Irritated, he turned on Halvesson. The man was sweating, flustered.
"I… the telephone. My wife, she has been… I must go to the hospital, she is ill!" His terror was vivid, intense, as hard as a strong light suddenly shone into Gant's eyes.
"I cannot the company does not have a replacement, I must wait!"
The woman might be dying or simply dizzy. Halvesson's shock could distinguish nothing except fear.
The company won't let you go to the hospital, right?"
"No. I must stay here. My wife. I have just had a telephone call from the doctor who has seen her. He said I should hurry' The man had aged, lost all volition, as if he had collided with the doctor's injunction.
His hands flapped at his sides, his shirt was damp-stained across his chest, as well as beneath the arms. His face chalk white rather than flushed.
"I'm here," Gant said. I'll be here most of the night. You'd better go. Nothing's going to happen here."
"But you you can't, you don't have authority…"
"Olssen left me his keys. He thinks I can be trusted. You want to see your wife, fella, you take off." The quick sympathy he had felt was already evaporating. Halvesson was indecisive for perhaps half a minute, then he blurted:
"Yes, yes, I must go to her. She is not strong she is often very depressed, you know—?" He feared an attempted suicide. Thank you, thank you!"
He hurried away, scuttling rather than running. Moments after his stubby form disappeared from the hangar, Gant heard a car engine fire and then the noise of acceleration and the squeal of tyres. Then silence. He returned his attention to the Boeing, then-something… up above. He recalled an embryonic sensation of excitement, the moment before Halvesson distracted him. What—? He scanned the ribs and shoulder blades of the hangar for something that had moved but had not been a bird. A slow, mechanical, routine movement, something swinging from side to-camera. Security camera. Monitoring the hangar, its images projected on a screen in Halvesson's office, its images stored there. A second camera, then a third. Routine, the dead, forgettable routine of machines.
Massey had walked into the hangar just as he had done. Into the camera's field of vision. Massey was stored, recorded, somewhere in Halvesson's office. Gant hurried.
"OK, I'll ask him what he wants done. Good move, mon ami — ' It was not, on this occasion, meant to irritate Roussillon. Fraser rolled off the bed. Through the window, London's night-glow outlined Tower Bridge.
"No, I approve. Gant must be after Strick-land. He knows it was sabotage he survived it." Fraser lit a cigarette, then blew smoke towards the open window. Two-thirty by the bedside clock. This was worth being woken for.
"He could easily have worked out the same trick was used in Oslo as Phoenix. How long's he been there?… That long? Talked to Olssen, yes… What's he doing now? You can't see. OK, hang on — I'll get back to you. Neat, Michel, I like it. The old hospital call to remove the only witness. I think the man will go for it. Gant's disappearance won't cause a ripple. Call you back—" He switched off the cordless phone, then dialled the number of Winterborne's mobile, still smiling.
Gant was a smart-arse, he needed taking out. He waited as the phone continued to ring. This was already turning into a tidying operation, its main phase already long completed his only involvement had been surveillance, a bit of frightening, hiring Strickland. At least this way they could turn Gant off, another of Aubrey's fond memories. Marian Pyott well, she was either dead, burned or terrified. Whichever would at least slow her down, probably stop her… and shitty little whingeing Banks was in for a surprise in the morning when his daughter walked to school.
"Sir," without irony or insolence, "Fraser. Just had a call from Oslo.
Can you talk freely?"
"I've just got home. What is it?" The man's mood was easily identifiable; as satiated with self-admiration as if he had just come from a flattering mistress.
"Gant, sir. Roussillon's opinion and I agree is that Gant could become a problem. He's after some trace of Strickland, without doubt."
"You don't know where Strickland is, Fraser. How is Gant going to find him?"
Fraser grimaced sourly and thrust the two fingers that held the cigarette savagely in the air.
"Maybe not, sir. But he must know it was sabotage. And he knows Strickland knew him anyway. At least, Strickland knew Gant at one time."
"Where is he?"
The hangar at Oslo airport. Roussillon is on the spot, has him under close surveillance. He's even got the security guard out of the way.
Gant is alone," he added seductively. He listened to the silence at the other end of the line.
Eventually, Winterborne said, irritatedly:
"What about Marian?"
"Jessop and Cobb a petrol bomb through her kitchen window."
"And?"
They didn't remain at the scene. Her file suggested it as the best way to make the biggest impact. Some childhood accident—"
"I know about her accident as a child!" Winterborne hissed.
"I want to know what happened to her!"
It was as if Winterborne was expressing regret for something he was certain had occurred. Mea culpa. All the guilt crap had infected him like a disease he had not expected to catch. He was afraid that the woman was dead; something was suddenly and surprisingly persuading him that he had never meant it to happen. Fraser mocked silently.
Winterborne would get over it. It wasn't much more than a slight cold in his case, conscience — otherwise he would never have begun this, never have acquired Complete Security, staffed it with people like himself, gone as far as he had. In a couple of days, a week at most, he'd have persuaded himself of the necessity of the woman's removal. If it had already happened in the house fire, he'd soon see the sense of it.
I'll find out, sir," he replied obsequiously.
"But, Gant I think I must emphasise that he poses the more immediate danger. A risk that is unacceptably high." He added the last in deference to the evident self-satisfaction that seeped down the line.
"Agreed, then. Get rid of Gant. And do it quietly, with no traces.
Tell Roussillon. Good night, Fraser."
The connection was severed.
"And good night to you sir." Fraser scowled at the receiver. He switched it off and threw it on the bed.
One down for certain. There'd be tantrums if the woman was already dead, or lying in an emergency bed, roasted to a crisp that much was obvious. But none over Gant's demise. That was death at a safe distance… Made you sick, the ease with which they could order the disposal of human beings. Look, my hands are clean. Businessmen and politicos took to that easy kind of gangsterism with alacrity. The end of the Cold War had left people like himself lying around like weapons, ready to be acquired, ready to go off. The likes of Winterborne enjoyed an arm's-length relationship with people like him, it gave them a buzz. It provided them with simple solutions to problems. It was easier than most other ways of doing business.
He picked up the telephone and dialled Roussillon's number. As he had remarked to the Frog, his lot had always been up for the kind of thing the Brits were just learning… that you can run a conglomerate with the same methods and means as an intelligence operation.
So, good night, Mr. Gant and I mean good night.
It was a half-assed security firm. He'd known that after ten minutes of fastforwarding the videotapes from the security cameras in
Halvesson's cramped, dusty, somehow deliberately littered office. The tapes weren't labelled or dated.
There appeared to be gaps in the recording, by the light and dark spilling through the open doors, by the identities of the airliners being serviced and their carriers' blazons. A heap of cassettes had fallen like a joke from a metal cupboard as he had tugged open the door.