Shadowplay Read online

  Shadowplay

  Norman Hartley

  PRAISE FOR SHADOWPLAY

  ‘A fascinating, fast-moving tale of espionage and sexual intrigue. Skilfully crafted… a real page-turner.’ — The Guardian

  ‘A thriller about love, betrayal and spying with the genuine nightmare touch, set in the world of international journalism.’ — The Times.

  ‘What a superb novel! The concept is brilliant and frightening, the story-telling dazzling.’ — Western Daily Press

  ‘Brilliant, tense and sinister… hard as nails in attitude and a real trip.’ — The Scotsman

  ‘A racy read combined with plenty of excitement and insights into how spies and journalists live side by side.’ — She

  First published 1982

  Copyright © Norman Hartley 1982

  This edition

  Copyright © 2013 by Norman Hartley

  Published by Highwire Productions

  normanhartleybooks.com

  Cover design by Ray Tracey

  Cover photo Dwight Smith

  Text layout by Tim C. Taylor

  Also available in paperback ISBN: 978-1482579772

  All rights reserved

  FOR CHRISTINA

  With special thanks to the Seagull of the story who knows who she is.

  ALSO BY

  NORMAN HARTLEY

  The Saxon Network

  The Viking Process

  Quicksilver

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT SHADOWPLAY

  1

  Paul Sellinger was a master of the arts of corporate warfare. An hour before the opening of the World News centenary celebrations in New York, I was standing at my office window watching the first guests being sheepdogged from their limousines into the shade of the awning in front of the main entrance, when Paul sent me a message on the violet channel of the agency’s Electronic Information Network.

  Violet messages had overriding, drop-everything priority. They were intended to be extremely rare and unignorable but Paul abused the system constantly; he used it to bypass my secretary, break into meetings, or just to keep a timed printout of sensitive material for his own records.

  I pressed the receive key on the E Net desk terminal and watched the message print out on the screen:

  To: John Railton, President, World News Agency From: Paul Sellinger, Senior American Director

  John. There have been more disturbing developments in the Allenby scandal. There is no longer any doubt that it is going to break soon or that you will be deeply implicated. I strongly recommend that you cancel your Colorado trip and return to London immediately to brief your lawyers. I will continue to do what I can to protect you, for Nancy’s sake, as well as for the agency, but in fairness I must point out that my own position is becoming increasingly difficult in view of the Family’s current commitments. Paul S.

  The style was classic Sellinger: a savage attack disguised as good advice. At least most of the board members wouldn’t mistake it for a gesture of friendship when it turned up as part of the dossier Paul would prepare for each of them when he finally disclosed the precious information that I was involved in the Allenby affair. Paul and I had been locked in around-the-clock warfare for months and decoding our battlefield communications had become a favorite WN pastime.

  En clair, this one was saying that Paul was almost ready to use the scandal to finally oust me as president and chief executive of World News. Nancy was mentioned as a little psywar touch—to remind me that he had already taken my wife from me, as he now intended to take the agency. The other references were straightforward too, for insiders. The Family—always capitalized in Paul’s communications—was the Sellinger dynasty, headed by the patriarch Jacob, the Swiss-born arms dealer who had founded the Sellinger Corporation, now one of America’s big four defense contractors with Paul’s elder brother Robert as president. No one needed to be told either why the Sellingers wanted control of World News.

  In dollar terms, their media interests were a sideshow, but a vital one, given what Paul’s message coyly referred to as the Family’s current preoccupation: the development of the Starburst missile system as the successor to Cruise for the 1990s. The U.S. army had just formally accepted Starburst, an event to be celebrated by the missile’s first ‘public’ test-firing in Colorado the next day, but politically, there were harder roads ahead. For Starburst to become the heart of Western defense, as was intended, it had to be accepted also by America’s NATO allies and the Sellingers needed World News to help create the climate of acceptance.

  Paul’s job was to deliver it. The Family’s chain of newspapers and TV stations didn’t have the international prestige and influence for the task of backing Starburst, but they had given Paul the presidency of the Global News Agency with which we had merged. Now the Sellingers were one stage away from what they wanted, and I was the last obstacle.

  They had maneuvered well, but there was one flaw in their scenario: I hated Paul too much ever to let it happen. He had left his footprints on my neck once—over Nancy—and I was never going to let him do it again, least of all by destroying the agency I’d spent twenty years helping to create by turning it into a public relations division of the Sellinger Corporation.

  I buzzed my private secretary, Mandy, and told her Paul was coming. She knew I’d been avoiding him and she sounded relieved when I said I would see him immediately. She would have tried to stall him if I had asked, but like most of the former Global staff, she was afraid of him and she had too many friends who knew from direct experience how vindictive he could be with staff who crossed him.

  Within minutes, I heard him entering noisily into the outer office and Mandy had barely had time to announce him when the large teak door slammed open. He pressed forward into the room, without greeting, and moved straight to his favorite position, facing me across the desk, feet astride, ignoring all the chairs around him.

  Physical dominance played a big part in Paul’s business style. He was a huge man, well over six feet tall, with a big jowly face and beetle brows; 250 pounds, a third of it gut. As far as I knew, he had never hit another man in anger, but he always tried to imply that by disagreeing with him, you were putting yourself in physical danger. In fact, he wasn’t fit enough or fast enough to handle half the opponents he appeared to threaten, but he assumed—and he was right—that to most people, the idea of striking a member of the Sellinger family was unthinkable lèse majesté.

  With me, it was different. Paul squared off against me regularly, but warily. Just when he seemed at his most aggressive he would give himself away by glancing at my broken nose which reminded him that, despite my English gentleman’s shell, I was much closer to being the roughneck he would secretly have liked to be. Once, at the height of the divorce wrangling, when he had been goading me about how quickly he intended to marry Nancy, I had threatened to throw him down the stairs of the World News building in London, breaking both his arms first so he would roll better. Though he hadn’t taken me literally, I was sure the image had haunted his dreams, as I’d intended.

  ‘You got my message,’ he said. ‘The Allenby situation is getting out of control. You’d best get on a plane tonight.’

  I was used to the Sellin
ger theatrics and I ignored the dramatic tone and biting stare.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Paul,’ I said. ‘You must have very bad sources. I’m in close touch with London and the signs are all good. The editors are getting cold feet; two have backed off already.’

  I’d no idea whether it was true or not. Sellinger had deliberately left me no time to check whether there really had been any developments, but I’d learned that it was always better to bluff him with the big lie rather than engage him on his chosen ground.

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘You really think Allenby’s lawyers are going to scare the British tabloids? What is it you Brits say in Fleet Street—there are some stories that are too good to check?’

  ‘They’ll check this one.’

  ‘Yeah, and then they’ll run it. You want me to start writing headlines for you? How about ‘Heiress dies after sex and drugs orgy. Media chief named.’ ‘

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I snapped. ‘You know damned well I had nothing to do with Louise Allenby’s death.’

  ‘You were there. You’re involved. You’ll all go down together.’

  Sellinger was right, of course. If the scandal did break I couldn’t survive. He’d been needling me for days and I hadn’t given him the satisfaction of seeing even a hint of how worried I was, but he wasn’t fooled. He knew how vulnerable I’d suddenly become. He planned to use it to break me, but before that, he was making it his all-purpose tool and currently he was using it to try to stop me from attending the Starburst test in Colorado.

  ‘Paul. Let’s get to the point,’ I said. ‘All this crap about new developments in London isn’t fooling anyone. You don’t want me to go to Colorado. Well, I’m going. My decision’s final.’ I smiled. ‘You can hardly blame me for wanting a ringside seat at what your own PR people are calling the military event of the decade.’

  ‘Don’t get cute,’ Sellinger said angrily. ‘That’s not the point and you damned well know it. The issue here is that you’re trying to humiliate me and humiliate the Family. Do you know what Ray Welland of the Post said to me this morning? “I hear John’s going to Colorado to keep you all honest.” Christ, the bastard as good as said that if you didn’t go, our people would start interfering with the coverage.’

  ‘Ray jumps to conclusions too easily,’ I said evenly. ‘It’s a good thing he doesn’t see documents like this.’

  I reached into the top drawer of my desk and handed him a copy of a memorandum he had sent to Jim Eisenhardt, the WN chief defense correspondent, who was in charge of the Starburst coverage.

  The Colorado test was intended to put an end to criticism that the U.S. army had been pressured into accepting Starburst before it was fully proven, but it was probably only going to intensify the controversy. Eisenhardt had prepared a thoughtful and well-balanced curtain-raising feature which set out the political issues around Starburst and stored it in the E Net for release on the eve of the firing. Paul had retrieved it and had sent him a memorandum, alleging that the piece had major errors in it and the criticism was set out in such a way that it would have seriously harmed his career.

  ‘How did you get this?’ Sellinger said.

  ‘Eisenhardt showed it to me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘While I was in Washington. We live in an electronic age, Paul; you can’t pull the old ‘Slip one past him while he’s out of town’ number. Jim put it on the E Net.’

  ‘What! That was a personal note for his private guidance.’

  ‘On board notepaper?’ I said. ‘With a copy to the World Service Editor, putting a hold on the story, and a copy to Eisenhardt’s personal file?’

  ‘Jim made some very stupid mistakes in the article. You’re too soft. You have to record a man’s failures as well as his successes. It’s damned lucky for World News that I happen to have the inside knowledge to be able to put him right.’

  ‘Inside knowledge and I’m afraid inside bias, Paul,’ I said calmly. ‘I read Eisenhardt’s article very carefully. I thought it was an excellent, well-argued piece. I said so in a note to the WSE when I canceled your hold.’

  ‘You mean the piece has gone out?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘Dammit, that article contained some very damaging and ill-informed comment. Parts of it were downright hostile.’

  ‘That wasn’t my judgment. The hold is canceled and I’ve made it clear to the WSE that Eisenhardt and the team have had the benefit of your inside knowledge and it will be reflected in their coverage,’ I paused, ‘without any further memoranda being necessary.’

  ‘You’re a fool. You’ll make yourself a laughingstock’ Sellinger snapped. ‘It’s unthinkable for a chief executive to get involved in the day-to-day output of the agency.’

  ‘Yes’ I said, ‘I agree. In all the years I’ve been with WN I’ve never known a chief executive to do it before. But then I’ve never known one to have to. Jim Eisenhardt came to me because he received what amounted to a severe reprimand from board level which he disagreed with and wanted to ignore. I was the only person with the authority to arbitrate and to overrule you. I’ve done so. If you try to reverse it, you’ll make a fool of yourself.’

  ‘So you’re admitting it’ Sellinger roared. ‘You think you are going to Colorado to keep us honest.’

  In the early days of my fights with Paul, I might have fallen into a trap like that. But not now. The rule with Paul was no admissions, ever—not even something that was blatantly obvious. Admissions were something Paul could play back to the board with the context distorted.

  We both knew what was going on, but I didn’t think that even Paul realized this time just how far I had gone to undermine him. I had, in fact, shown the Eisenhardt memo to Ray Welland personally, and to a number of other editors whom I trusted. I’d done it to let them know that I was aware how bad the situation was; that I understood that our coverage of the Starburst firing and its aftermath was the biggest test of our objectivity since the merger and I was putting my own personal reputation on the line as a gauge against Sellinger interference.

  ‘There’s no question of my going to Colorado in that capacity,’ I said calmly. ‘I’m going to Colorado strictly as an observer. I have complete confidence in Eisenhardt and the team.’

  I stood up.

  ‘Paul, I have to break this. And so do you. The ceremonies begin in half an hour. You’d be better employed in the auditorium making love to a few clients. My decision stands. I’ve no reason to change my schedule. I’ll continue to monitor developments in London and I’m grateful for your promise of continued support.’

  Paul hesitated, which wasn’t like him. He knew me well enough to recognize a dismissal line and he rarely wasted time over lost positions; his style was to retreat quickly, then swing back in later from another angle. But he seemed reluctant to leave and I had the distinct feeling that it was because he wanted to tie me up for a little longer.

  I got the confirmation quickly enough. Mandy buzzed me and before I could pick up the receiver, Paul tried to reopen the argument and stop me from taking the call.

  I ignored him and picked up the handset.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Mandy said. ‘Security has called from the gatehouse. There’s a big fight going on. Cox is there. Security says he’s making a terrible scene and wants you to come down.’

  ‘What’s that bastard doing now?’ Paul snapped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I expect he’s on to something.’

  Cox was my executive assistant but he had spent most of his career as a foreign correspondent. His journalistic instincts seemed to have been fully formed before he left kindergarten and as a correspondent he had the one gift which counted above all others, including writing ability: he could read a situation quickly, sort through the bullshit and the smokescreens, including the ones being laid down by those in authority, and decide what was really going on. It wasn’t a characteristic to endear him to a Sellinger.

  ‘Where
is he?’ Paul said.

  There was something odd about the way Paul put the question.

  ‘He’s at the main gate,’ I said, watching Paul’s eyes. They always darkened when he was bothered by something and I could see that Cox had gotten himself involved in something Paul knew about already.

  ‘I’m going out there to see what’s happening,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Sellinger said. ‘For Christ’s sake learn to delegate. You’re as bad as Milner.’

  It was an easy cheap shot. My predecessor Ted Milner had been unable to delegate even the choice of the agency’s toilet paper and he had dissipated most of his creative energy on trivia. But when Paul used that attack, it was a certain giveaway: it meant there was definitely something going on out there that I shouldn’t know about.

  I didn’t argue. I told Paul I’d meet him in the auditorium in time for the welcoming speeches, and when he had reluctantly left, I called for my car to come to the side entrance.

  The World News complex is set in a large, almost treeless, green wasteland in a remote section of the New Jersey peninsula. One of the dubious advantages of the computer age was that a news agency no longer needed to be located in high-rent Manhattan, and Global had secured several hundred acres in a suitably zoned industrial park ready for future expansion. I missed being in the city, close to decent restaurants and good-looking women, but it had made good economic sense to move our own New York operation and in the early June heat wave that had been building up for several days, it was some consolation to be away from the baking downtown streets.

  The main drive was almost a mile long and it was already carrying a steady flow of visitors’ limousines. I didn’t want to create a scene by racing up it in the opposite direction, so I took a roundabout route, and approached the main gate from the side. As I skirted the perimeter fence, I glanced back and I wasn’t surprised to see Paul’s Lincoln, fifty yards or so behind.

  I knew it was pointless to try to stop him. If I challenged him with the absurdity of telling me not to bother with trivia one minute, then doing the same thing himself the next, he would simply stonewall and tell me he thought I might need his support.