Arthur sat looking at DuLac, the sadness in his eyes was as plain as day, he was torn up by the loss of his friend.
"When was this, Lance?" He asked.
"Three weeks ago. I was stood down by the Air Boss for abusing him." DuLac explained. "If he had informed us of the missile threat and let us have more than four hours rest between sorties, I feel sure that Dante would still be with us. I put him forward for the Distinguished Flying Cross, But Squadron Leader Thomas said you don't get medals for dying and ripped up the paperwork." Arthur sat there is a state shocked horror.
"This Squadron Leader Thomas is senior to you I assume?"
"Yes eighteen years. The old bastard hasn't flown in over twenty, even then rumour has it he crashed more than flew."
"I am truly sorry for your loss, Lance. But, let me assure you that there is a broom about to hit the senior members of the Military Establishment, and they won't like it." Arthur informed him. "You better get us on the ground and I better look through these briefing notes. We will talk again, you have my word. It has been an honour to meet you." Arthur stood and shook DuLac's hand, the man turned back to the cockpit. "Oh, and you have royal permission to continue your in-flight announcements." Bit men laughed softly and turned back to their work.
Arthur was deep in thought, everything was moving in a positive direction, the question was when the path would diverge and then the choices become far more difficult. He heard someone moving and looked up to see Percival move in and sit down across from him. He smiled at Arthur and winked.
"I assume you had some fun at the Air Marshall's expense?"
"Ex-Air Marshall Arthur. There is no place for Officers that refuse to follow the most basic of orders."
The two men smiled and nodded, there wasn't much left to say.
*****
Seven hundred and fifty kilometres to the south, Geraint Rolph walked along Maddox St toward Mayfair. He had spent the morning organising several clothing outfits for Arthur, there were a number of bespoke tailors that were sympathetic to Arthur. He knew that there were RIS Agents all over the city looking for Arthur and any Intel that they could find or force. He was still an unknown quantity as far as the RIS was concerned, but he knew that he was under constant surveillance. He had spotted at least seven taggers so far, and he was sure that there were at least another three. He simply walked back towards Claridge's, he had been staying at the beautiful hotel since Arthur had escaped the city with the Sword. On Grosvenor St there were any number of retailers he could have ducked into, but he decided that he needed to get out of the city. He turned off Grosvenor St onto Davies St heading toward his hotel, if he could make it along Davies to Bond St, he could disappear into the underground and from there it would be easy to leave the city.
He stopped and bought a paper and looked over the front page casually, the front page was one big story.
Has the King Returned?
Rumours rip through the Capitol
By Hedrick Bourke esq.
Rumours abound that the son of slain King Uther Pendragon has returned and claimed the sword from the stone. Sources close to the palace have confirmed there was an attack on the Palace some ten days ago. This reporter's source has confirmed that an entire platoon of Royal Guardsmen were slain, and several million pounds worth of damage was done to the Palace. Official reports from the Palace have denied the reports.
The daily Mailer 24th day of August Nineteen hundred and forty three. 6p.
Geraint had a smirk at the headline, now that Arthur was safely away from the Capitol, he knew there was nothing that Harold and his cronies could do to do re-rail the movement against him. After a couple of minutes he started walking along Davies St further toward the cross with Bond St, he stopped occasionally, pretending to look at something in a window. When he did he caught at least five sudden movements from other people that were supposedly just wandering down Bond St themselves. There were two women and three men that he identified as Agents, he was amazed that they were so poor at tagging a mark. In reality the best of the RIS had disappeared after Uther's death, mostly moving to the continent to avoid the brushfire that was lit in the various departments to flush out Uther's supporters. He didn't mind, it made it that much easier to keep an eye on Harold's minions.
Bond St was only a hundred metres away now and the Agents were becoming less subtle in their tagging, it was then that Geraint decided that he needed to lose the taggers and make his escape. At the corner of Bond and Davies he stopped for a moment looking in a jewellers, this was where he needed to have a distraction to make good his getaway. As fate would have it, he didn't need to manufacture one. Not more than a hundred metres above the city, a massive Airship glided across, the shadow covering everything for several blocks. The massive passenger liner was coming into dock at the Grosvenor Square Mast, it was the brand new American liner Dallas, it was the largest civilian Airship ever built and carried two thousand passengers in the lap of luxury. It was rumoured the owners of Claridges had paid an enormous amount to have the Mast placed in the Square not three minutes from their front door.
The sight brought people out from everywhere to look at the giant, it was an impressive sight, Geraint had to admit, but that was not important now. He ducked around the corner and ran quickly to a bench that was placed about ten metres from the Underground entrance, whipped off his coat and hat, flicked out the broadsheet he bought and sat there looking like he had been there for some time reading the paper. A few seconds later three RIS Agents ran around the corner as fast as they could looking for the missing mark. The two women hung back as the man headed straight for the Underground. They were eyeing everyone closely and even gave him a passing glance. But there was no sign of the well-dressed man they had been tagging. One of the women grabbed a man that was wearing similar attire to Geraint, but swore and pushed the man away when it turned out not to be Geraint.
The man came out of the Underground and was looking like he was about to spit fire, he went over to the women and they had an animated conversation for about a minute then took off in different directions.
"Hopeless." Geraint said quietly.
After he was sure that the Agents had departed, he casually folded his paper, grabbed his coat and hat from behind the pot plant he stashed them and walked casually to the Underground and caught the first train that happened along. Now it was time to vacate London and make his way to the base south-west of Perth in Scotland where he knew Arthur was setting up his headquarters. One thing that was definitely clear, was that the cat had been set well and truly amongst the pigeons, and what a glorious sight it was, he couldn't help but chuckle.