The Edge of Madness

by Michael Dobbs

  When he reached the causeway he sensed, as much as saw, that it was under water. High tide. He swore, took off his shoes and socks, and stuck a tentative foot into the sea. It was surprisingly warm, always was up here. Gulf Stream. And only a few inches deep. He hitched up his trouser legs and plunged on. He’d have to hurry, the man had a ten-minute start. And the bloody midges were at him. He’d never understand those mad Gaelic buggers who wore kilts.

  At the point where the road forked, several hundred yards beyond the causeway, Harry stood still and listened, sharpening his ears to the sounds of the night; sheep, faint rodent rustles, a distant fox, the call of an owl, the complaint of a disturbed grouse, the high-pitched scream of a dying rabbit, the hush of breeze brushing across dry heather and the rumble of waves from the nearby shore. But no footsteps. Yet Harry knew one branch of the road staggered along the coastline to Sullapool while the other, so far as he could remember, led nowhere for a considerable distance through the hills. He chose the little fishing port.

  He climbed through the darkness, maintaining a steady pace. He’d gone a good couple of miles before, up ahead, he made out the silhouette of the brow of the hills set against the palest of moon-milk skies, and the notch that showed where the road cut through and dipped down towards Sullapool. He remembered the half-ruined shelter they had passed earlier in the day, and that was where he saw a momentary flicker of light. A match, followed by the glow of one–no, two–cigarettes. So a rendezvous. He was still several hundred yards away but the cigarettes stood out with the intensity of stars; they drew him on, and soon he began to detect the low rumble of voices that carried on the gentle night breeze. He was still too far away to make out what was being said when whatever business was being transacted came to its end; one cigarette was cast down to the roadway and ground out–thank heavens not tossed into the summer heather–while the remaining cigarette, still glowing, began dancing in his direction.

  In his bowels Harry knew that someone from the castle was ploughing a very untidy furrow and he was anxious to discover who, but equally he had no desire to be discovered himself, not until he had collected a few answers. So he retreated, intent on getting back to the castle before the other man, and before the midges sucked him dry.

  He was moving faster than the smoking stranger and reached the causeway well ahead. The tide had turned, no need to remove his shoes this time. The side door from the kitchen was still on the latch, just as he had left it. He stepped inside, knowing that this would be the way the other man must come, and concealed himself behind the large pantry.

  He didn’t have long to wait. A couple of minutes later he heard the scrunch of gravel on the pathway outside the door; the man must have got a move on these last few hundred yards, for Harry could have sworn he’d had a good five minutes on him. Now, in the darkness of the kitchen, Harry’s breathing came like the roar of bellows. He straightened his leg; the knee cracked with the sound of a rifle shot. Surely he would be discovered?

  Once again, as he had done repeatedly since he had started tailing the man, Harry debated with himself who it might be. D’Arby, perhaps, the man who had set up this unwholesome enterprise and was playing so many games? Or was it Washington, the arrogant oddball who played no one’s game but his own? Or Konev? No, it had to be D’Arby, he decided, for he was the only man on home turf, but in heaven’s name why?

  His mind still bubbled in confusion as the door opened on its well-oiled hinges. A figure stepped in, yet in the darkness Harry could see nothing but a vague shape. And it had stopped in the centre of the kitchen, casting around, searching for something. Harry, fearing he had been undone, was preparing to throw himself at the figure and at least gain the advantage of surprise when the man made a step forward. Harry felt him reach out. A second later the door of the refrigerator was tugged open, filling the kitchen with a pale glow.

  Harry struggled to restrain the gasp of surprise forcing its way past his lips. What he saw was the worst, most dangerous of all the outcomes he had envisaged. Standing exposed in the thin light cast by the refrigerator, searching for a beer, was the unmistakable form of Sergei Illich Shunin.

  Dawn, Saturday. Castle Lorne.

  Harry tried to get back to sleep after his excursion through the night, but his mind wouldn’t let him rest. So, as he so often did, he decided to block out the mental agitation with a little physical exercise. He was in the habit of taking his running shoes with him when he travelled, and not long after first light he laced them up and slipped out of the castle. He was surprised to discover, at the end of the causeway, undertaking some serious stretching exercises and swatting at the early midges, the gangling form of Marcus Washington.

  ‘You couldn’t sleep either?’ Harry said in greeting.

  ‘On the contrary, I slept excellently. Five and a half hours. Never more.’

  ‘You care for a little company on your run?’ Harry offered, struggling against his instincts to be cordial.

  Washington’s face carried an expression that suggested Harry had just asked for a substantial loan, but in the circumstances even the haughty American would find it churlish to refuse. ‘Mrs MacDougall tells me there’s a circuit along the cliffs. Does that suit you?’

  ‘I’ll try to keep up.’

  And so they set off. The American was clearly a practised runner, his muscles were already warm, and his lanky gait coped comfortably with the succession of steep rises and gullies they encountered. And, as always, the American had a point to make: he was better than Harry.

  ‘You like Scotland?’ Harry ventured, as they settled into their strides beneath the early morning sun.

  ‘I’ve always avoided it, until now.’

  ‘Avoided?’

  ‘Plantation people. Slave traders. I can’t help wondering if it was from here, along these stretches of water, that they set sail.’

  It was a comment deliberately designed to make Harry feel unsettled. ‘That’s entirely possible,’ he acknowledged, ‘although the Scots have never had it easy themselves. During the clearances the crofters in these parts starved in their thousands, and that was long after the slave trade had been abolished.’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Washington replied, keeping his breathing regular, his sentences short, and his strides long. Harry was attempting to stay abreast of him, to share the trail along with the argument, but the black American seemed intent on pushing ahead with both, stretching to get to any corner or crest first, instinctively wanting to leave Harry in his wake. It was developing into a race.

  ‘So, you really think hitting the Chinese is necessary?’ Harry asked, deciding they should change the subject. He was puffing a little, yawning, still only half awake.

  ‘You doubt it?’

  ‘I’m questioning it.’

  ‘The Chinese are the imperialists of this century, just as the Europeans were of the last. They are racist, exploitative and exclusionary, most of all towards the black man.’

  ‘You feel that personally?’

  ‘How could I not? The colour of my skin is part of who I am. It’s the same with the Chinese, of course, except their skin and my skin speak different languages.’ Just like you and me, he seemed to be saying. ‘You find me arrogant?’

  ‘Since you ask, I understand why people might come to that conclusion.’

  ‘For a black American it’s a defence mechanism, the result of generations of abuse. But for the Chinese, their arrogance is a religion. They regard themselves not just as equal but as fundamentally superior. It’s the same sense of racial superiority that crammed millions into slave ships and sent millions more to the gas chambers–apart from the fact that their arrogance is here, it’s now. That’s why we have to deal with it.’

  If arrogance is a defence mechanism, Harry thought, this guy’s an entire factory. A startled rabbit charged across their path, scuttling for cover in the gorse.

  ‘The Chinese constitute the greatest threat of our age, Mr Jones. And right now, we have a
n opportunity to change the way our world is spinning. We’ve got to grab it. Grab it–or go down. That’s the choice.’

  A man in a hurry, was Mr Washington, Harry told himself. One hell of a hurry. They were approaching a gulley that crossed their path. The American, who was a good few inches taller than Harry, simply stretched his legs and crossed it with ease, but Harry found it more of a challenge. He was on less favourable ground and was forced to check his stride. He fell behind, and had to put on a spurt in order to catch up with the other man, who showed no inclination to slow down and wait.

  ‘As you say, Mr Washington, it’s the way the whole world spins, and the whole world will be sticking their fingers into this one,’ he puffed when at last he had caught up to the American’s shoulder. ‘And if we lift a finger against the Chinese, let alone a huge fist, they’re going to say it’s a throwback to the old days. All that Anglo imperial stuff.’

  ‘White man’s mischief? But that’s why I’m here, can’t you see?’

  The man’s self-belief came through in every panted breath. He was pushing hard, trying to leave Harry and his antiquated world far behind. Harry dug in to stay in touch. It had become a contest not just of physical ability but of race, of skin, of outlook, two men who were dragging their birthrights behind them as they raced across the cliff top. They were neck and neck when they passed the ruins of the old chapel on the cliff top and Castle Lorne came back into sight. Their pace quickened. Ahead lay a narrow cutting through which the track passed, only wide enough for one man at a time; whoever reached it first would have a decisive advantage on the run down to the causeway. Harry edged ahead. He could sense, could smell the American’s alarm, the horse eyes, the tightening of the stride. Harry was stretching out, barely a few feet from the narrowest point, when he felt his heel being clipped. He stumbled and was sent flying into the heather. He thought he heard a cry of delight as Washington passed him. Furious, Harry picked himself up and threw himself in pursuit, but the American’s long legs had the advantage on the slope down to the causeway. He reached it a step ahead.

  Washington was gasping, bent double, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. ‘You must have hit a rabbit hole,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Harry replied. ‘I’ll remember to avoid it on the second lap.’

  Slowly Washington raised himself from his crouch, his eyes wide with confusion. ‘What?’

  ‘That could only have been around four miles. I normally do eight. You up for it?’

  ‘You’re…’ Washington was about to suggest that the other man was indulging in a joke, but as he straightened himself, still panting, he noticed that Harry’s breathing was alarmingly regular.

  ‘Come on,’ Harry urged, ‘it’ll make room for breakfast.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have work to do. Otherwise…’

  ‘Sure. I’ll see you later, then.’ And Harry took to his heels once more. Sometimes, men like Washington just had to be put in their place.

  Early Saturday morning. Sizewell, on the Suffolk coast.

  The golf-ball dome of Sizewell’s second reactor could be seen for many miles along the long stretch of Suffolk’s heritage coast, near the small fishing village that bore the same name. It was Britain’s newest nuclear power station, facing out across the North Sea, with its riches of fishing grounds and oilrigs and its control of the navigation routes that gave access to London and many of the other major ports of northern Europe. As was appropriate with a nuclear reactor in such an extraordinarily sensitive area, Sizewell B was fitted with the latest security systems. Safety, as the power company proclaimed, not afraid to grasp the cliché, was their number-one priority.

  So when the reactor desk engineer, sitting before his array of screens, keyboards and buttons in the control room, noticed that the pressure inside the reactor core was slowly creeping up, he decided to investigate. Nothing would be left to chance. Irrespective of the corporate clichés, he took pride in his work, and his family lived only a bicycle ride from the plant. He wanted to know what was going on.

  But the engineer could find nothing wrong, apart from the gentle tickle of pressure. None of the other safety systems was registering any fault or problem, it was a bit of a mystery. So he picked up his blue phone and instructed other engineers to take a look around the plant itself, checking the hardware, the nuts, bolts, rivets and turbines from which Sizewell was constructed, to make sure everything was operating as it should be. He wasn’t going to accept the word of the instruments in the control room, it was always better to find out what was going down on the other side of the door. But it seemed everything was in order.

  Except, that is, for the slow drift upwards of the pressure in the reactor core.

  Perplexed, but conscientious, he discussed it with his colleagues in the control room. No one had an explanation, so they decided to call in the duty physicist. He’d be able to figure out what was going on. He lived, as regulations required, no more than an hour away, but there was a problem. On a hot August holiday weekend near the coast, with tourists hauling their trailers and caravans and clogging every approach road, that hour was going to stretch well beyond its sixty minutes.

  Sizewell B didn’t have sixty minutes. Its core was already melting, because five thousand miles away, in Shanjing, the morning shift had assembled and that final button had been pushed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Saturday morning. Castle Lorne.

  Breakfast. Even condemned men are allowed it. The meal was served next to the kitchen in an informal room that the family used for recreation. When Harry arrived, D’Arby had already set anchor to a wicker chair drawn up in front of the television in a far corner. A single slice of toast was on a plate beside him, but he had done no more than nibble, his attentions fixed to the screen. It was tuned to the news. Shunin sat apart, at a low table by the windows with a view over the rocks. He was playing chess, by himself, clearly not wishing to be disturbed. And at a sideboard laden with everything required for a self-service breakfast, Blythe Edwards was hovering over a selection of cereal, porridge, grilled bacon and kippers.

  ‘Sleep well?’ Harry enquired.

  ‘A little.’ She stretched out to squeeze his hand.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing in particular. Just for caring.’ She couldn’t manage a smile, but there was steel behind her eyes. ‘We’ve got a busy day, I guess, deciding what to do with the world. So why do I find it so difficult to make up my mind what to eat for breakfast?’

  ‘Take the kippers. They’ll be from Loch Fyne, not far from here. The best in the world.’

  ‘And there’s another man telling me what to do.’ Ouch, she was on edge, and rushed to apologize. ‘I’m sorry, Harry, I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘I still suggest the kippers.’ He smiled.

  Almost without their noticing, Shunin had joined them at the sideboard. He picked up a fork and began prodding the contents of each dish in turn, a Cossack picking over the battlefield. Harry looked closely at him. The eyes were rimmed with a reddish crust of sleeplessness, and there were midge bites, angry, incriminating, on his cheek and the back of his hand.

  ‘Did you enjoy your game of chess, Mr President?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Yes. I won. I always win, Mr Jones,’ he replied, before wandering off with a laden plate.

  ‘That man plays with himself too much,’ Harry muttered.

  Then, as if on cue, Marcus Washington walked in. He offered a brief greeting to Blythe but seemed reluctant to accept Harry’s persistent suggestion that he join them; instead he wandered off, muttering something about macrobiotic yogurt.

  Suddenly their breakfast plans were interrupted by a low moan from the far end of the room. D’Arby was scrabbling for the remote control, switching up the volume, waving for their attention. It was the latest CNN report from Beijing. More troops on the streets. A clampdown on the Internet. Many foreign websites blocked. An eerie silence from the government qu
arter in Zhongnanhai.

  It was as though China was drawing itself in, like a tiger waiting to pounce. Blythe pushed her plate away, her food untouched. D’Arby sat silently shaking his head. From his seat by the window, Shunin knocked over his white king and stomped out of the room.

  They had agreed to resume their business at ten, but Shunin thrashed the gong some minutes early, loud enough to shake even the ancient mortar. As they began to assemble around the dining table once more, Lavrenti stumbled down to join them, bleary eyed.

  ‘Sorry. Overslept,’ he muttered, his eyes dancing in apology around the room.

  ‘Shut up and sit down,’ Shunin snapped, in a humourless manner that seemed to have the same affect on Lavrenti as a cold shower. As he was bidden, he found his place and sat silently.

  ‘Mr Washington, I believe you had the floor,’ Shunin observed, laying claim to command of the bridge.

  ‘My point is this,’ Washington began, ‘the Chinese threat is like a weed. Hack off its head and it just sprouts up again all over the place, ever stronger. So there’s no point in taking out Mao without taking out their cyber-war facilities, too. We have to disarm them, otherwise we may as well be pulling the tail of a hungry bear.’ He sat back and began a distracted examination of the pictures hanging on the wall.

  ‘And that’s it?’ D’Arby muttered.

  ‘What more do you need, Prime Minister?’ Washington replied, his voice buttered in condescension.

  D’Arby spread his hands, clutching for something that was clearly eluding him. ‘A little elaboration, perhaps. Some deeper justification for what it is I think you’re proposing.’

  ‘What part of it don’t you understand? If you could explain that to me, I’ll be happy to elaborate. Draw a few diagrams. Beginning with the bear’s backside.’

  Blythe interrupted the spat. ‘Marcus, let’s take the animosity out of this, shall we?’