Home Run

9

"Good morning, Mr Furniss." The voice was a wind whisper in trees.

Mattie started up from the tiled floor. He had been doing his press-ups.

"It is excellent to stay in good health, Mr Furniss."

His jacket and his shirt were on the bed, his shoes were placed neatly under the bed. He was sweating under his vest and his hair was dishevelled. Of course they had watched him through the spyhole in the door. They would have waited until he was stripped down for his exercises before making the entry. The fitting of the plywood screen on the window had tiny gaps in it, and he had known hours before that it was daylight. He did not know how many hours because his watch had been taken from his wrist when he was still semi-concussed in the truck. He had sat for what he reckoned had been hours on his bed, sometimes he lay and tried to sleep, waiting for them to come, and when the hours had drifted away he had decided to do his exercises. Of course they had watched him.

"It is my great pleasure to meet you, Mr Furniss."

Mattie spoke fluent Farsi, but the man spoke almost unaccented English. It was another tiny shaft into the shell of his spirit.

He was stumbling to his feet, and breathing hard. He would have liked to have stood his ground in the centre of the room, but his muscles were blood alive and his lungs heaved. He sat down heavily on the bed, and he started to pull his shirt over his shoulders.

"You are…?"

"I am the investigator in your case, Mr Furniss."

"Do you have a name? A name would be a small courtesy.

And let me tell you my name. I am not your Mr Furniss. I don't need an investigator, thank you. I am Dr Owens, University of London, and I insist on being released immediately and on transport, at once, to my hotel. This has gone on long enough."

"Excuse me."

The man glided across the room and bent down close to Mattie and with sure movements he threaded the laces from Mattie's shoes and pocketed them, and then his hands came to Mattie's waist and he unbuckled the belt from the trousers and pulled it clear. There was a small expression of regret in the hazel eyes. Mattie read him. Not regret that he had to take away his prisoner's laces and belt, but irritation that it had not already been done.

It was the first time that he had been spoken to since his capture. The tray on which food had been brought to his room was on the floor beside his shoes. Neither of the men had spoken when the food was brought. The door unlocked, the tray put down just inside the door, a second man standing behind the one who had carried the tray.

It was as Mattie would have done it himself.

He had his shirt buttoned. He had his shoes loose over his socks. He smoothed down his hair.

He supposed that he was surprised that the investigator was not wearing a suit and tie. He noted the American jeans, faded, and the long tailed shirt, out of the trouser waist, and the sandals, no socks. He saw the harsh, short cut of the man's hair. He thought the man was a little younger than himself, he had spotted the grey pepper pot flecks over the temples of his head, and care lines below his eyes. Pretty horrible eyes.

Eyes without life.

"I should explain. You are in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mr Furniss. You are of interest to the struggling masses of our people in their fight to rid themselves of American and Zionist and British domination. That is why you are here."

He straightened his back, he drew the deep breath down.

"I am an archaeologist, I am not very interesting to anybody and I am no part of what you call British domination."

The words hung, fell. Mattie saw the smile curl at the mouth of the investigator, but no humour in those awful eyes.

He said nothing.

"I can only suggest that you have made, whoever employs you, has made a mistake of which I am the victim. If a scholar cannot go about his work then the world has come to a pretty pass. I have devoted my adult life to the study of the Urartians, to their culture, to their architecture, to their disappearance.

You have people in London, I presume. You can check what I say with the Curator of Near Eastern Antiquities at the British Museum."

"No doubt, Mr Furniss."

The smile had gone from the investigator's face.

"I would be most grateful if you could make such checks as speedily as possible so that this ridiculous business can be concluded. I have no quarrel with the people of Iran, with their Revolution. I am not a politician, I am a scholar. I am engaged on work that is purely historical in its nature, and before I lose my patience will you kindly get it into your head that my name is O.W.E.N. S, Owens. I am not, quite obviously, who you think I am."

"Mr Furniss, I came this morning to see you to establish that you were well, that you had not been injured. I did not come to discuss the cover story that you have manufactured for yourself."

"Cover… this is preposterous. Go away, now. I have had enough of this. Go away and check before you get yourself into serious trouble."

"Mr Furniss, later today you will be brought some sheets of paper and a pencil. You may begin to write down your reasons for travelling to that area of Turkey which has a common border with our country. You should write of your activities most fully."

"I will, most gladly. You'll have a full account, and by the time I am finished I shall expect you back with a handsome apology. But I must warn you, I shall take this matter up at the British Embassy in Ankara, apology or no apology."

The hazel eyes hovered over Mattie's body, seemed to weigh him, explore him. The voice was softer than before.

"Mr Furniss, let me remind you: between 1975 and 1978 you were the Station Officer in Tehran representing the British Secret Intelligence Service. There was a day in February, 1976, a morning, as I remember, when you came to the headquarters of the SAVAK. I remember it clearly because it was I who brought in the coffee for you and the officers with whom you met. Myself, Mr Furniss, I handed you the coffee… I do not recall a discussion of Urartian forti-fications."

Like a punch to the stomach. "I'm afraid you have a case of mistaken identity."

"When the paper comes, Mr Furniss, it is advisable that you fill it."

Mattie's head dropped. He heard the shuffle of the sandals on the tiles, and the door opening on oiled hinges, and the turning of a key.

A pale body, sinew under the skin. Park never wore a vest.

In his chest of drawers at home he had vests that Ann had bought him the first January Sales after they were married, and they had never been worn. The girls in the April office didn't look up because none of them was that interested in Park, a cold creature, and anyway they were pretty used to seeing men with their shirts off, strapping on the canvas harnesses for radio transmitter/receivers. It was a harness that could support a Smith and Wesson. 38, but the ID never carried "pumps". If the guns were thought necessary, then the marksmen were supplied by the police. Park had the microphone on a cord around his neck, and he shrugged back into his shirt, and put the clear plastic earpiece in place.

There would be two cars and a van in place that morning.

They could follow Tango One wherever he cared to lead them.

The van had a miserable clutch and wouldn't be able to keep up with the cars, but it would get there eventually. Corinthian would be on the Pentax with the 500mm lens, Keeper would be telling him what was wanted on the celluloid, what wasn't worth it.

Parrish had wandered out of his office.

"Still in his pit, is he?"

"He came out for his bun and coffee, went back in… we'll be there in half an hour."

"Anything on his phone?"

"He hasn't used it."

"What about the profile?"

"I'm going to do half day in the van, then have Harlech take over. Then I'm going down to shake up the FCO chappies a bit."

"Ah yes, the best and the brightest," said Parrish.

Park grinned. The military and the Foreign Office were the officers, the police and the ID were the poor bloody infantry, that was Parrish's unchangeable view. Parrish would never take a six-bedroom farmhouse in Tuscany for his holidays, he was in a caravan at Salcombe… for that matter Park didn't take any holidays at all.

"I was actually quite polite last night. I asked for their personnel officer, I explained that I needed to talk to a Mr Matthew Furniss, and the guy went off, bloody supercilious but perfectly nice, and came back twenty minutes later and just shut a real heavy door in my face. Didn't say he was abroad, nor on holiday, just that he wasn't available. I sprang about a bit, got absolutely nowhere. He looked at me like I'd come in with the cat. Upshot is, I'm back there at four. I promise you, Bill, I'll have an answer then."

"I'll come down with you," Parrish said.

"Frightened I might thump someone?"

" To hold your delicate hand, Keeper – now get yourself moving."

Parrish thought his squad were the pick of the world, and he was buggered if he was going to have them messed around by some creep in the Foreign and Commonwealth. He'd be an interesting fellow, Mr Matthew Furniss, guarantor of a big-time heroin distributor.

The Director General showed himself that morning. He saw himself as the captain of a storm-shaken ship, not that he would have cared to voice that feeling. He believed passionately in the responsibilities of leadership, and so he wandered the corridors and rode the lifts, he even took his coffee in the canteen. He took Houghton with him, the only fairly anonymous courtier, to whisper the name of any officer he didn't know and his job in the Service.

Century was compartmentalized. The North American Desk was not supposed to know of the day-to-day successes or failures of East European Desk. East European Desk was supposed to be insulated from Far East Desk. No other Desk would know of the abduction of Mattie Furniss. That was the system, and it was bust wide open. The Director General found his whole building riddled with rumour and anxiety.

He was asked to his face if there was any news of Mattie Furniss, whether it was true about Mattie Furniss. He sought to deflect all but the most persistent, to reassure them, and to switch talk whenever possible to other matters – the new computer, the cricket match against the Security Service on Gordon Street's ground, the rewiring of the building that was scheduled to begin in the autumn. He decided to call it a day long before he reached Iran Desk's office.

Back in his office he sent for his Deputy Director General.

The man was just back from three weeks in Bermuda and paid for, no doubt, with family money. The sun had tanned the Deputy's face, darkened it to the roots of his full head of blond hair and accentuated his youth. The Director General would finish his career in public service when he left Century, and it was assumed throughout the nineteen floors that the Deputy would follow him into the DG's job. Their relation-ship, twenty years apart as they were, had been at best strained since the arrival of the Director General from Foreign and Commonwealth, because the Deputy had narrowly missed the nod for the job himself, said to be too young and to have time in the bank. The DDG regarded himself as the expert and the DG as the amateur. They worked best when they had clearly distinct spheres within which to operate. But on that morning the Director General was not in any way combative. He needed movement, he would have to suffer a third meeting in two days with the Prime Minister in the late afternoon.

It was agreed that field agents inside Iran should be warned of a possible compromising of their security, but not at this moment advised to flee the country. It was agreed that the World Service of the BBC, English Language, should report, and without comment, that a Dr Matthew Owens, an English archaeologist, was reported missing while on an expedition to north-eastern Turkey. Little thing, but could be a boost to Mattie's cover. It was agreed the Turkish authorities should not for the time being be informed of Mattie's true identity; they might, in limited circles, know from his meetings in Ankara, but it would not go at a government to government level; Station Officer, Ankara, to hack that into place. It was agreed that Central Intelligence Agency should not be informed at this stage. It was agreed that the Crisis Management Committee should be kept in session for the duration.

Iran Desk to report directly to the DDG until further notice The DDG to select a senior officer to go to Ankara and work with the Station Officer to prepare a minutely detailed report on Furniss' time in Turkey. Precious little to take to the Prime Minister, but until they had some indication of who had abducted Furniss – and God alone knew where that was going to come from – there was nothing else that could sensibly be done.

The Director General ticked off the points agreed.

"Did you know that Furniss was running a new agent?

Some very useful material. I had Library run through a check on him this morning. Nothing there. No case history, no biography. That is most peculiar. I mean, Furniss is steeped in procedure… "

"Furniss can't even type." The Deputy Director General said coldly. "That woman, his PA, is like a mother hen to him. Flossie Duggan. She types everything for him, she'll have the Case and Biography on the floppies. She'll have them in Mattie's safe. DG, you'll have to fight your way past her.

But that's hardly top concern now. That's just one agent that's now vulnerable, one of several… "

The Director General cut in. He was hunched forward over his table.

"What's the scuttle-butt downstairs, I mean, on this news?

It's clearly not a secret."

"You want to know?"

"Of course I want to know."

"They're saying that Mattie warned against it, that he was pressured into going. That the security of a senior member of the Service was put in jeopardy."

"Perhaps that's the black side."

An explosion across the table. "For Christ's sake, with what he knows, they're going to torture it out of him. They may already have started. And we stand to lose the whole of our Iran network, because it's all in Mattie's head. They'll torture him for those names. Do you know about torture, DG?"

The DG leaned back and swivelled his chair to face the grey morning beyond the windows. "Is he a brave man?"

"It's nothing to do with being brave. Don't you understand that? It's about torture."

There was a light knock at the door. The Director General swung to face it. Bloody little Houghton, and not waiting to be called in.

"I don't know why you bother to knock, Ben. What the hell is it?"

"Sorry to interrupt, sir. Something rather puzzling has come up. Personnel are asking for guidance. FCO's been on.

They've had a little cretin from the Customs round, asking to see Matthew Furniss."

"Customs? I don't believe it… What in heaven's name for?"

"It's someone from the Investigation Division, sir. Quite a serious outfit, I gather. They have established that Mattie was guarantor to a young Iranian exile now resident in the UK…"

"So, what is he, out of date with his renewal?"

There was a blandness about Benjamin Houghton that could infuriate the most high and the most mighty. "Not as serious as that, sir. Just that he's been trafficking in heroin, quite a lot of heroin by the sound of it."

Parrish's voice crackled into Park's ear.

"April One for April Five, April One for April Five."

"April Five to April One, come in. April Five to April One, come in."

"What's moving, April Five?"

"April Five to April One, be busier in Highgate bone yard.

Tango One is still inside the location. We've done well. We're just inside the mews entry. We've got a great lens view on the front door. Harlech is in the street, he's squared the meter maid. There's a back entrance to the house, just an alley, Token's on that. Tango One's jeep is in the alley."

"Sounds fine. You ready for the goodies?"

"Ready, April One."

" O K, April Five… The 5 series is registered in the name of Jamil Shabro, Iranian born, age 57, address as per your location. But he's choice. Vehicle Registration has a cut out on that number. We had to go through the Met. Got the bum's rush from the plods, referred to Anti-Terrorist. Tango Four is on their list for security guidance."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Tango Four has got up the Ayatollah's nose.

Getting interesting, eh? Tango Four has security briefings from the Anti-Terrorist mob, varying his routes, that sort of chat. They say Tango Four is a devious crap artist, but he's got guts because he stands up at the drop of a hat and pitches the old aggro back at the Ayatollah."

"So we just sit tight."

"You just sit tight, April Five."

It took more than one hour for the news to seep from Heathrow Airport to the offices of the Anti-Terrorist squad on the fifth floor of New Scotland Yard.

The IranAir flight, non-stop from London to Tehran, had taken off more than 40 minutes ahead of schedule, at 20 minutes before noon. The news came via the British Airports Authority to the armed police officers stationed at the airport and who watched over all incoming and outgoing flights of that airline. From them, the information was passed to the Special Branch officers on duty at Heathrow, and they in turn filed their report which was, after processing, sent on the internal fax to the Anti-Terrorist squad.

The fax finally landed on the desk of a Detective Sergeant.

It was bald, factual, related to nothing else. He thought of an aircraft taking to the skies, leaving behind more than a handful, he supposed, of furious passengers. Still, they'd mostly be Iranians. No one else would be fool enough to fly IranAir.

That made him smile. But he was a thorough man. He rang through to the Authority and asked if they had been given a reason for the new flight plan.

Operational reasons… what else? He asked if the plane were now actually airborne.

The Detective Sergeant hurried down the corridor to the office of his superior.

"The bloody thing's in French airspace now. I'd have ordered it held if it were still on the ground. If they're going early for 'operational reasons' then that says to me that they're carrying someone out, someone who's got to get clear. We're sitting on a bang, sir.

There were the usual photographs, silver-framed, of the old soldiers with their Shah of Shahs. There were gold embossed invitation cards to functions, all exile binges, most of them on which the hosts requiring the pleasure listed all their decorations and titles. There were volumes of Persian poetry, bound in calves' leather on a walnut side table. The interior could have been lifted straight from North Tehran, save for the picture window from knee height to the ceiling looking down on to the mews.

The daughter was upstairs and Charlie could hear the rattle of her cassette music from the floor above, and the wife was out shopping. Charlie was alone in the living room with Jamil Shabro.

"What's it for, Charlie?"

"Does it matter?"

"Too double damned right. You ask for a contact, you tell me why."

"Pretty obvious. I have stuff, I want to dump it."

"Don't be insolent, boy. Why?"

"What anyone trades for, money."

"What do you want the money for?"

"I think that's my business, Mr Shabro."

"Wrong. My business. You come to me, you want me involved, and I am involved if I send you to a dealer. I don't fuck about, Charlie. You give me some answers, or you go away empty,"

"I hear you."

"Charlie… You're a nice boy, and I knew your father. I would have bet good money that you would not have begun to think about running heroin, and you end up at an old fucker like me. This old fucker wants to know why you want the money."

Charlie said, "I want the money to buy armour-piercing missiles. .. "

He saw Jamil Shabro's jaw fall.

"That way I can destroy those who murdered my family."

He saw the widening of the man's eyes.

"When I was in Iran last week and the week before, I killed the executioner of Tabriz. On my previous visit I killed two Guards. There is still unfinished business."

He saw the blood run from Jamil Shabro's face.

"When I have the money, when I have the armour-piercing missiles, I will go back inside Iran, and I will dedicate my life to the future of our country."

"Charlie, you must be in love with death."

"I love my country, Mr Shabro."

Jamil Shabro's hands flexed together. There was the sweet smile of reason. "I know about your family, Charlie, your father and your sister and your uncle, we all know about that.

We understand your outrage… but you are talking like a fool. .. "

"It's you who talk, Mr Shabro, and it's you who left. The Communists and the Democrats and the Monarchy Party, they all fucked up. They don't have the right to demand another chance. I do, my generation does."

"I risk my life for what I believe, I have been told that by the police."

"While I am inside Iran, Mr Shabro."

Jamil Shabro walked the length of his living room. He disliked the boy for his arrogance, he admired the boy for his guts. For the first time in many years Jamil Shabro felt a small sense of humility, humility before the courage of Charlie Eshraq.

"I help you, you have my name, you go back inside, you are taken. When they interrogate you they will have my name.

What happens to me?"

"You're in London, Mr Shabro. And I have many names that are more precious to the Mullahs than yours."

He went to his desk. He flipped open the notepad beside the telephone. He wrote a name and a London telephone number. He tore the sheet of paper from the pad. He held it, tantalisingly, in front of him.

"I get ten per cent."

"That's fair."

There was no handshake, just the passing of the paper, and the sound below of the front door opening.

Jamil Shabro went to the doorway, and he shouted into the music upstairs that he was going out, and that her mother was home. She had struggled up the stairs, cloaked in a fur coat and weighed down by two plastic Harrods bags and a third from Harvey Nichols. Perfunctorily, as if he did it because there was a stranger watching, he kissed his wife.

"This is Colonel Eshraq's boy, Charlie, dear. He needs a drink.. . Charlie, my wife."

"Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Shabro."

"I don't know when I'll be back."

The bags were dumped on to the carpet, the fur coat draped over them.

"What would you like, Mr Eshraq?"

"Scotch would be excellent, a weak one, please."

He heard the front door shut. He thought that Jamil Shabro hadn't been able to get out of the house fast enough, not once his wife had returned. It amused Charlie, the way she punished him, spending his money. She brought him the drink in a crystal tumbler, and there wasn't much water, and then she was back to the sideboard, lacing vodka with tonic. He sipped his whisky. From the window he could see Jamil Shabro bending to unlock the door of his car. The door was pulled open and he saw the man's glance flash up to the window, and his wife waved vaguely to him.

"Cheers."

"Cheers, Mrs Shabro."

She stood beside him. He wondered how much money she spent on clothes each month.

"I'm exhausted – shopping is so tiring in London."

Charlie watched the three-point turn. He heard the scratch of the gears. He saw a battered van parked at the top end of the mews. The turn was complete.

"I'm sorry, she's rather a noisy child, my daughter."

The car burst forward.

He saw the light.

The light came first.

The light was orange fire.

The 5 series BMW was moving, lifting. The passenger door separating from the body, and the boot hatch rising.

The windscreen blowing out. The van alongside rocking.

The body emerging, a rising puppet, through the windscreen hole.

He felt the blast. Charlie cringing away, and trying to shelter Mrs Shabro. The full length window cracking, slowly splintering into the half drawn curtains, and the hot air blast on his face, on his chest. The same hot air blast as had hammered his back on the wide road leading into Tabriz.

He heard the thunder. The thrashing of an empty oil drum. The dead hammer blow of military explosive detonating.

He was on the carpet. There were the first small blood dribbles on his face, in his beard, and his hands were resting on glass shards, and the woman was behind him.

Charlie crawled on his knees to the open window, to beside the ripped curtain shrouds. The sound had gone. The 5 series BMW no longer moved. There was the first mushroom of the smoke pall. The body of Jamil Shabro was on the cobbles of the mews, his right leg was severed above the knee and the front of his face was gone. His trousers seemed scissored at his groin. Charlie saw the back doors of the van opening.

A man spilling out, with a camera and a long lens hanging from his neck, and the man was reeling drunk. A second man coming. The second man clutched, like it was for his life, a pair of binoculars. Two drunks, neither able to stand without the other, holding each other up, pulling each other down.

Two men, and they had a camera with a long lens and binoculars.

Charlie heard the shout.

The shouting was above the screaming of the woman on the carpet behind him. The woman was nothing to Charlie, the shout was everything.

"April Five to April One, April Five to April One… for fuck's sake come in… This is April Five, Police, Fire, Ambulance, immediately to April Five location… Bill, there's a bloody bomb gone off."

Charlie understood.

"There are casualties, Bill. Tango Four's been taken out by an explosion… Just get the fuckers here, Bill."

There was a girl running into the mews. Running for dear life towards the two men, and she had a personal radio in her hand.

Surveillance. His meeting with Jamil Shabro had been under surveillance.

He went fast.

He went down the stairs. He went out through the garage door at the back into a small garden, and he went over the high trellis wood fence at the back because he could see that the gate was bolted. He sprinted the length of the alleyway to the jeep.

The body had not been moved, but it was covered now with a groundsheet. The leg was in a plastic bag, holding down a corner of the groundsheet. Harlech's traffic warden, hardly a stitch of clothing left on her, had been tenderly loaded into the first ambulance and driven slowly out of the mews. Too slowly, Park thought, for survival. The scene of crime photographer went about his work. The mews was sealed off but there was a great melee of men round the car. There were men from the local force, uniformed and plain clothes, there were Special Branch, there were Anti-Terrorist squad, and two who stood right back and didn't seem to Park to know quite what they were doing there. He had those two as Security Service. There were a couple of WPCs in the house, and all of them out in the street could hear the crying. There were ambulance crews still in four other houses in the mews. Two cars close to the blast had been wrecked.

Corinthian had gone to hospital. He'd been taking a photograph of Tango Four as the BMW had driven towards them, he'd had the body of the camera heaved into his nose, cheek-bone and eyebrow. He'd have some stitches and a technicolour eye.

He had seen quite a deal in his time, but he had never seen anything remotely like the havoc in the mews. He was on the outside, so was Token. They were the ID and they had strayed into police territory. Of course, the local force had not been informed that April were on their patch. Of course, the Anti-Terrorist squad had not been informed that an Iranian exile, on their files as "at risk", was being targetted. So naturally Keeper and Token were getting the cold shoulder.

They'd be caught up with, later. They'd be interviewed when the mess was cleared. Park was still dazed. He had the noise in his ears. He had the ache in his shoulder from when he had been pitched across the dark interior of the van. He was lucky to be alive.

Parrish arrived. He strode past the constable who held out an ineffectual hand to stop him and into the mews. He walked straight to Park.

No rubbernecking, no preamble.

"Where did he go, Tango One?"

"He's not in the house now," Park said.

"You were round the back, Amanda. Did he come out of the back?"

She was looking at the cobbles. She had her handkerchief tight in her hand. "I heard the bang, I came running. They could have been killed."

Parrish snarled. "Next time you want to play Lady with the Lamp, for Christ's sake get a relief first."

Parrish had his personal radio in his hand. There was a tight anger in his snapped words. "Alpha Control, this is April One. If any of April team are not doing good works could they be got soonest, if it does not interfere with visiting hours, to Tango One's home location, and report back on whether Tango One is in residence. Out."

They walked out of the mews. Park thought half the plods were looking at him like it was his fault, like it had happened because the ID had nosed in. The muzzy haze in his ears was clearing. He hadn't done it before, but he took Amanda's hand in his and gave it a squeeze.

The message came back into Parrish's earphone when they were close to the Lane. He heard it. He didn't take his eyes away from the traffic in front. He turned to Park, all phlegmatic.

"Tango One's done a bunk. He went off in a hell of a hurry, didn't even close his front door. Well done, Florence Nightingale, we've lost the bastard. That hurts. It hurts rather more that we've lost a heap of scag."

"Leave off it, Bill. She did what anyone would have done.

That wasn't a firework. Another thirty paces and we'd have been gone."

"Rotten old world, Keeper, you can quote me… You going to be fit for the Foreign Office?"

"Yes," Park said.