A Line in the Sand (35 page)

a

half-strength staff worked till lunch-time, had searched through the drawers of her desk and asked where she was. If they knew her name they would know, also, her car. She staggered away from the

payphone,

barging past the woman. She had been told there were four

detectives.

She was an intelligent young woman, she could assess the scale of

the

crisis that faced her.

But it did not cross the mind of Farida Yasmin that she should run, hide and abandon him. He needed her.

Martindale kept the Red Lion in the village.

He was a brewery tenant, and every penny of cash ever saved by him 230

and

ife was now sunk in the pub, along with the bank's overdraft.

his w

It

had been a mistake. The mistake had been in coming to the village on a

crowded August day two summers back, seeing the visitors

warm,

parading

each and queuing for ice-creams at the shop, and believing

on the b

that

ould do profitable trade where his predecessor had failed.

he c

He

had

the market was in visitors wanting cheap meals and fruit

thought

machines. But last summer it had rained in torrents and the visitors ed away. It had been their dream, through all the years

had stay

they'd

rner news agent in Hounslow, to have a busy, pretty pub

owned a co

on

coast.

the

Now the dream was going sour, and the bank manager wrote

more often.

His winter trade was entirely local not gin and tonics, not sherries, not

iskies

wh

with ginger, but the brewery's beers and lagers, on which

the mark-up was least profitable. He had enough locals to make a

darts

team, and they came in wearing their work clothes to prop themselves st his bar.

again

If he alienated his few regulars, he would not be

able to meet the brewery's dues and keep the bloody bank off his

back.

e liked Frank Perry.

He quit

Martindale owed Frank Perry. Frank Perry had helped him sort out, at

minimal cost, the central-heating boiler in the cellar. If he'd gone to the trade it would have been maximum expense. The far side of

the

bar, the previous night, the talk had been of Frank Perry, the school and the policemen with guns.

t door, against which the rain

He scraped open the bolts on the fron

lashed, and waited for his Saturday lunch-time drinkers.

"I'll look ridiculous."

Davies said firmly, "In matters of protection, Mr. Perry, please do me

231

the courtesy of accepting my advice."

"It weighs half a ton."

"Mr. Perry, I am asking you to wear it."

"I can't."

"Mr. Perry, put it on."

"No."

Meryl exploded, "For Christ's sake, Frank, put the bloody thing on."

They were in the kitchen. The boy, Stephen, was in the shed with

Paget

and Rankin, out in the garden. It would be worse if the kid heard the

parents rowing. Davies held the bullet-proof vest.

"What does it matter what you bloody well look like?" she added.

"Put it on."

His principal took off the anorak and scowled, but he'd been chastened by the fury of her outburst. She turned, went out, crashed the door her and they heard her stamping up the stairs. His

shut after

principal dropped his head and Davies slipped on the vest. It was navy

blue, kevlar-plated, and the manufacturers said it was proof against a

dgun's bullets, flying glass and metal shrapnel. It covered

han

Perry's

chest, stomach and back. Davies pulled the Velcro straps tight and fastened them. She came back in, carrying a grotesquely large

sweater.

Perry was foul-faced, but she just threw it at him. Davies kept a wry

little smile hidden because the sweater fitted comfortably over the vest.

"And what about you?"

I do, Mr. Perry, is not your concern."

"What

"I hope you find them," Meryl said.

232

"Find what?"

re looking for I shouldn't expect too much."

"What you'

ollowed by Davies.

Perry led, f

s radio up to his face and

He held hi

told Paget and Rankin that he

was

cation in the company of Juliet Seven. Through the

leaving the lo

front

the wind and rain whipped at them.

door,

They walked briskly. The

house was now a gloomy bunker, and he thought it was precious for

his

principal to get out of it. Davies's eyes raked each of the front ens to his right and left, and the parked cars. Since he had

gard

given

ruction, the unmarked mobile had gone up and down the road

the inst

.

seven times between the house and the pub

It was what it took to

t

ge

a man his Saturday lunch-time drink. They had started at walking

pace,

then they jogged. Davies held the hem of his jacket so that his Glock would not be exposed.

in the waist holster

The rain came on harder,

d they ran. Going to the pub was an idiotic, unnecessary risk.

an

he had left the bed-and-breakfast, a call to the duty officer

Before

had told him they were now categorized as threat-level 2: The

principal

is confirmed on a death list, the enemy intend to kill the principal; method or the time at

the security co-ordinator does not have the

ich

wh

the attempt will be made. Davies knew it by heart.

-level 2 years back when he

He had done protection officer on threat

d

ha

guarded the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but he had never with a principal categorized as threat-level 1. As they sprinted

been

he pub, he was thinking that it would

across the car-park in front of t

be worse for her, left behind in the bunker, lights out, curtains

drawn.

They reached the porch. Davies used his sleeve to wipe his face,

then

smoothed his hair. He heard laughter from inside, and canned music.

233

ring

In front of him, the principal stiffened momentarily, as if gathe

s nerve, before shoving open the door.

hi

aning against the bar, talking. Perry said, almost

A man was le

Hello, Vince."

diffident, "

Another younger man at the bar stopped laughing.

ght, then, Gussie?"

"All ri

Another man, older, was perched on a stool.

"Good to see you, Paul."

Round the corner was a larger bar with more drinkers.

t

Davies wasn'

concerned with them. He stared around him at the fruit machines,

irs, reproduction photographs in sepia tint on the

tables and cha

walls

d bits of ship brass, the smoking fire burning wet logs.

an

The story

had stopped, and the laughter; the older man held his glass against his

privates and beer was frothed on his lip. The landlord was a skinny, ey-faced weasel with a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

wh

Davies

ything around him was fake. He

thought it a pitiful place. Ever

ticed a chair at the side of the bar, away from the drinkers, where no

the corner.

he could face the door and also see round

"What's it going to be, Mr. Davies?"

"Orange juice, thanks."

He eased down into the chair.

The west Middlesex whine of the landlord's voice cut the silence.

"Before you go asking, I'm not serving you. Far as I'm concerned, the

sooner you turn round and get back out of here the better."

"Oh, yes, very funny. Mine's a pint, and an orange juice, thanks."

fishing for coins in his pocket.

Perry was

Davies glanced down the

blackboard on which was chalked the menu for the day -sausage and

chips

and peas, burger and chips and peas, steak and chips and peas... "I'm not having you in here it's within my rights. I'm not serving you."

234

"Come on, a pint and an orange juice."

"You want it spelled out? I am not serving you. I've my custom to think of. That man with you, he's carrying a gun. I'm not having that

on my premises, and I'm not having you. Got it? Bugger off."

Davies stood up from the chair, saw the stunned shock spreading on his

principal's face and the cold hostility of the men he'd called Vince, Gussie and Paul, and the landlord's smirk. His principal clenched his

fists and the blood flushed his cheeks. Davies kicked back his chair and strode towards the bar. He caught his principal's sweater and propelled him out through the door, left it open, let the rain spatter in. He heard the laughter behind him.

The rain ran on Perry's face. He seemed dazed and in shock.

"I thought he was a good man ignorant, a bore, but a good man.. .

Jesus, I just don't believe it."

Davies said, "Let's get the hell out."

"Can't credit it, the bloody man.. . When I was low, last night, didn't think I could get lower, Blake said I should ask for the Al Haig

story."

u're further down, that's when you'll get the Al Haig story."

"When yo

standing in the middle of the road. Away ahead, wipers

They were

flailing, headlights on, was the unmarked car. There was a sign,

Public Footpath, to the left. Davies took the principal's arm and headed for it. They walked between the banks of nettles and

brambles,

over the dog shit, towards the rumble of the sea. They

stepping

crossed a wooden bridge. The rain was in his hair, in his eyes,

wg~ighting his jacket, wrapping the sodden trousers against his legs.

He radioed the Wendy house and told them they were going to the

.

beach

hland began a thousand metres to his right.

The mars

They scrambled

up

tumbling stones of the sea wall, clawing their way to the

the loose,

top into the teeth of the wind and the rainstorm. The tide was out.

235

ebble- and shell-pocked beach ran down to the sea in front of

The p

them. Beyond the tide-line were the white crested waves, then the the mist. His principal shrugged his arm clear. They

shroud of

walked

her. The rain plastered his hair across his forehead, and

toget

Davies

shivered in the cuffing cold of the wind.

His principal stopped, faced the sea and the emptiness, sucked the nto his lungs and shouted, "You bastards, you fucking

breath i

bastards!

I thought you were my friends."

id he do?"

"What d

to know?"

"Why do you need

o know what he did, and the consequences of it, otherwise

"I have t

I

t evaluate the reality of the threat."

canno

l you what the end game was?"

"Didn't anybody tel

"Nobody's told me, and nobody's told him."

Geoff Markham drove. It had taken an hour of the journey to clean the

detritus from his mind. Only when they were out on the open road

did

he begin to push.

"Why ask me?"

"I believe, because you are here, that you were a part of it."

"You need to know?"

"Unless I know, Mr. Littelbaum, I cannot do my job."

The American sighed.

"It's not a pleasant story, Mr. Markham. It's about greater and s."

lesser evil

the room's walls was covered by the big-scale maps.

One of

236

st showed western Iran's seaboard, the Gulf, the eastern

The large

coastline of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

owed a

A second map sh

city

plan of Bandar Abbas and the road going west-north-west, past the

docks, past the Hotel Naghsh-e Jahan, towards Bandar-e Khoemir.

Tilted

against the opposite wall were two display-boards on which were

pinned

the photographs of selected personnel from the bogus petrochemical plant. Although it was early on a bright morning the blinds of the room's windows were drawn. Hanging in front of them was the blown-up satellite photograph of the manufacturing plant. They waited.

They

had received the call from the airport, which told them he had arrived safely off the flight. They smoked, sipped coffee and nibbled at

biscuits. In the room were two men and a woman from the Secret

Intelligence Service, three Americans representing the Agency and

the

Bureau and the military, and the two Israelis. They waited for him to

be brought to the discreet back door, normally used as an entry and exit point for kitchen staff and vetted cleaners. If it had not been for the most recently received intelligence briefings, none of the men

and the one woman in the room would have countenanced the plan that was

now set in place. They made desultory conversation. None would

willingly have given such a pivotal position in the plan to a

low-grade

was accepted that the choice was not

engineering salesman, but it

eirs.

th

He was the access point. Only he could tell them whether

the

plan

could be launched or should be aborted. They waited in the room,