The Kobra Manifesto

by Adam Hall

  I would recognize Fitzalan because we saw each other sometimes along the corridors of that mildewed mausoleum in London, and a month ago we’d shared a table in the Caff for a salt beef sandwich because I needed information on the Helsinki airport explosion and he’d been there.

  I would recognize Fogel because I’d questioned him for three hours in Budapest while they were getting the bullet out by the light of one 40-watt bulb and with no anaesthetic, studying the hawklike face as the scream of the sirens rose and fell among the distant streets.

  He wasn’t on the Moroccan flight, Nor was Fitzalan, 23:12. Iberian.

  Blank.

  23:25. Alitalia, Blank.

  Then there was a longer interval and I went across to the trattoria for some milk, suggest supplementary intake of 100 mg Calcium, so forth. An Air France transit flight was due to land at midnight and I went back to the Cielalto office and checked the new arrivals in the main hall. There were only three or four and none looked suspect. A few Greeks left over from the last Alitalia flight were still hanging around Hertz and Avis and a dozen or so people were now coming in to meet the Air France plane. A group of porters moved slowly back to the baggage claim area, one of them singing quietly. A huge woman in black heaved past me, her face streaming with tears, and a small boy was throwing an aerodynamic disc high across the porters’ heads.

  I went over to check for a message and came back, doing a systematic sweep of the hall and noting people’s movements. If one contact in any given rendezvous is blown, the other is left totally ignorant of the fact that he is moving straight into a trap. It happened on a dockside in Reykjavik two years ago when I had a rendezvous with Tremayne and they caught up with him and trod on his face and put a few questions and when I walked into the shadow of the crane they were there with icepicks, three of them. I got out fast but they began using some kind of repeater rifle and it was only the moonlight that saved me but oh God that water was cold.

  That is why my index finger, left hand, is missing: I caught it between two planks at the edge of the dockside as I went over. And that is why I watched the two men coming across from the main doors, and the group of students waiting at the far end of the checkin counter, and others. By moving around I altered their lines of sight and they didn’t respond; but the two men in dark suits were also moving, their eyes covertly observing as mine were. ‘ They had checked me twice but made no follow-up: no movement away, no sign to a distant contact. Within the next three minutes they hadn’t looked at me again and there was no reflective surface where they could watch me. I put them down provisionally as Italian police, detective branch, because of their shoes, their spits, their hats, the way they stood. They weren’t out of an intelligence cell: I’ve seen hundreds of intelligence men and I’ve seen hundreds of police-men, detective branch, and on one point alone I was willing to lay my bet: you are as liable to see an intelligence man wearing those neat, cheap tailor’s-dummy clothes as you are liable to see him wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and a piss pot on his head.

  In one minute I checked Alitalia again for any message for Paul Wexford. Negative. If Fitzalan had come unstuck in Tangier at any time up to the departure of the plane Fogel had taken, the Bureau’s man-in-place would have flashed London and London would have flashed me in Rome and that was why I had to make regular visits to Alitalia. If Fitzalan had in fact boarded Fogel’s plane and been recognized as a surveillance hazard there was nothing Fogel could do about it unless by a thousand-to-one chance he was able to have the pilot radio the tower here with a message in code for a specific contact, in which case I was blown wide open as I stood here but I went on standing here because the odds of a thousand to one are acceptable.

  Fogel was a wildcat operator without any kind of network behind him and I was virtually certain that even if he could call upon active support in Rome he couldn’t do it before his plane was on the ground and he could reach a telephone.

  From here I could see the telephones.

  I could also see why Egerton had been so sure that Fitzalan would be able to keep his rdv with me and maintain surveillance on Fogel at the same time: the Cielalto office had been chosen because it was within sight of the exit gates where Fogel must arrive.

  The faint whine of jets came through the walls of the building, then the roaring of reversed thrust. Eight minutes overdue at 00:08. Possibly slight headwinds, or traffic congestion.

  For the last time I went to check Alitalia for a message and there wasn’t one.

  00:21.

  The porters began moving across to the customs area.

  The two plain-clothes men had now taken up overt station. They were interested in the Air France flight but only in general terms: if they were here to pick anyone up they would either have gone out to the plane or moved across to the exit gates. They had forgotten my existence.

  ‘He’ll be coming through in a few minutes.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, We stood close together, watching the smiling skier.

  ‘So far, I’ve got him cold.’

  Fitzalan sounded rather pleased with himself and I suppose it was understandable because a surveillance situation gets very sensitive in confined spaces.

  He was still breathing a little fast: he’d obviously shown his Interpol facilities pass to the chief stewardess and the immigration officer and got through the tube before the rest of them had been released and from then on he’d hurried. I’d seen him coming across from the exit gates and the two plain-clothes men had checked him and lost interest. Fitzalan himself had given me no signal as he’d approached the rendezvous and it couldn’t have been because it’s a difficult thing to do: you can look up at the ceiling for an instant or turn your head or drop something or make any one of a dozen signals. The one we use as a routine in the absence of a specific change by directive is the slight trip. He hadn’t tripped.

  But he would have done it if he’d been blown in Tangier or on board the aircraft, because if you go down and the opposition starts running you and you can’t help yourself until there’s been time to get out from under, you can at least let your contact know in the final half-minute that the rendezvous had become a death-trap, and if he’s quick he can save himself.

  There’d been no signal. At this precise moment the situation was contained and even encouraging: Heinrich Fogel and two of the Bureau’s executives were now together in Fiumicino Airport, Rome, their formation as orderly as if Control in London had moved three pieces across an operations board.

  I watched the exit gates.

  ‘Is he alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was still a note of slight elation in Fitzalan’s voice: the Bureau had only been running him for eighteen months and he’d blown a minor radio-snatch assignment in Brussels and was immediately pushed through Norfolk again for a refresher course, and this time he was out to prove his colours and so far he was getting it right. A surveillance operation is low key but in this case the objective was Fogel and the overall situation was massive in terms of deployment in the field, ‘You know what you’re here for,’ he said quietly. It was a statement.

  ‘No.’

  He swung his head and looked at me and I noticed the Mack dye was running slightly at his temples. Fitzalan has bright red hair and is obliged to keep it permanently dyed.

  ‘My God,’ he said, ‘things are going so fast.’ He turned back to watch the gates with his faded blue eyes. ‘You’re here to identify Fogel.’

  I waited five seconds but he wasn’t going to add anything.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Apparently it’s very important.’

  I suppose Macklin had started this: our people in Tangier had only thought it was Fogel they’d got hold of, and London wanted him identified with certainty as soon as he left cover.

  ‘You were on opposite sides, weren’t you,’ Fitzalan asked without turning his head, ‘on some job or other?’

  I watched the two plain-clothes men.

  ‘Yes.’

&
nbsp; They hadn’t actually moved but their heads were now angled back half an inch as they stared towards the exit gates. A man and two women were now coming through, and there were people behind them.

  ‘You think you’ll be able to identify him?’ Fitzalan asked me.

  He was rather full of questions. Eighteen months isn’t long.

  ‘Yes.’

  An Air France stewardess came past us, hurrying a little with her high heels on the point of buckling. She was making for the checkin counter.

  A hint of Madame Rochas on the air.

  ‘Any minute,’ Fitzalan said.

  He was getting worried.

  Three Moroccans came by in flowing robes, their hands gesturing gracefully as if in some kind of prayer as they talked. A party of Europeans broke from the main stream of passengers and headed for the trattoria, and one of the aircrew, a two-ringer, was making for a door on the far side, marked Private.

  ‘Any minute now,’ Fitzalan said.

  Poor little bastard: if he dropped this one he’d be out on his neck. We’re only allowed two mistakes running, during the probation phase.

  ‘Where was he sitting?’

  He turned his dyed head slightly towards me but didn’t take his eyes off the gates.

  ‘Fifth row back, port side, first class.’

  He was trying to sound confident, ‘He’ll be through,’ I said.

  ‘Oh sure. Any minute.’

  It wasn’t of course certain. Fogel could have turned off at a dozen points after leaving Immigration and Customs, or they could be holding him up in there. I gave it another two minutes and said:

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  It was up to him, not me.

  No active involvement.

  Fitzalan looked at me now.

  ‘You think we ought to go in there?’

  After a bit I said: ‘He’s your pigeon.’

  Theoretically I should be local-controlling the man because I was his senior within the executive echelon and it was my responsibility to see that he didn’t lose his objective but I wasn’t interested in theory: the Bureau is a secret operations service and not the bloody Army and I only ever use my rank if it’s to save my neck. I wasn’t out here in the field to babysit for Fitzalan or anyone else; he’d sewn up his objective and if he’d done it the wrong way he’d be slung out and the rest of us would go on working in more safety.

  More people came through: Customs were getting them cleared a damned sight faster than when the London flight had come in.

  ‘I’m going to give him another couple of minutes,’ Fitzalan said.

  His tone was shaky now, ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I’m absolutely certain he was on the aircraft when I -‘

  ‘Hold on,’ I said.

  A square of faint light had swung across the black surrealist sculpting: a glass door had opened somewhere behind us and I looked first at the two plain-clothes men but they didn’t react. They were watching the exit gates, their heads perfectly still. It wasn’t just the swinging light that had alerted me: there’d been the thump of the doors too, and a slight increase in the noise of the traffic outside. There was also a change in the actual character of the noise and when I looked round the first thing I saw was the flashing of an emergency light on top of the police van that was now standing opposite the main doors with its engine running and the driver still at the wheel.

  The party of six carabinieri were coming at a steady pace and looking straight in front of them: two officers, a sergeant and two rankers led by a captain. They weren’t actually in step but they seemed to be, because they walked so steadily.

  ‘Watch the gates,’ I told Fitzalan. ‘Don’t look at anything else.’

  He didn’t answer.

  The two plain-clothes men had heard the carabinieri coming but didn’t give them more than a glance because there were a lot of passengers spreading out from the exit gates now and they didn’t want to miss anyone. I was watching the carabinieri most of the time and relying on Fitzalan to alert me if he saw Fogel coming through. I had quite a few questions in my mind because the data was beginning to form logical patterns for analysis, but there were too many gaps: the plain-clothes police could be here for their own reasons and those reasons could have nothing to do with the carabinieri; the carabinieri looked as though they were in a hurry and trying not to show it, but they were obviously hoping to meet someone off the Air France flight from Morocco and they looked quite serious about it but I didn’t know why they hadn’t come a bit earlier and driven their transport up to the aircraft and made sure of a contact.

  It would be dangerous to assume that either they or the plain-clothes men were here to intercept Heinrich Fogel. It is dangerous to assume anything at all during this kind of active situation because if the action speeds up you can find yourself making a wrong move precipitately and a wrong move can be fatal.

  Of course the one answer to every question in my head could be that the situation was precisely as it appeared to be: the plain-clothes men had been sent here to watch for a certain passenger or certain passengers coming off the Air France plane, and the carabinieri had been sent here in response to information received so late that they hadn’t had time to intercept the passengers at an earlier stage.

  They walked steadily past us, ‘He’s here,’ Fitzalan said, ‘Fogel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It took me a couple of seconds.

  He was the lean man with the sunken cheeks and the thinning hair. I thought I could see the pink crescent-shaped scar on his right temple even at this distance but the brain tends to present visual data that the eye doesn’t see: I knew there was a scar there, because I’d watched them pull the bullet out in Budapest.

  ‘How close do you want him?’ Fitzalan murmured.

  ‘That’s not your problem.’

  I would need to see Fogel from a distance of a few yards and I would need to see him in circumstances where he couldn’t see me and that wouldn’t be easy and it could take till morning. I wasn’t going to hurry it because I hadn’t needed a specific directive to tell me that if Fogel saw me, just for a second, the Rome phase would be blown.

  Egerton hadn’t sent me here to blow anything.

  Fitzalan was standing perfectly still.

  The plain-clothes men had seen Fogel and were immediately interested in him but were not approaching him. The captain of the carabinieri had seen him and was leading his unit steadily on.

  ‘Fitzalan.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We use the window now.’

  He turned round and we looked at the skier.

  ‘You know the form,’ I said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s recap.’

  I didn’t know what briefing he’d received.

  ‘You’ll stay with him till you’ve got close enough to identify him. I’ll follow up. If you lose him, I’ll keep him.’

  ‘All right.’

  The rest of the situation was covered by routine procedures:’ from the moment we left this rendezvous we wouldn’t acknowledge each other; there would be no obligation to make any signal at any given phase; if we felt the need for a further rdv it would be made in the house of the Bureau’s agent-in-place, Rome: the Villa Marco Polo in the Piazza Piccola. Finally, Fitzalan was aware that he could expect no support from me if he got into any kind of trouble because each of us was in effect operating solo with a common objective: Fogel.

  The figures moved against the slope of dazzling snow: Fogel coming alone from the exit gates, the carabinieri walking steadily towards him. The plain-clothes men stood perfectly still. A few of the other passengers were looking at the carabinieri, wondering what they were doing here.

  The captain halted his men.

  It was then that I decided to turn round because it looked as if Fogel was the passenger they had come for and he wouldn’t have time to check for surveillance before they met aim. He wouldn’t see me, and he wouldn’t see Fitzalan. H
e would see only the officers.

  At this instant he was isolated, with the nearest passenger ten or twelve feet away. They were spreading out and he was one of the few people without a companion. He had seen the carabinieri but was not reacting.

  The captain took a sidestep to block his path, and his white-gloved hand came up in a salute.

  Fogel stopped.

  The captain was saying something to him.

  Fogel listened. His expression and attitude were those of a law-abiding passenger arriving in Rome by air. The captain appeared to be asking for his passport.

  Fogel used his right hand to double the officer, pushing the blow upwards into the diaphragm while his left hand went for the captain’s holster and wrenched the gun out. He worked very fast and he was armed and ready to fire before any of the party could reach for their own weapons.

  The first shot smashed the glass of a show-case a few feet from where Fitzalan and I were standing and I couldn’t tell if Fogel had aimed at the carabinieri and the shell had passed between them, or if it had been meant as a warning shot. They were diverted for a second or two and the captain was still doubled up on the ground as Fogel broke away and began running, colliding with a group of passengers and leaving one of them sprawling as the carabinieri began shouting for him to stop. He saw the flash of the emergency light through the glass doors and swerved to his left, running fast and steadily and thinking his way out of the building and past the obstacles that threatened him: mostly the groups of people in the checkin area.

  At this moment the carabinieri began firing as they ran: their officer had given the order. I saw plaster chipping away from the wall beyond where Fogel ran, at a height of some ten feet: there were too many people about for them to try ‘hitting the fugitive and I assumed the purpose was to warn him to stop and at the same time to alert the driver of the emergency vehicle outside.

  As Fogel reached the glass doors at the end of the checkin area I was a dozen yards behind him, running at the same speed and ready to swerve the instant he began turning round to fire into his pursuers. I could hear Fitzalan’s shoes thudding behind me and slightly to the left. The situation worried me because I believed Fogel would fire back into the carabinieri before he went through the doors: it would be logical and of course feasible, costing him something less than two seconds and gaining him anything up to five or six as the soldiers scattered. The thing that worried me was that there was no close cover for me or Fitzalan: the people in this area were now frozen into immobility and there were no central stands or pillars and I would ‘have to rely mostly on speed as I hurled myself obliquely at the row of glass doors and smashed one open before his gun fired.