end of this matter, he never would have recognized the piece of square brass.
He leaned over and picked it up. Stamped into the metal were the words “St. John’s Colliery” and the number 290.
“We have no strategy,” Winship said. “These bastards know what they’re doing. We cannot allow another Lovebridge, can we?”
“No, of course not,” Slayton said. “But we’ve got, what… five or six days before the deadline, when we have to go along and
release that scumbag?”
Slayton fingered the tag from St. John’s Colliery, which he had popped into his coat pocket.
“I think it would be easy enough for you to let word filter back to Rogers that the government plans to go along with the
demands?”
“Easy enough, sure,” Winship said. “What do you have in mind?”
“Also, you’ll want to arrange for a nationwide alert at mines. No Thermos bottles or like objects are to be permitted down
in the pits. That’s how the Lovebridge was blown, by the way. A remote-controlled or time device activated a cordite bomb.”
“Used by the British in the war,” Winship mused.
“The big one?”
“The very one.”
“How nice. Cordite was used a lot in ‘Nam. Great to know how bombs can span the generations.”
“Anything else?” Winship asked, a bit miffed at being told to make lists by his subordinate.
“The media?”
“Oh yes. How did they know, and all that. And how did the FBI know. Well, it seems that the AP here received an anonymous
call, from a man with a British accent… not English, not Scotch, either…
“Anyway, the AP put the thing on the wire as an advisory, and now it’s a full-fledged story. The FBI was contacted by your
man down at Fairmont, the mining executive, and that’s the connection there.”
“So fairly soon, I expect the threat on Nixon will be known?”
“It won’t be long.”
“I’ll see if I can’t make it back before then.”
“Where are you—”
Slayton was halfway across the St. Regis lobby, leaving Winship sputtering, but assuming, correctly, his destination. Godspeed,
he thought.
Chapter Ten
CARDIFF, Wales, United Kingdom,
12 September
Like most first-time visitors to Wales, Slayton was first struck by the huge wall of differences that seemed to close over
this western section of the British Isles. Yet he knew that Wales was fundamentally British, far more British than England.
It was in the mountain fastness and the sequestered valleys of Wales that the original Britons had managed to preserve their
way of life, whereas other more vulnerable parts of Britain had been successively overrun by invaders.
The people looked different, to begin with, Slayton decided. The Welsh were able to trace their origins back 2,400 years,
to before the Roman occupation, to a short, dark Iberian people.
An amazing thing, he thought. So small a country, next to another small country, and yet there were such huge differences
in the mere appearances of people. The English were tall and finely featured; the Welsh, short and broadly built. Slayton
was accustomed, as are most Americans, to nearly every community and every region of America having the same basic ethnic
mix, a fairly even distribution. But in Britain, this was not the case.
In fact, he realized, that was exactly what Britain—at least some Britons nowadays—had always fought. Slayton sat bolt upright
in his train seat.
Could this be the charade?
He scribbled a note to himself and tucked it away.
The South Wales Labour Exchange is located along Cardiff’s Severn waterfront in a long, low red-brick building designed so
that the view of the port by residents of the hill district is unobstructed.
A man of thirty-five years or so walked casually into the exchange, approached the hiring window, and produced his British
working documents, including a mine worker’s union card.
“ ’Eard about work out the Rhondda way. Is it true, mate?”
The clerk at the
He leaned over and picked it up. Stamped into the metal were the words “St. John’s Colliery” and the number 290.
“We have no strategy,” Winship said. “These bastards know what they’re doing. We cannot allow another Lovebridge, can we?”
“No, of course not,” Slayton said. “But we’ve got, what… five or six days before the deadline, when we have to go along and
release that scumbag?”
Slayton fingered the tag from St. John’s Colliery, which he had popped into his coat pocket.
“I think it would be easy enough for you to let word filter back to Rogers that the government plans to go along with the
demands?”
“Easy enough, sure,” Winship said. “What do you have in mind?”
“Also, you’ll want to arrange for a nationwide alert at mines. No Thermos bottles or like objects are to be permitted down
in the pits. That’s how the Lovebridge was blown, by the way. A remote-controlled or time device activated a cordite bomb.”
“Used by the British in the war,” Winship mused.
“The big one?”
“The very one.”
“How nice. Cordite was used a lot in ‘Nam. Great to know how bombs can span the generations.”
“Anything else?” Winship asked, a bit miffed at being told to make lists by his subordinate.
“The media?”
“Oh yes. How did they know, and all that. And how did the FBI know. Well, it seems that the AP here received an anonymous
call, from a man with a British accent… not English, not Scotch, either…
“Anyway, the AP put the thing on the wire as an advisory, and now it’s a full-fledged story. The FBI was contacted by your
man down at Fairmont, the mining executive, and that’s the connection there.”
“So fairly soon, I expect the threat on Nixon will be known?”
“It won’t be long.”
“I’ll see if I can’t make it back before then.”
“Where are you—”
Slayton was halfway across the St. Regis lobby, leaving Winship sputtering, but assuming, correctly, his destination. Godspeed,
he thought.
Chapter Ten
CARDIFF, Wales, United Kingdom,
12 September
Like most first-time visitors to Wales, Slayton was first struck by the huge wall of differences that seemed to close over
this western section of the British Isles. Yet he knew that Wales was fundamentally British, far more British than England.
It was in the mountain fastness and the sequestered valleys of Wales that the original Britons had managed to preserve their
way of life, whereas other more vulnerable parts of Britain had been successively overrun by invaders.
The people looked different, to begin with, Slayton decided. The Welsh were able to trace their origins back 2,400 years,
to before the Roman occupation, to a short, dark Iberian people.
An amazing thing, he thought. So small a country, next to another small country, and yet there were such huge differences
in the mere appearances of people. The English were tall and finely featured; the Welsh, short and broadly built. Slayton
was accustomed, as are most Americans, to nearly every community and every region of America having the same basic ethnic
mix, a fairly even distribution. But in Britain, this was not the case.
In fact, he realized, that was exactly what Britain—at least some Britons nowadays—had always fought. Slayton sat bolt upright
in his train seat.
Could this be the charade?
He scribbled a note to himself and tucked it away.
The South Wales Labour Exchange is located along Cardiff’s Severn waterfront in a long, low red-brick building designed so
that the view of the port by residents of the hill district is unobstructed.
A man of thirty-five years or so walked casually into the exchange, approached the hiring window, and produced his British
working documents, including a mine worker’s union card.
“ ’Eard about work out the Rhondda way. Is it true, mate?”
The clerk at the
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