In Honour Bound

Chapter 23

It was a routine meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries at Foreign Minister level, and hosted by the West Germans in one of those Wagnerian castles in Bavaria. Fake history, the Foreign Secretary thought it.

Because the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was attending, the Foreign Secretary had added to his entourage the name of Brigadier Henry Fotheringay, MBE DSO, who would travel with a well-filled briefcase.

They had gathered in mid-afternoon and gone immediately into full session, politicians and advisers, all present bar the Italians, fogbound at Ciampino. They had broken for drinks, and then repaired to the theatre for the lights out classroom session of the Director. As the Director droned on, a young man with cropped hair and large spectacles stabbed with a pointer at the projected maps and statistics in rhythm with the speech. The Foreign Secretary wondered whether they had rehearsed the act on the aircraft over.

At the end of the Director's presentation, the representatives of some of the minor NATO powers actually applauded. The Director flushed with pleasure.

The Foreign Secretary recalled the bitter exchange at the American Embassy in London, months ago. Remembered as if it had been the previous day. He recalled also the visit of the Brigadier to his office in Whitehall six days before, where their earlier acrimony had been glossed over, where the Brigadier had made the introductions. He hadn't had long, he was to leave in a few minutes for Questions in the House, but he would not quickly forget those that he had met that afternoon. A young man who carried his right arm in a sling and whose face was gaunt and thinned-out and white where a beard had recently been shaved, and who quietly told a story of the combat between a missile-launcher and a helicopter squadron, and of the warfare for a valley, and of a Soviet flier who he said was too proud for the barbarity of revenge. The young woman who held the hand of the young man, and who had said shyly that she was pleased to meet him, and nothing else. The older man, Major Rossiter, who was going to get a Colonel's pension, by heavens, and whose contribution had been to drink three whiskies in twelve minutes, and who had the glint in his eye of someone who has recently discovered religion or sin or something. He remembered the notes and photographs of the Hind attack-helicopter that the Brigadier had brought with him, and that he had pored over before his rushed, running-late drive to the Commons.

They met after dinner. The Director came at the invitation of the Foreign Secretary to an anteroom off the main salon, with a coffee in his hand.

The Brigadier stood, the Foreign Secretary stayed seated, as the Director pulled a chair close to them.

'What can I do for you, gentlemen?'

'When we met in the spring…' the Foreign Secretary said. The Director raised his eyebrows momentarily. '…you gave me to understand that certain actions inside Afghanistan by British nationals had caused you to abort a mission to recover the working parts, the classified working parts, of a Soviet Hind class helicopter.'

'I most certainly did.'

The Foreign Secretary said affably, 'We took it to heart that we'd got in your way.'

'Oh, yes, Foreign Secretary? What about the man with a Redeye missile? I hear it all crapped up. That's what my people in Peshawar say.'

'I suppose we don't have your expertise, Director. It's hard for us to learn not to meddle. It's probably a lesson we need to learn.'

'I'll tell you frankly, Minister, we don't sit around. That Hind in Afghanistan was back in the spring, we're autumn now. I'll tell you something else. Don't get me wrong, what I'm telling you is in the knowledge that there's nothing you can do at this stage to screw us.' The smile of the Director glowed in the Foreign Secretary's eye. 'You were after some bits and pieces. We're going to have the whole thing, all of Hind. We've bought a Syrian pilot. Tel Aviv as the middleman. We're going to have a Hind D flown out of the Beqaa Valley into our marine base at Beirut. You'll get all you need, when we've evaluated. You'll be first on the list. I'm glad you've learned that lesson.'

The Brigadier said, 'I've told the Foreign Secretary, Director, you win a few and you lose a lot.'

'Too right…if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I've a meeting.'

The Director stood. He was smiling now, coolly, pleasantly.

'You're a busy man,' the Foreign Secretary said. 'But if you've the time, this might make some reading to drop you off to sleep.'

The Foreign Secretary reached out his hand. From the Brigadier's briefcase came an OHMS stamped buff envelope, bulky, bulging. They were both laughing, the Foreign Secretary and the Brigadier, as the Director walked snappily away, the envelope under his arm.

There was a handshake.

'There's a bar down in the dungeons. That's where I'll be if you want me,' the Brigadier said.

The Foreign Secretary went to his bed. Before he slept, he thought of the Director, scavenging the contents of the envelope, the photographs, the diagrams, the transcripts. But when he closed his eyes, he thought he saw the ruins of a far away mountain village, and the pale, hurting eyes of the young soldier…which haunted him into a troubled sleep.