No damn way that he was going to try… His name is Charlie Eshraq… No damn way at all.
The door opened.
Henry stood aside, made room.
The man was sturdy. The hair on his head was close cut, barely tolerating a parting. He wore a suit that was perhaps slightly too small and which therefore highlighted the muscle growth of the shoulders. His face was clean shaven bar the stub brush moustache.
Mattie couldn't help himself. "Good God, Major, this is a surprise. Grand to see you… "
"I hear we've a little problem, Mr Furniss," the man said.
The moonlight was silver on the snow peak of Ararat. When he tilted his head, dropped his gaze, then he could see the outline shadow of the Transit. The heavy gates of the hotel's yard were padlocked for the night. The lorry and its driver were long gone, they would be in Erzerum tonight, he'd heard that said when he had watched from the window and seen Eshraq pay the driver off, seen him pay him off with the money that had once belonged to a Greek. Christ, and that was simple, watching the house of a Greek, with Token in tow, and doing the things that came easy to him. Nothing came easy for Park in a shared hotel room in Dogubeyezit.
Eshraq was sitting behind him, on the bed that he had chosen.
Eshraq had taken the bed further from the door.
Eshraq ignored Park. He had laid out on the bed a series of large scale maps of northern Iran.
Eshraq hadn't spoken for more than an hour, and Park had stood by the window for all of that time, and stared over the unmoving, unchanging vista that ran towards the distant summit of Ararat.
"Get up."
The voice rattled in Mattie's ears. There was no place of safety.
"Get up, Mr Furniss."
But there had never been a place of safety. No safety here, no safety in the cellar of the villa in Tabriz. They merged.
There was the carpet of the lounge, and the tiled floor of the cellar. There were the pictures on the wall of the lounge, and there was the hook on the wall of the cellar. There were the armchairs with the faded floral covers, and there was the iron bed frame with the straps and the stinking blanket. There was the rasp of the Major's voice, and there was the hushed clip of the investigator's voice.
The hands reached down for him.
"I said, Mr Furniss, to get up."
The hands were at the collar of Mattie's jacket, and grasping at the shoulders of his shirt, and the jacket was too loose and did not make a good fit and was climbing up his arms and over the back of his head, and the shirt was too tight and could not be fastened at the collar and was ripping. He didn't help. He lay as lead weight.
He was pulled upright, but when the grip weakened, because his jacket was coming off him and the shirt was too torn to hold, then Mattie collapsed back on to the carpet.
He was lifted again, and the Major was panting, just as they had panted in the cellar. He was lifted to his feet, and he was held, and he was shaken, as if he were a rug. He was thrown backwards. His arms were flailing and found nothing to catch, and he cracked down on to the carpet, and the back of his head hammered the floor. He gazed up. Henry stood in front of the fireplace, looking away, as if he wanted no part of this.
Mattie no longer knew how long it had been since the Major had first slapped his face. Out of the blue. A question, a deflecting answer, and the slap homing on to his cheek. The smarting at his eyes, the reddening of his cheek. But the slap across the face had been only the start.
He had been slapped, he had been kicked, he had been punched. It was not vicious, the pain was not inflicted on him for the sake of it. The pain was a humiliation and a progression.
They did not want to inflict pain on him, they only wanted him to talk. The blows were harder, the kicks fiercer. They wanted to do it with the minimum… The bastards.
He lay on the carpet.
Mattie let his head roll to the side.
Oh, yes, Mattie had learned from the cellar in Tabriz. Kids' play this, after the cellar and the hook on the wall and the electrical flex and the unloaded weapon. He looked at Henry, and Henry had his hand over his face. Mattie let his head sag.
He lay still.
He heard Carter's voice, the whinny of apprehension.
"They said that he wasn't to be abused."
"He's only faking. Do you want an answer or do you not want an answer?"
"For Christ's sake, it's Mattie Furniss… I want the answer, of course I want the answer, but I'll be minced if he's hurt."
"So, what's at stake, Mr Carter?"
"A mission – God, what a mess – the life of an agent is at stake."
He was splayed out on the carpet, and he was trying to control his breathing, as a man would breathe when he was unconscious, slow and steady. The blow came between his legs. He had no warning of the kick. He cried out, and he heaved his knees into his stomach, and he rolled on the carpet, and his hands were over his groin. His eyes were squeezed shut, watering.
"Good God, Major… " The tremor in Carter's voice.
"He was faking, told you." And the Major had dropped down beside Mattie. Mattie felt his head lifted. He opened his eyes. He saw the Major's face a few inches from his own.
His name is Charlie Eshraq.
"Mr Furniss, don't be a silly chap. What did you tell them?"
The merging of the face of the Major and the face of the investigator. Christ, they must think he was pretty piss poor.
They were the same face, they were the same voice. Mattie Furniss did not talk, Mattie Furniss was Desk Head (Iran).
And he had the second chance. He had lost the first chance, talked, cracked, broken. But he had the second chance. The pain was through his stomach, and the retching was writhing in his throat. He had the second chance.
"My name is Owens. I am an academic. A scholar of the Urartian civilization."
And he was sliding, slipping, and the blackness was closing around him.
Charlie lay on his bed. The light was off. He was close to the window and the moon silver filtered the cotton curtains. He knew that Park was awake. Park's breathing told him that he was still awake. He was packed, he was ready. He was going at the dawn. At the foot of the bed, beside the soap box, his rucksack was filled, and in the yard outside the Transit was loaded with drums of electrical flex for industrial use, and under the drums were three wooden packing crates. He was going in the morning, and Park hadn't spoken since the light in the hotel room had been turned off. There was the bleat of animals in the night air, the call of the goats and the cry of the sheep, there was once the wail of a jandarma siren, there was the drone of the hotel's generator, there was the whirring flight of a mosquito. He was Charlie Eshraq. He was 22 years old. He was the man with the mission and with the target. He was not afraid of death, not his own and not the death of his enemies… And why couldn't the bastard talk to him? Why in hell's name not? In the moon darkness, in the hotel room, he wanted to talk. If he had been with the dossers under the arches of Charing Cross station then he would have had someone to talk to. He was going back inside. He knew how to fire the weapon, and he knew the faces of his targets, and he knew the routes that he would use, and he was going back inside alone, and he wanted to talk.
"David, I want to talk."
"I want to sleep."
"David, is that why your wife went?"
"Why?"
"Because you have no love."
"I have no love for heroin traffickers."
"The heroin was for money, the money was for weapons, the weapons were for the killing of evil people."