The Devil's Breath (29 page)

*

Heading south on the Hamburg–Bremen autobahn, half-past eleven in the morning, Telemann sat in the back of the big Mercedes, listening to the news.

With US troops still pouring into Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State James Baker had embarked on yet another tour of Allied capitals, touching hands, offering reassurance, pledging aid or trade or credits, as determined as ever to keep the coalition together. To German ears, this tireless American diplomacy carried a special significance. Banned by post-war treaties from any form of foreign military adventure, the Republic’s contribution would be solely financial. Given the size of the German wallet, American expectations were high. If Germany wouldn’t – couldn’t – fight, then at least she could write a sizeable cheque. Chancellor Kohl, though, had other views. Already paying huge sums to return East Germany to the real world, he was determined to limit his country’s exposure to the costs of the coming war. Bonn was talking guardedly of a multi-million DM contribution. To Telemann, converting the sum to US dollars in the back of the speeding Mercedes, it seemed a huge sum. But in Washington and London, as the German commentator acidly pointed out, the German offer was regarded as little short of an insult.

The news over, Telemann leaned forward. Blum was driving, the girl beside him. They’d left the apartment in Hamburg an hour earlier, Telemann’s big grip in the back. Blum had been evasive about their exact destination, dismissing Telemann’s questions with a shrug and a tired yawn, but Telemann knew it must be somewhere in the vicinity of Bad Godesburg. Bonn, perhaps, or even Cologne, or one of the endless dormitory suburbs that dotted the west bank of the Rhine.

Telemann fingered the tightly sewn seams of leather at the back of Inge’s seat, looking at Blum. ‘Tell me again,’ he said, ‘tell me the way you think it’ll go.’

Blum’s eyes found his in the driving mirror. ‘I’ve told you already,’ he said. ‘I haven’t changed the plan. The plan stands.’

‘And if he turns up with more guys than you expect?’

‘He won’t. He never comes with more than three. The people at the hotel get uncomfortable. This is Germany, remember. Bad Godesburg. Not Dodge City.’

Telemann nodded, conceding the point. The phone call to Assali had been simpler than he’d expected. The phone had been answered by a woman, his wife perhaps, or a secretary, but he’d come at once, listening courteously as Telemann explained who he was, making no comment when he touched on Assali’s problems with the US Immigration Department and the possibility that there might be alternative methods of acquiring citizenship. At the end of the call, Telemann had given the man Sullivan’s Washington number, 456 1414, the main White House switchboard, repeating it twice more when Assali found a pen and paper. Before ringing off, Telemann had promised to make contact before nightfall. Time was a problem, he said. He was running on a tight schedule and had to be back on an airplane before the weekend. Perhaps there was a place they could meet, a local hotel maybe. Somewhere quiet, discreet. He’d call back with a suggestion once Assali had found Sullivan at his Washington desk. Non-committal, but still courteous, Assali had thanked him for the call.

Now, 12 kilometres short of Delmenhorst, Telemann returned to the plan, the moment when the talking stopped and the guns came out, and the Arab slipped quietly into Mossad hands.

‘Me.’ he said. ‘Where do I fit?’

Blum frowned, feigning a moment’s bewilderment, his eyes still on the road. ‘You?’ he said mildly.

‘Yeah. Me. You go to the Dreisan. You have the assets in place. The cars. The guys in the lobby. All that I understand. Very neat. Very elegant. But what about me? What do I do? When push comes to shove?’

‘At the Dreisen?’

‘Sure.’

‘You won’t be at the Dreisen.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ Blum shook his head, emphatic, the tour guide keen to
spare his clients unnecessary worry. ‘You will be with Inge. At the point of delivery.’

‘You mean the safe house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why’s that?’

Blum didn’t answer for a moment. Then the eyes were back in the mirror, pure candour, the readiest form of reassurance. ‘Operationally,’ he said, ‘we have control. We never share it. Never. You know that.’

‘I wasn’t asking for control.’

‘It’s the same thing. The same issue. You’ll be there. It complicates things. It’s unnecessary.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll see him later. Not much later, but later. So—’ he shrugged, the eyes returning to the autobahn ‘—what’s the problem?’

Telemann said nothing for a moment, watching the speedometer as they slipped past a huge truck, speeding south. At 140 k.p.h., there was barely a whisper from the engine. He glanced at the girl. Her head was back against the leather and she appeared to be asleep. Telemann leaned forward again, his mouth very close to Blum’s ear. ‘My friend,’ he said softly. ‘I need to be there.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I do. Because I’ve been there before. Because I’m not some eighth-grade bimbo.’ He paused. ‘Whatever you might think.’

‘You don’t trust me?’

‘That’s not what I said.’ Telemann paused again. ‘You should listen.’

Blum’s eyes flicked back to the mirror. He said nothing, but invited Telemann to carry on with the merest nod of his head. Telemann smiled, his hand on the Israeli’s shoulder, spelling it out.

‘This afternoon you drop me at the Dreisen. I check in. I talk to the Arab again. I tell him I’m staying at the hotel. I suggest we meet there. Most natural thing in the world. We make an arrangement. I phone you with the details, or maybe we meet some place. Up to you. Your call. But whatever we decide,
whenever it happens, I’m there, the guy in the lobby, Uncle Sam, the magic handshake. You with me?’

‘Of course.’ Blum frowned, the irritation plain in his face. ‘But you realize it may be dangerous?’

‘I thought I told you. I’ve been there before. Most of my life I’ve been there.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, impatient now, dropping the Mercedes into manual to take another queue of trucks. ‘I’m talking politics. You really want to be there? In the middle of it? With your name in the register? Whatever alias you’re using?’

‘Lacey.’

‘OK. Nice American name. Nice American passport. You really want to take that risk? Have them check it all out?’

‘Sure.’ Telemann shrugged. ‘Why not?’

‘You don’t think …’ Blum shrugged, something new in his voice, a curious indifference, and Telemann leaned back, content to let it all wash over him. For a kilometre or two there was silence in the car, and when it was finally broken it was by Inge’s voice, not Blum’s.

‘We can say no,’ she said, looking straight ahead, her eyes on the road. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘Sure.’

‘So what do you say? You want the Arab. You want to talk to him. What if we just say yes, go ahead, you and Mr Assali and his three friends. You think he’ll talk? You think he’ll really tell you what you need to know?’

Telemann said nothing, gazing out at the neatly cropped fields, harvest gathered in. Autumn, he thought. Then winter.

‘You have a choice,’ he said at last. ‘Either we do it my way, me at the Dreisen, me in the lobby, you in operational control. Or—’ he shrugged ‘—I don’t make the call.’

‘To Assali?’

‘Sure.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘I am.’

Blum eased his body in the driving seat, accepting a cigarette from Inge, reaching for the lighter in the dash. The cigarette to his lips, he dipped his head briefly towards the glow of the element. When the smoke cleared, there was a smile on his face.

‘Your boss,’ he said, ‘you think he’s sympatico? You think he’ll understand this? Your Uncle Sam?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Forgive you if it all goes wrong?’

‘No question.’

‘Think you played it all OK? Nothing—’ he shrugged, an expansive wave of the left hand, loops of blue smoke ‘—too subtle? Like shitting on your Uncle Fritz’s carpet?’

Telemann shrugged, immune now to the heaviest sarcasm. ‘Your choice,’ he said again. ‘Your call.’

Blum half-turned in the seat, looking directly at Telemann for the first time. The smile, if anything, was even wider. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘we take you to the Dreisen.’

*

The first time the old man, Abu Yussuf, went back to the Public Library, the girl at the information desk wasn’t there, replaced for the afternoon by a helpful young black. The old man, disappointed, mumbled his apologies through his broken mouth, his face swollen and livid with bruising, and turned to go. The young black watched him limping away towards the door, another refugee from the mugging statistics. ‘She’s back tomorrow,’ he called. ‘Come around four.’

The old man was back next day at four, waiting out the last few minutes in the shade of a drooping plane tree beside the entrance. He hated America now, the hot streets, the garbage, the taste of the air, the pale kids with their begging tins and their dead eyes. He thought he’d seen poverty at home, certain villages on the West Bank, little food, no work, land sold to settlers over the villagers’ heads, even the water cut off, hours at a time, days sometimes, no warning, no explanation. But this was different, a different kind of poverty, and for the first time the old man realized that being poor had nothing to do with money. New York was awash with money. It was everywhere,
in every shop window. He’d seen enough money on a woman’s wrist to feed his family for a year, for two years. Yet still there were the kids with their bowls, and older men, evenings on his way to work, huddled in doorways, knees to their chins, human refuse, discarded by a city too busy to care. Even Tel Aviv, he thought, is better than this. Even the Israelis are kinder than these strange people.

The old man went into the library. The information desk was on the first floor. The girl was there, as the young black had promised. She watched him limping towards her, the expression on her face uncertain, pity and sympathy, but anxiety too. The old man knew it, standing at the counter, trying to muster a smile. New York again, he thought. The city like a germ, spreading its violence and its broken bodies. Should I get involved? Should I take the risk? That’s what the girl thought. That’s what her face told the old man.

He explained what he wanted. He had money in his pocket. He showed her the thick wad of 10-dollar bills, the dyke he’d been building for himself against the terrible implications of a day like this. He needed to make another telephone call, back to Ramallah, back to his family. He had money to pay for it. It was very important, more important than he had the words to explain. Where he lived, there was no phone. Where he worked, the phone was no longer available. Could the girl help him? Did she have a phone? Here, at the library? Or somewhere else, even?

The girl, embarrassed by the old man’s intensity, the way he bent towards her, the wad of money slowly uncurling on the counter, said it was difficult. She’d only been in the job six months. The information desk was a recent promotion. Private use of the phones was strictly forbidden. She wasn’t sure who to ask. The old man nodded dumbly at every excuse, repeating his story, knowing it was the only one he had, his sole asset, but knowing too that he’d frightened the girl, and that she was simply looking for the kindest way of saying no. Finally it was the young black who returned from stacking books on a nearby shelf and touched the old man lightly on the arm, bringing the nightmare to an abrupt end. ‘Come with me, sir,’ he said.

The old man followed him to a small office at the back of the library. The label on the door read ‘Duty Librarian’. Inside was a desk and a telephone. Distantly, through the window, there was a view of Manhattan. The young black locked the door behind them and lifted the telephone. He pushed two buttons, listened for a moment, then offered the phone to the old man. The old man, fumbling in his pocket, found the scrap of paper on which he’d written the number.

Amer Tahoul was at his desk in Ramallah. He answered at once. The old man, blinking now, asked about his wife. The young black was at the window, his back turned, staring out at the view, the closest he could get to leaving the room.

Amer Tahoul came back on the phone. ‘Hala is still in prison.’

‘Have you seen her?’

‘Yes. Twice.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s … yes.’

‘What?’

‘Yes. She’s OK.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said she loved you. She said to tell you.’

‘What else? What else did she say?’

There was a silence. The old man sank into a chair by the phone, exhausted already, the young black’s kindness, and now Amer.

‘Amer?’ he said again. ‘What else did she say?’

There was another silence, and for a moment the old man thought Amer had gone. Then he was back again, his voice low, almost a whisper.

‘She said to be careful,’ he said.

‘Just that? To be careful?’

‘No.’

‘What else?’

‘She said to get away.’

‘Get away?’

‘Get away from …’ The voice hesitated. ‘Wherever you are.
Whoever you’re with. It was difficult. We couldn’t talk. But that’s what she meant. I’m sure of it …’

The old man nodded, no longer able to understand, his wife in a prison cell, himself in New York. He felt abandoned, lost. He felt like a plant, ripped from the earth. He bent to the phone again. He needed more than news. He needed advice, guidance, an indication that not all was lost. ‘So what do I do?’ he muttered.

There was another silence, longer this time, then the line went dead. The old man gazed at the phone, betrayed, and put it down. The black at the window was still gazing out at the view. His voice, kind, felt out of keeping with the city. ‘I’ll walk you down to the street,’ he said softly, ‘when you’re ready.’

10

Billy McVeigh was still in his blazer, half an hour back from school, when his mother answered the phone. She stood in the hall, with a frown on her face, and he knew at once from her tone of voice that it was his father at the other end.

‘Dad?’ he called from the top of the stairs. ‘Is that Dad?’

Sarah nodded. The routine exchange of pleasantries over, she held out the phone, retreating to the kitchen and closing the door, wanting no part of this relationship of theirs, her son and his father.

Billy picked up the phone, sorting quickly through his list of news, what was important, what wasn’t. ‘Dad?’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

‘Israel.’

‘Whereabouts in Israel?’

‘On a farm. Picking apples.’

‘Is it hot?’

‘Very.’

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah.’ McVeigh, sitting on the desk in the secretary’s office by the kibbutz dining-hall, grinned, realized how much he’d missed the boy. Billy was talking about football now, the start of the new season, his first sessions with the Hornsey Schools Rep side. In the practice games he’d been picked for the ‘A’ team. The torrent of news stopped for a moment. ‘What about Yakov?’ he said. ‘What have you done?’

‘This and that.’

‘What do you mean?’ He paused. ‘Dad?’

McVeigh shook his head, unable to answer, watching Cela in the corridor outside. She was standing guard in case the
secretary came back. Making foreign calls abroad was normally referred to a kibbutz committee for approval.

‘Dad?’

McVeigh bent to the phone again, changing the subject, asking about school, friends, life at home, but the boy refused to be deflected, dragging the conversation back to Yakov, like a terrier with the bone.

Finally, McVeigh gave up. ‘I’m with his wife,’ he said, ‘Mrs Yakov.’

‘You mean Sheila?’

‘Cela.’

‘Yeah. Her. Is she nice?’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘Does she like football?’

‘Hates it.’

‘
What?
’

McVeigh laughed out loud, hearing the astonishment in the boy’s voice, then he saw Cela’s signal, the secretary returning from lunch, and he whispered a goodbye and put the phone down. By the time he was back in the corridor, Cela was deep in conversation with the secretary, taking her to one side and easing her body round, shielding McVeigh. It was a neat piece of work and McVeigh mimed applause before walking past them, back out into the hot afternoon.

*

Telemann sat in the bedroom at the Hotel Dreisen, staring at the phone, wondering why it had been so easy.

He’d phoned Assali minutes after he’d booked in, sitting by the window with his shoes off, his feet on the bed. Outside the window, huge barges pushed up and down the Rhine, folds of grey water feathering behind them, lapping at the stones on the river-bank. Assali had answered the phone in person, unsurprised to hear him again, raising no objection to a meeting face to face. When Telemann explained he was staying at the Dreisen, the Arab had chuckled with genuine amusement. Telemann had asked why, wanting to share the joke, and Assali had said something about Adolf Hitler. Evidently the Dreisen
had been one of his favourite hotels. He’d met the Englishman, Chamberlain, there during the Czech crisis. The hotel had been famous, a stepping-stone to war. The Arab was still chuckling when he rang off, agreeing to meet Telemann for drinks and perhaps dinner at half-past six.

Now, Telemann gazed out of the window, still puzzled. If Assali was implicated in the threats against New York, if he was indeed the middleman between the supplier and the point of delivery, why was he so sanguine about a meeting? He had protection, sure, and he’d assume that so public a rendezvous would be doubly safe. But Assali moved in a violent world, and his very survival was a tribute to his refusal to take risks. So why was he so willing to accept the invitation? Why hadn’t it been harder?

Telemann shook his head, not understanding. Then the sound of the man’s laughter came back to him, that special edge it seemed to have, a knowingness, and he thought again about Adolf Hitler, the meeting with the English prime minister. Telemann was no historian, but he knew that the meeting had been one of a series that had led to Munich and the infamous agreement securing ‘peace in our time’. Hitler had been a gambler, tabling demand after demand. Chamberlain, to the world’s subsequent regret, had caved in. Telemann mused on the parallels, watching a man in a blue track-suit jogging steadily north on the path beside the river. Maybe that was it. Maybe he had Assali exactly right. Maybe the man was coming to open negotiations, assuming that the Americans had done the thinking, assessed the risk, decided that New York was too high a price to pay for Kuwait City.

Telemann began to smile, following the logic through, testing the theory, realizing that it was a perfect match for the facts. Assali regarded him as a US representative, a proxy empowered to initiate talks. His precautionary call to Sullivan, assuming he’d made it, would have provided ample confirmation. Telemann nodded, relaxing back in his chair, still watching the man in the track-suit, a blue blur receding slowly into the distance. So much for Emery, he thought. So much for all the fancy analysis, twenty years of commuting to a desk and a phone. The man should have been out in the field a little, having to
cope with the raw evidence, having to weigh it, assess it, turn it into some kind of operational plan. Maybe, then, he wouldn’t have been so damned patronizing, so eternally sceptical. You had to give some to get some. That was Telemann’s way. That was what he’d always believed. You had to take risks, trust your instincts. Sometimes you lost out, no question. Sometimes you fell flat on your face, the world on your head, the shit kicked out of you. But other times it could be different. Other times, like now, you got lucky.

Telemann reached for the telephone again, checking a number from a pad at his elbow. The number rang twice before it answered. It was a girl’s voice, Inge. She sounded sleepy.

‘Half-past six,’ Telemann said briefly, ‘at the hotel.’

*

Emery met Laura for lunch at a vegetarian café three blocks from the office on ‘F’ Street. It was her suggestion, her choice. She’d used the place before, always with her husband. It was busy. It was noisy. You could easily get lost there.

He stood up as she came in, her hair wet from a rain shower in the street. She looked tired and preoccupied, scanning the restaurant for some sign of Emery, seeing his raised arm at once, threading a path between the crowded tables. She sat down beside him. He could smell the rain in her hair.

‘How long have we got?’ she said.

Emery smiled. ‘Half an hour.’

‘You can spare that?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded, reaching for the menu, looking absently through the list of wholefood bakes.

‘Ron?’ she said at last.

Emery shook his head ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘so far.’

‘Yesterday?’

‘I told you. He phoned. Strictly operational …’ He shrugged. ‘I think.’

Laura caught the note in his voice, the provisional lift at the end of the sentence, a code she was beginning to understand.

‘You think he knows?’ she said flatly. ‘You think he’s figured it out?’

‘I think something’s wrong.’

‘Same thing, isn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily.’

A waitress appeared and began to recite the day’s specials. Laura shook her head, not listening, still looking at Emery. There was an intensity in her, a lack of patience, that he’d never seen before. The waitress had stopped halfway down the list. Emery glanced up at her and signalled for her to come back later, but Laura reached out, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Aubergines,’ she said briefly, ‘and walnut salad.’

The waitress scribbled on her pad, looking at Emery. ‘Sir?’

‘Twice.’

‘Thank you.’

The waitress disappeared with the order. Laura’s hand was still on Emery’s arm. He leaned across and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were dry, without a flicker of response.

‘You think he’s in trouble?’

‘I think he’s got a job on his hands.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

Emery shrugged. ‘I can’t say. Either way, nothing’s easy.’

Laura nodded slowly, still looking at him. ‘He’s been my life,’ she said at last. ‘It’s a hard thing for you to understand. It’s like a foreign country. If you haven’t been there, you don’t know. Can’t know.’ She paused. ‘I love the man. I care about him. That make sense?’

‘Perfect sense.’ Emery hesitated. ‘You want
me
to tell him?’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

‘I don’t know.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, reaching for a napkin, twisting it between her fingers. ‘How do you put a thing like this? What do you say? That his life’s over? Everything he’s been used to? All these years? Is that how you put it?’

‘He’ll need counselling.’

‘Sure. Great idea. Can you see Ron going through all that? Some well-meaning shrink? Some fat analyst from Chevvy Chase, telling him the way it’s gonna be?’

‘Gotta be.’

‘Gotta be.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, gotta be.’ She fell silent for a moment, pushing the napkin aside, accepting Emery’s hand at last, squeezing it, needing it. Then she begun to shiver, thinking again. ‘I shouldn’t have let him go,’ she said at last. ‘I should have told him.’

‘You did. In a way.’

‘No, but properly. I should have told him properly. The whole thing. What it means. Now. Soon. When he gets back. What’s got to happen. What might help.’

‘We might help.’

‘Sure. But—’ she shook her head, a gesture of physical revulsion ‘—this is horrible. The man deserves more than this. He truly does.’ She paused again, staring out at the street. The rain had stopped now and sunshine was puddling the sidewalk. ‘What about the Agency?’ she said slowly. ‘Who knows there?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Nobody?’ She sounded incredulous. ‘All that money? All those computers? All that brainpower? And
no
body knows?’

Emery smiled, reaching for her hand again. ‘It’s been a private thing,’ he said, ‘your decision.’

‘I know, but …’

‘But what?’

‘I can’t believe they don’t know.’

‘They don’t.’ He paused. ‘You think they’d have sent him off if they’d have known? Doing what he’s doing?’

‘What
is
he doing?’

Emery looked at her, saying nothing, the usual rules, never broken. Laura nodded, mute compliance. ‘OK,’ she said at last, ‘I guess they don’t know.’ She looked at him. ‘Was that irresponsible of me? Not telling them?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know why I didn’t?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because I owed him the truth first. That’s why. Not his bosses. Not his mother. Not anyone. Except him.’

‘And me.’

‘You’re different. You’re his best friend.’

‘Quite.’

There was another long silence. The waitress had reappeared, balencing plates of steaming aubergine on a small tray. Laura watched her, a wistful expression on her face, the flicker of some distant memory.

‘We have to do something,’ she said softly. ‘I have to do something.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know.’ She looked at him again, her face pale under the tan. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

She reached down for her bag as the waitress began to unload the tray. Beside her plate she put a long brown envelope, sealed at the top. Emery looked at it.

‘What’s that?’

Laura frowned, picking up her fork, toying with the aubergine. Then she put the fork down and pushed the envelope towards him.

‘Trouble with this thing,’ she said, ‘is it gets worse.’

*

Friedland followed the white Citroën through the thick of the rush-hour traffic. The approach to Crouch End, second gear on the steep hill, was expecially hard, cars and buses nose-to-tail, the boy and his mother clearly visible in the car ahead. He’d picked them up at the corner of their road, parked at the kerbside, watching them emerge from the house in the rear-view mirror. The boy was carrying a knapsack, and his mother was wearing a coat. The girl monitoring the telephone tape said the match started at seven. His mother would stay to take him home. It was the regular venue.

Past Crouch End, the Citroën indicated left, plunging into a maze of side-streets, a short-cut to the playing fields up at Hornsey. Hanging well back now, Friedland thought again about Ross, and the real price of the contract he’d struck with the man. He’d known from the start that it wouldn’t be easy, yet he’d almost enjoyed the early years. Much of the work had been straightforward – credit checks, covert vettings, the commissioning of occasional break-ins, software thefts, mail intercepts – and even the odd set-piece hadn’t, in all truth, demanded a great deal. But lately, everything had changed. Ross had
become nervy and slightly irrational, a confirmation, Friedland supposed, that the ruling Tory clique were themselves, at last, under threat. Quite where this would lead was anyone’s guess, but he knew already that his own days were numbered. He’d only last as long as Ross lasted, and Ross – he was now certain – was on the way out.

The Citroën pulled to a halt at a T-junction and indicated left. Friedland did the same, recognizing the broad reaches of Hornsey Flats beyond the line of iron railings, still thinking of Ross. The Dispozall business was yet another symptom of the man’s desperation. After a great deal of thought, he’d finally made the journey down to Basingstoke, spending an uncomfortable hour with the firm’s managing director. The sole merit of Ross’s cover-up was its crudeness. It had taken Friedland perhaps five minutes to explain the way it worked, the original analysis destroyed, a new analysis substituted, different substance, same circumstances, same outcome. Lovell, the managing director, a large, bluff man with a warm handshake, had followed Friedland’s careful exposition without comment, getting up at the end to tell him that it was madness, that he’d have nothing to do with it, that he’d prefer bankruptcy and disgrace to a role in so daft a conspiracy. Expecting something of the kind, Friedland had devoted the rest of the hour to a carefully pitched confidential briefing, keeping his own role deliberately vague, hinting at membership of the Intelligence services, nothing specific, nothing the man could possibly check. He’d talked about Middle Eastern terror groups, and George Habash, and the endless backstage games of bluff and counter-bluff, games where nothing was quite what it seemed, and where 5 gallons of nerve gas acquired a significance that dwarfed the fate of a medium-sized UK firm. By the end of the hour, Lovell was back behind his desk, an older and wiser man, his company still intact, his pension safe, his family’s prospects fully restored. Leaving, crossing the car park in the autumn sunshine, Friedland had mused on his own performance, wondering whether a year or so selling life assurance might not, after all, be so bad. Getting into his car, he’d glanced up at the big office he’d just left, four picture windows on the third floor. Lovell had been
standing there, gazing down at him, in shirt-sleeves and braces. Neither man had waved or even nodded, and by the time Friedland had got in and wound down the window, Lovell had gone.