The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (115 page)

Darwin wiped the blood from his cheek, as he had done that day in Derry. As his eyes adjusted to the brightness he could see that Theophilos was smiling wryly. “I surrender,” the Bishop mouthed—or might have been shouting; it was impossible to hear.

Darwin put a bullet straight through the top of the wooden cross that hung over his heart. The Bishop, lifted from his feet, fell heavily against and then backward through the window, which shattered into fragments like an exploding star leaving nothing but a gaping, lifeless hole. The last sight Darwin had of Theophilos was the tail of a flapping cassock, a pair of sandals, and two bright yellow socks.

Urquhart had been right. He’d apologized to Darwin, as soon as he’d finished briefing him over the satellite link about the layout of the Lodge.

“Apologize, Prime Minister?”

“Yes, Captain. The Bishop, if captured alive, will inevitably go before a Cypriot court. He has a lot of friends in Cyprus. I suspect he’s more likely to get elected President than convicted. We don’t deal with terrorists very effectively, do we?”

“No, sir.”

“I remember in my own time, when I was a soldier doing your job in Cyprus, fighting EOKA terrorists. The Archbishop, Makarios, led the terrorists at that time, paid them from church funds, gave them their instructions. They killed not only our troops but many British civilians, women too. We knew it, even locked him up in exile. Then we let him become President of Cyprus. We’re too soft, Captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Even if they lock him up for a while, it would achieve nothing. Like a serpent’s egg. Put it away, and the menace only grows stronger until it breaks out in some more dangerous and reformed fashion. I’ve always believed there’s only one thing to do with a serpent’s egg.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Crush it, Captain.”

***

They had watched it all on the monitors. The shadows flitting between forest and kitchen window. The flash of confusion by the shutter at the front door. The fire drawing ever closer. The dark shape bursting forth from the first-floor window and falling like a sack of coal. Four grateful hostages rejoicing in sunlight for the first time in days.

And miraculously the fire had been doused, the aim and effectiveness of the rainmakers improving as rapidly as circumstances within the Lodge.

Much to Urquhart’s private delight Youngblood had returned, commanded to do so by his superior who was insistent that, no matter how intolerably interfering and unreasonable the Prime Minister might be, a military representative had to be there to advise and, if necessary, to object. And even as Urquhart gloried in his victory, the argument was not yet done.

The military advice, from the commanding heights of the Cabinet Room all the way down to St. Aubyn on the spot, was to transfer the released hostages immediately to the safety of Akrotiri. But again Urquhart said no and insisted. This was no longer a military matter, it had become entirely political, and the politics demanded that the victory be paraded and lauded for the benefit of the legitimate government of President Nicolaou and for the disgrace of his foes. To skulk behind British barbed wire would wipe away all the President’s newfound advantage.

So Urquhart decreed that the exhausted Nicolaou and the others were to rest overnight in a nearby hotel, and on the following morning, Sunday, St. Aubyn should prepare to drive them in convoy not to a British base but to the capital of Nicosia, to the seat of Government and authority. To the media networks that would spread the word of victory throughout the island. To the symbolic ruins of the Presidential Palace. To the humiliation of all foes. And to wherever Mortima’s letter might be.

And, in order to maximize the magnitude of victory, Urquhart made a mental note to ensure that every television network and news cameraman his staff could get their hands on would be there to witness his triumph.

***

It was as dusk was falling and the last of the debris of captivity and assault was being cleared from around the Lodge that Urquhart knew, with a certainty that clung to his heart as ice, that something had gone wrong. The light was dimming, the sun setting, shadows stretching across the ground—as they had done all those years before on the side of that mountain. Urquhart was contemplating the scene of his triumph on the monitor when an ember, revived in the caress of a cool evening breeze, caught on the dried bark of a pine, settled, found renewed life. As he watched, and remembered, the tree burst into all-consuming flame.

Full circle. A cycle of life complete, finished. And from out of the screen, Urquhart saw the charred, accusing fingers of George and Eurypides pointing directly at him.

Forty

Fear brings out the best in a man, strips away the complacency, and exposes the core. Those who are afraid to die have never properly lived.

Victory. It had been the lead item on the Saturday evening news, even though there were as yet no new pictures to illustrate the story.

“I asked not to be included in the formal War Cabinet. People would start speculating that I was being lined up for the succession—you know, the youngest Home Secretary since Churchill. We’re in an election, not a leadership race. So I declined. But, of course, Francis consults me, all the way.”

Across the table Booza-Pitt offered a smile that spoke of modesty, determination, achievement, I-know-you-want-to-touch-me-all-over-with-those-beautiful-lips-but-I’m-truly-very-important-and-business-comes-first. His dining companion purred in encouragement. After years of anguish she’d separated less than two months earlier from a parliamentary husband whose dedication to late-night lobbies, weekend surgeries, answering the telephone, and endless piles of constituents’ letters was as utterly selfless as it was, to her, irredeemably boring. She knew getting laid by Booza-Pitt would be folly, but it had been such a long time and it might be fun, particularly if he was as practiced in the delivery as he was at finding the route. She hadn’t climbed higher than a Minister of State before, let alone as far as a Home Secretary. She owed it to herself.

“Really?” she incited, wondering if his performance would be as inflated as his ego.

“It’s pretty tricky right now—can’t go into detail, you understand, but I advised that we should get in there as quickly as possible. Spring the hostages and teach those bloody Cypriots a lesson.”

“A good spanking.”

“Yes, something like that.”

“You’re magnificent, Geoffrey.” She fluttered her eyelids outrageously, he smiled in self-congratulation—he was so lacking in subtlety that he belonged in a zoo. She hoped.

“It’s a strain,” he admitted, heavy eyebrows twitching. “Lonely at times.”

Here it comes. He was about as difficult to read as a tax demand.

“You know what I would like?” he continued, staring at her across a glass of wine, which cast strange patterns across his forehead in the candlelight.

“To become Prime Minister?”

“I’ve no ambitions at present beyond…” he began the litany.

She reached out and touched a fingertip to his lips to put him out of his misery. Grief, he’d better be good in bed, he had no other redeeming features. At least it would avoid the complications of an extended affair.

“Tell me all your secrets, Geoffrey. I’m very good with confidences.”

“Are you? Are you really?”

“Yes. Tell me—don’t if it’s truly a state secret, but—are you a Virgo?”

***

“I wish you were here having breakfast with us, Mummy.”

It was the one meal Claire insisted on trying to have with the children before politics dragged them apart for the remainder of the day. It didn’t always work, even on a Sunday. “I know, darling, but you remember what election campaigns are like from the last time.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere in the Midlands, to be quite honest I’m not sure where. I got picked up in a car yesterday afternoon from the train and the rest is all a blur. But I’ll be back tonight. After you’ve gone to bed.”

“I’ve run out of refills for my asthma inhaler.”

“The blue one or the brown?”

“Blue.”

“I’ll find a pharmacy open somewhere.” Claire scribbled a hurried reminder to herself in the margin of her
Sunday
Express
, beside an exploding headline that shouted: FU’S FALKLANDS. “Bring you one back tonight. And I hope you and Abby are wearing the clothes I laid out for you.”

Diana ignored the question. Something else was on her mind. “Mummy?”

“Yes, darling?”

“What is war?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re fighting Cyprus, aren’t we? Why?”

“Not the whole of Cyprus, darling. Just a few bad men.”

“And all those ladies with the baby chairs.”

“Not really.”

“But Mr. Urquhart killed the Bishop, didn’t he?”

“No, not Mr. Urquhart personally.” Although something in her daughter’s naivety rattled chains within Claire.

“But why?” Diana persisted, munching her way through a mouthful of wholemeal toast.

Claire hesitated. The morning’s press had been crammed to capacity with plaudits for the previous day’s success in the Troodos. Even those who were not supporters of the Government couldn’t avoid copious reference to “Francis’s Fusiliers.” Some of the more serious newspapers carried reports of disagreement with military advisers and of the Prime Minister unusually and perhaps inappropriately having taken single-handed control of the operation, but in light of its success the military appeared to be playing down any sense of injured pride. Victory argues its own case.

So why did Claire feel so unenthused?

“I’ll explain it all to you later, darling. And remember to brush your teeth.”

***

“Gotcha!”

With a snap of exultation and a flick of his remote control, Urquhart wiped the Leader of the Opposition from his Sunday morning screen.

For almost twenty minutes on breakfast television Dick Clarence had been struggling hard to avoid his fate, but persistent questioning had worn down his linguistic ingenuity and overrun every defensive position his advisers had prepared until he was forced to capitulate. Finally he had no choice but to admit it. Yes, Francis Urquhart had done the right thing.

“Not long for this world, I suspect, young Dick,” Urquhart reflected to Mortima. Fate was a harsh judge on an Opposition Leader who had lost the ability to oppose with only ten days of campaigning left.

From the other side of the breakfast table Mortima looked up from her newspapers. “The press seems already to have reached that conclusion.” She passed across to him three editorials, carefully folded and highlighted, which effectively pronounced the election over.

He digested them alongside his Lapsang, then laid them to one side, shaking his head. “They rush to judgment. Clarence is dead, because he is congenitally useless. But there is still opposition.”

“Makepeace?”

“Who else?”

“A man with no party.”

“But an army.”

“An army under attack, sir.” It was Corder, who stood filling the doorway in the quiet way to which over the years they had grown accustomed. Mortima didn’t even adjust her dressing gown.

“You have news from the front, Corder?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Makepeace may have a battle on his hands. Since last night’s news broadcasts, various of the extreme British nationalist groups have been organizing. Arranging a little reception for when he reaches Birmingham this evening. They want to do to him what you did to the Bishop.”

“How unfortunate,” Mortima mused with as much concern as if she were selecting tights.

“So what’s to be done, Corder?”

“Depends on whether you want a riot on the streets of Birmingham.”

“Violence is certain?”

“Could be. If you wanted it, Prime Minister.”

“I think not, Corder. Too much uncertainty. Such things can get out of hand, make him a martyr. No, how much better if the threat of riots were sufficient to get Mr. Makepeace to abandon his march.”

“You think he’d do that?” Mortima interjected skeptically.

“I doubt it. It would be the end for him. We could appeal, request, beseech, but I don’t suppose he’d listen.”

“So?”

“So we would have to get the Chief Constable to order Makepeace to abandon the march as a threat to good public order, wouldn’t we, Corder?”

“In my experience, sir, Chief Constables don’t always listen…”

“He’s coming up for a knighthood, he’ll be all ears.”

“…and aren’t always listened to in such matters.”

“But wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Urquhart spread his hands in front of him as though confronting a heavenly host. “Makepeace. Already branded a friend of terrorists. Now challenging the forces of law and order in this country. The threat of riot would seem to be his fault as much as any other’s. From martyr to public menace. We’d have to arrest him.” He clapped, then subsided. “With great reluctance, and after copious warnings, of course.”

“Public Order Act 1986, sir. Section Thirteen, I think. Three months and a fine.”

“Precisely, Corder. Can do?”

Corder nodded.

“And then we would have all the loose ends tied up.”

“Except for one, Mr. Urquhart.”

Corder was clutching the red file. It appeared thicker than on the last occasion.

“Passolides.”

“Yes, sir. We’ve been keeping an eye on him. Not simply a harmless old crank, after all. Appears he carries a gun, been waving it about. And a record as an EOKA activist.”

He was standing right beside the burning tree, scorching his flesh as though an oven door had been opened in front of him.

“We should pick him up. But I wanted to check with you first.”

The voices were at him again, warning, instructing, clashing and confusing. It was many moments before Urquhart was able to push aside the debris in his mind and speak.

“Where is he now?”

“Skulking in his tent. The one with no windows.”

“Good. Then let us leave him there. Someone so close to Makepeace, armed, blood on his hands. British blood. Could prove very convenient.”