Quiller Barracuda

by Adam Hall

  Did he expect me to go berserk or something?

  Control, yes. Mea culpa.

  Ferris went behind the carved redwood desk and picked up the phone and sat with it, elbows on the big green blotter, his eyes nowhere, thinking. Then he dialled.

  I got up again, not wanting to go on sitting there waiting, moved about a little, took another look at those bloody elephants, God what a waste of a good tusk.

  We may never know.

  Like an echo in the mind. How big, then, was the worm in the apple, how healthy, how vigorous? As big as a snake? As a dragon?

  'Miami,' Ferris said. 'Get me Board 3.'

  Board 3 was for Barracuda.

  8:15 in the fair city of Londinium, with the double-deckers jamming Piccadilly Circus and the taxis dodging through the gaps, their black tops bright with rain.

  'Yes, good morning. I'm switching to scramble.'

  I have no wish, not the slightest wish, to go to London, whatever they say, whatever they decide.

  Purdom moved now, got out of his chair. He was like me, couldn't just sit still nursing his nerves. If you were to ask me for whom the bell tolled, I would tell you that it tolled for him too.

  'Is Mr Shepley there?'

  He would make a good psychiatrist, this man Ferris, looks the part, thin, ascetic, totally calm, though perhaps he is a shade too cold-blooded, and of course might even find it not abnormal for a patient lying there on that bloody couch to explain that his problem was that he couldn't stop strangling mice.

  'Yes, sir. There's been an unexpected development, and I've asked Monck to fly in from Nassau. He'll be here in twenty minutes. I haven't worked with him before, and I need to know whether he qualifies for major Classified One decision-making.'

  Purdom was standing by the bookshelves looking at the titles, if that's what you want to believe. I suppose I hated him in an infantile way, because there was nothing in his square balanced-looking head, I mean nothing coiled there, no worm.

  'Yes, I can give him the whole picture. We've just interim-debriefed the executive.'

  Upjohn hadn't budged from his chair. I didn't like him much either, not because of his acne or his broom-head haircut of course; I disliked his detachment, or rather his ability to detach himself from what was going on. I could believe his blood was colder than Ferris's, if there were any in his veins at all.

  'All right, sir. Understood. Do I fax the debriefing?'

  He said a few other things that weren't important. The important bit was over now, I knew that, but I hadn't heard Shepley's answer to the question. I wasn't looking at Ferris when he put the phone down, had my back to him. I heard him flip the scrambler switch and get out of the chair.

  'Monck was in Croder's place,' he said, 'before he left London. He's still on that level, overseas section.' I'd turned round and was facing him. 'Whatever decisions have to be made, he has the power to make them.' Getting his briefcase, looking at his watch. 'I'm meeting him at the airport, cutting it a bit fine. Why don't you catch up on some more sleep at the hotel? It's still secure. Upjohn will take you there.'

  Didn't really want an answer: these were orders.

  Then everyone was moving about and Ferris called Alvarez back and thanked him for his hospitality and then came with me to the alleyway at the back of the house where there were two cars standing in shadow.

  Try not to give it any more thought,' he told me. 'Just try to sleep. When I've talked to Monck and asked him what we're going to do, I'll contact you, probably in an hour or so.' Got into his car.

  'But I like the town, because it's crazy.'

  Upjohn drove through the lit streets, knew his way. I sat beside him, like an aristo in a tumbril. Ferris knew what was going to happen already, but couldn't give London the whole picture without faxing it and there wasn't really time even for that. Barracuda couldn't go on running without an executive and the only executive it had was a man who might at any time break loose and start following instructions he wasn't even aware of at this moment – and instructions that could tell him to blow the whole thing up.

  Shivering a little, not unexpected.

  'It's got everything, after all. Drug trade, casinos, refugees, the mafia, you name it. Sight more interesting than Streatham.'

  I suppose I answered him now and then on the way, but I don't remember clearly. When we got to the hotel he opened the gates at the back and drove the car through and got out to shut them again before I left the car.

  'Feel like company? Play some poker?'

  I thanked him and said I needed some sleep, and he nodded and stood there in the half-lit yard until I was inside the hotel.

  Lying in the dark with my clothes on, watching the reflection of the traffic lights at the corner of the street below, listening to the creak of the plumbing and the thin whistling of the first jet landing as the night drew towards dawn, I looked at this thing in the face and got rid of illusions.

  There would be only one thing worse, yes, than being sent back to London and seeing my name gone from the board and the final entry on the form I'd have to sign, executive recalled from mission, only one thing worse than losing Barracuda and handing over to Purdom, and that would be for them to order me to stay with it and do what I could.

  Because the only reason for their doing that would be to find out what I would do if they gave me room, where I would go if they set me running again, how they could profit if the worm in the apple went on eating and drove me across hazardous ground, into a red sector, into a trap.

  And that would be terrible, to run through these streets not as the shadow for the mission but as a rat in a maze, an experiment, a subject for sacrifice.

  That would be their only reason for keeping me in.

  Red to green, amber to red, a toilet flushing on the floor above, a jet turning onto the taxying lane with its sound and the echoes fading, red to green and the silence settling in and then the explosive shock of the phone bell jarring the nerves.

  I reached for the receiver.

  'They're leaving you in,' Ferris said.

  My hand clammy on the smooth plastic, the dark room crowding me, a sense of disbelief. I suppose I wanted it spelled out for me, so that there shouldn't be any misunderstanding.

  'My name is still on the board for Barracuda?'

  Someone was whistling, down in the yard, as daybreak came.

  'Your name is still on the board for Barracuda.'

  So help me God.

  Chapter 9: NEWSBREAK

  She's petite, strawberry blonde, violet eyes, great cheekbones, very trim. Age thirty-one.

  11:03.

  Make-up. Highlight the cheekbones, deep eyeshadow, hairspray. She applied her own lipstick. Impatient with her cosmetician, small curt gestures, eyes on the mirror, on her face.

  Most people hate her, especially men who have to work for her, under her – the show's director, technicians, those people. She enjoys emasculating them.

  The hand of the big clock moved to 11:04 but there was no significance attached to this: she wasn't going out live tonight – this show was to be pre-taped.

  I don't know why. She normally goes out live. There was some mess-up, I guess. You may find out when you're there.

  I could only see part of her, waist up, through the glass partition. Two of the monitors were blank; the third was showing a Buick ad.

  She can use that kind of clout, you see – Chuck Baker, called in by Ferris to brief me on her – because some people say she's arguably the single most accurate and important source of information on current events for one-fifth of the American people, through syndication programmes. Okay, other people say that's just hype, but I'd say it's a close guess. The Nielson Media Research figures give 'These Are My Views' twenty-one million households per broadcast.

  She threw off the make-up gown and crossed into the studio, moving with care to preserve the fluffed-up, Luster-Gel coiffure. Looked at her hands, set the tourmaline ring facet-uppermost, checked her nails. Oth
er people came in now, two men and three women, some of them technicians with audio-gear, clipboards, papers. One of the men switched on the TelePrompTer and checked the display.

  I could see her better now. This was one of the monitor rooms and someone had come in a minute ago and asked where Harry was and I told him I didn't know. I'd got the studio lapel pass from Chuck Baker. But I guess it's up to you to tell people what you're doing there, if they ask, okay?

  At this hour most of the studio was dark, and the man who'd asked about Harry was the only one I'd seen.

  She and Brokaw were called the sexiest anchors in the industry, by a poll conducted last June. TV Guide printed a joint opinion of influential critics that puts her as the first most trustworthy anchor on the screen, in terms of news accuracy and her own deeply considered views. She's strictly non-partisan, and that comes through for her, though at this time of course she's down here from the National Newsbreak network in Washington to pitch for Florida's Senator Judd.

  I could hear her voice faintly now through the panel as she began rehearsing. The other people were moving about the whole time now, checking equipment, and one of the monitor screens lit up and began showing her image as a camera started shifting its angles, zooming in on her face, pulling back to head-and-shoulders.

  In the last quarter her show cost $80,000 a night and brought in $150,000, giving a profit for the network of more than $4,500 a minute. They pay her a million dollars a year and she's obviously worth it, with all the syndications thrown in.

  One of the technicians was taking a quick bite at a sandwich as she worked, and the anchorwoman said without turning her head, 'No food in here, you know the rules. This isn't a goddamned construction site.' A man looked in from the corridor and one of the crew put his thumb up and the man went out again.

  'Cameras?'

  'I'm ready, Jeff.'

  'Where's Harry?'

  'He took a day off and forgot to tell anyone.'

  'Jesus. Get Phyllis in here.'

  'Erica, what's our timing?'

  'When I'm ready I'll tell you.'

  She's a legend in her time already. She can go into a studio cold turkey and in ten minutes you can start the cameras and she can hit thirty or forty million people with the kind of charm and authority and sheer presence that hasn't ever been seen before. Offstage she's gotten a reputation for being a real personal bitch, but on-stage she's got a red-light reflex you wouldn't believe. The minute the light goes on, she projects herself right into those twenty-one million households and stops everything right there, and all people can do is watch. You know something? She could stop a family fight, knives, guns, you name it, without even leaving the studio.

  'Bennie.'

  'Uh?'

  'Cut those lights.'

  'Sorry, Erica.'

  The backdrop behind the anchor desk was a map of the United States covering the whole flat, with a backlit transparency of downtown Miami by night. One of the on-screen monitors lit up with a still head-and-shoulders shot of Senator Mathieson Judd, smiling and waving.

  She is also – and this is pretty rare in the industry – she's also of what they call good family. They came over on the Mayflower and Jonathan Cambridge II is the founder and president of Marlborough Chemical Bank. She doesn't mix very much in high society – she went through a leftist kick just out of high school and left the ancestral home to live by herself in a sixth-floor cold-water walk-up on Lexington for two years – but the pedigree's there if she needs it. She could walk in to just about anyone's country house and they'd ask her to stay.

  Some people were moving one of the theatrical flats and adjusting the lights. A man was kicking cables clear and using duct tape. Another monitor screen came live with a tight head shot of the woman at the desk and the camera pulled back. The girl who'd been eating the sandwich loaded the Tele-PrompTer and checked it and stood away, not looking at the woman at the desk but just waiting. Others were standing back, one of them twisting a rubber band round and round his fingers. There was no sound now.

  'Bennie, is that your stuff hanging there?'

  'Yes, I'll -'

  'For God's sake put it somewhere else, it's distracting me. Jeff, are we ready?'

  'When you are.'

  'All right, let's go.'

  A flood of light, no movement anywhere until her eyes had reacted to the glare, then her head tilted to look straight up at the TelePrompTer and the red lamp came on at the main camera and she flashed a brief, brilliant smile.

  'Good-evening. I'm Erica Cambridge, and these are my views. Yesterday in New Hampshire it looked as if Senator Mathieson Judd was for the first time pandering to the dictates of those on his campaign staff who have been trying to persuade him to "throw in a little healthy theatricality", as Josh Weinberg of The Post has put it, to counterbalance the Republican candidate's serious and perhaps solemn approach to the matter in hand. But in my view, ladies and gentlemen, the matter in hand is indeed serious and indeed solemn, nothing less than the task of your goodselves, the people, of choosing the man who will become one of the two – and I say this advisedly – one of the two most powerful statesmen on this planet.'

  Pause, a glance to the papers on the desk to give weight to the silence, the violet eyes lifting again. 'And Senator Judd himself knows the seriousness and the solemnity of this occasion, and had more than once declared himself categorically disinterested in cheapening his respect and regard for the electorate. So what happened yesterday in New Hampshire was not rehearsed, was not premeditated. It was real. Some of you were there, I believe. You saw the little boy with the childishly-lettered placard on his chest, reading I HAVE AIDS BUT IT'S OKAY TO HUG ME. You saw Mathieson Judd's instinctive move towards him in the crowd, brushing aside his bodyguards. You saw him hug that little boy, and if you were close enough you saw the sudden springing of tears on that man's face as he stood with his arms around his small, suffering fellow-American for those few seconds of amazing grace.'

  And again a pause, but this time her eyes remained on the TelePrompTer. 'I do not think, ladies and gentlemen, that I need to translate that scene into the banality of mere words for you. Allow me to say only that those who consider Senator Judd a figure of almost majestic dedication to the serious and solemn business of leadership, those who consider him as no more than an intellectual devoid of feeling, should now rejoice in the knowledge that he is also a man of heart. And it is this, above all, that we must have in the White House – a man who will not only lead this nation with the high skills of management and statesmanship, but a man graced with humanity.'

  Her eyes on the TelePrompTer for two seconds, three; then she looked down and shuffled the papers.

  'Haven't seen you around here before, Mr Keyes.'

  Faint smell of sweat.

  'I'm not surprised.'

  He'd come in quietly a minute ago and I'd checked his reflection in the glass panel without looking up. Thick-bodied, bland-faced, moved like a cat. Sitting beside me now, been working out somewhere and hadn't had time for a shower.

  'You're not surprised?'

  I wished he'd go away. 'But Governor Anderson's theme -' Erica Cambridge on the monitor screen – 'is that there's so much wrong with America after the Republican four-year term -'

  'Mr Keyes?'

  He didn't know me; he'd read the name on my lapel pass.

  'If you want to talk to me you'll have to do it when Miss Cambridge has finished.'

  ' – Whereas Senator Judd's theme is reassuring. The country is in good shape -'

  I could have read this for myself. Word for word.

  The chill came creeping, hadn't expected it. I'd been trying to think it was all over now, done with, the subliminal infiltration of my mind.

  'I have to check up. Are you with the crew?'

  He was nothing to do with the studio. He was probably her bodyguard. Blue suit, black shoes, rubber soles.

  ' – to consolidate the gains that have been made under the present ad
ministration.'

  Word for word.

  I remembered Ferris, leaning across the desk, talking to the psychiatrist, Purdom watching me from his chair, Upjohn switching off the recorder.

  Then Ferris had turned to me. Do you know how long you spoke for?

  No.

  Nineteen minutes, with no interruption. Do you know what you were talking about?

  Yes. Anderson's campaign theme. And Judd's.

  I sat for a long time watching the woman with the violet eyes, listening to the words she spoke, the words that I had spoken before.

  When had she thought of them, written them?

  The man had gone out.

  ' – is to thank you for letting me be with you this evening. I'm Erica Cambridge, and these are my views.'

  Brilliant smile, hold, fade, credits.

  I waited until most of the people had left the main studio; then I went in there.

  'Who are you?'

  The bodyguard hadn't followed me in. Either I'd cooled him off or he didn't want to start anything that could bring Cambridge down on him for being stupid: for all he knew I could be the head of the studio.

  'My name is Richard Keyes.'

  'I don't know you.'

  'We need to talk.'

  Getting her long slim snakeskin bag, checking her watch, swinging towards a door – 'Bennie?'

  'You want me?' Voice off.

  'Where did you put the transcripts?'

  'I sent them for copying.'

  'All of them?'

  'He's doing them tonight. They'll -'

  'Oh for God's sake, I need the originals to take home.'

  His face in the doorway, patient, enduring, 'I sent them ten minutes ago, Erica, and they'll be back here practically now.'

  'Next time, Bennie, get it right.'

  She picked up one of the phones on the desk, remembered me and said: 'You can make an appointment through my secretary.'

  I said, 'We need to talk tonight.'

  'I don't know you. Please leave.'

  She dialled, and I went to the main door. 'George Proctor sends his regards.'