Rules of Engagement

by Hurley, Graham

  By the time Goodman returned to his office, Davidson had gone. A curt note on his desk reminded him of the afternoon’s recording session, and drew his attention to the copy of the speech lying beside the telephone. Goodman scanned the speech, altered a phrase or two, tore up the note, and reached for the telephone. Harry Cartwright answered on the second ring.

  ‘Harry,’ he said shortly, ‘it’s Martin. About tonight.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re to leave after dark. I’ll arrange for fuel to be available. You have a dispensation to leave harbour. I’ll fax you a list of passengers this afternoon.’ He paused. ‘One other thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s a woman called Suzanne Wallace. She’s in the travel business. She has contacts. She’ll make the arrangements the other end.’

  ‘I see …’ There was a thoughful pause. ‘And will this Miss … ah … Wallace be coming too?’

  Goodman hesitated, staring out of the window.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘she will.’

  Six

  In the air-conditioned cool of the big office in Little Creek, Virginia, the man behind the desk was waiting, once again, for the phone call. Twice already in the last twenty-four hours, he’d conferenced on the secure hook-up with the NSA Liaison Officer at Fort Meade, Maryland, and the Captain in charge of the SEAL teams at Machrihanish, in Scotland. For a day and a half now, the SEAL teams had been standing by at optimum readiness, the big Hercules C-130s preloaded on the tarmac, the men themselves on fifteen minutes’ notice to move, checking and rechecking equipment, studying plans and models of the huge ‘Ohio’-class submarine, conferring with the weather men on the conditions they’d meet as they parachuted down into the Barents Sea.

  They’d rehearsed the operation a number of times, using an old ‘Ethan Allen’-class submarine fifty miles off the coast of Northern Ireland. The drops had gone well, the men scaling the sides of the enormous hull, hauling inboard their special flotation packs, stowing away the various devices, defensive and otherwise, they needed to fulfil their mission, should the Russians move in and try and seize the crippled sub. In theory, now, they should already be airborne, somewhere over the Norwegian Sea, counting the minutes until the rear cargo door hinged down, and they filed aft, the usual sticks of four, and the Drop Master signalled readiness, and then swept them out into the thin cold air, and the slipstream smacked them in the face as they plummeted the first 7,000 feet in free-fall towards the chill grey waters below. Except that something had happened, some curious late development, something for which the master plan had made no allowances.

  The man behind the desk, a Commander, leaned back in his chair. The clock on his office wall said seven-thirty. He’d been up since dawn. Today, his wife had predicted, would be Go-Day.

  The phone rang. He reached forward, taking his time. It was Fort Meade. The man from Intelligence again, the guy he’d talked to twice already, careful, precise, non-committal. These conversations had given him no clue about the reason for the delay. Only, de facto, that it had been Intelligence-related. The Commander fed a new stick of chewing gum into his mouth.

  ‘Hi,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We goin’?’

  The man at the other end of the line began to talk. Short-wave communications problems with the Kennan, intermittent contact, evidence of Soviet sampling operations, suspicions finally confirmed. There was a pause. The Commander, none the wiser, tucked the gum into a corner of his cheek.

  ‘So are we goin’?’ he said again. ‘Do we move?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘Later today?’

  ‘That’s a negative, too.’

  The Commander frowned.

  ‘God damn,’ he said. ‘These guys of mine …’

  The Intelligence man broke in. Time was obviously precious. Motivation wasn’t his concern.

  ‘The sub’s hot,’ he said. ‘So hot she’d burn most of DC right now.’

  The Commander paused, robbed of the end of his sentence. He looked abruptly thoughtful.

  ‘Well now …’ he said. ‘That’s a little different …’

  Gillespie arrived back home at half-past one. He’d stopped off at a call box en route, dialling a number from memory and asking for a Detective Constable by his first name. The man was away from his desk for a moment, a call of nature, but Gillespie hung on until he returned. He’d read him the woman’s car registration number on the phone, open line, and waited a minute or so while the Detective Constable left the room for a second time. Back again, the Detective Constable dictated an address from the printout linked to the National Police Computer at Swansea. The address Gillespie recognized. A smart block of flats on the seafront, ninth floor, near the top. He’d thanked the Detective Constable, and made the usual joke about ‘elevenses’, a mutual euphemism for the £20 note that Gillespie would add to Joanna Goodman’s bill.

  ‘Cheers,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘Let’s hope I get the chance to spend it.’

  From the phone box, Gillespie had detoured via the seafront. The Marina was getting low on fuel by now, but he’d laid his plans carefully, and he knew that he had enough to risk the extra three miles or so it would take to check the information out. On the seafront, outside the block of flats, he recognized the woman’s grey VW Golf. He parked the Marina round the corner, and walked slowly past, noting the ABTA sticker in the back window, and the hand stitched cushions on the rear seat. On the passenger seat were two discarded envelopes from the morning’s mail. He confirmed the name and the address from his conversation with the Detective Constable. Ms Suzanne Wallace. Flat 913. Ocean Towers.

  He glanced up at the flats. Big picture windows and sliding doors opening onto generous balconies, each balcony cleverly echeloned to preserve a little private sunshine. The balconies on the ninth floor faced in two directions. South-west, above him, towards the Common and the harbour, and south-east, round the corner, towards the island and the sea. Glancing at the address, he suspected that 913 was on the south-easterly quadrant, but unless he actually went up there and checked the orientations, he couldn’t be sure. He wondered for a moment whether he should, but then he dismissed the idea. His client wanted a name, an address, a phone number, and a photo. The phone number would come from directory enquiries. The rest he’d cracked. The view from the balcony was irrelevant.

  Now, back home, he coasted the Marina to a halt, recognizing Annie’s borrowed Escort outside the house. He’d thought about her a good deal in the last twenty-four hours, irritation at first, at her pushiness, and her lack of respect, but all that had gone and he’d discovered in its place a curious hole. Nothing silly. Not a longing, or a sadness, but a hole. Until she’d overstepped the mark, she’d fitted nicely into his life. She’d been her own person. She’d matched him pint for pint, dig for dig, and as long as they stayed off politics, she was very good company. She had a slightly male attitude to life – few illusions, no nonsense – yet she was wholly a woman when it mattered most, and in that department, as in the rest, they’d shared the best of times. Now, for some reason, she was back. And he realized he was glad.

  He got out of the car, picked up his bag from the boot, and went indoors. Annie was in the living room, curled up on the tiny sofa. He knew at once there was something wrong. She looked as though she’d been in a traffic accident. Her face was misshapen, and there was blood on her forehead. Gillespie put the bag carefully on the ottoman under the window.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said. ‘What happened?’

  Annie looked up, more pleased to see him than she knew how to say. She tried to get up, then thought better of it and sank back onto the sofa.

  ‘Battle wounds,’ she said. ‘I’ve been in the wars.’

  ‘So tell me,’ he said again. ‘What happened?’

  Annie shrugged, abandoning the banter, and told him exactly what had happened. In her own mind, it still wasn’t completely clear. But she assumed she’d been hit from behind, and fallen forwa
rd onto her face in the gravel. Interpreting the young reporter’s silences, that had probably been the full extent of the violence. She’d looked hard for other injuries but found none.

  She finished the story and looked up at Gillespie again. He drew the curtains back. Light flooded the room. He bent over her, and turned her face up towards the window. He peered closely at each eye, ran his fingers through her hair, felt his way round the swelling at the back of her skull. When he’d finished, he looked down at her.

  ‘How am I?’ she said.

  ‘Bloody lucky.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘They could have meant it.’

  She caught his tone at once. Disapproval. Mixed with a little concern.

  ‘Could?’ she said, ‘or should?’

  ‘Could,’ he said briefly. ‘Your head ache?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Vision OK? Seeing double?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘only one of you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ he stepped back towards the telephone table under the far window, unconvinced. ‘How many fingers?’ he said, holding one closed fist in the air.

  ‘None.’

  ‘OK,’ he nodded slowly. ‘You’re out of the game, love. And you should stay out. They might hurt you next time.’

  ‘They did hurt me.’

  ‘You got a tap.’ He shrugged. ‘Rifle butt. Night stick. Something to show your friends.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘For now. They take your name?’

  ‘Not that I know …’ She frowned, remembering the reporter, his shyness, his silences, his evident embarrassment. ‘But yes, let’s say they did. So what?’

  ‘So they might be back. So you ought to …’ he shrugged, ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Show a little respect?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She looked at him, marvelling at his composure, his matter of factness, the lack of indignation, of outrage at what was happening, at what she’d caught them doing to the city. One hundred and fifty thousand people. Cut off. Corralled. Consigned, for all they cared, to oblivion.

  ‘You know what’s going on?’ she asked him. ‘What they’re up to?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken charge. As they should.’

  ‘You say.’

  ‘I say.’

  She glanced at him, the old argument.

  ‘You’re not bothered? All this …’ she gestured vaguely at the street, the city, the blood still caked on her forehead, ‘doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘You’d be bitching even more if they’d all gone off and left us.’ He shrugged again, rearranging a photo of Sean on the mantelpiece, the tiniest movement, irritated with having to argue with her so soon. ‘No,’ he said again, ‘they’re doing a job. New rules. New situation. Stands to reason.’

  She looked up at him, her head beginning to throb.

  ‘Doesn’t matter that there’s no more news? No more radio? TV?’

  ‘Best thing.’

  ‘Don’t care about summary arrests? Imprisonment without trial?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said.

  ‘Neither do I. But I’m sure it’s happening.’

  ‘Ah …’ he smiled at her for the first time, ‘but that makes you lucky, doesn’t it? Them letting you get away with it?’

  He grinned at her, breaking her arguments one by one and tossing them aside, a litter of socialist gobbledegook, wholly irrelevant.

  ‘Tea?’ he said, heading for the door.

  She shook her head and struggled to her feet. She walked unsteadily towards him, feeling the blood emptying from her head. He waited for her, not quite certain, unsure what she meant to happen next. She paused by the telephone. She picked up the photograph of Goodman.

  ‘One question, Dave. Just one. What are you doing with this?’

  Gillespie looked at her, still grinning, refusing her the satisfaction of an answer. She turned the photo over. There was nothing on the back. She returned it to the table by the phone.

  ‘You know who he is?’ she said.

  Gillespie nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘You know he’s Controller?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Our Lord and Master? Second only to God?’

  ‘So I gather.’

  Annie paused, and picked up the photo again.

  ‘Unelected? Absolute authority? Life or death? You or me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said again.

  She stared at him, trying to provoke a reaction, getting nothing in return.

  ‘So tell me,’ she said, ‘why a photo?’ She tried to smile, but winced instead. ‘Business?’ she said. ‘Or personal?’

  Gillespie looked at her for a long moment. For the second time in twenty-four hours, she was chancing her arm, breaking the rules, sticking her nose into forbidden territory, other people’s business. Even after a belt across the head, and a dose of concussion, she still didn’t understand, still couldn’t help herself, still couldn’t resist one last question. He grinned.

  ‘Two spoons or one?’ he said. ‘I can’t remember.’

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but left the room. In the kitchen she could hear him filling the kettle, turning off the tap, lighting the gas. She looked down at the holdall he’d left on the ottoman. The holdall was partly unzipped, and she recognized the shape of the camera inside. She stared at the photograph again, at Goodman, not beginning to understand.

  Ingle stood at the desk, studying the first of the big colour blow-ups. The processing laboratory had been installed overnight in what had once been the dispensary, and these were the first prints off. He turned to the man who stood beside him, the man who’d taken the shots in the first place. His name was Reese, a small, dark, anonymous-looking Welshman from the hills behind Swansea. He’d returned to the hospital with the film at half-past one. He’d stood behind the technician in the darkroom while he rinsed the fixer from the strip of negatives, and he’d selected the blow-ups without bothering to go to the contact stage. Now, barely an hour later, he indicated another of the prints. It showed a crop-haired man of about thirty-five with a bag slung over one shoulder, looking at a woman in a grey Volkswagen. The rest of the car park was empty. The man was evidently unaware of being watched. Ingle peered at the photo, recognizing the face from the first print.

  ‘What happened next?’ he said.

  Reese nodded at the rest of the blow-ups.

  ‘He picked up his car. Old Marina. Local registration.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Gillespie.’

  ‘Form?’

  ‘Nothing criminal. Lives in the city. Glengarry Road. Used to be a Marine.’ He paused. ‘Earned himself a “K”.’

  Ingle looked up.

  ‘Really?’ he said, interested.

  Reese nodded, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘alleged to have shot a Mick in Northern Ireland. 1985. Funny little incident.’

  Ingle frowned, remembering something, a name, a detail.

  ‘Ballycombe?’ he said finally. ‘Bloke called McMullen?’

  Reese looked at him, surprised.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Dessie McMullen.’ He paused. ‘You know the incident?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ingle said, ‘I do.’ He tapped another of Reese’s photos, Gillespie peering at a patch of rust on the sill of his old Marina. ‘So what’s his game now then? Any idea?’

  Reese shook his head. ‘None,’ he said.

  ‘You mentioned a woman.’

  ‘Yes. Goodman met a woman in the park there.’

  ‘Do we know her?’

  ‘A Miss Wallace.’ He tapped the blow-up that featured the VW. ‘That’s her car.’ He sniffed. ‘I gather he’s over the side.’

  Ingle nodded, ignoring Reese’s obvious disapproval, the Welshman’s prissy little moral scruples.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘he is.’

  He glanced again at the photos, and then turne
d away, deep in thought. Reese stirred uncomfortably. Working for Ingle was an acquired taste, and he didn’t have it.

  ‘What next?’ he said. ‘Shall I pull him in?’

  Ingle considered the proposition for a moment or two, standing at the window watching an old lady feeding handfuls of bread rolls to a stone pigeon in a small ornamental bird bath.

  ‘No,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘We leave him alone?’

  Ingle turned back from the window.

  ‘Oh no, no,’ he said, ‘stay in touch. By all means.’

  Goodman let himself into Suzanne’s flat, using the key he’d had since Christmas. Standing on the landing outside the door, he could see Evans in the Rover outside, head back, window down, enjoying the early autumn sunshine on his face. Goodman had told him fifteen minutes. With luck, he could be out in ten.

  He turned the key in the lock and stepped into the flat. He walked straight through to the lounge, with its fitted carpet and shag rugs and big french windows onto the balcony outside, but the room was empty. He frowned, retracing his steps down the hall. The bedroom door opened. Suzanne stood there, long T-shirt, bare feet, hair tousled. She looked briefly frightened, then relieved, then something else. Perhaps curious. Perhaps wary. Perhaps both.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’

  Goodman nodded, determined not to lose the momentum of the decision he’d taken, not to lose his way.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I should have rung.’

  ‘No …’ she shook her head, ‘it’s OK. I was … asleep.’

  ‘Ah.’

  They looked at each other for a moment. Then she smiled at him, and kissed him briefly, on the cheek, and walked past him into the kitchen.

  ‘Coffee?’ she said, over her shoulder.

  Goodman shook his head, aware of the initiative slipping away from him.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said, ‘I haven’t got much time.’

  He heard her lighting the gas, filling the kettle, hunting for coffee and the cups. He remained in the hall, uncertain, like a travelling salesman. The place smelled of Calèche, the ripe, heavy scent of deceit, of stolen evenings. For the first time in nearly a year, he felt uncomfortable, out of place. Suzanne reappeared in the kitchen doorway.