HOME RUN

by Gerald Seymour

  When he looked into his rear view mirror, he saw the motorcyclist. That was an excellent way to travel. The motorcycle was exactly the right transport for going into the city in the early morning's heavy traffic.

  It was the motorcycle that had been parked on the side of the highway. The executioner looked ahead, then checked in his sidemirror, and he saw that the motorcyclist had pulled out from behind him, and was now poised to come alongside him, and to pass him, coming through the narrow gap between the Hillman Hunter and the Dodge pick-up. That was free-dom, to be able to weave in and out of the heavy trucks . . .

  He saw that the young man on the motorcycle had reached inside his bag that hung across his chest, that he steered the motorcycle only with his right hand.

  He was aware of the shape beside him, looming close to his wound down window.

  He saw that the motorcycle was virtually against the side of his car.

  He saw the grin on the face of the rider, the rider grinning at him, and the rider's arm was outstretched above the roof of his car.

  He heard the thump of an impact on the roof of his car.

  His window was filled by the grinning face of the rider.

  Cold sweat, sweat racing on his chest, in his groin. He could not stop. He could not pull over. If he braked hard he would be swept away by the refrigeration lorry behind him, 60

  kilometres an hour and constant.

  It never crossed the executioner's mind that he might be the victim of an innocent joke. He was reaching for his pistol, and he was watching the motorcycle power away ahead of him, he flicked off the safety, but what could he do? He couldn't fire through the windscreen. There was a moment when the motorcycle rider, the young man in the blue tracksuit seemed to swivel in his seat, and wave back at the old Hillman Hunter, and then was gone. He no longer saw the motorcyclist, only the lorry tail. He did not know what to do . . . Where to turn to . . .

  He was staring into the mirror above him, and he saw the image of his own eyes. So many times he had seen staring, jolted, fear filled eyes.

  Charlie had had to turn one last time to wave, and to see that the box was held to the roof of the low-slung yellow car.

  The metal box contained two pounds weight of commercial explosive, a detonator, and a stop-watch athletics clock wired to explode the detonator and the polar-amon gelignite 45

  seconds after the control switch had been pulled. A nine-pound strain magnet locked the tool box to the roof of the Hillman Hunter.

  He waved, he saw the tool box stuck like a carbuncle on the car's roof.

  He twisted the accelerator handle, then stamped up through the gears. Great thrust from the motorcycle, taking him speeding past a cattle lorry.

  Charlie, in those stampeding moments, could imagine the stench of fear inside the car, the same fear smell as the man would have known when he took the arms of those who had been brought to him. He swerved in front of the cattle lorry.

  The explosion blew in from behind him, buffeted him.

  The thunder was in his ears.

  The hot wind rushing over his back.

  And the motorcycle speeding forward.

  He took a right turning, he was off the main highway. He accelerated along a lane and scattered some grazing goats that were feeding on the verge. He took another right. He careered forward, full throttle. He was on a track parallel to the main highway, two hundred yards from it. He glanced to his right and could see above the low flat-roofed homes the climbing pall of smoke.

  He went fast, and he was whistling at the wind on his face, and he was blessing the present that had been given him by Mr Matthew Furniss, who was his friend.

  ' So why hasn't it been given straight to us, why are the 'plods'

  involved?"

  There was a sort of democracy inside the Investigation Division. A military type of rank structure had never been part of the Lane's style.

  The Assistant Chief Investigating Officer showed his patience. He did not object to the directness of the challenge, that was the way of the ID. "The police are involved, David, because at this stage of the investigation the death of Lucy Karnes is still a police matter."

  " They'll cock it up," Park said. There was quiet laughter mi the room, even a wisp of a smile from Parrish who sat beside the ACiO. The whole of April team was in the room, and they didn't mind the interruptions from Keeper. When He wasn't hanging round the edges in the pub, when he was at work, Keeper could be good value, and he was good at his Job.

  The ACIO rolled his eyes. "Then we will have to sort out what you regard as an inevitable cock up, if and when we gain control of our friend."

  It was one of the working assumptions of the Investigation Division that its members were superior creatures to policemen. The senior officers did little to suppress the boast.

  Morale was critical to the esprit de corps for the war against the fat cats and the traffickers and the money bags. Most men in the ID would have put their hands on their hearts and sworn that a policeman just wasn't good enough to be recruited into one of their teams. Unspoken, but at the depths of the resentment of policemen, was the pay differential. The guys on April and the other teams were civil servants, and paid at civil servant rates. True, there were allowances to boost their take-home, but they were poor relations. There were plenty of stories of the bungling of the plods. Customs had targeted the Czech-born importer and overseen his arrest following a

  £9 million seizure, the plods had been guarding him when he had escaped out of a police cell. Customs sitting at Heathrow and waiting for a courier to come through with all the surveillance teams ready and poised to follow the trail to lead to the real nasties, except that the plods had flown over to Paris and picked up the creep there and blown all chances of the arrests that mattered. Near open warfare. The police had suggested they should form an elite squad to tackle drugs; Customs said the elite squad was already in place, the Investigation Division, a squad in which no man had a price, which is more than you could say of . . . and so on and so on.

  "For us to gain control, what has to happen?"

  They were on the upper floor of the building. No self-respecting policemen would have tolerated such premises.

  There were cracks in the plaster of the walls, there were no decorations other than annual leave charts and duty rosters.

  The lukewarm green carpet was scarred from where it had been heaved up for the new wiring, and from the latest shift round of the desk complexes. They were all on top of each other, the desks, and half large enough once the terminals and keyboards had been shoved on to them. It was home for the April team, and at the end tucked away behind a plywood and glass screen was Parrish's corner. The ACIO and Parrish sat on a table and shared it with a coffee percolator, and dangled their legs.

  "Right, if the whining's over . . . Lucy Barnes was supplied by Darren Cole, same town, small time. Darren Cole names as his dealer a Mr Leroy Winston Manvers, about whom the courts have not yet been told, about whom CEDRIC is a mine of happy information . . . "

  For effect, that wasn't needed, he held up the print-out from the Customs and Excise Reference and Information Computer. A good deep shaft of a mine with a quarter of a million names, and room for half a million more, CEDRIC

  was their pride. They didn't reckon the plods could hold a prayer to it, and bitched every time Central Drugs Intelligence Unit at the Yard wanted a peep at their material.

  " . . . Leroy Winston Manvers, aged 37, Afro-Caribbean origin, no legit means of support, Notting Hill Gate address, a real bad bastard. I am not going to read the form to you, try and manage that for yourselves . . . What has been agreed by CDIU is that we shall mount a surveillance on the address we hold for Manvers, while our colleagues of the police will be investigating all background leads, associates, etc. It is, however, important, gentlemen, that one point remains high in your minds. We will be happy to put Manvers inside, happier still if we can get a conviction which permits seizure of assets, but the principal r
eason for our involvement at this early stage of an investigation is to move beyond Manvers, the dealer, and into the area of the distributor. The identity of the distributor is our headache. We want the body who is providing heroin to Leroy Winston Manvers. Do not doubt that this investigation has a high priority . . . Questions?"

  "Why?" Park asked.

  "Goddammit, Keeper, wash your head out." Parrish snapped.

  "Facts of life, young man," the ACIO said sharply. "And don't give me shit about it. The facts of life are that the only child of the Secretary of State for Defence dies from a heroin overdose. That Secretary of State has a good cry on the Home Secretary's shoulder. That Home Secretary pulls a load of rank and calls the shots. That's why . . . More questions?

  No? Bill will give you all the details . . . Last point, I have laid down for you the priority, adhere to that priority. Thank you, gentlemen."

  After the ACIO had left, Parrish sorted out the initial details of the surveillance that would be mounted from late that morning on a third floor council flat in Notting Hill Gate.

  Because he had opened his mouth, because he had had too much to say, and because he never seemed to care what hours he worked, it was pretty well inevitable that Park would start the surveillance duty. He wasn't complaining. And he didn't ring Ann to tell her that he didn't know when he'd be home.

  He did not ring her because he was not thinking of her. He was studying a photograph, covertly taken, and recent, of Leroy Winston Manvers. Just staring at the photograph and absorbing the features.

  ". . . Our entire land is now engulfed with the bereavement, separation, death, destruction, homelessness, corruption and despair brought about by the clerics' anti-human rule and catastrophic war. The clerics have brought ruination on our people. Do you know, ladies, gentlemen, that because of the chronic economic situation more than 8,000 factories in Iran have had to shut. Our oil revenues were the envy of the world, but we now find that production is down by more than one half, because of the war . . . Perhaps you are less interested in the cold figures of economics, perhaps you are more interested in the fate of human beings. I tell you, nevertheless, that economics have brought poverty, unemployment and starvation to millions of our people. But I will tell you about the effect on human beings of this cruel war, fought with the cynicism of those clerics while they themselves are safe behind the lines. Do you know that to continue this thirst for blood the clerics now send children to that front line? Don't take my word, take the word of a newspaper. A newspaper wrote:

  'Sometimes the children wrapped themselves in blankets, rolling themselves across the minefield, so that fragments of their bodies would not scatter so they could be gathered and taken behind the lines, to be raised over heads in coffins.'

  Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever heard anything more obscene? That is the regime of the clerics, a regime of bank-ruptcy, a regime of blood, a regime of callousness . . . "

  When he paused, when he mopped perspiration from his forehead, he was loudly applauded. It surprised him that so many had come to listen to him during a lunch time in the City of London. It saddened him that he did not see his brother in that audience. He had urged his brother at least marginally to involve himself in the political world of the exiles. He could not see his brother, he accepted that failure.

  He sipped at a beaker of water.

  At the back of the hall was an Iranian student, enrolled at a Bayswater college, and taking a detailed note of all that Jamil Shabro said in his vilification of the reign of clerics.

  Jamil Shabro spoke on for twenty minutes. When finally he sat down he was warmly applauded, and his hand was pumped by well-wishers, and he was congratulated for his courage for speaking out against tyranny.

  And that afternoon the student in the English language took his written notes to a mosque in West London in which hung a photograph portrait of the Imam, and upon production of his Islamic Republic of Iran passport was admitted to an inner office.

  In the outer corridor to the Cabinet room, after the meeting had broken up, the Secretary of State for Defence made the opportunity for a private word in the Home Secretary's ear.

  "I'm in Washington for a week, won't be back until the day before the funeral. I'm going home now, pick up my bag, then the airport . . . what can I tell Libby? I have to tell her something."

  "It is a police investigation, George. They've got it going."

  "What do I tell Libby?"

  The Home Secretary said softly, "You can tell her that we have the pusher, that we have a good line into the dealer. You can tell her that the Yard, the National Drugs Intelligence Unit, and Regional Crime Squads are all involved. You may also tell her that one of Customs and Excise's rather useful heroin teams is watching developments in the hope that the dealer will lead us on towards the distributor. If one word of this got out, George, one word, I would be severely embarrassed . . . "

  "That will be a great comfort to her . . . we cannot shake it off, the guilt. Why didn't we notice things at the start? It's as if the disintegration of a happy child just passed us by, Libby's taken it all fearfully . . . "

  "I hope to have more positive news by the time you come back."

  The conversation was ended. The Chancellor and Energy and Education were spilling from the Cabinet room, full of good humour at the latest Opinion Poll which gave government a six point lead, and in mid-term.

  Another meeting finishing, another conference table in Whitehall left with empty cups and filled ashtrays, the weekly session of the Joint Intelligence Committee had broken. There had been no politicians present. The Committee was the purlieu of civil servants and permanent officials. Had a politician been present then the meeting would have been severely con-strained. Amongst these men there was a feeling that those who were reliant on the voters' whim were not altogether to be trusted with the nation's fortunes. Present had been the Directors General of the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service, Military Intelligence and Government Communications Headquarters, Foreign and Commonwealth officials, and in the chair had been a Deputy Under Secretary with the formal title of Co-ordinator of Intelligence and Security. This Committee decided what the politicians should see, what they should not.

  The Co-ordinator had waved back into his chair the Director General from Century, a barely observable gesture to indicate that he should stay behind after the others had gone to their cars and their bodyguards.

  "Between ourselves, and I didn't want to express this thought in front of the others, I had no wish to embarrass you, I think you've done rather well," the Co-ordinator beamed. "You were put in to do a job of work at Century, and I'd like to say that I reckon you're at grips with the problems there. From the Prime Minister downwards, we wanted that place shaken out of its complacency, and you are achieving that."

  "It would be easier to manipulate a brick wall, but we're getting there," the Director General said grimly.

  "It was time for fundamental changes in attitude and direction. We have agreed to get away from the dinosaur belief that the Cold War is still the focus. Agreed?"

  "I'm shifting resources from the East European Desks and into all Mid-east areas. There's a measure of resistance. . . .

  Do you know Furniss?"

  "Doesn't everybody know Mattie Furniss, good fellow."

  The Director General was hunched over the table. "He's a very good man, and he's seeing the light."

  "Iran is critical to our interests."

  "That's why I've packed Mattie off down to the Gulf. I've told him what I want."

  "Have you now . . . " The Co-ordinator rolled back in his chair. "You brought some good stuff to the meeting. Is that Mat tie's stuff?"

  "He's running a new agent. Keeping the fellow tight under his wing." The Director General chuckled. "Typical of Mattie. I tell you what, I gave him a good kick up the arse, and he's been good as gold since. He's running a new agent, and he's gone down to the Gulf to sort out those that he has in place inside, and to
breathe some fire into our watchers on the perimeter."

  "Excellent. The Iranians believe, quite literally, they can get away with murder these days. I think the Pentagon taught the Libyans a lesson, and we have done the same to the Syrians. They're both better mannered now. In my opinion, it's time the Iranians were given a short sharp shock of their own . . . Why don't you stay and have a bite of lunch here?"

  In Bahrain, Mattie had met the carpet merchant from Tehran.

  The man brought in foreign exchange, and his family were left behind, and he had two sons conscripted, so he could usually get a visa to fly out and back. And in Bahrain he had talked with his Station Officer. And he had picked up a tail.

  Mattie had flown from Bahrain to Dubai to see the junior in place there, and he had been watched on to the aircraft and watched off it. He had dealt with the junior in a bit over four hours, given him the pep talk, told him to chuck out his University essay style, and to get himself down to the docks more often, to ingratiate himself more with the shipping fraternity.

  Had he taken the road from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, had he been driven the hundred miles from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, past the cars left to rust in the desert because the oil rich could not be bothered to fix another starter motor or whatever, then he might have noticed the tail. Travelling by air, watched through an airport, watched out of an airport, he did not see the tails.

  And little opportunity here in the Gulf for him to lay a trail as an archaeologist. He found these communities with their air-conditioned Hiltons, their chilled ice rinks that were proofed against the 100 degree outside temperature, their communities of tax-avoiding British engineers, rather tedious.

  Van would be different, the Urartian ruins would be blissful.

  He lost the tail that he did not know he had picked up in Abu Dhabi. He employed his standard procedures. He had checked into the hotel, been given a room on the 20th floor of an architectural monstrosity, and then slipped down the fire escape service staircase and out through the work force entrance. He had entered the hotel wearing his dun-coloured linen suit, left it in jeans and a sweatshirt. And he sweated hugely as he walked the few hundred paces through the city to the small office that was nominally base for a firm of international marine surveyors. In a first floor room, the Venetian blinds down, he met the man who worked in the Harbourmaster's office in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.