A Line in the Sand (48 page)

through the Sunday empty streets towards the Palace and Parliament.

When he was half dead, and on the third film for Esther, he had

weakened and taken a taxi back to the embassy's service flat and the bath.

A probationer told him that his office in Saudi Arabia had called, that

ixed the secure link for him

he should ring back. The young man f

because Duane Littelbaum was adept at demonstrating technological

situation necessitated. He listened to the

incompetence when the

distant, tinny, concerned voice.

Mary-Ellen bur bled at him, asking about his domestic arrangements, and

he wondered whether she was missing him.

n hellish hot here, Duane, 110 plus Fahrenheit, and the

"It's bee

cooling system in here's zapped again, it's awful. One of the

316

tion guys went out in the parking lot, Saturday, and cracked

visa-sec

an

g on the paving to see if he could fry it.

eg

He couldn't, the egg

dehydrated. Seriously..."

He saw Cathy Parker come in. She had a bounce in her walk. She

n front of Markham's door and scribbled through the writing

stopped i

on

e paper stuck to the door. She wrote, boldly, DAY FIVE.

th

hat I thought you should know, Duane, we had a briefing, at short

"W

notice, from the Agency people.

me

There was a proper fracas about

ing admitted in place of you.

be

Was I cleared for a briefing from

the

l Intelligence goddamn Agency?

Centra

Ambassador, heads of section,

and

They are such seriously pompous people. Anyway..."

me.

eside him and laid a closed envelope on the table.

She sat b

ou still there, Duane? Look, the guy said that the Saudi

"Y

the "outsider hired guns",

intelligence people admitted to him that

u

yo

know what I mean, came in during the last Ha]], with all the pilgrims, e still in place inside the Magic Kingdom. Also the Army's

and ar

come

and

clean

said that four believe me four 81mm mortars have been stolen

r bases up north.

from one of thei

How can you defend against that

rt

so

A dump truck pulls up on the median just outside of

of scenario?

a

major enclave of ours, the tarp is pulled back, the rounds fly, and the

hey could have chemicals in them..

Agency say t

. and the Agency have

tten

go

the name of your pal, Duane, A is for Anvil, away now but coming

y idiot had to be

back... The commercial attache you know, that lank

ld

to

why one man was so important, why they'd wait for one man's return before launching.

d to think that quality men, like Anvil,

He seeme

me off a production line as if they were General Motors products.

ca

He

s put right. When Anvil comes back it's time to go into the

wa

shelters, that's what the Agency people are saying. There's real

fear

here, those mortars and the name of Anvil. It sort of, kind of, makes old..."

you c

317

de him, Cathy Parker pulled two photographs out of the envelope.

Besi

He

an holding a Kalashnikov rifle at a roadblock of

saw a young m

Revolutionary Guards, and the picture was lifted away. The second h showed an older man in combat fatigues with his back to

photograp

the

ter and t1~e reed-banks. She reached again into the envelope.

wa

e away from that briefing and, I tell you, I was quite spooked.

"I cam

Well, that's it. I'll meet you Wednesday night off the flight oh,

's it going? Nowhere? I'll cook you supper Wednesday

sorry, how

night.

uld you have done better to stay here? There's someone at the

Wo

door.

"Bye."

He replaced the receiver. A slow smile was spreading across Cathy ace.

Parker's f

She took a blown-up picture from the envelope. He

recognized immediately the work of computer enhancement, the ageing

,

process

a fattening at the face, a thickening at the neck, more lines

hair with bleached, greying, thinner lips.

at the eyes, shorter

She

ok a pen from the table and wrote, in big capital characters, the

to

place of birth, Tehran, the date of birth, 28.7.1962, the name, only amn name, Vahid Hossein. He gazed at it, then at her and

the godd

into

tness of her eyes.

the brigh

He kissed her on the mouth, kissed her

hard.

oticed, everyone else in the work area, Cathy

What they would have n

rker kissed him back, lip to lip.

Pa

nton was gathering up his coat" saying he had a train to meet, but Fe

he

used long enough to lead the applause, and to call for a copy, post pa

haste, to be sent to Geoff Markham.

Duane

m

Littelbau

stared down at the face, at a stranger who had become

miliar, and could still feel the taste of Cathy Parker's wicked,

fa

groping tongue.

"Why isn't he coming?" Sam Carstairs howled.

o put on her makeup for the day

His mother, distracted and trying t

in

such

the solicitors' offices, told him not to worry his head with

318

things.

"He's my best friend. Why isn't he coming to school?" the child bellowed.

His father, trying angrily to put the papers together that he'd been working on the previous evening, told him it was none of his

business.

"If he isn't ill, why isn't he coming to school?" In a tantrum, little

Sam started to rip pages from the book they'd bought him only the

week

before, and stamped on them.

If Emma hadn't caught his arm, Barry would have hit his son. The

row

had gone on since the child had woken and sensed the tension. It

was

convenient for neither of them to take Sam into Halesworth for school.

Emma, the legal executive, was in court that day with the senior

partner, and Barry had the annual sales conference. It was the sort of

en they could have relied upon Meryl Perry's help: she was

day wh

always

, with a smile, to alter the schedule of the shared

prepared

school-run.

Sam and Stephen had always been close friends, good for each other.

Barry grabbed the child by the collar of his school coat and frog

him to the car.

marched

Emma had said her job was as important as

his;

the row she'd be late meeting her senior partner, and he'd

because of

be bloody late at the conference. He put Sam into the back of his Audi, then ran back to the house because he'd forgotten, damn it,

his

briefcase.

Emma was throwing on her coat in the hall.

"We've done the right thing, haven't we?"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"With Frank and Meryl." Until that moment, through all the weekend, neither had spoken of it, as if it were forbidden territory.

319

ust be so isolated, without friends."

"They m

"Their fault, not mine."

sture?"

"You don't think that we should make a ge

"What did she call me? A second-rate rat? What sort of gesture do I

make in response to that?"

"I suppose you're right." She touched her hair in front of the mirror.

se I'm right."

"Of cour

tell Sam in the car why they're not our friends any longer.

"Please,

He

doesn't understand, hasn't a clue, why he's lost his best friend.

e do it, Barry."

Pleas

week after they've gone we'll have forgotten they were

"You wait, a

ever here."

ars,

He set the alarm, she locked the house, and they ran for their c

to

usy lives.

live their b

utes earlier, Geoff Markham had gone out into the parking area

Ten min

behind the town's police station. The arrival time had been given them

in the crisis centre and others had drifted after him to stand in

the

light rain, and wait.

Aside from Markham, glancing at their wristwatches, were a uniformed d the inspector from the Branch, detectives and the

superintendent an

people who manned the radios and the computers; away in the corner of

the (ar-park were the military from Special Forces, denied

involvement

but permitted stand-by status. They were all out in the rain to see al of the Scottish tracker.

the arriv

The local uniforms would have

wn area, had the

thought they were be~st equipped to search their o

feel

for it. Th.~detectives from London, and the Branch, would have

320

thought

they bad the trained surveillance specialists, had the necessary

military would have thought they owned the territory

expertise The

of

ack, had the right to crack the problem.

stalk and tr

They were all

interested to see the man dragged out from the north by Five, the

man

e been theirs.

given the job that should hav

Geoff Markham felt an

mosphere around him of acid curiosity edging on malevolence.

at

big, black and sleek, driven by a chauffeur, swept into the

The car,

parking area and braked hard. All eyes were on it.

Harry Fenton pushed himself out of the front passenger seat, mischief es.

in his ey

He called a cheerful greeting to the watchers. It was

his show, and that mattered to him. He caught Markham's glance, and e was the slightest, faintest wink of his eye, then he opened

ther

the

oor.

rear d

The dogs came first. They were squat, scurrying creatures, held by leashes of fodder-bale twine, bright orange. They yapped.

He came after them, wriggled clear of the car.

What Markham had expected was an old man, ruddy and weather-skinned, a

man with the lore of the countryside in his face and a lifetime of experience in his eyes.

He was small. He looked barely out of his teens. His visage was

pale,

and his cheeks and chin were speckled with light stubble. His build was slight, looked as if the wind could blow him away. More than

that,

he was filthy.

The gathered audience gazed at him with astonishment.

At ten paces Markham could smell the dank dirtiness of his clothes.

He

wore boots, khaki trousers and a tweed coat, all liberally smeared with

mud; Markham thought the coat was a bigger man's cast-off. Its

buttons

were gone and it was held tight at the narrow waist by the same twine.

321

The man stood beside Fenton and glowered at them.

A titter of laughter rippled behind Markham.

An old man, Markham thought, would have merely ruffled feathers, but pallid, grimy, stinking youth disjointed noses. The dogs,

this

heaving

at their leashes, coughing, had seen a police Alsatian God, and the little verminous bastards would probably try to roger it if they were free but the young man grunted at them, almost inaudibly, and they sat

at his boots, their teeth bared. He didn't back off from the laughter but stared back at them. They were, Geoff Markham thought, the most frightening eyes he had ever seen.

s

From the back seat of the car, the chauffeur was lifting out sheet of

newspaper and shaking the mud off them.

strode

Fenton

to Markham. He said, in a loud voice as if to be certain

he was generally heard, "What a stink. Had the window open all the way

down I thought I was going to throw up. Like being shut in a cellar with a well-hung duck. I'd like you to meet Andy Chalmers, Geoff.

It's

your job to see he goes where he wants to go, has what he wants. I see

that his appearance creates amusement. I want to see that amusement wiped off their faces and shoved far up their backsides. Got me?

You'll brook no obstruction from any bastard in a clean shirt or I'll break his bloody neck and yours. I've lunch to be getting back to.

Keep to the windward of him. Good luck, and good hunting."

Fenton was gone, without a backward glance. The car swept out of

the

parking area.

tary

The theatre over, the uniforms, the detectives and the mili

trooped

back into the police station. Geoff Markham thought that if the

young

man failed it would be Fenton's neck for breaking. As the car

disappeared down the road, he realized that no bag had been dumped with

acker and his dogs.

the tr

322

bag's still in the car."

"Damn, your

on't have a bag."

"D

"Clean clothes and so on."

"Don't have a bag."

Markham laughed out loud. Who needed clean socks, who wanted fresh ho had to wash?

underwear, w

o you like something to eat?"

"D

"No."

u want anything?"

"Do yo

"No."

hat would you like to do?"