CONDITION BLACK MASTER Read online

  He drove the boys to the school gate. He did his best. He talked about the Liverpool team, and their new striker. He talked about the cricket side for Australia. He stopped at the newsagent on Mulfords Hill and he bought them each two comics . . .

  They'd settle, they'd work it out. Plenty of families went abroad to work and took their children with them. It was their future that he was concerned with, their future and Sara's.

  He dropped the boys. They didn't kiss him. He would have liked them to show him affection. They ran from the car and into the school playground . . . There was one thing he'd miss, by God, he'd miss it: the chance to see the faces of Reuben Boll and Carol and sickly little Wayne and the Security Officer when they discovered where he had gone.

  On the first floor of a decaying building in the ancient Old City, the part of Baghdad settled twelve centuries before by Abu Jafar al-Mansur, the radio transmitter was found. It was the discovery of the transmitter in the room where he lived, alone, that re-doubled the torture inflicted on the Kurd, and doubled, too, the number of officers who now involved themselves in the investigation.

  With the arrival of each new officer at the Department of Public Security's interrogation cells, so the demand for confession grew, so the screw was turned.

  By the time that the Colonel reached the basement cells, the Kurd, and it was all he prayed to his God for, was close to death.

  The Colonel had seen the carnage inflicted by the traversing machine guns on the human waves of the enemy outside Basra.

  He had seen the heads of men blown apart by revolver fire; he had seen the kicking death throes of those hanged from make-shift gallows. But even the Colonel was nauseated, felt the bile rise in his throat, when he saw what had been done to the Kurd.

  They had taken the fingernails from his hands, the toenails from his feet. They had beaten the soles of his feet with rubber truncheons. They had used the al-mangana, the clamp on his toes that was tightened. They had torn off one of his ears. They had pounded his penis to a bloodied prune. The cell echoed with the Colonel's fury. He had the Kurd taken down from the manacles that suspended him from the ceiling. He demanded that the doctor be brought immediately. He had no feeling for the Kurd, but he had uncontrolled anger for those who had supervised an interrogation that had lost them their suspect.

  The Kurd had not talked. And even as he was lowered from the ceiling, his prayer was answered and, sinking deeper into wave after wave of pain, he died. It was 21 hours since his arrest.

  The Colonel demanded continued discreet surveillance of the post-restante box. It was all they had. He promised a charge of treason for any man who failed in his duty.

  There was a knock. His door opened. It was Boll in the doorway.

  " A h , Frederick, you have a moment?"

  Funny, but actually he wasn't frightened of the man any more.

  They would make him suffer when it was discovered that he had lost a Senior Scientific Officer.

  "What can I do for you, Reuben?" He heard the coolness in his own voice. There had been times when he had stood up when Boll came into his room.

  "That man who came . . . "

  "What about him?"

  "I wanted you to know that I thought his investigation here disgraceful."

  "I expect that he would have said that he was only doing his job . . . "

  "That is extraordinarily reasonable."

  ". . . Nevertheless, I told him to get the hell out."

  " Y o u told him to get out?"

  " O h , yes. That's what I told him. He went too far, frankly.

  I'm not sure I didn't offer him some violence. Anyway, he went, as instructed."

  He saw the surprise on Boll's face. "I just wanted you to know that you had my sympathy."

  "Thank you, Reuben."

  " O h , and you should know that I rated your paper very highly.

  Good work . . . "

  "Thank you again, Reuben. I hope you have a pleasant trip to the United States."

  He stared at the closing door.

  If he went fast, if he went when Colt wanted him to, then Boll would just have arrived at Livermore or Los Alamos, or wherever the bastard was feting himself. Just have got his feet under the table when the alarm button would go. A Senior Scientific Officer from H area disappeared, that would get Boll's fat little feet under his fat little arse scurrying back onto the plane home.

  It was time to make his call.

  From her desk by the window Carol saw everything that moved at the front of the H3 building. She saw Frederick Bissett go and she realised that he must have left the building through the emergency fire door beside the entrance to the laboratory section.

  She saw that he was hunched, as il he were frozen cold, as if he had compressed his neck into the collar of his raincoat, almost as if he tried to hide his face. Boll was on the telephone, staring out of his window. Boll saw hint get into his car, and thought, with fresh amazement, of Bissett s throwing the man Rutherford out of his office.

  Basil was performing the painful weekly duty that distressed him, still, after so many years at the Establishment. Basil was sealing the plastic bags that held his faeces and his urine. Basil detested going to the lavatories of Health Physics to perform, and he had the dispensation to provide Ins weekly samples wherever he chose. Basil rapped at the window. The tyre of his bicycle was punctured. He banged on the window and shouted. He wanted Bissett to take his samples over to Health Physics, not too much to ask. But Bissett had his raincoat collar turned up past his ears and he hadn't heard. Basil watched in irritation as the Sierra pulled out of the parking area.

  Colt wrote down what time Bissett hoped to reach Paddington station, told him at all costs to avoid being followed to the station.

  There was the faint threshing of fear at his gut. He hated the fear. Colt wanted to be out, gone, beyond the reach of fear.

  If she had not seen the E II R insignia on the Englishman's briefcase, the landlady might well have called the police. They were two filthy creatures. They tramped their mud across her hallway, across her breakfast room, up her stair carpet, and all over two of her bedrooms. The Englishman had given as his address, in her Registration Book, "c/o Home Office, Queen Anne's Gate, London", and the American had written, "c/o Embassy of the United States of America, Grosvenor Square, London". Well, anyone can invent an address and there was mud all over their faces, on their hands and their clothes. And she hadn't lived in Warminster all her life that she couldn't recognise the smell on the waterproof jacket of the American. Mr Erlich stank of cordite. Well, obviously, they had been playing army games at the School of Infantry and Mr Erlich might have been the dirtiest American she'd ever seen, but his manners were lovely. And Mr Rutherford had paid a week's booking fee in advance, in cash.

  Through the morning and the afternoon the landlady was alone in the guesthouse with the two sleeping men. Her usual guests, commercial representatives for the most part, would not be back until the time she served her early supper. The Englishman and the American had said they would not be eating in.

  In the late afternoon, after she had taken her retriever for a walk, she went up the stairs with her plastic watering can to anoint her geraniums. She had seen the American, wearing only his boxer shorts, come out of the Englishman's room and carry a portable telephone through his own door.

  It was her joy, her pleasure - her late husband used to call it her vice to overhear the conversations of her guests.

  "Jo, I can't. I just can't . . ."

  The American's voice was surprisingly soft and wheedling for such a big man, she thought.

  " . Jo, that is not reasonable. You want to go to Mombasa, great I would like to go to Mombasa. You can, I can't. End of story . .

  He was getting rather cross, and she didn't think she liked this

  |o. Here was poor Mr Erlich up to his ears in mud and guns . . .

  "Jo, don't go on, don't get goddam scratchy. The beginning and the end of it is that I cannot
break away. No, no chance.

  Heh, Jo, did you hear what happened to the All Stars in Naples? . . . That's too bad, that's dreadful . . . Listen, it is not my choice. Get that into your head . . . You want to go to Mombasa, you go to Mombasa. That is not fair, Jo . . . Yes, you send me a postcard, you do just that . . ,"

  She glided to the far end ofl the landing, She heard the American come out of his room, walk to the Englishman's door.

  They were gone at dusk, as the first of her evening guests checked in. The Englishman was brusque, as he had been that morning. The American was subdued, poor thing, and seemed to jump about two feet when the dog came out of her sitting room and sniffed his trousers. She had never been outside the United Kingdom for a holiday, but she thought it must be disappointing for the American not to be able to take time off from his work to accompany his Jo to Mombasa. On the other hand, she always said, life was not complete without disappointment, and she had learned in long widowhood that this was true.

  The Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee was not liked by the Director General. He had taken early retirement from the bench of the Court of Appeal. He was typically aloof, the Director General thought, an arrogant, high-climbing judge, and utterly out of place in the corridors of Curzon Street.

  "I will brief the Prime Minister. You may rely on me."

  "It is my department that is affected."

  "Not exclusively true. Century have a position too, as you have yours. Better that a third party should speak for both of you."

  "This could get very messy, and frankly, we're not happy."

  "It will just be the Prime Minister's ear, no others. I assure you that there will not be fall-out, provided that your people perform satisfactorily.''

  "You're taking a huge risk . . . "

  The former judge, a man accustomed to the craven subservience of his court, bridled. "I don't think the Prime Minister will see it that way. I don't. We want this creature dead. Unhappily, we want our relations with that country intact. And we want the Americans off our backs. This course satisfies all three requirements. Where is the difficulty?"

  "Shooting people, even Englishmen who inconveniently kill Americans, is the difficulty."

  "Quite honestly you astonish me. I had not expected to find anyone in your position squeamish."

  The Director General said flatly, "It's in motion, if he's still in the country and if he can be reached then it will happen."

  "First class . . . You have my support, and you will have the Prime Minister's, provided your people do the job properly."

  "You ask a lot of my people . . . "

  "Quite right, too. And you won't be able to convince me that you have never carried out an execution. I imagine your department is full of experienced people. I certainly hope so."

  When the Director General left, it was as much as he could do to stop himself slamming the Chairman's door. He walked out into Whitehall from the Cabinet Office. He dismissed his car. He walked back to Curzon Street tailed by his bodyguard. He wanted to be alone, he wanted to think. He wanted to consider James Rutherford, junior in D Branch, on whose inexperienced shoulders so much had been laid. So much was asked of his people, of young Rutherford, and of the American whom he had not met and didn't want to know.

  Colt stood beside the hotel room door because he knew where the camera was secreted inside the wardrobe, behind the fractionally opened door. He knew that the door of the wardrobe cut out all vision of him from the video camera.

  Bissett had nearly kissed him when they had met at the end of the platform at Paddington station. He had pumped his hand, he had clung to his arm all the way across the concourse of the station and into the Great Western and across the hotel's lobby to the lift and the ride up to the room.

  Colt listened.

  He was behind Bissctt.

  There was the Military Attache and the Assistant Military Attache and Faud and Mamir. It was their job to do the talking.

  Colt's job was to have brought Bissett, and to escort him away.

  That was the extent of his job. They'd put a drink down Bissett, and Colt had seen the nervousness of the man as he had held the glass in his two hands and still slurped it from the side of his mouth and down his shirt front. They had filled his glass again, and they had sat Bissett down and they had gone through the questionnaire. Like a job application . . . not that Colt knew anything that mattered about job applications. They were pushing to be certain that they had the real thing. The questions and the answers roved over Colt's head. Place of work: H3 building . . .

  Work to: Reuben Boll and Basil Curtis . . . Current work: Implosion physics . . . Specific current work: Development of cruise warhead as replacement for WE-177 bomb drop warhead . . .

  Detail of current work: Physical interaction of material elements at detonation macro-second . . . Colt didn't know what was tritium, and he didn't know about beryllium. He had not heard of gallium. He had no concept of a fashioned plutonium sphere.

  He saw that confidence was restored in Bissett. Bissett had the message. These chaps hadn't a clue about tritium, either, or beryllium or deuteride-oxide or gallium or plutonium, they were just working to a brief that had come in code off the teleprinters.

  Bissett's confidence was growing because even he could fathom that the questions had been supplied to them. Bissett was the swot at school with all the answers. Bissett blossomed.

  The Military Attache left the room. He carried away with him the question papers and the answers that Bissett had supplied.

  Bissett was asked by the Assistant Military Attache if he would please to be patient. Namir fed him another drink. There were no canapes this time.

  Bissett was talking too much, like the drink had got to him and like his self-importance had overcome the fear. He was asking all the questions. Where would he live? What would be the work area? Who would his working colleagues be?

  They seemed to take it in turns to give him the bullshit. He would live in the finest accommodation, fitted with the best European appliances. His work area would be the most modern and sophisticated that money could build. His colleagues would be the finest scientists who had come from all over die world to join the team that had very many distinguished achievements to its credit already and would welcome the arrival of I)r Bissett.

  The Assistant Military Attache, Faud and Namir, soaped the bastard, and all the time they flattered him. They had Frederick Bissett eating out of their hands, and the drink flowed. After an hour the Military Attache returned.

  He stood stiffly in front of Bissett, and he shook the pathetic bastard's hand.

  "We are sincerely honoured."

  The glasses were raised. Colt could see the flush of pleasure spewing on Bissett's face. Not Colt's problem, not if Bissett wanted to go and bury himself in Iraq when he didn't have to.

  "You will be a most valued member of our scientific community . . . "

  Colt said, "Sooner rather than later. We have not offered Dr Bissett the opportunity to tell you that he has been under the scrutiny of the Security Service, and that he was interrogated yesterday morning. It would be advisable to move him fast."

  Bissett gabbled his explanation. There was the anxiety on their faces.

  Colt said, "We just lift him out, before the net closes."

  Bissett was just the package. He was left to his drink, and his embarrassment. Around him they talked flight times, schedules.

  He had been propositioned, he had accepted, he was no longer the centre of attention.

  The Military Attache said, "Tomorrow night, we can hold the aircraft.''

  Colt said, "He works tomorrow, perfectly normally. He leaves work, I'll pick him up, get him to Heathrow."

  The Military Attache nodded. "Tomorrow night."

  Bissett cut through both of them, his head was shaking, his finger jabbing. "Hold on a minute. You're forgetting . . . I mean, well, my family arrangements have to be . . ."

  The Military Attache said, "You
tell no one, Dr Bissett. You make no arrangements. You have the normal day."

  "But I can't just . . . My wife, she has to . . ."

  He supposed that it was where all such things ended up. A grubby little man with too much drink and not enough food in his stomach standing and whingeing his confusion in a hotel bedroom. No time now for flattery, no time to make arrangements, to talk the wife round. And way too far down the road to back off.

  Colt said, "If you don't do as you're asked, Dr Bissett, you'll go down for 20 years."

  In his unlit office, the cold bristling through the opened window, the Swede heard snatches of the conversation.

  ". . . He could be better, he could be worse."

  " H e wants to come, Dr Tariq . . . Wants to, surely that is important?"

  " H e is not a senior man, but then senior men are buried with administration . . . You have done me well, Colonel."

  "It is the privilege of all of us to serve the Revolutionary Command Council."

  " T h e putting together of a team is a delicate affair. This man is not, in himself, important. But to the overall performance of the team he is quite vital."

  His fingers, in the darkness, were clumsy on the dials of the receiver. He could almost hear the slow turning of the spools.

  " M y people say he is very impressive, a good man . . . "

  He had the left side of his headset clamped on the ear, he had the right side behind the ear. With his left ear he heard the talk, as best he could. With his right he listened for any footstep in the corridor. Each slow minute was the worst, each last minute was torture. With his handkerchief he mopped at the sweat gathering on his forehead. They wanted more, and he had as yet so little. He heard the jangle of a telephone in his left ear. Then only the drum ..I an air conditioner. Then in his left ear the Colonel's report, ''He's coming. It isconfirmed, Dr Bissett is coming tomorrow night. We will hold a plane-, if necessary; he will be on the flight from London tomorrow night,''