything— nothing? Had he lost—?
"This creates something of a problem," Walsingham said with chilling calm. Lost—? "Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be insuperable. We should have to persuade your agent that your death was an accident. The CIA or the FBI would assist us there, I should think?" Walsingham's confidence was growing. Then your documents, your confessions, would moulder on in the vaults of the Citizens" Bank of Portland, undisturbed—" Walsingham had raised his hand to mop his now dry brow. McBride watched the gesture in disbelief.
"My agent in London!" he shouted. Walsingham's hand hovered. "If I don't call this afternoon, he talks to New York. The papers will be out of my bank before you can stop them, and it won't be an accident."
Walsingham sat with his hand still hovering near his brow. Hate and fury crossed his old face like new streams following old, dry courses. McBride studied the trees in panic, then glanced over his shoulder. He had only a moment. Walsingham, in a few seconds, would make the irrational, irreversible decision to have him eliminated. Walsingham's face was now an agony of indecision.
"I don't believe you—" he said.
"Can you afford not to? You're about to retire. I won't talk, to anyone, until after you're dead and in your grave, loaded with honours you don't merit. I'm leaving now. Just keep your hand on your forehead until I've gone." Walsingham chewed his lower lip. His hand fell limply against his brow, and with an effort he held it there. Time, time, McBride thought. Given time, he'll see sense. He'll lose his nerve. Just let me get away from here— "The only way you can expose me is by revealing your own rotten part in things. You won't care about the meetings, or about
Ulster, but you'll care about that. You won't want to have to shoot yourself to avoid the scandal." McBride moved behind the log, watching the sweat break out along Walsingham's forehead, around the crumpled ball of the handkerchief. The old, veined hand was shaking. Slowly, McBride backed up the last yards of the slope to the brow of the hill. "Just take it easy, Walsingham," he called out. "I'll keep my word—"
He was on the long, whale-backed hilltop, and his car was only hundreds of yards away, down in the trees. He felt a curious lightness in his stomach, and began running.
Behind him, Walsingham transferred his handkerchief — glancing in distaste at its grey dampness — to his left hand, and the marksman stepped out of the trees, rifle lowered.
"What happened?" Exton asked when he reached the log. "Why didn't you give me the signal? I could have killed him easily. You were in no danger, at any time."
"He'd written letters," Walsingham offered, his gaze avoiding Exton's eyes and their contempt. "I had to settle for the original trade-off. He'll keep silent if he wants to live."
"As you will?" Yes, it was there, in Exton's voice. The unfamiliar tinge of contempt. Walsingham felt old, older than ever before. He looked up, mustering authority, perhaps merely recollecting it.
"As I will, and you will, Exton — and so will all of us."
Distantly, they heard an engine start, and then the noise of a car accelerating away from them. To Walsingham, the noise was both a relief in the present and a distanced, humming threat from the future. But, it was settled. McBride would let him live out his days, basking in respect and honours. It would have to do. His old body, old nerves, had settled for it when he faced Michael's son.
The sound of the car faded and disappeared on the morning air.
About the Author
Craig Thomas has been described as "a master storyteller" and "one of the finest action writers working today". His fourteen best-selling novels have consistently attracted praise and that sincerest form of flattery, imitation, since he is generally credited with creating the genre of the 'techno-thriller' with his novel FIREFOX (1977).