And then, finally, he blacked out.
The emergency team were ready. They’d been ready since the first warning that something was wrong on the space shuttle Argos. Now they started to jet, engulfing white foam over the stricken craft, snuffing out flames until the whole thing looked like a children’s toy in a bubble bath. The crew had come from the ground station to watch. There had been six men on board: five Americans and one Briton. Most of them were praying that the Americans, at least, would still be alive. They didn’t really give much thought to the only Briton, Major Michael Dreyfuss. These days, it was strictly a case of looking after number one.
The few small fires were quickly put out. Thankfully, the Argos had little fuel left in its tanks to burn. Nevertheless, the surface metal of the shuttle was too hot to touch, even with asbestos gloves. But they managed at last to wrench open the doors. Inside, they could smell smoke, singed rubber and something less pleasant still. They expected to find corpses, but the last thing anyone expected to find was five of them, one of which had its hands embedded in the neck of the single crew member left alive...
3
General Ben Esterhazy sat in the back of his chauffeur-driven limo and wondered why there was no bourbon left in the drinks cabinet. He hoped there’d be some at the airbase. Not that there was much left of the base. They were dismantling and moving, shipping the boys back to the States. Lousy damned country anyway. He’d spent a few years in Germany just after the war. People starving. A mother really would lie down and open her legs for a tin of beef and some powdered whatever.
The country didn’t seem to have changed that much. But now Europe had forgotten all about World War Two, had gotten eyes bigger than its belly. All the talk now was of Europe, a Europe that saw no place for the US forces lined up in a thin defensive wall against the East.
‘Well, fuck them.’
‘Sorry, General?’ Esterhazy’s aide, Lieutenant Jerry Bosio, sitting in front beside the driver, had turned his head to catch the words.
‘Never mind,’ growled Esterhazy. He picked up a bottle of Glenfiddich whisky and poured himself an inch. Esterhazy had a jutting, aggressive face ending in a nose like that of Punch. He’d put on weight since they’d given him a desk job, but not much weight. His tits didn’t sag the way some middle-aged men’s did, and he could wrestle marines half his age.
‘Where the hell’s the soda?’ he muttered. The streets of Bonn were in a mid-evening hiatus. Nobody seemed much bothered about the official car or its cargo — there had been so many such cars in Bonn of late — and this suited Esterhazy fine. The last thing he needed was either cheers or jeers. If they cheered, were they cheering because they were glad to see the back of the American forces? Or because they were glad of those forces and wanted them to stay? God alone knew. Ben Esterhazy didn’t. The talks had dragged today. The interpreters seemed to be in some kind of stupor, and the delegates likewise. It was winding down, the pull-out already being implemented. All they were really talking about now was the dotting of a few i’s. That had never been Esterhazy’s way.
But now his part in the comedy was over, and tonight he was flying back to the States. He relaxed, sipped his drink, rested his head on the seat-back. He was going home. The work was done. He’d put in an appearance for the sake of appearances, he’d signed this and that piece of paper. Now he could go back to the men in Washington and tell them it was done. Not that they really cared. If Europe wanted to go it alone, let them. That was democracy’s attitude. But if there were to be a war, the men in suits would be the first to take cover, and the first to order the troops straight back into the kill zone.
‘Well, fuck them.’
‘Sir?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Sir...’
Esterhazy realised that the aide’s hand had reached into an attaché case and come out with an envelope, towards which he was trying to attract the general’s attention.
‘What the hell is it?’ said Esterhazy, snatching at the paper.
‘Message came through for you, sir,’ said Bosio. ‘Sorry, I forgot to give it to you earlier.’
‘Idiot.’ Esterhazy tore open the envelope and unfolded the note inside.
SORRY YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT TO THE BURIAL.
For the first time that day, General Ben Esterhazy smiled.
4
Martin Hepton put down the telephone. At the third attempt, he had found out something concrete about Paul Vincent. He had found out that Paul was no longer in the hospital. He had been sent on to a rest home for a period of ‘recovery’, as the hospital doctor had termed it. Exhaustion, that was all it was. That was all.
Hepton walked along the corridor, paused outside the gym, then pushed open the door. It was a well-equipped gym. Healthy bodies meant healthy minds. Not that anyone ever used the gym. No one except Paul Vincent. Hepton went to the multi-gym, the so-called ‘torture machine’, and hoisted himself up on the arm-lift bar. He brought his chin up to touch the bar, then relaxed his arms until his toes touched the floor.
‘That’s one,’ said the voice behind him. It was Nick Christopher, smiling, letting the gym door swing shut behind him.
Hepton smiled and pulled himself off the floor again, straining this time, coming down heavily.
‘Two,’ counted Christopher.
‘Enough for today,’ said Hepton, feeling the blood pound in his chest.
‘Is this man out of condition? I ask myself.’
‘Okay, let’s see you do some.’
‘Stand aside, shrimp.’ Christopher pulled a crossword book out of his back trouser-pocket and handed it to Hepton, then gripped the bar and heaved himself aloft. He managed fifteen pulls, then rested, breathing hard.
‘I’m impressed,’ said Hepton.
‘If there’s one thing regular sex does for you,’ explained Christopher, taking the book back, ‘it gives you a strong pair of arms.’ They both laughed.
‘I wouldn’t know sex if it hit me in the face,’ Hepton said.
‘That’s your problem then,’ Christopher said. ‘You can’t tell the difference between sex and a slap in the face.’ He paused. ‘How are things with Jilly?’
‘What things? I haven’t heard from her since she went to London.’
‘Have you tried calling her?’
‘Only every day.’
‘So do you get the feeling it’s all over?’
‘Just a little.’
‘Sorry to hear that, Martin.’
Hepton shrugged. He gripped the bar again and managed two more hoists.
‘What about Paul?’ Nick Christopher asked.
‘What about him?’
‘Have you managed to find out anything?’
‘Apparently he’s gone off to some rest home.’
‘Jesus, it must be bad then. I thought those places were for the dying and the dead.’
Hepton tried a third hoist, failed, and dropped to the ground. ‘Better book me a room in one then,’ he said. ‘After you’ve bought me a drink.’
They sat down in the cafeteria, drinking cans of cola and eating crisps.
‘Is this supposed to be brain food?’ Christopher asked. Then: ‘What do you think of that shuttle, the Argos, crashing like that?’
‘I think our man was lucky to get out in one piece.’
It was front-page news, of course. Tomorrow it would be relegated, but for today, Major Mike Dreyfuss was famous, which was, Hepton supposed, what the bastard had always wanted. Hepton had two very good reasons for being jealous of Mike Dreyfuss. For one thing, the man had actually touched the skies, while all he, Hepton, could do was watch them.