The Dardanelles Conspiracy by Alan Bardos (best ereader for pc TXT) 📗

of paradise. ‘It is not as if you’ve been living a blameless life, not if the scratches down your back are anything to go by. Don't presume that this was anything more than it was.'

‘I can’t believe Sir George would use you like that,’ Johnny said.

‘The using was my idea, a little treat to start my hols, since you turned up on my doorstep, so to speak.’ Libby smiled.

‘Sir George knows you well enough, one glimpse of his wife and you’d stay put and go wherever he needed you. Which is with us, now come on, these good men have waited for you long enough.’ Fitzmaurice indicated the two men holding Johnny.

‘I trust I can rely on your discretion, gentlemen,’ Libby said, pointing at Johnny as if he were a stray dog they were going to put down. ‘Now I’ve delivered him to you.’

‘Lady Smyth, we would never betray your confidence,’ Fitzmaurice said mortified at the very idea.

Johnny slowly allowed himself to be pulled down the rest of the station steps, towards a waiting motor launch.

Chapter 11

‘Do pay attention, Swift.’ Johnny ignored Fitzmaurice and pushed his plate away.

They’d spent half the day steaming across the Adriatic in a passenger ferry, every turn of its screws taking him further away from his obligations and into Sir George’s pipe dream.

‘We’ve stood you a bottle of wine, the least you could do is listen,’ Fitzmaurice said in his grating Irish brogue.

Johnny’s listlessness wasn't helped by his travelling companions, who’d arranged for a passable lunch to be served in their cabin and had spent the entire meal discussing the fact that Johnny had ordered wine.

‘Did we really delay our departure for this drunken sot?’ Eady, one of the men who’d accosted Johnny outside Venice Station, asked. ‘If this wasn't a forlorn hope before, it surely is now!’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be in Athens with enough time to conduct the negotiations,’ Fitzmaurice said.

‘Hardly,’ Whittall, the other man from Venice station, snapped. ‘It’s February already, the fireworks are bound to begin in a few weeks.’

‘Do you actually think that this thing will work?’ Johnny asked, finishing the wine.

‘We wouldn’t expect someone who places himself at the whim of a woman to understand the intricacies of diplomacy,’ Fitzmaurice said, making it clear that he thought that to be the worst thing any man could do, and it finally broke Johnny’s indifference.

‘I’ve fought for my country and I mean to go back. I owe it to my men, but I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.’

Fitzmaurice looked at the other two. ‘So there is more to him after all.' He grimaced at Johnny. ‘Now listen to me, Swift, you can do far more for the men at the front with us, than you ever could if you went back.’

‘You actually believe that we can bribe the Turks into abandoning the war?’ Johnny asked dryly.

‘It’s worth a try, dear boy,’ Whittall said languidly. ‘I was a merchant banker in the Ottoman Empire for many a year and I can tell you that there’s nothing the Young Turks leadership needs more than money. The country is just about bankrupt, fighting another war will finish them off.’

‘That will be the thrust of our attack,’ Eady said. ‘There are currently three people in the Turkish Government who wield enough power and influence to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The first, Cemal Pasha, is currently in Egypt trying to take the Suez Canal from us. So we don’t need to concern ourselves with him. The second Enver Pasha, the Minister of War is the most prominent of the Young Turks.’

‘Enver’s a slippery customer. His father was a bridge-keeper, his mother an Albanian peasant who laid out the dead. Now he’s a minister and thinks he's some kind of reincarnation of Napoleon and Frederick the Great,’ Fitzmaurice jeered. ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could spit.

‘The swine seized my house and vandalised six of my Aubusson tapestries,’ Whittall added bitterly.

‘Enver is a lost cause as far as we’re concerned. He’s enamoured with all things German and dragged Turkey into the war, without the full support of his Government in his quest for glory,’ Eady explained. He reminded Johnny of Laszlo Breitner, a Hungarian civil servant he’d met in Sarajevo, who was as precise as he was ruthless.

‘Our third and best choice is Talat Pasha, the Minister of the Interior. He’s an opportunist who will go with whoever’s most convenient to his purpose. He is also said to be resentful of the number of posts that have been given to Germans in the Ottoman Army. It is that division which we intend to exploit. Playing Talat's opportunism and resentment off against Enver's dreams of military greatness.'

‘It all sounds very plausible,’ Johnny said, finally feeling some drive. This was really a chance. If what they said was true, he could actually help to end the war.

‘I'm so glad you approve, Swift,' Whittall said with a hint of sarcasm. 'We will conduct the negotiations, using you as a point of contact between ourselves and our intermediary. Fitzmaurice organised a network of spies when he was at the Embassy in Constantinople and they will be keeping an eye on things.’

'No doubt my people will have to pick up the pieces when you make a hash of things,' Fitzmaurice barked.

‘When we dock in Greece, Fitzmaurice, Whittall and I will make our way to Athens. You will be sent onto Salonika. From there you will take the train through Serbia to Bulgaria and then onto Constantinople.’

'You can take the train straight to Constantinople?' Johnny asked.

'Our friend Eady here was a civil engineer on the Berlin to Baghdad Railway and he assures us that one can,' Whittall said, turning to Eady.

‘That is correct. The Germans are employing all manner of nefarious means to keep