Special Deception

by Special Deception (retail) (epub)

  ‘No. No… Actually I came in the hope of finding a cup of Bootneck tea. Since I’m now getting a few hours’ break from the excessively boring task you’ve lured us into.

  ‘But really you’ve come to gripe about it, right?’

  ‘I can tell you, today’s turning out to be a bloody marathon… No, not exactly gripe… Any tea going?’

  Wee Willie Deakin told him, ‘Wetting it now, sir.’

  ‘How very hospitable.’ Haig, who was a flight lieutenant, sat down and swung his leg on to a spare chair. He was a large, shaggy-headed man of about Ben’s own age; they’d met yesterday, when he’d come for a description of the gulet. Both he and Doug McPhaill of 8 Kilo 6 had reproductions of the brochure illustration now, of course. As had other pilots from this base, and also the Saratoga’s, by this time. Haig said, ‘Not to gripe, Benjamin. But since you mention it, some of my crew are beginning to wonder whether your mystery ship’s ever going to show up. All that rush to get into the air yesterday, and now — well, to coin a phrase, fuck-all… Thought I might sound you out, so I could keep my chaps in touch, to some extent.’

  He’d put it nicely and he was a likeable character, but the question still irritated.

  ‘It’s been a trying day for us too, Russell.’

  The flyer blinked at him. ‘I honestly don’t think we’ve fucked up. It’s not impossible, nobody’s perfect, etc., but our track record’s quite impressive. Impresses me, anyway. One might even say “astonishes”. And we’ve had near-ideal conditions. I don’t believe it could’ve got past me — or past Doug either. Sorry to be annoying, and all that.’ He took his mug of tea from Deakin. ‘Thanks… I mean, frankly, Ben, facing facts?’

  ‘Facts.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll give you some facts. Like — well, the gulet started out from Kyrenia — fact — between midnight Sunday and sunrise Monday — fact — couldn’t therefore have been farther east than Cape Andreas when you began your surveillance — that’s fact three — and its destination was — is — a beach on a fairly limited section of Syrian Coast. That’s also a fact — supplied by Intelligence and accepted by my CO, by the Chief of the Defence Staff, and I’d guess by the Chief of the Air Staff as well. To whom you might care to refer if you or anyone else wants to know how urgent, vital, etc. it is to locate these sods and stop em.’

  He shook his head. ‘Ought to be putting this on tape.’

  ‘Why not.’ Haig nodded. ‘Then you could play it to Doug when he gets down. That won’t be for a while yet, incidentally, he’s out there on a six-hour stint this time. My kite’s off at 1700 — another guy driving, thank the Lord… Any minute now, in fact.’ He checked the time. ‘As I said, it’s a marathon… But look, Ben, I believe you, I accept your logic and the importance of the task. Well, obvious, isn’t it, you wouldn’t have been rushed out here otherwise… But I still ask, where is the bloody thing?’

  ‘If you want guesses…’ Ben reached for the chart, and pointed at the southern bulge of the Turkish mainland. ‘Could be thereabouts. Supposition by courtesy of Colour Sergeant Kelso.’ He pointed at him. ‘That little fellow.’

  ‘How do, Sergeant.’

  Sticks bowed.

  Ben said, ‘Could well be hiding up there. That bay, for instance. But there’d be a lot of ins and outs a chart this scale couldn’t show; and suppose they wouldn’t let you trespass in Turkish airspace, would they… Any case, the guy from Special Branch said there’re shoals of gulets in Turkish mainland harbours, so we wouldn’t know one from any other… Incidentally, how’s your radar likely to perform on that kind of target?’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect any problems. We’d get a distinctive profile, from 5000 feet, thereabouts.’

  ‘You wouldn’t need to go right down, then, which might scare them off?’

  ‘Right, we wouldn’t. That’s sort of what it’s all about.’

  ‘If it’s so good, why can’t they make the prototype AEW Nimrod arrangement work?’

  ‘Something else entirely, Ben. It’s not the aircraft that doesn’t work, it’s the gear. We’re Maritime Surveillance, “MR”, that early-warning stuff’s infinitely more complex… But tell me — why would your gulet want to hang around on the Turkish coast?’

  ‘Picking up more people, maybe? Four’s a small group, for whatever they’re up to, we’d never go in such small force… Could be a matter of timing their arrival in Syria — if they were feeling too exposed at Kyrenia? But that’s another thing we don’t know, whether they’ve any suspicion we’re after them. Could be they’re circling westbound, so they’d enter your surveillance area from the southwest. Could be anywhere — which is why I arranged to have that picture faxed to the Saratoga, off-chance one of their planes might spot it. Incidentally, one answer might’ve been to borrow an E-2 from the Cousins, to cover the outfield, but—’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had a prayer. That’s why my Nimrod’s taking to the air right at this moment — filling a window in the E-2s’ tracking schedule. Soviet cruiser and two destroyers, no less.’

  ‘But — Christ’s sake… Look, what about our job?

  ‘They asked could we help, and it happens we can just fit it in. Just… three-hundred-mile transit each way and two patrolling. When my plane gets back it’s me back in the saddle — quick fuelling and off again, before old Doug falls out of the sky… But—’ Haig rapped the edge of the table for luck — ‘maybe he’ll have found your target for you by then.’

  *

  In London, where no news was looking more and more like bad news, attempts were being made in various localities to limit potential damage.

  In a public telephone box outside Gloucester Road tube station, for instance, a young man who looked as if he might have been an insurance salesman had dialled a number and was listening to it ringing, ringing…

  Finally satisfied, he hung up, recovered his 10-pence coin, left the kiosk, edged out between a car and a delivery van and slid into the front passenger seat of a BMW that was double-parked with its engine running and a girl with orange hair behind its wheel.

  ‘OK, Jill, she’s not home yet.’

  ‘The flat, then.’ She had the car moving. ‘And then we’re up, up, and away, right?’

  ‘If we don’t get lucky here. Or if one of the others hasn’t meanwhile. I’ll phone in before we go.’

  ‘Nice day in the sticks is what I call lucky. How about the Mermaid, that’s really nice.’

  ‘See, won’t we.’

  Two minutes later she double-parked again, for long enough to let him out. Residential road, but it was full of cars, both sides.

  ‘I’ll circle the block, OK?’ She added before he’d shut the door, ‘Don’t try too hard…’

  The hallway was deserted. No porter; they didn’t even have entry-phones. After a glance at the lift, which was practically antique, he loped up the stairs.

  Second floor, flat eleven… He rang its bell and stood waiting nursing his briefcase. Ready to trot out his sales-spiel. Just in case: it would be rotten luck if she’d arrived home in the few minutes since he’d telephoned, but you had to allow for the unexpected.

  But she was not back yet, evidently, from her long weekend in Paris with the daughter and son-in-law. She was due back this evening, hubby had told a colleague… The third key fitted. He went in, pushed the door shut with an elbow while he was pulling on some gloves and simultaneously taking in the ambience…

  Depressed middle-class. Depressing, anyway. The carpet was worn, the green wallpaper might have looked quite smart a hell of a long time ago. Sporting prints: might be good ones, might not be. Sad, really: if you’d had time to stop and think about it. The vague question in that thought, as he moved out of the hall, was which came first, the chicken or the egg?

  What he was looking for was a desk.

  There was one in the sitting room, but it was small, rather delicate, and a moment’s inspection confirmed that it was the wife’s. Personal correspondence, trivia, no business or trade stuff. S
ilver-framed snapshots of children, and two china dalmatians. So much for the salon.

  Bedroom. Frilly, with some fairly hideous Victoriana on the walls. The masculine corner — heavy chest of drawers serving as a dressing-table — had no paperwork on or in it. Group photograph of a cricket team and some family snapshots under glass. The top drawers were full of socks, mostly grey or brown, and the shirts in the next one down were nearly all white. Below that, cardigans and pullovers. He hadn’t touched anything, except with a gloved forefinger.

  Spare bedroom. Twin beds, one of them with a stuffed animal on it. The daughter would come over sometimes, of course.

  Study?

  Until he’d opened the door it could as easily have been a broom-cupboard. A little cell containing a desk, two chairs and a wooden filing cabinet. On the desk a scarlet clip (Habitat?) held items presumably scheduled for attention. Some bills, a handwritten letter from a Paris address, a typed one from a London house agent saying the undersigned would be glad to call in order to make an inspection of the property and advise regarding valuation if Mr Harrington would telephone to arrange a mutually convenient time.

  Retiring to the cottage near Rye, presumably.

  Thinking, while shuffling expertly through other letters and memos, that he’s hardly have telephoned to arrange a mutually inconvenient time.

  Long brown envelope, crumpled, bearing the Gas Board’s logo. On the back, ballpoint notes in a neat, cramped hand. A date and a time, letters DEDIP in capitals, and some Arab—type names: Hoda Al-Jubran, Hafiz Al-J., Elizabeth Thornton — info officer, Damascus… Then after some lines of really minute writing Hafiz J. allegedly supervising custody of V. Stillgoe. Letters and numbers followed: a map grid, the world geographic reference system. Then: Assad believed not privy to this. Head of Chancery’s conclusions following interview Miss T…

  Jackpot. And the brief had been spot-on. Amateur here, and a one-off; he wouldn’t have had the imagination to foresee that anyone might take an interest.

  *

  8 Kilo 6 floated northward on the thrust of her four Rolls-Royce Speys, five thousand feet over a deep-blue sea with a haze in the distance at horizon level and a lot of small stuff down there, all of it pictured electronically on the 24-inch tactical display over which Frank Cornwall presided, reporting from time to time whatever the computer-controlled system suggested might be worth a mention. Frank was tactical navigator; just across from him, with damn-all to do in present circumstances, was George Binnie, the routine navigator. You could say it was the routine navigator’s job to get the plane to the scene of action, and the TACNAV’s to fight the battle when it got there. In some Nimrod crews, the TACNAV was the aircraft’s commander; it just so happened that McPhaill and Haig, both pilots, commanded the two Akrotiri-based Nimrods.

  On Doug’s right Harry Denniston, his co-pilot, was flying the ship at this moment; and behind them Peter Stuart, flight engineer, was in one of his fretful moods, muttering darkly about fuel consumption.

  Stuart was an old woman, Doug thought. OK, so they’d taken off with the fuel load they’d been carrying for the four-hour patrols, having learnt only just before takeoff that they were going to have to stay up this time for six. Because Haig’s Foxtrot 2 Bravo was swanning off to Crete to play footsie with the Cousins. But the fuel load was still adequate, in view of the fact that one invariably took on an ample margin over and above anticipated requirements. You had to, to allow for diversions or other emergency situations that might arise. And, to have played it by the book and demanded a top-up at that stage would have delayed take-off, delayed relieving Foxtrot 2 Bravo, which had to be brought back with a bit of time in hand to prepare for the long haul westward.

  On the port side forward of the beam the long neck of mountainous country reaching in a northeasterly slant to Cape Andreas was clarifying fast, edges hardening as 8 Kilo 6’s course converged with it. Near the top end of the patrol line Cape Andreas would only twenty-five miles away; then three minutes’ flight farther north — fifteen miles, at this cruising speed — you’d begin a wide turn to starboard to end up returning southward on a flight-path ten miles to the east of this one, right on the edge of — and at times actually inside — the thirty-five miles of coastal water and airspace which the Syrians claimed as their own.

  Doug said into his intercom, ‘Search at extreme range to the north when we get to the top, TACNAV.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It’ll be all yours by the end of this next lap.’

  He meant that the light would have gone, the only useful sensors electronic.

  *

  The 2100 slot in the sweepstake was Sticks Kelso’s. 2107½ came and was gone, and Ducky Teal — who’d been reared to become a jockey, but stood eye to eye with the colour sergeant — murmured, ‘Ah, now, here we go…’ Because his name was down against 2115. Kelso said amiably, ‘You can forget it, lad. You all can.’ He tapped the list, told Hosegood, ‘Better extend this lot, Geoff, there’ll be another round.’

  Hosegood turned down the corner of a page in the paperback he’d been reading.

  ‘You extend the fucker. I’m for early kip.’

  Interest in the sweep was wearing thin, now they’d all missed out a couple of times. But it was the continuing disappointment that was really wearing.

  ‘Geoff.’ Ben spoke from the window, where he’d been rooted for some while, staring out across the runways. ‘You want to turn in, my advice would be to take your bag out to the Herc.’

  Hosegood stared at him across the room, fingering that floppy back moustache of his. ‘Yeah. Maybe I will…’

  ‘And take the sweepstake list with you. Extend it to midnight, why not, but that’s where you’ll want it when the Herc’s wheels leave the ground.’

  All looking at him: seeing the bull-terrier glint in his eyes, a force of certainty compelling them to believe…

  ‘Between now and midnight, it’s got to show.’ He turned back to the window. Knowing — because Russell Haig had spelt out the projected schedule of Nimrod movements — that Foxtrot 2 Bravo was now twelve minutes overdue. Haig’s Nimrod should have landed at 2100 and immediately commenced refuelling for takeoff with Haig at the controls at 2130 in order to relieve 8 Kilo 6 over the sea at 2200. But no aircraft had landed, runway lights hadn’t been switched on, even, the only light out there was the glow seeping from the interior of the Hercules.

  It was fifteen minutes past the hour now. Sticks joined him at the window. ‘Good thinking, that, Ben, to kip on board.’

  He heard the words without taking them in. Still thinking about Foxtrot 2 Bravo. He didn’t know how fast a Nimrod might be able to refuel, but after a flight of that duration he guessed its tanks would be fairly low. This switched his thoughts to Doug McPhaill, who by 2200 would have been out there for six hours. Haig had said, Quick fuelling, then off again before Doug falls out of the sky… but now it looked inevitable that 8 Kilo 6 would have to turn for home without being relieved on the surveillance job.

  Kelso asked, ‘Problem?’

  ‘Yeah. Nimrod should’ve been down by now. If the one on patrol doesn’t get relieved — and it can’t be without the other lad getting back and refuelling first — well, can’t stay out there with empty tanks, can it.’

  He went to the phone, called an extension and asked for flight Lieutenant Morgan. They kept him waiting for a few minutes, then transferred his call to the control tower, where he got not Morgan but Russell Haig.

  ‘Benjamin…’

  ‘Why aren’t you on the point of taking off to relieve McPhaill?’

  ‘You noticed.’

  ‘It’s a crucial time. And we aren’t here for fun, you know. Where’s Foxtrot 2 Bravo?’

  ‘Ben, you’re going to hate this, but she’s four hundred miles west, still tracking Soviets. Those ships altered course to the north of Crete instead of holding on through the Kaso Strait. He was supposed to’ve been relieved by a Hawkeye at eight, but—’

 
‘Christ.’ There was a silence on the line. ‘So — we have to lose out. This entire operation — infinitely more important than—’

  ‘There’s been a very high-level exchange of signals, Ben. And he should be leaving them in the next few minutes, we’re expecting confirmation now that he’s on his way. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘If he started now — four hundred miles—’

  ‘We’d have him down at 2230, roughly. Then refuelling—’

  ‘What about Kilo 6’s endurance?’

  ‘Doug should turn for home at 2200. He’s bound to try to stretch it, knowing him, but — well, when he fuelled, the expectation was for a four-hour patrol, you see.’

  ‘— so whatever happens there’s going to be at least one hour with no surveillance. Right when the gulets most likely to show.’ He drew a hard breath. ‘That’s it, then. All I can do is call London, tell them what’s—’

  ‘They know, Ben. MoD are spitting blood. Go ahead, if it’ll help you, but it won‘t change anything. And we’re going to do our best to — Ben, hold on, just a second?’

  He felt sick. Sweating, and pulses racing. Aware of a lot of eyes on him, a mix of sympathy and anger and his own feelings of incredulity, desperation…

  ‘Ben. F 2 B’s on her way back, ETA 2225. Fuelling crew’ll be standing by and so will I and my crew, we’ll be out there by 2320 latest. Doug’s being told to stay with it as long as he reasonably can. We might be able to reduce the gap to not much more than one hour. I know, I’m sorry…’

  *

  McPhaill’s eyes shifted to the digital time display: 2210, and the seconds ticking over as fast as always. Holding 8 Kilo 6 on her course of due north, and roughly midway up the length of the beat. He’d just brought her round: having told Akrotiri that he reckoned could make the fuel last long enough to stay on the job until 2240, if he finished at the bottom end with a short run home. He’d turne early, therefore, abbreviating the run south so he’d be in a position to do just that.