HOME RUN

by Gerald Seymour

  This was just about the closest that he had been to Tango One, just closer than the one-way window at Heathrow. He turned away. He had yesterday's newspaper in his hands, and his head was away from the pavement, and his body was low in the back seat. All standard procedure.

  The car lurched.

  The front of the car bucked down.

  His eyes opened. Keeper's eyes coming half out of his head.

  He gazed through the front windscreen at the back of Tango One.

  Tango One sat on the bonnet of the green Sierra, and his feet swung close to the nearside front wheel and he was grinning as he looked down and through the windscreen. The fucking Tango was sitting on the bonnet of Keeper's car . . .

  no standard procedure for that one. Keeper looked into the amused face. Past Tango One he could see Token stop dead in her tracks, and Corinthian behind her.

  "Excuse me." He wound down the rear window. "Would uou mind getting off my car."

  He heard the voice that mimicked his accent. "Excuse me

  . excuse me, would you mind getting off my back."

  All the training said that in a show-out then the surveillance team backed off, and fast. Keeper couldn't back off. He was half lying in the back of his car, and the target was comfortable on the bonnet.

  Token was twenty yards from the car, and hesitating, and not knowing what was expected of her, and Harlech had stalled his engine and there was a frustrated horn hammering behind him, and Corinthian was cutting through the traffic to get to the far side of the road, which was right. A bitter, raw anger in Keeper.

  "Would you mind getting off my car, please."

  Again the mimicking of his voice, but this time shouted,

  "April Five to April One, April Five to April One . . . for fuck's sake come in, please. What a funny little name, April Five."

  "Get off."

  "Get off my back."

  The words were clear in Keeper's memory. There was room for discretion when there had not been an order. But there had been an order. "You do not, repeat not, pull in Tango One."

  Bill had not said, "You do not, repeat not, put your fist in the target's grin." He climbed out of the car. He felt awkward, stiff, from sleeping in the back seat, and out with him came an empty soft drink can that clattered into the gutter beside him.

  "Get the hell off my car, Eshraq."

  "Didn't you hear me, April Five? Get off my back."

  "I'm going to stay on your back until they close the door on you."

  "I don't think so, April Five."

  "I'll put you off my car.'

  " T r y . "

  "Don't think, Eshraq, that Furniss can protect you."

  And Charlie Eshraq laughed at him, the flash of wide white teeth.

  "Out of your depth, April Five. Heh, April Five, can you swim?"

  And he was left. He stood beside the car, and he had to put his hand on the roof of the car to steady himself, and it was not the tiredness that had weakened his legs. He was trembling with rage.

  They went through the routine. They watched the target in his seat throughout the journey, as if they hadn't shown out, as if he hadn't sat on the bonnet of the Case Officer's car, as if they knew what they were doing, as if it hadn't been the biggest foul-up any of them could remember.

  No one actually asked Keeper what had been said at the green Sierra saloon, because none of them dared. The April team went back to London and half a dozen rows in front of them Charlie Eshraq slept.

  Keeper went forward, matching the motion of the train.

  He caught at the seat heads to balance himself.

  His hand brushed the ear of Charlie Eshraq when he went past that seat, and he saw the annoyance curl on the man's face. Didn't give a damn. He was whistling, cheerful.

  He went to the buffet. Twelve cans of Newcastle Brown, four whisky minatures, eight packets of crisps, eight packets of roasted peanuts.

  He spilled them down on to the table. Harlech looked like he couldn't remember when Keeper had last volunteered his shout, Corinthian looked like it was Christmas morning, Token was grinning.

  He sang. Big voice, might have had a trace of baritone, but he didn't know about such things . . .

  Eshraq has only got one ball,

  His Dad had two but they were very small, Khomeini has something similar,

  But the Shah had no balls at all. . .

  Heads turned. Business men dropping their pocket calculators and their financial reports, and Eshraq twisting his head to look back at them. "One more time," Keeper shouted.

  Charlie has only got one ball,

  His Dad had two but they were very small, Khomeini has something similar,

  But the Shah had no balls at all . . .

  And into the decibel joke competition. Loudest laughter wins.

  Token's was filthy, Harlech's was rugby, Corinthian's was subtle, which meant he couldn't win, Keeper's was Irish.

  Filth rules. A miniature emptied into Token's second can.

  They were all laughing, all rating it a hell of a good morning, and Token had her arm looped up and over David's shoulder and she tousled the hair at the back of his neck.

  "Well done, big boy."

  He looked forward to what he could see of the shoulder six rows in front of him. He looked past the dark suits and the starched shirts and the disapproval.

  "Just to let him know that I'll take his legs off at the knees."

  "Go home, David."

  "I will go home when I know what is happening."

  "What makes you think that I know what's happening?"

  "That's not an answer, Bill, and you know it."

  "It's the answer you'll have to make do with."

  "We could have knocked him and you blocked it."

  "I told you, David, it was up the mountain from me."

  The frustration showed. Park thwacked his right fist into the palm of his left hand. Parrish didn't look as though he were impressed. It was the first time that Park had ever shouted at Bill Parrish, because Parrish was a cuddly old sponge, and shouting at him was blowing bubbles out of the window. Too nice a man to shout at.

  "For fuck's sake, Bill, we are talking about a heroin trafficker. We are talking about a heroin distributor. We are talking about a joker who is walking away from major dealing.

  Since when did that sort of track get a block on it?"

  "The instructions to me, the instructions that I passed on to you, were that Eshraq should not be lifted."

  "It's criminal, Bill, and you know it."

  "Me, I know nothing, and I do what I am told. You should do what you're told and go home."

  David Park went to the door. He turned, he spat, "And I thought this was supposed to be a serious outfit, not a comic strip . . . "

  "Don't give me that shit, Keeper."

  "And I'd have thought you'd have honoured your promise."

  "Listen . . . don't pull the old holy number with me . . .

  listen. The ACIO went to see the Home Secretary last night, said we were ready for a lift. The Home Secretary called him in his beauty sleep. I shouldn't be telling you, but the Home Secretary gave the instruction, that's how high it came from.

  You want to know what's happening, I want to know what's happening. What I know is that on the top floor the ACIO

  and the CIO are not available to me. I will be told what is happening when they are ready to tell me, and you will be told when I am ready to tell you. . . . So do me that favour and bugger off home. . . . Did you ring your missus?"

  "He's just a filthy little trafficker . . . "

  "I hear he saw you off."

  "What the hell . . . ?"

  "Merely making an observation. . . . Did you ring your missus?"

  "He's a cocky little swine."

  "And you showed out to him - so go home and take your missus out and buy her a pretty dancing frock."

  "Are you going to let them walk right over you?"

  "That's a slogan, and that's no
t worthy of you . . . just go home."

  A few minutes later, from his window, Bill Parrish saw David Park on the street below, walking through the traffic like it wasn't there. He thought that he might have destroyed one of his best young men, and he hadn't known how to stem the rot. He called up on the radio. He was told that Tango One was back at his flat. He had two of the April team on the flat, but the soul had gone out of the surveillance and the investigation, and the bugger of it was that no one had felt it necessary to tell Parrish why the block had gone down. Why take it seriously . . . it was only heroin, it was only kids' lives being chucked on the garbage heap, it was only evil bastards getting rich off misery. Why worry? Only bloody fools would worry. Bloody old fools like Parrish, and bloody young fools like Park. He knew that Park hadn't taken any leave for two years, and he hadn't put in for holiday time for the coming summer. He might just book a couple of weeks for the two of them on the Algarve, and handcuff Keeper to his Ann and kick him on to the plane. Could be sentimental, Bill Parrish, when he wanted to be. It was a crying shame, that couple was.

  Another day . . . of course, there would be another day.

  One step at a time, sweet Jesus. It was the favourite hymn of Bill Parrish who was a rare Christian once a year, late at night and Christmas Eve. One step at a time, sweet Jesus, the hymn that he liked to hear on the radio when he was in his car. One step at a time . . . and he ought to teach the words to Park, if the youngster hadn't gotten himself run over crossing Holborn and not looking. He rang the ACIO's extension, and was told he was in a meeting. He rang the Bossman's extension, and was told he was in conference. One step at a time, sweet Jesus . . . it was only heroin.

  He sat on the floor of his prison room beside the door. He had worked out the angles of vision from the peephole in the door, and he believed that where he sat he was hidden if his guards checked at the peephole before entering. He sat on the floor in his underpants and his vest and his socks. He had used the pillow on his bed and his rolled up shirt and his bunched together trousers to make a shape under the blanket.

  He always slept with the blanket over his head, to shut out the ceiling light. He had put his shoes at the end of the bed and half covered them with the blanket. A long time he had listened at the door before making the preparations, long enough to satisfy himself that he was not watched.

  They had shamed Mattie Furniss, humiliated him. To break that shame he would kill. He would try, damned hard, to kill.

  Eventually the Mullah remembered Juliette Eshraq. Not well, of course, but he remembered her.

  He had to remember her. If he had not remembered her then he would have been the only living being amongst close to two thousand present at the hanging who had forgotten Juliette Eshraq. The investigator thought it a great spur to memory, his information that the brother of Juliette Eshraq was coming to Iran with an armour-piercing missile on his shoulder, and revenge in his mind.

  "But you are assured, Excellency, of my best endeavours.

  It is in my interests, also, that the brother of Juliette Eshraq be found. If he is not found then it is me that he will come lor, after he has gone to you."

  When he left the Mullah, now very clear in his recollection of Juliette Eshraq who had smiled at the crowd who had come to see her lifted high on the crane's arm, he went to his own office in the capital and there he made the arrangements for the watching of an official in the Harbourmaster's office at Bandar Abbas, and of a merchant in carpets, and of an engineer who repaired broken lorries.

  It would be late in the evening before he could catch a military flight back from Tehran to Tabriz.

  Go for it, that was the Major's oft-repealed injunction at the Fort. Go for it.

  "You go for it, gentlemen, because if you're going to be all namby-pamby then you'll fail, and after you've failed then you'll wish to Christ that you'd never tried. If you like living then you go for it, because if you don't go for it then you won't be living."

  Mattie sat on the floor behind the door and he gazed at his made up bed, and he listened for the footfall of the guards bringing him his evening food.

  The Major was from Hereford. The Major had grown tired of lying on his belly in ditches in Northern Ireland and branched into consultancy, which paid better and which was safer. It was said of the Major that he had once spent two clear weeks living rough on the fringe of the Creggan Estate in Derry, and that was not a friendly place. The Major advised multi-national companies in the security of their overseas executives, and he came down to the Fort to let the Service know the current thinking on Escape and Evasion. He said that a prisoner must look for the opportunity of escape from the moment of capture. He said that it didn't matter how often the circumstances of imprisonment changed, the captive must be prepared to rip up his plan and start again. And there was another story about the Major. A new high-security gaol in Worcestershire, and the first convicts due to arrive on a Monday morning. The Friday before there had been an escape prevention drill. The Major had been the guinea pig, and he'd been out by the evening; problem was, the Major said he'd been paid to get out, not to tell how he'd done it. Never did tell them. . . . Mattie thought of the Major and scratched his memory for every last nugget of what he had been told.

  There were low voices on the stairs, and the soft shuffle of sandals.

  The bolt was withdrawn, the key was in the door.

  15

  There was the numbing shock spreading from the heel of his hand. And the body was at his feet.

  There was his food tray on the table.

  Go for it . . .

  Mattie went. Fast and cold, just as the Major had told them.

  He went out through the heavy door. He went straight at the second guard standing back from the doorway. He saw the surprise wheeling across the face of the second guard, and Mattie's hands were at his throat and his knee rose sharply with all the force Mattie had into the man's groin. No going back because the body of the guard who had carried the food tray was on the tiled floor behind him. The second guard crumpled to his knees. Mattie let go of his throat and brought his knee swinging back into the man's face. His head flew back, struck the wall. One more jerk with the knee to the head now slumped against the wall, and he was almost gone.

  Mattie dragged him into the prison room and then his hands were closing on the man's throat. The guard picked feebly at Mattie's wrists, and his eyes bulged, and his tongue arced, and his voice choked, and his breath died. The Major had always said it would be easy, if they went for it. Nothing easier than chopping the heel of the hand on to the nape of a man's neck. Nothing simpler than locking the fingers around a man's throat, and taking the pressure on to his windpipe, so that it sealed. His fingers were a tourniquet, and the voice and the breath and the life of the second guard were dying. He felt no fear. He felt only a determination to carry out all that he had been told. The second guard was sinking to the tiled floor, and all the time he looked up and into the face of his killer.

  Wrong place, dear boy, to come looking for mercy. It had been the second guard who had always smoked and seemed so casual and so indifferent when the real pain was being worked into Mattie's body down in the cellar. Never any mercy in the cellar from you, dear boy. The second guard had his hands on Mattie's wrists, and the stupid, pathetic creature had not had the wit to let go of the hands and to go for the pistol in the holster at his belt. Bad mistake, dear boy. Mattie heard the last choke shudder, and his fingers on the second guard's throat had the weight of the man's corpse.

  He dragged the body of the second guard across the tiles and towards the bed.

  A hell of a weight, and the tiredness was flooding into Mattie. With his foot he pushed them both under the iron framed bed.

  He took the tunic and plimsoll shoes off the bigger of the two guards. The man was taller than Mattie and had the bigger feet, and his plimsolls went on to Mattie's feet over the bandages, and he took the holster belt, and when he had retrieved his own trousers from under the bla
nket, then he threaded the belt through the loops and put on the tunic. He had the pistol. He checked the breech and the magazine. It was East bloc manufacture and it was a hell of a time since he had last seen a pistol made in Czechoslovakia. He took bread from the food tray, forced it into his trouser pocket along with a chicken piece and a fistful of rice.

  Mattie stepped out on to the landing.

  He listened. There was a radio playing. He recognized a news bulletin on the radio, the Tehran Home Service, and he could hear low voices. There was no other way. The way out was down the stairs. The pistol stayed in his holster. If he had taken it out then he would have had to spend time learning its mechanisms, he had not that time. The Major had always said that the initial movement was what gave you the chance of escape. He went down the stairs. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. It was a good house for him. The house had concrete floors under the tiles, and a concrete staircase. No sound as he came down the stairs. The hallway ran the length of the villa, from the front door, and into the kitchen at the back. He paused again, he kept himself flat against the hall wall. Ridiculous, but he was actually listening to the news broadcast, something about the price of long-grained rice.

  Come on, Mattie, get on with it. He saw the poster of Khomeini in front of him, across the width of the hallway, sellotaped to the wall. . . . Up yours, dear boy. . . . The voices that he heard were low, relaxed, and came with the radio from behind a nearly closed door that was opposite to him. The Major had said that the guards who most mattered were the guards that had never been seen by the prisoner.

  There could be guards outside. Mattie had to accept that there might be guards outside the villa and that he had no idea of their positioning. He was listening, but his ears were filled with the radio broadcast, and the words of the men inside the room. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked past the door, trying to make himself upright. He should have brought the tray, either as disguise or something to throw.

  He undid the catch on the holster, put one hand on the butt of the pistol and went into the kitchen. No one there. They had already eaten. His own food would have been the last to be prepared. The sink was stacked with plates and with cooking dishes. They'd come soon, perhaps when the radio broadcast was over. They'd wash the dishes and then they'd wonder where were the two guards who had taken the food tray to the prisoner.