The Memory Trap

by Anthony Price

  The inside of the truck smelt like the British Army, as of old. Which was interesting, academically, because that was what it was supposed to be, although not what it was. And that was another plus for Spetsnaz, because all armies had their own distinctive smell: wasn’t that what that old general from 1916 had once said to him?

  But then, of course, the old general had never envisaged quite this sort of experience.

  3

  IT WASN’T Maerdy Castle, of course: it would never have been anywhere so romantically appropriate for an arms dump (albeit not for the conquest and subjugation of Wales this time, Audley thought grimly). Although private and protected by its relative inaccessibility, the castle would never have been safe enough from interested trespassers (of whom he himself had been one, so long ago—long even before the days of Lukianov and Peter Richardson). Nor, for that matter, would its overgrown ruins either have offered any secure and weather-proof cover for the dump’s contents or the necessary accommodation for its guardians.

  Only a farm (a private house would have been too small, if not too obvious) would have answered all those needs. And perhaps that had been the starting point in the Russians’ desperate reconstruction of that one vital piece of information which the computer conspirators had erased from the records with all the rest, both essential and inessential: the co-ordinates of its map reference.

  Only a farm! But that was easy to say now that he was actually looking at it. Given time, perhaps he would have got this far, eliminating one possibility after another to pinpoint this place after Richardson had narrowed the search area. And yet that itself was only an excuse, in dismal retrospect: there was never enough time, and in spite of Jake’s warning he had squandered what he had had of it: he had allowed himself to be trapped by self-admiration of his wonderful memory, which had come up with so many answers but had foiled him in the end.

  ‘Dr Audley—can you help me?’

  ‘Help—?’ He realized that he had forgotten everything else, and everyone else with it, in his contemplation of the muddy farmyard and his own foolishness after he had climbed out of the truck. But what had been easy for him in the damp wreck of his second-best suit was proving not so easy for Mary Franklin. ‘Yes—I’m sorry, Miss Franklin.’

  She was light as a feather, and soft with it. And she still smelt good.

  ‘Thank you, Dr Audley.’ Liberated from the discomfort of the truck, she immediately put up her little red umbrella again, smoothed down her skirt, and then looked around as though she owned the place, ignoring only the Spetsnaz corporal who was covering them again with his automatic rifle. ‘Where are we?’

  She didn’t just smell good, she was good. Because, for all that she must be bloody scared and was standing in thick mud, she hadn’t lost her cool: she appeared as self-possessed as she might have been on an unfortunately inclement day at Henley or Ascot. And that served to concentrate his mind properly, away from self-pity. ‘Russian headquarters in Wales, Miss Franklin.’ He pointed towards another truck, which had been outside a tumbledown barn. ‘But I rather think they’re busy pulling out now.’

  ‘Yes.’ She watched two curiously-garbed Spetsnaz men place a small metal container in a larger one, which was then itself hydraulically lifted, to disappear into the truck. ‘I suppose we should be pleased.’

  ‘Pulling out.’ Richardson joined them. ‘Just like Afghanistan, eh?’

  It seemed that Mary Franklin had set the tone. Or perhaps he himself had pointed the way towards it, with his desperate bluff on the roadside, when Zimin had appeared. And they had had time to draw their own conclusion from that in the truck, while silenced by the corporal’s presence as much as the muzzle of his rifle. Or (but with these three it was perhaps unlikely) it might be that old resignation he remembered from the war, when that curious jokey lethargy had set in before they moved up to the start-line on what looked like the dawn of a bad day: When rape is inevitable, “Daddy” Higgs had always said, you just lie back and enjoy it, sir.

  ‘But where are all the rest of them?’ Richardson looked round at the otherwise empty farmyard. ‘I don’t doubt that the farmer and his wife are heading for foreign parts by now—like those bastards who hired out their van for me to find … yes?’ He came back to Audley. ‘Or are they going to load up one-by-one, and take the stuff somewhere else—David?’

  ‘My God!’ exclaimed Paul Mitchell. ‘God, David!’

  Mitchell had come out last. But then he had taken several steps beyond them, towards the second truck, before being confronted by their own truck’s driver and shepherded back towards them. And now he was staring at Audley.

  ‘David—‘ Mitchell rolled his eyes at the corporal, whose rifle was pointed directly at him. Then the sound of Zimin’s command car, rather than the rifle, cut him off.

  Audley watched as the vehicle slowed slightly to negotiate the farmyard gateway. Then, without warning, it accelerated past them, spraying mud in all directions before it skidded to a halt blocking their view of the loading.

  ‘David—‘ Mitchell’s face and clothing were mud-spotted ‘—did you see—?’

  ‘See what?’ He had been halfway to reminding himself simply that Mitchell was still twitchy, and never with better reason. But that wasn’t it at all.

  ‘Not guns, David.’ Somewhere on the other side of the vehicle Zimin was shouting orders angrily. But meanwhile Mitchell was hissing at him like a ventriloquist without his dummy. ‘And not Semtex either—you don’t have to handle Semtex like that … Those containers, David—it looks like Sarin, for Christ’s sake!’

  Zimin appeared between their truck and his own vehicle, his anger still contorting his features quite uncharacteristically. ‘Inside the house, Dr Audley—at once, if you please.’

  Sarin!

  ‘Yes, Colonel.’ Even without the corporal’s rifle, he wasn’t going to argue with that anger, now that they had seen what they had seen. Because Zimin had every right to be angry: either that loading should have been completed, or it ought not to have been started, that anger betrayed. So now, whatever deep trouble they’d been in before, they were in deeper.

  The farmhouse was mean-looking: a low stone building with dirty windows and flaking paint. And when his eyes became accustomed to the gloom of the kitchen he saw that its interior matched its exterior: the sink was full of unwashed pots, and the remains of breakfast hadn’t been cleared—tell-tale signs of a recent occupancy which, after fifteen years, had ended forever this morning.

  Then the gloom returned as Zimin’s figure filled the low doorway.

  ‘Colonel—‘ With no defence, he had to attack first’—I will not bore you with official protests. So shall we take them as read?’ He heard himself speak in the same slightly too-precise English of Zimin’s own Spetsnaz men, who had undoubtedly been chosen and trained to speak the language in support of their unremarkably Anglo-Saxon features. ‘And, in return, you will dispense with empty threats, eh?’

  ‘Empty threats, Dr Audley?’ Zimin had recovered his poise.

  It was that damned Sarin which was the problem, thought Audley. But, then, that Sarin had been the problem all along: the problem … and the high card in Lukianov’s hand, which had enabled him to make his own terms with any of the world’s terrorist groups. And, for a guess, it wouldn’t have taken the Russians long to realize as much, even while it had taken them longer to reconstruct the past accurately enough to bring them here. Indeed, that fully accounted both for their almost heedless urgency thereafter and their final success: guns and explosives—all the paraphernalia Spetsnaz units needed for their work—that would have been bad enough. But Sarin—Sarin in any one of its specialized varieties and delivery-forms—would have been as unforgivable worldwide when publicly traced back to them as it would have been dreadful beyond imagination in terrorist hands.

  ‘Yes.’ That was the trouble; it had been beyond his imagination, even though it shouldn’t have been. But … maybe it hadn’t been beyond Jake’s? That
, at least, would account for the Israelis’ urgent desire to help. And perhaps that now would have given substance to his bluff. ‘If you are contemplating a tragic road accident for all four of us, I wouldn’t advise it, Colonel. We’ve always suspected that your Spetsnaz caches might include chemical weaponry—even before the Israelis reminded us, just recently. Nerve gas is such an economical weapon, isn’t it?’ He cudgelled his memory for informed window-dressing to back up his words, but his knowledge was too minimal to risk. ‘What did you say it might be, Dr Mitchell?’

  ‘Mmmm … ‘ Mitchell pretended to consider the question again for a moment. And then shrugged. ‘Back in the early seventies … Sarin-D would have been the chemical—that’s a quick-dispersing variety. And then the warheads out there—‘ He jerked his head towards the window ‘—they can be used with ordinary hand-held RPG recoilless launchers. Or adapted Sagger wire-guided missiles, maybe. They’re both about the right vintage. And there are a lot of launchers on the market now. The Russians have been supplying ‘em to all their Middle East clients for years. Long before my time.’

  ‘Yes.’ But Zimin knew all that, of course. So now was the moment to unmask Jake. ‘You know my old friend Colonel Shapiro, of Mossad, is back in London, Colonel? He’s been very helpful to us. Because his country feels particularly vulnerable, if any of your property fell into the wrong hands … Just as, of course, mine also does. Since the IRA has such good links with certain Arab groups, eh?’

  Zimin stared at him in silence for a long moment. ‘What are you proposing, Dr Audley?’

  ‘Ah!’ Audley clasped his hands behind his back so that the Russian could not observe them shaking. ‘Well … like you, Colonel—like your Government … my Government wants neither trouble, nor unfortunate … accidents. That is why I am here.’ He nodded towards Mary. ‘With Miss Franklin as Mr Jaggard’s representative, you understand?’

  Zimin nodded cautiously. ‘That is indeed why I am here too, Dr Audley.’

  So far, so good. ‘And General Lukianov’s Arab clients? Where are they?’ He tightened his voice deliberately. ‘I do not doubt for one moment that your Spetsnaz unit is well able to handle them. But, since this is not your country, that might cause problems, don’t you think?’

  Zimin relaxed fractionally. ‘That problem has been dealt with.’

  ‘Dealt with how?’

  Zimin shook his head. ‘It need not concern you, Dr Audley.’ The merest ghost of a smile crossed his lips. ‘Our problem … is our property. And when we have removed that, there will be no problem at all.’

  They were back to square one. With all due preparations made, the removal of one small truckload of nerve gas projectiles wouldn’t pose any great insuperable problems for the Russians now that they had pulled out all their stops, judging by the smoothness with which this Spetsnaz unit had been activated—even though evacuation might not have been included in its original contingency plans. But that still left all four of them out on a very dangerous limb, thanks to his criminal complacency—

  ‘That’s not quite good enough, Colonel.’

  ‘Madam—?’ Zimin had been watching him, so that Mary Franklin’s snap caught him unprepared, from the flank. ‘Not—?’

  ‘Not good enough—no.’ She pursed her lips. ‘We require more than that.’

  ‘Madam?’ Zimin relaxed slightly, and the ghost-smile returned. And then he shook his head. ‘You … require—?’

  It didn’t necessarily mean that he was a chauvinist-pig, thought Audley even as he clutched at her confidence so desperately that he nodded agreement to it: it might simply be that he was married only to his career, and didn’t know any better—that he had never seen that expression on a wife’s face. Or a daughter’s, even—?

  ‘Colonel Zimin … you don’t seriously believe that Mr Jaggard would send me here, with Dr Audley, like this—‘ The edge-of-contempt was razor sharp. ‘And Dr Audley after his meeting with you on Capri, Colonel. And after Berlin, too?’

  Zimin stopped relaxing: now he looked as though he was remembering his lessons about pretty faces, belatedly.

  ‘Miss … Franklin?’ The Colonel was a fast-rememberer. Or a fast learner, maybe?

  ‘We took Major Richardson last night, Colonel.’ Only the very slightest emphasis conveyed her contempt for all military ranks. ‘So we have been monitoring this area ever since, as a precaution. And … notwithstanding what Dr Audley has just told you, we still weren’t sure whether it was conventional arms or chemical weapons—also, in spite of what Colonel Shapiro warned us of, Colonel—yes?’

  That final rank-emphasis was inspired, thought Audley admiringly: what a perfect little liar she was! And—

  ‘But Mr Jaggard insisted that we must take the worst-case view, Colonel Zimin.’ She continued before Zimin could get the first word out of his opening mouth. ‘And that was after your commanding officer delayed his meeting with him, to this afternoon—do you understand?’

  ‘Madam—‘ The last three words had been not so much razor-sharp as laser-sharp, almost standing Zimin to attention ‘—madam—?’

  ‘Yes.’ Instinct prodded Audley into support. ‘Perhaps you recall the traffic-jam on the bridge at Monmouth, after the lights had been turned off? That was our delay, to get our units in place … after we’d spotted a unit which had no right to be on the road—out of where? The Forest of Dean—?’ He looked to Mary Franklin for confirmation. Then he shrugged at Zimin. ‘I forgot to ask. Not that that’s important … now that they’re going back home—eh, Colonel?’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Audley.’ In return for his support he received a withering glance. ‘Colonel … the fact of the matter is that you won’t get five miles from here now—‘ Mary Franklin consulted a tiny watch on her wrist’—if I fail to report in … at a particular time, within a very few minutes from now … and with a very precise form of words. Do you understand now … Colonel?’

  God! It was like “True Grit”! Audley, beyond admiration: she reminded him of himself, long ago—before he’d taken it for granted that he was better than everyone else!

  ‘M—‘ Zimin caught himself talking down to her just in time. ‘Miss Franklin … what are you proposing? What … is “not enough”, please?’

  She nodded gravely, not triumphantly. (And, humiliat-ingly, Jake was wrong: the old ones weren’t the best ones, by God!) ‘The Arabs are not a problem you said?’ She didn’t even wait for the Russian to nod. ‘And Lukianov—?’

  Zimin actually slumped slightly. ‘He is no problem either, Miss Franklin. But … what are you proposing—?’ He touched his own wrist, where his own watch lay. And that, for a guess, was because whatever he might be thinking about all of this, what was certain beyond all of it was that he was in a far country now, and far from home.

  ‘No problem?’ Not an inch—not a metric centimetre, or even a millimetre: she merely massaged her wrist-watch on her even-tinier wrist. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we have him.’ No “Miss Franklin” this time—never mind “Madam”: she wasn’t giving him time to dig himself in, with his own little all-purpose spade.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not here—‘

  ‘Where?’ No time even to cut the first sod of the next fox-hole!

  ‘In France, Miss Franklin.’

  France was always the clearing-house. Even “Mr Dalingridge” had headed for France first: if you weren’t a French problem, then you had twenty-four hours—or even thirty-six. But if you were … then you’d already run out of time!

  ‘So we’re safe, here?’ Even beyond certainty she was inexorable. ‘Very well, Colonel Zimin—‘ Only the briefest nod, beyond certainty ‘—you must leave at once—‘ The nod included what was happening beyond the door and the dirty kitchen window ‘—How soon will you be away, with your … property?’

  No trouble! thought Audley, with a mixture of relief and bitterness: the days of Audley were gone.

  Zimin nodded: the days of Zimin were the days of Jaggard.
‘Before nightfall, Miss Franklin … If there are no obstacles to our passage—‘ But then a hint of remembered doubt intruded ‘—Dr Audley—?’

  It was like the poet had foretold—not with a bang, but a whimper! Yet all this, after they had taken Lukianov, had only been because they had feared that “the celebrated Dr Audley”, once roused, might have nosed out their Spetsnaz dump.

  ‘That’s the way it is, Colonel.’ He tried to make it sound the way he would have once said it. But it still tasted like ashes. ‘For what it’s worth … you have my word on it.’

  For a time, after Zimin had gone, no one said anything. Not even Peter Richardson, who was full of unsaid things.

  Then, when the last sound outside had faded into the rain, Mitchell went to the window and peered out of it.

  ‘Phew!’ He looked at Audley. ‘Your word’s good, is it?’

  Audley could only look at Mary Franklin. Not-knowing was where he’d started, so not-knowing at the end turned full circle. ‘Well, Miss Franklin—?’

  As though suddenly domesticated, she was exploring the filthy kitchen. She had found a packet of tea, and there was a half-full bottle of milk and a bowl of lumpy sugar already on the table. And now she’d discovered an old-fashioned electric kettle, with a frayed lead still connected to a switch in the wall, which was itself at the end of a crudely-stapled wire running out of the ceiling.

  ‘What—?’ She turned towards him as she filled the kettle at the sink.

  ‘What happens now?’ Mitchell let the curtain fall on the silence outside. ‘They have a clear run, do they?’

  ‘Yes … ‘ She scanned the kitchen. ‘What I want is a teapot. And some cups … ‘ She wrinkled her nose at the mess in the sink ‘ … can you see any, Dr Mitchell?’

  ‘They have a clear run?’ Richardson snarled the words at Audley. ‘Things have changed since I worked for Fred Clinton, by God!’