A Line in the Sand

by Gerald Seymour

  "Enter Juliet Seven."

  "He gave us the way in. We couldn't reach the hardware, so the option we had was with their personnel."

  The director was in the front of the bus, a double seat to himself. Behind him sat the project managers, the scientists and the foreign engineers. He was relaxed and felt a sense of happy satisfaction. Behind him he heard the gentle, joking banter of the men who had made possible the advancement of Projects 193, 1478 and 972, and the babble of Farsi, Russian, Chinese and the North Koreans' dialect. It was a worthy occasion, the retirement party for his colleague who controlled Project 972, and he had personally taken time to oversee the arrangements in the restaurant, down to the detail of the menu that would be served and the music that would be played. He rocked contentedly in his seat. He had believed, ever since his education in mechanical engineering at Imperial College, London University, that a happy team was a productive team.

  The bus sped down the narrow road beyond the docks and left the city behind. He was lighting a cigarette, the flame close to his nostrils, when the driver stamped on the brake. He saw the man peering ahead. Through the cigarette smoke and the windscreen, a red light waved in the night's darkness. The bus slowed as the driver pumped the brake. He leaned forward, to make out a shadowed figure behind the light, and then a road-works emergency sign. He disliked lateness and glanced at his watch. He saw, thought he saw, a figure pass beside the bus carrying something, but could not be certain. The barrier was pulled aside and the bus powered on past the man holding the light. He eased back into his seat. Above the cackle of accents and laughter, the director heard the single thud from the side of the bus behind him and twisted instinctively towards the source of the noise. The last thing that registered clearly in his mind was the sight of the wall of fire coming like a torrent in spate through the bus. In the final moments of his life, the fire surged against his clothes, the skin of his hands and face, and beating in his ears were the screams of the scientists and foreign engineers. Trapped in the bus, with the flames and the screams, there was no possibility of escape.

  "The personnel burned to death. Christ."

  "We delayed the programme.~ "But the missile factories were the same the morning after."

  "Not the same. Yes, bits of metal remained in underground workshops, but the team was gone. Take the team away and you screw the projects. Men matter. It's simply not possible to fly in replacements and carry on as if nothing had happened."

  "The missile programme was the greater evil?"

  "In three years they would have had the capability of striking against any country in the Middle East, including Israel even the possibility of reaching southern Europe. We bought five years.

  "What was the lesser evil?"

  For three consecutive days the satellite photography showed the skeletal shape of the burned-out bus. On the first day the movement of rescue workers retrieving bodies could be clearly seen from the enhanced pictures, with fire engines and ambulances. Radio Tehran carried reports of a tragic road accident in which twenty-four men involved in the petrochemical industry had died. The next day the photography showed a small group of forensic experts, identified by their white overalls, crawling through the gutted bus, and Radio Tehran made no mention of the accident. On the third day the pictures beamed from the satellite showed the bus being loaded on to a flat-top lorry, and Radio Tehran's bulletins had brief reports of local funerals. By that third day, the United States Navy fast patrol boat had returned to normal duties, and the United States Air Force had flown five agents of the Mossad to Israel and the life of Gavin Hughes had been painted out.

  "Twenty-four men killed did I hear right, Mr. Littelbaum? Is that what you're telling me? I can barely believe what you're saying."

  "What you heard a programme was delayed."

  "That was the greater evil?"

  "Their Weapons of Mass Destruction threatened our interests."

  "And what the hell was the lesser evil?"

  "The involvement of Juliet Seven Gavin Hughes. The mission was done skilfully, and they'd a poor forensic infrastructure. It was days, going on two weeks, before they could confirm the initial suspicion of sabotage, and by then Gavin Hughes had ceased to exist."

  "I'm damn near speechless, it was pure savagery."

  "We were looking after our backs, and we did it well."

  "You were involved?"

  "To a small degree, liaison yes, I was involved."

  "Did you consider the human misery the widows, the children?"

  "We considered the effect of the missile programme. I don't really find emotion helps me get through the day."

  "What about the little, awkward matter of state-sponsored terrorism?"

  "Not applicable."

  "If the Iranians kill one of their Kurds in Berlin, wherever, or a man anywhere in Europe who's planning murder, mayhem, in Tehran, we shout, scream, recall ambassadors, impose trade sanctions. We call it state-sponsored terrorism."

  "Correct."

  "If we roast twenty-four Iranians-' "We call it looking after our backs."

  "Forgive me, but that is mind-bending hypocrisy."

  "You are driving too fast again, Mr. Markham."

  "And if the Israelis go into Jordan to murder an activist?"

  "That is justifiable self-defence. You should slow down a bit, Mr. Markham. I would suggest to you that the prime objective of an intelligence agent is to further by clandestine means the objectives of the tax-payers who put food in his gut and a roof over his head."

  "I believe in morality."

  "I don't get to mix with people who use that word often... That's a better speed, thank you."

  "I hope you sleep well at night."

  "I sleep excellently, thank you. If we all talked about morality, Mr. Markham, we'd none of us finish a day's work."

  "You used that poor bloody sales engineer."

  "What the lady, Miss Parker, said, your work took you to Ireland. Unless you were completely useless at your job, I would have to assume that you "used" people, were competent at running agents,

  manipulating them, exploiting them. Then you let them go... They did a job of work for you... Did you go and see your line manager and bleat about your unhappiness at the ethics of running informers?"

  "When does the marksman shoot, Mr. Littelbaum?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Does the marksman shoot as the predator approaches the tethered goat or when it's on the goat?"

  "He shoots when he has the optimum chance of a clean kill. It's nice country out here. It's a little bit like west Iowa country."

  "Thank you."

  "For what?"

  "For telling me."

  "Do you feel the better for it?"

  "I'm devastated.. . but yes, I'm the better for knowing it."

  "Would your Juliet Seven be the better for knowing it? Will you tell him?"

  "I don't know I feel like throwing up. He was betrayed, treated like shit."

  "I think we're going to hit the rain, which is a shame... Listen, Mr. Markham, we went to a hell of a lot of trouble to do your Juliet Seven a favour. The Israelis could have machine-gunned the bus and left their calling-card, bullets and grenades. We insisted on the fire and gave the Mossad the hardware, which guaranteed slow, difficult progress for the Iranian investigators. We bought your man time for his disappearance. He should have been safe, beyond their reach I imagine, if you ever have the chance to look for it, it was his error that led them here. We did enough for him. Do you think there's time to stop for a pork pie and a beer?"

  The beach seemed endless, stretching to the horizon where the cloud was poised over the grey stones of the wall behind which was the marshland. The wind and rain beat relentlessly on their backs.

  Not until they turned for home did his principal start to talk. Davies stayed a pace behind him.

  "Look at this place. It's as good as dead, it's condemned. Everything here is for nothing. The sea rules and eats at the place
, like it's rotten and decayed. Seven hundred years ago this place was alive. It had a great fleet for trade, fishing and boat-building.

  The Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans settled here, where we are now. It had wealth. Their boats sailed after fish as far north as Iceland and they traded as far south as Spain and east to the Baltic. The sea killed this place, that same sea. In January 1328, there was a storm and a million tons of sand and stone was washed across the river mouth. The wealth went and the land began to follow it. The sea has the ultimate power. It eats at the cliffs and at the beach every minute of every day. Right here, where we are, it's a yard a year. Up the coast, not far, it's four hundred yards in the last five years. The fucking place, and everyone who's here, they're all doomed. Little people, fucking pygmies, living their lives, thinking they can change things. They've bulldozed sea walls, concreted the base of the cliffs, put in groynes and breakwaters, but it doesn't make a damn of difference. The sea keeps on coming. A couple of miles down the coast was the tenth biggest town in England, five churches, built by people who thought that they'd last for ever. Now they're all gone into the sea. They were pygmies then and pygmies now. The sea cannot be resisted. We're all dead here, doomed, we have no future. We build little houses, little gardens, make our little lives and for what? For flicking nothing. People paid masons to carve gravestones so that the lives of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters would be remembered but the stones are under the sea, like they'd never existed. We worry about the present but we're just too small. The future is the sea coming in, taking, snatching, in spite of our little efforts to protect ourselves. There is nothing we can do because there is no defence.. . Will you tell me, when do you think the bastard will come?"

  In the distance on the sea wall, wrapped in a dark anorak and waterproof leggings, watching them, facing into the thrust of the wind and the drive of the rain, was one of the policemen from the unmarked car. He cradled his gun close to his body, as if to protect himself against the onslaught of the gathering storm, now and in the future.

  What Davies, drenched wet and frozen, had been told was that the killer would come soon, but he didn't say it.

  Chapter Eleven.

  Geoff Markham didn't like to drink in the middle of the day and had sipped a fruit juice. The American had washed down the pork pie with a dark pint from a wooden barrel and there had been salad with the pie. In the car, the onion was still on Littelbaum's breath.

  Markham hesitated before turning at the signpost to the village. A cattle-carrier lorry swerved past him and gave him a long blast on the horn. It was all as he remembered it. Ahead of him was the high water tower, the dominating feature, and the American gazed at it with a sort of awe but didn't speak. Beside him, flanking the road, was a small car-park and a sign "Toby's Walks: Picnic Area'. Away to the right was Northmarsh, to the left were wide, flat fields covered with half-moon pig shelters. He swung the car on to the minor road. Of course it was the same. How could it be any different?

  The American smiled apologetically and murmured that he needed, and badly, to relieve himself.

  Markham drove into the car-park of the picnic area and saw what was different. There were two men in an unmarked car, uniformed, wearing kevlar vests and silly little baseball caps. But, there was nothing silly about the barrel of the Heckler & Koch aimed at him through the open side window. He braked.

  Littelbaum said that he couldn't have lasted much longer, and dived for the bushes. Markham held up his ID card for the policemen to see and sauntered towards them.

  He introduced himself and said the American had bladder problems. He asked them how it was. The aim of the gun was no longer on his chest. He was told that they had the registration and the make of a car to look for, and it was all right in daylight.

  "What's that mean?"

  The policeman grimaced.

  "It's a sod of a place after dark. So quiet. Last night, before the changeover but after it got dark, we saw this shape in the bushes. Bloody near crapped myself. Seemed to be watching us. I got the gun on it, then two dogs came out. It was a woman walking her dogs, in the dark, like a bloody ghost, proper turn it gave me. It's Toby's Walks here. She asked, all straight-faced, had we seen Toby? She was serious had we seen Toby? We asked the old biddy, who was Toby? You know what? He was Black Toby, Tobias Gill no lie, it's what she said and he was a black drummer in the dragoons who got pissed up, went looking for a bit of fanny and brought her up here. He was found, Black Toby was, the next morning, drunk and incapable, and she was beside him, raped and strangled. They took him to the assizes and then carted him back here to hang him in chains. It was two hundred and fifty years ago, and the old biddy said he liked to walk round here, rattling his bloody chains. It's that sort of place. After what she'd told us, we heard every bloody bush move last night, every bloody creak of every bloody tree... She meant it. She was really surprised we hadn't seen him."

  The American came out of the bushes and was pulling up his zip. Markham didn't laugh at the story. Out there a shadowy figure was moving in darkness among cover, silent, without the rattling of chains, towards a target and a place of death. He felt the cold wind coming off the sea and shuddered.

  They climbed back into the car and he drove on.

  Of course it was different, and for some it would never again be the same.

  Markham asked the American what he wanted to see and Littelbaum's finger jutted towards the church tower. The rain had come on heavily while they'd stopped for lunch, but now had eased into a fine, persistent drizzle. He could see the first houses of the village and the church tower looming above them. He was unsettled. It wasn't only the policeman's story of the ghost of the black drummer, it was also what Littelbaum had told him of Alamut, a place of death, and a bus ride out of Bandar Abbas, a place of carnage. And he remembered what Cathy Parker had said and asked. It would be decided down here, at the village, body to body, as it always was, at close quarters, and was he tough enough?

  He felt inadequate. It was no longer about people like himself, rated as intelligent, educated and thoughtful. It was about guns and nerve: this was a power play. Littelbaum pinched his arm and pointed to the parking lay-by at the side of the church.

  At the near end was a fine squat tower, perhaps seventy-five feet in height, with wide walls of flint facing. Behind it were the nave and the high chancel windows and between them were stout yellowed stone buttresses. Beyond the church was a ruin, once finer and larger than its neighbour but now roofless and with the rain coming through the clerestory windows. Markham asked the American what he wanted to do, and was told he wished to go inside. He had a fascination for churches and a total respect for the quality of the architects and craftsmen who had built them, but the ruin disturbed him death so close to life. He pushed open the church door. There were a few lights in the dull dim interior, as there had been in the weekend corridors at Thames House that morning.

  A clergyman came towards him, a gaunt, fleshless-faced, older man. Markham thought Littelbaum was following him. He offered his hand in friendship and lied, said that he often diverted on a journey to see a worthwhile church. He heard the aged squeak of the hinges of a small door to the side. A smile lit the clergyman's face, as if few came to see his church. The flowers were already in place for Sunday's service, the only brightness stretching towards the altar and the stained glass of the arched window behind it. On the walls were the carved plaques remembering the dead.

  The clergyman said, "There was an older church, of course, but that's gone, flooded by the sea first time round then washed away. The origin of the building here is fifteenth century, and a magnificent building it would have been. But the village died. There were four altars here, now there's just the one. Once we had a bell that weighed three-quarters of a ton, but the community sold it off,

  in 1585, because they were dying from deprivation and hunger. It's so good to meet someone who's interested my name's Hackett."

  Markham looked around him, pa
st the old carved-stone font, and could not see Littelbaum. If he had been alone in the church he would have said a short private prayer for those who'd been in the bus.

  The clergyman droned on, "Disease, poverty, fires, all decimated the population of the village I sometimes say that this is a place without a present, only a past. That's how it feels here sometimes."

  He was in the bath. Meryl had made them undress at the back door, had insisted on it. Davies thought by now that Perry would have told her of the disaster in the pub, would have come up with an explanation as to why they had come back sodden, with sand caking their shoes.

  She came into the bathroom.

  Davies had hitched his wristwatch to the cold tap, and was allowing himself five minutes' defrost time. The holster and the Glock were within reach on the floor, with the radio. She had brought two of Perry's dressing-gowns to the back door.

  There was no knock, and no hesitation or apology. He sat upright and hunched forward to obscure his waist, hips and groin from her. Meryl carried a heap of folded clothes. Her face was expressionless, like those of the nurses had been while he couldn't wash himself, sponging his privates after he'd broken his ankle falling from a ladder when trying to get through a back window to plant a bug. There was a towel on top of the clothes. They could have been left outside the door, and she could have shouted to him that they were there.

  She laid the towel and the clothes on the chair beside his head. Davies stared straight ahead, and wondered how close she was to the edge of her sanity. It wasn't his job to prop up the morale of his principal, let alone that of his principal's wife. He felt himself to be the crutch on which she leaned. It was nothing to do with his personality, his warmth or his wit. It was because he had a Glock 9mm pistol in a holster lying on the bright pink fluffy mat beside the bath. She came into the bathroom, where he was naked, for comfort from him and from his gun.

  The wristwatch showed that his time was up. He had not the heart to tell her that he could not be her friend. He reached for the towel, hid himself clumsily, stood up in the bath and began to dry himself.