'Got it together… I'm not happy, Herb. I feel I'm pushing in over Bill's space.'
'Forget Bill, he'll do as he's damn well told. I get the feeling this isn't a time for standing on ceremony. Hell, I've fourteen situations going in Colombia, I've eight in Peru. I've situations running in
Bangkok, Moscow, Jamaica. I'm not getting an ulcer for one situation in Sicily. I want the options.'
Again Ray paused. What they hated, the big men in Washington who'd made it to the floor with the pile carpets and the drinks cabinets and access to God, was getting bounced for a decision early on a Monday morning. It was a time when his own career could go down the drain, and his hopes of ever getting his feet on that carpet and his hands on the cabinet keys, but he reckoned there wasn't room for evasion. He plunged.
'At high-grade level, the British have Angst. They say, and I quote, 'It is intolerable that a young woman should have been pressurized by the DEA, entrapped, and then persuaded to travel to Sicily as the central part of an American-sponsored anti-mafia operation,' end quote. That's, my opinion, not the core of their hand-wringing. What's right up their nose, quote, 'All DEA activities inside the UK are governed by procedures of liaison and we were not informed, prior to your inveigling Miss Parsons, of your intention to recruit her,' end quote. And most important, they have the shits on this one. They see her dead, they see the paparazzi crawling over her, they see an almighty inquest on what an untrained innocent was doing there in a role central to an investigation, they see the blame hammering on their door…'
'I asked, what are the options?'
'Two, Herb. You can tell them to go jump, tell them they are small guys running small shows and suggest they stick to softball in the park.'
'We do good business with the Brits. My second option?'
'You can withdraw your sanction, Herb, close it down, you can pull her out. You can wind it up.'
'Ray, we've known each other a long time, too goddam long. I am not interested in the sensitivities of Bill Hammond. The plan isn't Bill's anyway. The plan belongs to that guy Axel Moen, and I do not care whether I massage his ego or whether I kick him.
Which side of the fence are you falling? I want it straight.'
He glanced up at the loudspeaker on the wall, beside the Green Ice operation photograph. Herb, front row, smiling, was always the bastard who turned up late and took the credit, and hacked off early to avoid the blame. Dwight Smythe, opposite him, made the quick gesture, a finger across the throat. He spoke into the microphone, he felt dirty.
'What I want to say, Herb, 1 don't give a fuck for the susceptibilities of the British.
They'll complain for a week, and after a week they'll be good as gold and looking for a candy hand-out. Myself, I'd ignore them.'
'I hear you. Right, thanks, I'll call Bill Hammond and tell.'
'Sorry, Herb, I'm not through. This kid is on a limb, this kid has no covert training.
She's been given the glamour treatment. She should never have been asked to go. I can take newspaper flak, I can handle an inquiry if she ends up dead. But I don't think I'd want that at my door. It's a precious thing, my self-respect. But, of course, Herb, if it goes sour, then it's on your desk that it lands because you authorized it.'
He thought he had rolled a hand-grenade across a pile carpet and the grenade might just bounce against the imitation antique of a drinks cabinet and it might just come to rest against a desk on a high floor of Headquarters. He winked, grim, at Dwight Smythe.
The voice boomed, 'Kill it.'
'I think that's a good decision, Herb.'
There was rain falling on the garden of the square that the embassy faced onto. The square was a goddam morgue, and the daffodils were flattened by the rainfall, and the crocus blooms were crushed. Dwight Smythe drove, and held his peace. Ray reflected.
He had bled his conscience over the telephone link. Maybe he was too old and too tired, too fucked-up, for the job. Maybe he had gone too soft for the work. If the work mattered, sure as Christ it mattered, then maybe it was worth hauling any kid, any innocent, off the street, then maybe pressure was justified, if the work mattered. ..
Axel Moen had been in his office, Axel Moen had treated Dwight Smythe like he was just the hired hand, Axel Moen hadn't gone hiding behind conscience, Axel Moen was a cold bastard, Axel Moen would believe the work mattered… They crossed central London, and Dwight Smythe parked outside the main doors of New Scotland Yard and threw the keys in an arc to a constable… Maybe he should feel comfortable because his back was protected, and Herb's back was safe, and the men waiting for them upstairs in the building could feel good because their backs were covered, and maybe he'd be offered a drink because all the big guys were protected and safe and covered, and in this fucking awful world that was what mattered. If it had been for the kid, the innocent, if it had been for protecting and saving and covering the kid, then he could have felt good, but it wasn't… They came out of the elevator and stamped along the corridor behind the constable escorting them. It was a bad bloody Monday.
'I talked with Washington. Washington say we abort.'
The AC (SO) said, 'Not next week, not next month. We'll send our own man.'
The commander (S06) said, 'The operation will be terminated immediately. For verification, you understand.'
The detective superintendent said, 'We'd like to be certain there's a degree of urgency.
So we know you haven't welshed.'
He was introduced to Harry Compton, who hadn't spoken, who had the thick file. He said that since it was a DEA operation into which there was now British input, gagged on 'intrusion', he would send his administrative officer, Dwight Smythe, to accompany Compton, gagged on 'hold his hand'.
The AC (SO) said, 'Very satisfactory, good co-operation.'
The commander (S06) asked, 'Not too early for a drop of the hard stuff, eh, Ray, and you, Mr Smythe? Ice, water?'
'Are you into this story, Mr Compton? Scotch, yes, stiff.'
'I am.'
'You've evaluated Charlotte Parsons, this innocent?'
He had intended to sneer, never could do it well, was a poor hand at sarcasm.
'Yes, I have. Your people chose well. I'd rate her as brilliant. Stubborn, tough. That's why I fear for her safety. What I've heard and learned, she is the type who will cling in there. And, sir, when you have a very strong personality placed in such position as she is, I would also fear for the safety of those around her.'
'Would you now? A hell of a shame she's coming home, don't you think, gentlemen? A shame we all needed to interfere…'
Chapter Fifteen
Around him were the smells. He was blindfolded. He could see nothing, not even strips of faint light at the bottom of the cloth over his eyes, nor at the top. The cloth had been wound tight round his head at least three times, and on top of the cloth was a broad, sticky tape. He did not know how many hours, how many days and nights, he had been there.
The smells cloyed at Benny's nose, they hung in his nostrils. They were the smells of animals and of his own body. The smells were of the excreta and the urine and the filthy hair coats of the animals, and of the shit in his trousers, and the piss that was raw-warm on his legs, and the sweat at his armpits and his groin that came from the fear.
His arms had been wrenched behind him when they had dragged him from the vehicle and brought him to the byre. Any movement that he tried to make carried fierce pain because his arms had been looped round a post of coarse wood and his wrists had been lashed tight, and if he tried to move, the sockets of his shoulders seemed about to break. He did not know how many hours he had been there, but he believed that when he next heard men's voices they would have come to kill him. He did not want to hear them come, hear a car reach the barn, hear the voices, because then they would have come to kill him. But, in his fear, Benny strained for the slightest sound.
