He saw them, silhouetted against the fainter light of the night sky, two of them.
He saw the punching and the kicking, the frenzy.
He closed on them. No way that they could not have heard his approach, the bloody elephant's arrival. They must have heard him, and yet had not faltered from the blows and the kicks into the heaving and writhing shape of the bivouac. He had no gun and he had no weapon, and he didn't think about it. He hurled himself forward to get them away from the American, he threw himself at them. His hand flew at an arm, caught a sleeve, rough cloth. The two figures separating. He staggered from a kick to his shin bone. His hand scrabbled to stop himself from toppling, found material, clung to it, and a fist, gloved, smashed at his lace. He was falling, tumbling, out of their reach.
He yelled, 'Stand or I shoot… '
And they were gone. Good fucking bluff. He didn't see them go. He was on his back, no shadows above him, no silhouette bodies. They were gone without a sound. He listened for them.
He heard the silence, and the wind gale in the trees and the rain driven around him, the moan of the American's pain.
He found the pencil torch in his inner pocket. He wriggled forward. He pulled back the bivouac cover. He shone the torch on his own face, so that Erlich would see it, know who was with hint, then he swung the torch down. It was a long time since he had seen the face of a man who had been systematically beaten and kicked.
That was Ireland. Not in Ireland now. In the English countryside, for God's sake. Blood all over the face, and an eye closing faster than paint dried. Rain falling on the face. Erlich was doubled up, knees against his chest, and his breath came in sharp hissed sobs.
'It's O. K., Bill, they've gone.'
'Thank Christ for the cavalry.'
'Anything bust?'
'God knows.'
Gently, he pulled Erlich upright. The blood ran from the cut over the American's right eye and from his nose.
The covert stuff, that didn't matter any more. There seemed to be a dog barking in the Manor House as they made their way across the field. Too late to worry about being spotted from the village. He limped from the blow on his shin bone, and because he had the full weight of Erlich on his shoulder. He had Erlich's arm wrapped round his neck and his throat, and the man was solid. They sloshed across the middle of the field and the wind and the rain lashed their faces. They ploughed through a gateway and into another field, and the lights of the pub car park came slowly to meet them. Rutherford's fear and shock gave way to anger that Erlich had let himself be jumped. He had probably been reciting Wordsworth. But greater than anger was his amazement. The man was a wreck, done over fit to break. Why? What in God's name for?
And he hadn't the heart to tell Erlich that at least one of them had been a woman. When he had gripped at a sweater his fingers had caught a bra strap. Might just ruin Erlich's night altogether.
A car came past them fast, sprayed them with road water, heading away from the village. It was a long two miles to the next village, to the policeman's house.
Dr Tariq sipped at his fresh pressed juice, as he waited for the Colonel to be admitted. Dr Tariq had little respect for the military men of his country, but his contempt was kept concealed. They were the power of the regime, they were the provider of resources.
He had no interest in the executioners and the torturers and the interrogators of the regime. He was a scientist, he was responsible only to his work. A laboratory technician had come to him the previous month, spoken of a cousin taken into custody and no word of him had been heard by the family. Could the Director, please, please, use his highly esteemed influence? He had not picked up the telephone. It was not his business. Only his work was his business.
The Colonel, too, was all business. No niceties with the Colonel of Intelligence, Dr Tariq thought. The Colonel said the name.
The name was that of Frederick Bissett.
He repeated the name. 'Frederick Bissett of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.'
'And his rank?'
'Senior Scientific Officer.'
'His department?'
'His identification card gives him access to the H3 building.'
He stared out of the window of his office at the broken upper structure that had housed the Osirak reactor. The jagged, wrecked shapes of the crippled reactor were never far from his thoughts, as present as a most recent bereavement.
' H 3 is where a most acclaimed team of scientists work on the study of implosion, Colonel… Bissett, how could he be attracted?'
'Money, no doubt.'
'You know that?'
The Colonel opened his briefcase. He passed to Dr Tariq a transcript of the message from London.
Dr Tariq read it and smiled faintly. 'A Senior Scientific Officer, in that department, I would want him, Colonel, subject to your being absolutely satisfied that you are not importing a foreign spy into my team. To have any scientist from Britain's best team would be so exceptionally unusual as to create suspicion on this score, but I will grant that the circumstance of your discovering his possible willingness to join us are themselves so, well, so exceptionally unusual that I believe luck will be on your side.'
Dr Tariq outlined the terms that could be offered to Frederick Bissett, and stated that he would have prepared, by that evening, a list of questions to be put to Frederick Bissett, before a deal would be struck.
The Swede was crossing the garden, when he saw the Director ushering out the Colonel. He recognised the Colonel. He saw that the Director wore no necktie. He saw the insignia on the Colonel's shoulders and the medal bars pinned on his chest, and he saw the holstered pistol at his hip.
'Good morning, Director,' the Swede called out.
He was ignored. He hurried on his way. It had been demanded of him that he should seek more complete information. The Colonel had returned to Tuwaithah. The Colonel had come on business so pressing that he had made his appointment before the Director had shaved and before he was fully dressed. Under his breath, as he greeted the members of his laboratory work force already at work, he cursed. An opportunity had been missed.
Reuben Boll said from the doorway of Bissett's office, 'I really must have something on my desk tomorrow morning.'
'Well, I honestly don't know if…'
' M y desk, tomorrow morning, latest.'
'I'll do what I can.'
'Work through the night if you have to. You know what, Frederick? In the old days here, when a man had work on his desk, then he did not go home until it was finished. Before your time, of course, but that was the old attitude.'
Quite simply, he had not the courage to tell Boll. Sara was out that evening, at the parent-teachers meeting at school. She had cleared it with him, that morning, that he would most certainly be home in good time to look after the boys. So he could not work in his office until midnight. He had promised Sara.
' N o sweat, Reuben, by hook or by crook it'll be on your desk in the morning.'
Penny was still in her dressing gown, and she was half falling out of that, and there was the warm and sleep-battered look on her face that he loved, before she anointed herself with all the garbage.
'Good grief, w h a t t h e cat brought in this morning?'
'Darling, this is Bill Erlich. Bill, this is my wife Penny…'
'What in God's name have you two been at?'
'Just be a love, and clean him up.'
And don't ask any silly questions. Don't even consider enquiring whether the guest has gone three rounds with a pissed-off buffalo.
