He heard an engine revving outside. He struggled to get up from the bed and he pressed his ear against the plywood at the window. The engine dulled the voices, but he recognised the voice of the investigator. There was a place in hell for that man. Mattie Furniss would never forget the voice of the investigator. Then the scrape of the tyres on chip stones and the squealing of a gate. Mattie understood. The investigator would be setting up the surveillance on the field agents. He would return. Mattie tried to calculate how long it would have taken to abort the field agents. He knew the system because he had drawn it up himself. He couldn't keep track of the days any more, should have done, should have scratched a marking for each day on the wall beside his bed. He didn't know whether he'd given them enough time. What he'd been through, that would be a suite at the Ritz compared with what the field agents would suffer in the interrogation rooms at Evin.
Mattie would have whetted the appetite of the investigator, he knew that. He'd be back. They would strip him and gut him of all he knew, and then they would kill him. Stood to reason, they would take their fill of him, and they would dispose of him. They would take him through the kitchen and across the yard, and they would put him against the concrete block wall where the other poor bastards had been put.
In his life he had never known such agony of failure.
If he didn't make it b a c k… in time, they'd hear at Century that their man had cracked. Just as the Agency had heard that Hill Buckley, good guy and brave guy, had cracked. The bastards had tortured Buckley and then they sent the tapes of Buckley screaming to Langley. The shit pigs had made sport with Bill Buckley's pain.
He went to the wash basin and he ran the tap, and when the water came it did not matter to Mattie that it was foul-tasting and ditchwater brown.
While the water still dripped from his beard growth he sat on his bed. He waited for them to bring him his breakfast.
He would watch each movement of the guards when they brought him his breakfast.
Past six, and Charlie sang in his shower. He felt good. He knew what was the source of his soaring spirits. It was his meeting with Mr Stone, gun runner By Appointment. Stone had taken Charlie's money, and would deliver, because Charlie was the friend of Mr Furniss. He began to realize that the friendship of Mr Furniss was a protective shield to him.
He dressed and packed his rucksack.
He came out of his room quickly. He walked on the corridor carpet on the balls of his feet, and he went quietly, and he could hear the scramble of movement behind the door across the corridor, and he heard the static and the squeal of a radio hurriedly activated. He ran down the fire stairs.
In the lobby he went briskly to the swing doors. He drifted into the street.
Charlie turned, and he went past the line of taxis. At the end of the line was the green Sierra.
The call on the radio, fed into his earpiece, had battered Keeper awake.
Still in the back of the car. He was wrenching the sleep out of his eyes and shaking his head clear. Harlech telling him that Tango One had come out of his room. Corinthian telling him that Tango One had crossed the lobby.
He sat upright. He saw Tango One coming down the line of taxis, and behind Tango One was Corinthian spilling out through the swing doors, and then behind Corinthian was Token, fumbling to get her blouse into her jeans. Why the hell was Token tucking her blouse in? Why the hell did it ever get untucked when she was mounting night surveillance in a hotel room with Harlech? Harlech would be at the back, in the car park, getting the back-up on to the street. Of course Token had to sleep, like he'd slept, silly thought, and fast because the target was closing on his car, striding up past the taxis. It happened, it wasn't desirable, but it sometimes happened, that a target would walk right past the surveillance position, within spitting distance. The routine was to look away, get your face out of his field of vision. Make it look like there was nothing there out of the ordinary.
This was just about the closest that he had been to Tango One, just closer than the one-way window at Heathrow. He turned away. He had yesterday's newspaper in his hands, and his head was away from the pavement, and his body was low in the back seat. All standard procedure.
The car lurched.
The front of the car bucked down.
His eyes opened. Keeper's eyes coming half out of his head.
He gazed through the front windscreen at the back of Tango One.
Tango One sat on the bonnet of the green Sierra, and his feet swung close to the nearside front wheel and he was grinning as he looked down and through the windscreen. The fucking Tango was sitting on the bonnet of Keeper's car… no standard procedure for that one. Keeper looked into the amused face. Past Tango One he could see Token stop dead in her tracks, and Corinthian behind her.
"Excuse me." He wound down the rear window. "Would uou mind getting off my car."
He heard the voice that mimicked his accent. "Excuse me . excuse me, would you mind getting off my back."
All the training said that in a show-out then the surveillance team backed off, and fast. Keeper couldn't back off. He was half lying in the back of his car, and the target was comfortable on the bonnet.
Token was twenty yards from the car, and hesitating, and not knowing what was expected of her, and Harlech had stalled his engine and there was a frustrated horn hammering behind him, and Corinthian was cutting through the traffic to get to the far side of the road, which was right. A bitter, raw anger in Keeper.
"Would you mind getting off my car, please."
Again the mimicking of his voice, but this time shouted,
"April Five to April One, April Five to April One… for fuck's sake come in, please. What a funny little name, April Five."
"Get off."
"Get off my back."
The words were clear in Keeper's memory. There was room for discretion when there had not been an order. But there had been an order. "You do not, repeat not, pull in Tango One."
Bill had not said, "You do not, repeat not, put your fist in the target's grin." He climbed out of the car. He felt awkward, stiff, from sleeping in the back seat, and out with him came an empty soft drink can that clattered into the gutter beside him.
"Get the hell off my car, Eshraq."
"Didn't you hear me, April Five? Get off my back."
"I'm going to stay on your back until they close the door on you."
"I don't think so, April Five."
"I'll put you off my car.'
" T r y. "
"Don't think, Eshraq, that Furniss can protect you."
And Charlie Eshraq laughed at him, the flash of wide white teeth.
"Out of your depth, April Five. Heh, April Five, can you swim?"
And he was left. He stood beside the car, and he had to put his hand on the roof of the car to steady himself, and it was not the tiredness that had weakened his legs. He was trembling with rage.
They went through the routine. They watched the target in his seat throughout the journey, as if they hadn't shown out, as if he hadn't sat on the bonnet of the Case Officer's car, as if they knew what they were doing, as if it hadn't been the biggest foul-up any of them could remember.
No one actually asked Keeper what had been said at the green Sierra saloon, because none of them dared. The April team went back to London and half a dozen rows in front of them Charlie Eshraq slept.
Keeper went forward, matching the motion of the train.
He caught at the seat heads to balance himself.
His hand brushed the ear of Charlie Eshraq when he went past that seat, and he saw the annoyance curl on the man's face. Didn't give a damn. He was whistling, cheerful.
He went to the buffet. Twelve cans of Newcastle Brown, four whisky minatures, eight packets of crisps, eight packets of roasted peanuts.