“No. Not me. I gotta talk seriously to you, Tony.”
“What about?”
“Remember when we were talking, way back just before Dallas? You said that if anything happened to you the bomb would go off.”
“Yes. I remember it very well.”
“And you said if you died from natural causes the same would happen. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s always worried me. That’s what I want to talk about.”
“No harm in you talking, Ziggy.”
“I don’t need to talk much. I just want to know what you’ve done. I assume you’ve done some sort of disclosure of the MKULTRA experiments and you’ve stashed them away someplace.”
“That’s more or less right, Ziggy. But I’m not saying any more, old friend. Those things are my insurance policies.”
“I’m aware of that. Nevertheless I want to know where they are.”
“No way, Ziggy.” Symons smiled a battered smile. “You know better than that.”
“OK. We’d better get down to the essentials. I’ve known you for a long time now, Symons. You’re a clever fellow. You’ve done a good job, so I don’t want you to come to any harm. You’ve been drawing an active service special allotment for years now. The same extras that top field agents draw. But you’re not a field agent and you’d never have survived as a field agent. They’re maybe not so bright in some ways as you are. But they’ve got several things that you ain’t got and won’t ever have. Like guts for instance. When I start putting you through the wringer you’re gonna scream like a stuck pig. I don’t much like the sound of men screaming so I thought we might find a way to avoid it.”
“You mean you’ll turn the heat on me? I don’t believe it.”
“Start believing, lover boy. I’ll put you through the mincer without a second thought. I might even enjoy it. You’ve been a cocky bastard when you had the chance.”
Symons was trembling as he shook his head. “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. Not after all I’ve done. I’m one of your team.”
Grabowski said softly, “See this gun?” He reversed it in his hand, the barrel gripped tightly and he slammed the butt hard, like a hammer into the palm of his left hand. “I’ll give you ten seconds to start talking, Symons. After that I’ll finish off what Boyd started on your face.”
Symons turned his head away as if to avoid a blow and he said harshly, “What d’you want to know?”
“Where’s your stuff? The cosy little time-bomb that reveals all?”
“Can we do a deal, Ziggy? We could share it. You need some insurance just as much as …”
The butt of the revolver crashed against Symons’s mouth and teeth. For a moment he was silent, wrapped in a shroud of pain. And then he screamed. Again and again. Falling back on the bed he buried his face in the softness of the pillows. And slowly a red stain spread from the pillows to the sheets.
Grabowski turned him onto his back and leaned over him. “Where’s the stuff, Symons? Or do you want some more?”
“It’s in the house … Percy House … on Kodachrome slides … in a pack … seventy-one slides.”
“Where is it? The pack?”
“It’s with … all the other packs of … slides … it’s marked on the label … ARTLUKM … our code reversed.”
“And what releases it to the waiting world?”
“A letter … my lawyer … he’s got a set too … unopened … sealed with superglue.”
“Who’s your lawyer?”
“Miles Roper … Roper and Callagan … Boston … at Harvard together.”
“No other copies?”
“No … I swear it … please Ziggy … I’m haemorrhaging … get me …” Symons’s eyes closed.
Grabowski knew that it would be safer to check on the slides first, but it would complicate things too much. He pointed the gun at the bloody mess that was Symons’s face and fired twice. Symons’s body jerked from the first shot but there was no visible response to the second.
Back at Percy House Grabowski found the pack of 35mm slides and prised it open with a knife. In the darkened room he projected the first ten slides and that was enough. He dropped all the slides and the pack into the Aga cooker in the kitchen and stood watching as the yellow pack twisted and bubbled, and then suddenly the gases ignited and the pack and the slides flared and melted, grey smoke pouring from the glowing liquid residue. He put back the hotplate ring, lowered the bolster and then walked back to Carter and Sturgiss in the sitting room. He passed Cartwright sitting on an antique chest in the hall, talking on the telephone. Boyd’s body was being flown to London. Symons’s body had been sewn up in a canvas sack.
All night Carter’s men removed all evidence of the two Americans from Percy House and from Boyd’s occupation of the cottage.
The convoy of two cars and a light van made its way to the local authority rubbish incinerator at Alnwick in the early hours of the morning. Carter and Grabowski stood watching as the sack containing Symons’s body and everything from the house and cottage were swallowed up in the glowing maw of the furnace, until there was nothing left but a layer of fine grey ash in the pit below the steel grating. Cartwright was already on his way back to London.
Grabowski went back to the hotel, booked himself into a room and put in a call to a Boston number. It was only eleven in the morning over there and that gave them ample time to carry out his instructions.
The law firm of Roper and Callagan reported the break-in to the local police the following day but neither the slides nor the sealed letter were reported missing. Just two IBM Selectrics and a Sirius microcomputer. It was Grabowski’s guess that they hadn’t even noticed the other missing items. And there was no reason why they should. He had a whisky with the night porter and then headed back to the cottage.
24
George Walker sees
