The Devil's Breath

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Hotel in town,’ he said. ‘Modest but clean.’

  The Hotel Hauptstadt lay at the heart of the old city. Small, dark, undistinguished, it appeared to be empty. Telemann checked in at the desk and collected a key to a room on the second floor. The room was small and spotless. The duvet was turned down on the single bed, and the window offered a glimpse of the docks across the river. Telemann threw his bag on to a chair and sluiced his face under the tap. In the mirror, he wondered about having a shave but decided against it. They knew he’d just flown in. They knew he’d probably been awake for a couple of days. They were ahead of the game, and five minutes with mint-fresh foam and a Gillette razor wasn’t going to change anything.

  He joined them downstairs in a corner of the tiny bar. They were sitting at a table, studying a snack menu. When Telemann came in, they both got up. The Mercedes was still outside.

  They drove west out of the city. The traffic and the houses thinned. Soon they were on an autobahn. Telemann, watching idly from the back-seat, saw signs for Elmshorn and Itzehoe. Twenty kilometres short of Brunsbüttel, the car slowed and left the autobahn. Apart from the occasional exchange between Blum and the woman behind the wheel, there was no conversation, no small-talk. The radio was on, the volume low, jazz classics, Quincy Jones, Stan Getz. Once or twice, curious, Telemann asked the kind of questions a visiting journalist might ask, drawing his cover around him, but the answers he got were no more than cursory, brief acknowledgements that he was riding in the car with them, a guest of sorts, and that they owed him the simple courtesy of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Beyond that, neither of them was prepared to go. Federal Express, Telemann thought as the Mercedes slowed for yet another village. Couriers sent to the airport to collect the goods.

  Beyond the village, they turned left. The road narrowed, no more than a track now, deeply rutted. In the distance, across the flat landscape, Telemann could see the lights of a ship moving slowly across the fields. He frowned, trying to make sense of the image, picturing the map of the area, the plains of Schleswig-Holstein stretching north and west towards Denmark. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, wondering whether this was yet another form of double vision, but the ship was still there, the red navigation lights high on the bridge, the dark silhouette of the hull, the row of port-holes aft, crew accommodation, softly lit from within. He hesitated, wondering whether to risk a question, realizing quite suddenly how tired he was, then he had it, the map again, the heavy blue line bisecting this neck of land, connecting the Baltic to the North Sea. The Kiel Canal, he thought. We’re right up by the Kiel Canal.

  Abruptly, the car swung left, along a dirt road and into the cover of a stand of trees. The car stopped. The woman switched off the engine, and for a moment there was silence. Then Telemann picked up another noise, mechanical, a low hum. Generator, he thought.

  They got out. It was cooler here, the air fresher. Overhead, the trees stirred in the wind. Telemann peered into the darkness, following the woman as she picked her way through the long grass. There were lights through the trees, the generator sounded louder, there was the smell of manure and newly mown hay. On the other side of the trees was a small cottage. Beyond the cottage, shapes in the darkness, were a number of outbuildings. Listening hard, Telemann could hear the stirring of animals.

  They went into the cottage, the woman knocking three times on the door and then letting herself in with a key. Inside, blinking in the sudden light, Telemann had the sense of a recent renovation: wooden beams exposed, expensive rugs on a newly laid wooden floor, carefully framed pictures, Kandinsky and Klee, twenties’ classics. Despite the farmyard smells outside, the place belonged to someone altogether more metropolitan, someone with taste, someone who knew their way around the gentler pieces of Bauhaus. There was music, too, Brahms, the Violin Concerto.

  Telemann followed the woman into the big downstairs living-room. A man in his sixties rose from an armchair in the corner. He was wearing shorts, knee-length socks and a khaki shirt. His skin was the colour of the darker stained pine panels. He had a long, deeply lined face, but his hair was still jet-black. He was lean and alert, a man with a lifetime’s practice at looking after himself. He was smoking a pipe.

  Blum crossed the room and shook the man’s hand. Then he turned to Telemann. The smile was back on his face, amused, gently sceptical, a man who had trouble remembering names. ‘Mr …?’

  Telemann hesitated a moment, wondering whether to bother with the fiction any longer. These people knew. He could sense it. The games were over. There were guys in New York with gallons of nerve gas, and scores to settle, and a delicate political point to make. US troops were pouring into Saudi Arabia. Time was running out.

  Telemann shook the proffered hand. ‘Telemann,’ he said briefly. ‘Ron Telemann.’

  The man with the pipe studied him for a moment, still holding his hand, then he smiled. He spoke English with a heavy German accent. ‘My name’s Klausmann,’ he said slowly. ‘You may have heard of me.’

  Telemann frowned, trawling his memory, looking for the index card. Klausmann, he thought. He shook his head, glancing across at Blum. The Israeli indicated an armchair beside a stack of expensive audio equipment. Telemann sank into it, still trying to place the name.

  The woman appeared from the kitchen. She was carrying a tray. On it were two bottles of wine and a plateful of sandwiches. One or two of the sandwiches were beginning to curl. Telemann looked at them. They expected me earlier, he thought. An earlier flight.

  The woman put the tray down and uncorked both bottles. She poured the wine. He accepted a glass and took a handful of sandwiches. They were some kind of wurst, thinly sliced, quite delicious. Telemann lifted his glass, a little revived, curious now, eager to see who’d make the running, which direction the conversation would take, where it might lead.

  ‘Prosit,’ he said with a smile, ‘shalom.’

  The others lifted their glasses, amused by the toast. Then Blum leaned forward, abruptly businesslike. He indicated Klausmann with a tilt of the head, not taking his eyes off Telemann.

  ‘You’ve come a long way,’ he said, ‘so we thought it better not to waste your time. Dr Klausmann is a chemist. He retired three years ago. Now he lives here, in this house. Until reunification, he lived in the East.’

  Telemann nodded, looking across at Klausmann, framing the obvious question, knowing already what the answer would be.

  ‘Where?’ he enquired politely. ‘Where in the East?’

  Blum looked at him for a moment. ‘Halle,’ he said, still smiling.

  *

  McVeigh arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport at half-past ten the next day.

  The big El Al 747 was forty minutes late, delayed in a stack of circling aircraft. Sitting beside a window towards the back of the executive cabin, McVeigh looked down on the sprawl of Tel Aviv, trying to match the pattern of interlocking major roads with the city map he’d already committed to memory. The big roads were easy, Ben Yehuda and Dizengoff, running parallel to the seafront. There were beaches along the seafront, already dotted with sunbeds, and the long concrete arm of a marina.

  The plane banked again, and the view of Tel Aviv changed, the south of the city suddenly visible, the old town, Jaffa, the walls of the ancient harbour, a single speedboat arrowing out to sea, the wake feathering away behind it. McVeigh gazed down at the deep blues and the dusty greys and browns, knowing that Jaffa was where he’d have to start, at the address in his pocket. Yakov’s apartment.

  The nose dipped, and the pilot eased back on the throttles, the whine of the engines changing note. McVeigh braced as the tarmac came up to meet the big Boeing, and the wheels bit, and the grass of the airfield, scorched brown by the heat, raced past. The aircraft shuddered under reverse thrust, and McVeigh reached forward for the paperback he’d tucked into the back of the seat. Inside the paperback was a postcard. It was unstamped. Billy had delivered it personally, by hand, the previous evening. McVeigh had found it on the mat.
>
  Now, easing his seat-belt, he turned it over. On one side was a black and white photo of Gary Lineker. On the other, in careful capitals, was Billy’s contribution to the next week or so. Reading it, McVeigh smiled. No nonsense. No messing. Nothing fancy.

  ‘Good luck, Dad,’ it went. ‘Come back soon.’

  *

  The analysts at the Dispozall group headquarters had a result on the Newbury sample by eleven-thirty, London time.

  The Executive Chemical Officer, who’d supervised the last stages of the process, checked the read-outs a final time and returned to his office at the end of the bigger of the two laboratories. He’d not been briefed on the Newbury incident until he’d arrived for work at eight o’clock.

  Wearing full protective gear, he’d spent the next three hours watching the analyst run the elimination tests, but he’d seen the colour of the stuff, and he’d heard what had happened out at Newbury, and twelve years’ Army service told him the rest of the story. The result of the analysis, when it came, was the merest formality.

  He closed the office door behind him and lifted the phone. A four-figure internal number took him to the group’s managing director, three floors above. The man had been up half the night. He sounded knackered. The ECO extracted a sheaf of Kleenex from the box on the desk and mopped his face.

  ‘That Newbury business,’ he said briefly. ‘It’s nerve gas.’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘Nerve gas. Tabun GA. It’s bastard stuff. We need to deal with the rest of it sharpish. It’s not nice.’

  There was a long silence. The ECO gazed out through the glass walls of his office. The analyst was bent over the sample jars, sealing them again, totally airtight. Then the managing director returned. He sounded, if anything, even worse.

  ‘We have a problem,’ he said.

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘No.’ He paused. ‘I meant another problem.’

  ‘Oh?’ The ECO frowned. Tabun was a name from the doomsday brief. The amount he was looking at down the lab could take care of most of Greater London. Five gallons properly dispersed was enough to empty the British Isles.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Newbury have been on. Half an hour ago.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The stuff’s gone.’

  Book two

  31 August 1990

  6

  The way Sullivan saw it, the message was for real. ‘Kosher,’ he said. ‘For sure.’

  The President looked at him for a moment across the long 25-foot conference table. Sullivan had flown up to Camp David by helicopter, arriving only minutes ago. Clambering out of the big Sikorsky, ducking in the downwash from the rotor, he’d followed one of the Marine guards across the landing-strip and down through the stand of pines to the Lodge. The President had been up at Camp David since Friday night. A principals-only meeting had just finished, the flasks of juice and the five empty glasses still sitting on the table. The President looked at him for a moment longer, then read the single sheet of paper again. Underneath the Kennebunkport tan, he looked tired and irritable.

  ‘Amman again?’

  ‘Cyprus.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning. 09.14 Eastern Standard Time. Early evening in Nicosia.’

  ‘Anything else come with it? Names?’ The President paused. ‘Any toll-free numbers we might call?’

  Sullivan raised a smile at the joke, then shook his head. ‘Nothing, sir,’ he said. ‘The way I heard it, the guy arrived on a motor-bike and left it at the gate. Same as last time.’ He paused again. ‘I’d have cabled the contents, but under the circumstances …’ He broke off and shrugged.

  The President glanced up for a moment, not hearing him properly. He seemed exhausted, his voice low. ‘The bastard’s capable of anything,’ he said. ‘Any damn thing. You see him on CNN last week?’

  Sullivan nodded. ‘I was there, sir,’ he said gently. ‘We watched it together.’

  The President looked at him, frowning, and then nodded. ‘Oh, sure,’ he said. ‘You were. I forgot.’

  His hand reached for the flask of juice and he filled the nearest glass. Eight days ago, Saddam had appeared on television with a group of Western kids, effectively hostages of the Iraqi regime. One of them, an English boy, he’d talked to through an interpreter, benign, smiling, reaching across to touch and reassure the child, a father-figure, the very model of concern. The boy, plainly terrified, had done his best to hide his feelings, but the President, watching the big set in the Oval Office, had paled at the sight, his fists clenched, his face ashen. Sullivan had watched him across the room, knowing yet again that the crisis in the Gulf had become – for the President at least – a moral crusade. Black and white. Good and evil.

  Now the President put the single sheet of paper on the table and sank into a chair. There was a long silence. Sullivan could hear the whine of a hoover outside in the corridor. The next meeting, he knew, was scheduled for late afternoon. The J-boys were arriving, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, breaking yet another weekend to keep the President briefed on the huge military build-up now flooding into Saudi Arabia. The President wanted the details, all the details, the name and composition of every last unit heading east. After the disasters of early August – the Intelligence people wrongfooted, the Pentagon in shock – he was determined to be the playmaker, the guy who called as many of the moves as possible.

  A month into the crisis, it was beginning to work. The diplomatic noose was tightening daily. Twenty-two nations had pledged forces to the UN coalition. American forces in the Gulf now topped 100,000, with thousands more en route. And God knows, at last there were signs that the pressure was beginning to work. Only days ago, Saddam had offered to free the women and children he was holding in Baghdad. The price of their freedom – US withdrawal – was totally unacceptable, but none the less the news had drawn a small ripple of applause in Washington’s upper circle. The guy just blinked, went the word. We’ve got him by the balls and he’s starting to hurt.

  The President gazed around the table at the neat row of empty seats. His right hand strayed again to the message Sullivan had brought from Washington. The message was blunt. The President had four weeks to halt the build-up in Saudi Arabia and turn the thing around. Unless the troops were heading home by the end of the month, New York would take the consequences. The President looked across at Sullivan again. ‘Who do we talk to?’ he said. ‘These June 7th guys, who are they?’

  Sullivan shook his head. ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He paused. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘So when?’ The President frowned, leaning forward, impatient for news. ‘This guy of yours … our fireman … is he good? Is he doing it for us? Has he …?’

  Sullivan smiled, a quizzical expression, and looked away, and the President hesitated a moment and then shrugged, an implicit acknowledgement of the pact between them, obliged to accept, for once, an ignorance of the small-print. On this one, the word was deniability. If any hint of Sullivan’s operation leaked out, if the shit hit the fan, then it was crucial that none got as far as the Presidency. Sullivan would suffer, sure, but his loyalty had always been beyond question, and he’d be happy to take the fall.

  Abruptly, the President got up, folding Sullivan’s note into his pocket. Sullivan was on his feet across the table, buttoning his jacket. The President paused by the door, opening it, and then changed his mind and closed it again. With people he trusted, he had a habit of thinking aloud. He looked down at Sullivan, very close. ‘We have a problem with the Israelis,’ he said. ‘You may have gathered.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘They’ve torn up the April deal. They ain’t on board any more. They’re contemplating a little action of their own.’

  Sullivan nodded. Months before the invasion of Kuwait, back in April, Saddam had sought assurances that neither the US nor Israel would move against him. The President,
after a little thought, had twisted arms in Tel Aviv and given the Iraqis the guarantees they wanted. At the time, there’d been no reason to withhold the pledge. Given a choice, the President didn’t want to fight anyone.

  The Iraqis, four months later, had used the President’s assurances for their own ends, throwing the weight of the Iraqi army against Kuwait – in the south – and leaving their western flank unprotected. Even now, there was still no real threat against Israel, but the Israelis had a notoriously short fuse. Year-long rumours that Baghdad was on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon, and now the move against Kuwait, were making them very nervous indeed – and provoked, they tended to favour action and not words. Intelligence reports were indicating a measure of quiet mobilization in Tel Aviv, and Sullivan knew all too well that any Israeli attack against Iraq, however justified, would shatter the Saudi-based coalition the President had so carefully assembled.

  Sullivan frowned. ‘You’re talking to them regularly?’

  ‘Every night.’

  ‘They listening?’

  ‘They hear what they want to hear but the bottom line never changes. If push comes to shove, they’ll do it their way.’

  ‘You believe them?’

  ‘No question. They’re unilateralists. Always have been.’ He paused, his hand still on the door-knob. ‘And they have a point. If it was you or me in Tel Aviv, we’d be thinking offensive too. You know the range of a Scud missile? The ones Saddam’s had modified?’

  Sullivan nodded. Newsweek had been publishing the facts for weeks. ‘Six hundred kilometres.’

  ‘You got it.’ The President grimaced, nodding at the empty conference room. ‘The fellas come up here with the maps and the little models. They draw it all out. Scuds are a dime a dozen. Stick a bunch in Western Iraq, out there in the desert some place, and you’re in Tel Aviv in a coupla minutes. And remember—’ he bent towards Sullivan, his voice low, almost conspiratorial ‘—you only have to get lucky once, just once, and the coalition’s history. Drop a Scud in downtown Tel Aviv, kill women and children, and the Israelis will do the rest.’ He snapped his fingers, making the point. ‘Can you imagine what a party that would be? Shamir’s boys over Baghdad? Our Arabs lining up alongside the Israelis?’ He shook his head, leaving the question unanswered, opening the door instead.