protected it. He closed his eyes. Not bloody much to show for it, a couple of bandages and a single stitch and aches all over his body… not bloody much for cracking, for talking. His eyes were squeezed shut.
He tried to shut out all that was around him.
Pretty damn easily he'd talked.
More easily than he'd have believed.
Less hurt than he'd have thought possible.
He could move from his side to his back and to his other side and on to his stomach. The pain was… to have cracked and not been hurt, that was agony. What had he said? A hazed memory. The memory was of the face of the investigator, and with the eyes of the investigator seeming to plead with him for the telling of it. The memory was of the hair-covered hands of one guard, and the nicotine stains of another guard's fingers, and of the stale sweat smell of their fatigues, and of the rough dirt of their bootcaps. What had he said? There were sounds in his mind. The sounds were of his own voice speaking names. Good names, the names of old friends…
God, the shame of i t… God, the bloody disgrace of it…
It was faint, he could not be sure that he heard the voice. The voice seemed to say the name of Charlie Eshraq. Couldn't be certain, but the voice amongst the confusion seemed to be the voice of Mattie Furniss.
'His name is Charlie Eshraq.'
No, no, couldn't be certain, and the memory was misted.
'His name is Charlie Eshraq.'
For years in the Service he had used them. They were almost friends to him, almost family, and he'd named them
… and they hadn't even hurt him so that it lasted. He had his fingernails, and a back he could straighten. He had not been hurt as the Gestapo gaolers had hurt that Lutheran pastor who had come to the Fort and talked of his faith. Shame and disgrace and failure… He rolled off the bed. Gently, as if he were frightened, he lowered his feet to the tile floor. He put the weight of his body on his feet. It was as if he wanted to feel pain, as if the pain in his feet would justify his having talked. Of course there was pain, but not enough pain. The pain was sustainable when he put his weight on to the soles of his feet. They wouldn't understand in Century. They had a routine in Century for those who came back – if he ever came back – those who'd talked under interrogation. A debrief and a goodbye. No one wanted to know about a man who had talked. All the successes forgotten. And the irony was that it had been Mattie who had contradicted the Embassy's reports in the late '70s, Mattie who had said the Peacock throne was on shifting sand and would sink. Good reporting, and all for nothing. A debrief for damage limitation and then a goodbye that was cold and without emotion.
He heard an engine revving outside. He struggled to get up from the bed and he pressed his ear against the plywood at the window. The engine dulled the voices, but he recognised the voice of the investigator. There was a place in hell for that man. Mattie Furniss would never forget the voice of the investigator. Then the scrape of the tyres on chip stones and the squealing of a gate. Mattie understood. The investigator would be setting up the surveillance on the field agents. He would return. Mattie tried to calculate how long it would have taken to abort the field agents. He knew the system because he had drawn it up himself. He couldn't keep track of the days any more, should have done, should have scratched a marking for each day on the wall beside his bed. He didn't know whether he'd given them enough time. What he'd been through, that would be a suite at the Ritz compared with what the field agents would suffer in the interrogation rooms at Evin.
Mattie would have whetted the appetite of the investigator, he knew that. He'd be back. They would strip him and gut him of all he knew, and then they would kill him. Stood to reason, they would take their fill of him, and they would dispose of him. They would take him through the kitchen and across the yard, and they would put him against the concrete block wall where the other poor bastards had been put.
In his life he had never known such agony of failure.
If he didn't make it b a c k… in time, they'd hear at Century that their man had cracked. Just as the Agency had heard that Hill Buckley, good guy and brave guy, had cracked. The bastards had tortured Buckley and then they sent the tapes of Buckley screaming to Langley. The shit pigs had made sport with Bill Buckley's pain.
He went to the wash basin and he ran the tap, and when the water came it did not matter to Mattie that it was foul-tasting and ditchwater brown.
While the water still dripped from his beard growth he sat on his bed. He waited for them to bring him his breakfast.
He would watch each movement of the guards when they brought him his breakfast.
Past six, and Charlie sang in his shower. He felt good. He knew what was the source of his soaring spirits. It was his meeting with Mr Stone, gun runner By Appointment. Stone had taken Charlie's money, and would deliver, because Charlie was the friend of Mr Furniss. He began to realize that the friendship of Mr Furniss was a protective shield to him.
He dressed and packed his rucksack.
He came out of his room quickly. He walked on the corridor carpet on the balls of his feet, and he went quietly, and he could hear the scramble of movement behind the door across the corridor, and he heard the static and the squeal of a radio hurriedly activated. He ran down the fire stairs.
In the lobby he went briskly to the swing doors. He drifted into the street.
Charlie turned, and he went past the line of taxis. At the end of the line was the green Sierra.
The call on the radio, fed into his earpiece, had battered Keeper awake.
Still in the back of the car. He was wrenching the sleep out of his eyes and shaking his head clear. Harlech telling him that Tango One had come out of his room. Corinthian telling him that Tango One had crossed the lobby.
He sat upright. He saw Tango One coming down the line of taxis, and behind Tango One was Corinthian spilling out through the swing doors, and then behind Corinthian was Token, fumbling to get her blouse into her jeans. Why the hell was Token tucking her blouse in? Why the hell did it ever get untucked when she was mounting night surveillance in a hotel room with Harlech? Harlech would be at the back, in the car park, getting the back-up on to the street. Of course Token had to sleep, like he'd slept, silly thought, and fast because the target was closing on his car, striding up past the taxis. It happened, it wasn't desirable, but it sometimes happened, that a target would walk right past the surveillance position, within spitting distance. The routine was to look away, get your face out of his field of vision. Make it look like there was nothing there out of the ordinary.
This was just about the closest that he had been to Tango One, just closer than the one-way window at Heathrow. He turned away. He had yesterday's newspaper in his hands, and his head was away from the pavement, and his body was low in the back seat. All standard procedure.
The car lurched.
The front of the car bucked down.
His eyes opened. Keeper's eyes coming half out of his head.
He gazed through the front windscreen at the back of Tango One.
Tango One sat on the bonnet of the green Sierra, and his feet swung close to the nearside front wheel and he was grinning as he looked down and through the windscreen. The fucking Tango was sitting on the bonnet of Keeper's car… no standard procedure for that one. Keeper looked into the amused face. Past Tango One he could see Token stop dead in her tracks, and Corinthian behind her.
'Excuse me.' He wound down the rear window. 'Would uou mind getting off my car.'
He heard the voice that mimicked his accent. 'Excuse me . excuse me, would you mind getting off my back.'
All the training said that in a show-out then the surveillance team backed off, and fast. Keeper couldn't back off. He was half lying in the back of his car, and the target was comfortable on the bonnet.
Token was twenty yards from the car, and hesitating, and not knowing what was expected of her, and Harlech had stalled his engine and there was a frustrated horn hammering behind him, and Corinthian was cutting through the traffic to get to the far side of the road, which was right. A bitter, raw anger in Keeper.
'Would you mind getting off my car, please.'
Again the mimicking of his voice, but this time shouted,
'April Five to April One, April Five to April One… for fuck's sake come in, please. What a funny little name, April Five.'
'Get off.'
