by Len Deighton
‘Are we following the plane?’ I asked.
‘To Algeria? So that Hart and the Bekuvs can line up with all those black-power refugees, hijackers and hopheads from California and thumb their goddamned noses at us as the Aeroflot connection disappears into the sunset.’
‘It was just a thought.’
‘What’s on your mind?’
I said, ‘Suppose that what makes the Bekuvs important hasn’t happened yet.’
‘And it is going to happen. Is that what you mean?’
‘If you were Bekuv, taking up our offer to let you defect, would you put a little insurance into the safe deposit?’
‘Electronic secrets, you mean? Maser equipment?’
‘Who knows what.’
‘So where’s the safe deposit?’ said Mann.
‘Somewhere south of In-Salah. Somewhere in the Sahara desert, for instance? Somewhere you couldn’t find unless Bekuv himself was along to help you.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Mann. He picked up a phone and dialled a three-digit number.
‘You think I’m right?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Mann, ‘but I can’t take a chance that you might be.’ Into the phone he said, ‘I’m going to need that airplane after all. In fact you’d better get me a ship that can get to Algiers a whole lot faster than that Ilyushin.’
A man came into the room. He had a federal marshal’s buzzer tucked into his top pocket and a Smith and Wesson Heavy-Duty .44 sitting under his arm, in the sort of Cuban-hitch shoulder-holster that security men wear when they are not feeling shy. He gave a military salute and said, ‘Miss Bancroft wants to see you, Major.’
‘Show her in,’ said Mann.
‘Whatever you say, sir,’ said the federal marshal, and withdrew.
Mann gave me the sort of smile you give a Jehovah’s Witness before telling them to go away. I realized that he had Red Bancroft’s report of my visit to the house. He said, ‘Mrs Bekuv wants Miss Bancroft to go along with her.’ He turned and saw through the frosted glass panel that someone was waiting outside the door. ‘Come in, honey,’ he called.
Red Bancroft wore a mustard-coloured jersey-knit dress, with a federal marshal’s badge over the heart.
Mann said, ‘We were just talking about it.’
‘Gerry Hart is probably taking that plane to Moscow,’ I said. I looked at her. ‘Do you know what might happen to you in Moscow?’
Mann said, ‘Are you sure Mrs Bekuv doesn’t know you are in the CIA?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Red Bancroft.
‘That’s like walking into a police station to ask the time just after you stole a million dollars,’ I said. ‘Not thinking so is not enough. And besides, what use would you be to us – you have no communications link, no network, not even a contact. You’ve no field training and you don’t speak Russian – do you?’
She shook her head.
I said, ‘You could get the greatest breakthrough in the history of espionage, and how are you going to tell us?’
‘I’d find a way,’ she said. ‘I’ve had field experience.’
‘Look,’ I said as kindly and as softly as I could manage. ‘Moscow isn’t Montreal, and the KGB are not a freaky group of Marxist drop-outs. They won’t give you a map of the city, and stamp welcome into your passport, just because Mrs Bekuv is crazy about you … and that will be just for starters.’
‘Now, take it easy,’ said Mann.
Red Bancroft was angry. Her cheeks were flushed, and she bit into her lip to hold back a torrent of protests. Mann said, ‘Well, it’s my decision and I figure it’s worth the risk.’ Red Bancroft brightened. Mann said, ‘What you tell Mrs Bekuv about your connection with the CIA is entirely up to you. It’s a delicate situation and I don’t want to be a back-seat driver. But – and here’s a big but, honey – if I tell you to get off that plane in Algiers, or any other place Hart might be taking it, I want you to move fast. And I don’t want any arguments – you got it?’
‘You can count on that,’ she said.
‘Now you can get back to Mrs Bekuv,’ said Mann. ‘And if you’ve got any doubt about the way it’s shaping up, I want you out. Right?’
‘Right,’ she said. She picked up her handbag from the desk, and said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ To me she gave no more than a nod.
When she’d gone I said, ‘Whose idea was that?’
‘Hers,’ said Mann. ‘She’s Psychological Directorate; you know what they are like.’
‘She’s over-confident,’ I said. ‘We put in an attractive lesbian to seduce Mrs Bekuv away from her husband, and away from her KGB duties … but suppose in the course of the love affair, our girl falls in love. Suppose what we are seeing is Mrs Bekuv taking our girl back to Moscow as a big fat prize – and a way of getting herself and her husband off the hook.’
‘Well, don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind,’ said Mann. He moved his feet off the blotter and swivelled his chair to watch me as I went to the window and looked at the hard grey sky.
‘Don’t sacrifice the girl in order to prove that the Psychological Directorate are stupid.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Mann. He grabbed his nose and waggled it, as if trying to make it rattle. ‘She’s a damned good operative. If we ever get a woman running a division it will be Red Bancroft.’
‘Not if she goes to Moscow it won’t,’ I said.
Mann pressed the button on his phone. ‘Tell Miss Bancroft to take that goddamn marshal’s badge off before she goes along the corridor to talk with the Russians,’ he said into the phone. ‘I’m going to see Hart.’ He put the phone down. ‘We’re giving the Bekuvs to Hart now,’ he told me. ‘He’s not dumb enough to let us take him, without Greenwood getting it first – but you never know.’ Mann sighed.
They were drinking coffee in a freight office at the far end of the corridor. At first glance it was a cosy little scene until one took a closer look at Senator Greenwood. His high-notch hand-stitched Cheviot suit was crumpled, and the silk shirt was open at the front to reveal not only a gold medallion but also a loose collar of string that was attached to an M.3 submachine-gun in such a way that the muzzle was always under his chin and Gerry Hart’s finger on the trigger.
Greenwood’s face was tight, and his tan had faded. As we came into the room he turned to us and began his loud entreaties. ‘Get me out of here,’ he said. ‘I’ll guarantee the departure of the Algerian plane – my word of honour as a Senator – now just let’s act like reasonable human beings.’ Greenwood’s voice was hoarse as though he’d said the same sort of thing many times.
‘You’re riding with us,’ said Hart.
Greenwood turned his eyes to Mann. ‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ he said. ‘This is all your doing. It was your visit that caused all this.’
‘Is that so,’ said Mann politely, and it was his polite indifference that infuriated the Senator.
‘When I get out of here, I’ll come after you with …’
‘Shut your mouth, Senator,’ said Mann.
‘I won’t shut –’
Gerry Hart tugged on the string hard enough to strangle his words, and said, ‘Yeah, do as the man says, Senator.’
Hart was wearing a waterproof zipper jacket with an airline badge; he looked like a baggage handler.
‘You’re flying these people to Algiers, then?’ Mann asked Hart.
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Hart. The lack of animosity between the two men bewildered Greenwood, and frightened him, but he said nothing.
‘Well, you’d better know soon, if you’re taking the Algerian flight-crew,’ Mann said. ‘They haven’t got the kind of flying experience that will wing you into any place you stab on the map.’
‘Why would you worry about that, Major Mann?’
‘Because I don’t want that airplane blundering across the goddamned airlanes and scattering Ilyushin spare parts across the countryside, or my ass will be in a sling.’
‘Well, that will be a nice way
for me to go,’ said Gerry Hart. He smiled.
I looked out of the window. The underside of the cloud was flat and featureless, like a sheet of mirror reflecting the wet concrete of the runways. And it was cold, so that in places there was ice underfoot.
Mann had brought in a lot of local help. There were men on the roofs of both maintenance hangars, and more on the freight administration block and along the walkways. The men were in pairs: a sniper with a rifle, and a back-up man wth a radio phone. There was a large, flat, open space between us and the Ilyushin out there on the tarmac. We all knew that Hart would have to walk there – using motor transport would make him more vulnerable – and we were all hoping that he’d make a mistake.
There was a crackle from the radio phone and Mann said, ‘Tell the tower to stand by. And tell all units that the party is moving out to the plane.’ He collapsed the antenna and put the radio phone back on to the desk, but from it came a continuing crackle of procedure.
There was a look of relief on Greenwood’s face as the CIA man brought Professor Bekuv into the room. Red Bancroft came soon after with Mrs Bekuv. The two women linked arms. It is a common enough gesture in Russia, even between men walking down the street together, but there was no doubt that Professor Bekuv saw it in another light. He smiled at his wife; it was a sad smile.
The little office was crowded now. Both groups faced each other over the tops of the bull pens, where the freight office clerks usually worked. Each of these desktop boxes bore the graffiti of its owner: nudes, views, picture postcards, phone numbers, cartoon drawings and countless impressions of the airline’s rubber stamps. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and condensation clouded the windows. Hart unleashed his hostage so that he had free use of the machine-gun.
‘Away you go, mister,’ Mann told Hart. We stood at the door as they filed through. ‘Stay cool, Senator,’ Mann said to Greenwood. ‘Even the Russians will release a US Senator unharmed. They might even put Hart on the rack to show their good will.’
‘They’ll stage a press conference,’ said Greenwood. ‘They’ll put me on show. They’ll make me look a fool for having a Russian agent as my assistant.’ It was typical of a politician that he should look so far ahead, and typical too that he should be more concerned with how it would look to the voters, than with how his stupidity had endangered his country.
‘Can’t prevent you looking a fool, I’m afraid,’ said Mann. ‘That’s your department.’ He smiled at Greenwood.
As we stepped out of the door after them, the icy breeze cut through me like a rusty sabre. We kept a distance between us as we followed the party that straggled their way towards the plane.
The Algerian airliner was parked on the far side of the heat deflectors. This series of metal scoops, which formed a castellated steel wall, caught the hot gases from the jet engines and threw them, together with their ear-splitting noise, high into the air.
The refuelling had finished, and the servicing vehicles had all departed except for the mobile passenger steps. The flight-crew were aboard and carrying out the flight checks. Their voices could sometimes be heard over Mann’s personal radio.
It began when Greenwood ran. He must have decided to bolt for the protection of the deflector wall. But after he’d run only a few paces, he halted, and looked back in an agony of indecision. One of the snipers on the roof of a maintenance hangar, fired next. The bullet hit the apron, somewhere between Greenwood and the rest of them. If it was meant as a way of encouraging Greenwood to run for it, it proved a signal failure, for he stood frozen to the spot.
Hart must have thought the bullet came from either me or Mann. He swung round and fired the M.3 at us. We were about a hundred yards behind them. The M.3 had been modified for single shot, and the slugs went high, whining over our heads. Mann was half-way between me and the deflector wall. He went down on one knee, bringing out a pistol as he did so. The gun jerked but the sound of the shots was lost in the roar of the jets as the pilot opened the throttles of the airliner.
Mann got to his feet and started to run. He was an easy target, and it was inevitable that he should be shot. Hart was struggling with the bolt of the gun. He found the auto-switch and fired a short burst at Mann, who was running hell-for-leather across the icy concrete. Mann was hit. He fell, sliding on the ice and then going full length on to the hard ground. He rolled over a couple of times but he stood no chance of getting to the cover offered by the metal barrier.
By this time my gun was up and I fired, but my shots went high and I heard them hit the metal and sing away into the sky. Mrs Bekuv snatched at the M.3 in Gerry Hart’s hands, and swung round to shoot Senator Greenwood. At point-blank range, those big .45 bullets tear a hole in anything, but before she had time to pull the trigger Hart was standing in front of her, grabbing at the gun to get it back.
I ran. There was ice everywhere. I heard it crack under my toes like paper-thin glass, and more than once I slid and almost lost my balance. I threw myself down alongside Mann. ‘Are you hit?’ I asked him. He didn’t reply. His eyes were shut.
I ran a hand back along the side of his head and it came away covered in blood. I got one arm round him and dragged him towards the metal wall. The jet engine’s piercing scream modulated to a roar, and I heard the cough of a gun and felt chips of concrete hit my face and hands. Mann struggled and became conscious. ‘Leave me,’ he said. ‘Leave me or they’ll get both of us.’
I knelt down, and turned to see Hart and Mrs Bekuv struggling for possession of the grease gun. He had both hands on it and was getting it away from her. I was huffing and puffing from exertion, and to steady my gun I planted my fist upon Mann’s shoulder. I aimed and fired twice. Both bullets hit Gerry Hart. He flung his arms out, like a man trying to catch a ball that was too high for him, and his feet left the ground as the force of the bullets knocked him backwards full length.
Now I grabbed Mann and, half dragging him and half carrying him, I lugged him all the way to the big metal blades of the deflector and dumped him there. With both hands clamped round my pistol, I swung it round to where Mrs Bekuv was standing with the submachine-gun. But she had no eyes for me. With Hart sprawled on the ground with his eyes closed, she was able to bring the gun back to Senator Greenwood again. His eyes opened wide with terror and I saw his mouth gabbling a torrent of words that were swept away on the gases of the jet noise as the pilot brought all four engines up to full power.
Behind the noise of the jets, the cameo was mute, like some parody of a silent film. In the dim light of the overcast day, the submachine-gun made orange fire as it twisted in her hands. Greenwood cowered, holding up a slim hand in supplication, but he was torn in two by the stream of large-calibre bullets. Mrs Bekuv tightened her hold upon the gun to prevent it spraying upwards, and this tension contorted her face with a grimace of rage and hate that one would have expected only from a bad actor. Greenwood’s blood spurted high enough to spatter the underside of the jet plane’s wing tip. And then the Bekuvs and Red Bancroft were lost to view behind a confusion of blue uniforms as the flight-crew surrounded them.
‘Run, Red,’ I yelled, and half expected that she’d bring the Bekuvs back. But Professor Bekuv was pointing a gun at her. My words were lost on the wind, and anyway it was too late.
‘Don’t shoot,’ said Mann.
I looked down and he’d rolled over to get a view of what was happening. His trenchcoat was filthy and his hair matted with mud and with the blood that was running down the side of his face. ‘Hit one of the Algerian flight-crew, or even the goddamned airplane, and we’ll have an international incident on our hands.’
‘I thought we already had one,’ I said. But I lowered my gun, and watched as Mrs Bekuv pushed Red Bancroft and her husband up the steps and into the plane. The door clamped shut and the airliner vibrated against the wheel-brakes and the lights winked. Mann’s radio phone buzzed. I picked it up.
‘Tower to Major Mann,’ said the radio. ‘The captain requests that we remo
ve the passenger steps.’
Mann was groggy. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Remove the steps,’ I told them.
Mann saw the blood down the front of my shirt and realized that it was his own. He reached up to his head and touched the place where the bullet had nicked his skull. The pain of it made him suck his teeth very hard, but it was only when he turned far enough to see the airliner that he said, ‘Ouch!’
‘You saved me,’ said Mann. ‘And it was close – damned close.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Another rumble like that and I ask for a no-claims discount on my life insurance.’
‘Mark-up one favour,’ said Mann, and punched my arm in appreciation.
‘Hart tried to protect Greenwood,’ I said. ‘Did you see that?’
Mann gave a grim little smile. ‘Hart didn’t want to lose a good hostage,’ he said.
‘Perhaps,’ I said.
‘And our Miss Bancroft wasn’t working hard to jog anyone’s gun arm out there, was she?’ said Mann.
‘Perhaps she didn’t get much of a chance,’ I said.
‘And perhaps we’ve lost her to Madame Bekuv. Perhaps, instead of gaining a defector, we’ve lost an operative.’
I watched as the steps were driven away and the Ilyushin released its wheel-brakes on the port side and swung round to face the feeder channel. The rising heat of the jets turned the airport buildings into grey jelly, and sent us enough unburned hydro-carbons to make our eyes water. The jets fanned over the apron, to make the puddles shimmer, and to gently ruffle the clothing of the two dead men.
I switched Mann’s radio to the control frequency and heard the Algerian pilot say, ‘Tower – this is Alpha double eight requesting take-off clearance.’
The reply came promptly, ‘Roger Alpha double eight, cleared to runway two five, cleared for take-off. Wind two seven zero, at eight knots gusting fifteen …’ I switched it off, and we watched the Ilyushin trundle off to the far end of the runway.
Mann was bleeding badly. ‘We’d better get along to the doctor,’ I said.
‘You feeling sick?’ Mann inquired politely.
