Blackmail North

by Philip McCutchan

  “Nothing human.”

  Jamie nodded. The man who had driven the Rover the night before was in a corner doing something about a scratch breakfast. A kettle of water was coming to the boil on a camping-gas stove and there was a smell of bacon and eggs frying on a second stove: this was appetising. Shard said, “Tell me something.”

  “What?”

  “You spoke of being on Scotland’s side. Is this a Nationalist thing?”

  Jamie grinned. “Not precisely. That’s to say, it’s not official Nationalist policy.”

  “Meaning you’re a kind of Scots Provo?”

  “That could be said, aye.”

  “Bombs and all?”

  “If we have to, but it’ll not be like the IRA.”

  “Care to explain a little more fully?”

  Jamie caught the heavy man’s eye, then gave a slow nod. “Aye, I don’t see why not. It’s true we want the oil for Scotland … but that’s not the whole story. Have you heard of a man called Uthman, a Libyan?”

  “I may have done.”

  “You mean you have. He has a record.”

  “Go on.”

  Jamie grinned. “Okay. He’s a Libyan like I said. He’s working under cover for an Arab outfit, Voice of the Arab Nations. And he has Mr Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh.” He cocked a sardonic eye at Shard. “This you didn’t know, copper?”

  Shard didn’t answer. He said, “Tell me more. Where’s Uthman now — where’s Mackintosh?”

  Jamie closed up at that. The eyes went black. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? I’m not saying. Uthman’s ours.”

  “And you — your mob?”

  “I told you. We’re for Scotland. I’m no oil man, but I know its value as well as anyone.” Jamie paused. “And I, copper, have Mrs Mackintosh.”

  “This, I worked out for myself,” Shard said, watching the Scot narrowly. “What are you meaning to do with her, Jamie?”

  Jamie shrugged. “Hold her.”

  “A bargaining counter? I don’t see —”

  “Not quite a bargaining counter, no. In a sense, perhaps, but only in a sense. I prefer to call it a counter threat.” He grinned, and the grin was unpleasant. “I’ll be more precise: if Mackintosh gives any help to Uthman’s boys, then it’s his wife that suffers. So Mackintosh withstands all Uthman’s pressures on him. It’ll be nasty for him to be caught in such a cleft stick, but he’s said to be tough. And he loves his wife, Mr Shard. He loves her very much.”

  “And you’re a bastard,” Shard said flatly. “A stupid bastard at that.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a bunch of amateurs,” Shard pointed out, “and you’re taking on the Libyan Government, an OPEC country —”

  “Not the Libyan Government — I made that clear, I thought. Uthman’s lot — VAN. If we can make Mackintosh useless to Uthman, or rather Uthman’s bosses since he’s only a cowboy in the VAN set-up, half the battle’s won. Of course,” he added, “it still leaves the other half, which is not funny.”

  “What other half?”

  “What VAN means to do: use their mob-incitement tactics to get the oil taps turned off for Britain, then mount an air strike against the North Sea rigs and pipelines.” Jamie grinned. “I see that shakes you! It’s that big. And it can happen.”

  “Big’s the word,” Shard said, staring. “Too bloody big for you!”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, how come you know all this, for one thing?”

  Jamie shrugged. “It’ll not be secret much longer. My guess is, Whitehall’s been told already. As for how I know … I’ve been in Libya, Mr Shard. Recently. I’m not saying too much about that, I don’t work strictly within the law. But I get to hear things, right? You can bet your bottom dollar, laddie, what I say is genuine.”

  “All right, so it’s genuine. How do you tackle what you called the other half of the battle? Or have you, personally, the means to deflect an air strike?”

  Jamie gave his unpleasant grin again. “Funny, aren’t you. For the record, no I haven’t. But that, you see, is where you come in.”

  “I have a private air force?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed. But you’re a man who has the ear of the high-ups. They wouldn’t believe me, I’ve been known to be unreliable in the past. I believe I can convince you, and that you can convince the top brass. I’ve been doing my homework, Mr Shard. It was you I wanted, because I know what you’ve managed to pull off in the past. I’m going to give you some statistics and I’m going to show you some photographs in support. By the time I’ve done that, I’m going to be able to show you Mrs Mackintosh in the flesh. That’s why I had to have you up here. When you’ve sighted her, we’re leaving — for an unknown destination so far as you’re concerned. You’ll not come with us. When we’re safely away with a good start, and not before, you’ll be a free man. Just make dead sure that freedom lasts — and not just for you.”

  *

  Ballachulish and the road bridge across Loch Leven were all of fifteen miles from the point where the track from Glen Etive met the A82 through Glen Coe, and there were some five miles of track before that point was reached. In the next night’s darkness Shard started walking, his mind going back to all Jamie had shown him, making good his promise: the statistics, the aerial photography, had been most mightily impressing. So, in a very different way, had Fiona Mackintosh. Shard had read the courage in her face and in her bearing, her clear determination never to do the smallest thing that would harm her husband. She had not been allowed to speak to him: brought in by road along Glen Etive, in a van that had driven away again as soon as its delivery had been made, she was there, so far as he was concerned, for show purposes only, for proof positive that Jamie had her in his hands. Proof given, she had been removed to the helicopter under guard. Shard, free now, walked on. His release had been clever if dangerously primitive: before flying out, Scots Jamie had rigged up a cats’-cradle of ropes, a gallon petrol can filled with water that emptied slowly through a tiny hole, and the two camping-gas stoves, one of which was lit with a low-burning flame while the other was turned on, equally low, but unlit. It was simple in basis and surprisingly it worked, though it burned Shard’s wrists in the process: when almost all the water was drained a way, the petrol can descended on one of the ropes and knocked the lit stove against the unlit stove which was jammed right against the rope around Shard’s wrists. Shard, tied so he couldn’t move any part of his body, set his teeth and waited for the rope to char enough for him to wrench his wrists apart. After that, the rest had been easy. Jamie had had an eye to his decency when on the road, and had left him stark naked so his clothing wouldn’t catch: the clothes were neatly piled on the derelict mattress. Needless to say, the helicopter was well and truly gone with all hands some five hours before Shard’s release: he hadn’t been able to see the direction it took, nor to assess it by sound since the enclosing mountains acted as a built-in noise distorter …

  A lorry took pity on him at last and lifted him to Fort William. At the nick a doctor was sent for to dress his burned wrists and in the meantime he made contact with London by telephone. He avoided disturbing Hedge and indicated that he was flying south from Glasgow soonest possible.

  *

  Hedge arrived early in his office: Shard was already waiting, tired, hungry and with painful wrists still, in Hedge’s secretary’s office being fed with hot, strong coffee. He heard the Hedge arrival, and when the telephone burred on the secretary’s desk he took the call himself.

  “I’m in,” Hedge said stuffily. “Any word of Mr Shard yet?”

  “Yes,” Shard said. “He’s here.”

  “Send him —” Hedge broke off, his voice angry when he resumed: “Shard, is that you?”

  “Yes. All right, I’m coming in.” Shard grinned at Miss Merryweather, most recent of a long line of secretaries, women who couldn’t go on taking Hedge and retain any sanity. Hedge this morning, he found a few moments later, was very angry in
deed; Shard was an abomination in the sight of the Lord and so on. Where had Shard been?

  “In extremis for rather too long, Hedge. I’ve a lot to tell you, so please save the rockets for later.”

  He started on his story but was interrupted. “I know this, Shard! Damn it all, that’s why I had such a need of you the day before yesterday! The Under-Secretary … the Prime Minister … there’s been a threat, Shard!”

  “Being taken seriously?”

  “Up to a point.” Hedge had had a difficult time the night before last and all yesterday: Whitehall hadn’t been prepared to commit itself, but the Defence Ministry was sceptical. Bandits couldn’t really mount air strikes.

  “They’re not quite bandits,” Shard said. “They have an organisation, Voice of —”

  “The Arab Nations — yes, yes, yes!” Hedge thumped the desk. “I don’t know what you call them, but —”

  “Listen, Hedge. I have the score. I’ve seen the detailed photographic evidence, taken at some risk to life. I’ll summarise very briefly: aircraft, bombers and fighter escorts, I’d say five hundred if not more. All the world’s markings, but in process of being painted out. Bomb stores — bloody great arsenals, action photographs of stocks being trolleyed in from freighter aircraft with Russian markings. We already knew, didn’t we, through the usual channels, that Russia’s been supplying Libya with a big range of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, apart from T-62 tanks and heavy artillery … Libya’s Russian arms bill, and I speak from memory, has been around the £600 million mark over the last two to three years — right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And men,” Shard said. “In the photos — plenty of men, pilots, ground crew. It was convincing, Hedge. I’m convinced.”

  Hedge dabbed at his cheeks with a handkerchief. “This is really going to happen?”

  “This is really going to happen,” Shard confirmed. “Is intended to, anyway. This Jamie … his idea is to inhibit it in some way by keeping Mackintosh’s wife under threat of nastiness. So maybe he hopes Mackintosh can get it all called off somehow or other, but I don’t know.” He frowned. “What’s up, Hedge?”

  Hedge was clicking his tongue and looking restive. He snapped, “I thought I’d told you. They want Mackintosh. If we find him and hand him over —”

  “Hedge, I thought I’d told you: VAN already has Mackintosh.”

  “No, no, that’s not the case at all, Shard!” Hedge waved his arms in the air. “That phone call — they demanded his handing over! Don’t you understand English?”

  Shard blew out his breath. “You’re sure of this?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” Hedge bounced in his chair.

  “Then where does Uthman fit?”

  “Uthman?”

  Shard said, “He’s got Mackintosh. Something seems to be wrong somewhere, Hedge. If you’re right — and I’m sure I’m right — then Uthman isn’t one of the Voice of the Arab Nations mob. Yet Jamie said he was. And I’m dead sure Jamie was speaking the truth. He wants our help, he doesn’t want to see Scotland’s oil blown through the sea bottom. Why lie?”

  Hedge said disagreeably, “Don’t trust villains, my dear Shard. But if he is right, then I suppose there could be a double-cross?” Shard said, “It seems possible, doesn’t it? Uthman’s out for something on his own, double-crossing Voice of the Arab Nations?”

  Hedge nodded. “They’re all a shady lot.”

  “In which case Mackintosh is in his personal custody. And we could lose all the oil.”

  “Unless we get Mackintosh back.”

  Shard stared. “Say that again? No — don’t bother. Are you saying the Government would see Mackintosh handed over to these thugs, Hedge?”

  “I didn’t exactly say that and you know it —”

  “You seemed to suggest it.”

  “Well, with so much at stake it’s bound to come up for consideration, isn’t it? I mean to say —”

  “Hedge, up in Glen Etive, l came face to face with Fiona Mackintosh for the second time — for the second time without being able to do anything about it. Still with those three hard-faced bastards surrounding her, shoving her into the helicopter. She looked bloody sick and worried, Hedge, and God knows what Jamie means to do with her if her husband reaches Libya! Don’t you see?”

  Hedge said disparagingly, “I see difficulties, yes. A husband and wife juxtaposed, the fate of the one depending upon the opposite fate of the other. Oh yes, I see that. I also see something else: a senior policemen allowing his emotions to become involved. It really won’t do. Shard, it won’t do at all. In the meantime …” He took up his internal phone. “Miss Merryweather, what’s the word about the Head of Department? Ah — I see. Sydney, yes. Oh, dear.” Hedge sounded dispirited but resigned. “In that case you’d better get me the Cabinet Office. No — wait. The Under-secretary,” he added, happily finding a buffer of any sort better than none. He held the line: one didn’t presume to interpose mere typist-style secretaries between oneself and the majesty of Under-Secretaries of State. While Hedge spoke in reverent tones to Sir Egerton Mornay, Shard sat impatiently and thought his own thoughts: Jamie, he decided, must be something of a psychologist: on the face of it his own hijack into the wilds of Glen Etive had been a clumsy enough manoeuvre and it just might all have gone wrong for Jamie and his friends. But Shard had been impressed by his second sight of Fiona Mackintosh. She did not, in fact, give the impression of having been ill-treated, but she was — naturally — in despair about her husband and her mental state came across clearly enough for Shard. Maybe he was a bum copper, one who did let himself become emotionally involved as Hedge had suggested; maybe Jamie had done his homework well enough to know this too. Yet Shard would not wholly accept the tag of emotional involvement himself; his feelings he regarded as basic human decency and a desire to help. He found no good reason why a copper shouldn’t be human to that extent.

  Anyway: Fiona Mackintosh had had her due effect. Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh was her very life, and looked like being the lives of a good many other persons too. There was one thing for sure: somehow, any suggestion by the brass that he be used for hand-over had to be squashed flat.

  *

  Hedge had gone up alone in the first instance to see Sir Egerton Mornay; he came down looking pompously important and announced a conference. “In the Cabinet room at Number Ten,” he said. “You’ll be wanted.”

  “When?”

  “Just as soon as everyone can be collected together, Shard. I’d advise you to stand by.” Hedge gave Shard a shrewd look. “You’re tired, I realise that, but it can’t be helped.”

  “I could sleep for a week. I’ll go down to the section and stretch out till you ring.” Shard left Hedge to his anxious thoughts and went down in the lift. In the section he found neither John Linton nor Harry Kenwood, just a couple of his DCs. There was no hard news: Assistant Commissioner Hesseltine had reported a continuing blank from all road blocks: the various Chief Constables, not yet informed about the big threat, were getting restive over deployment of manpower and wanted to call off the watch on the roads. Shard decided to leave it for a while, see what happened, just in case, then maybe back down on it. The road blocks had been nicely by-passed by Jamie and wherever Mackintosh was, the chances were that he would stay put now. Shard got one of the DCs to set up the folding canvas camp bed that he kept for times such as this, and flaked out. When he was woken it was just over an hour later and his short interrupted sleep left him with a feeling like death, dry in the mouth, a headache and a pain in the guts that felt like indigestion or just too much digestive juice chasing too little food. Rubbing his eyes he said, “Hedge, I presume.”

  “Yes, sir. Conference in half an hour, and will you go up now.”

  *

  It was a full muster and included all the relevant non-Cabinet ministers as well, plus the functionary known as Sc. Ad. C. — Scientific Adviser to the Cabinet. Presiding, the Prime Minister was heavy-faced and
glum. He stared along the table with mournful eves, though his chin was as pugnacious as ever, almost Churchillian in fact, today. He was not the man to give in to threats but Shard guessed there were plenty present who would, and fast too. Hedge, when called upon by Sir Egerton Mornay who had accompanied the Foreign Office contingent, put the known facts concisely enough and left long faces to shake and ponder and raise doubts about the authenticity of the original anonymous caller.

  The Under-Secretary of State said, “Shard.”

  Shard got to his feet. “The man was genuine, sir.”

  “You’ve no doubts?”

  “None. Do you wish me to put the facts about Glen Etive, sir?”

  Sir Egerton nodded. “Please do.”

  Shard did. The faces grew longer, but there was a little more concentration in the air: a Minister of the Crown who had been filing his nails, stopped doing so. Someone from the Defence Ministry — Shard didn’t recognise him but it was not the Minister himself — said, “Well, Prime Minister?”

  The Prime Minister laughed. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘well’ at all.” He was watching faces all round the table, summing up, assessing — assessing what he must know already, in Shard’s view. He went on, “Do we sit down and wait for it — if this threat really does exist — or do we stop it before it starts? Ideas, ladies and gentlemen?”

  He knew all right: Shard saw it in his eyes, in the sardonic set of the mouth. He was himself a pugnacious man who had fought his own way to the summit, cleanly and decently but with determination and a knowledge that to get the first blow in was nine times out of ten the battle won: but the rest of this assembly were tenth timers. All this, the man at the head of the table knew; he talked to them, and talked well, persuading, cajoling. Without Cabinet assent he was powerless to act — not, of course, he explained, that he would act solely on current knowledge: there would be a reconnaissance, high-level aerial photography to confirm or not. The British Embassy in Tripoli would investigate, though it had to be admitted there had been nothing in their despatches to substantiate what Shard had said. To date, those reports had merely indicated the existence and broad aims of the Voice of the Arab Nations men. One of the tenth-timers pounced on this, sharply.