Arthur Hailey - In High Places

Outside there was a whine as the turbo-prop motors came to life.

The flight-sergeant steward hovered behind Howden, who shook his head. 'Leave everything,' he ordered curtly. 'There's nothing I need and we'd like to be alone.' He threw his outdoor clothing over one of the spare chairs and sat down facing the older man. One of the cabin reading lights, he noticed, had been turned on. It shone down on Nesbitson's balding head and pink-cheeked face like an interrogation lamp above a prisoner. Well, Howden thought, perhaps it was an omen of the line he should take.

'This is a short flight,' he said peremptorily, 'and we have very little time. I believe you owe me an explanation.'

The Vanguard was taxi-ing now and, judging by their motion, moving fast. There was to be little delay. Tonight, How-| den knew, they would have priority over everything else in the air.

Momentarily the old man flushed at Howden's tone. Then he said with surprising firmness, 'I should have thought the explanation would be clear. Prime Minister. I intend to resign in protest against what you are planning, and so do others.'

James Howden inquired coolly, 'Isn't there something you've forgotten? – a compact we made. Here, in this aeroplane, ten days ago?'

The old man's eyes were steadfast. He said evenly, 'I am ashamed to remember it. I believe we both should be.'

'Speak of your own shame,' Howden flared, 'not mine. I am trying to save this country. You and your kind, looking backward, would destroy it.'

'If you are saving Canada, why plan to give it away?' There was a hint of new strength behind the words. Howden remembered what Stu Cawston had said: 'Adrian is a changed man.' Physically he seemed less shrunken, to have more stature than before.

'If you are speaking of the Act of Union,' the Prime Minister argued, 'we shall gain far more than we shall give.'

The old man replied bitterly, 'Disbanding our armed forces; having the Yanks move in without restraint; letting them run our foreign policy – you call that gaining?'

The aeroplane had stopped briefly, then moved forward, gathering speed for take-off. A pattern of runway lights raced by, then disappeared. Now, they were airborne; a moment later, with a thud, the landing gear came up. The Prime Minister calculated: there would be twenty minutes of flying, perhaps less. It was always the same: so little time.

He declared, 'We're facing war, and you're looking at one side only!'

'I'm looking at the whole,' Nesbitson insisted, 'and I tell you that war or not, your Act of Union would be the beginning of the end. Americans would never stop at partial union; they'd want it complete, and we'd be swallowed whole. We'd lose the British flag, the Queen, traditions…'

'No,' Howden argued. 'Those are things we'd keep.'

The old man snorted. 'How could we? – with the border wide open and Americans including Negroes, Puerto Ricans, flooding in. Our identity would disappear because we'd be outnumbered and people wouldn't care. What's more, we'd have racial problems we never knew before. You'd make Toronto another Chicago; Montreal a New Orleans. We have an Immigration Act which you just got through defending. Why throw it away with all the rest?'

'We'd throw nothing away!' Howden said fiercely. 'We'd merely make adjustments. Oh yes, there'll be problems, I grant you. But none as great as if we stay helpless and alone.'

'I don't believe that.'

'In terms of defence,' the Prime Minister insisted, 'the Act of Union provides for our survival. And economically Canada will have tremendous opportunities. Have you considered the Alaskan plebiscite, which we shall win – Alaska as a Canadian province?'

Nesbitson said gruffly, 'I've considered that every sellout has its thirty pieces of silver.'

A blazing anger swept over Howden. Controlling it with an effort of will, he declared, 'Despite what you say, we are not surrendering our sovereignty…'

'No?' The tone was withering. 'What good is sovereignty without the power to maintain it?'

Howden declared angrily, 'We have no such power now, and have never had, except to defend ourselves against small skirmishes. The United States holds the power. By transferring our military strength and opening the border, we increase American strength, which is our own.'

'I am sorry. Prime Minister,' General Nesbitson said with dignity. 'I can never agree. What you're proposing is to abandon our history, all that Canada has stood for…'

'You're wrong! I'm trying to perpetuate it.' Howden leaned forward, speaking earnestly, directly, to the other man. 'I'm trying to preserve the things we care about before it's too late: freedom, decency, justice under the law. Nothing else really matters.' He pleaded: 'Can't you understand?'

'All I can understand,' the old man said doggedly, 'is that there must be some other way.'

It was no use, Howden knew. But still he tried. After a while he asked, 'At least answer me this: How would you have Canada defend itself against guided-missile attack?' Nesbitson began stiffly: 'Initially we would deploy our conventional forces…'

'Never mind,' Howden said. He added dourly, 'I'm only surprised that while you've been Defence Minister you haven't revived the cavalry.'

In the morning, James Howden decided, he would interview the other dissident ministers one at a time. Some of them, he was sure, he could persuade over once again. But there would be others – in Cabinet, Parliament, and elsewhere – who would think as Adrian Nesbitson thought, who would follow his lead dreaming their wishful dreams… until the last gasp of radioactive dust…

But then, he had always expected a fight, right from the beginning. It would be a stiff fight, but if he could lead Nesbitson on, persuading him to expound his views, demonstrate their quaint absurdity…

It was sheer bad luck, though, that this and the immigration debacle had come together.

The twenty minutes had gone. The note of the motors was changing and they were losing height. Below were scattered lights, ahead a reflected halo in the sky from the lighted, shimmering city of Montreal.

Adrian Nesbitson had taken the drink he put down when Howden came in. Some of it had spilled, but he sipped from the residue in the glass.

'PM,' he said, 'personally I'm damn sorry about this split between us.'

Indifferently now Howden nodded. 'You realize of course, I can't possibly recommend you as Governor General.' The old man flushed. 'I thought I had made it clear-'

'Yes,' Howden said brusquely, 'you made a good deal clear.' Dismissing Nesbitson from his mind, he applied his thoughts to what must be done between now and tomorrow afternoon.

A few minutes after 7.30 AM the telephone rang in Alan Maitland's Gilford Street apartment. Alan, still sleepy and in pyjama trousers only – he never used the tops and had a collection of them in their original wrappers – was preparing breakfast at his portable two-burner stove. Unplugging the toaster, which had a habit of reducing bread to a cinder if unwatched, he answered on the second ring.

'Good morning,' Sharon's voice said brightly. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm boiling an egg.' Trailing the telephone cord, Alan inspected an hourglass timer on the kitchenette table. 'It's been on three minutes; one to go.'

'Give it another six,' Sharon suggested cheerfully. 'Then you can have it hard-boiled tomorrow. Granddaddy would like you to have breakfast with us.'

Alan reflected swiftly. 'I suppose I could.' He corrected himself: 'At least – thank you, I mean.'

'Good.'

He interjected, 'I presume your grandfather knows the Duval hearing is this morning.'

'I think that's what he wants to talk about,' Sharon said. 'How long will you be?'