'I talked with Washington. Washington say we abort.'
The AC (SO) said, 'Not next week, not next month. We'll send our own man.'
The commander (S06) said, 'The operation will be terminated immediately. For verification, you understand.'
The detective superintendent said, 'We'd like to be certain there's a degree of urgency.
So we know you haven't welshed.'
He was introduced to Harry Compton, who hadn't spoken, who had the thick file. He said that since it was a DEA operation into which there was now British input, gagged on 'intrusion', he would send his administrative officer, Dwight Smythe, to accompany Compton, gagged on 'hold his hand'.
The AC (SO) said, 'Very satisfactory, good co-operation.'
The commander (S06) asked, 'Not too early for a drop of the hard stuff, eh, Ray, and you, Mr Smythe? Ice, water?'
'Are you into this story, Mr Compton? Scotch, yes, stiff.'
'I am.'
'You've evaluated Charlotte Parsons, this innocent?'
He had intended to sneer, never could do it well, was a poor hand at sarcasm.
'Yes, I have. Your people chose well. I'd rate her as brilliant. Stubborn, tough. That's why I fear for her safety. What I've heard and learned, she is the type who will cling in there. And, sir, when you have a very strong personality placed in such position as she is, I would also fear for the safety of those around her.'
'Would you now? A hell of a shame she's coming home, don't you think, gentlemen? A shame we all needed to interfere…'
Chapter Fifteen
Around him were the smells. He was blindfolded. He could see nothing, not even strips of faint light at the bottom of the cloth over his eyes, nor at the top. The cloth had been wound tight round his head at least three times, and on top of the cloth was a broad, sticky tape. He did not know how many hours, how many days and nights, he had been there.
The smells cloyed at Benny's nose, they hung in his nostrils. They were the smells of animals and of his own body. The smells were of the excreta and the urine and the filthy hair coats of the animals, and of the shit in his trousers, and the piss that was raw-warm on his legs, and the sweat at his armpits and his groin that came from the fear.
His arms had been wrenched behind him when they had dragged him from the vehicle and brought him to the byre. Any movement that he tried to make carried fierce pain because his arms had been looped round a post of coarse wood and his wrists had been lashed tight, and if he tried to move, the sockets of his shoulders seemed about to break. He did not know how many hours he had been there, but he believed that when he next heard men's voices they would have come to kill him. He did not want to hear them come, hear a car reach the barn, hear the voices, because then they would have come to kill him. But, in his fear, Benny strained for the slightest sound. There were the heavy, clumsy movements of the animals in the byre, jostling each other, and there was the grunting of their breathing, and there was the heavy chewing as they ate. Sometimes they touched him, great creatures that seemed in the blackness of his imagination to tower over him, but it was always with gentleness. Sometimes they nuzzled at his face, hot breath, and sometimes they licked the hands that were lashed tight behind the post, slobbering tongues. Because he waited for the car to come, and the voices, he heard every movement of the animals around him. He did not know how many hours it was since the muscles of his stomach had broken and he had messed in his trousers, but the slime was now cold. It was more recently that the piss had burst from his bladder, and his thighs were still wet. It was because of the girl.
The animals heard the car before Benny did. The animals bellowed, great voices booming in the byre. He heard the car. It was because of the girl, and he hated the girl for what she had made him do. The car pulled to a stop, and he heard the tyres on loose stones. He would, if it had not been for the girl, in the afternoon of tomorrow or yesterday – he had lost track of time – have driven after school to Corleone and collected the photocopier and driven it back to San Giuseppe Jato, and would have known that he was involved and caring and playing a part, but the girl had destroyed him. The girl had made him tell the story of his father, and his father had not carried a photocopier back from Corleone to San Giuseppe Jato, his father had fought them, and the girl had made him tell his father's story. He heard a padlock unfastened. It had been the fault of the girl. The hysteria rose in him and he tried to push himself further back against the post.
It was his father who had the blame. He heard the door scrape open. He heard a coughed spit and the smack of a hand on the body of an animal and the sounds of the stampede of the feet of the beasts as if a way was cleared to him. Benny wanted to shout, to plead with them, tell them that it was the fault of the girl, that the blame was with his father.
He had no voice.
His hands were pulled back from the post and the pain riveted in his shoulders. He felt at his wrist the sharp nick of a knife blade, then the twine that had bound him to the post was loosened. He was pulled upright. They laughed. Three separate shouts of laughter, growled and shrill and quiet, and he stood and they would have seen the stain on the front of his trousers and the damp weight in the seat of his trousers. He was led, stumbling, over the fodder floor of the byre.
There was sun on his face, on his cheeks, below the blindfold. He heard birdsong.
His feet caught on the stones. Without warning, the hair of his head was caught and his skull was pushed down, but his scalp caught against a metal edge. He was forced low into the trunk of a vehicle, and there was the slam of the top closing on him. He was crushed, foetal, the way he had lain as a child in his parents' bed, between his mother and his father. The vehicle bumped away and his body was pierced by what he thought was a jack, but it might have been a heavy wrench-spanner. They were taking him away to kill him. The petrol stank in his nose, and the fumes of the exhaust. They would not hear him when he shouted that it was the fault of the girl, that his father should be blamed. He hated the girl. He rejected his father. He was so frightened. He could go into the drum of acid, he could go into the concrete, he could go into the dark depths of the gully where the crows did not feed and where Placido Rizzotto had been thrown. No one knew where to search for him. He had not told his mother that he was going to Prizzi, nor his friends in Palermo, nor the man who owned the photocopier in San Giuseppe Jato, nor the women who wrote the newsletter in Corleone. The vehicle was on tarmacadam and speeding. He wept, and the tears clogged his eyes beneath the cloth blindfold. On his side, squirming in the trunk of the car, choking on the fumes, he screamed for their mercy, but he could not be heard. He wondered if they all shouted for mercy before they went into the drum of acid or the concrete or the gully, if they all rejected their fathers and their girls. The vehicle stopped sharply, and the piss was running warm on his thighs again.
The air was on his face. There were the sounds of other cars and of a motorcycle speeding past, and a dog barked, and radios played.