“The bad news is there’s nothing in Libya but sand and camel dung,” he told Silk before he left. “The good news is you can have as much as you like.” Silk made a gentle belch. “Not a funny joke,” Skull said. “Not even a joke, actually.” That was the last Silk heard of him. Until now.
An airman tapped on Silk’s door, presented Wing Commander Skelton’s compliments, and asked if Flight Lieutenant Silk was free to dine tonight. If so, the car would be outside at 1930 hours.
It was a Lagonda. The tyres alone cost more than Silk’s Citroën. The leather upholstery smelled like the tearoom of the House of Lords. The engine had a soft growl that belonged in the Brazilian jungle. “Load of junk,” Silk said. “Piece of piss. You had this bloody tractor in 1942.”
“Regular maintenance is the key,” Skull said. “A sergeant in the MT section does it for me. Not illegal, of course. Well, maybe just a tiny bit illegal.” As he drove out of the base he took the RAF police sergeant’s salute. “Sorry I had to treat you so boorishly, Silko, but when an air commodore is in full flow, you don’t cut him off.”
“Don’t you? I wouldn’t know.” Silk stretched his legs: there was ample room. “Air commodores never speak to flunkeys like me.” His backside slid on the leather as Skull accelerated into a long right-hand bend. “But I see you’re still climbing the greasy pole, wing commander.”
“The rank suits me. Civilians think I actually command a wing.”
“Took you fifteen years.”
“No, no. Much less. When the war ended, I went back to Cambridge. Not a wise move. Severe anticlimax. They thought modern history ended with Queen Victoria’s death. Any unpleasantness after that was unfit for discussion. So I left and learned Russian instead.”
“Cunning bugger.”
“I rather enjoyed it.”
“Who paid?”
“Uncle Henry. What a sport he was. On his eighty-third birthday he hooked a twelve-pound salmon, had a heart attack, and left me everything. Perfect timing. It financed two years at Cambridge, one at Harvard, one in Berlin. By 1950 the Cold War was big business and the RAF was quite keen to welcome back a slightly shop-soiled intelligence officer who was fluent in Russian.”
“What’s the Russian for bullshit?”
“Almost everything,” Skull said. “Alas.”
Ten minutes later they stopped at a small manor house, steeply gabled and half-timbered. “Private dining club,” Skull said. “There’s a vast US Air Force base just down the road. This is where the higher-ranking officers can escape and think the unthinkable over a good claret. I’m a member.”
“So you’re an honorary Yank.”
“Not as honorary as you were. Don’t argue, don’t get into any fights, smile if you can, and listen.”
“God help us,” Silk said. “It’s a Baptist outing.”
The dining room was large. All the curtains were closed. The tables were widely spaced and dimly lit. Somewhere the Modern Jazz Quartet was playing Misty, maybe in the minstrel gallery, more likely on LP, and with great restraint.
“I was wrong,” Silk said. “It’s a Baptist speakeasy.”
A middle-aged man in a steel-grey suit came to greet them. He had rimless spectacles and a square face. He reminded Silk of a geologist he’d known in Venezuela. That man looked like Harry Truman’s kid brother but he found great gushers of oil, so what did a face tell you? Skull introduced Silk to Brigadier Karl Leppard.
“I flew with Barney Knox in the Hitler war,” Leppard said.
“Awfully nice chap. He got me into Air America.”
“Which doesn’t exist,” Skull said.
“Just like Communist China,” Silk said. “And the far side of the moon.”
Dinner was simple. Everyone ordered steak. “They hang the beef in a meathouse out back,” Leppard told Silk, “until it starts to rot around the edges. Called creative waste.”
“We did that in Lancasters. Called area bombing.”
“No nostalgia, Silko,” Skull warned him. “Six years of war was enough, without your tedious reminiscences.” Chilled bottled beer arrived. “What’s new from the Pentagon?”
“Well, Kennedy says we’ll do anything, go anywhere to protect liberty,” Leppard said. “The Pentagon seriously doubts that, but not out loud.”
“Damn good beer,” Silk said.
“So Tibet is fairly safe,” Skull said. “The West is not going to fight Red tyranny in Tibet.”
Leppard spread his hands. “No votes in it.”
“Hungary?”
“No oil in it.”
“Saudi Arabia?”
“Be serious, Skull.”
“Well, that leaves Germany,” Skull said. “We think the Kremlin thinks it’s the jewel in their crown. We think they think we think it’s not worth shedding Anglo-Saxon blood over. They fought Hitler, they won, they deserve it. All of it.”
“I agree,” Silk said. “Take sauerkraut, for instance.”
Leppard waited briefly, but that was all Silk had to say.
“We don’t think they think they can get away with a smash-and-grab attack on Germany,” Leppard said. “Not with armed B-52s on patrol 24 hours a day.”
“That scenario assumes rational, reasonable behaviour,” Skull said. “War isn’t rational. It’s a dance of death.”
“Sure. But this isn’t about war, is it? It’s about non-war. And we think the Kremlin respects logic too much to invite nuclear reprisal.”
“Logic?” Skull said. “I knew a professor of logic who strangled his wife.”
“She was a miserable cow,” Silk said. “She had it coming.”
Soon the steaks arrived and the conversation lost him. It was dotted with too many technicalities: talk of Blue Danubes and Yellow Suns, Red Shrimps and Blue Divers, and much more. Later they got around to discussing Micky Finns and Lone Rangers. Silk half-remembered some of the terms from OTU lectures; right now there were more interesting things in his life. He ate his steak. It was thick as his wrist and so tender, you could cut it with a spoon.
Coffee on the terrace. They had it to themselves.
“Shall we examine the broader aspect?” Skull suggested. “Hail to the Chief! Everyone here seems to think he’s a good egg. What do your people think?”
“We think that Kruschev thinks that Kennedy’s just a pretty face,” Leppard said.
“Fur coat and no knickers,” Silk said.
Skull almost winced. “And you think that Kennedy thinks that Kruschev…?”
“Is a loose cannon.”
“All mouth and no trousers,” Silk said.
Leppard polished his glasses with a handkerchief and peered at Silk. “Is your family in the garment trade?” he asked.