Strangled Silence

by Oisin McGann

Chi was looking severely disgruntled now. Amina pulled herself up; she had to be careful not to get him on the defensive. This could definitely tie in with Ivor's story. Before showing Gierek's film, he had referred to 'the surviving marines'. She wondered what the others had died of.

  'I knew this was a mistake,' he muttered. 'There's too much you don't know, and I haven't got time to make a believer out of you just now. This is too enormous to get your head around in one go.'

  'Why don't you show me what else you've got?' she pressed him. 'I could bring a fresh perspective to it; you've got some compelling stuff here, I just think you need to take a more grounded view of all this.'

  'My view's fine,' Chi retorted. 'It's yours that's been clouded by the conventions of a blinkered society. There are agencies at work here that never show their faces in the light of day. This whole Sinnostan thing is only part of a bigger picture and you don't get it yet . . .'

  His voice drifted off and his shoulders slumped. Amina saw doubt cross his face for the first time.

  'I do sound like a crackpot now, don't I?' He chuckled sadly. 'Jesus, when did that happen?'

  He raised his head and gave her a rueful grin.

  'Why don't I stick the kettle on?'

  'That's a brilliant idea,' Amina replied.

  33

  Ivor's phone rang while he was peering out of the window with his binoculars. It was Ben.

  'Howdy there, bud, what's new?'

  'Not a lot,' Ivor replied warily. He had not forgotten Ben's last visit. 'How about you?'

  'Yeah . . . fine, fine,' Ben responded, forgetting his own question. He was speaking quickly, as if he had something he had to say, but he couldn't seem to get the words out. 'Eh, so listen . . . uh . . . how y'all fixed today? You busy?'

  Ivor still had the binoculars pressed against his eyes. There was a window across the street that always had its curtains closed, leaving a gap just wide enough for a camera lens. Or maybe the telescopic sight of a rifle.

  'No, I've nothing urgent on,' he said. 'In fact, I'm definitely starting to think I've too much time on my hands.'

  'Great. You wanna meet up? I got somethin' to tell ya and I'd rather not do it over the phone. It's about what I told you the other day. Y'know . . . about the suppressed anger an' all?'

  'Yeah?'

  'Yeah,' Ben went on, and there was a definite shake in his voice now. 'You know how you asked me if anybody had sent me? Well, truth is, partner . . . somebody did. I'm sorry, man, they really had me over a barrel and now . . . well, I just got some bad news and I don't give a damn about all this other crap any more. I got stuff to tell ya, but I don't want to do it over the phone. Can you meet me at that place we used to go to? You know the one? And . . . and I need some money, man. I wouldn't ask, only . . .'

  'No problem,' Ivor said. 'What time and how much?'

  The place they used to go to was a little Lebanese café in the East End. The front opened out onto the street. Ivor chose a table out on the pavement, next to the blackboard advertising the specials. He ordered a small cup of the viscous coffee, blowing on the brown frothy top as he killed time waiting for Ben to arrive.

  He had played with the idea of asking Amina to join them. If Ben had something important to say about what they both remembered – or didn't remember – it might be worth having someone objective on hand. But it might have put Ben off being completely honest . . . and besides, even in his scarred state, he was still a charmer. Ivor's self-esteem had dropped like a lead balloon after he'd lost his eye, and the thought of having to compete with Ben for her attention made him uncomfortable.

  He found himself thinking about her all the time. She had the same straight black hair that he had loved in the women in Asia, the same warm colour to her skin. He wondered if his eye bothered her. It seemed to disturb most women. He reminded himself that she was only interested in his story – there might have only been a few years difference where their ages were concerned, but their lives were oceans apart. There was no point getting his hopes up on that front.

  When half an hour had passed and Ivor had reached the muddy sediment at the bottom of the cup, he ordered some mezze, picking without an appetite at the selection of olives and cheeses. He waited another hour and a half, regularly checking his mobile in case he had somehow missed a call. It took a full bottle of mineral water to rinse the taste of a second coffee from his mouth. Still Ben did not show. Ivor's right eye began to ache.

  He did not want to leave. There had been a fatalistic note in Ben's voice, one he recognized from other men he had known in the veterans' hospital. It was the tone of voice a man had when he had given up on life. Ivor knew there was no other meeting place Ben could have meant. It was in a busy side street, always bustling with people, and Ivor suspected his friend had picked it because it was safe and anonymous. There was little question why he wouldn't talk on the phone; neither of them trusted phones or email any more. If Ben really needed the ten thousand pounds in cash Ivor had in his bag, something was badly wrong – and it was connected with the conversation they'd had the day before. And what did he mean: 'I just got some bad news and I don't give a damn about all this other crap any more'?

  So Ivor rubbed his aching eye and continued to wait for two more hours, becoming increasingly anxious about his friend as the time passed. Five o'clock came and the café was closing. Ivor reluctantly surrendered his seat and stood up to put on his jacket. As he did, he noticed that somebody had written something on the ground behind him, using the yellow chalk from the specials board. He gazed down at the words, a queasy feeling rising in his stomach. They read:

  'You still have one eye left.'

  10

  In an isolated, windowless room in a nondescript government building close to Whitehall, three people sat down at a worn, but solid, mahogany table. The laminated wood-panelled walls around them held modern art prints, with the artists' names emblazoned across the bottom like designer logos. A flip chart stood ignored in one corner and on the wall at the same end, a slightly shabby roll-up screen hung, ready for a projector to light up its life. This was a small conference room on a corridor of small conference rooms and as such attracted no unwelcome attention.

  Each person had a laptop, plugged into a hub in the middle of the table. The hub was not connected to the network in the building and the three participants in the meeting deliberately avoided using any kind of wireless technology. They would take their laptops with them when they left. No minutes were kept at their meetings.

  The room was neutral territory; none of them worked in the building. After their conference, it would be used by another group for a seminar in the use of some kind of database software. But the coming together of these two men and one woman was quite different in nature. opened the meeting, reading through the most recent list of names. With his upright bearing, his grey hair trimmed close to his scalp and the way he spoke in confident, clipped tones, the shorter of the two men obviously had a military background – although he was not wearing a uniform today.

  The other two listened with disinterest. Hearing the names was a formality they all went through in an effort to 'keep a perspective'. -, the taller man, had the look of a bureaucrat or politician, his stocky body turning slowly to fat, his dark hair parted just so, his hands soft, pale and chubby. Sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes hid a keen intellect and a deep-rooted cynicism. His background was intelligence – both gathering it and countering it.

  The woman, , used the time to review her sheets of figures. This was unnecessary as she had compiled them herself and had a photographic memory, but the order of the information in its neat columns gave her pleasure. Dressed in a bulky woollen sweater, her mousy brown, curly hair cut short in a practical asexual style, she looked every bit the fuddy-duddy academic. Among her many scientific qualifications she could boast doctorates in medicine – specializing in neurology – and psychology. The programme she designed and supervised formed the core of this particular group's activities. />
  'That's that,' finished at last. 'Has the room been swept?'

  'Of course,' - replied in a bass croak of a voice.

  'Who wants to start then? , you have the status reports?'

  'Yes,' the woman replied, her tone slightly tetchy. This was no indication of her mood; it was simply the way she spoke. 'I don't see any need to go over them. Here they are.'

  The documents appeared on the men's laptops. They flicked through them quickly, but left the study of the details until later. 's reports were exhaustive and packed with data. The men would need their own experts to help them make sense of all the information.

  'Let's talk about threats then,' - suggested. 'Top of my list is this lottery winner. I'm sure you all saw the article?'

  The others nodded.

  'Not exactly a revelation,' commented. 'There was nothing in it to excite any interest.'

  'It's the principle of the matter,' - replied. 'He's taken a first step towards making waves. And if he's unhappy with the article, as our surveillance suggests, then he could take more drastic measures. He's had contact with the journalist' – he checked his notes – 'Amina Mir, since the article was published – twice that we know of. And then this photo was taken yesterday.'

  The others looked at the picture he had sent to their desktops. It was the young journalist, standing on the street talking to a tall youth about her age. They all recognized him.

  'Sandwith,' breathed. 'He just keeps popping up, doesn't he?'

  'This could work in our favour,' spoke up. 'If Sandwith takes up McMorris's story, it will get an airing, but it will fall automatically into the realm of the conspiracy theorists and UFO freaks and, as such, will lose all serious credibility.'

  'I don't like it,' said, shaking his head. 'And I especially don't like Sandwith. He's a crackpot, but he's not enough of a crackpot. If he keeps making connections, sooner or later he's going to make one that threatens to expose us. I'm sure he's connected to all these hackers who've been probing the military databases recently. They've only been pulling out chaff so far, but . . . I think we should do something about him.'

  'There've been too many direct actions lately,' - responded. 'We risk creating patterns that people can spot. Sandwith is a useful distraction as he is. If something happened to him, it would focus the attention of all of his cronies on his avenues of investigation – including McMorris's story. Better that we leave them guessing.'

  'And McMorris?'

  'He's shown himself to be a cautious one, and he's had a warning.' - shrugged. 'I say we leave him be, but keep the surveillance on him and the reporter in case one of them does something rash.'

  The others nodded their agreement.

  'What are you doing about Shang?' asked. 'He's been missing for nearly a week now. I thought your people were supposed to be efficient.'

  'We have several leads,' - retorted frostily. 'The man's a former operative and it seems he hasn't forgotten his tradecraft. We'll find him.'

  'Before the shipment arrives in Sinnostan?' persisted. 'We don't know where he is. We don't know if he's going to act against us. We don't know if he's acting alone or with others. Your people haven't found anything useful at all, have they?'

  - bit back an angry reply. He knew she cared nothing for his irritation. For her, emotions were phenomena to be observed and studied and nothing more. He and exchanged looks. They had grown used to her behaviour, but it still galled them at times. There could be nothing more aggravating on this earth than a genius with no empathy and no social skills; someone whose own work was exemplary and who had no compunction in pointing out the flaws in everybody else's. She had no idea – and little interest in – how much effort it took to ensure her work remained the stuff of science-fiction mythology.

  'We'll find him,' he said again.

  'I hope you do,' she told him.

  'All right,' cut into the argument with his characteristically brusque manner. 'What's next?'

  'I'm unhappy with the level of rejections,' said. 'The more subjects I have to work with, the more I can narrow down the imperfections in the process.'

  'We don't have a limitless supply,' informed her sternly. 'Our sole purpose in all this is to protect the nation – not to provide you with all the human test subjects your heart desires. Besides, as - pointed out, we want to avoid patterns that are too easy to spot – and an escalation in hostilities would be more than the public would stand at the moment. This conflict is becoming unpopular enough as it is. You'll just have to improve your success rate.'

  'I thought the purpose of my work was to eliminate hostilities altogether,' the doctor replied tartly.

  'They said the same thing about the atomic bomb,' - muttered drily.

  27

  Tariq normally remembered to knock before walking into his dad's study, but his mind was still buzzing on finishing Tech-Shot Extreme. He stopped in his tracks when he found his father on a prayer mat, performing salat. Tariq felt awkward for a moment, as if he had walked in to find his dad in his underwear.

  Martin lifted his head up from the sajjada, his characteristically benign expression somewhat dulled, as if he were waking gently from a sleep.

  'What's up?' he asked. 'From the look on your face, you'd think I had two heads or something.'

  'No . . . it's just . . . it's nothing,' Tariq stuttered. 'I just didn't know you, eh . . . you still prayed, that's all.'

  'Try looking away from the screen from time to time,' Martin replied, then added in a more sheepish tone as he glanced at the Qur'an lying open on his desk: 'Actually, I haven't done much lately – but I should. And it still helps when times are trying.'

  Tariq nodded, but didn't say anything. He knew that times tended to be at their most trying when his parents were having one of their bust-ups. Martin expected Helena to stay at home more, now that she was getting older, but she was having none of it. For all his alpha-male tendencies, Martin always gave in to his wife's stubbornness. She had made it clear that she wouldn't convert to Islam when they married and she had been winning most of the arguments ever since. Tariq thought his dad could be a bit of a wuss sometimes.

  He wondered sometimes if his father had lost his edge after giving up active service and becoming a 'spokesman'. Tariq suspected that Martin would always be a bit embarrassed about it. The mates he had served with – all of whom ran their own units now – certainly took the piss out of him from time to time. But then, Martin earned more money . . . and he was still married, which was more than could be said for any of them.

  Anyway, Tariq hadn't noticed any 'domestic' problems recently. That said, the folks kept their disagreements to themselves for the most part.

  There were times when Tariq resorted to prayer too. Not that he'd ever admit to it, but it was hard to give up the habit.

  'Listen, could you give me a lift down to Renta-a-Vision?' he asked. 'Tech-Shot Mutant is out and I just finished Extreme. Darren sent me some shortcuts so I can get straight onto the level with the zombie elephants.'

  'Cool!' Martin said, doing his best impression of gawky teenage enthusiasm. When it met with Tariq's effortless look of disdain, he tried another tack: 'I'm off down to the range. Why don't you come along? Do some real shooting for a change.'

  Tariq had been going to the practice range for over a year now and though firing his father's automatic still hadn't lost its thrill, paper targets just couldn't compete with cutting-edge graphics. He was already a better shot than Amina, even though she had started even younger than he had, what with being Daddy's little pet. Tariq put that down to his on-screen accuracy.

  It made him think of MindFeed. With the army in school, he wondered how long it would be before the kids were training with real weapons. The government was always going on about how people had to be ready to defend themselves against the terrorist threat.

  'Well?' his dad prompted him. 'How about it?'

  'Do they have zombie elephants?' he asked.

  'They swore to me they w
ere getting them in next week. Big rotting corpses with mad eyes and sticky-outy ribs and ears like . . . like sheets of rancid meat hanging off them. But they can't guarantee they'll be halal.'

  'Gross. Maybe next week, then,' Tariq responded.' So . . . ? Can I get that lift or what?'

  His father tried not to look disappointed.

  'It's a fifteen-minute walk and it's a lovely evening. You could do with the exercise . . . not to mention a bit of fresh air. When was the last time you went for a run, or even a walk for that matter?'

  'Right,' Tariq said, trying hard not to grit his teeth.'How about you let me decide how I'm going to misspend my youth? That way, you can still give me a lift down to the shop where I can rent another violent PlayStation game, and have the satisfaction of telling me you told me so ten years from now.'

  'How about you do without lifts to Rent-a-Vision for the rest of your misspent youth?'

  Tariq went to slam the door, but stopped. He tried to quell the unreasonable anger rising inside him. His lips were pressed tightly together, his hand gripping the door handle like a claw. It was stupid. He and his father did this a lot now, and he was disappointed at how easily they had slipped into the whole teenager-versus-parent thing. He liked his father. In fact, if he were pressed, he would have to admit that he thought his dad was cool. His friends had always thought so. So how did they always ended up sniping at each other like this?

  'I'm sorry, Dad.'

  'Me too,' Martin said, nodding.

  There was a long pause while they each waited for the other to speak next.

  'So,' Tariq relented, 'we still on for going to the range?'

  His father did not smile, but his expression warmed up.

  'Yeah, we can shoot guns and bond like men. Maybe I'll call Geoff and tell him to bring down his L85A1 so we can lay down some heavier fire. Could even go out into the countryside, smoke some cigars and shoot us some dairy cows.'