A Delicate Truth (16 page)

‘
Jeb!
Good man. Really,
really great. Very proud
indeed
. Let me say first that we’re
fully
appreciative of your concerns, right? And we’re here to solve
them any which way we can. I’ll do the easy bit first. Jeb, this is Paul, okay?
Paul, meet Jeb. You see each other. You see
me
. I see you both. Jeb,
you’re standing in the Minister’s Private Office,
my
office. I am a
minister of the Crown. Paul, you’re an established senior foreign servant of long
experience. Do me a favour and confirm that for Jeb here.’

‘Confirmed to the hilt, Minister. And
honoured to meet you, Jeb’ – to a rustle of shaking hands.

‘Jeb, you will have seen me on
television, going the rounds of my constituency, performing at Question Time in the
House of Commons and all that.’

Wait your turn, Quinn. Jeb’s a man who
thinks before he answers.

‘Well now, I
have
visited
your website, as a matter of fact. Very impressive, too.’

Is this a Welsh voice? It assuredly is: the
Welsh lilt with all its cadences in place.

‘And I in turn have read enough of
your record, Jeb, to tell you straight off that I admire and respect you,
and
your men, plus I’m
totally
confident you’ll all do a really, really
fine job. Now then: the countdown’s already begun, and very understandably and
rightly
, you and your men wish to be one hundred per cent assured of the
British chain of command and control. You have last-minute worries you need to get off
your chest:
absolutely
understood. So do I.’ Joke. ‘Now. Let me
address a couple of niggles that have reached me and see where we stand,
right?’

Quinn is pacing, his voice darting in and
out of the steam-age microphones hidden in the wooden panelling of his office as he
swishes past them:

‘Paul here will be your man on the
spot. That’s for starters. Plus it’s what you’ve been asking for,
right? It is not proper
or
desirable that I, as a Foreign Office minister, give
direct military orders to a man in the field, but you, at your own request, will have
your own official-unofficial Foreign Office advisor, Paul here,
at
your elbow,
to assist and advise. When Paul conveys a command to you, it will be a command that
comes from the top. It will be a command that bears the
imprimatur
– signature,
that is – of certain people over
there
.’

Is he pointing at Downing Street as he says
this? The slur of a body movement suggests he is.

‘I’ll put it this way, Jeb. This
little red fellow
sitting here connects me directly with those certain
people. Got it? Well, Paul here will be
our
red telephone.’

Not for the first time in Toby’s
experience, Fergus Quinn has brazenly stolen a man’s line without attribution. Is
he waiting for applause and not getting it? Or is it something in Jeb’s expression
that sets him going? Either way, his patience snaps:

‘For Christ’s
sake
,
Jeb. Look at you! You’ve
got
your guarantees. You’ve got
Paul
here. You’ve got your green light, and here we are with the
bloody clock ticking. What are we actually
talking
about?’

But Jeb’s voice displays no such
disquiet under fire:

‘Only I tried to have a word with Mr
Crispin about it, see,’ he explains, in his comforting Welsh rhythm. ‘But he
didn’t seem to want to listen. Too busy. Said I should sort it out with Elliot,
him being the designated operational commander.’

‘What the hell’s wrong with
Elliot? They tell me he’s absolutely top of the range. First rate.’

‘Well, nothing really. Except
Ethical’s sort of a new brand to us, like. Plus we’re operating on the basis
of Ethical’s intelligence. So naturally we thought we’d better come to you,
well, for reassurance, like. Only it’s no bother for Crispin’s boys, is it?
Them being American and exceptional, which is why they were chosen, I suppose. Big money
on the table if the operation is successful, plus the international courts can’t
lay a finger on them. But my boys are British, aren’t they? So am I. We’re
soldiers, not mercenaries. And we don’t fancy sitting in prison in The Hague for
an indeterminate period of time accused of participating in an act of extraordinary
rendition, do we? Plus we’ve been struck off regimental books for reasons of
deniability. The regiment can wash its hands of us any time it wants if the operation
comes unstuck. Common criminals, we’d be, not soldiers at all, according to our
way of thinking.’

Here Toby, who until now had kept his eyes
closed the better to visualize the scene, wound back the tape and played the same
passage again, then, leaping to his feet, grabbed a kitchen notebook
with Isabel’s scrawls all over it, tore off the top few pages and scribbled down
such abbreviations as
extr/rendition
,
US exceptnls
and
no
int./justice
.

‘All done, Jeb?’ Quinn is asking,
in a tone of saintly tolerance. ‘No more where that came from?’

‘Well, we do have a couple of
supplementaries, like, since you ask, Minister. Compensation in the worst contingency is
one. Medevac for if we’re wounded is another. We can’t stay lying there, can
we? We’d be embarrassing either way, dead or wounded. What happens to our wives
and dependants, like? That’s another one, now we’re not regiment any more
till we’re reinstated. I said I’d ask, even if it was a bit on the academic
side,’ he ends, on a note that to Toby’s ear is too concessive by half.

‘Not academic at all, Jeb,’
Quinn protests expansively. ‘Quite the reverse, if I may say so! Let me make this
very clear’ – the Glaswegian Man of the People’s accent taking convenient
wing as Quinn enters his hectoring salesman’s mode – ‘the legal headache you
describe has been thought through at the very highest level and
totally
discounted. Thrown out of court. Literally.’

By whom? By Roy Stormont-Taylor, the
charismatic television lawyer, on one of his many social visits to the Private
Office?

‘And I’ll tell you
why
it’s been thrown out, if you want to know, Jeb, which you very rightly do, if I
may say so. Because
no British team will be taking part in an act of extraordinary
rendition
. Period. The British team will be based on precious British soil.
Solely. You will be
protecting
British shores. Furthermore, this government is
on record, at
all
levels, as refuting
any
suggestion of involvement in
extraordinary rendition
whatsoever
, past, present or future. It is a practice
that we abhor and condemn
unconditionally
. What an American
team does is
entirely
its own affair.’

In Toby’s racing imagination the
minister here casts Jeb a glower of immense import, then shakes his brawler’s
gingery head in frustration as if to say: if only his lips weren’t sealed.

‘Your remit, Jeb, is – repeat – to
capture or otherwise neutralize with minimum force an HVT’ – hasty translation,
presumably for Paul’s benefit – ‘High-value Target, right? – target, not
terrorist, though in this case the two happen to be one and the same – with a very large
price
on
his head who has been unwise enough to intrude himself
on to
British territory’ – hitting the prepositions, a sure sign to Toby’s ear of
his insecurity. ‘Of necessity, you will be there incognito, undeclared to the
local authorities,
in
accordance with the tightest possible security. As will
Paul. You will achieve your aim by approaching your HVT from the landward side only, at
the same time as your non-British sister force approaches from the sea, albeit in
British territorial waters, whatever the Spanish may say to the contrary. Should this
non-British seaborne team,
of
its own volition, elect to abstract or exfiltrate
that target and remove him from the jurisdiction – i.e.
out
of British
territorial waters – neither you personally, nor any member of your team, will be
complicit
in
that act. To recapitulate’ – and incidentally wear down –
‘you are a
landborne protection force
exercising its duty of
defending sovereign British territory
in a totally
legal and legitimate
manner
under international law, and you have no further responsibility whatever
for the outcome of the operation, be you clad in military uniform or civilian attire. I
am quoting directly a
legal opinion
passed down to me by arguably the best and
most qualified international lawyer in the land.’

Re-enter, in Toby’s imagination, the
bold and beautiful Roy Stormont-Taylor, QC, whose advice according to Giles Oakley is
startlingly free of official caution.

‘So what I’m saying, Jeb,
is
’ – the Glaswegian accent now positively priestly – ‘here we
are, with the countdown to D-Day already ringing in our ears –
you
as the
Queen’s soldier,
me
as the Queen’s minister, and Paul here, shall
we say – yes, Paul?’

‘
Your red telephone?
’
Paul offers helpfully.

‘So what I’m saying
is
,
Jeb: keep your feet squarely planted on that precious bit of British rock, leave the
rest to Elliot and his boys, and you’re in legal clover. You were defending
sovereign British territory, you were assisting in the apprehension of a known criminal,
as were others. What happens to the said criminal once he’s been removed from
British territory –
and
British territorial waters – is no concern of yours,
nor should it be.
Ever
.’

Toby switched off the recorder.

‘British
rock
?’ he
whispered aloud, head in hands.

With a capital R or a small one, please?

Listen again in horrified disbelief.

Then a third time as he again scribbled
feverishly on Isabel’s shopping pad.

Rock
. Hold it there.

That precious bit of British Rock
to keep your feet squarely planted on: more precious by far than Grenada, where the ties
to Britain were so flimsy that American troops could barge in without so much as ringing
the doorbell.

There was but one Rock in the world that met
these stringent qualifications, and the notion that it was on the point of becoming the
scene of an extraordinary rendition mounted by discharged British soldiers out of
uniform and American mercenaries who were legally inviolate was so monstrous, so
incendiary, that for a while Toby, for all the Foreign Office instruction he had
received in measured, non-judgemental
responses at all times, could
only stare stupidly at the kitchen wall before listening to whatever was left.

‘So have we any more questions where
those came from, or are we done?’ Quinn is enquiring genially.

In his imagination, Toby, like Jeb, is
looking at the raised eyebrows and grim-set half-smile that tell you that the minister,
courteous though he is, has reached the limit of his allotted time and yours.

Is Jeb deterred? Not in Toby’s book,
he isn’t. Jeb’s a soldier, and knows an order when he hears one. Jeb knows
when he’s had his say and can’t say more. Jeb knows the countdown has begun
and there’s a job to do. Only now do the
sir
s come:

He is grateful for the minister’s
time, sir.

He is grateful for the
legal
opinion
of the best and most qualified international lawyer in the land,
sir.

He will pass Quinn’s message back to
his men. He can’t speak for them, but thinks they will feel better about the
operation, sir.

His last words fill Toby with dread:

‘And very nice to have met you too,
Paul. See you on the night, as they say.’

And Paul, whoever
he
is – such a
patently
low flyer
, now that the afterthought presents itself to Toby’s
raging mind – what’s
he
doing, or rather
not
doing, while the
minister throws his magic dust in Jeb’s eyes?

I’m your red telephone, silent
till rung
.

Expecting to hear little more from the tape
than departing footsteps, Toby is again jerked to attention. The footsteps fade, the
door closes and is locked. Squelch of Lobb shoes advancing on desk.

‘Jay?’

Has Crispin been there all this time? Hiding
in a cupboard, ear to the keyhole?

No. The minister is talking to him on one of
his several direct lines. His voice is fond, almost obsequious.

‘We’re
there
, Jay. Bit
of nitpicking, as had to be expected. Roy’s formula went down a
treat … Absolutely
not
, old boy! I didn’t offer it, he
didn’t ask for it. If he
had
asked, I’d have said, “Sorry,
mate, not my business. If you feel you’ve a claim, take it up with
Jay” … probably fancies himself a cut above you
bounty-hunters …’ A sudden outburst, part anger, part relief: ‘And if
there’s one thing in the world I can’t stand, it’s being preached at
by a fucking Welsh dwarf!’

Laughter, distantly echoed over the phone.
Change of subject. Ministerial
yes
es and
of course
s:

‘… and Maisie’s all right
with that, is she? Still on side, no headaches? Atta girl …’

Long silence. Quinn again, but with a
submissive fall in the voice:

‘Well, I suppose if that’s what
Brad’s people want, that’s what they must have, no question … all
right, yes, fourish … the wood, or Brad’s place? … the wood
suits me a lot better, to be frank, more private … No, no, thanks, no limo.
I’ll grab a common black cab. See you fourish.’