Thunder in the Blood

by Hurley, Graham

  I frowned, following the logic, remembering the tiny dots on the pin-board. ‘There were a handful,’ I said, ‘maybe a dozen or so.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Wesley nodded. ‘And that was the reality. A light screen. Nothing awesome. Just a precaution.’

  ‘And they showed the Saudis that photo? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, fuck no. They commissioned some alternative photos. Their own stuff. Right off one of the military satellites. They call them “overheads”. They fetch them down and take them along to some little room or other in the Pentagon, and the guys in there get busy with their pens and their brushes and… fuck me, thousands of the bastards, everywhere.’ He beamed at me, delighted with his own exposition. ‘Instant invasion, cooked up in Washington, courtesy of our friends in the White House.’

  ‘You’re saying they made it up? And the Saudis believed them?’

  ‘Of course they did. Why else would they let in all those fucking infidels?’ He glanced across at Wallace. ‘Right, Grant?’

  Wallace nodded. ‘Right,’ he said.

  Wesley looked at me again, enjoying himself now, determined not to lose the initiative, his voice rising. ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘The MOD, your friends in London…’

  I nodded.

  ‘They were running computer predictions. After K-Day, after our boys went in, all the data was coming back from Dhahran, real-time, as we pushed forward, and it went straight into the computers. You put stuff in one end, you get predictions out the other.’ He paused for a moment, his eyes on a table beside the door. ‘There were various predictions as the thing developed. One copy went back to Dhahran. Another went to Downing Street. The key figure was casualties, how many blokes we’d lose. It was meant to prepare the politicians for the worst. The military, too, for that matter.’ He turned back to Wallace. ‘I’ve never told you this. I had a contact on the analysis team. You know how many programs we ran? In the first forty-eight hours?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Six.’ He grinned. ‘And not one of them put the body count below four figures. That’s what logic said. That’s what should have happened. Thousands of our guys. Blown away by the Iraqis. Curious, eh?’

  Wallace nodded, reaching for his drink, giving a low whoop, partly glee, partly alcohol. He had moved on to beer now, most of his meal untouched. I glanced across at the table beside the door. There were two men at the table, both facing our way. One was black. The other had a small notepad beside his plate. They were well dressed in nicely cut dark suits. Neither was much interested in conversation. I looked at Wesley a moment and raised an eyebrow, and he acknowledged me with a small but perceptible nod. Wallace was staring at the wall. Wesley reached across to him.

  ‘You mentioned a file,’ he said, ‘on the phone.’

  Wallace looked at him, moist-eyed, and I began to understand what Wesley had meant on the plane by ‘lost’. Whatever had happened to Wallace over the last month had taken an enormous toll. This wasn’t the man I’d read about, the target for all those Extec dollars.

  ‘It’s in the car,’ he said, ‘in my attaché case.’

  ‘Do I get to see it?’

  Wallace said nothing for a moment, then picked up his glass. Wesley watched him drain it, then signalled to the waiter. Wallace was still looking at his hands when the man returned with a tray of fresh beers.

  ‘You’d need channels,’ Wallace said at last, ‘surrogates. You want to do this thing, do it properly, that’s what you’d need.’

  Wesley leaned forward, distributing the beers, inching his chair to the left, blocking the view from the door.

  ‘What thing?’ he said softly.

  ‘What thing?’ Wallace looked up, echoing Wesley. ‘The Desert thing, the Desert Sham thing.’ He hesitated. ‘You wanna orchestrate a war, you gotta have a script. Otherwise, it won’t go right. You gotta agree when and where. Both sides. Both sides gotta know. Not everyone. Not all of them. But a tiny handful of guys at the very top. This many…’ He held up his thumb and his forefinger, an inch apart, then closed the gap still further, ‘Or maybe this many, no?’

  Wesley nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s what we said on the phone. Remember?’

  ‘Sure. So,’ Wallace shrugged, ‘both sides have to nominate someone. Both sides have to decide who they’re gonna send, who they trust, who ain’t gonna drop the fuckin’ ball. Not easy.’

  ‘No.’ Wesley looked at me a moment, one eyebrow raised, and I nodded, certain now, watching the table by the door. One of the two men, the taller one, had moved his chair. From where he sat, he could still see Wallace. Wallace was trying to get to his feet. Wesley reached up, restraining him. Wallace took his hand.

  ‘The john,’ he mumbled. ‘You wanna go, too?’

  Wesley shook his head. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in a minute.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Wesley paused. ‘So two guys?’ he said. ‘You’re saying two guys to do all the talking? One American? One Iraqi? Tight as that?’

  Wallace nodded. ‘Tight as that. So fucking tight you don’t see daylight.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘No. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking about it,’ he said. ‘This is an oil state. Extec runs on oil money. It’s part of a conglomerate. The Texcal Corporation. Big bucks…’

  ‘You think the American – whoever he is – you think he may have an oil connection?’

  ‘I dunno.’ He looked at Wesley. ‘Yeah… maybe … something like that. Oil’s big money. That’s where it begins and ends. Has to.’

  I kicked Wesley under the table. One of the men across the room was getting up. He walked to the bar and began to make a phone call. Wesley glanced round, understanding at once.

  When he turned back, Wallace was staring at him. ‘Something the matter?’ he said.

  Wesley pulled a face. ‘Me,’ he said briefly. ‘I’ve got some pills in the car.’

  ‘Sure,’ Wallace began to get up. ‘I’ll fetch them.’

  ‘No.’ Wesley reached over again. ‘Let Sarah. She knows which ones.’

  Wallace looked at him a moment, then me. His car keys lay on the table beside his plate. The man at the bar was still busy on the telephone. The other one had a lousy view. I picked up the car keys and my bag, aware of Wesley watching me. When I looked up, he was smiling, elbows on the table, forearms straight, fists clenched. Charades was never my game, but even I’m not that stupid.

  ‘Usual stuff?’ I queried.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Sure you need it?’

  ‘Positive.’

  I looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. The rest rooms were in the far corner, at the back of the restaurant, away from the street. I walked towards them, smiling at the guitarist, pushing through the louvred swing doors. Another door, marked ‘Señoras’, was on the left. Inside, there were two cubicles and a couple of handbasins. There were fresh hand towels by the basins and small bottles of eau-de-Cologne. In a neat wicker basket were tiny packs of soap and half a dozen books of matches, each printed with the restaurant’s name. I looked round. The only window, high on the wall, was barred on the outside.

  Back in the passage, I tried the men’s room. It was equally spotless, but this time there were no windows at all. I shut the door. At the end of the passage was a flight of stairs. I began to climb them. At the top of the first flight where they turned right, there was another door marked ‘Exit’. In smaller letters, underneath, it read ‘Alarmed. Emergency Use Only’. I hesitated a moment. Part of me wanted to push through it, to trust my luck and my sense of direction, to risk the alarm and hope that I made it to Wallace’s car before our friends in the restaurant put two and two together and got there first. But another part of me, the bit that had more or less survived Northern Ireland, knew just how lousy a decision that would be. Tired or otherwise, I had to find another way. Wesley, and more importantly Stollmann, would expect it.

  I went back to the wo
men’s room. Its cubicles, in keeping with the décor, offered two kinds of tissue. I selected the pink, pulling it off the roll in great handfuls, praying that no one else would come in. When I had what I thought was enough, I flushed the lavatory and left the cubicle. I put the plugs in both basins and turned on the taps. Then I took one of the books of matches and went out into the corridor.

  A dozen yards of toilet tissue makes a, brief but smoky bonfire. I lit it as close to the door to the restaurant as I dared, staying just long enough to be certain that it was well alight. Then I ran for the stairs, hearing the first of the basins beginning to overflow in the women’s room, turning the handle in the emergency exit and putting my shoulder to the door. It gave at once, triggering a bell inches from my ear, and I pushed through, finding myself on a fire escape, a narrow alley beneath me. I clattered down the fire escape, and sidestepped through a line of dustbins. By the time I emerged on to the street, diners were beginning to appear from the restaurant, couples standing uncertainly on the pavement, men pulling on their jackets, women peering back through the big plate-glass windows. Of our friends by the door, or Wesley or Wallace, there was no sign.

  I hesitated a moment, then walked across the street. Wallace’s car was parked fifty yards away. I stood by the driver’s door, feeling the key into the lock. The door opened at once. I slipped inside, stirring the engine into life, my eyes on the restaurant. Still no Wesley. Still no Wallace. I hesitated a moment longer, then the smaller of the two men by the door, the black one, appeared. He had a radio in one hand and he was looking in my direction.

  I glanced down. The gear shift was automatic. I engaged Drive and floored the accelerator, and the big car surged out into the traffic stream. Passing the restaurant, I could see the black guy peering at the registration, talking rapidly into the handset. Miles away, faintly, I could hear the wail of a siren. Then another, much closer. At the first intersection, I swung left, away from the siren, accelerating as fast as I could, leaving the rest of the traffic behind. Three blocks down I took a left again, turning into a street flanked on both sides by tall office blocks. The street was empty, a long, glass-walled canyon, stop-lights receding into the middle distance. For half a mile or so, the lights were with me, a succession of greens. Then, at the first red, I pulled into the side of the road and killed the engine.

  The trunk of the big Lincoln opened with the smaller of the two keys. Inside, under a travel rug, I found Wallace’s attaché case. I looked at it for a second or two. Three blocks away, a car had appeared. I pulled out the attaché case, shut the trunk and began to walk quickly down the street. At the first intersection, I turned left. Across the street was a hotel. There was a big awning out over the pavement and a revolving door. I hesitated long enough to catch my breath and then pushed inside. The woman behind the crescent of desk looked up.

  ‘Ma’am? May I help you?’

  I smiled at her and asked for a room. She fingered a keyboard and offered me a single on the third floor. She took an imprint of my Amex card and pointed out the bank of elevators across the lobby. She gave me the key and hoped I’d have a real good night.

  Upstairs, the room was enormous with two double beds, a sofa and a fridge stacked with drinks. I opened the fridge and poured myself a stiff vodka and tonic. Then I sat on the bed, staring first at the attaché case, then at the phone. The time on the digital display by the phone said 10.16. Back in the UK, it would be quarter past four in the morning. One of the two numbers Stollmann had given me was his home. I knew that because he’d told me. I’d phoned him from Gatwick while Wesley went to the loo, and he’d been quite explicit about procedures. Early morning calls on the 081 number would find him at home. If anything developed, regardless of the hour, I was to get in touch. I shook off my shoes and reached for the phone, draining the last of the vodka. Then I hesitated, my eyes returning to the attaché case, the huge mock-brass clasps, the personal monogram, the four-digit combination. For a full minute, I sat there, nursing the empty glass, debating what to do. Then I got up and went back to the fridge.

  I found the metal bottle opener hanging on the inside of the door. I took it back to the bed and held the attaché case up to the light. Where the clasp seated on to the lock, there was a gap wide enough to insert the opener. I did so, levering the opener back against the bright metal. For a while, nothing happened and I was on the point of looking for something else when the catch snapped and the clasp sprung open. I did the same the other side, quicker this time, then laid the attaché case carefully on the bed and opened it.

  Inside were a number of files, buff manila, the kind you get in legal offices. On top of the files was the copy of the Dallas Courier-Star Wallace had been reading at the airport hotel. I put the newspaper to one side, and I was still sorting through the files when I found the gun. It was an automatic, a Beretta, wrapped in a handkerchief. Beside it, nestling under an American Airways timetable, were three spare clips of ammunition and a folded invoice. I read the invoice quickly. It came from a Dallas company called Sun Valley Arms Corp. Using his own name, Wallace had paid $795 for the Beretta and the ammunition. I went back to the top of the invoice, checking the date. It was 8 October 1991. Just eight days ago.

  I took the gun out, unwrapping it, weighing it in my hand, trying the slider at the top, thumbing the safety catch. It was fully loaded, fifteen rounds of 9 mm parabellum. I sat on the bed again, wondering why Grant Wallace should have considered the need for a handgun, and what, precisely, had taken him to the Sun Valley Arms Corp. Then my eyes went back to the newspaper, still lying on the coverlet. The paper had been folded over at a page near the middle, and there was a photo ringed in red Pentel. I looked hard at the photo. It showed a small group of men enjoying a conversation at some function in downtown Dallas. The caption beneath read ‘City Chamber of Commerce Welcomes British Minister’. I peered harder at the photo. The face on the left looked familiar: the slight stoop, the hooded eyes, the mirthless smile. Frowning now, the gun still in my hand, I scanned the accompanying story, looking for the name, finding it. ‘Lawrence Priddy,’ it said, ‘promoting British trading interests.’

  15

  I phoned Wesley at seven next morning. I got the number of the airport hotel from the Southern Bell directory, and I’d drained the last of the travelling pack of Alka-Seltzer I had in my bag by the time I finally got through to his room. Stress and vodka give me headaches.

  ‘Keogh,’ he said.

  ‘Me. Sarah.’

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’

  ‘Hyatt-Regency. Sixteenth and Commerce. What happened to you?’

  ‘We got busted.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘The guys you saw.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘FBI.’

  ‘They take you back to the hotel?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And?’

  He laughed at this point, that same mirthless cackle. ‘We sat around and talked for a while. They were very reasonable. Either I took the deal, or I didn’t.’

  ‘What deal?’

  He laughed again, then spelled it out. They had reason to believe he was HIV positive. As a visitor, that made him illegal. If he wanted to stay, he’d have to settle the argument by submitting to a test. The four days it would take to get a result, he’d be obliged to spend in custody. If the test proved negative, there were no problems. If the test was positive, he was looking at serious trouble. The US health authorities, keen to defend the nation against doses of foreign virus, were currently looking for guys to shaft. It was an unfortunate way of putting it, but Wesley might just be one of them.

  I nodded, following the logic. ‘And?’

  ‘Plane leaves at eight.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘This evening.’

  ‘Ah.’ There was a silence while I tried to think it through. ‘You want me to come too?’

  ‘No. You stay here. We have to meet before I go, but that could be difficult as well.’ />
  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a guy outside in the corridor. And they’ll be listening, too. Calls like this.’

  ‘Great.’

  It was all so obvious. The woman at immigration at the airport had made a phone call. I’d watched her do it. She had Wesley’s name, flagged on her computer, doubtless culled from intercepted transatlantic calls for Grant Wallace. She’d have told somebody he’d arrived, and there’d be some kind of surveillance team in place, either waiting on the concourse, or already shadowing Grant Wallace. I thought briefly about Stollmann, whether he’d had anything to do with it, but I couldn’t see the point. He’d already gone to extraordinary lengths to insulate our enquiries from outside interference. Telegraphing our arrival to the FBI would have been daft. I bent to the phone again.

  ‘What about Grant?’ I said. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Dunno. They took him off in another car.’

  ‘Under arrest?’

  ‘No.’ He paused. ‘His own car had gone. Nicked. From outside the restaurant.’

  ‘Oh?’ I exaggerated my surprise, wondering whether Wesley was right about the call being monitored. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I looked up. A maid was at the door. I’d ordered coffee and Danish. I told Wesley to wait while I collected it.

  Back on the phone, I finally got to the question that had been preoccupying me most of the night. ‘So what about me?’ I said. ‘They knew about me? Being with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name? And what I do for a living? They knew about that, too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’ I reached for another bite of Danish. ‘So what did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them you worked for MI5.’

  ‘Nice. Thanks.’

  ‘It’s the truth, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then there’s no problem. In fact it’s rather neat. Gives you a kind of immunity.’ He paused. ‘Medical term. They loved it.’

  He laughed for a third time, and I was still wondering about all the loose ends – the restaurant, my bonfire, Grant’s abandoned car – when he hung up. I was to come to the airport mid-afternoon. He’d be up in his room. It would be nice to have a chance to say a proper goodbye.