Rules of Engagement

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Well …’ he said, ‘you’ve found us.’ He smiled. ‘How clever of you …’

  Eight

  The George F. Kennan was barely thirty-five kilometres away from Soviet territorial waters when the first man died. The Captain, who’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours vomiting over the small stainless steel basin in his cabin, absorbed the news without comment. The dead man, a young ensign in one of the damage limitation crews, had avoided even light injuries at the time of the fire, but had obviously taken a lot of radiation. Or so the captain assumed.

  The Captain had known the man moderately well. They both came from the same part of the country, way out in Montana, high up in the Rocky Mountains. They’d talked sometimes, end of watches, wilderness talk, horse talk, fishing talk. The boy had worked out every day, pumping iron in the crowded recreation space aft, between the missile tubes, proud of his physique, determined to preserve it. The last couple of days though, he’d been almost continually sick. Then came the diarrhoea, and the sweats, and an exhaustion that barely left him the strength to climb back into his bunk. They’d found him only minutes ago, a note to his wife tucked under his pillow. The pillow was soaked in blood. He’d slashed his wrists, a quiet, private death, administered in the full knowledge of what the radiation was doing to his gut, and the deep recesses of his bone marrow.

  The Captain toyed for a moment with the small white envelope, Navy issue, the Ensign’s careful scrawl across the front. Against the odds, he’d managed to re-establish contact with Washington, using open circuits easily accessed by the growing Soviet Task Force upwind. He’d told them the worst, the radiation levels, the symptoms amongst the crew, and they’d confirmed that plans for an air drop were off. Counter-productive was the phrase they’d used. He’d asked them for further orders, but the circuit had gone down in a storm of static, and now, four hours later, he was still pondering whether or not to scuttle the boat. In a thousand metres of water, the radiation hazards would be lessened. His men would be picked up by the surrounding Soviets. With good hospital care, some of them might even survive, though each man would then represent an astonishing Intelligence windfall. Years of specialist training. An intimate knowledge of the latest Trident boomers. And a clue to why the sub had ever ventured so close to Northern Europe in the first place.

  The Captain closed his eyes and passed a tired hand over his face, feeling the nausea gusting up from his belly again. The Lieutenant in his cabin, the man who’d brought him the news, stifled a polite cough. The Captain opened his eyes again, and put the envelope carefully to one side. It was addressed to the dead Ensign’s wife. It was none of his damn business. He looked at the Lieutenant.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘I was wondering about burial, sir.’ He paused. ‘Given the circumstances.’

  The Captain looked at him and nodded slowly, another decision. The Ensign’s body would be radioactive, a pollution hazard, like the rest of them. He thought about it a little more. Ensign Seymour Schwarz. Barely 23. World War Three’s first victim.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said briskly, ‘lead coffin. First light.’

  After an hour’s search in the Bunker, the keys were still missing. Soon now, they were to exercise the standard fire and contamination drills, part of a three-page directive that had been telexed that afternoon from the Regional Commissariat to City Bunkers throughout the Central South. The drills required that all Bunker personnel wear the regulation NBC suits, a specially designed garment that would help them against gas attack, germ warfare, and light radiation. There were forty suits, enough for every member of the Bunker staff, and they were stored in a double-locked room next to the tiny galley.

  At 7 p.m. one of the secretaries had gone to collect the keys to the store room. The keys were kept on a large board beside the telephone cubicles, rows of hooks, each hook carefully labelled, each key carefully tagged. On the second row, half-way along, there were two empty hooks. The keys had gone.

  Goodman, deep in conversation with the transport chief over a distribution problem, had ordered an immediate search. Desks had been moved. Drawers emptied. Waste bins shaken out. Even the big filing cabinets, full of microfilmed copies of the city’s records, had been wrestled away from the wall, in case – as one tired secretary put it – the keys had jumped off the hook, walked across the room, and hidden themselves underneath. The sarcasm was well-founded. After nearly an hour’s search, they were still missing.

  Now, it was Quinn who once again tried to force the issue. He knocked twice on Goodman’s door and walked in. Goodman looked up. He was alone now, and there were doodles on his blotter. Imperfect circles, interlinked. A sun in a cloudless sky. Seagulls. Triangular shapes, endlessly repeated. Quinn stood over the desk, physically dominant.

  ‘We’ll have to break the door down,’ he said. ‘We have no alternative.’

  Goodman looked up at him, pained. The suggestion offended him. The noise. The needless damage.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘we won’t do that.’

  ‘We have no choice.’

  Goodman gazed out at the well of the Bunker. Everyone had returned to their desks. The ROC Co-ordinator was chalking careful symbols on one of the maps of the area. The search was plainly over.

  ‘How are things in the city?’ Goodman said.

  Quinn frowned, not wanting to change the subject.

  ‘Quiet,’ he said, ‘thank God.’

  ‘No more riots?’

  ‘Nothing we can’t handle.’

  ‘People out and about?’

  ‘Very few.’

  Goodman nodded, imagining the empty streets, the pubs closed, the tiny terraced houses curtained against the world outside. Quinn tapped the desk, one thick forefinger, a peremptory gesture, calling Goodman to order.

  ‘We should use the fire axe,’ he said.

  Goodman gazed at him, startled.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘The fire axe. On the cupboard door.’

  ‘Oh,’ he nodded, ‘I see.’

  Quinn stood there, waiting for an answer.

  ‘Well?’ he said at last, ‘shall I organize it?’

  Goodman sighed, leaning back in the big leather chair he’d had specially transferred from his office in the Civic Centre. A trusty friend. Familiar contours. Nice smell. He looked up at Quinn.

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

  Quinn gazed at him for a moment, wondering how far to take it, wondering whether it might not be best, for everybody’s sake, to break Goodman now, before it was too late. The man was plainly on the edge. He’d seen it before, in his CID days, the lengthier interrogations. Deprive a man of sleep. Set him impossible choices. Trap him this way and that. Whittle down his options. Narrow his breathing space, his territory, until the direct physical sense of threat was nearly unendurable. Then blow in his ear. Often no more than a single simple phrase. The right choice of words, the right inflection. The knowing smile. The bare knuckles exposed. He looked down at Goodman, biding his time, awaiting his opportunity.

  Goodman reached for a file in the wire basket beside his blotter. He opened the file and glanced at a list of names inside.

  ‘The boat’s leaving before midnight,’ he said, turning over the page, changing the subject yet again.

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘She should be well clear by daybreak.’ He looked up. ‘If you’re worried about Molly.’

  Quinn shook his head. ‘She’ll be fine,’ he said, ‘fine.’ He paused. He’d seen the list an hour earlier. One name hadn’t made sense.

  ‘Who’s Suzanne Wallace?’ he said.

  Goodman looked up. ‘A friend of mine.’ He smiled, amused at the small truth of his answer. Quinn frowned.

  ‘I thought it was relatives only? Wives and kids?’

  Goodman ignored the innuendo, the hidden accusation.

  ‘She’s in the travel business,’ he said, ‘she’s taking care of the arrangements the other end.
’ He shrugged. ‘She’s a courier of sorts.’

  ‘Southern Ireland, I understand.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s organizing it at the moment.’ He glanced at the big clock on the wall. ‘I’ll be phoning her later. Before they pull the plugs. In fact I’ll be going down there myself.’

  Quinn looked at him sharply, remembering the results of his last excursion. A major riot. Lives in danger.

  ‘Oh?’ he said.

  Goodman nodded. ‘About nine,’ he said, ‘just to make sure.’

  ‘Make sure what?’

  Goodman looked at the blotter, the thickets of doodles, making no attempt to answer. Fiona had packed a framed photograph of Joanna and the kids. Now it stood on his desk, beside the wire basket. He moved it an inch to the left. Then back again. He’d always been fascinated by the shot, the way the photographer had shadowed the wall behind Joanna’s head, the artful naturalness of it all. He’d tried to duplicate the effect himself since, and failed. It was inexplicably clever, a trick – he supposed – of the trade. Quinn was still waiting for an answer, his patience clearly running out. Goodman glanced up at him.

  ‘To make sure they leave in one piece,’ he said. ‘Does that sound reasonable?’

  Gillespie turned slowly into the dock and coasted the Cortina to a halt. The engine was clapped out, and the radio didn’t work. He got out of the car and walked the ten yards across the slippery cobbles to the pub. It had stopped raining by now but it was still wet underfoot. He pushed the door open and went in. The pub was nearly deserted, two fishermen playing cribbage over pints of lager, and a man in the corner reading a book. There was no one behind the bar. Gillespie stood over the fishermen. One was about to toss a couple of cards into the box. He had a good hand. Two fives and a jack. The fisherman looked up.

  ‘I’m after fuel,’ Gillespie said.

  ‘I bet,’ said the fisherman. He threw away a seven and a one. Cautious play. Gillespie tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘I said I’m after fuel,’ he said again, ‘and I want to know who’s selling.’

  The fisherman didn’t look up.

  ‘No one’s selling,’ he said, ‘there is no fuel.’

  The other man glanced up at Gillespie and winked. Gillespie didn’t wink back. There was a silence. Gillespie sighed, a faintly sad whistle of escaping air. The fisherman laid down a low card, a three. The other man was still watching Gillespie, more cautious now, watchful.

  ‘There’s a boat called the Timothy Lee,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll find her along the quay.’

  Gillespie nodded. ‘The Timothy Lee,’ he said, ‘thanks.’

  Gillespie left the pub and walked along the quayside, past the line of moored yachts, and the rows of fishing smacks, three deep against the harbour wall. At the end of the quay, close to the dock entrance, lay the Timothy Lee. He read the faded white lettering on the stern, noticed the battered cork fenders and the low rumble of engines. There was smoke bubbling from the squat funnel aft. He could smell it before he saw it. Diesel.

  He stood over the boat for a moment or two, up on the quayside, gazing down. There were bare bulbs jury-rigged in the open fish hold, and he could see someone working down there, piling mattresses, shifting cardboard boxes, making ready. Up on the bridge, there was another light under the binnacle, the soft green glow of the radar display. Aft of the bridge, there was movement in the cabins, and he could hear voices occasionally raised in argument. The boat was tatty beyond belief, offensive to his own high standards, but it held a certain promise. No doubt about it. These men would soon be going to sea.

  He swung down the iron ladder and stepped softly onto the deck. He’d already spotted the fuel cans from the quayside. He bent to them, unscrewing the top of the nearest can, inserting his finger, smelling the sour heavy smell of the diesel. He screwed the top back on, and traced the chain that secured the cans to a big ringbolt on the deck. Pity, he thought. Might have saved a lot of time.

  He padded across to the lip of the fish hold, and looked down. Something about the cut of the leather jacket stooped over the pile of mattresses, the shape of the shoulders, the line of the hair at the back of the neck. He tried the name that came to mind, the name that cropped up in so many of the carefully typed reports he left on Jenner’s desk. Old ladies winkled out of tenanted properties. Young couples scared into the street, preferring homelessness to yet another brick through the window.

  ‘Albie,’ he called softly, ‘Albie Curtis.’

  Albie looked up, over his shoulder, not recognizing the voice, not able to make sense of the face against the glare of the overhead floodlights on the quay.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said.

  Gillespie glanced round at the empty dock and then vaulted over the lip of the fish hold, landing on his feet on a mattress beside Albie. He smiled, wiping the rust from his hands.

  ‘Well, well …’ he said. ‘Long time, no see …’

  Albie peered at him, recognizing the voice at last, and the haircut.

  ‘Gillespie,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Fuel.’

  ‘Oh.’ He paused, and Gillespie sensed the interest in his voice, the instinctive anticipation of hard cash.

  ‘You’ve got diesel,’ Gillespie smiled, ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s in cans. Up on the deck.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Albie nodded. ‘Fucking locked up.’

  ‘How much?’

  Albie looked at him. He’d given up with the white paint, and he badly needed something to restore his morale, his self-respect.

  ‘Fifty quid,’ he said. ‘A can.’

  Gillespie shook his head.

  ‘That’s their price,’ he said.

  ‘Whose price?’

  ‘The blokes who own it,’ he said reasonably. ‘Yours is lower.’

  Albie shook his head.

  ‘Wrong,’ he said, ‘fifty quid. You want it, you fucking pay for it.’ He paused. ‘Cash.’

  Gillespie thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and put his hand in his back pocket. Albie looked briefly smug, the bargain struck. He kicked a mattress with his foot, and prepared to climb back out of the fish hold. When he looked up, he was ready to count the money. Instead, he found himself looking at Reese’s revolver.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  Gillespie smiled, motioning him up, out of the fish hold, onto the deck.

  ‘That’s a gun,’ he said. ‘That’s why you’re going to give me one of those cans.’

  Albie looked at him, the harsh shadows across his face, the crooked smile, the hand rock-steady, the gun inches from his chest. He shook his head.

  ‘They’re right about you, Gillespie,’ he said, ‘you’re off your fucking trolley. What do you think this is? War?’

  At his desk in the Bunker, Goodman looked up as Fiona knocked twice and walked in. Her face spoke louder than her voice. Behind the calm, orderly phrases, she was clearly anxious.

  ‘I’ve tried those numbers again,’ she said, ‘Mr Cartwright’s, and the other one you gave me.’

  ‘No go?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘there’s no one there.’

  ‘I see,’ Goodman nodded.

  He’d been trying to raise Suzanne for more than an hour. She needed to pack her bags, to ready herself for the voyage. It wouldn’t be a simple conversation but times had changed, and this particular issue, the decision to be taken in this corner of his life, was as clear as the rest of it. She had to go. It was as simple as that. There was no alternative. As Controller, he had sole authority in the matter. Fiona gave him a sheaf of memos, directives for the Bunker staff, meal rotas, rest schedules, the small print of life underground. He glanced at them, scrawling a signature above his name.

  ‘Keep trying,’ he said, without looking up.

  In the small, airless cabin aft,
Cartwright sat at the table, the Skipper’s pencil in his hand, ever the accountant. McNaught was still in the armchair, one leg tucked under the other, the glass half-full again, the bottle empty. Mick Rendall stood by the door, trying to keep the grease off his new oilskins, trying to place this latest addition to the passenger list, not beginning to understand Cartwright’s hostility.

  ‘So how will you reach him?’ Cartwright said again. ‘How will you get in touch?’

  ‘I have a number,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘Is he expecting a call?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And what will you say?’

  There was a pause. Suzanne shrugged, seeing no alternative to the truth.

  ‘I shall say you’re going to Jersey.’ She turned to McNaught. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  McNaught was looking at the map, deep in thought, trying to remember where, in fact, the voyage was supposed to end. Mick Rendall, he recalled, had been uncertain. Only the little bloke in the suit had mentioned Jersey.

  ‘Jersey,’ he said thickly, to no one in particular. ‘We’re going to Jersey.’

  Cartwright ignored him, still looking at Suzanne.

  ‘Suppose I told you there were two boats,’ he said slowly, ‘and suppose the other one was going to Ireland?’

  ‘Then that would explain it,’ she said.

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Suzanne thought about the question, the afternoon in his office, the list of names waiting for her on the fax machine. None of that was relevant just now. Not in this conversation. Not in this company.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m perfectly sure.’

  Cartwright nodded. ‘And under these circumstances … two boats … you’d be able to assure your … ah … friend …’ he smiled at her, the merest flicker of warmth, ‘that we are all … ah … on course?’