The Kobra Manifesto q-7

by Adam Hall

  My fault.

  'We've all been up against it,' Ferris said. He was watching the plane emerging from the far side of the tower. 'You blew the phase over there but you could have had better directives and they could have told you the Phnom Penh objective was all they'd got left. It could have made all the difference. But we can't do anything about that now.' He went on talking, partly to steady me. 'We didn't think you could make this rendezvous with any certainty but we knew you'd have to get out of Cambodia with the Americans or risk being interned, so we called on Washington. I had to switch my flights — I was going Bombay-Hong Kong originally — because the USAF said they'd prefer to drop you in Taiwan.' He turned to look at me. 'You've realized by now that there's a strong American connection.'

  The China Airlines plane swung into the parking bay and cut its engines, their soft whine dying away to silence.

  'Was the connection there from the beginning?'

  I didn't think he'd tell me.

  He told me.

  'No. One of the objectives we lost was Satynovich Zade. Two days ago he was seen in New York.'

  'Where was he lost?'

  'Palestine.'

  'What happened to Brockley?'

  Ferris looked at his watch. 'No one has heard from him. We ought to be going, you know.'

  We began walking out of the shadow.

  'What's he down as,' I asked him, 'in the report?'

  'Brockley? Missing. What else can they put?' He walked a little faster, and his mackintosh began flapping in the wind from the ocean. 'He might have gone to ground, of course: there wouldn't be much point in making signals once the objective was gone.'

  'How did London know?'

  'From his local director.'

  So I shut up.

  Harrison, Hunter, Chepstow, now Brockley.

  And it was Egerton running this one: a director who prided himself on bringing his ferrets back alive. No wonder he'd pulled Ferris out of Tokyo: he needed the best men he could get.

  We crossed the road and went through me main hall to the departure gate and I checked the environs at every yard because somewhere along the line mis appalling sequence of casualties had to stop. The people in Kobra hadn't had to wipe out four men in a row: you can break out of a surveillance situation without doing that They'd been spelling out a message for us, that was all.

  Don't get in our way.

  Ferris and I were standing a little apart from the other passengers but we kept our voices low.

  'What do you know,' he asked me, 'about Satynovich Zade?'

  'Only what I was given in Briefing. Undercover agent for Palestinian factions, once mixed up in the Fourth International, price on his head in Holland.'

  'Who briefed you?'

  'Macklin.'

  'Fair enough.' He was studying me again. 'Going to ask you something. Are you fit for operations?'

  I looked away.

  ''Nobody looks their best,' I said, 'under these bloody lights.'

  He waited a bit and then said:

  'Well?'

  He really wanted to know. That was his job and he was good at it and he never let his people get away with anything.

  'I could do with some sleep,' I said.

  He went on watching me.

  'I may put you through a medical in Washington. I want you to-'

  'Look, I bad a bit of concussion, that's all. It's a fourteen hour flight so I've got some sleep coining to me. Then I'll be okay.'

  He looked away from me, watching the people getting into line by the ropes, lowering his voice until it was lost in (be background of the canned Chinese music.

  'I want you to know something. London thinks this operation has got out of hand. Control himself suggested giving m. to Sargent to run as a para-military number if the situation I look that sort of direction. Then the people upstairs decided it's got to be done as a penetration exercise or not at all. Good logic?'

  'Yes.'

  Because we were still not in the open and jumping frontiers and the situation was too fluid for anything para-military: there were no targets, no bridges to blow up, no airfields to knock out. We had to zero in on the Kobra rendezvous, penetrate it and take whatever terminal action London ordered.

  The Egg has a lot of faith in you,' Ferris said softly. 'If this is a penetration job he thinks you can do it. He didn't want anyone else for this one-did he tell you that?'

  'He was civil enough to mention it, yes.'

  Ferris gave a wintry little smile.

  'I don't know about his being civil. He's just backing the only horse who's got a hope in hell of coming in. The thing is, he's rather relying on you to do that for him.' He brought his eyes away from watching the line of passengers and looked at me steadily. 'He's had orders to stop the slaughter, you see. He thinks you can help him do that.'

  'By staying alive?'

  I thought of the door and the wall and the shock of flame and the murderous blast of its thunder as my body was spun away at the fringe of the explosion..

  'I could try a bit harder,' I said.

  'The trauma was still there and the light was too bright for my eyes and I wanted to lie down and sleep and go on sleeping.

  That's all we're asking,' Ferris said. The current situation a this: three of our people have got Satynovich Zade under surveillance in New York and they believe they can keep him in view till you reach there. Once you reach there and get Zade in your sights we're calling the others off.'

  I like working solo and he knew that. And there was another reason: with three of them circulating in the immediate vicinity of the objective, someone was going to get killed. Again.

  'Does Control think, the Kobra rendezvous is going to happen in New York?'

  'He doesn't know yet. We've got you lined up for a special interview in Washington first. Then he'll know.'

  He was watching the departure gate again. The chief stewardess was there with her papers.

  'This interview,' I said. 'Can you tell me a bit more about-'

  'No.'

  Strict hush.

  Fair enough: he was here to direct me and he knew what was good for me and what wasn't good for me and I could rely on that because I'd been local-directed by Ferris before and he was first-rate.

  I tried again.

  'Zade. Is he the last hope?'

  'Yes.'

  'No one's trying to locate any of the objectives we've lost?'

  'No. It's-' he stopped, giving a slight shrug. 'It's Zade we're concentrating on now.'

  That wasn't what he'd been going to say. He'd been going to say it was too dangerous. They were worried about the losses.

  The line of passengers began moving.

  'At this point,' Ferris said, 'Control has instructed me to say that if you're not fit for operations, or if you feel the demands are too high, he would perfectly understand your coming in.'

  He pulled our tickets out of his mackintosh and checked them over.

  I knew it wasn't a formality: he was waiting for a direct answer. I felt a bit annoyed about it but it wasn't his fault.

  'I've told you, all I want is some sleep.'

  'I'm sure you do.' He turned his head and watched me with his bland yellow eyes. 'But there's the other thing: the demands are rather high, and Egerton knows that.'

  'For Christ's sake, I blew it in Cambodia didn't I? So now I want to give him Kobra. The complete works, and on a plate.'

  'He doesn't expect that'

  'No, but I do.'

  Chapter Nine: SIREN

  A series of soft thuds.

  I woke.

  The airframe was settling, and plastic creaked, 'Was that the undercarriage?'

  'Yes,' Ferris said.

  The sun was high in the windows opposite my berths Los Angeles?'

  'Yes.'

  I checked my watch. 06:00 hours.

  Nine hours' sleep.

  'What's the local time?'

  'Fourteen hundred.'

  We bounced twice.
>
  'Do we change planes?'

  'Yes.'

  I went along to the lav.

  A roaring began outside and there was a lot of deceleration.

  'Have you altered your watch?' Ferris asked when I went back.

  'Not yet'

  There'd be extensive jet lag to take up when we reached the east coast and I wanted to know my own metabolic time for a while in case there was a chance to adjust.

  'They're having a bad day,' Ferris said.

  'What?'

  I still had some buzzing in the ears, 'Look at that lot.'

  The smog was mud-brown, hazing out the tops of the buildings, and we caught the Euston Station smell of it as we left the aircraft.

  'How long have we got?'

  'Ninety minutes.'

  'Call or take-off?'

  'Take-off.'

  We went along to the men's room and had a wash and linen Ferris disappeared for a while and came back to our rdv in the coffee-shop and sat down on the next stool and ordered buttermilk.

  'They've still got the road up,' he told me, I supposed he meant in Whitehall.

  'Taking their time.'

  I didn't see why he'd decided to get into signals with London from Los Angeles when he hadn't done so in Taipei.

  I certainly couldn't ask him now.

  'How's Charlie?'

  Not his correct name. Correct name was Diego.

  'Trouble with his dentist. Suing him.'

  He crouched over his buttermilk, using a straw.

  Diego was our man in downtown Hollywood and that was the only way Ferris could have signalled London in the limited time he'd been away: by phoning Diego and getting him to crank up the short-wave radio. That was partly what he was for. I assumed Ferris had just been reporting our travel pattern but it seemed a bit superfluous.

  'How the hell,' I asked him, 'did our chum over there manage to screw the price of first-class berths out of those poxy old tarts in Accounts?'

  'He looks after people.'

  His straw made a sudden sucking noise as he got to the bottom.

  On our way back to the departure gate we had three or four minutes in an open space and he said:

  'Your interview in Washington is arranged to take place in the White House. The contact's name is Robert W. Finberg and he's an adviser to the US Secretary of Defence. You'll be put through a routine screening by the EPS at the British Embassy some time before noon tomorrow, all going well Questions?'

  'EPS?'

  'Executive Protection Service. They provide security for the White House and the diplomatic missions in Washington The actual screening won't take long because there's only the question of identity to be taken care of: the purpose of your visit and the nature of the interview are both subject to very strict hush.'

  He was watching the passengers coming across to the gate and so was I. So far, three of them had been on the Pacific flight with us, two of them in the coach class and one in the first.

  'I'll brief you first thing in the morning but it might be as well to get one fact memorized straight away: at this point only one man in the whole of the United States has any knowledge of our mission to counter the Kobra operation, and only one man knows that you and I have arrived in the country. That man is of course Robert W. Finberg. Questions?'

  There wasn't a lot of time: a Pan Am official was taking up his station at the departure gate. To be noted in passing was a man in a white shirt standing next to him and using a walkie-talkie and looking everywhere except at the passengers. He didn't look like a boarding inspector and I would put Mm down tentatively as FBI.

  'Did Finberg come to us, or did we go to him?'

  'I don't know that,' Ferris said.

  'These people we've got surveying Satynovich Zade: do they know we're here?'

  'No. They won't be told.'

  'Not when I take over?'

  'No. We're going to put out disinformation that they've lost their objective.'

  'They don't know about the interview?'

  'No. They won't be told. The minute you take over the surveillance on Zade they'll start for the airport. Anything you're unhappy about?'

  'Not so far.'

  'Fair enough.' He turned his sandy head and gazed at me for a moment like an owl. 'You look in good form.'

  'The shave helped.'

  'I told London you were fit for operations.'

  'I should bloody well hope so.'

  'And I told them you've no intention of coming in.'

  'Not really.'

  It was raining when we got into Dulles International Airport.

  My watch read eleven in the morning Taiwan time and in Washington it was ten at night but I'd slept the whole way across the Pacific and some of the way across the States so the jet lag was minimal.

  By the time we'd gone aboard in Los Angeles I'd noted a total of four people who were in transit from Taiwan and we stayed in the baggage claim area and saw them out of the building before we went over to Avis and picked up a dark grey Mustang. Ferris was touchy about checking the transit passengers: he said there was absolutely no chance of any kind of surveillance in this travel phase and I said there'd been absolutely no chance of the opposition getting on to me so early in Phnom Penh but they'd hit me with a wall just the same.

  It rained all night Some of the time I slept again but Ferris used the phone in the next room at midnight and three a.m., initiating the first call and receiving the second: I could hear the bell.

  I called him at eight o'clock and the line opened at once.

  'Yes?'

  'All in order?'

  'Perfectly.'

  'Thank Christ for that,' I said and hung up.

  I'd been worrying more than I'd realized: three people were more than enough to hold down one objective but the opposition had been fighting all along the line and what had happened in Milan and Geneva and Phnom Penh could happen in New York. The three a.m. call to Ferris must have been from one of them, reporting progress, and they must have Zade still in their sights or Ferris would have got me out of bed for a crisis briefing.

  But he'd picked up the phone so fast, just now.

  Maybe he'd been close to it Discount.

  The nerves always start jumping a bit at the start of a new phase and this one was ultra sensitive because the mission now hung on a fine thread. If they lost Zade in New York it would finish us: Ferris had said this objective was the last hope. Despite this I was briefed to delay travel in Washington for an interview with the only man in the whole country who could help us.

  The rain had stopped by half-past eight and when I went out at nine the sky was clearing for spring sunshine.

  I took an hour, re-kitting. The bush jacket I'd bought in Phnom Penh wasn't the right image for a White House meeting and in any case it was streaked with wall plaster and one shoulder was blackened. I was back in the hotel soon after ten and Ferris was waiting for me by the time I'd changed.

  'Briefing,' he said.

  'I'm ready.'

  'You're due at the British Embassy at 11:00 hours and the screening will take some fifteen minutes. You'll use your present cover and if they try to shake you on it I want you to phone me at this hotel. All they need to know is who you are, not what you're doing in Washington. Finberg has told them he wants to interview you and that's enough for them. The Executive Protection Service does exactly what it says: it protects executives in the White House, and all they need to know is that you're not going to assassinate Finberg at the meeting — or anyone else. Questions?'

  'Finberg knows I'm using a cover?'

  'He knows you are operating for a London shadow agency under the aegis of the UK government; he therefore realizes you're not a bona fide journalist. In talking to him you don't have to protect the cover image unless someone else is present — then you protect it.'

  I went across to the door of the room and stood there, 'What happens if the EPS tries shaking me?'

  'You phone me here and I'll ask Finbe
rg to come to the British Embassy.' He paused.

  I opened the door with a jerk.

  Housemaids with a trolley of linen at the end of the passage.

  I shut the door.

  'At the embassy,' Ferris went on, 'we'd open up what would amount to a hot line connection by radio, Finberg to Control. But that's last ditch. Don't let them shake you. More questions?'

  'No.'

  'Finally, you'll be met at the West Executive Entrance by a security escort and a man named George Ryan Jr. He'll take you to the meeting place, and by the way, he's in the Company.'

  'What does he know?'

  'Only that you're operating as a British agent. Nothing else.'

  I went over to the window.

  'How deep is the CIA in this?'

  'The CIA isn't in it at all. He happens to be a member, but be knows absolutely nothing about Kobra or our mission. He's a courtesy escort, more or less — service to service.'

  The trees were in early leaf below the window but there were still enough gaps between them to take in extreme angles and expose normal cover.

  'Ferris,' I said, 'how important is this bloody meeting?'

  He gave a soft laugh.

  'Not your field, is it? Never mind.'

  'I want to get to New York and take over Zade.'

  'Don't worry,' he said. They'll hold him.'

  The dark grey Mustang looked clean but total security wasn't possible because this was the third floor of the hotel and some of the downward extreme angles were critical or even useless: I wouldn't be able to see anyone sitting in a parked car within a thirty-degree vector from this viewpoint because the top overlapped the scuttle. But they could be checked when it went down there. The rest of the street looked secure.

  'But since you asked,' Ferris said in rather precise tones, 'let me say that Robert Finberg probably knows the exact target of the Kobra operation.'