He sent a terse report to the Mullah in Tehran.
He sent a description of Matthew Furniss to the Army Command of the north-west region.
There was no choice but to broadcast his failure over the airwaves.
Mattie had driven out on the Marand road. He had the map, and he reckoned the petrol tank had a minimum of a hundred miles, perhaps more. He would draw attention to himself if he speeded, and if he dawdled then he faced the greater risk of being trapped inside the gun net when the alarm was raised.
He took the wide bridge across the Meydan Chay. He rattled past factories that had been idle for years now that the war had soaked the resources of the nation; huge unlit ghost buildings. Just after the road crossed the old railway track that had once carried passengers and exports into the Soviet Union, he swung left off the main road. Any time on the main road had been risk, and he was sure that at Marand, the high oasis town, and at Khvoy, that was a centre of agricultural production, there would be road blocks. The road blocks would not necessarily be for him, but he could not afford to be stopped when he had no papers for the car, and no papers for himself.
The road that he chose was metalled for a dozen miles, then petered out into dirt and stone. The car took a hammering but he would not have need of it for long.
When he was high above the northern shore of Lake Urmia, when he could see the lights of the villages where before the Revolution a good wine had been produced, he saw the road block ahead.
Mattie recognized the block because on the road in front there was a line of tail lights, red, queueing, and he could see a torch being waved. There was a queue. It must be half a mile ahead of him. He was slowing, going down through his gears. He killed his lights… he pulled up to a halt. He had used his luck to make good ground away from Tabriz… N o choice now. It was time to walk. No way of knowing whether this was a block in position to halt him, or just there for routine. He swung the wheel hard to turn in the road.
He hadn't reckoned they would have read the manuals. He hadn't rated that there would be a guard stumbling up from the tree thicket at the side of the road, probably been dozing, probably awakened by the scrape of the tyres on the gravel hard shoulder of the tarmac road. He switched his headlights back on and saw the guard lumbering into the centre of the road. The lights blinded the guard. The guard was old, and under his forage cap there were locks of silvered hair and his beard was down to his throat, he seemed to wave at Mattie while the car was twenty yards from him, only realized at the last moment, in time to raise his rifle, aim the barrel into the heart of the light. Mattie drove straight at the guard.
He felt the shudder blow of the impact. He felt the heave of the bouncing wheels. For what felt many seconds Mattie's heart stopped. He drove, every second expecting a machine gun to sweep his life away. No, that was absurd. Not on this back road. And the odds were that the old man was alone.
Should have stayed where he was, fired first, no questions.
Perhaps the old man had children or grandchildren who had run from the guards. Past the next corner he saw a track into the trees. He turned on to it and followed it far enough to be hidden from the road and pulled the wheel hard to the left and sank the car into scrub. Out, Mattie, out. He was drained.
He would gladly rest in this wood. Out, Mattie, the guard's in the road. Right, Major, be right with you.
Mattie took the pistol and the map and got out. He let the dark flood into his eyes. He searched in the car and then in the boot, but there was nothing he could use. He thought of Harriet's boot, first aid kit, blanket, shovel… Mattie, get on with it. Coming, Major, just checking.
There was no sign of lights approaching. He walked cautiously towards the dark shadow in the road. The body was still. He suppressed a little jolt of regret for the old man who had not stayed in hiding and shot him as he turned. It's alright, Major, Mattie's not going soft on you. This was a good guard.
He may be a dead guard, but he did me a favour. Costly favour, oh yes. And he hauled the body into the trees. Five yards in, rest a minute, ten yards in. Fifteen will do.
He found the rifle. The bolt mechanism was crushed. And there were no rounds in the magazine, and not one in the spout. He carried the rifle to where the guard lay. Poor defenceless old man. If he'd had a round, you stupid cunt, Furniss, you'd be dead. Now, get the hell out of here.
His stomach was empty, he had not yet touched the bread and the chicken and the rice squashed into his pocket, damp on his thigh. On his feet were plimsoll shoes. The mountains were ahead of him, dark against the night sky. He reckoned he had four or five hours of darkness left to him. He walked out of the treeline, took his bearings from the stars and began to climb.
She had had the family row, and forgotten it.
Her case was at the foot of the bed, and her dress was on the floor. Polly didn't care that she had stormed out of the house with her father shouting and her mother crying, and she didn't care that the dress that had cost her?199.95 was crumpled on the floor.
His head was across her stomach, and his beard tickled at her skin, and her fingers played patterns across his shoulders.
He had loved her and he'd slept, and he had given her the best evening she had ever had before he took her to his flat.
He was a dream when he danced. Polly had never learned to dance, not properly, not until that night when she had been shown the magic of the tango and the rumba. She knew a bit of quick-step and she could waltz if she wasn't watched too closely. She hadn't known that she could dance as she had danced with Charlie. And the meal had been amazing, and the drink had only been champagne, and his attention had been total.
She had forgotten the family row. She had forgotten what Mr Shabro had told her. Must have been jealous, the old goat…
'Have you traced it?' Corinthian asked of his radio.
The reply was in his ear. 'As far as we can go… but there's a problem. Vehicle Registration say they are not permitted to give out any details on ownership of that registration…
That's all.'
'So, what do we do?'
'Try pretending it isn't there.'
'That's daft.'
'And that's the best you're getting.'
He shivered. He hadn't the engine running so there was no heating. In the passenger seat Token was asleep, and she'd forgotten herself, or she was so hellish tired, because she had let her head slide down on to his shoulder. But he didn't rate his chances. He didn't rate them because all the skirt seemed to want to talk about was goddam almighty Keeper. In the considered view of Peter Foster, codename Corinthian, Keeper was not long of their world, stood to reason. He could not be long with them because the guy was too intense, too tied down by all the shit about winning the narcowar in Bogota, in the Golden Crescent, that sort of shit. Keeper might be the best they had, but it couldn't last. The guy ran too hard. Himself, he paced himself, he wasn't in a hurry, he did his job and he clocked up the overtime, and he thought that he might, just, grow old in Customs and Excise. Keeper wouldn't… Keeper was a shooting star, bloody brilliant, and then gone.
It didn't bother Corinthian that the light was going out of the investigation, had been on the slide ever since the order had come through from the Lane that Tango One was not to be knocked. No one from Parrish downwards seemed to know what the fuck was going on, and the target was cocky enough to have gone back to his address like there had never been a problem, like importing heroin and being under ID surveillance didn't spoil his day one bit. Great looking fanny he'd with him, and a great looking bill he'd have run up at the swish joint he'd taken her. The light had gone so far down the hill, over the other side, that Keeper had gone home, been sent home, and they weren't told when he'd be back…
She started. She awoke, and then she realized where her head was, and he gave her the evil eye, and she gave him the daggers. She straightened in her seat.
'Bugger… I was just about to rape you,' he said.
'Oh, do piss off.'
'Quite the lady.'
'Is it still there?' She turned to look back down the street at the other car. 'What's the news on it?'
'No news is permitted on that registration.'
She shook her head, tried to get the sleep out of her eyes.
'What does that mean when it's at home?'
'It's what they tell you when the vehicle is used by either the Security Service or the Secret Intelligence
