Ten Minutes to Turn the Devil

by Douglas Hurd

  ‘You turned it,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘You’ll never have a debate like that again. Thank you. It was out of hand. You turned it.’

  Richard was congratulated on all hands. Even the fresh round of radio and TV interviews in the purlieus of the conference centre went smoothly. Hugh was almost excited with pleasure. Richard himself felt sweaty from the lights but at ease. There would be other days, difficult days, but this one was good.

  He returned to his hotel room for a bath. At reception he ordered a bottle of champagne to be sent up. Notes of congratulation were beginning to appear under the door. The next thing was to ring his wife. He picked up one of the notes, because it was marked ‘Urgent’. It reported a telephone call from the Ministry of Defence. His wife’s brother, Major Charles Sampson, had been killed that morning by a sniper 10 miles west of Shevaropol. He had died instantly. His wife had not yet been informed. It was thought that the Secretary of State would prefer to do this himself.

  3 A Suitcase Between Friends

  ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ asked Leonora, not for the first time. The week off Florida on Gianni’s yacht was proving an exciting success, but that was because of Gianni’s good looks and remarkable wealth. A barbecue on the Cayou Costa would include both quite satisfactorily if only Gianni would come. She had seen Jake loading the champagne into the launch.

  The little island itself looked enchanting, white sand framed with trees and a red-brick fort on the promontory. But without Gianni it would lose its charm. He had actually clasped her hand on the bridge at dusk yesterday as the San Cristoforo manoeuvred its way out of Tampa harbour.

  ‘My dear Leonora, I have all this,’ his gesture embraced the yacht, Jake, the champagne, even the 12-year-old boy and his tutor, ‘because I never let my business sleep. I told you I have dedicated this afternoon to my business plan for next year. You will swim and drink and grill your steak, while I write in my cabin. I will have the greater appetite for pleasure with you tomorrow.’

  She accepted the tone of finality. Men still retreated maddeningly into a world which most women of her generation could not enter. It was the same with her husband, Alaric, and presumably that was why he had become Minister of State at the Department of Transport.

  How absurd Alaric looked as he emerged from their cabin festooned with field-glasses and camera, the beginning of a belly looming above his baggy tartan shorts. ‘Pleasure with you tomorrow.’ She would have to be content with that. She thought of the amazingly beautiful Louis Vuitton suitcase which she had found in their cabin, her initials exciting in gold near the handle, suggesting a future of infinite improper travel.

  The launch was just big enough for the shore party. Leonora sat herself next to the red-haired young tutor. He was called David, and it was not necessary to know his surname. His shorts were baggy, too, but reminiscent of the Eighth Army in the desert rather than the Caribbean. Friendly enough under the freckles, but it was hard to imagine that he had any control of Gianni Two, who had stayed on board with his father.

  ‘Well, what shall we see, David?’

  ‘Oh, an osprey, I hope, Mrs Rowallan. It says here …’ David had brought out a pocket book Birds of Florida. At least he was a passionate expert on this subject.

  Leonora concentrated on the Fletcher-Hamiltons opposite. She could not see the point in them. Both tall, thin as matchsticks, plain and dull. Gianni had met them at a fishing lodge in Sutherland that spring. Leonora could imagine the Fletcher-Hamiltons in ugly waterproof garments perched for hours in the rain above a beat of rushing brown water. But why ask them to cruise on the San Cristoforo?

  Leonora and Alaric had not known Gianni much longer than that, but at least they had met at a witty dinner party off the King’s Road. Leonora knew that she looked her best by candlelight. She suddenly wanted to know whether Mrs Fletcher-Hamilton, too, had found a Louis Vuitton suitcase in her cabin.

  The launch, with Jake at the helm, nosed its way into a lagoon formed between a spit of sand about 100 yards wide and the main shore of the island. They passed close to the red-brick ruins of a small fort built by the Union as part of the blockade of the South. It looked Roman.

  ‘It looks almost Roman,’ she said to the freckled tutor.

  ‘No, Mrs Rowallan. 1863,’ said David and went back to his field-glasses. She gave up. He would discover eventually that there was more to life than history dates and nesting terns, but she would not be part of the education.

  The lagoon was shallow. Jake found a creek up which he could run the launch to the shore. He began to unload the food and drink. Leonora took charge. It was better to recognise that the group had nothing in common.

  ‘Let’s all do our own thing while Jake gets the barbecue organised. I suggest we meet here again in two hours.’

  The Fletcher-Hamiltons started off to explore the fort. On the way they paused and stooped, collecting sea shells. David disappeared on to the spit with his field-glasses. Jake found brushwood for the barbecue. Leonora found a tree and sat under it with the latest Frederick Forsyth. Alaric took off all his clothes and floated in the lagoon. It was very hot.

  She woke, sticky and ill at ease. Alaric was still afloat offshore. Jake slept by a neat bonfire of brushwood. No one else was in sight.

  Leonora ran down to the lagoon, burning her feet in the white sand. The water was shallow and too warm to be refreshing. Beyond the spit in the real sea, she saw waves breaking, and beyond them again the San Cristoforo, large and reassuring out in the ocean, a haven of order and luxury. She imagined Gianni, dark and cool, hard at work in his air-conditioned cabin.

  She struck out across the lagoon, crossed the spit and for ten minutes let herself be tossed and thrown in the breakers. Then she began to think of the champagne waiting in ice buckets by the creek.

  As she re-entered the lagoon, the water suddenly changed colour. For the first time she noticed the banks of cloud picking up fast above the trees on the island. The scurrying edge of the cloud was bright with a braid of gold, where it had swallowed the sun. The sky and therefore the world began to change quickly. Leonora saw the trees toss in the wind, then the surface of the lagoon ruffle towards her, then the first heavy drops, and a flash of lightning.

  She tried to remember if you were more likely to be struck in the sea or on land. She stayed in the lagoon, feeling pleasure as the rain thrashed the water and the thunder rolled. After a minute or two she remembered how she had taken charge of the expedition. She swam back to the boat and the creek. Alaric was already there.

  ‘Put on your clothes,’ she said.

  ‘Not much point. They’re all wet.’

  ‘Put them on.’ And he did.

  ‘We ought to get the party together and go back to the yacht,’ she said to Jake. ‘No point in a wet barbecue.’

  ‘Stay here till the storm ends. That’s the message I’ve got,’ said Jake. ‘They’ll signal when it’s safe.’

  ‘Safe? Then there’s danger?’

  ‘No danger if we stay here.’ Jake was a tall Spanish-American of indeterminate age, neat even now in a soaked T-shirt and jeans. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  ‘May be the edge of a hurricane. It’ll be rough between here and the San Cristoforo. We’ll stay here till the boss says.’

  ‘Where are the others?’

  Leonora imagined young David struck by lightning among the nesting terns. She took Alaric’s glasses and swept the spit with them. Rain blurred the lenses and fell so quickly on the lagoon that the spit was barely visible. Then she saw something which made her hand shake.

  ‘Look over there, to the left of that thorn bush.’

  Alaric took the glasses and looked, but saw nothing. Nor, after that, could Leonora. But what she thought she had seen was vivid enough. A modest-sized figure in baggy shorts, pursued by two other larger figures and then thrown to the ground. Could she have imagined it just because she had been thinking of David at the moment? In any case, she felt powerless.
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  The afternoon filled with fear. The San Cristoforo was out of sight. Nothing was certain any more. Ten minutes passed, seeming like hours. Jake began baling the rainwater out of the launch. They were all soaked and silent. The thunder died away, but the rain did not slacken.

  Then Leonora saw through the murk the outline of a second launch and heard the throb of its engine. The boat came straight towards them with bulky figures visible on board. In parallel two more bulky figures appeared on the shore pushing in front of them two matchsticks which were unmistakably the Fletcher-Hamiltons.

  Leonora, normally active, even rash, felt paralysed. It was unreal, a nightmare. The boat came alongside. David, hands and feet tied, sat forlorn in the stern. Leonora could see a brighter red spreading from a cut under his carroty hair.

  ‘What the hell …’ began Alaric, but then a second – and this time human – storm struck them out of the launch.

  There were five newcomers in all. With just a word of command they made the party stand together in the shallows beside the launch, and searched them thoroughly. Then they took the launch apart. Everything moveable was taken out and put back. The steaks for the barbecue were individually unpacked and dissected. The champagne bottles were opened in a fusillade of cracks and the contents poured into the creek. Then there was a pause. The rain had stopped and the clouds were beginning to break up. The largest newcomer faced Leonora in her bikini.

  ‘Who is this?’ he said, pointing to David.

  ‘He is David, tutor to the son of Signor Gianni Cordovato, owner of …’

  ‘And these?’

  ‘Their name is Fletcher-Hamilton. He is a solicitor in Surrey, and they fish for salmon. And my husband here is a Minister in the British Government in London. And who the hell …?’

  ‘Jeez,’ said the large man. He turned to confer with his colleagues. This took a couple of minutes. Then he came back to Leonora.

  ‘I guess we owe you an apology, ma’am. Captain Ross Benson, U.S. Coastguard. Now let’s go.’

  ‘But how …’

  ‘Explanation later, ma’am. For the moment enough to say we took you for drug runners. We know there’s a transfer planned this afternoon and this Cayou’s a hotspot for it. But now we’re in a hurry.’

  Leonora felt bound to show some authority.

  ‘We can’t go back yet to the San Cristoforo. Signor Cordovato said we must wait for his signal that it would be safe.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘The hurricane …’

  Captain Benson laughed and turned to Jake.

  ‘So that was it. Hurricane, eh? Tie this man up. It was a summer shower. It hasn’t even reached the San Cristoforo. Sea dead calm. You’ll see.’

  They moved with speed. David was untied. One of the coastguards took over the first launch from Jake. Captain Benson travelled with them. The sun emerged as they passed the walls of the fort.

  Within three minutes the two launches were out at sea moving towards the San Cristoforo. They drove fast, smacking from one wave tip to another. Captain Benson was busy on the radio.

  Leonora looked at the San Cristoforo through Alaric’s glasses, and then looked again. Surely the angle of the yacht had changed, though the launch had not altered direction. No doubt, the San Cristoforo was moving. Captain Benson saw the same.

  ‘Do you understand now, ma’am?’

  ‘I can’t say I do. How did you …?’

  ‘You respectable folk are the cover for this voyage. But he had to have you out of the way this afternoon while the cocaine came aboard. We thought the rendezvous was on the island, but we goofed. It was right there on the yacht, dammit. A cutter came alongside from the Bahamas an hour ago. We’ve just stopped her on the way home. Clean of course now, but we know the men and there may be enough trace to convict.’

  ‘We shan’t catch the San Cristoforo.’

  ‘No need. Radio is a wonderful thing. Look.’

  And out of the lingering cloud to the west, Leonora could see two grey shapes heading towards them.

  ‘That’s your British West Indies guardship and one of ours. They’ll catch him whichever way he turns.’

  Leonora looked again at the San Cristoforo, stern now towards the launches. There, unmistakably on the rail was Gianni Cordovato, holding a suitcase. Both Leonora and Captain Benson saw him drop it into the sea.

  ‘See that, ma’am? Those cases are the latest in neat construction. Fixed for him in Genoa. Some silly girl would be flattered out of her wits by a gift like that. Better still, a respectable wife who’d get it through Customs without a tremor, and then shed bitter tears when it was snatched from her within hours of getting home. Cocaine in the lining and all.’

  Leonora said nothing.

  Hours later, in their Miami hotel, she said to Mrs Fletcher-Hamilton: ‘By the way, did you find a suitcase in your cabin?’

  ‘Yes, it was so beautiful. I suppose now …’

  Even though she understood it all, Leonora felt a sweet pang of sadness.

  4 Seize the Day

  Red, yellow, black – red, yellow, black – but what’s the point of getting the Union Jack the right way up if you then mix up Belgium and Germany?

  Philip Arabin was short and fair. He put on weight when under stress. In the last ten days he had added ten pounds. Getting the flags in order outside Holyrood Palace was not part of his job, but the responsible official in the summit administration unit had sloped off to some event at his son’s prep school.

  ‘Just check the flags at the palace, would you?’ he had said in parting. Philip had enough on his hands preparing for the press at the Meadowbank Sports Centre, once again converted for this purpose. His team were dealing with two thousand, two hundred and fifty-six applications for media passes. The journalists were pouring into the airport even now. Tomorrow, the summit conference – and the pandemonium – would begin.

  It was probably a Scottish Nationalist in the contractor’s team who had deliberately raised the Union flag wrong side up. The Belgian/German confusion must have been just incompetence. It was a raw day and would soon be dark. All over genteel Edinburgh soft grey ladies were brewing afternoon tea. A band of hard yellow light behind the flags marked the crest of Arthur’s Seat and, probably, bad weather tomorrow.

  A telephone rang in the contractor’s hut and Philip was summoned. As he reached for the phone the table tilted towards him and a plastic mug half-full of coffee threatened to spill over a sketch plan of the interpreters’ booths now installed inside the palace.

  ‘Just thought I’d let you know,’ said a girl’s voice. ‘A fax in from Escobar City. Ten more names for their delegation. Won’t be easy to find rooms for them. Do you think they’d mind Musselburgh?’

  Philip swore to himself. Last-minute accommodation was another little thing wished on him by the vanished colleague.

  ‘What seniority are they?’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ The girl paused, then whistled.

  ‘Must be a joke. Says here Paola Francesca Cordovez, Prime Minister. Next one, Foreign Minister. Must be someone’s idea of fun. The real Prime Minister’s already here. Checked in at the Caledonian this afternoon. Professor something.’

  Philip was rising quite fast in the Foreign Office because he did not take things for granted. Removing the coffee mug to a safe place, he telephoned the FO’s Western European Department. That is how they first learned of the coup d’état in Escobar.

  The British Ambassador to Escobar sat in the garden house correcting the draft of his annual report. He prided himself on his punctuality. The report would certainly be ready long before Christmas. London nowadays tended to take these things for granted. They might also suppose that he had an easy task. Quite the contrary. Virtually nothing had happened in Escobar in 1999. Filling four pages of an annual report was thus a work requiring considerable delicacy and skill. The ambassador looked out across the lawn to the yellow facade of his 18th century residence. The declining winter sun sketched the
unevenness where the paint was flaking. He would have to bid for repairs again in his next budget. That was always hard going with London. He wished he could move to a neat modern little villa in the suburb the other side of the river where most diplomats now lived. History was a burden.

  The telephone rang. It was the head of the Western European Department with news about the fax received in Edinburgh and the first news agency reports. It looked like a coup. The ambassador rose to the occasion.

  ‘I don’t have full details yet. The situation here is pretty confused. I’ll report again as soon as I can. No, I don’t know the woman personally. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’ Then an afterthought, ‘As you know, I’ve felt for some time the political scene here was not as stable as it seemed.’

  There had been shouting earlier in the afternoon from trucks careering down the street. The ambassador had assumed they were football supporters. Escobar City was playing a fancied team from the north that afternoon. And perhaps those firecrackers …

  The ambassador tore up the draft of his annual report. Then, casting aside several of his 59 years, he rediscovered professional energy. The chancery hummed: the ambassador drove fast round the city, saw several of his closest contacts and spoke to others. The agency reports had been correct. He sent a magisterial telegram, personal, to the Secretary of State in London. There had been a bloodless coup. The army and the police had combined to overthrow the Government and install Madame Cordovez as Prime Minister. The embassy, and indeed everyone else, knew only four things about her. She was beautiful, she was unmarried, she was said to be half-Palestinian, and all Escobar enjoyed her highly successful television chat show.

  That night, her simple slogans were repeatedly broadcast: ‘Time for the people’s leader’ and ‘Banish bureaucrats with Paola Francesca’.

  The Foreign Secretary was in no doubt. ‘It’s clear,’ he said, ‘that economic policy convergence and the social cohesion fund will be the two themes of Edinburgh. We have to maximise the first and minimise the second.’