The Reluctant Hero (12 page)

The man buttoned his coat carefully, then left. From outside came another eruption of excitement, so loud that it made the air shake. As he started to fasten his flies, Harry couldn’t resist offering a silent cry of satisfaction. The game, after all, was still in play. Yet when he drew breath, he choked, the fetid air sticking in his craw. Nothing was simple in this country, not even taking a piss.

They were shuttled from the hockey match to their dinner at the ministry in a fleet of cars. To Harry’s surprise, he found himself alone in the back of one of them as they drove in procession through the dimly lit streets. To his still greater surprise, he discovered that the man in the front passenger seat was Amir Beg.

‘I hope you found your visit to the Castle this morning useful, Mr Jones,’ Beg said over his shoulder.

‘It was helpful. Thank you.’

‘I sense your caution. It is understandable.’ He turned to face Harry, his face all but obscured in the darkness, apart from his almond eyes staring from behind the spectacles. ‘Mr Jones, I hope you will allow me to speak freely. It is very easy for small countries like mine to be misunderstood. We have no great wealth, but that does not make us savages. Some like to pretend we are still in the Dark Ages, but we try our best and look forward. We want to improve. That’s why I was glad to arrange your visit this morning. I want your help in dispelling these wild rumours that we abuse human rights. I would like to think I can rely on you in that, after your visit. And if there is anything else you would like to see . . .’

Harry was taken aback by this approach, not certain where it was headed. He didn’t want to commit himself. ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said.

Beg twisted his body still further and hooked his arm over the back of the seat to enable him to look at Harry full in the face. ‘You also raised the issue of your friend. You thought he might be here.’

‘Not my friend. A former colleague, from many years ago,’ Harry replied cautiously.

‘Whoever he is, or might be, whatever you’ve heard, I’d like to help. Put any misunderstandings to rest. Perhaps you can give me a little more information.’

Harry examined the eyes, touched the inner soul, and knew this was not a man to trust. He shook his head. ‘It was nothing, apparently. A wild tale somebody had picked up. They obviously panicked and asked me to look into it while I was here. You yourself said last night you don’t have any American prisoners.’

‘That’s correct, but . . .’

There was a moment’s silence between them as the car bumped along a rough stretch of road.

‘May I be frank with you, Mr Jones?’

‘Please do.’

‘I am not always told the truth. Not the whole truth, at least. Those like Sydykov and his kind, they love their little secrets, cling to them as if they were their mother’s breast. I suspect you find much the same in your own country.’

Harry nodded; he had a point.

‘It’s possible at some point your American might have passed through the hands of the security forces,’ the Ta’argi said. ‘Much the same once happened to me. I know the pain.’

In the light of the passing street lamps, Harry saw Beg’s broken knuckles glow deathly pale, and some instinct inside made him shiver. This man had been attentive, solicitous, had said all the right things, a perfect host. But nobody came out of the Soviet camps perfect. Harry knew this was nothing but an act.

‘If you could tell me any more about your colleague, I’d be happy to use my powers to investigate a little further,’ Beg continued. ‘With your help, of course.’

Play the dumb fool, Harry told himself, tell him no more than he must already know. ‘His name is Zac Kravitz. From Michigan, I think. I last saw him more than ten years ago, so there’s not a whole lot more I can tell you, apart from the fact that he’s gone missing. And that he has friends who are very concerned for him.’

‘And why would he have been here in Ta’argistan?’

‘I’m not sure. I know he’s well travelled. A tourism consultant, perhaps?’

They were pulling up in front of the steps of the Transport Ministry, their time drawing to an end. Harry and Beg were staring at each other, not in hostility but rather to size each other up. They both seemed to understand that the hostility would come. No need to rush it.

The driver was at the passenger door, holding it open. Beg wrinkled a brow, like a chess player calculating his next move, and the one after that. His eyes suggested he knew he would win.

‘Well, if there’s anything else that comes to mind, please let me know. Enjoy your evening, Mr Jones.’

Enjoy his evening? In three hours’ time he’d be standing on a freezing taxi rank in shoes that were still damp from the previous night’s outing. He was exhilarated by the prospect of what he might be about to discover, yet it was already overshadowed by an instinct that was screaming of danger. Does Beg know? Harry wondered.
Could he have found out already? This was undoubtedly a desperately serious man. Harry climbed the steps, wondering what he was walking into.

‘Having second thoughts?’ Harry asked.

‘Plenty,’ Martha replied.

The day’s formalities done, she was lying next to him on his bed, wrapped once more in the thin, tight dressing gown for the benefit of the old woman in the corridor. Harry, whispering into her ear to the accompaniment of the BBC, had been bringing her up to date on his encounter with the man with the paper twist of nuts, and with Amir Beg.

‘Somehow I’d always suspected,’ she said, continuing, ‘that sharing a bed with you would have its ridiculous complications.’

‘Thought a lot about that, then, have we?’

She dug an elbow into his ribs and called him a sorry bastard, but there was no malice in it.

‘Harry, you’ve got to take care,’ she said, her tone suddenly more serious.

‘About sharing a bed with you? I promise eternal vigilance.’

She rolled over to face him. ‘But you don’t even know if your friend is here.’

‘He’s here all right.’ ‘How do you know?’

‘Instinct. Experience. And Amir Beg. The bastard’s lying.’

‘You can’t be certain of that.’

‘I am. The man was smiling.’

‘Yeah. I know the type.’

As they continued talking, suddenly the radio crackled and the BBC faded into silence. The lights flickered, fought back, then succumbed completely. A power cut. It was several seconds before it came back on.

‘My alarm call. Time to go,’ Harry whispered. He stood up and squeezed his feet once more into his damp, protesting shoes. ‘How do I look?’

‘Like you need a serious session with a colour consultant. I’m just not sure – a scarf, maybe? Save you getting yourself arrested by the fashion police.’

In retaliation, his eye ran teasingly up her body, but by the time he had reached her face, he found it stiff with concern.

‘This isn’t just a playground, is it?’ she said. ‘Your friend, he must be in very serious trouble. Which means we could be.’

‘That’s possible,’ he said slowly. ‘Roddy Bowles finds you in my bed, he’s going to be furious.’

But she wouldn’t be distracted. ‘What’s your plan, Harry?’

He looked away, buttoned up his coat, anxious she might find something disagreeable hidden in his expression. ‘A plan?’ he said. ‘Bugger it, I knew there was something missing.’

No snow tonight, just intense, penetrating cold. He felt conspicuous on the street, doing his best to hurry along on the slippery ground. Once or twice he stopped, bent to fix a shoelace, glancing behind him, trying to see if anyone was following. When he turned a corner he hid in the doorway of a baker’s shop behind a pile of empty plastic boxes, and waited for several minutes, but no one passed. He pulled up his collar against the freezing air and carried on.

The taxi was there, parked a little further away from the entrance of the Marriott than the previous night. He climbed in the back. The driver set off, saying nothing. He, too, seemed anxious about being followed. He drove slowly at first, excessively so, glancing in his mirror, tugging nervously at a cigarette, then he put his foot down and doubled back on himself, turning several corners. He parked in the shadows, waited several minutes, then repeated the entire exercise. Only when they had passed the angular outline of the Monument to National Independence for the third time did the driver seem to relax.

They didn’t head to the railway station, but drew up outside a dimly lit doorway in a side street that ran off Victory Square. A sign declared this to be the entrance to the Fat Chance Saloon. It seemed closed. The driver nodded, and Harry tried the handle. The door opened onto a short flight of narrow wooden steps, badly worn, that led down to the basement. Harry descended cautiously; it was a great place for an ambush. As he reached the last step and opened another door, a fug of tobacco smoke hit him and began to attack his eyes. The Fat Chance had been created inside an old cellar with a low barrel ceiling, inadequate ventilation and several side alcoves, where young people sat crowded around computer terminals. A piano was tucked away in a corner; the pianist was taking a cigarette break. The Fat Chance appeared to be some combination of Internet and jazz club, the sound of an old Blood, Sweat and Tears track trickling out from the speakers, to the accompaniment of clicking keyboards from the alcoves. The jazz enthusiasts seemed to be taking a holiday, only two tables in the main section were occupied, but it seemed to Harry to be the type of establishment that might never be busy, a place that had the atmosphere of merely going through the motions. The atmosphere was close, claustrophobic, only kids could survive here and Harry knew it would give him a thumping headache if he stayed too long. A waitress appeared at his elbow; she was middle-aged with tired, deep-set eyes that didn’t offer even a flicker of welcome. She nodded that he should follow her. They threaded their way between the tables to the far end of the cellar where she drew back a rough patterned curtain that screeched on its metal rings to reveal a larger alcove that had once probably been an old store room, the brick walls and ceiling freshly painted to cover the damp that was already beginning to find its way back through. At the table sat four men. One of them was the man with the nicotine moustache from the previous night, the second a young man, late twenties, with a chest like a gorilla and massive shoulders in the shape of a horseshoe, whom Harry assumed was some sort of minder. The third was young, barely in his twenties with straight dark hair down below his shoulders and who stared enquiringly at Harry through heavily tinted glasses. A little like John Lennon, Harry thought. The last of the men was older, rheumy eyes, prolific eyebrows. It was he who appeared to be in charge and instructed Harry to sit down. As Harry did so, the waitress placed a glass of beer on the red-and-white
checked table cloth in front of him. It was frothy and looked desperately thin; he didn’t touch it.

‘So,’ the older man said, ‘you have been asking to meet some people, or something, called the Horsemen.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Tell me, Mr Jones, who or what do you think these Horsemen are?’ He wasn’t looking at Harry, as if he wasn’t worth the trouble, but instead inspected the end of his mean, self-rolled cigarette, the sort that required almost constant relighting.

‘Someone who doesn’t care for your President or his friends. Someone I hope might be willing to help me, and in return receive my help.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘I believe a friend of mine is in the prison here, in the Castle. I want to get him out.’

What happened next went so quickly that Harry was only vaguely aware of all the pieces. The gorilla got up – to get another beer, Harry assumed – but no sooner had he passed by than Harry’s arms were snatched and pinned behind the chair, which was tipped, then dragged back from the table. Any noise was drowned out by the piano player, who chose that moment, presumably under instruction, to pick up his playing – a Beatles melody, the acid years, Harry later recalled, without being able to be more specific. His memories of the moment were fragmented because, while he was tilted back and with his arms still pinned, he was hit, very hard, just below the ribcage in the solar plexus, with a blow that seemed to go straight to his backbone. The pain screamed through his body and for a moment he was paralysed. His diaphragm went into spasm, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t protest, couldn’t even be sick. The gorilla let him fall forward, his face striking the table, where it lay in the spillage of the beer while he gasped for breath.

‘You ask too much, Mr Jones,’ the third man sighed. ‘You say you want help, but I think you already have too many friends. Like Major Sydykov. And you already know about our prison, you were there this morning. I think you are a friend of the President, too, not the sort to be a friend of ours. So what are you really doing here?’ His tone was dry, unemotional, not soaked in accusation, yet there was no doubting the menace in his words.

Harry forced his face up from the table, his eyes bleary. ‘I’m looking for someone,’ he gasped.

‘Yes, yes, these Horsemen. So you have said.’

Harry shook his head, the spilled beer dribbling down his forehead. ‘No. An American. His name is Zac Kravitz.’

As his stomach muscles went into spasm once more, in the background the pianist changed the tune, beginning to thump out his version of ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Up to that point it had been a particular favourite of Harry’s.

‘I think Zac’s in there somewhere, in the Castle,’ Harry continued, still choking. ‘He’s the only thing I’m interested in.’

The man examined the end of his cigarette once more, frowning as he discovered it had died. He relit it, sucking in a slow lungful of nicotine. ‘So, you are a friend of the unfortunate American?’

The words revived Harry like a shower of ice water. He pushed himself back in his chair, disregarding the threat of further violence, his voice urgent. ‘You know him? He’s there?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s there. And in very deep trouble.’ The man stared through the purple tobacco smoke, suddenly perplexed. ‘Yet you are smiling, as though this is good news.’

‘This is the first time I’ve known – for sure, you see. That helps.’