Westwind

11

Days were passing. Dreyfuss felt sure of that, though he slept mostly. Probably because of the drugs they were giving him: the ones he could see, the ones they asked him politely to swallow; and perhaps the ones he couldn’t see, concealed in his drinking water, his meals.

But after his latest bout of unconsciousness, he awoke not to the restorative sight of Nurse Carraway, but to two stern figures, the same men as before, the ones the doctor had named as General Esterhazy and Mr Stewart.

The general was examining the cards attached to the few flowers that had been sent to the invalid.

‘Who’s Jilly, for Christ’s sake?’ he asked the other man, unaware as yet that Dreyfuss’ eyes were opening.

‘Just some woman he knows. They used to date in school apparently.’

God, they know so much about me...

‘He was married, though?’

‘Divorced now. The ex-wife lives somewhere in Australia.’

‘I notice she didn’t send any flowers,’ the general commented, taking pleasure in the fact.

Dreyfuss noted that Stewart seemed subdued, while the general himself was as abrasive in his speech as a grinding tool. Now Stewart had noticed that Dreyfuss’ eyes were opened to slits.

‘General,’ he warned, and both men came to the bed. Dreyfuss could smell salt and something sweeter, an aftershave perhaps. ‘My name’s Frank Stewart,’ said the civilian. ‘I’m from the State Department.’

He’s CIA, Dreyfuss thought. Either that or NSA.

‘And this is—’

‘Jesus Christ, Frank,’ snapped the general, ‘I can make my own introductions, can’t I?’ He turned his eyes to Dreyfuss. The pupils were inky, like staring down the barrel of a pistol. ‘The name’s General Ben Esterhazy.’

Esterhazy, one of the biggest of the cheeses. He had been on a mission to Europe and hadn’t been able to meet with the Argos crew to offer them good luck. Instead, an aide had come to give them the general’s best wishes.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Dreyfuss in a voice weak from sleep. In fact, he didn’t feel at all bad, but he didn’t want the hospital thinking he could be moved. He felt safe here, safe from choking hands. And he still had to find out a few things. ‘They’re all dead, aren’t they?’ he asked.

‘Every goddamned one of them,’ Esterhazy said bitterly, while Stewart threw him a look that said he shouldn’t have told Dreyfuss that. Dreyfuss had the feeling there was no love lost between these two men, or between their respective organisations.

Stewart dragged the nurse’s chair closer to the bed and sat down. He was a heavyset man in his early fifties. Dreyfuss thought his hair had probably been grey for quite a few years. In build, however, he was Joe Frazier to Esterhazy’s Ali. The general was tall, and as broad as Americans liked their heroes to be. Esterhazy had been publicly and vociferously opposed to the European pull-out, and had received a polite but stinging slap on the wrist from the White House as a result.

Which hadn’t stopped them sending him to Europe to negotiate the terms of the pull-out itself.

‘So,’ Frank Stewart was saying, ‘how are you doing?’

Stewart had slipped out of his jacket, which he was now hanging over the back of the chair. Dreyfuss noticed the gold armbands on his shirtsleeves. He had never seen anyone wear bands before, outside of old movies. Maybe a snooker player or two, but only of the old school. Perhaps they were there to cut off the supply of blood to Stewart’s fists, so he wouldn’t sling a punch at General Esterhazy. Stewart’s eyes were as murky as prunes swimming in semolina, and the cracks on his face weren’t there from laughing. He reached into his pocket for a crisp white handkerchief with which to mop his forehead. Dreyfuss knew who he was now: he was Spencer Tracy playing the tired, put-upon father in some film.

‘I’m doing okay,’ Dreyfuss answered, pouring himself a little water. He saw for the first time that the drip by his bed had been taken away. There was a fresh sticking plaster on his arm where the syringe had been removed.

‘Better than some,’ spat Esterhazy.

‘Ben, for Christ’s sake—’

‘Well, what do you want from me?’ Esterhazy exploded. ‘Tears and flowers?’ He slapped at the bunch of flowers nearest him and sent some petals spinning floorwards. ‘Five good men died up there.’

‘Do we know what happened yet?’ asked Dreyfuss.

‘We don’t, no,’ said Esterhazy. His eyes drilled into Dreyfuss’. ‘Do you?’

Dreyfuss took his time, sipping the water, thinking over his reply. But Stewart was ready with another question.

‘The doc says you’ve got a case of partial amnesia. Is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what do you remember?’

Dreyfuss rested his head against the pillow. ‘I was chosen as the British member of the Argos mission. We were launching a communications satellite. Everything went fine...’ He stared at the ceiling, seeing the control panel again, the computer screen, the readouts, which had stopped making sense. Heinemann had been watching the screen, too, but hadn’t said anything. He didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong.

But there was.

And at first Dreyfuss hadn’t said anything, in case the answer was simple and they all sneered at him again, thinking him underqualified to be on the flight, thinking him stupid. But then he had mentioned it to Hes Adams...

‘Yes?’ Stewart prompted.

‘Everything went fine, like I said. But when we were coming in to land, the onboard system failed.’

‘Christ, we know that!’ shouted Esterhazy. ‘Tell us something we don’t know.’

‘Ben, please.’ Stewart’s voice was pleading. He smiled at Dreyfuss.

Techniques for the survival of interrogation, number one: trust no one, and especially not anyone who appears to be your friend. That was what they had taught him. He would have to be careful of this man Stewart.

He had a question to ask for himself.

‘How far is Sacramento from Edwards Air Force Base?’

‘Maybe three hundred miles,’ Stewart said.

‘Why was I brought here then? Why not a hospital closer to Edwards?’

Stewart turned to Esterhazy. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘why was that, Ben?’

‘I told you, Frank, we were trying to throw off the press. They’ve been round this thing like vultures. We were also trying to avoid any ugly scenes, public demonstrations, folks wanting him strung up.’ Esterhazy was relishing this. ‘So instead of taking him to Bakersfield or LA, which would have been obvious choices, we landed him at McClellan and brought him here. And what do we get by way of thanks? Squat!’

Stewart ignored this, his attention still on Dreyfuss. ‘Those bruises on your throat aren’t love bites, are they, Major?’

‘I suppose we all panicked when the shuttle was coming down.’ Dreyfuss had had time to prepare this story. ‘We all got a bit crazy.’

‘Bullshit,’ hissed Esterhazy. ‘They were the best. They wouldn’t panic. They’d take it like men. I know they would.’

‘If you say so,’ Dreyfuss said.

‘Sonofabitch,’ Esterhazy growled.

There was that word again. Sonofabitch! The burial’s what matters. Coffin’s got to be buried! But what coffin? Whose? Had Hes Adams meant the shuttle itself?

Esterhazy was coming towards the bed. He looked massive, and not a little dangerous. ‘What the hell is it with you, Dreyfuss? Just what is it you’re trying to hide? I know you know something. Damn you, I want to know what it is.’ He turned to Stewart. ‘Get out, Frank. Give me ten minutes with this bastard.’

‘Ben, don’t be stupid. You’re a general, not some damned sergeant in the marines. And this isn’t Vietnam. This is the United States. That’s not the way we work.’

Esterhazy’s voice had become almost neutral. ‘Yes it is, Frank,’ he said. ‘You should know that. Now either you get out of here, or I’ll have a couple of my men drag you out.’

‘Ben...’ Stewart’s face was purple with blood. Nobody had talked to him like this for quite some time, which, Dreyfuss supposed, meant he was fairly high up in his organisation. But he held his rage and got slowly to his feet. ‘You’re making a mistake,’ he said. Esterhazy was smiling now.

‘Hell, Frank, what do you think I’m going to do? Wire electrodes to his nuts? Your gang might have stooped to that once upon a time. But all we’re going to do is talk. Just a one-to-one. Because the major is holding back on me, and I don’t like that.’

Stewart was at the door now, hesitant, but ready to leave.

Techniques for the survival of interrogation, number two: when a team of two is involved, everything they do is calculated, everything is a trick. Don’t be fooled.

‘Tell me something,’ Esterhazy was saying, his breath close to Dreyfuss’ ear, ‘how come nobody from your own embassy has even bothered to come see you? Huh? Answer me that.’

Esterhazy’s hands were leaning on the edge of the bed, and Stewart was turning the handle, opening the door, making to leave.

But there was someone outside the door, and as Stewart opened it, they walked in, as though they had been standing there for some time listening, awaiting the moment to make the most effective entrance.

‘Good day to you, gentlemen,’ the intruder said by way of introduction. ‘The name’s Parfit, British embassy.’

What was he, some kind of child? To be ignored like that, to be left here in his room while the three of them went off for a meeting. Parfit, British embassy. Just like that.

‘Well, Jesus, it’s about time one of you guys turned up,’ Esterhazy had sneered. ‘If this’ — jerking his head in Dreyfuss’ direction — ‘if this had been one of ours in your country, we’d have been at his bedside before the goddamned shuttle had stopped smoking! We look after our own, and I’ll tell you—’

‘I’m sure you will, General.’ Parfit’s voice was as clean as a polished window. ‘Is there a room where we can sit down and discuss things?’

‘There’s the administrator’s office,’ offered Frank Stewart.

‘Excellent,’ said Parfit. He came to the bed and touched Dreyfuss’ shoulder. ‘I’m glad to see you looking so well, Major. We’ll talk soon.’

And then they’d walked out of the room and left him. Dreyfuss fumed for a couple of minutes, his heart racing, angrier than he’d been since the crash. Then he pulled at the bedcover and swung his legs off the mattress and onto the floor. The floor itself was warm to the touch, yet the room was cool. He stood up, feeling his legs wobble from inaction. He locked them at the knees and drew himself to his full height. A few hesitant steps took him to the washbasin, where he splashed cold water onto his face. He looked in the mirror, and saw a pale face, a gaunt face, the hair cloying and in need of shampoo. The skin was singed from the shuttle blaze, and cream had been smeared onto his cheeks and forehead. And yes, those bruises on his neck were prominent. He looked a mess.

He dried himself with a towel, feeling sweat trickling down his back from the effort thus far. Then he shuffled over to where the flowers sat. There were two cards: one from Jilly, and one from Cam Devereux.

Cam! He held a snapshot in his head of Cam’s beaming face, that air-hostess-style voice: ‘Hi, I’m Cameron Devereux. Call me Cam, everyone does. I’ll be your contact down here while you’re up there.’ The day they’d gone to visit the Argos ground station, meeting with the men who would be their eyes and ears on earth while they were circling in space. The controllers, with their crew cuts and striped shirts, seated in front of screens that could show anything from the height and trajectory of the shuttle to the pressurisation of the cabin and the heartbeats of the men inside it.

Cam, too, had a striped shirt and a crew cut. He also had a smile. God, that assured smile, a fortune in dental work. Even the mechanics in this country smiled like movie stars. But he had a weak handshake, and would melt like wax if a hand grabbed at his smooth lapel or threatened to tweak his WASP nose. However, there was every chance that he would know something about what had gone wrong, or at least would have his suspicions.

I shouldn’t have been up there in the first place, Dreyfuss said to himself now. He had been chosen over younger men and better men, men more computer-literate, men fitter, more intelligent. He had told the selection panel at his third and final interview: ‘I’m just an airman who wants to be an astronaut.’ Hoping that candour would stand up where his credentials had faltered. It had: the Americans wanted him. Everyone had wondered why...

‘Major!’ It was Nurse Carraway, entering the room on her silent rubber heels. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just taking a look at my flowers.’

‘I didn’t think you were strong enough to walk.’

‘Willpower, that’s all.’ He shuffled back to his bed and sat down on its edge, where General Esterhazy’s heavy knuckles had recently rested.

‘Well, anyway, it’s time for your medication.’ She was holding a tiny paper cup filled with liquid in one hand, and a yet smaller cup containing a mixture of tablets in the other. Dreyfuss accepted both. He put the liquid down on his bedside cabinet and picked one of the tablets out at random, holding it between forefinger and thumb. It was oval-shaped and purple in colour.

‘What’s this?’ he asked. He felt bolder now that Parfit had arrived.

‘What do you mean? It’s just medication.’

‘No, come on, you’re a nurse. What kind of medication? What’s its purpose? What’s its medical name?’

She seemed flustered. Dreyfuss had not seen her flustered before.

‘Well?’ he goaded.

She smiled. ‘Major Dreyfuss, if you don’t want to take the tablets, that is your concern. But I should warn you that I’ll have to report—’

Dreyfuss laughed, shaking his head. ‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘Go on, shove off.’ His grin was purposeful. ‘You’re not a nurse. A nurse on the wards would know what the drugs were called, nicknames, medical names, Christian names. A real nurse would know that. But you, Nurse Carraway, you don’t know anything. As General Esterhazy might put it, you don’t know squat! Incidentally,’ he was on his feet again, shuffling forwards, ‘which one of them do you work for, Stewart or Esterhazy?’

‘Major Dreyfuss,’ she spluttered, ‘I... I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘What’s more,’ he went on, enjoying this, ‘the doctor who came to see me that first time had never seen you before. Plus,’ he said, staring at her legs, ‘I can’t see too many nurses wearing silk hosiery, can you?’

She was staring at her legs too now, as though unable to believe their treachery.

‘Go on,’ he said tiredly, ‘go and make your report.’ And with this he fell back onto the bed and lay there shading his face with his arms. There was a pause of several seconds before he heard her shoes squeak. She had turned round and was going to the door, which opened silently. Dreyfuss felt tired and tricked and used. His head was thumping, and he wondered if any of the tablets in the cup would ease it.

‘Bravo.’

It was Parfit’s voice. Dreyfuss took his arms from his face and jerked his head up. Parfit was standing in the doorway, holding the door open with the tip of a polished black leather brogue. He came into the room, letting the door close softly. His shoes made a solid clacking noise on the flooring as he approached the bed.

‘Do you always eavesdrop on people’s conversations?’ asked Dreyfuss.

‘Goes with the territory, I’m afraid. So how are you?’

‘Fine.’

‘Yes, for the moment perhaps. But everyone around you seems ever so slightly agitated. I shouldn’t think your safety here could be guaranteed for much longer. What do you say?’

‘You mean I can leave?’

‘Well of course you can leave. Nobody’s been forcing you to stay.’

Dreyfuss groaned.

‘Unless, of course,’ Parfit said, ‘they got you to sign any papers.’

‘What kind of papers?’

‘Papers committing yourself to their care?’

‘I haven’t signed anything.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Very well then. I’ll just make a few arrangements, and then we’ll have you out of here.’

‘Have you told them I’m leaving?’

‘Who?’ Parfit seemed amused. ‘Esterhazy and Stewart? Good Lord, it’s not up to them, is it? It’s up to the doctors and the hospital administrator. I foresee no problem.’

‘They won’t be very happy.’

If anything, Parfit’s smile broadened. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, they won’t, will they?’

He was about to leave, but Dreyfuss stopped him.

‘One question, Parfit,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘What took you so long to get here?’

‘We’ll talk about that elsewhere,’ Parfit said, looking around the room. His meaning was clear: walls really do have ears. Dreyfuss nodded. Parfit again turned to leave.

‘Parfit?’

‘Yes, Major Dreyfuss?’

Dreyfuss was smiling too. ‘It’s nice to see you again,’ he said.

12

Cam Devereux arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport desperately tired and in need of the vacation this was supposed to be. His cotton sports shirt was sticking to him, and his scalp tingled as he ran his hands over his thinning hair. He was so tired. But how could he rest? His mind felt inflamed. How could he stop himself replaying events, seeing that stranger arrive at the ground base control room? Seeing the stranger given an office of his own and a console, ignoring the curious looks of the other controllers? Seeing Argos itself gliding erratically towards earth, flailing across the runway...?

Yes, he needed a vacation. They’d told him that. He needed a complete break; everybody did, everybody connected with Argos. They had ordered him to take a break. So he had chosen to come to London, despite their protests about leaving Europe well alone. London was a city he could happily get lost in, and wander through all day from district to district. He liked almost everything about it, including the things the Londoners themselves seemed to loathe, such as the subway system. So, having waited for his baggage, he headed downwards, beneath the ground, far away from the sunlight and the sky, and bought a ticket to Green Park station, from where it would be only a short walk to his hotel. The other people who got into his compartment of the Tube train were travellers like himself, hauling too much baggage behind them. He himself was travelling light by comparison. You could always buy what you hadn’t brought, especially with the thick wallet of travellers’ cheques they had given him.

‘Look on it as a bonus,’ they had said. A bonus for what? he was tempted to ask. But he had never questioned anything in his life... until now. Now, his head was full of unanswered questions and fears. He again examined his fellow passengers, and saw that they looked every bit as nervous as he felt. First-timers in London, he supposed, and wary of every step.

Maybe at last he could stop looking over his shoulder. Maybe he could stop worrying about what he had seen, what they seemed to know he had seen. And had paid him to forget about, paid him by way of a holiday, a swanky hotel, a plastic wallet full of paper money. Maybe they’d leave him alone. And maybe when he stopped worrying, he’d stop thinking about it too.

Maybe, but he doubted it.

Still, he had to make it look like a holiday. He would visit a few of the sights, do a little shopping. All the time waiting for his new controller to make contact. He had asked for one, and they had agreed to his request, though reluctantly. But he had negotiated from a position of strength. He had information after all, didn’t he? He had something to tell. If only he knew what it was...

13

The morning was bright, despite Martin Hepton’s mood. He awakened to his clock radio, just in time to catch a studio debate between someone from the Pentagon and the Minister for Defence turning into a full-scale shouting match. The radio presenter sounded genuinely alarmed as accusations were hurled across the table. Lack of co-operation, distinct misunderstanding of the mood of the European Community, defenders not terrorists, never asked to be here in the first place. Et cetera.

Hepton smiled to himself as he listened. If intelligence and communications were good enough, he reasoned, there would be no arms race: everyone would know what everyone else had. That was why he felt no jab of conscience at his job, even when attacked at parties by people who could not understand why he did what he did. Not that he did very much. There would be the occasional full-scale surveillance operation, covering the movements of a suspected spy or some military attaché. Someone in a car might just notice that another car was following, but they couldn’t suspect that they were being watched from space. Mostly these jobs were for the security services. Now and again they were for the military. There had been illicit peeks at what this or that US listening post was up to; the one at Menwith Hill, for example. Against the rules, of course. Snooping on the enemy was all well and good, but spying on your allies...

Maybe that was why NATO was in such a shambles. European countries were squabbling with each other. America was pulling its defences out and retrenching back in its homeland. A ring of steel was going up around the USA: not just missiles and tanks and manpower, but economic steel and the steel of mistrust. The USA could be self-sufficient if it wished, and that was the way things were headed. Companies were finding it harder to export their goods to the States. Diplomacy had about it the air of the refrigerator. What had gone wrong? Just over a year ago, Hepton had been delighted with the way the world was going. The EuroGreens were keeping things sane as far as the environment went, the left wing of the European Parliament was pushing through some worthwhile legislation. The mood was distinctly upbeat. Even Britain was becoming more... well, European.

So what had happened? Hepton had blinked and the edifice had started to crumble: squabbles, economic downturns, the troubles in Pakistan and Turkey... And now the pull-out. He fumbled for the radio’s off-switch and made for the shower. Standing beneath the spray, he thought of the dream he’d had in the night. Mike Dreyfuss had been in it. So had Jilly. They’d been seeking each other, finding each other, but then losing each other again.

When he came out of the shower, he heard the telephone ringing. He ran, naked, to the living room and picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘Martin? Is that you? Thank Christ I’ve found you. I tried at the base but they said you were on leave.’

It was Paul Vincent, sounding edgy. No, more than that, sounding frightened.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m still at the nursing home. I’ve been trying to reach you.’

‘What’s wrong, Paul?’

‘They’ve got guards watching me, Martin. I mean, they watch me all the time. I can’t stand it. They said I could leave soon, but I think they’re planning something, God knows what. Please, come and get me, Martin. I want out of here.’

‘Okay, Paul, just hang on. I’m coming. It’ll take an hour, maybe a bit longer. Just keep calm. Okay?’

‘Okay. But hurry, please.’

‘Paul, I know there isn’t any Dr McGill. They never did take you to hospital, did they? And you didn’t become ill. Isn’t that right?’

Vincent sighed loudly. ‘Yes. They said they were security. I was on my break. They asked me to go with them. They brought me straight here. I drank some tea and the next thing I knew I’d crashed out for a solid day.’

‘Drugs?’

‘They wouldn’t admit it, but I get the feeling they’d been questioning me during that time. The bastards won’t admit anything.’

‘You mean the staff?’

‘Not all of them. No, these were other people. People brought in by Villiers.’

‘With Fagin’s knowledge?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay, Paul. Hang in there. I’m on my way.’

‘Thanks, Martin.’

Hepton pulled on a pair of denims and a T-shirt, hardly aware of what he was doing. He slipped on his shoes, grabbed his jacket, then took a last quick look around and left the flat, pausing to check that the lock had connected and to turn the key in the mortise. He didn’t believe Harry’s story of finding the door ajar. He had spent over an hour checking for bugging devices that she might have left behind. He hadn’t found any, but that didn’t mean anything. There were many other possible points of entry into a closed environment or a telephone line: no one knew better than he what technology was capable of.

Shit, if they were listening in on his telephone, they would already know about Paul. He had to hurry.

Outside, he glanced around as he unlocked the door to his Renault. He crouched beside each wheel arch and peered beneath the vehicle, running a hand around the body in search of a tracking device. Nothing. No black Sierra parked in sight. No tramps picking fruit off the ground. He got into the car, fired it up and sped down the cobblestoned street. He started to think about Paul Vincent, and the line of thought led him back to Zephyr. How often did Fagin entertain bigwigs? Three, maybe four times in a year? A large coincidence then that he should have one such party in tow on the day Zephyr chose to blow a fuse. Hepton smiled grimly at this, remembering how he had once used the phrase ‘blow a fuse’ when talking with Jilly about the satellite.

‘You mean those things actually have fuses?’ she had said, and he’d had to explain that he was using layman’s language. She had bristled at this, and insisted that he explain things to her in more technical terms. So for over an hour he’d spoken of SIGINTs and COMINTs and geostationary orbits, while she had listened intently, asking occasional questions. At the end of his explanation, she had smiled.

‘You really are a clever little sod, aren’t you?’ she had said, and he’d nodded. What else could he do?

Clever, Martin, but perhaps not clever enough. He was used to being given orders, used to doing what he was told, to being nothing more than an operative. He seemed a long way from that now. Those uniformed high-ups were still in his mind. Three minutes and forty seconds, and they’d looked pleased. What was it about Zephyr? What was it that was so classified even the control personnel couldn’t be told of it? For he was sure now that the malfunction had been a test of sorts, that it had been being put through its paces, with the brass there to watch, and that it had passed the test.

But what was the bloody test?

If anyone was following him, they were good. He didn’t catch sight of a single suspicious car or person on the drive to the Alfred de Lyon Hospital. Everyone was doing his or her bit to seem genuine, from the lady driver who nearly hit him at a junction to the man whose dog ran into the road, causing him to brake hard.

So far so good. Paul Vincent had sounded on the verge of a breakdown. Hepton didn’t feel too good himself. His body seemed extraordinarily tired and sluggish, his brain befuddled. He was hoping that Vincent knew more than he had been saying to date. It seemed the only way to unlock the hoard of answers to this whole thing.

He made good time on the drive, steered the car through the gates of the Alfred de Lyon and sped up the gravel drive. He didn’t bother with the small car park, leaving his Renault outside the main doors to the building. In the reception hall, he went straight to the admissions desk, where the white-coated lady on duty smiled, recognising him from the previous day.

‘I’ve come to see Mr Vincent,’ he said.

‘This must be his lucky day,’ she said. ‘Two visitors—’

‘Two?’ Hepton interrupted.

‘Yes, a young lady arrived half an hour ago to see him.’

‘A young lady? Short fair hair?’

The woman nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that sounds like her.’

‘Is she still here?’ snapped Hepton. He was growing afraid now. What if he had missed them? What if Harry had already whisked Paul Vincent away somewhere... somewhere Hepton couldn’t find him?

‘Well, I haven’t seen her leave. I’ll try Mr Vincent’s room.’ She picked up the telephone, pressed two digits and waited while the extension rang. Then she frowned. ‘There’s no answer. Perhaps they’ve gone to the sun lounge.’ An attendant was coming from that direction. ‘Oh, Roddy,’ she called. ‘Have you seen Mr Vincent?’

‘I thought he was in his room,’ the attendant called back. Hepton felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck.

‘Where’s his room?’ he said.

‘The end of the corridor on the first floor, but you can’t just—’

He couldn’t just, but he already was: he ran to the sweeping staircase, took it two steps at a time, stumbling at the top, and ran along the first-floor corridor. He pushed open the last door he came to and looked in. It was a large, airy room, the walls cream-coloured and the bed a double. Some of Paul’s things were lying about, but not untidily. There was an en suite bathroom, and Hepton paused at this door before turning the handle, expecting the worst.

‘Paul?’ he called. Then he pushed the door and let it sweep open on its silent hinges. But the bathroom was empty. He felt momentary relief, though he couldn’t say exactly what he had thought he would find. Then his neck prickled again. Paul wouldn’t have left knowing that Hepton was on his way. He would have stayed close to his room. He wouldn’t have let Harry take him away without a struggle. Not unless he’d been drugged...

The woman from the front desk was standing at the bedroom door, with the attendant peering over her shoulder.

‘He’s not here,’ she said.

‘So where is he?’ Hepton’s voice was loud, and the woman recoiled a little.

‘The stool from beside the bed’s not there either,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’s taken it into the garden...’

‘I’ll go and look,’ said the attendant, skipping away, glad perhaps of a little bit of action. Hepton was back in the corridor again. He examined the other doors. Three, like Vincent’s, were unmarked. Other bedrooms, he supposed. And one was marked Stores.

‘Where else might they have gone to talk?’ Hepton asked the woman.

‘Well, there’s the television room, of course, but it’s not ideal for conversation. Some of our patients are slightly deaf, and they like the volume turned up. Then there’s the morning room and the library.’

‘Library?’

‘Downstairs. It’s usually empty. But I’m sure I would have seen them go in there. They’d have had to go through reception to get to it.’

‘Would you check anyway?’ The woman seemed doubtful. Hepton tried a smile. ‘Please?’ he said. ‘It’s very urgent that I talk to Mr Vincent.’

She hesitated. ‘Very well then,’ she said, and turned and walked back along the corridor.

Hepton stared into Vincent’s room. Where the hell could they be? Wait, though: a building like this would need a fire escape, wouldn’t it? He walked back along the corridor and continued past the staircase. Just around the next corner was a door marked EMERGENCY STAIRS. He smiled and pushed it open.

He was standing at the top of an enclosed stairwell, its steps winding and made of concrete. There was a window looking out onto the hospital’s rear car park. He glanced at the dozen or so cars and saw the black Sierra parked there. He smiled again. Then he heard a sound from below him. Heels scuffing on stairs.

‘Harry?’ he called. He started to descend, then stopped. There was no sound now from below. ‘Harry?’ he repeated. He listened and heard the sound again. Footsteps, not descending now but climbing. Coming towards him. He was about to approach them, but something about the sound stopped him, something distinctly ominous. The steps were slow and even, and he could hear only one pair of feet. No Paul, then. Only a woman’s heels. Silently he retreated a few steps until he was back beside the door and staring down the twelve or so steps to where the staircase turned a corner. There was a shadow on the wall below him. Then a figure appeared on the lower landing.

Harry.

And she was holding a gun.

Her face was devoid of emotion as she saw him and angled the gun up towards his head. Hepton dived towards the door and yanked it open. He threw himself through it and into the corridor, looking to left and right. He heard Harry’s feet quickening on the stairs behind him and ran back along the corridor. The receptionist was standing at the top of the main staircase.

‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve looked, but there’s no sign—’

‘Get back downstairs!’ yelled Hepton, startling her. Then he was past her, running towards Paul Vincent’s room. He realised that he should have pushed past her and down the stairs, well away from Harry and her gun. But there were people downstairs, lots of them. He couldn’t endanger all those lives. Very noble, Martin, he thought. But now what could he do? He stared at the door marked Stores. Beneath this sign was a smaller one indicating that a fire extinguisher was located within. Well, any weapon was better than none.

He saw as he approached that the door was ever so slightly ajar. Behind him, he could hear the receptionist. She hadn’t gone downstairs; instead, she had followed him along the corridor. Any second now, Harry would round the corner and be upon them. Hepton pulled open the cupboard door.

His eyes met a pair of legs. They were hanging a couple of feet above the ground, and on the floor lay an overturned stool. Hepton’s eyes started to move upwards, his teeth gritted in growing horror. The body’s arms hung limply; the head lolled at a tight angle. A thin metal tube, almost certainly carrying electrical wires for the building’s lighting, ran the breadth of the large cupboard’s ceiling, and this was what the green garden twine had been tied to.

The green garden twine that was cutting into Paul Vincent’s neck.

His face was purple, eyes and tongue bulging obscenely. Somewhere behind Hepton the receptionist shrieked. He leapt forward and wrapped his arms around Vincent’s legs, lifting them a little higher, then reached up with a finger to pull the twine out from where it had cut into the neck.

‘Get me scissors!’ he hissed. ‘Or a knife — anything that’ll cut this.’

The woman had a small pair of nail scissors in her pocket and handed these to him. After that initial shriek, she had quickly calmed. Hepton supposed she had seen this sort of thing before, working here. He cut the twine and eased Paul Vincent’s body down, bringing it out into the hall and laying it on the carpeted floor.

‘I didn’t know,’ the woman was saying. ‘I never realised the poor man might—’

‘He wouldn’t!’ Hepton snapped back at her. ‘He wouldn’t do this.’

He looked past the receptionist, along to the end of the corridor, and saw Harry standing there. Their eyes met, then she turned swiftly and was gone, back towards the emergency stairs.

‘Wait!’ he shouted.

The receptionist saw him staring and glanced back along the corridor too, but saw nothing. No doubt she thought him emotional and in shock.

Hepton stared at Paul Vincent, then at where Harry had been standing. He made his decision and bent over his friend, pushing Paul’s swollen tongue out of the way and sticking two fingers into the young man’s mouth, searching down towards the throat, checking if there was a clear flow for air. Then he pinched Paul’s nose and gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

‘Come on, Paul,’ he said. He pushed down with both hands on Vincent’s chest, once, twice, three times. Pause. Once, twice, three times again. He checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one — but then there was! Faint, but there.

‘Is he...?’

Hepton turned to the woman. ‘Go get a doctor,’ he hissed.

‘Yes, of course.’ She hurried away.

Hepton kept trying the mishmash of life-saving techniques, remembering bits of each of them from the training sessions he had attended more than a year ago. He pushed down hard again on Vincent’s chest with the heels of his hands. There was a palpable groan from the inert body. He crawled back to Vincent’s head, his mouth close to the deep-red ear.

‘Paul? Paul, it’s Martin. Come on, Paul. You’re going to be fine. Paul?’

The opaque eyes seemed to clear, the mouth trying to form words. But the voice box was shattered, the windpipe raw. Hepton brought his own ear close to Vincent’s mouth. There were white threads of saliva at the edges, hanging from swollen lips. The word was hoarse, barely recognisable as speech. But Hepton heard it, where others might have thought it mere babble.

‘Arrus... Arrus... Arrosss...’

And then the breath seemed to rattle within, the eyes became filmy, and Hepton could only crouch there, staring at his friend. The doctor was rushing along the corridor now, and would do what he could. It was already too late, Hepton knew. His own ministrations had served only to extend the waning life by a moment. But in that precious moment, Paul Vincent had given him something. A word.

Argos.

He left the body, rising slowly to his feet. Then he remembered Harry, and turned on his heel. He ran along the corridor, swung round the corner, pushed open the door to the stairs. He didn’t mind now, didn’t care if he ran straight into her and her gun. All he held in his mind was burning rage. But a glance through the window showed him that the black Sierra had gone. He leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes.

‘Paul,’ he whispered. Then he began to cry.

14

They sat him on a sagging chesterfield sofa in the musty library, declared the room off-limits to the inquisitive patients and gave him sweet tea to drink. Meanwhile, Paul Vincent’s body was being laid out on the bed in his room, his possessions gathered together, his family informed. A tragic suicide: that was what it would become. But Hepton, sipping his tea, knew this was not the truth. A policeman came to see him, a detective in plain clothes. Hepton told him about Harry.

‘Yes,’ the detective said. ‘Mrs Collins on reception said Mr Vincent had had a visitor.’

‘She killed him.’

The detective raised one eyebrow. He had already been informed that Hepton was in shock.

‘She killed him,’ Hepton repeated. ‘She had a gun. I saw her.’

‘But Mr Vincent wasn’t killed with a gun,’ the detective said slowly, as though explaining something difficult to a child. ‘He hanged himself.’

‘No, she did it. She hung him up there.’

The detective decided to ignore all this. He referred to his notebook. ‘The name we have for the visitor is a Miss Victoria Simmons.’

Hepton shook his head. ‘Her name’s Harry.’

‘Harry?’ The detective sounded doubtful.

‘Short for Harriet.’

‘And her second name?’

Hepton shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She’s something to do with the military. That’s what she told me, anyway. You can ask my boss, Mr Henry Fagin. I’ll give you his number...’

‘Yes, well, meantime just you rest, Mr Hepton. You’ve had a bit of a shock.’

‘I’m fine. But I’m telling you...’ He looked up at the policeman. A simple-looking face, disguising a simple-working mind. He shook his head. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Never mind.’

The duty doctor gave him a couple of tablets, but Hepton refused them. He didn’t need calming down, or cheering up. He didn’t require the proffered lift home. He was quite capable of driving himself.

Paul had given him a name: Argos. Perhaps the truth had been too obvious, too glaring, too outrageous. But now that he thought it over, it was quite true that the United States space shuttle Argos had been in space at the time Zephyr had malfunctioned. But Argos wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Zephyr’s orbit. It had been a thousand or more miles away, launching another satellite. With Dreyfuss on board, now its only survivor. A coincidence? Paul had given him that one word because he had suspected Argos of interfering with Zephyr in some way. One person would know for sure.

Dreyfuss.

But how the hell could Hepton get to him? There had to be some way. The Foreign Office, perhaps. Their people in the United States would have access to him, surely? That might mean a trip to London...

London.

Of course! Jilly would have been keeping in touch with him. Hepton just knew she would. Partly from friendship — mostly from friendship, even — but partly because she had a nose for a story, and Dreyfuss was news. That was that then: he’d pack a bag and head for London. But first there were more questions to be asked of him, more tea to be served up and drunk. Why garden twine? Why suicide? Why by hanging? Why in a cupboard? He kept his answers to himself. Garden twine was strong. It wasn’t suicide, but murder. Hanging to make it look like suicide. A cupboard to prevent the body being found too quickly.

Because Harry had known Hepton was on his way, and there hadn’t been much time. Not enough time for an overdose, and not enough time for an abduction. No one, of course, had seen anything. No one had heard anything No chair falling. No choking or kicking. It was a neat operation. Neat and tidy. Hepton couldn’t get Harry’s face out of his mind.

Eventually they had to let him go. He gave his address in Louth, got into his car and drove off at a steady pace, picking up speed only when he was out of the nursing home’s gates, picking up more and more speed until he caught himself doing seventy. Too fast on these roads. Braking, slowing. He didn’t want there to be any other accidents.

Parking outside the flat, though, locking the car door, he felt a fresh wave of foreboding wash over him. Harry had killed Paul to stop him saying anything about Zephyr and, more especially, about Argos. Hepton thought of Harry again: I like things neat and tidy. With Paul gone, he knew he himself had become a target. Perhaps the only target left.

He stood at the bottom of the stairwell for a long time, listening. Then he climbed quietly to the first floor. He slowly pushed open his letter box and listened for sounds in the flat. There were none. Then he unlocked the mortise and the Yale lock and opened the door. There was a piece of paper lying on the floor of the hallway. He unfolded it and read: Need to speak with you. Please come to the Coach and Four, 7.30. Nick.

Hepton looked at his watch. It was 7.25. He’d have to hurry; the Coach and Four was a good seven or eight minutes’ walk away. He’d never been to it before, there being two other pubs nearer the flat. He wondered why Nick wanted to meet him. Perhaps he had discovered something. Well, Hepton had things to tell him too, didn’t he? Things about Zephyr and Argos. Things about Paul Vincent. Things about his death.

It hit him then, standing in the hall with the note in his hand. A huge tremor ran through him, and the strength left his body. He leaned against the wall for support and thought he was going to be sick. Was this what delayed shock felt like? He stumbled into the bathroom and ran cold water into the basin, splashing his face and neck. He wasn’t going to be sick; the feeling was passing. He had to be strong, for his own sake. And he wouldn’t be late for his appointment.

There was only one real route to the Coach and Four. It took him up a narrow, cottage-lined street, a street he’d always admired. But the people who lived there these days weren’t farmhands or labourers or even small merchants. They were estate agents and accountants, most of them working in London during the week, coming here only at weekends. And as this wasn’t yet the weekend, the street was deserted. At the end of what might seem to some a cul-de-sac, he turned right into a narrower lane yet, which would bring him out across from the pub. It too was quiet; one side being workshops and garaging, the other the backs of some houses, high fencing protecting the privacy of the gardens. A few brave motorists used this lane as a shortcut, though its surface was rutted and booby-trapped with potholes. He could hear a car now, slowing in the street behind him, turning into the lane. But there was plenty of room for it to pass him.

He turned to look at the car and saw the nose of the black Sierra as it started to speed towards him. Harry, clearly visible behind the windscreen, seemed to be enjoying the look of terror on his face. She gunned the vehicle forwards just as Hepton turned and ran.

He was no judge of distance but reckoned that he couldn’t make the end of the lane before the car caught him. He quickly sought an open door to one of the workshops, some garage that hadn’t been locked up. But it was useless. The Sierra was only a few yards from him when he made up his mind. He braced himself against the metal door of one of the garages, then pushed off from it and sprinted across the line of the oncoming vehicle. Harry accelerated harder yet, but Hepton had judged it right, and he leapt at the high wall of one of the gardens, his fingers seeking the top edge of the brickwork. They found it, and he pulled himself upwards as the Sierra curved towards him, its front wing searing against the wall. He swung his legs upwards so that the roof of the car just missed them, and hung there, teeth gritted, thinking suddenly and absurdly of the multigym’s chinning bar.

The Sierra screeched to a stop at the end of the lane, just as Hepton was about to drop back to the ground. Then its wheels spun and it started to reverse hard towards him. Christ, he couldn’t hang on much longer, and he hadn’t the strength to pull himself over the wall. But then the car stopped, idled for a moment.

‘What’s going on?’

Hepton turned his head and saw that a man had appeared from a gate in one of the garden fences. He was in his shirtsleeves and carried a folded newspaper, obviously having just been disturbed from an evening’s reading in his garden. Hepton dropped to the ground and watched the Sierra start forwards slowly, turning out of the lane and speeding away.

Of course: there couldn’t be any witnesses, could there? It had to look like an accident. Hepton saw it all clearly. The note from Nick was a fake. She had chosen the pub because she’d known he had to walk along this lane to get to it. And in the lane there would be no escape, and no one to see the car hit him. But it wouldn’t have been hit-and-run. That might have looked too suspicious. No, she would have stopped and played the innocent. She would say he had jumped in front of the car, perhaps, and everyone would come to believe her, because it would be shown that Hepton was distraught, unstable after watching his friend die earlier in the day.

Just another suicide.

‘I said, what’s going on?’

Hepton snapped out of his reverie, went to the man and shook his hand.

‘Thank you,’ he said, then began to jog back the way he had come, leaving the man standing there uncomprehending.

He arrived at his car without further incident. They wouldn’t want his death to look suspicious, so he didn’t bother to check for bombs under the chassis or snipers on the rooftops. He just got in and drove, trembling throughout his body, heading south towards Boston and further on to Peterborough, and beyond that London.

He stopped once for petrol and asked the attendant where he might find a telephone. There was a payphone on the wall outside the gents’. A man was coming out of the toilets, his face wet. Hepton had noticed a car parked beside the pumps. The man smiled.

‘Never any bloody paper in these places,’ he said, explaining the wet face. Hepton nodded. ‘Needed a bit of a splash, though,’ the man went on. ‘Driving to Leeds tonight. Bloody long way, but the roads are quieter at night than through the day. I’m a rep, you see. You get to know these tricks.’

Hepton smiled again, but offered no reply. The last thing he needed was a lengthy conversation with a professional traveller. The man seemed to take the hint and moved past him, towards the station shop. Hepton turned his attention back to the telephone. He lifted the receiver, slipped a ten-pence piece into the slot and dialled the number of the base.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’d like to speak to Nick Christopher if he’s around.’

It took a minute or so, then Nick’s voice came over loud and clear.

‘Nick here.’

‘Nick? It’s Martin.’

‘Hello, Martin. What can I do for you?’

‘I just wanted to check something. You didn’t leave a note at my flat, did you?’

‘A note?’

No, of course he hadn’t. Because he was in Binbrook, not Louth. Because the note had been written by Harry. Which meant she knew Nick Christopher was Hepton’s best friend...

‘Nick,’ Hepton said. ‘There hasn’t been someone there asking questions about me, has there? A woman in her late twenties, short blonde hair, attractive?’

‘No, can’t say there... Hang on, yes, there was somebody here like that. Saw her go into Fagin’s office. Tasty piece.’

That was it then. All she’d had to do was ask Fagin who Hepton’s closest friend on the base was. Then she’d used his name to lure Hepton into the trap. Not the cleverest of traps, but then it had probably been devised in haste, now that she saw him for the threat he really was.

He rang off and found another ten-pence piece, then took from his pocket the card Harry had given him. He had begun to feel a kind of strange elation at having cheated death. In fact, he felt more alive than he had done in months, perhaps even years. He dialled the number, ready to taunt whoever answered, but heard only a continuous whine from the receiver. He tried again, with the same result. Disconnected.

Had they cleared out then? Or changed the number when they had decided Hepton must die? There didn’t seem any other explanation as to why Harry would have given him the card. Unless... He studied it more closely. Thick card, inflexible, covered in a plastic coating. Quite a robust thing, really, given that all it contained was a telephone number, and a discontinued one at that. He asked the attendant if he possessed such a thing as a knife. The man looked dubious, but they went to the shop, where he found a Swiss Army knife. The rep was whistling cheerily, selecting a dozen or so chocolate bars before moving on to the sparse display of music cassettes. Hepton chose the thinnest blade on the knife and began to cut along the edge of the card, the attendant watching, unsure what to expect. The rep came over too, his selections made.

The plastic was tough, but once he was through it, Hepton noticed that the card itself was very thin, more like paper. He began to peel it off, revealing a thin piece of metal studded with solder.

‘What is it?’ asked the rep, intrigued now.

‘It’s a PCB,’ Hepton answered, quite calmly.

‘A what?’ asked the attendant.

‘A printed circuit board. Smallest one I think I’ve seen.’

There could be no doubting that it was a transmitter of sorts. Crude, as something this size needed to be, but probably effective. Hepton smiled, shaking his head. No need to check your car’s wheel arches these days for an unwieldy magnetised box; something the size of a business card would do the job every bit as well.

‘Can I pay for these?’ the rep asked the attendant and, show over, the attendant nodded, taking back his knife and going behind the counter. Hepton stood beside the rep, waiting his turn to pay for petrol.

‘I’d like a receipt too, please,’ the rep said to the attendant as Hepton held the transmitter between forefinger and thumb and gently, surreptitiously, slipped it into the man’s jacket pocket. He held his breath, then stepped away. But the rep hadn’t noticed anything, and with any luck he would continue all the way to Leeds still in blissful ignorance.

‘Have a good trip,’ Hepton called to him as the man went out to his car. Then, having paid for the tankful of petrol, he went out to his own vehicle, started it and headed off in the opposite direction, whistling.

As he drove, he remembered something and reached into his pocket, bringing out the note Harry had left for him, the one that had led him by the nose towards his intended death. He rolled down the window and threw it out. Was there anything else she had given him? No, nothing, not unless she had planted something on him without his knowledge. He would have to check his clothing.

Wait a minute, though... she had given him something else: a ten-pence piece to pay for the call she said she had made yesterday evening. He angled a hand into his trouser pocket and brought out all his loose change, scattering it on the passenger seat. Then he picked out the three ten-pence pieces that lay there and threw them out of the window too. He hoped someone would pick them up. If one of them contained a backup transmitter, Harry might have another long, hard and fruitless journey ahead of her.

Something else was niggling him. Several things really. For one, Fagin had ordered him to talk to Harry, to tell her everything he knew. So was Fagin in on it too? Or was he merely obeying orders? And who the hell was Villiers? What was it Harry had said? Something about ‘my employers, who are, ultimately, your employers’: but who — ultimately — was Hepton’s employer? The Home Secretary? The head of the MoD? Someone in London, he’d bet on that. But it might take a journalist’s nose to discover the final answer. A good journalist. Someone he could trust.

Supposing, that were, Jilly would even want to speak to him again.

15

In fact, the smooth-dressed, smooth-spoken Parfit did not return, and Dreyfuss, who had been keening like a young whelp, grew first agitated and then worried and then frustrated. Parfit had said he was coming back to take him away from Sacramento General, away from the vicious General Esterhazy and the cunning Frank Stewart, away from nurses who weren’t real nurses and drugs that did more than merely put a man to sleep. So where the hell was he? What was he doing?

The evening stretched into night, and the night saw Dreyfuss sleepless, pounding the floor of his room on aching feet. A night-duty nurse looked in on him, but he growled at her and she quickly fled. A male attendant, black, uncertain, asked him if he wanted anything.

‘Nothing,’ he snarled, and paced the cage again.

When breakfast arrived, he found himself waking on top of the bed, still wearing slippers and a dressing gown, his forehead damp with sweat.

‘Hot in here,’ said the nurse, a teenager who certainly looked more like a nurse than Carraway had.

‘Yes, it is,’ Dreyfuss answered, sitting up with his back against the mound of pillows. She placed the tray on a trolley and wheeled the trolley over until it was positioned in front of him.

‘Ham and eggs,’ she said, removing the cover from the plate. Dreyfuss nodded hungrily and started to tuck in. Three or four chews later, he remembered about Parfit, and the hunger left him. He sipped at the coffee, still chewing the food in his mouth, desperate to swallow it but somehow unable to. Eventually he spat it back into his paper serviette.

The nurse returned after twenty minutes and took the tray away. She didn’t say anything about the untouched food.

‘How are we this morning?’ the doctor asked brightly, pushing open the door.

‘We’re fine,’ said Dreyfuss glumly. ‘When can we get up?’

‘I did hear,’ the doctor said mock-conspiratorially, checking Dreyfuss’ pulse at the same time, ‘that we had been getting up. Pacing the floor at all hours of the night.’ He stared at Dreyfuss with soulful eyes. ‘Hmm?’

‘I’d like to leave today.’

‘Fine.’ The doctor had stopped checking the pulse. He now peered into Dreyfuss’ eyes. ‘Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know; a bit of sightseeing, maybe. Book into a hotel, see a few shows...’

‘In Sacramento?’ The doctor laughed. ‘No, I think you’d be better staying just here, Major Dreyfuss.’

And that was what he did. Though he willed himself to move, to just open the door, walk down the corridor and leave by the hospital’s front door, he had no idea what he might be stepping out into. A demonstration, perhaps; an angry mob; some lone gunman looking to make the news?

He sat tight, his gut quivering whenever someone walked noisily past the door of his room. But Parfit didn’t come. Someone else came instead.

Frank Stewart.

‘Can I speak to you for a minute?’

‘Can I stop you?’ Dreyfuss’ voice had bite, but he waved for Stewart to sit down. Secretly he was glad of some company.

‘How do you feel?’

How did he feel? He felt strange, staring into Spencer Tracy’s eyes like this.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Stewart continued.

Dreyfuss doubted it. ‘Go on,’ he prompted.

‘You’re thinking that somehow you’re to blame for what happened to Argos. Forget it; you couldn’t have done anything.’

‘I couldn’t?’

‘Well, could you?’

Dreyfuss thought about this. What was Stewart trying to get him to say? ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last.

Stewart seemed pleased with this reply and drew his chair closer to the bed.

‘I know there’s something wrong,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper. ‘I know there’s something cooking.’

‘Are you CIA or NSA?’

Stewart seemed surprised by the question. ‘I’m State Department,’ he said.

‘Right,’ Dreyfuss said, sounding as unconvinced as he felt.

‘Okay, okay. I’m on secondment to the NSA.’

Dreyfuss nodded. ‘And what,’ he said, ‘makes you so sure something’s “cooking”, as you put it?’

‘Just a feeling. When you reach my age, you get a nose for these sorts of things.’

Now if that wasn’t a line from a Spencer Tracy film, what was? ‘What sorts of things?’ Dreyfuss asked, enjoying throwing Stewart’s statements back at him as questions. This way, he gave himself a little room for manoeuvre.

Stewart’s voice grew quieter yet. ‘When General Esterhazy was in Europe, another of our staff generals, William Colt, very high up at the Pentagon, sent him a message. It said, and I quote, “Sorry you couldn’t make it to the burial.” That message was sent at almost exactly the time your shuttle was crashing.’

The burial! Hes Adams’ face swam into view amidst the smoke and sparks and heat.

Stewart could see his words having an effect. ‘What is it?’ he hissed. ‘That means something to you, doesn’t it? Has it jogged your memory, Major? Not that I believe for one moment that you really have got partial amnesia. I’ve got to hand it to you, though. You’ve got the doctors fooled.’

‘Nurse Carraway wasn’t a real nurse.’

Stewart nodded. ‘So I understand. Ben Esterhazy had her planted here. I didn’t know anything about it.’ His voice fell again. ‘It’s him you’ve got to be careful of, not me.’ Dreyfuss stared at him stonily. Stewart shrugged his shoulders. Then he changed tack. ‘I hear tell,’ he said, ‘that when you landed, the ground crew had to prise Major Adams’ fingers from off your throat. Adams was one of Esterhazy’s men too. He was his golden boy at one time, but then he screwed up on a mission. Got himself compromised. Then suddenly he ends up on Argos. That made me a little curious. What was going on up there?’

Dreyfuss was thinking. Yes, it was true: Esterhazy and Adams had the same words at their disposal — “coffin’s got to be buried”; “sorry you couldn’t make it to the burial” — and it meant something to both of them, something worth dying for, worth killing for. He had to tell someone. His brain was feverish. He felt he would burst if he didn’t speak. Where was Parfit? Parfit should be here, not this American secret serviceman. The confessor was wrong, but still the need to confess was strong. Too strong.

He cleared his throat as a prelude. ‘We were up there to launch a communications satellite,’ he said. ‘That’s what I thought. But it was like some joke was being played on me, like I wasn’t being let in on something. They were grinning... I think the rest of the crew knew. Hes Adams definitely knew what was going on. We launched the satellite okay. Then I saw some figures on the screen, co-ordinates I thought at the time. And a series of numbers. There was one sequence that kept repeating itself. I tried to memorise it, but it was way too long. I remember how it started, though: Ze/446. I wondered about that, but nobody seemed too bothered. Then I asked Hes — Major Adams — about it, and he laughed.’ Stewart’s face was so intent at this point that Dreyfuss felt nothing would tear the older man’s eyes off him. ‘I knew then that something was wrong. And I felt that I wasn’t intended to get off the shuttle alive, because I’d been stupid enough to tell what I’d seen to the one man aboard who knew what it all meant. Then later,’ he continued, swallowing, ‘when we were dying and everything went haywire, Adams started choking me. He was mad, screaming at me, “Coffin’s got to be buried!”’

Stewart looked startled at this, then sat back in his chair, as though he were thinking hard. He folded his arms and seemed to require no more from Dreyfuss for the moment. Dreyfuss was thinking too, thinking how hungry he suddenly felt.

‘Now hold on,’ Stewart said at last. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight...’

‘Got what straight, Mr Stewart?’ asked Parfit, stepping into the room.

Stewart looked embarrassed, but recovered quickly. ‘Just asking the major here some questions about the flight.’

Parfit looked towards Dreyfuss. ‘And does the major want to be questioned?’ he asked.

‘The major wants to be told he can get out of here,’ Dreyfuss said, remembering now that he was angry with Parfit, who had left him here for so long.

Parfit made a sweeping gesture with his arm. ‘Your carriage awaits,’ he said.

Stewart was rising to his feet. ‘Wait a minute. Major Dreyfuss can’t just walk out of here. He’s under medical care.’

‘Nonsense,’ Parfit replied. He went back to the doorway, leaned out into the corridor and picked up a large paper carrier bag. ‘I hope these fit,’ he said, bringing the bag to the bed.

Dreyfuss was already on his feet. He opened the bag and brought out trousers, underwear, a cotton shirt, socks and a pair of canvas shoes.

Stewart watched him dress, but his words when he spoke were directed at Parfit.

‘You know this is crazy, don’t you? Esterhazy will blow all his fuses when he finds out.’ But he sounded as though this was not a wholly unpleasant thought.

‘I’m hoping he does just that,’ Parfit returned.

Dreyfuss knew there was some undercurrent to this exchange, something they were managing to say to one another without his understanding. He slipped on the shoes. The clothes were a near-perfect fit.

‘Ready?’ said Parfit.

‘Ready,’ answered Dreyfuss.

‘I’m glad we managed to have some time together, Major,’ Stewart was saying. Dreyfuss smiled but did not reply. Parfit had already turned in the doorway, and held the door open as Dreyfuss took his first steps out of the room, into the bright, disinfected corridor.

Parfit kept a couple of steps ahead of him as they walked. Dreyfuss felt elated at first, light-headed, but then started sweating. He had paced his room, but that had called for little real exertion. Now, after sixty or so strides, his hair was prickling and his back began to feel damp. The corridor was quiet: no staff, and all the doors except his own looked to be locked tight. They came to a set of swing doors and opened them. Now they were in a larger, noisier, busier corridor, one of the hospital’s main arteries. Dreyfuss looked back at the doors they had just come through and saw that a large NO ADMITTANCE sign and a radiation symbol warned the unwary against entering his own silent corridor.

He had been expecting to see an armed guard at least. What had been stopping journalists from trying to visit him? Not just that sign, surely. Then he noticed an orderly sitting on a chair by the door, pretending to be on his break and browsing through a newspaper. His eyes were toughened glass as they fixed on Dreyfuss and Parfit, and Dreyfuss knew he was a guard of some kind, but an unobtrusive one.

‘Does he know who we are?’ he said to Parfit as they walked on.

Parfit glanced back towards the orderly. ‘Well, he knows who I am. I’ve had to get past him to see you, yesterday and today. But he’s here to stop people getting in, not coming out.’

‘What took you so long to come back?’

But Parfit was flurrying on again, and it took all of Dreyfuss’ energy and concentration to keep up with his pace. The question lapsed.

‘How much did you tell Stewart?’ Parfit asked.

‘Quite a bit.’

‘Mmm. That’s all right then.’

‘What do you mean?’ But Parfit wasn’t about to answer this question either.

Everybody was too busy being sick or being a comforter of the sick to pay them much attention, but at the main door, Dreyfuss hesitated. Something would happen. They’d be stopped. He’d be dragged back to his room and questioned again. They wouldn’t get away with it. As Parfit approached the glass doors, they opened on a motorised hush, and then both men were outside.

Outside, it was warm, but with a strong breeze. And there was cloud cover. A storm was coming. Dreyfuss began to shiver as the sweat on his body cooled. A large sedan pulled up to the kerb, and Parfit opened the back door, ushering him inside. The driver was a thickset man with the face of a well-used hammer. He stared at Dreyfuss in the rear-view mirror. Parfit closed the door after him and they drove off.

‘This is Ronald,’ Parfit said to Dreyfuss.

Ronald nodded, unsmiling, then concentrated on his driving.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Dreyfuss.

‘Washington. There’s a private jet waiting for us at the airport.’

‘A private jet? Is that standard Foreign Office issue?’

Parfit smiled. ‘It’s not ours, I just borrowed it from someone who happened to owe me a large favour.’

Dreyfuss nodded.

‘So,’ Parfit was saying, ‘I think you’d better start at the beginning, hadn’t you?’

‘I nearly died up there.’ Dreyfuss turned towards him. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘But if you’ll remember, I did warn you. That’s why we’re sitting here today.’

Yes, Dreyfuss remembered all right. The telephone call telling him he’d been picked for the Argos flight, and then the arrival at his home of a man in a pinstripe suit, introducing himself as ‘Parfit, Foreign Office’. He had come, so he said, to give Dreyfuss a pre-briefing briefing. In fact, he had come with a warning.

The first thing he had done was go through Dreyfuss’ curriculum vitae, but in much more detail than the interview panel had done. He had cited Dreyfuss’ age as a point against him. Other minus points included lack of experience and slight problems of stamina. Dreyfuss, who had been elated at the news of his selection, began to feel distinctly uncomfortable at this.

‘Yes, but they still chose me,’ he had said.

‘Exactly, Major Dreyfuss,’ Parfit had replied. ‘Exactly.’

So there had to be a good reason, and Parfit was intrigued to know what it was. Dreyfuss had been bottom of the British list of candidates — no disrespect intended — and they couldn’t figure out how he could come top of the American list. But there would be a reason, and it was judged worth warning Dreyfuss to be on his guard, and to give him a few tips, a few lessons in the art of survival in a hostile environment.

‘You were right about that,’ Dreyfuss said now. He had just been telling Parfit what he had told Stewart, but in a little more detail this time. ‘I didn’t get into a space shuttle, I got into a coffin.’

‘So you think the shuttle itself is the coffin that had to be buried?’

‘Don’t you?’

Parfit rested his head against the seat-back, thinking things through. ‘No,’ he answered at last. ‘No, I don’t, not entirely.’

‘So what do you think was being buried?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps we should just ask General Esterhazy. He seems to be involved after all, doesn’t he?’

‘But you don’t think Frank Stewart is?’

‘If he were, he wouldn’t have been asking you questions the way he did. He wasn’t questioning you to find out how much you knew. He was doing it because he doesn’t know much of anything himself.’

‘It’s a military thing then?’

‘Perhaps. Whatever it is, someone’s going to a lot of trouble over it, which would seem to indicate that it is fairly special and not very small in scale.’

‘Such as?’

‘I could only posit a few guesses.’

‘Posit away.’

Parfit sighed. ‘Anything between an assassination and a war.’ He paused. ‘They’re not mutually exclusive.’

‘A war?’

‘Why not? Look at the way things are going.’

‘Christ... a war.’ Dreyfuss felt weak again. ‘But wait, if it’s such a big thing, why did they keep me alive?’

‘Well, that’s easy enough. Five men had already died, and yet you had been pulled alive and in surprisingly good health from the wreckage. The TV cameras and newspapers caught all that. So your sudden death in hospital would have looked a mite suspicious.’

‘We were all supposed to die, though, weren’t we? All the crew?’

‘It looks that way. A kamikaze mission to launch a communications satellite. An unlikely scenario, you’ll admit.’

‘But it wasn’t just a comms satellite, was it?’

Parfit turned towards Dreyfuss and smiled, seeming pleased that he had worked this out. ‘The question is,’ he said, ‘what was it?’

‘I know one way we might find out.’

Parfit seemed interested now.

‘How?’

‘My controller on the ground, Cam Devereux. He might know.’

Parfit nodded. ‘It’s an idea. But even supposing he knows anything, why would he tell us?’

Dreyfuss seemed not to understand the question.

‘I mean,’ Parfit said, ‘why should he be friendly towards us? Can we assume he’s not in on it — whatever “it” is?’

‘Well,’ said Dreyfuss, ‘can you think of anyone else who might have the answers?’

Parfit considered this. ‘Off the top of my head, no.’

‘Besides which,’ Dreyfuss continued, ‘I got on well with Cam. He sent flowers to the hospital. We struck up what you might call a special relationship.’

Parfit raised an eyebrow. ‘Any particular reason why?’

‘We had something in common,’ said Dreyfuss. ‘As kids, we were both scared to death of roller coasters.’

Parfit stared at him. Dreyfuss smiled back.

‘Well,’ Parfit said, ‘I suppose we’ve nothing to lose by talking to Mr Devereux. Best wait until we’re safely back in the embassy compound, though. We’ll try and contact him from there. All we need to do now is find someone who would know what that readout meant. Ze/446 — you’ve really no idea?’

‘No, but if Cam Devereux can’t help, I might know someone who can.’

Now Parfit looked genuinely impressed.

‘A friend of a good friend of mine,’ he continued. ‘He works with satellites in the UK.’

‘And what is his name?’

‘His name’s Hepton,’ said Dreyfuss. ‘Martin Hepton.’

16

Hepton took his car to the long-term car park at Heathrow and slept the night there. He awoke cramped and stiff, locked the car and wandered off towards the terminal building in search of breakfast. He hadn’t been to Heathrow in what seemed like years. The place was huge, a city almost in itself. Eventually he found what he was looking for, and drank two cups of coffee before buying an overpriced croissant, then another, then a third, chewing each one slowly as he considered his options. His first plan still seemed the best: get in touch with Dreyfuss.

It was early, but the cafeteria section was busy with business executives and security men. Hepton felt scruffy and a little too obvious. He went to the toilets and washed, tidying his hair as best he could. At the sky shop, he bought a comb and a toothbrush. He also bought two newspapers, neither of which carried any mention of Paul Vincent’s death. Not that he had expected them to.

He found a cashpoint machine, and was about to empty it of his day’s maximum allowance when he hesitated. Would they have access to his bank account? By ‘they’, he meant Villiers and Harry. If so, they could track him as far as Heathrow just by tapping into the present transaction. On the other hand, he had to have money, and if he took it out now at least they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint him to London itself. He might even be about to get on a plane, mightn’t he? Running scared and flying for cover. So he pushed the card home, tapped in his identity number and withdrew ten crisp ten-pound notes.

He had decided to leave the car here. For one thing, they had his licence plate number and the car’s description, so he didn’t want to drive it around London. Besides, he had the feeling that in London a car might actually slow him down. It wasn’t a series of roads out there; it was a jungle. Which was all to the good. He wanted to lose himself there, and hope the big-game hunter in the black Sierra went home without a kill.

He took the uncrowded Tube train towards town. It filled up as it hit west London, then became claustrophobic as it neared the centre. South Kensington came as merciful release. But all he was doing here was changing platforms to the District and Circle Line, and the train that eventually arrived was again crowded. How could people live like this? He thought of green fields, of Louth. Of hangings and cars trying to crush him... Safety in numbers: that was what a city provided.

So he stopped hating the packed carriage, and rubbed shoulders with an extraordinarily pretty young woman until Westminster, where, despite the temptation to keep travelling, he finally alighted. Tourists were already busying themselves with the day’s chores, cameras and video cameras trained on the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Hepton headed up Whitehall and realised suddenly that he didn’t know which of the large, anonymous buildings he needed. Understated signs beside the impressive doors were the only indication as to their identity. A man was striding purposefully towards him, black briefcase in hand. Hepton recognised the style of the briefcase: soft leather, more a school bag than a business case. There was a small crown above the nameplate. He had seen visitors from the MoD carrying such bags when they came to the base. He stopped the man.

‘I wonder if you can help me,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for the Foreign Office.’

The man said nothing; merely indicated with his head before walking on. Hepton stared at the building towards which he had nodded, then started towards its arched main door.

ALL PASSES MUST BE SHOWN declared the sign just inside the doors. Below it, another notice advised that security alert was condition Amber. Security alert was normally at Black. Hepton knew this from his own dealings with the MoD, though Binbrook had its own, different grading system. Above Black came Black Special, which meant there was cause for caution, and after Black Special came Amber. Amber was what government departments had gone to after the Libyan bombing. Amber was serious, only marginally less serious than Red. Hepton had never seen a Red alert, and, knowing what it meant, hoped he never would.

The uniformed guard was eyeing him suspiciously.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘I hope so,’ Hepton said. ‘I’d like to speak with someone about a friend of mine. This friend is in the United States, and it’s vital that I contact him. Is there anyone here who might help?’

‘Why not just phone your friend, sir?’

It was a fair question. Remembering Paul Vincent and Harry, however, Hepton knew that speed was of the essence. He hadn’t time to muck around, to engage in little games of ‘let’s pretend’. He needed to get past this first obstacle quickly, and he knew of only one sure way to do it.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not quite that simple. You see, he’s Major Michael Dreyfuss, the man from the shuttle crash.’

Eventually he was given a visitor’s pass to fill in, which he did, using the name Martin Harris. Then he was shown to an office along a sweeping, red-carpeted corridor. There were many doors, bearing room numbers and sometimes the name of an individual or a section. The room Hepton eventually entered, however, had neither. A young man sat behind a desk. He stood as Hepton entered, leaned across the table to shake his hand and gestured for him to take a seat.

‘Would you like some coffee, Mr Harris?’ There was a percolator standing on a table beside the small window.

‘Please,’ said Hepton.

As the man poured, Hepton studied the room. It had bookshelves, but no books, and the desk looked to be unused. Though it boasted some papers and a box of biro pens, there was a layer of dust covering its surface, evidence that this room wasn’t often occupied. He wondered if he had walked into some kind of trap.

‘Milk?’

‘Please, no sugar.’

He was handed a cup and saucer. The young man sat down again, sipped, then looked up.

‘So then, Mr Harris, what can we do for you?’

‘Well, I’m a friend of Major Michael Dreyfuss...’

‘Yes, so you said.’

‘And I really would like to get in touch with him.’

‘Any particular reason why?’

‘To wish him a speedy recovery, of course.’

The man nodded. ‘It’s taken you a while to get round to that, hasn’t it?’

Hepton reminded himself that he had no time to play games. ‘Look,’ he said firmly, ‘there’s just something I need to speak with him about. Something personal, but very important.’

‘Oh?’ The civil servant had picked up one of the new biros and was examining it. It struck Hepton that he didn’t know who this man was.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Sanders,’ the civil servant said. ‘And you said yours was Harris.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, Mr Harris, it’s just that we have to be careful. A lot of people would like to speak to Major Dreyfuss. I’m sure you understand. Reporters from the less scrupulous newspapers, and other people. So, if there’s some way we can establish your identity...?’

Hepton cursed silently. Sanders was shrewder than he had anticipated. He shook his head. Sanders appeared to have been expecting this.

‘Or,’ he said, ‘if you can prove your relationship with Major Dreyfuss...?’

Hepton thought this over. ‘We have a mutual friend,’ he said at last. ‘Miss Jill Watson. She’s a reporter on the Herald.’

The civil servant looked up from his pen. ‘And she sent you here?’

Hepton saw the implication and shook his head. ‘No, no, of course not. She doesn’t even know I’m in London, for Christ’s sake.’

‘No need to lose your temper, Mr Harris.’ Sanders was writing Jilly’s name on a sheet of paper. ‘But you’ve no proof of identity on you?’

Oh, what the hell, thought Hepton. If they’re going to check on Jilly, they’ll get my name eventually.

‘My name’s Hepton, not Harris,’ he said.

Sanders seemed satisfied. ‘But you signed the visitor’s pass Harris. That could get you into trouble, you know. Why the deception?’

‘Look, I just want to get in touch with Major Dreyfuss. If you could help me contact him...’

Sanders rose to his feet. ‘Wait here a moment, would you, please?’ He walked smartly to the door. ‘Help yourself to more coffee,’ he said, making an exit.

Hepton stayed seated, but couldn’t relax. This had seemed such a good idea at the time. There was bound to be someone from the FO in contact with Dreyfuss. It had seemed so simple... But now he had given them so much, and they had given him nothing. He got up and went to the window, pushing aside the net curtain to look out. All he saw was other windows in another building. They too had net curtains, making it impossible to see into the rooms.

He crossed to Sanders’ desk and examined it. The papers, as expected, were just blank sheets. The drawers of the desk were locked. Over at the bookcase, he wiped a finger along one surface and it came away carrying a bud of dust, which he blew into the air. There was another door, a cupboard perhaps, but it too was locked. He went to the percolator and refilled his cup, drinking slowly. What was happening? Where had Sanders gone? Would Harry walk in through the door? Had he delivered himself to her on a plate?

When the door did finally open, Sanders himself stood there, looking composed.

‘If you’d like to follow me, Mr Hepton,’ he commanded, and they set off together back along the silent corridor and up an imposing staircase. There weren’t so many rooms on this second level. A large and busy reception area was the hub of the activity as people walked briskly in and out of the various offices. Telephones rang, and a few visitors sat on modern upholstered chairs, flicking through magazines.

Sanders approached the reception desk and said something to the prim woman seated there. She filled in another pass, which was torn from its pad and handed to Sanders, who in turn gave it to Hepton.

‘Sign it, please,’ he ordered, and Hepton accepted the proffered pen. ‘Best stick to calling yourself Harris,’ Sanders advised. ‘That way it doesn’t get complicated when you’ve handed back both passes and somebody tries to collate the day’s visitors in and out.’

‘Right.’ Hepton signed himself as Martin Harris and followed Sanders towards one of the doors. This led into a smaller reception, where a young black secretary tapped away at a computer.

‘Morning, Sarah,’ said Sanders, passing her and pausing at yet another door. Sarah smiled at Hepton, and he smiled back. He was thinking now that everything was going to be all right.

Sanders had knocked at the door. There was a command from within, and he opened it, ushering Hepton into the room before him.

It was a decent-sized office, its furniture a mixture of the antique and the up-to-date. Books lined one wall, while another contained paintings and prints. The fourth and last was taken up for the most part by a large window, again net-curtained. At the window stood a middle-aged man, an important-looking man. The cut of his clothes was expensive, and where his cheeks had been shaved there was a bright ruddiness that bespoke health and wealth. Hepton had the feeling that he had seen this man before somewhere, on television perhaps.

‘Ah, Mr Hepton. Do come in, please. I’m George Villiers.’

Villiers! Hepton’s heart shrank to the size of a peach stone. But he kept his face neutral, betraying no emotion, and finally shook the proffered hand. It struck him that Villiers wouldn’t — couldn’t — know that Hepton knew about him. He had to stay calm, not give anything away. He breathed deeply to stop himself from hyperventilating. His heart was racing, but he kept his posture stiff.

Villiers motioned for him to sit, and Hepton did so. Then Villiers seated himself and drew his chair in towards the table. Something about his actions — a clipped, rehearsed quality, a feeling that each movement of the body possessed its own cause and effect — told Hepton that he was ex-military. And not all that ex either.

Villiers lifted a sheet of paper from his desk. It was a typed sheet, not the one Sanders had taken with him from that first room. ‘Can you tell us why you wish to contact Major Dreyfuss?’

‘No,’ said Hepton briskly. ‘If you could just pass a message on to him that I’m trying to reach him, perhaps—’

‘You’re on holiday at the moment, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but how could you—’

‘These things aren’t difficult. All right, Mr Hepton. We’ll see what we can do. Where will you be staying while you’re here?’

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘With Miss Watson, perhaps?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Oh?’ Villiers stared past Hepton’s shoulder, towards where Sanders stood. ‘I was under the impression the two of you were friends?’

‘We are. That is, we were.’ Hepton’s thoughts were quicksilver now. This was a man he’d been told to avoid, told by Paul Vincent, who was now dead. He couldn’t afford to let Villiers know anything, and already the man knew too much... ‘We broke up. We haven’t seen one another in months.’ Hepton sounded bitter, and made his face look the same. They had to be made to think that he wouldn’t be contacting Jilly.

‘Ah.’ Villiers went back to studying the typed sheet of paper. Hepton noticed that there was a buff-coloured file on the desk, down the edge of which was written a name: Dreyfuss, Major M. The paper had undoubtedly come from the file. Villiers seemed to know who Hepton was, and didn’t seem overcurious about Jilly. Therefore he already knew as much as he needed to know. Had he gleaned the information from the typed sheet? Hepton doubted it. No, there was another reason why Villiers knew about him.

Villiers looked up suddenly and caught Hepton staring at him. He smiled, as if to say: I know what you’re thinking. Then he read through the sheet again, and Hepton relaxed. Villiers couldn’t know he knew.

‘So how will we contact you, Mr Hepton, should we get through to Major Dreyfuss?’

‘As soon as I know where I’m going to be, I’ll let you know.’

‘Yes.’ Villiers sounded sceptical. ‘That would probably be best.’ He seemed preoccupied.

‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ Villiers looked up.

‘I mean, wrong with Major Dreyfuss. Any reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to speak to him.’

Villiers smiled. ‘Oh no, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. But procedures, you know...’

‘Red tape?’

‘Exactly. A bore, but it’s what we’re paid for.’ He smiled again, and Sanders laughed quietly.

‘Is there someone from our embassy with Major Dreyfuss?’

Villiers’ smile vanished. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, I would have thought it usual to have someone there beside him. To make sure everything’s all right.’

‘There’s someone with him,’ Villiers said in a cool voice. ‘Don’t worry on that score, Mr Hepton. Now, if you’ll excuse me...’

‘Of course.’ Hepton stood up.

Villiers reached out a dry, cold hand for Hepton to shake.

‘Just tell us when you get settled in somewhere, and then when we get through to Major Dreyfuss, well, we’ll take it from there. All right?’

Not really. Hepton felt that he had failed badly. But at least the mood in this office had alerted him to the fact that something was going on out in the States. Perhaps Dreyfuss was in danger from the rednecks who had nicknamed him ‘Jonah’ after the crash. Perhaps, though, there was another kind of danger altogether. On the other hand, he had walked into the lion’s den, and here he was walking out again. He decided to classify this fact a minor victory.

‘Thank you,’ he said, following Sanders out of the door.

As soon as Hepton had gone, Villiers took a fountain pen from his pocket and scribbled down a brief summary of the meeting. Then he amended the information about Hepton and Miss Watson on the typed sheet of paper, initialled the summary and slipped it into the Dreyfuss file. From the top drawer of his desk, he took out another folder. This one was unlabelled, and into it he slipped the single typed sheet to which he had been referring throughout the meeting. This was the file on Martin Hepton.

He locked his drawer and picked up one of the two telephones on his desk, punching in three digits.

‘Sanders is seeing someone to the front door,’ he said in a monotone. ‘Have them followed. But keep it low-key. A one-man job, if you can.’ He listened for a moment. ‘No, no forms to fill in on this one. I want it kept strictly off the books.’ He listened again, his cheekbones showing red with suppressed anger. ‘Yes, I know,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll assume full responsibility, just bloody well do it!’ Then he slammed down the receiver and stared at it, thinking hard. Hepton wanted to speak to Major Dreyfuss. If he did so in Villiers’ presence, then Villiers would find out all he needed about what both men knew. So why keep two old acquaintances apart? He picked up the other receiver.

‘Sarah?’ he said. ‘Put through a call to Washington, will you? I want to speak to Johnnie Gilchrist.’

17

The city was swarming, and there was no shade to be found. Hepton tried to keep to the backstreets, the narrower passages that neither sun nor tourists could penetrate. The tourists were predominantly European and Japanese. The Americans were staying closer to home this summer. He went into a café for a cold drink, but found the heat indoors unbearable, so came away thirsty. The man who had been a dozen paces behind him walking in was still a dozen paces behind him when he walked out. Hepton smiled.

Where was he heading? In all honesty, he did not know. He stepped into a few shops, browsed, then came out again empty-handed. He crossed the expanse of Green Park with the man still behind him, and in Piccadilly he visited two large stores, taking lifts up, stairs down and back-door exits where possible.

He didn’t know where he was headed, but he knew where he was avoiding going: the offices of the London Herald. Could he face Jilly? What would she say? Would she help him? He tried to rehearse various lines as he walked the streets. They all sounded false. They all were false. What was more important, however, was that he should shake this tail before he tried to contact her. Otherwise he would be drawing her into the nasty little web, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Lunchtime approached, and he felt hungry again. Breakfast at Heathrow seemed an eternity ago. He touched the roll of banknotes in his pocket and decided to treat himself to something at Fortnum’s. But the queue for the Fountain restaurant was disheartening, so he left again. Besides, his clothes were looking decidedly shabby and slept in: definitely not the stuff of a Fortnum’s luncheon. One of the floorwalkers had kept a beady eye on him all the way around the ground floor.

He had been expecting a tail, of course. Now that Villiers had found him, he would want to keep tabs on him. But who was Villiers? He appeared to be some not-very-minor official at the Foreign Office. What was all or any of this to him? Hepton didn’t know. But he did know one thing. Like a dog offered a bone, it was time for him to shake his tail.

At Piccadilly Circus there was a large record shop — new since his last visit to London and exactly what he was looking for. He entered the noise and the confusion of aisles. At the main door he had spotted a uniformed security guard, and had passed the alarm system with its warning to potential shoplifters. The place was well protected. He walked up and down the aisles, squeezing past this and that browser. He paused by a display of compact discs and saw, from the corner of his eye, the tail browsing a few aisles further along. He smiled and picked up a disc enclosed in a protective clear plastic sheath. On the back of the packaging was a price label and a barcode. Through the barcode ran a strip of silver. Pleased, he examined the disc again. Barbed Wire Kisses by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Yes, this would do.

He walked casually back along the aisle, towards where the tail was now enthusiastically reading the sleeve notes to an offering by The Dead Milkmen. As he was about to pass the man, he paused and put a hand on his shoulder. The tail flinched, but kept his eyes on the record. Hepton kept his hand where it was and brought his face close to the man’s ear.

‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘I think I’m going to go to lunch now. Okay?’ Then he moved quickly away towards the main doors. The man hesitated, then put the record back into its rack and followed.

Hepton was already on the pavement and hailing a taxi. Damn: the tail would have to hurry. He’d have to find a taxi too, in order to follow Hepton’s taxi. As he was about to push open the heavy glass door, a sudden high-pitched whine came from behind him. The security guard was upon him immediately, hands on his shoulders, turning him around. The tail protested, but the guard’s hands were patting his jacket, and one of them slipped into the left pocket, bringing out a compact disc.

The tail glared through the glass at Hepton, who was bending to get into his taxi. Hepton waved at him and grinned. Then the door slammed shut and the taxi moved off into the line of traffic.

‘Where to, guv?’ the driver asked.

‘First, a clothes shop,’ ordered Hepton. ‘Nothing too flashy. And somewhere between here and the Isle of Dogs.’

He reckoned he would need a shirt, jacket and casual trousers. He reasoned that he would be less conspicuous dressed smartly, and also that he needed a change of clothes in any event, otherwise his description could be circulated too easily. It was tempting to relax a little, to forget that somewhere out there Harry was waiting, ready to kill him if she must. He would use his credit card to buy the clothes: even if Villiers had access to his credit card record, it would take a little time for the transaction to come to light. Villiers knew he was in London. The least Hepton could do was make it difficult for the man to circulate a description of him. That necessitated a change of clothes. A change of hair colouring would be an idea, too. And, while he was at it, why not a change of height and weight and sex?

Despite the terrors of the past twenty-four hours — or perhaps because of them — Hepton threw back his head and laughed. The cab driver glanced into his rear-view mirror.

‘Glad somebody’s happy,’ he said. ‘Journalist, are you?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘We get a lot of journalists come into town at twelve o’clock for a drink, then have to get a taxi back half an hour later so they can start work again. Mad, those journalists are. You know the ones I mean, down at that new place in the Isle, where the Herald’s printed.’

‘Oh yes, the Herald,’ said Hepton casually. ‘That’s where I’m headed to, as it happens.’

‘Thought you were,’ the driver called, chuckling. ‘I’ve got a nose for that sort of thing, you see. A real nose. But first off, let’s see about getting you that clobber, eh?’