The Edge of Madness

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘He’s a good man, Wes Lake. Wouldn’t do anything silly.’

  ‘Perhaps he had no choice. He’s a Briton, right now that’s enough to get him into a tubful of trouble.’ D’Arby began ransacking his pockets in search of a cigarette. ‘Harry, they won’t talk to us, they’ve probably taken our ambassador. I wasn’t expecting this, not so bloody quickly.’

  ‘What do you propose to do?’

  ‘A century ago I’d have sent a gunboat up the Yangtze to pound the crap out of them!’ he spat in exasperation. He was completely out of cigarettes.

  ‘And now?

  ‘We drive, Harry, we drive.’

  Midday, Friday. On the road to Shanjing.

  On the far side of the world, another car was hurtling in search of the future. Fu Zhang had been travelling several hours, his destination Shanjing, which lay two hundred miles from the capital on the old Silk Road south. As they drove they had passed several troop convoys heading in the opposite direction. Fu wrinkled his nose, he didn’t trust soldiers.

  Power grows out of the barrel of a gun, Mao Zedong had once said, and the People’s Liberation Army had been clinging to that concept ever since, pouring their energies and enormous budgets into bits of rusting metal. They didn’t want to accept that it was all changing. Now there was another Mao in charge, and another proposition. Power grows out of fear. It was the new way. Some of the old generals had grumbled and tugged their whiskers, but most of them would rediscover their loyalty when they realized they’d become the defence force of the most powerful nation on earth! Why, by next week the muttonheads would be rejoicing and claiming it was all their idea. And if they didn’t–well, Fu had a list, and a solution. There was no need for worry, Mao Yanming was the most far-sighted leader their country had ever had, and he, Fu Zhang, was his most loyal lieutenant. What could go wrong?

  The road to Shanjing was new, some of it still under construction, yet at the roadside there was so much that remained of the old China. Women working knee-deep in the fields alongside the oxen. Toothless old men sitting forlorn and useless on the doorstep of some half-finished hovel. Ribby mongrels wandering the street. A child no more than eight years of age seated in the sun, perched on an upturned beer crate, his eyes beseeching, trying to dismember an old computer for salvage, his grandmother beside him, her emaciated hand holding out tiger balm and other potions for sale. In every corner the wind whipped up dust from building sites and over-tilled fields, swirling it around in vicious spirals of grime.

  But it was all about to change, everything was about to change. Mao Yanming would see to that, with a little help from his friend Fu.

  Fu had taken tea with Mao that morning, and they had embraced, and talked, and plotted but now all that tea was getting to him. He’d tried to hold out until his arrival in Shanjing but the road was long and his bladder ageing, until eventually he could take it no more and with unseemly haste he ordered the driver to stop so that he could relieve himself behind a roadside bush. He jumped out, hurried a little distance to find cover, and immediately felt better. As his bladder began to relax, he found his worries floating away.

  As he was pissing another long line of military vehicles crawled past, filled with young conscripts with their bright eyes and straight backs. The young men of China. Mao’s men. Fu’s men! With his free hand he waved them encouragement.

  When they saw Fu Zhang, they pointed. They began to cry out, in the manner of disrespectful oafs, ridiculing him, mocking his manhood, throwing back his advances and taunting him with laughter. Fu boiled with indignation but they jeeered all the more. They left him standing beside the road to Shanjing, a middle-aged man with his penis in his hand, and with murder on his mind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Early Friday morning. Western Scotland.

  It was one of the most rugged and beautiful parts of Britain. Argyll was in western Scotland, squeezed between the craggy Highlands and the sea, where crude elemental forces had torn the coastline into ragged ribbons of bare granite. Here, where the rock gave way to the ocean, nature had formed a natural amphitheatre and in the middle of that mystical spot stood the old keep tower of Castle Lorne.

  Lorne was the ancestral home of a branch of the MacDougall clan. At one time the castle had protected a community that spread around it, but of that settlement there was no longer any trace, apart from the ruins of an old thick-walled chapel on the cliff top above the bay. Yet there was no denying the strength of Castle Lorne’s setting, standing on a rocky islet that protruded into the firth and that was reached by a narrow causeway that stretched out from a shallow sand-shingle beach. Judging by the seaweed and damp lichen clinging to its sides, this causeway kept its head above the waterline for only part of the day. It was less a castle than a fortified tower, yet it was formidable and slightly forbidding, its square walls stout and old, too old for anyone any longer to be sure, overlooking a timeless coastline that was emerging from its blanket of morning mist. It was deemed to be a million miles from anywhere, which, Harry assumed, was the point of being here.

  ‘You remember Alan MacDougall?’ D’Arby enquired as they approached along a road that wriggled down from the surrounding hills.

  Harry shook his head. After more than eight hours of driving through the night he wasn’t up to memories, let alone conversation.

  ‘Member of Parliament–before your time. Fine man. Lost his seat in one of those passing political squalls that cross this part of the world. Retired here to restore his ancestral home. Put the roof back together, filled in all the cannonball holes, managed to get power and phone lines put in. Should never have been allowed, of course, but his cousin was the chairman of the telephone company and there was another MacDougall high up in electrics, so he not only got his power line but even got it buried. Nothing to disturb the view.’

  ‘The good old days,’ Harry remarked, tired, sarcastic.

  ‘They weren’t so bad. I’d have them back at the drop of a hat right now.’

  ‘Is he our host?’

  ‘Alan? No. He died. Broke his neck in a climbing accident a few years ago. His widow, Flora, kept the place on–should have opened it up for tourism or sold it to some ridiculous Arab oil man, but wanted to spend her days here with Alan’s memory.’

  ‘You knew him well?’

  ‘Saved my skin once.’ He snorted as though allowing a bad memory to escape. ‘You aren’t the only one to have a lively social life, Harry, and there was a young woman who became an important part of mine–too important. I was a rising star, and she was just the sort to drag it back down. Alan was a Whip, heard rumours, took me to one side and told me I was making a bloody fool of myself. He was the only one of my friends who had the guts to tell me the truth. So I got rid of her, and when she started dribbling little titbits to the newspapers, he gave me an alibi. Nothing was ever printed, my marriage survived, and I clambered all the way up the greasy pole to…to this.’ He turned to look Harry in the eye. ‘You see, no secrets. I trust you, Harry.’

  They had reached the end of the short causeway and Harry pulled onto a small parking area of crushed rock. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of some sort of ancient royal crest above a heavy doorway; it wasn’t like any crest he could remember, but this was Scotland, almost foreign parts. As he switched off the engine, his forehead came to rest on the steering wheel. ‘Next time, Mark, we take the train.’

  ‘Thanks, I won’t forget this, Harry.’ D’Arby stretched to grasp Harry’s arm in appreciation. ‘But there’s not a railway station for miles. That’s the beauty of the place, don’t you see?’

  ‘I can’t even see my bloody feet, Mark.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ve got a little while to rest before the others get here. Sleep, if you can. You may need it.’

  Moments later an elderly round-faced woman was at the door to greet them. Flora MacDougall was so much part of this place, her hair silver like the mist, her cheeks burnished from the regular rubbing of the sea breeze, a
nd a soft, rolling accent that mimicked the waves of the firth. She cast one look at the dark pits around Harry’s eyes and with remarkable energy for a woman of her age and girth led a charge up the creaking wooden stairs until she stopped on the second floor and held open the door to a bedroom. He stumbled after her, didn’t bother unpacking, simply threw himself upon an old wooden bed. Seconds later he had drifted away.

  While he slept, the rest of them arrived in their own stages of sleeplessness. The American President hadn’t slept properly since she had learned of her mother’s death and her husband’s infidelity, while her National Security Advisor, Marcus Washington, was an ascetic type who had little time for the joys of dreams, and Lavrenti Konev hadn’t been able to relax since he’d seen his father-in-law gun down two innocent men. Only Shunin himself seemed relatively rested. The cots on the Bear had been rudimentary and offered no protection from the pounding of the huge turbo-prop engines, and the seat in the commanding officer’s vintage two-seater Triumph Spitfire had been about as comfortable as a dentist’s chair, yet somehow he had managed to snatch a little rest. Evidently his conscience wasn’t bothering him. It never did.

  Late Friday morning. Castle Lorne.

  Harry stumbled from a deep sleep to discover a distant banging in his ears. He stretched in order to re-establish contact with the various parts of his body, and discovered his bed awash with sunlight that was pouring through the window. The bedroom was a low-ceilinged affair, although the floors he had passed on his climb to his room had been considerably more magisterial; he seemed to remember that there were five floors in all. The room was practical, with floral wallpaper and a small cast-iron fireplace that was still in working order. Beside it stood a young boy, around the age of nine, with an outpouring of red hair that resembled a volcano, and a pale face that carried an earnest expression.

  ‘Hello. I’m Nipper,’ he declared, ‘and that was the gong for lunch. My grandmother says the others are gathering and would you be caring to join them, please.’ There was something awkward about his voice, but Harry couldn’t place it. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force more of the sunshine into his brain, and opened them again to see the boy turn for the door.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Harry called after him, but the child took no notice and didn’t tarry, bouncing through the door and leaving Harry to stumble from the bed and wonder whether he should shave and keep them waiting longer or simply appear in scruff order.

  He joined them, shaved and alert, ten minutes later. He barely had a moment to take in the subdued magnificence of the hall, which was clearly the central room of the castle with a huge hearth and soaring chimney-breast. Every inch of wall space bustled with pieces of recovered Gaelic heritage–broadswords, dirks, pistolettis and sections of old armour sprouted like thistles across fields of distinctive red MacDougall tartan, and there were heavy oil paintings and rich wall hangings, too, yet for the moment Harry’s attentions were demanded elsewhere.

  ‘A little late, I’m afraid,’ Harry said.

  ‘No apologies necessary,’ D’Arby replied, waving away the expression of regret. ‘I explained that I had taken outrageous advantage of you and that you needed a little beauty sleep.’

  ‘Mr Jones, I thought you were standing me up again, second time this trip!’ a voice called out. Blythe Edwards frowned and crossed her arms. ‘First you don’t accept the invitation to the state banquet at the palace, and now this.’

  Harry smiled, seeing through her mock irritation. ‘I’d lost my penguin suit,’ he replied, inventing an excuse. He didn’t care to explain that he’d come to the conclusion that an evening spent with Gabbi without any rules had been a far more enticing prospect than standing around all evening in a stiff collar.

  ‘In which case I forgive you–as always,’ she said, laughing gently as she advanced upon him with outstretched arms. The most powerful individual on earth stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.

  ‘How’s William-Henry?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Sends his warmest. Training hard to be the best lawyer they ever kicked through Harvard. Says that jug of beer still has your name on it, next time you’re through.’

  ‘I’ll get back in training. He may have a fine brain but he’s also got hollow legs.’ He smiled. ‘And Arnie?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve ever met Sergei Illich Shunin, have you,’ she responded, steering both Harry and the conversation a little too obviously towards fresh pastures. Shunin was even shorter than Blythe and three times her width, an aspect which no amount of tailoring could hide.

  ‘Mr President, it’s my pleasure,’ Harry offered.

  Shunin gave a nod, but didn’t extend his hand. His eyes offered little warmth, suggesting a measure of unease at the show of familiarity between the others, as though this somehow left him outnumbered.

  ‘And his son-in-law, Lavrenti Ivanovich Konev,’ D’Arby intervened, taking up his role as chief organizer once more.

  More nods, and this time a handshake, a small sign of independence from the younger man.

  ‘Any relation to the marshal?’ Harry enquired. A Konev had been one of the finest if most brutal of Soviet military leaders during the Second World War.

  ‘My great-grandfather,’ the other man replied in very presentable English, more fluent than that of his father-in-law. He’d spent time at an international lycée in Switzerland, while Shunin had nothing more than the stiff, formal English he’d picked up while training in the officer corps of the KGB. The old Konev, the great Russian hero, had been no more than a peasant with little education, but Harry noticed that the great-grandson wore a French-cut shirt and a Rolex on his wrist.

  ‘You appear to know your Russian military history, Mr Jones,’ Shunin interjected.

  Too damned well, from Harry’s point of view. He’d not only studied them but fought against them, clandestinely, in Afghanistan. Not actually shot any of them, the Soviets were already turning tail and heading out of the country by then, but he’d been sent in to advise some of the mujahedin how to do the job for themselves and lob a few Milan missiles at the retreating Soviet tanks. Yet in the extraordinary confusion that had become Afghanistan, Harry had found himself rescuing a Russian officer from the clutches of mountain tribesmen, and risking his life to do it; he wasn’t the kind who was able to watch a man being slowly sawn to pieces with kitchen knives, no matter what he might have done. War makes for strange bedfellows, he thought, but no stranger than diplomacy. He was still pinching himself that these people were gathered together in one room and he was there as…As what? He wasn’t yet entirely sure.

  ‘And Blythe’s National Security Advisor, Marcus Washington,’ D’Arby said, leading him further on.

  ‘Mr Washington,’ Harry greeted, wondering if the other man would suggest a more familiar form of greeting, but the other simply shook hands in a distracted fashion. He was a remarkable-looking fellow, tall and gangly, with a perpetual frown like a bloodhound on a bad morning, and a cranium that was completely shaven and seemingly polished, with a profusion of lumps and bumps around it that suggested powerful internal forces were attempting to break through. An intellectual’s head and a phrenologist’s paradise–and, what was more, an American dream, for Washington was a deep shade of black, the great-grandson of slaves, which served to make his appearance all the more dramatic. His eyes were bright, prominent, constantly questioning, always on the move, and his overall appearance matched his reputation as a man laden with intellect and light on passing emotion. His furrowed brow lent him an air of permanent sceptimism.

  ‘Ah, but I’ve left the most important until last,’ D’Arby said, leading Harry towards the woman he remembered from the early hours. ‘Our hostess, Mrs Flora MacDougall. You met, but briefly.’

  The woman smiled and offered a hand that was strong and clearly used to work. ‘And this wee man’s my grandson,’ she said, indicating the child. ‘Here for his summer holiday.’ She turned and faced the boy. ‘Greet the gentleman properly, now.�
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  The child smiled and extended his own small hand.

  ‘And your name?’ Harry enquired, but the boy merely smiled.

  ‘His christening name was Iain, but he doesnae bother much with his name,’ his grandmother responded. ‘My late husband explained to him that he would always be a MacDougall, man and nipper. That was the morning he died. Ever since, the child has taken it upon himself to be known simply as Nipper.’

  ‘His parents?’ Harry enquired.

  ‘My son and his wife are away for a few days in Edinburgh.’ She wrinkled her nose as if she didn’t entirely approve of the place. ‘It’s a matter of convenience, given these rather exceptional circumstances. There’s just me and Nipper, we’ll be taking care of you all,’ she continued. ‘But we don’t do things à la carte here, just as it comes. So you’ll know where to bring your complaints.’

  ‘I doubt we’ll have much cause,’ Harry replied, eyeing the table that was piled with a buffet of cold meats and salad. The table itself was made of rough-hewn oak planks four inches thick, stained with age and use, perhaps timbers from an old wreck. The place reeked of family tradition.

  ‘Then Nipper and I will be leaving you all to your business,’ she said, turning, making a final check of the arrangements before she departed.

  ‘Shall we start?’ D’Arby suggested, indicating that Blythe should take the middle place on one side and Shunin the other. Before he had been given any indication of where he might sit, Washington claimed the place on his President’s right. Somehow Harry picked up that it was the seat D’Arby had allocated to himself, but the Prime Minister voiced no objection, sitting instead on Blythe’s other side, but to Harry it seemed an inauspicious beginning. He found himself a place, along with Konev, on either side of the Russian leader.

  Dishes of cold meats and smoked fish were passed around, along with a mountainous salad. Washington looked at the fare mournfully, picking over it like a startled crane before passing over every scrap of meat and settling for some elements of the salad. D’Arby, trying to reassert his authority, made a point of acting as host, extolling the virtues of each dish, but Shunin seemed to treat him as little more than a waiter. The Russian began eating without waiting for anyone else, forking the food into his mouth with wolf-like tenacity.