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Admiralty.” It was signed D. Somerset, PM, as if it were still necessary for him to politely remind people who he was.
    To be sure, there were still many questions about David Somerset. No one had expected the fall of McLeod’s Conservative government, and certainly not over such a question as the reorganization of British Rail.
    In retrospect, it was easy to see that the vote had reflected Conservative factionalism, not Labour strength. The CP was full of frustrated ambition, middle-aged pols with their own power bases who were watching their prime years slip away while McLeod’s team kept them on the fringe. Their expectations had been raised by nineteen years of Conservative dominance, and they had broken ranks to warn McLeod, not to unseat him.
    So thought the rebels, and so thought Taskins. Almost no one in the U.S, legation had predicted that Labour would muster enough seats to end McLeod’s personal nine-year reign. The few who had were the embassy’s new gurus, and were now leading the scramble to come up with useful answers to the question, “What will Somerset do?”
    Taskins had his own questions and problems. There had already been two exchanges of dispatches—handcarried because of the gravity of the matter—between Washington and London, and yet Taskins was still without instructions. Three years of careful work was at risk, both from the new players brought in by the upset and from the loose ends represented by the vanquished.
    But absent guidance from President Robinson or the CIA, he could do nothing about either danger.
    Taskins had waltzed gracefully through the official ceremonies accompanying the change of government, carefully avoiding any substantive conversations with Somerset or his advisors. Better to be elusive than to christen the new relationship with lies. Easy enough to maintain the routine Home Office contacts, let Somerset see to a new Cabinet and the vagaries of settling in.
    A month would be soon enough to call on the PM personally. A month would be time enough for Robinson to decide.
    But Somerset, making a habit of the unexpected, clearly thought it more urgent than Taskins did that they meet. So they would. And the preeminent question now was not what would Somerset do, but what did he know.
    The embassy car was waiting at the end of the walk, motor purring, tiny American flag fluttering from the fender. Taskins settled in the back, clutching his leather case on his lap, and nodded to the driver.
    “The Admiralty,” he said hoarsely.
    Throughout the fifteen-minute drive, he gazed trancelike out the side window as the myriad dimensions of the dilemma arranged and rearranged themselves in his head. Stony faces and stone figures flashed by equally unnoticed.
    Taskins was met at the curb by a young lieutenant, who caught the car door and then ushered him inside with brisk efficiency. They moved past the security post unchallenged, then entered an empty lift. The lieutenant’s bronze key passed them through to the third floor.
    “This way, sir,” the lieutenant said with a gesture.
    “Where are we? Whose offices are these?” Taskins said, following.
    “Admiralty offices, sir,” was the unilluminating reply. “Here we are, sir.”
    The unlabeled door opened to a dark-paneled room which he would have called a study had he found it in a private home. There were three men in the room. The only one Taskins knew by sight was Somerset.
    The Prime Minister was standing by the heavily draped window, arms crossed over his chest, the ash from the cigarette in his left hand threatening to drop to the thick carpeting. He had the workingman’s build, the masculine good looks of a cinematic union leader or infantry first sergeant.
    Somerset turned as Taskins entered. “Thank you, Robert,” he said, walking two steps to a pedestal ashtray and crushing out his cigarette. “My Home Secretary, Benjamin Caulton,” he said, nodding toward a man seated a few feet away in a high-back leather