A Sentimental Traitor

by Dobbs, Michael

  ‘It seems they’ve tracked him down,’ Bukowski said.

  ‘Who? Where?’

  ‘The Russians.’

  ‘This is Russia?’

  ‘No, it’s some little shithole in Azerbaijan, about ten miles from the Russian border. It seems the Russians decided not to bother with the border formalities, just went in after him.’

  Azerbaijan was a nominally independent republic that hadn’t been part of the Russian empire since the Berlin Wall came down, but old habits die hard, especially in troublesome frontier areas populated by militant Muslims. The Russians had never showed much patience with ragheads.

  Patricia tucked her legs beneath her on the sofa as though ready to pounce, while Bukowski stood, offering sporadic translation, but words were scarcely necessary to understand what was going on. The house was substantial and set back from the road, protected by a robust wall of stone, and the Russian fire was being returned from within the building with some pretty formidable hardware. The assault seemed shambolic, accompanied by much screaming and uncoordinated firing of weapons – these troops were border guards, not the best the Kremlin had to offer, which suggested the assault had been mounted in a hurry. Those inside were giving a good account of themselves, and several bodies clad in the green uniform of the border guard service could be seen lying in the roadway by the wall. Yet the defenders were surrounded, with nowhere to go, and the roof was burning down upon them. There was so much smoke that neither side could get a clear view of their targets, so the Russians contented themselves with pounding the house to pieces with mortars. It didn’t stop retaliation. The camera, in wide shot, showed a truck being blown on its side and erupting in a fireball before the scene hurriedly moved back to concentrate on the inferno of the building.

  Slowly a story emerged from the commentary that Ghazi had been betrayed, his hideout uncovered, and surrounded, and now the Russians were going for him as if every man in the assault party expected to receive a sizeable chunk of the fifteen-million-dollar reward.

  ‘Not a very exotic place for a super-terrorist to hide,’ Bukowski muttered.

  ‘Or to die.’

  The end was inevitable, but took nearly fifty minutes to reach its climax. Slowly, as the walls, windows, ceilings and staircases of the building were reduced to rubble, the returning fire from within began to fade. Resistance became sporadic. Then it ceased. Shouts were coming from within the building, cries of submission, then a man stumbled out, blood pouring from a head wound and into his eyes, matting his long hair across his forehead. He stood still, raised his hands.

  ‘It’s not Ghazi,’ Patricia whispered, as both the cameras and Russian troops closed in. ‘Too tall.’

  More shouting. The fighter lay down in the dust and debris of the front yard. Almost immediately two other men followed, emerging from what had once been a front door but was now no more than a jagged, gaping hole, dragging a wounded colleague between them. Slowly, reluctantly, they knelt, and lay in the dirt. Yet still there was a sense that the moment was unfinished.

  ‘Will he give himself up, or take his own life?’ Bukowski wondered out loud.

  ‘He’s a commercial killer, what do you think?’

  And there, emerging from the hell that was behind him, a figure appeared.

  ‘That’s him!’ Patricia whispered in a tone that sounded strained and urgent, as if she were no longer a spectator but was a player on this bloody field.

  He was dressed in a simple smock of the local fashion with billowing cotton trousers that had a dark-red stain growing down the right leg. An arm of the smock seemed badly scorched. The face was pale, almost Western, despite the smears of smoke, and the beard and hair short, kempt, in a manner that would raise no alarm on the streets of Europe. He stood still, defiant, looking around him, and at what lay ahead, his arms at his side, silhouetted by the flames that seemed to be reaching for him and almost disappearing in the swirling wisps of smoke. The scene was almost biblical. For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the crackling of the fire that was consuming the building behind him. At last, he took a step forward, limping. Then, another. And another.

  A shout of command rang out, sharp, like an officer on a parade ground. Suddenly a hand appeared in front of the camera lens, its fingers splayed, covering the view. The screen went blank, pixels dancing in desperation, trying to work out what they were missing. Sounds of some muffled explosion. Then the transmission went dead.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The stately pile of oriel windows and Tudor brick called Chequers is the country retreat of Prime Ministers. Put another way, it’s where they go to cry. Yet, all politics being imagery, they have to put on a brave face, which was exactly the position in which Ben Usher found himself. He had gathered his backbenchers for a Sunday ‘strategy session’, where he and other ministers would tell the flock how high and in which direction they were to jump in the run-up to the election. ‘This is war!’ he shouted, banging the podium at the end of the Long Gallery, which was heated almost to excess by the crush of bodies sitting in rows of seats laid out before him. There wasn’t much that was original in his conclusion; Clausewitz had long ago defined war as being a continuation of politics by other means, except modern elections didn’t really deserve to be dignified by such high-minded analysis. For Usher, elections came straight out of a spaghetti Western, with several gunmen confronting each other, eyes darting, buttocks clenched, knowing that for whoever lost, there would be no tomorrow. Not that defeated Prime Ministers were shot, of course, that would have been an act of almost too much kindness. No, instead they were dragged from the scene, unwillingly, sometimes in tears, and left in an afterworld of reminiscence and regret. Few avoided that fate. Perhaps it had been different for John Major. He, at least, had his cricket. There were rumours that the Long Gallery had been used as an indoor wicket at some point in the past. But Usher hated cricket, so he banged the podium even harder, put on a brave face, and pretended absolute confidence in victory. Only twelve weeks to go, he reminded them. Twelve weeks until that first Thursday in May. He followed that up with some traditional bollocks about summoning up the spirit, facing the enemy and marching to the sound of gunfire. Why did his job always seem to reduce itself to grotesque cliché?

  Then, as he faced the sea of upturned faces, many of which were glowing, and a few sweating, a thought struck him. May. Hay fever season, during which he suffered excruciatingly. Coughs, embarrassing splutters, headaches that felt like an exploring corkscrew, a nose turned hydrant and a throat that rasped itself raw. Bloody rape seed, but he couldn’t complain, it would only have lost him the farmers’ vote. But what confounded idiot had decreed that elections should be held in May? With the Easter holiday to screw things up just as the campaign was getting into its stride? Clint Eastwood never had to fight his battles with a soggy handkerchief stuffed up his sleeve.

  He was glad when he had finished hectoring his troops. He was too much of a professional not to have done it well, but he wanted to escape, get some fresh air, strip off the veneer of exhaustion that seemed constantly to cling to him, and as the party chairman took his place at the podium the Prime Minister gestured to Harry Jones to join him. Harry didn’t need encouragement, and wasn’t the type to show false enthusiasm. Always played the game by his own rules. Aggravating bloody man. Thank God they weren’t all like him, but then, thank Heaven, a few of them were. Usher opened a door that was hidden in a dummy bookcase and disappeared into the Cromwell corridor. Harry followed.

  ‘What’s up, Ben?’ Harry enquired as they passed by portraits and a mask of the great regicide.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I’m just not used to being on my own any more.’

  They continued in silence until they had made their way outside, into the rose garden.

  ‘I guess you’ve heard enough of those rallying calls from beaten-up generals,’ Usher said, popping an aspirin into his mouth as he squinted into a lowering sun.

  ‘Actually, not too m
any,’ Harry replied.

  ‘No, that’s right. I looked in your file once. You didn’t do many regular wars, did you? Yours were largely unofficial, in strange places the British Army wasn’t supposed to be.’

  ‘The sort of thing my bosses could deny absolutely if things got screwed up.’

  ‘So no rousing speeches.’

  ‘Usually just a gentle whisper in the ear and a quick check to make sure I’d updated my will.’

  ‘You were a useful man to have around.’

  ‘I think the word was expendable. Anyway what were you doing with my file?’

  ‘Was thinking of offering you a job, a big one, but then I saw you’d already turned it down under my predecessor. There was a note somewhere, in his own handwriting, said you were an awkward sod. So many medals, so much insubordination. Quite a few bodies left along the track, too, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Wars have this nasty habit of requiring casualties, Ben. Don’t forget that, if ever you feel tempted.’

  The Prime Minister paused, a little solemn, still staring into the setting sun. ‘They say I’ve lost the plot, Harry.’

  ‘That’s not true, Ben.’

  ‘No, but I have lost the initiative. And the electorate. Bit like losing your virginity. Once it’s gone . . .’

  Harry didn’t argue.

  ‘If only we’d been able to find that bastard Ghazi before the Russians, drag him down Whitehall. Beat the truth out of him . . .’

  ‘You having doubts? About what the truth is?’

  ‘Politics and truth. Now there’s an interesting proposition in election year.’ He paused, lips working, as though he had a sour taste in his mouth. ‘They shot him, you know, Ghazi. In cold blood. They said he was wearing an explosive belt, that it killed him and everyone he was with, but that’s bollocks. They shot every one of them, wanted them out of the way. Embarrassment at the fact it was one of their missiles, I suppose. Or sheer bloody stupidity. So we’ve lost the chance to interrogate them. We’re back where we started.’

  ‘You sure it was the Egyptians?’

  Usher filled his lungs with cold, grey air, then sighed as he let it slowly escape. ‘Everybody says it was the Egyptians, Harry. And I don’t know enough to disagree with them.’

  ‘I think they may be wrong.’

  ‘And you may be right. There might be a time when we have to reconsider all this. But not before the election. “For if the trumpets give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”’ The Prime Minister stood in thought, gazing into the distance to where beech trees stood gaunt and frostbitten against the skyline, ripped bare, rather like his soul. For a while he seemed lost, then suddenly, he was back. He laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder and they began walking slowly along the paved path that marked the sides of the rose garden. ‘They tell me there’s a new lady in your life. That’s good, Harry. It’s been a long time for you. I wish you much happiness.’

  The sentiment was perhaps premature, Harry thought, but this wasn’t the time to argue the point.

  ‘And, tell me, how is it out there, on the front line?’ Usher waved a paw at some distant world that might lie beyond the boundaries of the estate.

  ‘A little tougher than I would like, but fine. I have a new press officer, young woman, walked in off the street, literally. Doing rather well.’

  ‘Then I may have to pull rank and confiscate her! Could do with a little help in whipping the jackal pack into shape. Or simply distracting them. She a looker, your press girl?’

  ‘I haven’t noticed,’ Harry lied, and laughed.

  ‘Best keep it that way. You know, I remember one press officer, when I was a junior minister at the Treasury all those years ago . . .’ But once again he trailed off, standing still, staring at the ground, lost in his own world. And sadness, Harry thought.

  ‘I fear you’re offering too much information for a humble backbencher,’ Harry prompted.

  ‘What?’ said Usher, startled.

  ‘That press officer.’

  ‘No, no,’ Usher protested wistfully, ‘it’s just – these roses. They’re beautiful in the summer. I was wondering if I’ll ever get to see them again.’

  Patricia Vaine sat at an outside table on the Galerie de la Reine Koninginne, a covered arcade that ran a little back from the Grande Place in Brussels. The arcade was long and luxurious with a high glazed roof, and up there, amongst the metal rafters, she could see a tangle of children’s balloons, the survivors of some New Year celebration. It seemed such a long time ago, but most things did. She never looked back; it was one of her firmest rules.

  She was outside one of her favourite coffee shops. The Belgians could be hopelessly dull but they made excellent chocolate cake, and she had allowed herself a small slice along with her coffee, a deep, rich cup of the darkest liquid that was mostly Colombian with a hint of Brazil and had the kick of a mule. She was fussy about her coffee, had a nose for it, just as she had a nose for the weakness of men, and in particular a man like Ben Usher, whose poll ratings were chaotic and who had shown himself to be deliciously vulnerable, like a great actor who could no longer remember his lines. It was time for her to lead the cat calls – but how?

  She spotted a middle-aged woman approaching, comfortable walking shoes, tourist map clutched firmly in hand and a look of determination stretched implacably across her face. She had two complaining teenagers in tow. As they drew nearer, Patricia could hear they were English, presumably on a half-term break, judging by the nature of the boys’ complaints. Their hotel breakfast seemed to lack a certain Britishness; the cereal was stale, the fruit juice had too many bits in it, the butter too hard. They passed by, squabbling all the way. The English abroad were not an attractive sight, Patricia thought, so stuck in their ways that it was a mystery how they had once had the imagination to govern half the world.

  Then it struck her. The absurdity of the English. That’s when she began to laugh, almost uncontrollably until tears gathered in her eyes. And in that moment she knew what she would do next. It was so simple, yet it would cause uproar. She enjoyed the idea so much that she decided to write it down on her paper napkin. It sat there, staring back at her, and she laughed all the more. Just one word.

  Marmite.

  The suggestion, splashed across the front pages of three tabloids, that Brussels was about to ban Marmite caused a storm that was impossible to understand, unless you were British. The little pot of dark goo had divided opinion in the country for more than a hundred years. Made originally from the discarded malt scrapings of brewers’ vats, it had always been laden with salt, additives and controversy. Even its marketing campaign captured the schizophrenia of the product – ‘Love It, or Hate It.’ And many did.

  But it was a uniquely British love-hate relationship, and when the rumour began that it was about to be removed from the shelves as part of some European crackdown on additives, the press went wild. They called parliamentarians and commissioners in Brussels demanding answers, but got nothing except confusion and contradiction – which was scarcely surprising, since the rumour was entirely false. Yet it was entirely credible. For wasn’t this a European oligarchy which had once banned the selling of British goods by British people to British customers in British weights – pounds and ounces? In 2001 a vegetable seller in Sunderland had been seized by two police officers at his market stall and charged with the heinous offence of selling bananas by the pound – an imperial rather than a metric measure. He was charged, convicted, and given a criminal record. Other metric martyrs followed in his footsteps, dragged to the dock and made criminals for giving their customers what they wanted. The pronouncement of the European Commission some years later that it had never intended to make selling bananas a criminal act only proved the extraordinary arrogance of those silly burghers in Brussels, and did nothing to wipe away the public resentment or diminish the imagination of headline writers who strained like hounds in the slips, ever ready to be released. Matters had been measured
in pounds ever since Shylock’s time, and the call had gone out throughout the land to fight his latter-day counterparts, on the landing grounds and the beaches, in the streets and the hills.

  Other stories followed to stoke the ire. Bananas were supposed to be straight. Pints were going to be poured in litres. Eggs could no longer be sold by the dozen. So when the suggestion was made that the little yellow-topped jars were to be outlawed by people who ate horses and fricasseed frogs, the nation leaped to its feet, demanding action.

  The problem for a Prime Minister already under pressure was that there was no action he could take. When he stood at the Dispatch Box, feeling as if it were every inch a dock, there had been no time to establish the truth of the story. His answers seemed evasive, unprepared, and wholly un-British. And when a few days later the story was finally and flatly denied, the press and the Leader of the Opposition claimed glorious credit for forcing Brussels to change its mind. No matter how hard the Prime Minister protested, his words were drowned out by the baying of the crowd. Usher was humiliated.