Home Run

19

Carter wriggled in his shirt. He had not brought enough shirts to last him and he had had to entrust his dirty ones to Mrs Ferguson, and the woman used too much starch. The shirt was uncomfortable against his skin. Worse, the summer had come at last and even with the lounge curtains half drawn the room still sweltered, and Henry boiled unhappily in his three-piece suit and stiff shirt.

"Your investigator, Mattie, your torturer, what was he looking for in general?"

"They wanted to know why I was in the region, what was my brief."

"And what did you tell them?"

"I told them that I was an archaeologist."

"Of course."

"You stick to your cover story, it's all you have to hang on to."

"And you're not believed?"

"Right, I'm not believed, but you have to stick to your cover, whatever the holes are in it. And I was never going to be believed. The interrogator was an old SAVAK hand and he had met me years ago in Tehran. He knew exactly who I was. Called me Furniss the first time I was sat down in front of him. They caught a BBC bulletin saying that Dr Owens was missing. He made fun of that."

"On that day you still hadn't abandoned your cover?"

"Do you understand anything? You are alone, you are beyond help. If you give up your cover story then you are finished."

"They wanted to know your mission in the region, and what else were they fishing for?"

"Names of agents."

"They knew you were in the region, and they knew your identity.. .. What did they know of the identity of the agents?"

"They didn't have the names."

"Did they have anything on them?"

"If they did they didn't give me any hint of it."

Henry said quietly, "You gave them what they wanted, but not the name of Charlie Eshraq."

He saw the head go down. He did not know how long it would take. It might take the rest of the day, and it might take the rest of the week. But Mattie had dropped his head.

"How many sessions, Mattie?"

"Plenty." "

"Torture sessions, Mattie, how many?"

"Six, seven – they were whole days."

"Whole days of torture, and in essence the questions were the same?"

"What I was doing in the region, and the names of the agents."

"I'm very admiring of you, Mattie, that you were tortured day after day, that the questions were over such a small area range, and that you held the cover story so long, very admiring.

Did you consider, Mattie, telling them a little about Charlie Eshraq?"

"Of course you consider it."

"Because the pain is so great?"

"I hoped the names of the field agents would be enough."

"You'll have to talk me through this… You are in great pain. You are the subject of the most vicious and degrading treatment. The questions are asked again and again because they don't believe you have named all the agents… What do you say?"

"You stay with your story."

"Damn difficult, Mattie."

"You have no choice."

"Through the kickings, beatings, faintings – through a mock execution?"

Henry made a note on the pad that rested on his knee. He saw that Mattie watched him. He saw the trickle of relief on the man's face. Of course he was relieved. He saw his inquisitor make a note on his pad and he would have assumed that Carter made the note because he was satisfied with the answer. And the assumption was incorrect. Henry noted on his pad that he must ring Century for more clothes for Mattie. There was always a stock of clothes held there for visitors. There was a wardrobe full of slacks and jackets and jerseys and shirts and underwear and socks, assorted styles and shapes. Even shoes.

Mattie would need more clothes because he was trapped in a lie, and the debrief would go on until the lie was disowned.

"I think you are a very gentle man, Mattie."

"What does that mean?"

"I think that you care about people over whom you exercise control."

"I hope I do."

There was a sad smile on Carter's face. He would have been deeply and sincerely upset to have had Mattie believe that he took pleasure from his work.

"Mattie, when you left the kids on the mountain, the kids who lifted you up when you were finished, shared their food with you, and so on, that must have hurt."

"Obviously."

"Super kids, weren't they? Great kids, and they helped you when you were at your weakest."

Mattie shouted, "What did you want me to do?"

"You didn't argue their case. You told me that. You walked away from them and you sorted yourself out with the officer."

"I did try. But it's true I didn't upset the applecart as far as to get pushed back up the hill myself. My first priority, my duty as I saw it, was to get myself back to London."

"That's a heavy cross, that sort of duty… "

"You weren't there, Henry bloody Carter… you weren't there, you can never know."

The sun played on the windows and the distortions of the old glass were highlighted, and the brilliance of the rare sunshine showed up the dirt dust on the panes. If George, if the handyman, were to hold his job, then it was about time the idle wretch started to get round the windows with a bucket of warm water and a pocket full of rags. Carter said, "My assessment, Mattie, and this is not meant as a criticism, is that you were looking to save yourself… Hear me out…

Saving yourself was pretty important to you. Saving yourself was more important to you than speaking up for those kids who had carried you to the border."

The hoarse rasp in Mattie's voice. "One minute you want me to hang on long enough in the victim's chair and get every bone in my body broken, fingernails tugged out, all that, and the next minute you want me to have got myself booted back across the border."

"I want to know what you would have done to save yourself from the pain of torture."

"Why don't you refresh your memory with a glance at my medical report? Or would you like me to take my socks off?"

"I need to know if you named Eshraq to save yourself from the pain of torture."

"I might have named them all the minute the interrogation began."

"No call for that, Mattie… " There was a grimace from Carter, as if he had been personally wounded. "… When I was down here, must have been a couple of years back, there was an old croquet set in the cellar. I've told that lazy blighter to mow a bit of the lawn. Would you fancy a game of croquet, Mattie, after we've had our lunch?

… To save yourself, your own admission, you let those kids be herded to a firing party.

What would you have done to save yourself from the pain of torture?"

"I've told you."

"Of course… Eshraq's going back over, very soon."

They went to their lunch, and through the open windows there was the coughing drone of the old cylinder mower out on the lawn, and the pandemonium of the dog at George's heels.

The route of the lorry had been through Calais, Munich, Salzburg, Belgrade, and then the poor roads of Bulgaria.

Nineteen hundred miles in all, and a run of 90 hours. Sometimes the driver worried about the tachograph, sometimes his employer took care of his lorries and paid him extra money for hammering across Europe. There was the potential that the tachograph would be examined at a border post, but that potential was slight, and the driver, with extra funding, could live with that slight potential. The driver was skilled at negotiating the overland Customs point at Aziziye. It had been his habit for years to telephone ahead from Bulgaria to his friend at the Customs at Aziziye, to warn of his arrival. The driver called the Customs officer his friend, to his face, but in fact had similar friends at most of the entry points to European countries where he might be ending his journey and requiring Customs clearance. The bribe that was given to the Customs officer at Aziziye was not so much to prevent search of the containers on the lorry and its trailer, more to ensure a smooth passage for the cargo. A present, a gift, for the Customs officer was an essential part of any swift movement of goods. His vehicle was well known at the Aziziye crossing point. There was no reason for him to attract attention, and with the gift to his friend he ensured speed. It was a healthy arrangement, and paid for on this occasion by a carton of Marlboro cigarettes, a Seiko watch, and an envelope of US dollar bills.

The lorry travelled through. The seals of the containers had been legally broken. He had his manifest list signed, stamped.

The driver was free to drop off at an assembly of addresses the contents of his containers. He had brought into Turkey, quite illicitly and quite easily, four LAW 80 armour-piercing missiles, and he carried in his wallet a passport-sized photograph of the man to whom he would deliver four wooden crates, and he'd get a holiday with the wife and the kids in Majorca on the bonus he was promised for the successful shipment of the particular cargo that was stowed at the bulkhead of the container that was immediately behind the driver's cab.

A piece of cake, the Customs point at Aziziye.

The lorry headed for Istanbul.

The envelope contained a dog-eared and well-scuffed Shenass-Nameh Recognition Paper, and a Certificate of Military Discharge following injury, and a Driver's Licence for a commercial vehicle. Included also in the envelope was a letter of authentication from a factory in Yazd that produced precision ballbearings and would therefore be classified as important to the war effort. And there were bank notes, rials.

As he took each item out of the envelope, Charlie held it against the light that hung down from the ceiling of the room at the back of the barber's shop. He looked for the signs of overwriting and overstamping. It was right that he should check carefully. His life depended on them. He paid cash, he paid in sterling,?20 notes. He thought that the forger could have bought a half of the Aksaray district with what he made in documentation provided for the refugee exiles. He thought that he was a case of interest to the forger, because the forger had told him, not the time before, but the time before that, had confided in Charlie, that he was the only customer who looked for documentation to go back inside Iran. The barber's shop was in the centre of the Aksaray district that was the Little Iran of Istanbul. To the room at the back of the shop there came, by appointment, a stream of men and women seeking the precious papers which were required for them if a new life were to be born out of exile. And he charged…

He charged what he thought he could get, and those from whom he could get nothing received nothing from him. For a Turkish passport he charged $500, and this was the bottom of his range and full of risk to the bearer because the number would not tally with any of the records maintained on the Interior Ministry computer. For a British or a Federal German passport, with entry visa, he would expect to relieve his customer of $10,000. Most expensive, top of his range, was the American passport, with multiple entry visa, and there were very few customers who had managed to secrete that sort of cash, $25,000 in used notes. Sometimes, but only occasionally, the forger took diamonds in lieu of cash, but he was loth to do that because he had no knowledge of precious stones and then he must go and put himself at the mercy of the young Jew in the Covered Bazaar that was a thousand metres away down Yeniceriler Caddesi – and he might be cheated. With fast and busy fingers he counted the cash.

When they shook hands, when Charlie had pocketed the brown envelope, when the forger had locked away the money, then Charlie noticed the tic flicker on the right upper eyelid of the forger. Charlie did not consider that the tic flicker might have been caused by fear, apprehension; he thought the twitching came from an over indulgence in close and painstaking work.

Charlie Eshraq walked out into the sunshine.

He looked up the street for his shadow. He saw Park. He was at least 150 yards up the street. Charlie was about to wave a curt acknowledgement when he saw the shadow turn away from him.

He had first seen the tail in the Aksaray district, where the walls were covered with posters that rubbished Khomeini, where the kids gathered to plot crimes that would bring them the money to get out of Turkey and onwards into Europe. He had first seen the tail when Eshraq had come out of the doorway of the barber's shop and started to walk towards him.

He wasn't sure whether there were two cars, but he was certain that there was one car. There were three men, on the hoof. There was the man in the forecourt of the cafe who stood and then came after Eshraq as soon as he emerged into the sunshine; he was a tail because he left three quarters of a glass of cola undrunk. There was a man who had been leaning against a telephone pole and who had been busy cleaning his nails, and his nails didn't seem to matter once Eshraq was out. There was a third man, and when the car had pulled level with him then he had spoken quickly into the lowered front passenger window.

He knew a tail when it was in front of him.

He'd thought that the tail was good in Istanbul. He'd thought the tail was better in Ankara. He didn't doubt that the tail had been in place from the time they had walked out of the terminal of the Esenboga airport, but he hadn't picked it up until Eshraq had gone park walking with the young man who called himself Terence. In the park, the Genclik Park, with the lakes and the artificial islands and the cafes, he had kept himself back and he had watched Eshraq and his contact from more than a quarter of a mile. Three men again, but different from those who had done the footslog in Istanbul.

He could have rung Bill Parrish, and he didn't. He could have called up the ACIO, and he didn't. They had passed him on from the Lane. They would be into the priority of Harlech's case, and sifting everything else that had taken back seat to the Eshraq investigation. They wouldn't have wanted to have known that there was a tail on Eshraq.

He acknowledged that the tails were in place. He allowed them to stay in place.

A man who wore a new black leather jacket, and who had a trimmed goat's beard, he saw him in the Genclik Park and he saw him at the airport when he and Eshraq boarded for Van.

There was no communication between them. There was no bond in formation. Eshraq was moving to the frontier and Park was his shadow. They hardly spoke. When they spoke it was commonplace and factual. They spoke about where Eshraq was going, how long he would be there, where he would be going afterwards. That didn't bother Park, and it seemed to him that it didn't concern Eshraq. No need for it to have concerned either of them. They were the subjects of a deal.

And if Eshraq had a tail on him, had had a tail ever since he had walked clear of the barber's shop in the Aksaray district of Istanbul then that was his worry, not Park's.

49841/TL/7 6 87.

To: TURKDESK, CENTURY CC IRANDESK, DDG.

From: ANKARA STATION

MESSAGE: CE Vanwards, in company of Park. Transhipment from UK complete, no hitch, and now in transit Vanwards. Have fully briefed up, beefed up, CE on communications procedures, and agreed that most epistles will be hand carried out by courier. CE in good humour, good morale.

Eye stressed need for detail in material rather than frequency.

My opinion, eye think they have major handful tripping over their frontier. Eye didn't meet Park. CE ignores him, says he is harmless. In answer your query – TURKDESK CENTURY 6 6

87 – CE says Park is no problem, but frightened of being away from home without him Mum, exclaimer… CE will cross 9

6 87, using Dogubeyezit checkpoint. CE has necessary papers to drive commercial vehicle inside, will be carrying hardware via commercial van, and supply of electrical flex as per your suggestion. Upsummer: No problems, looks good, more follows.

MESSAGE ENDS.

"You off then, Henry? That'll be a break."

"I'll be in London, Mattie, reporting back."

"I won't be sorry, Henry, if they slap your wrist."

"Probably will, won't be for the first time… What I was saying, it's not quite a matter of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone. There's still one horse in the stable. Eshraq is in the stable, not for much longer, but he's there right now.

Are you quite sure there is nothing you wish to add to what you have already told me?"

"Quite sure."

"When I get back, if there's still enough light, we might get the mallets out again, very soothing is croquet. Do you think we should have a nightcap, one for the stairs?… "

Boghammer Bill was a blip, lime-shaded, on the emerald wash of the screen.

The operator, the egghead of the radar room crew, had identified the blip, and called over the 2 i/c to watch its progress.

The crew of the Type 22 guided missile frigate were on Defence Watch. They were dripping sweat, those in the radar room, those on the bridge, those manning the 20mm rapid fire close engagement guns. The middle of the night, and the temperature close to 95 Fahrenheit, and all crew members swaddled in the white gown action suits and hooded.

The technician knew that it was Boghammer Bill from the speed of the blip on the screen. It was a Swedish built patrol boat and the fastest craft in the Gulf.

The Type 22 would not hang about, not in the waters where it was now cruising, maintaining radio silence and blacked out, just outside the Iranian twelve mile limit, for any more minutes than were essential. The 2 i/c thought the world was getting dangerously daft. There was a bright moon, high in a clear sky, and there was no wind. It was a ridiculous night to be stooging just off the limit without identification or prior warning. They were east of the Iranian island of Larak and west of the small fishing harbour of Minab, far too bloody many sea miles from their regular station, on escort duty in the Straits of Hormuz. The 2 i/c knew the mission, but he didn't know his skipper's Rules of Engagement orders if they came under Iranian fire. They had been watching the dhow on the screen for more than half an hour, and they could picture the fishing craft chugging on a small engine away from Minab. The 2 i/c knew it was the dhow they were to rendezvous with because its course was directly towards the longitude/ latitude reference that he had been given, and there were no other crawling blips on the screen. It was now seven minutes since the patrol boat had speared on to the screen, going fast out of Bandar Abbas, powered by engines that could attain in excess of 50 knots. Staccato reports from the 2 i/c to the bridge, gestures that were self evident from the technician to the 2 i/c. The dhow was on course for the rendezvous, and Boghammer Bill was on course to intercept the dhow some four miles short of the rendezvous. No hiding place, not on a clear night.

When he was home, on leave, when he was in Plymouth, the 2 i/c's idea of relaxation was to get himself up to one of the Devon water supply reservoirs and to put a small roach on to a damn great treble hook and let it flutter underneath a big bobbing float until it attracted the attention of a pike. Of course, the 2 i/c never saw the pike actually close on the tethered roach, couldn't see under the murk of the reservoir surface, but he imagined it. He told himself that the pike didn't stalk its dinner, it charged it. He thought of Boghammer Bill as the pike, he thought that some poor creature on the dhow was the roach bait. He watched the blips closing, he watched the racing speed of the blip that was Boghammer Bill. The blips closed, merged.