D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

was about to rejoin with something pithy, when the Humber turned off the narrow two-lane road onto a dirt track hemmed on either side by tall fir trees. The heavy boughs scraped the roof of the car as they bumped and jounced their way along the deeply rutted road. A moment later the car broke out of the trees and Thorley spotted the airfield.

Little more than a large pasture pounded flat by steamrollers, it consisted of a single concrete runway with several aircraft parking areas branching off it along its length and a Nissen hut. A windsock hung limply from a pole standing several yards from the control tower: a two-story concrete blockhouse with its control nest and observation deck atop the roof. The windows on the ground floor glowed with a golden light, and Thorley saw a shadow cross in front of one them. Someone awaited them.

The Humber made for the blockhouse, and a moment later the car screeched to a halt and the driver scurried to open the door. MacIlvey climbed out and marched into the blockhouse. Thorley followed, feeling queasy. The throbbing in his temple had worsened.

Inside, Thorley saw a sea of empty wooden desks, their scarred surfaces littered with papers and other debris left over from a day’s work. The walls were covered with various maps stuck with pins, and a Teletype clattered lazily somewhere off to his right. But straight ahead, inside one of the enclosed offices, Thorley spotted MacIlvey arguing with an RAF officer.

“...I don’t give two bloody shits about priorities, mate. I want that plane here within the hour, fully fueled and ready to go with the crew I ordered. Is that clear?”

As Thorley approached, the conversation died. The officer stalked past him, muttering, his face flushed and his gaze focused on the floor.

“Close the door, Thorley,” MacIlvey ordered. He then pointed to a document on the otherwise immaculate desk. “These are your commission papers, please sign and date all three copies. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that you are still bound by the Official Secrets Act, or the penalties for divulging any particulars of your mission....”

Thorley sat down in the wooden swivel chair and took up the fountain pen lying next to the commission papers. He stared at them a moment, the official-looking language swimming before his eyes like a cloud of black flies.

He almost put the pen down then, almost told MacIlvey where to shove his bloody papers and his tawdry secrets. But then, as if in a dream, he found himself signing the papers, first one copy, then the next, and finally the last—everything in triplicate.

“Welcome to His Majesty’s Armed Forces,” MacIlvey said without a trace of irony.

Thorley looked up at the man and thought he saw something in those steel-colored eyes, something akin to envy; and he realized that, given the choice, MacIlvey would take his place in a heartbeat, had probably been a topnotch operative before age and infirmity had taken its inevitable toll. For the briefest of moments, Thorley and MacIlvey connected.

“You’ll find your uniform in the cabinet behind you,” MacIlvey said, breaking the mood. “I’ll wait outside while you change.”

And then he was gone, leaving Thorley alone with his thoughts again. Standing, he turned and opened the gun-metal gray cabinet. He found the uniform arrayed on the middle shelf: Cap, socks, underwear, tunic, and trousers, all neatly folded and arranged pyramidally. Next to the pile sat a pair of brown brogans polished to a mirror shine.

The uniform draped his body as if it had been tailored for him, and that made him uneasy. To have known all his measurements so thoroughly meant that they knew him far better than he would have liked. The inside of the metal cabinet held a full-length mirror, and Thorley gazed at his reflection. To everyone but himself he would appear to be the essence of a Major in the Royal Guards, replete with the proper medal ribbons for a man of his age and rank, decorations he did not deserve.

Suddenly depressed, he shut the cabinet and left the room. He found MacIlvey waiting just outside the blockhouse staring up at the night sky. He turned and gave Thorley an appraising glance, then returned his attention to the stars. The sight was awe-inspiring. Unlike the skies over London, where one was lucky to see the odd star through the smog, here the air was cool, clear as crystal, and smelled of pine tar and wildflowers, laced with a hint of cow manure.

MacIlvey broke the silence. “My father gave me a telescope when I was twelve. Since that time, I’ve never gotten tired of looking up. When you understand what’s out there, and the obscene distances involved, you realize how small and insignificant man is.”

“Heavy stuff for—”

“—an old coot?”

Thorley nodded, embarrassed.

MacIlvey chuckled. “Well, I wasn’t always so philosophical, or so old, for that matter. What I said about politics being more important than people.... It’s the way the world is, Thorley. I wish to Christ it wasn’t, but there it is. I learned long ago that I had to play the game their way or I’d be out of it.”

“And that was important to you, to be in ‘the game’?”

“Bloody right on that one. I wanted in because I thought I could change it from the inside. Instead—”

“—It changed you.”

MacIlvey nodded. “Someone once said, I forget who it was, that all cynics are disillusioned romantics. That’s me, to a tee.”

Thorley was about to offer a comeback when the sound of engines floated in on the wind. MacIlvey gave a curt nod. “Well done, Gormley, well done.”

Thorley looked toward the source of the sound and saw, off to the west, the landing lights of a lone plane