A Line in the Sand (60 page)

She said, "It's not my fault, I'm not to blame. We need the money.

We

wouldn't be doing anything like bed-and-breakfast unless we had to.

It

was Lloyds that took us down, we were Names, you know. What my

d

husban

loyds.

had set aside for retirement went to L

We can't exist without

the money. I've nothing against those people, the Perrys, but we

have

to live... It'll be remembered, long after you've gone, that we put a

of over your head. It won't be forgotten. I'm only trying to

ro

limit

398

e to our business. A man like you, an educated man, I'm

the damag

sure

stand."

you under

closed behind him.

The door

he bags down the carefully raked gravel drive. He

He carried t

stopped

road, saw the light peeping from the curtains where she was,

in the

then turned and walked towards the village and the green. He was

he radio and was told the stalker's report: the man had

called on t

moved, was lost. He started to run.

He pounded down the road towards the house.

There was the slight scent of damp in the air as Meryl unpacked in the

small bedroom.

She took from the suitcase only what she would need for that night, and

eded.

what Stephen ne

Simon Blackmore came up quietly behind her.

"She was tortured. What they did to her was unspeakable. Amnesty tional members from all over the world bombarded the

Interna

t

dictatorship with letters demanding her freedom, but above all i

was

her own courage that saved her life, and her determination to come back

to me.~ "You make me feel small, and my own problems minuscule.

egret leaving Frank."

Inevitable, I suppose, but already I r

ropriate that we start a seminar on man's

"I don't think it app

inhumanity, but it's necessary that you understand us. We all have our

own opinions and thank God our own consciences to drive us. Enough of

that. Now, Meryl, smile, please."

, her first in six days.

She did

"I'm going to talk to Luisa about antiques and gardening there's places

round here where you can still get a good old table or a chest at

399

a

real knock-down price.

"And I'll talk about wine, and downstairs there is a bottle open and waiting."

"So, you've lost him."

Cox was hurrying, and for once ignored his habits: didn't go to his office first to shed his coat, smooth his hair and straighten his

tie.

Straight to the central desk in the work area. He had been called from

dinner.

"Bloody marvelous. What else have you got?"

He was the man in charge, and he threw the responsibility of failure at

his subordinates.

"Thought there were a few things I could rely on, wrong again, thought I could rely on you not to lose him."

Fenton, who had already ladled abuse at his own subordinate, Markham, squirmed. Parker kept her head down. The others at the table,

white-faced, avoided Cox's eyes, except for Duane Littelbaum, who

eased

his shoes off the table, and laid down his Coca-Cola can.

"His advantage is small, and temporary only," Littelbaum murmured.

"He has to come to the house. If he's moved he'll come tonight. You should relax... We all get scared when it's out of our hands, you're

"

not unique.

Cox glanced at him savagely.

"What's he got?"

Fenton dived for the book on the table, as if it were his saviour.

think, from the questioning of Yusuf Khan, it's probably

"What we

an

RPG-7, rocket anti-tank grenade launcher. If the indications from that

400

bedside conversation are correct then he has a weapon with a maximum ange of three hundred metres, particularly useful at

effective r

night."

The old warhorse from B Branch snatched the book from Fenton.

"It has an internally lit optical sight for night shooting, or might the passive starlight scope.

have

Against tanks, even a deflection

shot, it'll put a five centimetre hole through around twenty-five

centimetres of armour-plate. At a hundred metres it cannot miss."

Cathy Parker leaned over the warhorse's shoulder.

"It can penetrate at least twenty centimetres of sandbags, fifty reinforced concrete, and not that it applies well over

centimetres of

a

etres of earth and log bunker..."

hundred centim

"Christ..." Cox shuddered.

Littelbaum smiled and swung his feet back on to the table.

best if

"But it has a signature, flash and smoke discharge. It's

he

fires, then you locate him and you go get him."

him." Cox left

"If there's anyone left alive, afterwards, to get

em,

th

in their silence, kicked open his office door, and threw his coat

on to

the floor.

e tonight."

"It'll be tonight, he'll com

Frank Perry looked away from Davies. He sat on the floor, his body gainst the bottom of the door.

weight a

Ask a bloody stupid question

and get a bloody unwanted answer.

There was a small, right-angled space, between the hall and the

n

kitche

door, protected by interior walls. The question why had Davies gone and dragged the double mattress off the spare bed and the

upstairs

their sides

single mattress off Stephen's bed and wedged them on

ainst the two interior walls, and made an igloo between the hall

ag

and

tchen door?

the ki

Why? He sat and cradled a tumbler of whisky, no

401

water. He could have asked Blake and Paget as they heaved in the

sandbags they'd filled. The sand and the empty bags had come an hour earlier.

ge at the front gate because

There had been a sharp exchan

the

delivery driver had dumped the sand and said it wasn't on his work docket to stay and help fill the bags. Perry sat with the weight

of

the vest on his shoulders. Davies was inserting a chair into the

igloo

space, a hard chair from the dining room, pushing its seat against the

kitchen door, and then he draped the ballistic blanket over its back.

gs were already in place at the hall end of the igloo.

The sandba

He

drank the whisky, which burned in his throat and upper stomach, the third one that Blake had poured him. He thought, pretty soon, he

go and piss.

should

etter that she had gone, with Stephen.

It was b

He could sense the

change in the men's mood, like they'd cleared their decks. While

uilt the igloo, Blake was checking the weapons, and he'd

Davies b

cleared all the rounds out of the machine-gun magazines then loaded n. There was a box on the carpet, beside his feet, with

them agai

the

ed cross on it and he'd been asked again for his blood group.

big r

He'd

ven it to them a week ago, but they'd said they were just checking gi

and he'd heard them talking hospitals. With Meryl and Stephen gone, ad changed, he thought, was that they no longer had the

what h

r the protection of a human being.

responsibility fo

Frank Perry was

an

item, he was baggage, protected because of its symbolic value. He ed the whisky. Paget and Rankin were in the hall. They were

gulp

going

e new shift was in the hut.

off duty, th

What he didn't understand

was

y seemed neither pleased to be going off duty nor reluctant

that the

to

time they were at the door, Paget and Rankin were

leave. By the

already muttering about the different brands of thermal socks.

Davies said, "He's moved. We don't know where he is or where he's rom. Would you, please, Mr. Perry, go quickly to the

coming f

lavatory, then settle into the proteded space. Because he's moved we

think he'll hit tonight."

402

Perry downed the drink, stood and slurred his laugh.

"Bit overdoing it, yes, bit over the top, yes, for one man with a rifle?"

"We don't think it's a rifle, Mr. Perry, we think it'll be an anti-tank armour-piercing rocket launcher."

Ask a bloody stupid question... He used the cover of the stones of the

churchyard, those that were beyond the throw of the coloured lights from the church itself.

Valiid Hossein had the weapon tilted against his shoulder, and the barrel with the two-kilogram projectile loaded, gouged into his

flesh.

From the churchyard he could watch the lights of cars on the road.

It

was important to him to find the pattern they made. The slow-moving s outside the bases

patrols of security men would be the same here a

of

the Americans in Riyadh or Jeddah. Patrols were always predictable it

lage

was what they did. The slow cars came by, going into the vil

and

out of it every nine minutes, with only a few seconds' difference

in

each journey.

From the churchyard, he slipped over a wall and into a garden. He crossed that garden, and two more. Often, at the Abyek camp, he had red the RPG-7, and it was simple and effective.

practice-fi

He had

fired it in the Faw marshes when the Iraqis had counterattacked

against

62

the bridgehead with armoured personnel carriers and the T-

amphibious

capability tanks.

what it could do... He moved across

He knew well

two

more gardens. He would have preferred to be close, so that the target man could see the blade or the barrel. It was better when they saw it,

and the fear flitted over their faces. Then he felt the excitement in

his groin.

Vahid Hossein was in another garden, crouched and still. A door

403

opened

dog trotted out into the pool of light.

and a

It approached the edge

of the light and yapped, but was frightened to move into the darkness.

ain began again.

The r

A man stood in the door and shouted for the

dog,

he was there.

which knew

Its courage grew because the man was behind

it. It was a small dog and it bounced with the ferocity of its

If the man came close, he would kill him, a blow to the

barking.

neck;

ame, he would throttle it.

if the dog c

He would not be stopped. The

rain pattered on him. The man strode towards the dog, towards the where he crouched, lifted it up, smacked it, and carried it

place

back

house.

into the

.

He moved again

him the exact description of

She had given

the house on the far side

of

into which the target had been moved.

the road

ink, Meryl?"

"A dr

hivered. Stephen was upstairs in the room allocated to him,

She s

and

d it was a dump. She'd pulled his lorries out of the case

had sai

and

them on the floor for him, on the bare boards.

scattered

"That would be nice." She grimaced at the cold air. The window was rippled them.

ajar behind the curtains and the wind

"Red or white. They're both from the Rhone valley, Cave de Tain e, it's only a little place but they've been making wine

l'Hermitag

there since the days of the Romans. We're very fond of it. I think the lovely thing about the study of wine is that one is never an

expert, always learning. That's a good maxim for life. Which'll

it

be?"

"Red, please to put some life into me."

"Shall do... I'm sorry about the window but Luisa likes windows to be

open so that she feels the wind, she can't abide to be closed in you understand."

404

"Of course." She hadn't noticed it before, but he wore a thick jacket over a crew-necked sweater. She looked at the grate, saw old ash

and

clinker.

Simon Blackmore would have seen her glance at the fireplace.

"Sorry, we haven't got round to cleaning it yet, but we don't have fires. Luisa cannot abide lit fires. They burned her with

cigarettes,

but some of her friends were branded with a poker from a brazier."

"I'll get a sweater."

"No, no, don't." He played the gentleman, took off his jacket and draped it on her shoulders, then poured her wine.

She was quite touched. It was ridiculous but sweet. She'd ring

Frank

later and tell him. And if when she telephoned she could not be

overheard, she'd tell him they were daft, but lovely, and they lived in

a freezer. He said apologetically that he ought to be in the kitchen helping would she excuse him if he left her alone?

"Let me do that, help Luisa."

"Absolutely not. You're our guest and need a spot of pampering."

There

were two bookshelves in the room. She went past the window and

crouched to look at the books.

He had the launcher on his shoulder and his finger on the guard.

He was down among a mass of garden shrubs. Beyond the hedge and the road was the cottage. He had seen the target's shadow against the moving curtain, then the coat of the man between the gap in the