He'd thought that the tail was good in Istanbul. He'd thought the tail was better in Ankara. He didn't doubt that the tail had been in place from the time they had walked out of the terminal of the Esenboga airport, but he hadn't picked it up until Eshraq had gone park walking with the young man who called himself Terence. In the park, the Genclik Park, with the lakes and the artificial islands and the cafes, he had kept himself back and he had watched Eshraq and his contact from more than a quarter of a mile. Three men again, but different from those who had done the footslog in Istanbul.
He could have rung Bill Parrish, and he didn't. He could have called up the ACIO, and he didn't. They had passed him on from the Lane. They would be into the priority of Harlech's case, and sifting everything else that had taken back seat to the Eshraq investigation. They wouldn't have wanted to have known that there was a tail on Eshraq.
He acknowledged that the tails were in place. He allowed them to stay in place.
A man who wore a new black leather jacket, and who had a trimmed goat's beard, he saw him in the Genclik Park and he saw him at the airport when he and Eshraq boarded for Van.
There was no communication between them. There was no bond in formation. Eshraq was moving to the frontier and Park was his shadow. They hardly spoke. When they spoke it was commonplace and factual. They spoke about where Eshraq was going, how long he would be there, where he would be going afterwards. That didn't bother Park, and it seemed to him that it didn't concern Eshraq. No need for it to have concerned either of them. They were the subjects of a deal.
And if Eshraq had a tail on him, had had a tail ever since he had walked clear of the barber's shop in the Aksaray district of Istanbul then that was his worry, not Park's.
49841/TL/7 6 87.
To: TURKDESK, CENTURY CC IRANDESK, DDG.
From: ANKARA STATION
MESSAGE: CE Vanwards, in company of Park. Transhipment from UK complete, no hitch, and now in transit Vanwards. Have fully briefed up, beefed up, CE on communications procedures, and agreed that most epistles will be hand carried out by courier. CE in good humour, good morale.
Eye stressed need for detail in material rather than frequency.
My opinion, eye think they have major handful tripping over their frontier. Eye didn't meet Park. CE ignores him, says he is harmless. In answer your query – TURKDESK CENTURY 6 6
87 – CE says Park is no problem, but frightened of being away from home without him Mum, exclaimer… CE will cross 9
6 87, using Dogubeyezit checkpoint. CE has necessary papers to drive commercial vehicle inside, will be carrying hardware via commercial van, and supply of electrical flex as per your suggestion. Upsummer: No problems, looks good, more follows.
MESSAGE ENDS.
"You off then, Henry? That'll be a break."
"I'll be in London, Mattie, reporting back."
"I won't be sorry, Henry, if they slap your wrist."
"Probably will, won't be for the first time… What I was saying, it's not quite a matter of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone. There's still one horse in the stable. Eshraq is in the stable, not for much longer, but he's there right now.
Are you quite sure there is nothing you wish to add to what you have already told me?"
"Quite sure."
"When I get back, if there's still enough light, we might get the mallets out again, very soothing is croquet. Do you think we should have a nightcap, one for the stairs?… "
Boghammer Bill was a blip, lime-shaded, on the emerald wash of the screen.
The operator, the egghead of the radar room crew, had identified the blip, and called over the 2 i/c to watch its progress.
The crew of the Type 22 guided missile frigate were on Defence Watch. They were dripping sweat, those in the radar room, those on the bridge, those manning the 20mm rapid fire close engagement guns. The middle of the night, and the temperature close to 95 Fahrenheit, and all crew members swaddled in the white gown action suits and hooded.
The technician knew that it was Boghammer Bill from the speed of the blip on the screen. It was a Swedish built patrol boat and the fastest craft in the Gulf.
The Type 22 would not hang about, not in the waters where it was now cruising, maintaining radio silence and blacked out, just outside the Iranian twelve mile limit, for any more minutes than were essential. The 2 i/c thought the world was getting dangerously daft. There was a bright moon, high in a clear sky, and there was no wind. It was a ridiculous night to be stooging just off the limit without identification or prior warning. They were east of the Iranian island of Larak and west of the small fishing harbour of Minab, far too bloody many sea miles from their regular station, on escort duty in the Straits of Hormuz. The 2 i/c knew the mission, but he didn't know his skipper's Rules of Engagement orders if they came under Iranian fire. They had been watching the dhow on the screen for more than half an hour, and they could picture the fishing craft chugging on a small engine away from Minab. The 2 i/c knew it was the dhow they were to rendezvous with because its course was directly towards the longitude/ latitude reference that he had been given, and there were no other crawling blips on the screen. It was now seven minutes since the patrol boat had speared on to the screen, going fast out of Bandar Abbas, powered by engines that could attain in excess of 50 knots. Staccato reports from the 2 i/c to the bridge, gestures that were self evident from the technician to the 2 i/c. The dhow was on course for the rendezvous, and Boghammer Bill was on course to intercept the dhow some four miles short of the rendezvous. No hiding place, not on a clear night.
When he was home, on leave, when he was in Plymouth, the 2 i/c's idea of relaxation was to get himself up to one of the Devon water supply reservoirs and to put a small roach on to a damn great treble hook and let it flutter underneath a big bobbing float until it attracted the attention of a pike. Of course, the 2 i/c never saw the pike actually close on the tethered roach, couldn't see under the murk of the reservoir surface, but he imagined it. He told himself that the pike didn't stalk its dinner, it charged it. He thought of Boghammer Bill as the pike, he thought that some poor creature on the dhow was the roach bait. He watched the blips closing, he watched the racing speed of the blip that was Boghammer Bill. The blips closed, merged.
He had waited in his office at the Ministry building.
He had waited for the final message to be telexed to the Communications rooms in the basement.
In place were the arrest at sea of the official who worked in the Harbourmaster's office at Bandar Abbas. In place were three teams of men from the Revolutionary Centre for Volunteers for Martyrdom, settled into a Guards Corps barracks at Maku that was close to the main overland crossing point from Turkey. In place were three men who had tracked Eshraq from the airfield at Van to Dogubeyezit.
There was one aspect of the situation that still puzzled the investigator as he cleared his desk, shovelled the maps and the briefing notes into his case. Furniss had named Charlie Eshraq, and yet Eshraq was in Dogubeyezit. Eshraq was in the Ararat Hotel in Dogubeyezit. Why was he not warned off?
At this time, he did not concern himself with the man who had accompanied Eshraq from Istanbul to Ankara to Van to Dogubeyezit. Time enough for that, but later.
His car waited. At the military airfield, an aircraft waited.
He was a coming man. When he had Eshraq at the border he would be a man who had arrived… If Eshraq came to the border. Very confusing.
He had started early, certainly before Mattie Furniss was on the move. He had gone to his flat, one bedroom and a large living room and all the usuals, which was plenty for him, fixed rent, too, and they couldn't get him out, to collect his post.