Westwind

1

He watched the planet earth on his monitor. It was quite a sight. Around him, others were doing the same thing, though not perhaps with an equal sense of astonishment. Some had grown blasé over the years: when you’d seen one earth, you’d seen them all. But not Martin Hepton. He still felt awe, reverence, emotion, whatever. If he had called it a spiritual feeling, the others might have laughed, so he kept his thoughts to himself. And watched.

They all watched, recording their separate data on the computer, keeping an eye on earth from the heavens while their feet never left the ground. Hepton felt giddy sometimes, thinking to himself: this is the only earth there is, and we’re all stuck with it, every last one of us. At such moments, the thought of war seemed impossible.

The ground station at Binbrook was small by most standards, but quite large enough for its purpose, and it was sited in the midst of the greenest countryside Hepton had ever seen. He had been born here in Lincolnshire, but had grown up in 1960s London; ‘swinging’ London. It had swung right past him. With his head stuck in this or that textbook he had never quite noticed the bright clothes, the casual attitudes, the whole hippy shake. Too often, when his head wasn’t in a book, it had been raised to the sky, naming a litany of stars and constellations. And it had led to this, as though by some predetermined scheme. He had reached for the skies and had touched them. Thanks to Zephyr.

Zephyr was the reason behind all this activity, all these monitors and busy voices. Zephyr was a British satellite. The British satellite. It wasn’t the only one they had, but it was the best. The best by a long shot. It could be used for just about anything: weather-watching, communications, surveillance. It could drop from its orbit to within a hundred kilometres of earth, take a pristine picture, then boost back into the higher orbit again before relaying the information back to the ground station. It was a clever little sod all right, and here were its nursemaids, keeping a close eye on it while it kept a close eye on the British Isles. Nobody seemed quite sure why Britain was Zephyr’s present target. Word had gone around that the brass — meaning the military and the MoD — wanted to survey this sceptred land, which was fine by Hepton. He would never tire of staring at the various screens, seeing what his satellite saw, making sure that everything was recorded, filed, double-checked. And then viewed by the generals and the men in the pinstripe suits.

He had his own ideas about the present surveillance. The United States was pulling its troops out of Europe. It all looked amicable and agreed, but rumours had started in the press, rumours to the effect that there had been a good amount of shove on the part of the mainland European countries, and that the American generals weren’t entirely happy about leaving. The rumours had led to some demonstrations by right-wing parties, asking that the ‘USA stay! USA stay!’, and an organisation of that name had quickly been formed. More demos were now taking place, and vigils outside the embassies of Britain’s partners in Europe. Not exactly powder-keg stuff, but Hepton could imagine that the government wanted to keep things nailed down. And who better than Zephyr to follow a convoy of protesters or keep tabs on rallies in different parts of the country?

All at the touch of a button.

‘Coffee, Martin?’ A cup appeared beside his console. Hepton slipped his headphones down around his neck.

‘Thanks, Nick.’

Nick Christopher nodded towards the screen. ‘Anything good on the telly?’ he asked.

‘Just a lot of old repeats,’ answered Hepton.

‘Isn’t that just typical of summer? Honestly, though, I’ll go mad if we don’t get some new schedules soon.’

‘Maybe we’re due for a little excitement.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Christopher.

‘Well,’ said Hepton, cradling the plastic beaker, ‘I’ve heard that the brass are around today. Maybe Fagin will put on a simulation for them, show them we’re on our toes.’

‘Anything for a shot of adrenaline.’

Hepton stared at Nick Christopher. Rumour had it that at one time he’d shot more than just adrenaline. But that was the base for you: when nothing was happening, the rumours seemed to start. Christopher was reaching into his back pocket. He brought out a folded, dog-eared newspaper, its crossword nearly completed. Hepton was already shaking his head.

‘You know I’m never any good at those,’ he said. Nick Christopher was a crossword addict. He’d buy anything from a kiddies’ puzzle book to The Times to feed his habit, and over by his desk he had weighty tomes dedicated to his pursuit: dictionaries, collections of synonyms and antonyms and anagrams. He often asked Hepton’s help, if only to show how close he had come to solving the day’s most difficult puzzle. Now he shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well, see you at break time,’ he said, heading back towards his own console.

‘Biccies are on me,’ Hepton said.

There was a sudden wrenching of the air as an alarm began to sound, and Christopher turned back to smile at him, as if to congratulate him on his hunch. Hepton put down his coffee untouched and checked the screen. It was filled with flickering white dots, static. The other screens nearby were showing the same electronic snow.

‘Lost visual contact,’ someone felt it necessary to say.

‘We’ve lost all contact,’ called out another voice.

It looked as though Fagin had set them up after all. There was immediate activity, chairs swivelling as consoles were compared, buttons clacked and calls made over the intercom system. Despite themselves, they all relished the occasional emergency, contrived or not. It was a chance to show how prepared they were, how efficient, how quickly they could react and repair.

‘Switching to backup system.’

‘Coding in channel two.’

‘I’m getting a very sluggish response.’

‘So stop talking to snails.’

An arm snaked past Hepton’s shoulder and punched numbers out on his keyboard, trying to elicit a response from their own. Nothing. It was as if some television station had packed up for the night. All contact had been lost. How the hell had Fagin rigged this?

Hepton lifted his coffee to his lips, gulped at it, then squirmed. Nick Christopher must have dropped a bag of sugar into it.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ he muttered, the fingers of one hand still busy on his keyboard.

‘Coded through.’

‘No response here.’

‘I’m getting nothing at all.’

A voice came over the speaker system, replacing the electronic alarm.

‘This is not a test. Repeat, this is not a test.’

They paused to look at each other, reading a fresh panic in eyes reflecting their own. Not a test! It had to be a test. Otherwise they’d just lost a thousand million pounds’ worth of tin and plastic. Lost it for how long? Hepton checked his watch. The system had been inoperative for over two minutes. That meant it really was serious. Another minute or so could spell disaster.

Fagin, the operations manager, had appeared from nowhere and was sprinting from console to console as though taking part in some kind of party game. Two of the brass were in evidence too, looking as though they’d just stepped out of a meeting. They carried files under their arms and stood by the far door, knowing nothing of the system or how to be of help. That was typical. The people who held the purse strings and gave the orders knew nothing about anything. That was why the budgeting on Zephyr was so tight. Hepton glanced at the pair again. Grey, puzzled faces, trying to look interested and concerned, unsure what to be concerned about.

Suddenly Fagin was at his shoulder.

‘Anything, Martin?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘What happened?’ Fagin trusted Hepton, and knew him to be fastidious.

Hepton shrugged his shoulders, feeling more impotent than he could say. ‘It just started snowing,’ he said, gesturing towards the screen. ‘That’s all.’

Fagin nodded and was gone, his reputation for competence on the edge of being wiped out. Like sticking a magnet on a floppy disk: it was that easy to lose it all in a moment.

Then:

‘Wait a minute!’ It was Nick Christopher’s voice.

‘Yes,’ someone else called from further off. ‘I’m getting something now. We’ve regained radio contact.’ There was a pause. ‘No, lost it again.’

The brass exchanged glances at this news, and both checked their watches. Hepton couldn’t believe what he was seeing. They seemed to be worrying about the time. All the while, a billion pounds’ worth of high-tech was whizzing about blindly, or crashing towards earth, and they were worrying about the time.

‘Are you sure you had it?’ yelled Fagin.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well then, get it back!’

‘Trying.’

Despite the adrenaline gnawing at him, Hepton felt a sudden inner calm. All would be well. It was just a matter of trusting to fate and pushing the right buttons. Who was he kidding? Zephyr was lost for good.

Someone was standing behind him. He glanced back and saw Paul Vincent watching intently over his shoulder. Vincent was the youngest of the controllers, and the least confident.

‘Come to see how the professional does it, Paul?’ Hepton said, grinning nervously at the screen. He saw Vincent’s reflection smile wanly back. Then he began pushing buttons again, trying every combination possible. He had used up all the rational choices. Now he was trying the irrational, asking the computer to do the impossible.

Paul Vincent’s face was suddenly at his ear, though the young man’s eyes still appeared to be studying the monitor.

‘Listen, Martin, there’s something I want to show you.’

‘What?’

Vincent’s gaze remained fixed to the screen. His voice was low, just audible over the noise all around.

‘I can’t be sure,’ he said, ‘not a hundred per cent, at any rate. But I think there’s something happening up there. Either that or I’ve been doing something wrong. I had it on my screen a little while back.’

‘What do you mean, “something happening”?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Foreign data.’

‘Have you reported it?’

‘Of course.’

Perhaps that was why the brass were on the scene, and why they had looked momentarily scared.

‘Are we talking about interference?’ Hepton’s voice was low too.

‘I don’t know. I could make a wild guess, but I’m not sure it would help. I’d like you to confirm the data.’

‘When did it start?’

‘About half an hour ago.’

‘Coincidence?’

There was a sudden whoop, then cheers and some applause.

‘We’ve got her back!’

Hepton’s eyes went to his screen. They had indeed got her back. He was staring at a fuzzy but identifiable picture of Britain, taken from all that unbelievable distance. The image was out of focus, but they could soon put that right. What mattered was that Zephyr was working again.

‘Panic over,’ he said, turning now to face Paul Vincent. ‘So what about this foreign data?’

‘I’ve saved the readout on disk. Come and see.’

Paul spoke without blinking, and still softly, though the clamour around had grown. He was young but, Hepton knew, not an idiot. A first in astrophysics from Edinburgh, then research in Australia. No idiot, but not a hands-on expert either. It was his job — his sole responsibility and specialism — to monitor the space around Zephyr, seeking space trash, debris, meteorites, waves of interference. He’d never made a mistake when it had counted. Never.

‘Okay, Paul,’ Hepton said. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to put things right and I’ll come take a look.’

‘Thanks.’ Vincent looked relieved, like a man who needs reassuring that those pink elephants he can see really are there. Maybe they were, at that. He left Hepton’s side and returned to his distant console. Then again, maybe the kid was losing his touch. There had been a bout of sulking a week ago to do with some girlfriend or other. Hazard of the job. Shift work, odd hours, occasional days on end cooped up in the base. Sleeping four to a room in two sets of bunk beds. Hepton wasn’t sure he could take much more of it himself, despite the pleasures of earth-watching. Who ever thought to ask him if he were lonely? Nobody. He thought of Jilly, and wondered what she was doing while he sat here. He didn’t want to think what she was doing.

The brass were looking pleased about something. Well, they’d got Zephyr back, hadn’t they? One said something to the other, and Hepton, watching the man’s lips move, caught the words ‘three minutes forty’. The other nodded and smiled again. So they were discussing the length of time the satellite had been lost to its ground base. Three minutes and forty seconds. Longer than ever before. Almost too long.

Things were calming down all around. Fagin had gone to speak with the brass. They were in a huddle now, their eyes glinting. Hepton couldn’t see their lips any more. Well, it was none of his concern. He busied himself with putting his console right. He had pushed a few too many of the wrong buttons in the wrong sequences. Adjustments were needed. And then he would visit Paul Vincent on the other side of the room.

‘More coffee?’ It was Nick Christopher.

‘You put sugar in the first.’

‘An honest mistake. I’ll fetch you another.’

‘Don’t bother. What do you think went wrong back there?’

‘Put it down to a hiccup. Everything malfunctions from time to time. Between the two of us, I think Zephyr was cobbled together like its namesake, the old car. We’ll be lucky if it stays the course.’

‘It was out for three minutes forty seconds.’

‘What?’

‘The brass were timing it.’

‘Then maybe it was an exercise.’

‘I don’t think Paul Vincent would agree.’

‘Martin, you’re talking in riddles.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Now what about that coffee?’

‘No sugar this time?’

‘Promise, no sugar.’

‘Okay then.’

The brass had disappeared, and Fagin with them. Waving them off, probably. Hepton wondered what the weather was like outside. He could check by using the computer, but wouldn’t it be so much nicer just to walk outside and take a look? Sunny, showery, cool, breezy. Inside, the air conditioning kept things temperate, and the lighting was designed specially so as to be bright without giving glare. Same went for the screens. You could stare at them all day without getting a headache, which didn’t stop him succumbing to the occasional migraine. He pushed back into his chair. It, too, had been designed for maximum comfort and minimum stress. He stuck a thumb either side of his spine and pressed, feeling vertebrae click into place.

‘No sugar,’ said Nick Christopher, handing him the beaker.

‘Thanks.’

‘Only another twenty minutes till break.’

‘Thank God.’

‘So what were you saying about Paul?’

‘Oh, just that he’s got some data he wants me to check.’

‘Data?’ Christopher sipped his own coffee. ‘What sort of data?’

‘I don’t know till I’ve looked. Probably nothing important. You know what Paul’s like.’

Christopher smiled. ‘He’s like a kid with a train set.’

‘Exactly,’ said Hepton.

But by the time he wandered across to Paul Vincent’s console, Vincent himself had vanished. Hepton looked at the computer screen. It was blank. He tried coding in, but it remained blank.

‘Temporary fault,’ said Fagin from behind him. ‘Was there something you wanted?’

‘Just checking.’

‘Checking what?’

‘Oh, you know...’

‘Well you won’t get much joy. Part of the disk’s been wiped.’

‘You mean the hard disk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because of the malfunction?’

‘Or more likely Vincent’s panicking.’ Fagin had it in for Paul Vincent, everybody knew that. It was whispered that Paul reminded him too much of his own son, who had left home at seventeen and never returned.

‘Where is Vincent, by the way?’

Fagin shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The little boys’ room perhaps.’

‘What happened back there?’

Fagin seemed to think about this. ‘I’m just glad we got her back,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll find out eventually.’

‘It wasn’t a test then, to impress our friends?’

‘Friends?’

‘Those two generals.’

‘Not at all. What makes you say that?’

‘Oh, they just seemed to be timing our response, that’s all. And they looked fairly happy with the outcome.’

‘Nobody likes to lose a satellite, Martin.’

‘Of course not, sir. If you’ll excuse me, it’s almost my break. I think I’ll try to find Paul.’

‘Fine.’ Fagin was picking up the internal telephone, pushing buttons. The panic was over; things had to go on.

Three minutes and forty seconds. Usually a malfunction could be located and corrected within sixty seconds. There were backup systems, a computer locked into every function of the satellite, ready to pinpoint the failure and repair it. After sixty seconds, you could assume that the computers had failed to find the fault, and you began to worry. So you went to manual, checking everything yourself. At the two-minute mark, you panicked.

Three minutes and forty seconds. The brass had seemed satisfied. Fagin seemed satisfied. Paul Vincent had reported his findings, but nobody seemed to want to know. What the hell was going on?

Hepton went to the toilets, then checked the canteen, the recreation area and the TV room: nothing. The table tennis players hadn’t seen Paul Vincent, the guys watching a porn film hadn’t seen Paul Vincent, nobody had seen Paul Vincent. He had disappeared. Hepton sat down in the TV room to think. The porn film was in German, not that a degree in languages was necessary to understand the plot. The film was being beamed via satellite, probably from a mainland European station. One bored weekend they’d spent several hours using the base’s sophisticated communications technology to home in on a couple of television satellites. Now they could pick up just about any station they liked and decode any scrambled signal. The picture today wasn’t the sharpest, but the cameraman was in close enough so that this didn’t really matter...

Zephyr. What did Paul Vincent know about Zephyr?

Hepton caught up with Nick Christopher in the canteen, where he was scooping up chips and beans with a fork and holding open a book with his free hand.

‘What are you reading?’ Hepton asked.

Christopher showed him the cover, ‘Albert Camus, The Fall. I found it in the library.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing’s happened yet. What’s wrong?’

Hepton realised that he was sitting with head in hands, elbows propped on the table.

‘I can’t find Paul,’ he said.

‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to be found,’ said Christopher, scooping up another mouthful of beans.

‘Maybe you’re right at that,’ said Hepton, stealing a limp lukewarm chip from the plate.

The afternoon drifted back into ordinariness. After the break, it was back to the consoles. The system, though, was failing to yield the source of the malfunction. Fagin walked from monitor to monitor, for all the world like a factory-line foreman. He stopped at Hepton’s desk.

‘It seems Paul Vincent has been taken ill,’ he said, scribbling something on his clipboard.

‘Ill? Can I go see him?’

‘He’s not in the rest room. They’ve had to take him to hospital.’

‘Christ, that was a bit sudden.’

‘The doctor thinks it might be simple exhaustion.’

Exhaustion. Paul was not only the youngest of the crew, he was the fittest too. Twice a day he jogged around the perimeter fence, a haul of two and a half miles. He was the only one of them who used the multigym. He had the stamina of an athlete. Hepton sat at the console, his mind whirling. The nearest hospital was twenty miles away. He had to go there.

Fagin had walked away now and was examining another monitor. Hepton looked across to where Paul Vincent’s monitor sat untended, the chair pushed in beneath the desk with the finality of a coffin lid being nailed down. He shivered. There was something very odd about this whole thing. A curious mind had brought him into the world of astronomy and astronautics, and that same mind was now needling him to look a little further into things. And yes, he would.

2

He tasted smoke in his nostrils and felt blood gouge its way along the creases in his spacesuit. The vibration in the shuttle intensified still further, becoming more than a roller coaster. A roller coaster had once terrified him as a child, and he had determined never to be afraid of anything again in his whole life, a decision that was ending here and now with the most complete terror he had ever felt.

Through the glass he caught a quick glimpse of the ground crew; already the fire engines were racing forwards, but too late. Sparks flew from the seared undercarriage, and a final all-encompassing ball of flame sent him veering towards pale darkness.

But then suddenly Adams was at his side, his head bloodied, and Adams’ hands slid around his throat, growing tight, and all the time he was shouting:

‘You sonofabitch! You sonofabitch! I won’t forget! Not ever! The burial’s what matters! Coffin’s got to be buried!’

It was all so unnecessary, Dreyfuss thought. We’re dying anyway; why don’t you let me die in peace? The tarmac below was churning like the sea, as unsteady as a fairground ride. Adams’ hands were still there. Blood pounded in Dreyfuss’ ears, tortured metal, the whine of the uncontrollable engines. How could it have happened? Total malfunction. Absolute and total, just as they were starting the descent. How could it have happened? It was typical of his life that he should die with a question unanswered in his mind.

And then, finally, he blacked out.

The emergency team were ready. They’d been ready since the first warning that something was wrong on the space shuttle Argos. Now they started to jet, engulfing white foam over the stricken craft, snuffing out flames until the whole thing looked like a children’s toy in a bubble bath. The crew had come from the ground station to watch. There had been six men on board: five Americans and one Briton. Most of them were praying that the Americans, at least, would still be alive. They didn’t really give much thought to the only Briton, Major Michael Dreyfuss. These days, it was strictly a case of looking after number one.

The few small fires were quickly put out. Thankfully, the Argos had little fuel left in its tanks to burn. Nevertheless, the surface metal of the shuttle was too hot to touch, even with asbestos gloves. But they managed at last to wrench open the doors. Inside, they could smell smoke, singed rubber and something less pleasant still. They expected to find corpses, but the last thing anyone expected to find was five of them, one of which had its hands embedded in the neck of the single crew member left alive...

3

General Ben Esterhazy sat in the back of his chauffeur-driven limo and wondered why there was no bourbon left in the drinks cabinet. He hoped there’d be some at the airbase. Not that there was much left of the base. They were dismantling and moving, shipping the boys back to the States. Lousy damned country anyway. He’d spent a few years in Germany just after the war. People starving. A mother really would lie down and open her legs for a tin of beef and some powdered whatever.

The country didn’t seem to have changed that much. But now Europe had forgotten all about World War Two, had gotten eyes bigger than its belly. All the talk now was of Europe, a Europe that saw no place for the US forces lined up in a thin defensive wall against the East.

‘Well, fuck them.’

‘Sorry, General?’ Esterhazy’s aide, Lieutenant Jerry Bosio, sitting in front beside the driver, had turned his head to catch the words.

‘Never mind,’ growled Esterhazy. He picked up a bottle of Glenfiddich whisky and poured himself an inch. Esterhazy had a jutting, aggressive face ending in a nose like that of Punch. He’d put on weight since they’d given him a desk job, but not much weight. His tits didn’t sag the way some middle-aged men’s did, and he could wrestle marines half his age.

‘Where the hell’s the soda?’ he muttered. The streets of Bonn were in a mid-evening hiatus. Nobody seemed much bothered about the official car or its cargo — there had been so many such cars in Bonn of late — and this suited Esterhazy fine. The last thing he needed was either cheers or jeers. If they cheered, were they cheering because they were glad to see the back of the American forces? Or because they were glad of those forces and wanted them to stay? God alone knew. Ben Esterhazy didn’t. The talks had dragged today. The interpreters seemed to be in some kind of stupor, and the delegates likewise. It was winding down, the pull-out already being implemented. All they were really talking about now was the dotting of a few i’s. That had never been Esterhazy’s way.

But now his part in the comedy was over, and tonight he was flying back to the States. He relaxed, sipped his drink, rested his head on the seat-back. He was going home. The work was done. He’d put in an appearance for the sake of appearances, he’d signed this and that piece of paper. Now he could go back to the men in Washington and tell them it was done. Not that they really cared. If Europe wanted to go it alone, let them. That was democracy’s attitude. But if there were to be a war, the men in suits would be the first to take cover, and the first to order the troops straight back into the kill zone.

‘Well, fuck them.’

‘Sir?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Sir...’

Esterhazy realised that the aide’s hand had reached into an attaché case and come out with an envelope, towards which he was trying to attract the general’s attention.

‘What the hell is it?’ said Esterhazy, snatching at the paper.

‘Message came through for you, sir,’ said Bosio. ‘Sorry, I forgot to give it to you earlier.’

‘Idiot.’ Esterhazy tore open the envelope and unfolded the note inside.

For the first time that day, General Ben Esterhazy smiled.

4

Martin Hepton put down the telephone. At the third attempt, he had found out something concrete about Paul Vincent. He had found out that Paul was no longer in the hospital. He had been sent on to a rest home for a period of ‘recovery’, as the hospital doctor had termed it. Exhaustion, that was all it was. That was all.

Hepton walked along the corridor, paused outside the gym, then pushed open the door. It was a well-equipped gym. Healthy bodies meant healthy minds. Not that anyone ever used the gym. No one except Paul Vincent. Hepton went to the multi-gym, the so-called ‘torture machine’, and hoisted himself up on the arm-lift bar. He brought his chin up to touch the bar, then relaxed his arms until his toes touched the floor.

‘That’s one,’ said the voice behind him. It was Nick Christopher, smiling, letting the gym door swing shut behind him.

Hepton smiled and pulled himself off the floor again, straining this time, coming down heavily.

‘Two,’ counted Christopher.

‘Enough for today,’ said Hepton, feeling the blood pound in his chest.

‘Is this man out of condition? I ask myself.’

‘Okay, let’s see you do some.’

‘Stand aside, shrimp.’ Christopher pulled a crossword book out of his back trouser-pocket and handed it to Hepton, then gripped the bar and heaved himself aloft. He managed fifteen pulls, then rested, breathing hard.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Hepton.

‘If there’s one thing regular sex does for you,’ explained Christopher, taking the book back, ‘it gives you a strong pair of arms.’ They both laughed.

‘I wouldn’t know sex if it hit me in the face,’ Hepton said.

‘That’s your problem then,’ Christopher said. ‘You can’t tell the difference between sex and a slap in the face.’ He paused. ‘How are things with Jilly?’

‘What things? I haven’t heard from her since she went to London.’

‘Have you tried calling her?’

‘Only every day.’

‘So do you get the feeling it’s all over?’

‘Just a little.’

‘Sorry to hear that, Martin.’

Hepton shrugged. He gripped the bar again and managed two more hoists.

‘What about Paul?’ Nick Christopher asked.

‘What about him?’

‘Have you managed to find out anything?’

‘Apparently he’s gone off to some rest home.’

‘Jesus, it must be bad then. I thought those places were for the dying and the dead.’

Hepton tried a third hoist, failed, and dropped to the ground. ‘Better book me a room in one then,’ he said. ‘After you’ve bought me a drink.’

They sat down in the cafeteria, drinking cans of cola and eating crisps.

‘Is this supposed to be brain food?’ Christopher asked. Then: ‘What do you think of that shuttle, the Argos, crashing like that?’

‘I think our man was lucky to get out in one piece.’

It was front-page news, of course. Tomorrow it would be relegated, but for today, Major Mike Dreyfuss was famous, which was, Hepton supposed, what the bastard had always wanted. Hepton had two very good reasons for being jealous of Mike Dreyfuss. For one thing, the man had actually touched the skies, while all he, Hepton, could do was watch them.

For another, Dreyfuss and Jilly went back a long way. They had never been lovers, perhaps — though he had her word alone on that — but they had been friends, very close friends, and while she had allowed Hepton into her bed and her body, her mind had stayed closed to him. Yet she had spoken of Dreyfuss with such tenderness...

‘Well,’ Nick Christopher was saying, ‘I can’t see him having an easy time of it. I mean, there he is in America, the sole survivor of a disaster in which all the Americans on board perished, and here we are kicking the Yanks out of Europe, making us not very popular over there.’

‘I see what you mean,’ said Hepton. It was all he could do to stop himself from smiling. He stuffed his mouth with crisps instead. Yes, front-page news Dreyfuss might be, but for all the wrong reasons.

5

The light was diffuse and coloured the burnished gold of... The description ended there. His mind wasn’t up to it. He decided to open one eye, just a little, and saw an underwater blur of greys and blues and whites, bathed in the same golden light. He blinked, opened both eyes and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed. A private room. Lavender paint on the walls, machines standing beside the bed, a drip feeding his left arm. Through the slats of the blinds streamed the day’s raw sunshine. Golden light.

He was alive then.

A nurse sat dozing in the heat, a paperback novel on her lap. Where was this? Why was he so sore? His mouth was raw. Then he remembered — the shuttle had crash-landed. Couldn’t get the undercarriage down. Couldn’t get anything to work. Total shutdown of the onboard computer. Now how the hell could that have happened?

And what about Heinemann, O’Grady, Marshall, Wilson, Adams? Were they alive or dead? The fate of Hes Adams especially interested him. He let out a little whistle of air, as much as he could manage without feeling pain. It was enough. The nurse stirred, opened her eyes and smiled at him. Then closed them again as she stretched. A good big early-morning yawn, and then another smile, as though they were waking up in bed together; lovers.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Dreyfuss. How do you feel?’

Dreyfuss. That was his name. It was as good a name as any. He tried answering her question, but his throat was dry and sore. He swallowed painfully, and she seemed to understand. Rose from her chair and poured some water from a jug into a glass. There were flowers on his bedside cabinet. Not many of them, a couple of small bunches.

The water was tepid. He had trouble swallowing.

‘Thanks,’ he rasped. ‘Needed that.’ Speaking was like rubbing something raw against sandpaper.

‘You’ve been asleep a long time.’

‘How long?’

‘Several days, I think. I’ve only been on shift a couple of hours.’

‘Where am I?’

‘Sacramento General.’

It sounded like the title of a bad western. He supposed it was a hospital in Sacramento. He’d never been to Sacramento before. One of his reasons for wanting the shuttle mission was so he could see a little more of the States. He’d only been three times previously, and then never for long. As a child, growing up in the rapidly disappearing slums of east Edinburgh, he had dreamed of all this, of spacemen and of America, playing out the dream with toy spaceships that he would send hurtling to their doom.

‘The others...’ he began, but already the nurse had pushed at a buzzer above his bed. God, her body looked good, wrapped in the flimsiest layer of white cotton. He could almost taste... What was it he could taste in his mouth, right there behind the caked dryness and the lees of water?

It was smoke, blood, fear. And hands tearing at him. Why were hands tearing at him?

‘Good afternoon, Major Dreyfuss.’

A man in a white coat, stethoscope swinging reassuringly around his neck, had pushed open the door. Behind him came two others, one in a general’s uniform, the other looking like a worrier from the State Department. They stood slightly to left and right of the doctor, like tumours growing out of his sides. Good, thought Dreyfuss: his powers of description were coming back.

‘Hello,’ he said, but the doctor was studying his chart, and then studying the nurse. He smiled at her.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen you before, have I?’

She smiled back. ‘No, Doctor. The name’s Carraway.’

‘Well, Nurse Carraway, has the patient been behaving?’

‘Yes, Doctor.’ Now she was looking towards Dreyfuss, and there was that smile again. The doctor turned towards him too.

‘How do you feel?’

‘One hundred per cent, Doctor. When can I get up?’

The doctor laughed. ‘Not for a while yet, I’m afraid.’

‘What’s the rush?’ snapped the general. It was a serious question.

Dreyfuss closed his eyes.

‘I’ve had a relapse, Doc,’ he said. ‘I’m allergic to goons.’

‘Why, you sonofabitch—’ started the general, only to be stopped by the civilian’s upraised hand.

Dreyfuss opened his eyes and stared at the slats of the blind, trying to recall where he had seen that colour before, that golden colour, and heard those words before, too.

A ball of flame. Fuel igniting. And the voice of Hes Adams in his ear: you sonofabitch.

‘Leave him be, Ben,’ the civilian was saying. ‘He’s traumatised, probably doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

‘He knows all right.’

‘Come on,’ the civilian insisted, leading the general towards the door. ‘I’ll buy you a drink and you can bore me with the story of Bonn.’

The doctor watched them go and seemed to relax a little. He approached the bed.

‘Nice chaps,’ Dreyfuss commented. The doctor seemed not to understand, then smiled.

‘You mean General Esterhazy and Mr Stewart.’

‘If that’s who they were.’

‘That’s who they were.’ The doctor watched Dreyfuss sip more water. ‘Throat sore?’

‘A little,’ said Dreyfuss. ‘Listen, I meant what I said back there. When can I get up?’

‘Just hang on in there.’ A pencil-fine beam of light shone into Dreyfuss’ left eye, then his right. ‘What do you remember about the accident, Major?’

‘What accident?’ Dreyfuss smiled at the doctor’s look of alarm. ‘Only joking,’ he said. ‘I remember a ball of flame; it really did look like a ball, too. I felt like I could have given it a kick. I didn’t, though. It kicked me instead. Then I suppose I must have passed out.’

‘And where were you when this happened?’

‘On the shuttle, of course. The shuttle was called Argos, and we were coming in to land, and there were six of us.’

‘And what had the shuttle been doing?’

Dreyfuss made a show of trying to think.

‘Major?’

‘I... don’t seem to remember that,’ he lied, though why his instincts told him to conceal his returning memory was a mystery.

‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ Dreyfuss caught Nurse Carraway staring at him fixedly. But when his eyes met hers, she slapped a smile onto her face again. ‘Do you remember the names of the other crew members?’ the doctor was asking.

‘Let’s see.’ Dreyfuss tried to look as though he was thinking hard. He wondered why Nurse Carraway was so intent on his answer. ‘Heinemann,’ he said at last, ‘Adams, Marshall, O’Grady, Wilson.’

‘Good, Major Dreyfuss. Now think back.’ The doctor began to check his pulse. Dreyfuss had the idea that this was less even than a routine check; that it was a cover under which the doctor could ask his questions. Without knowing exactly why, he had the feeling that there was a good reason why he shouldn’t tell him everything he knew. ‘What,’ the doctor was saying, ‘is the next thing back that you remember before the fire?’

This was perfect: they expected — wanted — him to have amnesia.

‘Major?’

‘Well...’ Dreyfuss started, licking his lips. He stared at the lavender walls, at a concerned Nurse Carraway, at anything that might appear to be jogging his memory. ‘I remember taking off, the whole thing with ground control, with Cam Devereux — he was my contact on the ground. Everything was going according to schedule. But... I’m not sure why we were up there in the first place. No, wait, we were launching a satellite, right?’

The doctor smiled.

‘That’s right, Major. Launching one of our communications satellites. Don’t worry.’ He patted Dreyfuss’ shoulder. ‘It’ll come back to you in time. This sort of thing is quite usual in cases of trauma. And you took a few nasty bumps when you landed.’

‘Nothing serious, though?’

‘No, nothing serious. You just need to rest. Does your head hurt?’

No, his head didn’t hurt. He put his right hand to his forehead and felt a plaster there.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a bit of a headache.’

‘We’ll get you something for that. I’ll be back to see you shortly. Meantime, if there’s anything you need, just ask Nurse...?’ The doctor had forgotten her name.

‘Carraway,’ she said. She smiled at Dreyfuss again, her hair the colour of honey. And he smiled back. By which time the doctor had left the room and the door was swinging shut. A voice was raised somewhere in the corridor. The goon, thought Dreyfuss, the one called General Ben Esterhazy.

‘Can I see a newspaper?’ he asked Nurse Carraway. She was sitting down with her book again, legs crossed. Were those silk stockings she was wearing? Since when were silk stockings regulation issue for nurses?

‘I’ll have to check on that, Mr Dreyfuss.’

‘Didn’t you hear? It’s Major.’

‘Of course it is. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay.’

She had risen to her feet, but instead of leaving to fetch a paper, she approached the bed.

‘Can I just ask one thing?’ she said.

He smiled. ‘How can I stop you?’

‘I was just wondering...’ Her fingers stretched towards him, stopping just short of his throat. ‘I was wondering how you got those bruises on your neck.’

Hes Adams’ fingers trying to wrench the life from him, when they were both already dead.

‘What bruises?’ he said, his eyes clear and honest.

She smiled, but uncertainly. Then walked to the door and opened it, turning back to look at him before leaving. Dreyfuss checked that there were no cameras trained on him from the corners of the room, no holes drilled in the wall. Seeing none, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile.

6

Parfit stared at the security room’s various screens as they relayed the passing parade outside the embassy. Most days now there was a demonstration of some kind. It might be the French embassy or the German embassy. But mostly, as today, it was the British embassy. Today’s crowd was small. Thank the unseasonal Washington drizzle for that perhaps. They were yelling something, but the cameras hadn’t been wired for sound, not outside the perimeter wall at any rate. It didn’t matter. He knew the gist of their chants. You don’t want us, we don’t want you — that sort of thing. And he took their point. Whether he agreed with it or not was irrelevant.

There had been some ugliness in other parts of the country. It was tempting to say the less civilised parts. A section of the USA would forever stay frontier country, and God help any unwary English tourist straying too far from the safety of their metropolitan hotel. So far this week, Parfit had had reports of two firebomb attacks on British businesses in Boston and New York, several broken windows, threats, casual violence, and sixteen muggings, one of which had taken place in a picnic area of Yosemite National Park.

Then there were those who were merely annoyed: the British businessmen who were losing contracts, the British immigrants who were being harassed at work. And all of it filtered back via the great brown fan to the Washington embassy, where some of it landed squarely on Parfit’s too-small desk.

‘Looks peaceable enough, Mr Parfit,’ said Tom Banks, one of the security team whose job it was to watch the screens, seeking breaches in the line of defence.

‘The rain will cool their tempers, Tom,’ said Parfit. ‘See you later.’

‘Bye, Mr Parfit.’

He was headed for Johnnie Gilchrist’s office, the inner sanctum. Towards Gilchrist’s door, the carpet pile seemed to grow discernibly deeper. It was said that this was because so few people dared disturb Gilchrist in his lair. Like many myths, there was a core of truth to it. But Parfit knocked anyway, his distinctive three short raps and one long.

‘Come in, Parfit.’ Seated behind his desk, half-moon glasses resting precariously on his aquiline nose, Gilchrist could look tame enough, more the retiring scholar than the shrewd — and vicious — career diplomat. He and Parfit had sharpened claws on one another in the past, but at least each understood the other’s territory. Gilchrist’s job was to get things done, no matter what. Parfit’s job was damage limitation. There could never be one without the other.

‘Sit down.’

Parfit sat, crossing his legs. The chair was as uncomfortable as it needed to be. It was not designed for long-stay visitors.

‘Another demo outside.’ It was a statement of fact.

Gilchrist removed his glasses and rubbed at the red indentations either side of his nose.

‘It seems quiet enough today,’ Parfit commented.

‘Thank Christ for that at least then.’ Gilchrist slipped the glasses on again, pushing them down firmly onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Now, what about Dreyfuss?’

‘What about him?’

‘Come on, Parfit. What’s your game?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Gilchrist waved the comment aside. ‘You should be there in Sacramento. Somebody should be there at least. Has he regained consciousness yet?’

‘We think so.’

‘Think?’

‘It’s not easy getting straight answers just at the moment. You should know that, or haven’t you noticed that our dealings with the cousins have become rather frosty? We keep in contact with the hospital authorities, who pass us on to somebody else, and that somebody else tries to sell us a call-back-tomorrow or an I’ll-check-and-call-you-back.’

‘All the more reason why somebody from the embassy should be there.’

‘I’m going.’

‘Yes, but when?’

‘Maybe tomorrow.’

Gilchrist stared hard at Parfit, who didn’t flinch. ‘Is that a maybe-maybe or a maybe-definitely?’

‘It’s a maybe-probably.’

Gilchrist smiled in defeat, then took off his glasses again to rub at his nose. He had been doing this ever since Parfit had known him, and it irritated him more than he could say.

‘So,’ Parfit began, ‘is there anything I should know about the state of play on the pull-out?’

‘No. NATO’s making its usual balls-up of the whole thing. Nobody seems able to agree with anybody else. Fallings-out left and right. If only we had the right bloody government in power...’

‘But we don’t.’

‘Quite. So instead it’s complete chaos, and what are the Soviets doing? Have you noticed?’

‘I wasn’t aware they were doing anything.’

‘Exactly. They’re just sitting back enjoying the bloody show. Oh, and speaking of bears, Ben Esterhazy’s back from Bonn. Not the happiest of soldiers, by all accounts. There’s talk that he’ll be heading for Sacramento.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, most of that shuttle crew were his men after all.’ Gilchrist sighed. ‘We really could have done without this on top of everything else.’ He pulled a newspaper from the drawer of his desk and began to read aloud. ‘“The Jonah Factor. Major Michael Dreyfuss, the Briton they did not want on the tragic shuttle mission, was still seriously ill in Sacramento General Hospital today. Ground observers report that the shuttle’s undercarriage appeared not to operate during its descent towards Edwards Air Force Base.”’ He looked up at Parfit. ‘Et cetera,’ he said, ‘until this at the end: “Whatever happened, one thing is clear. The people of the United States will long remember the dealings of the past few weeks with the British government, the British people, and one British subject in particular.”’ He threw the paper back into the drawer. ‘They’re talking about Dreyfuss, and yet you’re letting him lie there—’

‘I have a good reason.’ Parfit snapped his mouth shut, but too late. He had already said it. Gilchrist smiled again, nodding.

‘I thought there must be a reason. So come on, what is it?’

Parfit sighed. ‘Not here.’

‘Very well then, let’s stretch our legs as far as the secure room. I’m all ears, I’m sure.’

7

At last, Hepton had two clear days free from the base, and could take a drive into the country. Ripening fields, the sun beating down as it had no right to do in the course of an English summer. An occasional splash of garish yellow where rape — vegetable cash to the farmers — had been sown. But mostly the fields were green, or were delivering up golden buds of wheat and barley. A beautiful country. He so seldom noticed it, but it was the truth. He had become blind through living his life underground, but like a mole, he had burrowed his way to the surface and was now scenting the air anew. He checked in the Renault’s rear-view mirror. The Ford Sierra was still with him, a hundred yards back but quite noticeable, there being so little traffic on these winding roads.

Twenty minutes ago, he had slowed behind a tractor, though overtaking would have been easy, and had watched the car behind him edge forward until the face of the driver — female — was clear in his mirror. The face of a businesswoman, but she didn’t appear to be in any rush. So that when he had waved her past, she had flashed her lights once in acknowledgement, but shaken her head too. And stayed behind him.

She was still behind him, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing. He thought of pulling in to a café, to see whether she would follow him. After all, this might be innocence itself, a chance encounter that might lead... well, anywhere. Except that he had to press on. Paul Vincent was in the Alfred de Lyon Hospital, and the Alfred de Lyon Hospital was an inconvenient forty or so miles away yet. So he drove on.

He thought of Zephyr, of the miracles satellites could perform. He stuck an arm out of his window and waved towards the sky, wondering if he could be seen. There was no doubt that Zephyr could see him if it wanted to. It could give close-ups of his car, of his number plate. But Zephyr wasn’t trained on him. It was trained on a series of air force bases, where the US personnel were preparing for their flights back home. Or at least that was what it had been watching yesterday evening, on Hepton’s last shift.

Something niggled, though, something he had noticed and mentioned in passing to Nick Christopher. It was to do with Buchan Air Force Base in the north of Scotland, just outside the town of Peterhead. Buchan had been an RAF radar station, but then the American forces had moved in for a time. Hepton had watched it before. He liked the quality of light in northern Scotland. That was what niggled: the sun was setting early in Buchan.

‘Cloud cover,’ Christopher had explained. ‘I’ve seen the weather reports. Overcast skies.’

‘Yes,’ Hepton had said, ‘but they’re not overcast.’

And Christopher had shrugged his shoulders, then placed a hand on Hepton’s own.

‘Maybe when you go to visit Paul, you and he should swap places. What do you say?’

Then they had both laughed and gone to watch the night’s television.

Was something wrong with the weather, then? Or had the Zephyr malfunction caused some tinting of the lens, some aberration to appear on the glass? What the hell. He’d think about it some other time. For today, he had forty-eight hours’ worth of off-base permission, and he intended to use the time well. He switched on the radio and found a station broadcasting a phone-in about the Geneva arms talks. The Soviets were offering yet more deals. Jesus, what were they going to do with all those redundant guns and tanks and missiles? Better yet, what would they do with all that redundant manpower?

On another station, two critics discussed the latest high-grossing American film, Gun Law. They’d had a bootleg tape of that on the base last week. Usual vigilante stuff, all about how the USA should pull up the drawbridge and let everyone outside the moat rot. Laughable really, yet some of the men on the base had started acting tough the very next morning, and come in wearing black T-shirts and white jeans, the way the hero did.

‘Strange times,’ Hepton said out loud, flicking to another channel. Mahler. Radio 3, he supposed; some lunchtime concert. He didn’t know which Mahler it was, but he knew it was Mahler. Jilly had listened to Mahler before, during and after each session of lovemaking. Which had seemed weird to him at first. In fact, it had seemed weird all the time. She would push his prone body away from her so that she could go and change the cassette tape and then would come to him again and give him a hug, just to show that she liked him a little bit too.

But not enough to stop her taking the newspaper job in London, not enough to stop her zipping a bag and throwing it into the back of her MG, giving him a brief embrace while her eyes glazed over with thoughts of leader columns and front-page scoops. A peck on the cheek, and then into the driving seat where she belonged, no seat belt necessary, though he had warned her before.

‘Phone me!’ he had called, but she never had. And now it was over. He had toyed with the idea of using Zephyr to track her down, to peek through some bedroom window as she pushed away another prone body and went to change the tape.

It was a nice dream.

After the Mahler, there was the one o’clock news, including a small item on Major Mike Dreyfuss and the American reaction to the shuttle disaster. Predictable stuff. He had watched the TV pictures. Orange flame, the nose of the craft crumpling, turning in on itself, more explosions. It was a funny thing about Dreyfuss, though. He was in his late thirties, a few years older than Hepton, not exactly his physical prime. Hepton had read about the other candidates who’d been in the running for the UK’s only place on the mission. They’d been young, strong. So why Dreyfuss? Not that it was any big deal. Not the big deal it was when the first Briton in space had gone up on that Soviet mission, or when the second one had gone up soon afterwards, courtesy of the Americans. No, to be Britain’s third man in space: well, there was something pathetic about that, wasn’t there? He allowed himself a guilty smile.

The Alfred de Lyon Hospital was, for the most part, a rest home, and had been chosen not because it was so far away from the base but, in Fagin’s words, ‘because Paul is suffering from some kind of nervous exhaustion, and they specialise in that’. Now that Hepton re-ran that statement in his head, he saw an ominous ambiguity to it. He checked in his mirror but couldn’t see the Sierra. He signalled and came to a halt by the side of the road, where he waited for three minutes. But there was still no sign of the car. Somehow, he felt disappointed. Maybe he should double back. The woman might be in trouble, her car might have gone off the road...

Or, more likely, she had taken a turning and was heading towards her destination.

Maybe Nick was right, Hepton said to himself. Maybe I do need to book myself into this place. He started the car again, and within quarter of an hour was turning the Renault through an imposing main gateway and up a country house driveway of gravel so clean it might have been polished that very morning. Therapy for the patients, perhaps?

As he rounded a bend, a rabbit leapt into his path and he nearly hit it. He braked hard and watched it flee across an expanse of manicured lawn and into some shrubbery. Skin tingling, he opened the car door and stepped out. He could hear a car approaching the gateway. When he turned, he saw the same Ford Sierra driving past. He listened as its engine faded into the distance. Smiling, he got back into the Renault and drove up to the imposing entrance of the Alfred de Lyon Hospital itself.

‘I must have made a mistake then, it’s as simple as that.’

They were sitting in the morning room, a modern extension to the main building fitted with patio doors and filled with pot plants. It was like a hothouse, and Hepton, who had already taken off his jacket, now dragged his tie loose from his neck. Paul Vincent, dressed in slippers, thick dressing gown and sunglasses, didn’t exactly look ill. He looked rested and a little tanned. In fact, he looked a good deal healthier than Hepton felt.

‘Still,’ Vincent continued, ‘it’s good to see you, Martin. Thanks for coming. So tell me, what’s happening back at the base?’

Hepton shook his head. He hadn’t driven all this way for gossip. ‘What makes you so sure you made a mistake?’

‘Well,’ Vincent opened his arms in supplication, ‘like you say, nothing’s been done about it. And Fagin doesn’t seem to think anything’s amiss.’

‘Fagin can make mistakes.’

‘Not while I’ve been working for him he hasn’t.’

‘So how come we lost Zephyr for over three minutes?’

‘You can’t blame that on him.’

‘Why not? He’s in charge, isn’t he?’

‘Martin, what’s wrong?’ Vincent seemed genuinely concerned.

Hepton rubbed sweat from his forehead. It was a good question. What was wrong? Why was he so keen to see mysteries where there might be none? Paul Vincent didn’t seem anxious. Nick Christopher didn’t seem anxious. Fagin didn’t seem anxious. So why was he bothering?

‘I don’t know, Paul. It’s just...’ He sighed. ‘I really don’t know.’

Vincent smiled. ‘It really was nice of you to come. I haven’t seen anybody since I came in here.’

‘What happened to you? I mean, back at the base?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not exactly sure. One minute I was fine, the next I was in hospital.’

‘And what did the hospital say?’

‘You know what they’re like. The patient always gets to know the least.’

‘Who was your doctor?’ Hepton had asked the question in a rush. It seemed almost to catch Vincent out; he stared at Hepton before replying.

‘McGill, I think. Yes, a Dr McGill.’

Hepton sat back in the chair and looked around. A few elderly men were seated in wicker chairs. Two were playing a game of chess so delicately they looked to be moving in slow motion. The heat was prickling Hepton’s neck and back. He rubbed a finger beneath his shirt collar and glanced towards the doorway, where two muscular male orderlies stood, their jaws fixed. Like soldiers on parade, he thought, rather than nurses caring for the sick.

‘So what’s it like here?’ he asked.

‘The food’s good,’ said Vincent. ‘Mind you, the sex isn’t up to much.’

They laughed, but Hepton was beginning to catch something behind his friend’s eyes, something trapped behind that dead, unfocused look.

‘Are they giving you any drugs, Paul?’

‘No more than I usually take.’ Vincent laughed again, but Hepton managed only a smile, listening to that laughter, to its nervy hollow centre.

‘Know what I think, Paul?’ he said. Then he leaned towards his friend and lowered his voice. ‘I think you’re in trouble. I think you’re frightened. I think this is all bullshit.’ He nodded in the general direction of everything around them. ‘And I think you need a friend like me. Maybe I’m wrong.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Give me a call if you feel like talking.’

‘Martin!’

But Hepton knew that the only way to end the scene effectively was for him to walk and keep on walking. So he did. He wasn’t going to learn anything here, not unless he could scare Paul enough to make him say something.

He was practically at the car when he heard footsteps hurrying across the gravel behind him.

‘Martin, wait!’ Paul Vincent caught up with him, looking paler now after the exertion. ‘Martin.’ He paused for breath. ‘At least stay for afternoon tea.’

It wasn’t the answer Hepton wanted. He opened the driver’s-side door. Vincent’s hand came down onto his own level.

‘Look,’ he said. He glanced around him. ‘I’m going to say this just the once, but that should be enough. You always were a good listener, weren’t you?’

‘I still am, Paul.’

‘Well, listen now. Stay out of it. Take a holiday. Suggest it to Fagin. He’ll approve it. Go off somewhere warm.’ He laughed at this, the sweat gleaming on his face. ‘I mean somewhere exotic, somewhere quiet.’

‘That’s friendly advice, is it?’

Vincent shrugged. Hepton could see the two orderlies in their white uniforms watching them from the main building. Could he bundle Paul into the car and make a getaway? Not against the fitter and younger man’s will. He climbed into the Renault and closed the door.

‘Tell me,’ he said through the open window. ‘Really, just between us, what did you think you’d discovered?’

Vincent sighed. His voice when he spoke was no more than a whisper. ‘There was something up there, Martin. Something big.’ He glanced over his shoulder towards the orderlies. ‘But that doesn’t seem to be the point.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The point seems to be that no one cares. One name, Martin.’

‘Yes?’

‘A man called Villiers. He came to see me, to ask a few questions. He didn’t give his name, but I asked at the desk afterwards and they told me. I didn’t like him much. Steer around him if you meet him.’

‘What questions did he ask?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, routine stuff. What happened at the base? What happened with my computer? That sort of thing.’ Vincent paused. ‘The disk got wiped, didn’t it? The hard disk?’ Hepton nodded, and Vincent sighed. ‘They’re being pretty thorough.’

‘You’re saying the disk wasn’t wiped accidentally?’

‘I’m not sure, but I never was a great believer in coincidence.’

‘No, me neither. But then someone in the control room must have wiped it.’

‘I suppose so, yes. I got the impression Villiers wanted everything kept as quiet as possible.’

Which, Hepton thought, seems to mean keeping you out of the way.

‘Thanks, Paul,’ he said.

‘Remember what I said about taking a holiday.’

‘Goodbye, Paul. Look after yourself.’

‘You too, Martin. And I mean that. You too.’

Driving off, Hepton checked in his rear-view mirror and saw the two orderlies approach Vincent. Vincent had the look of a lonely man, of a man unfairly imprisoned. Hepton felt his hands harden around the steering wheel. He pressed down a little on the accelerator and enjoyed the momentary feeling of complete control.

8

The Palladio Bookshop was sited not far from Holborn Underground station, and every weekday morning the shop’s proprietor, Mr Vitalis, would take the Piccadilly Line Tube from his home in Arnos Grove. He always walked up the escalators rather than standing, but this was due not so much to impatience or any need to be getting on as it was a keen desire to keep himself fit. After all, Mr Vitalis was nearing fifty, though he looked older. Some said his background, to judge from his voice, was east European, and that he had come to England at the outbreak of World War Two. Others, examining his olive skin, proclaimed him Greek, while a few guessed at Italian and fewer still north African. In a sense, they were all correct, since Mr Vitalis liked to think of himself, in the truest sense of the phrase, as a man of the world.

The Palladio was fairly quiet in the mornings, busying at lunchtime with customers from the offices and shops, browsing as they munched on a sandwich or sipped from a carton or can. In the afternoon, a few of the regulars usually dropped in either to buy or to sell. Mr Vitalis had a good reputation with the city’s book reviewers, who would offer him the latest titles, once they had been finished with, for one third of the cover price. These books Mr Vitalis sold on to libraries and, it must be said, other bookshops. And in this way he made his money.

He kept few friends, but those he did keep, when entertained for the first time at his home, could not help but comment on its size, and on the superb works of art he had collected over the years. He would smile, and then move the conversation along to literary gossip or some commentary on current affairs. For Mr Vitalis loved conversation.

Today, however, the few regulars who called at the Palladio for an afternoon’s tea and chatter found the usual pavement stall locked up inside the shop, and the shop itself deserted, with a neatly written note sellotaped to the inside of the glass door: Apologies, friends, but Palladio closes early today. Business as usual tomorrow.

They’d never heard the like: Mr Vitalis shutting up shop early? Perhaps there was a woman behind it. After all, he was a man of the world. They were sure there would be some story in it, and surer still that Mr Vitalis would be telling the story tomorrow afternoon over tea.

Not many would have looked for Mr Vitalis in the back of a black cab, for he was known to abhor the things, always choosing to travel by Tube or bus or foot.

‘I’m a social animal at heart, you see,’ he would explain.

And while he was considered something of an aesthete, his tastes could not be said to be expensive in most areas, so some might have been more surprised still to see the taxi drop him outside a Park Lane hotel called the Achilles, where, having paid the driver, he talked animatedly for several minutes with the uniformed doorman. He then entered the hotel lobby, while the doorman stared evenly at the traffic roaring past the entrance.

Mr Vitalis looked as though such hotels were part of his everyday existence, walking up to the reception desk with a polite smile on his face and his eyes as dark as the shiniest black olives.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’m expecting a friend. I wonder, has he arrived yet? His name is Mr Devereux, an American.’

The clerk checked the register, then remembered.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ he said. ‘No, Mr Devereux hasn’t arrived yet. We have some mail waiting for him. That’s why I recall the name.’

Mr Vitalis looked surprised.

‘But I am right, am I not? I mean, he is due today?’

The clerk flipped over a page of the register. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘We have Mr Devereux’s name in for tomorrow.’

‘Ah.’ Mr Vitalis nodded. ‘I must have a crossed line then. Well, tomorrow it is. Thank you.’

And with that he turned and walked back through the lobby, pushing his way out of the main door, which he held open courteously for an elderly lady and the fruits of her shopping trip. On the hotel steps, he paused again to exchange some words with the doorman. Not many words this time, but they seemed to leave their impression, for the doorman’s cheeks were crimson with shame as Mr Vitalis walked towards the taxi rank, where he opened the door of a waiting cab, heaved himself in and slammed it shut behind him.

9

Hepton had been thinking about it all the way back to the base. So much so that when he glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw no sign of any car following him, he merely shrugged and kept on driving.

They were surprised to see him at the gate.

‘Thought you’d got a couple of days’ leave,’ one guard said.

‘Can’t keep away,’ Hepton replied, starting the car forward as the barrier rose to let him into the compound.

He parked, then went straight to Fagin’s office, a small whitewashed room next to the female toilets on the second level. There was always a faint aroma of urine and disinfectant in the room, which nobody mentioned and everyone put down to its location. But Fagin seemed happy there; some might have said disturbingly so.

Fagin, too, was surprised to see him, but admitted as much only by the raising of his thin eyebrows when Hepton walked in through the door.

‘Sit down, Martin, please.’ Hepton sat. ‘Have you seen Paul?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how is he?’

Hepton looked around the room before answering. There were photographs of satellites, spaceships and aircraft covering the walls, and three pinboards filled with postcards and other memorabilia. Then he looked towards Fagin.

‘He’s fine,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said Fagin, returning the look. ‘So what can I do for you?’

That was the question, thought Hepton: what could Fagin do for him? What was it Paul Vincent had said...?

‘Actually,’ he began, ‘it’s about Paul. He looks so fit, he reminded me it’s a while since I’ve had a break. I mean a proper break. I was wondering if I could be spared for a week or two.’

Fagin seemed to consider this. ‘Well...’

‘I know I’m not due any additional leave right now,’ Hepton continued. He was waiting for a shake of the head. Fagin hated to see people go off on holiday. Work was what he lived for, and he didn’t see why others shouldn’t be the same. So Hepton waited. He knew he wasn’t owed any holiday time, and Fagin knew it, too. Besides which, there was a strict routine to be obeyed, which meant giving four weeks’ notice of intended vacations.

Fagin’s face wrinkled.

‘I’m not sure we can spare you just at the moment, Martin. I take it you’d want your leave to start immediately?’

‘If possible, yes.’

Fagin was shaking his head, but slowly. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said again.

‘Nick Christopher could stand in for me,’ Hepton said, thinking fast. ‘He knows the set-up on my console as well as I know it myself. And Curtees could take over from him.’

‘I’ll have to think about it, Martin. I’ll try to give you an answer one way or the other as soon as I can, but no promises.’

‘Well, thanks anyway.’ Hepton made to rise, but paused. ‘Oh, one more thing, sir.’

‘Yes, Martin?’

‘Have you discovered what went wrong with Zephyr?’

‘Not yet. I’m just thankful we didn’t lose her altogether.’

‘Yes, so you keep saying.’ Hepton rose from the chair. ‘It couldn’t have anything to do with whatever else was up there, could it?’

Fagin smiled quizzically. ‘How do you mean, Martin?’

Hepton shook his head. ‘No, maybe not. I just thought that whatever it was that was up there interfering with Zephyr’s airspace might have caused the satellite to malfunction temporarily.’

‘There wasn’t anything else up there.’ Fagin seemed bemused. ‘What made you think there was?’

‘Oh, just Paul’s data. Have you checked it yet?’

‘I told you, the disk—’

‘Oh yes, the disk malfunctioned too, didn’t it?’ Hepton shook his head. ‘Well, these things happen, don’t they, sir?’ he commented archly.

‘Yes, they do, Martin,’ said Fagin coolly, watching as Hepton walked to the door and made his exit.

Hepton descended the metal stairs to the ground-floor level and walked along the corridor towards where two telephone booths were situated. As usual, one of these had a notice taped to it saying OUT OF ORDER, to which some wag had prefixed the single word BANG. But the other telephone was working. Hepton dialled directory enquiries. His call was answered immediately.

‘Hello,’ he began. ‘I’d like the number of a hospital in Grimsby. It may be the only hospital, I’m not sure.’

A few moments later, he had several numbers in the back of his diary. He drew lines beneath them all with his pen, thanked the operator and rang off. Then, finding more change in his pocket, he dialled the first number.

‘Hello,’ he repeated, when the call was finally answered. ‘Could you put me through to Dr McGill, please?’

It took the receptionist a little time. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last, ‘there’s no Dr McGill working here.’

‘Thank you,’ Hepton said, ringing off. He felt actual relief: it would be something of an anticlimax if Vincent’s Dr McGill were to exist outside of the young man’s imagination. He called the other two numbers with the same negative result.

So there was no Dr McGill. Had Paul Vincent ever even been taken to hospital in the first place? Or had he been at the Alfred de Lyon all the time? It was a question Hepton couldn’t yet answer. He took his pen and wrote the name VILLIERS in his diary. Another figment of Vincent’s imagination? A second visit to the nursing home was becoming absolutely necessary.

Two hours later, Hepton was playing pool with Nick Christopher when the internal note arrived. He read it out aloud.

‘“Leave can begin at once. Send us a postcard. Henry.”’

Christopher came to see. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘he really signed himself Henry. Fagin never uses his Christian name. Never.’

Hepton wafted the note in Christopher’s face. ‘Now will you believe that something’s going on?’ he said.

He had spent the past half-hour trying to make sense of his suspicions to Nick Christopher, but it seemed that the more he talked, the flimsier everything became. But now this. The granting of an immediate holiday, courtesy of Fagin.

Courtesy of Henry.

Christopher returned to the table and played a shot, but it went wide of the pocket and he sighed, putting down his cue.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Run through it again for me, starting at the beginning.’ And this time he was concentrating as Hepton told his story.

10

Hepton went to his dorm, pulled a suitcase out from beneath one of the bunks and started packing. Nine months ago, he’d taken out a year’s rental on a small flat in the market town of Louth, plumb in the middle of the town’s market area and not far from Binbrook. He’d reckoned it would make a little love nest for Jilly and him, whenever they could find a couple of days or more free to spend together. But then she’d taken the London job, forsaking her own local paper, where she had been something of a star. There had been a murder, made to look like suicide, and Jilly had investigated. She hadn’t exactly been able to prove anything substantial, but she had goaded the police into taking another look, and from there they had pronounced the suicide a murder. From where it was a short step to declaring the murderer (the dead woman’s son) found and guilty (twelve years).

Jilly’s story had found its way into the national press, and then the London Herald had jumped in with the offer of a job. Of course she’d been right to take it. It was the perfect career move at the right time. So the flat had gone unused and unloved, but Hepton had kept it on, using it for the occasional tryst, more or less unsatisfactorily.

He didn’t pack much, just enough to make people think he really was going to take a holiday. Then he waved farewell to Nick Christopher, who waved back, and made for his car.

At the security barrier, the guard came out of his hut.

‘Off again, are you?’

‘That’s right, Bert,’ said Hepton, smiling.

‘I don’t know, some people...’ Bert went back to his post.

Hepton waved at him, too, as he drove underneath the rising barrier and took a right turn onto the main road. Louth was less than twenty minutes away.

There had been a market that day, but the only signs in the town centre were scraps of vegetables in the gutter outside the entrance to Hepton’s flat. He lifted his suitcase out of the car and unlocked the main door. There were three flats in the house: one on the ground floor, one on the first floor and another in the attic. His was the first-floor flat, and he took the winding stairwell with accustomed awkwardness, manoeuvring the suitcase around the twists of the climb.

There was no mail waiting for him on the matting that covered his hall floor. The neighbour downstairs, Mrs Kennedy-Hall, had a key to the flat and sent the mail — bills always — on to him at the base. He unlocked the door. The flat smelt musty. He hadn’t been here in over a fortnight, and then only to play the gigolo in a failed seduction.

The place looked tidier than he remembered it. They had drunk a lot of wine that night, and rather a lot of neat gin (there being no tonic water to hand). None of it had helped. He couldn’t remember clearing up afterwards, though. Perhaps Mrs Kennedy-Hall... But no, it would be more her style to hire someone to tidy.

Then he heard the sounds, at first placing them in the street below. The sounds of running water, of things being moved, breakable things. There was someone in his kitchen...

He ran towards the source of the noise and stood in the kitchen doorway, dumbstruck. At the sink stood a tall, attractive woman, perhaps a year or two younger than him. She had rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse and was up to her elbows in soapy water. Clean dishes stood on the draining board, the worktops shone, the whole place was sparkling. The woman turned, saw him and smiled.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You must be Martin.’

‘That’s right,’ Hepton said at last. ‘And who the hell are you?’

‘Harriet,’ she answered, letting the water out of the sink. ‘My friends usually just call me Harry.’ She dried her hands on a dish towel, then held out the left one towards him. There were no rings on her water-reddened fingers. ‘How do you do?’

Hepton shook her hand awkwardly, right-handed himself, and she noticed his hesitation.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘I’m always doing that — shaking with the wrong hand, I mean. Sorry.’

‘Not at all,’ said Hepton. The shock of finding a stranger in his flat, a breaking-and-entering charlady, was ebbing. Questions filled the space. ‘But who are you?’ he asked. ‘How did you get in?’

‘Care for some tea?’ Harry had turned her back on him and begun to fuss with the kettle.

Hepton stared down at her legs, supple, slim legs wrapped in thin black stockings. She wore a blue pinstripe skirt to just below the knee. It was half of a suit, the jacket of which he now saw was hanging over one of the chairs beneath the freshly wiped foldaway table.

‘There’s today’s milk in your fridge,’ she was saying, ‘and some Assam tea in the cupboard. The place was quite barren. I hope you don’t mind. I went to that little shop on the corner.’ She turned to smile at him, and despite himself, he smiled back.

‘I think you should know—’ he started.

‘Oh,’ she interrupted, sniffing the interior of the teapot speculatively, ‘but there’s very little I don’t know, Martin. Very little indeed. That’s why I’ve been sent along here. Do you take milk?’

‘Who sent you here?’

She smiled again, with her unblemished English rose of a face, then waved an expansive arm around the kitchen.

‘All neat and tidy,’ she said. ‘That’s how I like things. I can’t remember, did you say you took milk?’

‘Yes,’ he said, beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. It was difficult to find an order for all the questions welling up within him. ‘How did you get in?’

‘Didn’t I say?’ She began pouring water from the kettle into the teapot. ‘Your door was open.’

‘Open?’

‘Wide open. No breaking and entering necessary. Well, no breaking at any rate. So I suppose the worst I can be accused of is cleaning with intent.’ She had placed everything on a tray, which she now double-checked. Satisfied, she lifted it. ‘Shall we go through to the living room?’

There was little Hepton could do but follow her, knowing that he needed answers but knowing also that she seemed determined to give them in her own way and in her own time. Well, he had lots of time, didn’t he? He was on holiday. All he needed was patience.

They sat down and she poured, handing him a cup.

God, he hadn’t used this tea set in living memory, preferring a chipped red mug. It had come with the flat, the tea set. But then so had the mug.

‘I thought it was odd,’ Harry continued, ‘your door being open like that, so I called in to report it. I’ll pay for the call, of course.’

‘Called in to whom?’

‘To my employers,’ she said, ‘who are, ultimately, your employers. It’ll be useful to keep that in mind.’

‘Why?’

She chose to ignore this, lowering her fine eyelashes as she sipped from her cup. Hepton drank too, playing her at her own game. The tea was strong and aromatic. Harry put down her cup and crossed her legs.

‘You saw your friend this morning. Paul Vincent. And now your little holiday begins.’

‘That’s right.’ Then it hit him. ‘And you,’ he said, ‘drive a black Ford Sierra.’

She smiled, but did not reply.

‘You were following me?’ he said.

‘Why were you so anxious about Mr Vincent?’

Hepton shrugged. ‘It’s no secret. Paul was taken ill. He’s a friend of mine, as you yourself said. So, naturally, I was worried.’

‘But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ Her voice had taken on a hard, professional edge. He stood up.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got no proof that you are who you say you are — not that you’ve said very much.’ He walked to the window and stared down into the street. An old man was stooping to pick up a discarded piece of fruit from the side of the road.

‘Very good, Martin. I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever get round to asking. I thought you’d forgotten procedures. Take this.’ She produced a slip of paper from her skirt pocket and rose from her chair to hand it to him.

From close up, he could smell the subtle soap she used. She wasn’t wearing perfume, though; either that or his nose wasn’t attuned to it. He stared at the numbers on the paper.

‘It’s a telephone number,’ she said. ‘Ex-directory; you won’t have come across it before. If you dial it, you will find yourself speaking to your superior, Mr Fagin. It’s a direct line. He’ll give you clearance to speak to me, and he’ll promise also to give that permission in writing. Don’t worry, nothing you might say to me will get back to him.’

‘You don’t have any identification on you?’

‘Nothing formal,’ said Harry. ‘It’s against the rules. I can let you have a library ticket or my credit card, but that’s about it.’

Hepton smiled but was already picking up the telephone. The receiver at the other end was answered after the very first ring.

‘I suppose that’s you, Martin. I was told to expect a call. Listen, I want you to tell them everything, do you understand? It may be more important than you think. Don’t let it spoil your holiday, though; just get it all off your chest and then you can enjoy yourself.’

As Hepton listened to Fagin’s unmistakable voice, saying little himself, he watched Harry picking invisible hairs off the arms of her chair. His head was spinning. What is all this about? A little while ago, Fagin hadn’t seemed interested in anything he or Paul Vincent might have to say. Yet now he was ordering Martin to tell all. He wrenched his thoughts back to the here and now in time to catch Fagin’s final statement:

‘If you keep anything from them, you could get into serious trouble, and they’ll know if you’re hiding something. That’s their job. I must go now. Goodbye.’

As though she had heard everything, Harry raised her head at this, staring towards him with a righteous look on her face. Hepton put down the telephone and sank into his chair, feeling not at all comfortable in his own home. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then straightened up.

‘So what do you want to know?’ he said.

‘What I really want, Martin,’ Harry began, ‘is not so much to be told as to do the telling. As I said before, there probably isn’t much you could tell me that I don’t know already. You should be aware, however, that this is a matter of national security. It sounds like a cliché these days, but I’m in absolute earnest. It is in everyone’s interest for you to forget whatever Paul Vincent told you.’

‘Told me about what?’

Her look was that of a disappointed schoolmistress, some favoured pupil having let her down. Hepton stared at her evenly.

‘Told you,’ she said, ‘that he had noticed something on his monitor.’

‘Then there was something up there?’

‘Certainly there was... interference. We’re looking into it.’

‘But who’s “we”?’

‘You could say that I do PR work for the armed forces.’

‘Public relations?’ Hepton sounded doubtful. Harry shrugged. ‘But I don’t understand,’ he persisted. ‘What have the army got to do with it?’ Then he remembered. Zephyr was watching for civil unrest during the US pull-out. The army must be on standby, of course.

‘As a matter of interest, Martin, what do you think happened?’

‘Me?’ Hepton seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Why should anyone be interested in what I think?’ He remembered his final sighting of Paul Vincent, looking scared and beaten. For some reason, the memory stirred him to anger. ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said. ‘I think you know less than you’re saying, not more.’ He was out of his seat now, standing over her. ‘I think you should get out and leave me alone. That’s what I think. And if I want to tell anybody about all of this, then I’ll damned well tell them.’

She stood too, her eyes on a level with his. Her face had tightened, and there were spots of red on either cheek. Her voice when she spoke was as cold and lifeless as a deep freeze.

‘Of course you must do whatever you see fit. I’ll get my jacket.’ He followed her to the kitchen and watched her put the jacket on. She surveyed the newly cleaned work surfaces. ‘Neat and tidy,’ she said, ‘that’s how I like things, Martin.’

‘Is that a threat?’

She smiled at this, but not pleasantly, and moved past him into the hall, opening the front door. She paused on the threshold, reached into her jacket pocket and brought out a laminated business card. Well, it looked like a business card, but in fact all there was on it was a printed telephone number. ‘You can contact me at that number,’ she said.

Hepton stared at the card. ‘What did you mean when you said we work for the same bosses?’

She chose not to reply, but reached again into her pocket and held out a ten-pence piece towards him. ‘For the call,’ she said. He accepted the money. She was leaving now, but she turned one last time. ‘You know Major Dreyfuss, don’t you?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s my job,’ she said.

He watched her descend the stairwell, then listened as she walked along the passage to the main door. He closed his front door and walked briskly to the living room window, but there was no sign of her in the street outside, no sound of her shoes moving away. His head was spinning. His flat, his private life, everything had been suddenly whisked away from him, reshuffled and brought back altered beyond repair. The old man was still examining stray scraps left by the market stalls. Dispossessed, but no more so than Hepton was himself. As Hepton watched, the man arched his back, straightening it, and in that moment looked up at the window. Hepton flinched, shrank back into the room. Was he being watched? Who was watching him? He realised that he wasn’t just confused. He was afraid. Terribly afraid, and yet without knowing quite why.

Harry used a small infrared device to disconnect her car alarm as she walked towards the black Sierra, then unlocked the boot and took from it a large attaché case, which she carried with her to the driver’s-side door. Sliding into the seat, she quickly opened the case and studied the telephone equipment inside. She should check in, but she still wasn’t sure how much of a threat Hepton was. He seemed at the same time quite innocent and quite devious. Of course, as she knew from experience, even the innocent could be dangerous. She had to be sure. She closed the case again, unlocked the glove compartment and removed from it a small black plastic module. Switching it on, she was rewarded with a high-pitched bleep and a strong green light at the centre of a series of radiating LEDs. It wasn’t the world’s most sophisticated tracking device, but it would do. She placed the tracker on the passenger seat and sat back, hands on the steering wheel, eyes staring straight ahead, waiting...