loyalty to the Crown, Mr. Howard, but it counts for something .”
“So we’re her lifeboat and you trust her to bail if you hand her a bucket?”
“Something like that. Or so I have been led to believe by Mahogany Row. And what’s good enough for them is, ipso facto, good enough for us.”
“Jesus.” I shake my head. (So this is coming down from the very top of the organization: the stratospheric, secretive executive country that mere mortal scum like me don’t get to see even from a distance unless we’re very unlucky.) “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Ray Schiller of the Golden Promise Ministries is doing breakfast with the PM, and you’re a little upset because he’s disturbingly convincing and gives off bad vibes. We can’t snoop on the PM ourselves, so you point this loose cannon at the pastor—” I stop. “Oh no you don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Lockhart’s face is as unreadable as a professional poker player’s.
I’m on my feet and leaning over his desk; I don’t remember standing, and I am so damn angry that I’m shaking: “You’re setting me up! You’re going to spin it as a rogue operation with no oversight and if anything goes wrong—”
“Calm down, Mr. Howard!”
I’m not sure quite what it is about his tone, but his words are like a bucket of cold water in my face.
“You are not being framed. Quite the opposite. Your role in this operation is to monitor and report on BASHFUL INCENDIARY’s officially unauthorized and unsanctioned activities; nothing more and nothing less. You will have…noticed…that at no point did I instruct BASHFUL INCENDIARY to act on our behalf. In fact I have no authority over her. What Ms. Hazard chooses to do next is entirely up to her. It is not impossible that she will decide to occupy herself with the Grand National and the Chelsea Flower Show instead. Or to emigrate to Brazil, or paint herself orange and join a Buddhist nunnery. The point is, she is not under our control . Not under yours or mine. You don’t have command authority; your job is to keep an eye on the external asset, not to direct it.”
“But”—I begin to slow down: the implications are sinking in—“with what she knows, what if she’s a threat?”
Lockhart looks at me grimly. “I think that is very unlikely, Mr. Howard, otherwise I would not have mentioned our little problem to her. However, in the hypothetical case that the loose cannon were to explode in our faces, your job would be to deal with the consequences as you see fit. If you happen to be one of the survivors.”
“I”— squeak —“survivors?” It wouldn’t be the first time an operation has blown up under me with fatal consequences, but I really hate the way this is shaping up, with Hazard carrying the detonator and me trailing along with bucket and spade. But Lockhart evidently misunderstands the nature of my reservations.
“This is not a game, Mr. Howard. Your new pay grade comes with strings attached; I am not referring to the management training. Further advancement as an officer within this service will put you in situations where you will be responsible for whether other people live or die—this is inevitable as we move closer to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. Worse: it is likely that you will encounter situations where you must choose who to save and who to cast adrift, answerable only to your oath of service and your conscience. I understand from your personnel file that you have been placed in situations where you have been required to use lethal force in self-defense. This is not the same. ” He fixes me with a gimlet stare. “There is a huge difference between returning fire in personal self-defense and ordering an artillery strike on an inhabited civilian settlement suspected of harboring enemy forces. Do you understand?”
I sit down. My mouth is dry. Lockhart’s gaze is directed through me, almost as if he’s talking to a younger version of himself. Military background, I
“So we’re her lifeboat and you trust her to bail if you hand her a bucket?”
“Something like that. Or so I have been led to believe by Mahogany Row. And what’s good enough for them is, ipso facto, good enough for us.”
“Jesus.” I shake my head. (So this is coming down from the very top of the organization: the stratospheric, secretive executive country that mere mortal scum like me don’t get to see even from a distance unless we’re very unlucky.) “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Ray Schiller of the Golden Promise Ministries is doing breakfast with the PM, and you’re a little upset because he’s disturbingly convincing and gives off bad vibes. We can’t snoop on the PM ourselves, so you point this loose cannon at the pastor—” I stop. “Oh no you don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Lockhart’s face is as unreadable as a professional poker player’s.
I’m on my feet and leaning over his desk; I don’t remember standing, and I am so damn angry that I’m shaking: “You’re setting me up! You’re going to spin it as a rogue operation with no oversight and if anything goes wrong—”
“Calm down, Mr. Howard!”
I’m not sure quite what it is about his tone, but his words are like a bucket of cold water in my face.
“You are not being framed. Quite the opposite. Your role in this operation is to monitor and report on BASHFUL INCENDIARY’s officially unauthorized and unsanctioned activities; nothing more and nothing less. You will have…noticed…that at no point did I instruct BASHFUL INCENDIARY to act on our behalf. In fact I have no authority over her. What Ms. Hazard chooses to do next is entirely up to her. It is not impossible that she will decide to occupy herself with the Grand National and the Chelsea Flower Show instead. Or to emigrate to Brazil, or paint herself orange and join a Buddhist nunnery. The point is, she is not under our control . Not under yours or mine. You don’t have command authority; your job is to keep an eye on the external asset, not to direct it.”
“But”—I begin to slow down: the implications are sinking in—“with what she knows, what if she’s a threat?”
Lockhart looks at me grimly. “I think that is very unlikely, Mr. Howard, otherwise I would not have mentioned our little problem to her. However, in the hypothetical case that the loose cannon were to explode in our faces, your job would be to deal with the consequences as you see fit. If you happen to be one of the survivors.”
“I”— squeak —“survivors?” It wouldn’t be the first time an operation has blown up under me with fatal consequences, but I really hate the way this is shaping up, with Hazard carrying the detonator and me trailing along with bucket and spade. But Lockhart evidently misunderstands the nature of my reservations.
“This is not a game, Mr. Howard. Your new pay grade comes with strings attached; I am not referring to the management training. Further advancement as an officer within this service will put you in situations where you will be responsible for whether other people live or die—this is inevitable as we move closer to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. Worse: it is likely that you will encounter situations where you must choose who to save and who to cast adrift, answerable only to your oath of service and your conscience. I understand from your personnel file that you have been placed in situations where you have been required to use lethal force in self-defense. This is not the same. ” He fixes me with a gimlet stare. “There is a huge difference between returning fire in personal self-defense and ordering an artillery strike on an inhabited civilian settlement suspected of harboring enemy forces. Do you understand?”
I sit down. My mouth is dry. Lockhart’s gaze is directed through me, almost as if he’s talking to a younger version of himself. Military background, I
Similar Books
