The Action

by Peter Tonkin

  Chapter Eight: The Outsiders

  24 July-25 July

  Guirat, NW IndiaNight of 24 July

  “Don’t move. Not a muscle,” said Ram to Indira through clenched teeth, seeking to make the moment of their final ecstasy last as long as he could. Ram’s back was supported by the angle of the wall. Indira’s arms were wrapped tightly round his neck as his were tight round her waist, his hands on the cool, silken swells of her buttocks. He stood on both feet and she upon one, her right leg crooked around the top of his left thigh and hip. Only the strength of her arms and hip, and the rigid strength of his manhood, upon which she was ecstatically impaled, held her upright and they stood, entwined in the manner of the love-carvings of the great erotic friezes, in the comer of their bedroom. It was the night of their wedding day.

  Ram had met Indira at Bombay University. A courtship had begun, followed the necessary forms, and ended today. Or was it yesterday? Ram would have looked at his watch but the movement might have ended the moment. They had travelled here to Guirat for the wedding because neither had any family and because Ram would begin his job as a Local Government official here in a few days. They were renting this room in a block of flats among the southern suburbs of Rajkot, but, like all youngsters, dreamed of greater things.

  Indira moved again, compliant with his wishes but unsure whether she approved of this esoteric form of love play. “Be still just a little longer,” whispered Ram. His fingers traced the hollow of her spine up to the wings of her shoulder blades then back down to the full, slick swell of her magnificent buttocks.

  It was nearly midnight. They had been making love languorously since sunset. They stood immobile for a little longer then Indira raised her face, almond eyes aglow, lips a little swollen with passion, and they began to kiss. The world shrank to the beating of their hearts, the heat of their bodies, the needs of their love. Ram felt Indira take control. Her belly rippled against his. Her tongue stabbed into his mouth. She closed upon him. He cried out, the sound trapped in the cave of their mouths.

  The world lurched in the distance. The room shuddered. He threw out his hands, pressing back against the right-angled walls, to stop them falling. His head smashed back into the corner. Indira hurled against him, nails raking his back. Ram felt the rhythmic drive of his climax shake foundations in Karachi and Bombay, rip open the marshes in the Rann of Kutch, tumble the dizzy hills of Gir, tread like the left foot of Kali on Porbandar, Junagadh, Bavangar and Mahuva, hurling the very ocean over Bulsar and Surat. Three great convulsions then peace.

  A little wind moved against their sated bodies, cooling, chilling. Ram opened his eyes and it was dark. Sometime during their climax the light had gone out. He looked up and saw the stars and the moon full and high. Ram looked down and saw the city of Rajkot in ruins at his feet. A distant explosion - a ball of fire first, then a sound. Screams came. Cries for help.

  Indira sighed against his chest, noticing none of this. “Let’s go to bed now,” she whispered, “it’s cold and I’m tired of standing.” Her right leg eased down, standing beside his.

  Ram looked wildly round, understanding but scarcely daring to believe. At the climax of their passion there had come a terrible earthquake to devastate Rajkot. It had destroyed their home, taken all the room except an angle of wall and this tiny corner that they stood in, 30ft above the ground. He explored with his toes. The floor ended a shrug way beyond Indira’s heel.

  The wall behind him was wet and cold. His back began to ache. Cramp came like a dagger in his groin. Indira moved against him, still far, far away. “Ram,” she said.

  “No,” said Ram, through clenched teeth. “No, don’t move! Not a muscle.”

  RAF Nimrod

  “There!” yelled Nash.

  “What? Where?” yelled Grokock.

  Down there. An island I think. I’ll go back and look from the window.”

  “Window!” muttered Flight Lieutenant Grokock under his breath, but the word was lost in the roar of the Nimrod’s jets as he began to bring her round. Nash stumbled back down the fuselage until he got to a porthole on the side he wanted behind the broad wing. He shaded his eyes against the afternoon sun and looked again in the quicksilver glare of the sea.

  There! Was it a shadow? He shook his head to clear his eyes, looked: and it was still there. “Yes!” he yelled into the microphone and the word sped to the pilot. “Right,” answered the distant Grokock. “I see it. Going down.” The plane tilted. Nash sat back.

  Two days earlier he had introduced himself as a man called Andrews from Lloyds of London, and showed to Group Captain Sutton, Commanding Officer of the little RAF team training the Omani coastal command at Masirah an urgent request from several extremely high-ranking RAF officers that he do whatever Mr Andrews wanted. With Grokock and the crew, he had spent almost all of the succeeding 48 hours in the air, fruitlessly searching the area of Wanderer’s last known location.

  Now, as the Nimrod moved across the sky towards the tiny comma of land, Nash pressed himself against the strengthened perspex of the port, searching for signs of life. At first there was nothing, then, at the rounded end of the island he saw a little light and a column of smoke began to drift towards India on the steady wind.

  “It’s them!” whispered Nash. “It must be them.” He ran unsteadily up to the cockpit. Flight Lieutenant Grokock was on the radio. “What are you doing?” yelled Nash.

  “Giving out their co-ordinates on the emergency wavelength. There should be some ships in the area. They’ll get to them quicker than we can.”

  Nash stood very still. He should have thought of this. Christ, what a mess! The Americans and the Chinese both had ships close. The Russians, too, probably by now. And all of them would now know where the island was. “Was that wrong, sir?” Grokock was clearly confused.

  “What? No, no. Of course not. Standard practice. But I was just thinking…Look, they might be in immediate trouble down there. We’ll drop them the emergency supplies, and I’ll jump myself. Go down and lend a hand. Do you need to de-pressurise?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that, sir.”'

  Nash didn’t have time to argue. He showed him his real SIS ID card. There was a spare parachute with the supplies. Nash went back down the length of the aircraft and strapped it on. “Which is the radio?” he bellowed over the rush of air as the co-pilot opened the door.

  “This one, sir.”

  “Thanks. Better keep my eye on it. Dump it last.” He helped throw the boxes of supplies out as the aircraft roared low over the length of the island, and then jumped himself.

  He landed, shaken but unhurt, on a beach beside the radio and close to quite a sizeable rock. He looked around: nobody about. He picked up the radio, carried it to the rock and dropped it. There was a muffled crash. He walked away and began to pack up his parachute. A tall man appeared over a rise, paused, then came forward, hand outstretched but eyes wary.

  “Eldridge Gant,” he said. “And we are sure glad to see you!”

  “Perry Andrews from Lloyds,” said Nash, grasping Gant’s hand. “Came to see if you were all right and to wet-nurse the radio.”

  “Radio!” said Gant. “Boy can we use one of them!” He went over to the radio’s box and squatted down. “We need all the help we can get!” He threw the words over his shoulder. “We seem to have some kind of lunatic amongst us. He’s murdered most of the survivors. But with this we can ...” His voice trailed off and he turned towards Nash, his face dead. “It’s broken,” he said.

  “Oh damn,” said Nash automatically. “Now I wonder how the hell that happened?”

  The Lincoln

  Hannegan the helicopter pilot burst into Lydecker’s cabin without knocking. “It’s in, Ed. We just picked it up on the radio.”

  “What’s in?”

  “Location of the survivors from Wanderer.”

  “The hell you say! Over the radio?”

  “Some Limey flyboy on Emergency.”

  “How
far?”

  “Six hours.”

  They had been searching for over a week: now they would be there by midnight. Midnight! He remembered what an old friend, an old Spook had once said to him. “Don’t trust the dark. She’s a whore. She’ll make you the Invisible Man so you think you can’t be beaten, but at the same time she’s turning all the Opposition into Invisible Men as well. I’ve seen more guys killed by the dark...” Lydecker jerked himself off his bunk and went to see the Captain.

  The island resolved itself into a firm shape off the port beam at 2343. Lincoln had been running without lights since before 2300, just in case. They went in slowly and anchored to the south, just off-shore to windward of the massive cliffs, and Lydecker led in his tiny force with their bulky black equipment in fat, black, little rubber boats onto the sand of a small bay. They disembarked quietly onto the deserted beach and moved forward.

  On the beach was the charred skeleton of a boat. At the top of the rise above the beach an unmarked grave. By a pool among some palm trees an old fire, supplies and parachutes. “There’s only one with harness for a man,” Hannegan told Lydecker, his whisper covered by the sound of a waterfall. There was nobody around. They set up their equipment as an ambush and began to move up the island.

  The ground gathered itself up into a steep slope covered with rough grass. Then this levelled off into a deserted plateau where a black circle still held a little of a fire’s warmth. They began to move back down the island but stopped for a discussion on the slope. “Where in hell are they?” asked Lydecker.

  “Christ knows,” said Hannegan. They stood, uncertain of what to do next. There was a little silence. Then…

  “What’s that?” whispered Lydecker urgently.

  “Shooting,” answered one of the others out of the darkness.

  “Yeah, but where is it coming from?” They all listened intently. Then Hannegan suddenly knelt and put his ear to the ground.

  “Down there,” he said.

  The Russian submarine

  Beria swung into the cupboard which the Captain laughingly referred to as their stateroom, and called to the sleeping Andropov with a voice as excited as his face. “They’re on an island. Someone has just broadcast an emergency call giving its position.”

  “How far?”

  “About eight hours if we go on the surface.”

  They spent time discussing whether or not it might be a trap. The Captain was of this opinion, for his charts showed no island at the stated location. But a week of inactivity had galled the two KGB men and, trap or not, they were going to look. If there was anything there then they would venture further on their own.

  The lookout saw the island just after 0110 local time on the morning of 25 July. The submarine approached the island from the north-east. Beria and Andropov loaded a few token medical supplies into a rubber dinghy and, trying to look like genuine rescuers, they set off a little after 0130. The submarine turned away behind them, retiring to safer waters. It would return each hour to this rendezvous.

  It took the Federal Security men more than 15 minutes to reach the island. They beached the dinghy on a low sand spit, which was the curling tail of the land, and climbed silently ashore. Then they spent the next half hour searching fruitlessly for any survivors. While they were standing on the cliffs, looking north in the bright moonlight, Beria saw the ship. “Down!” he snapped. It was coming in from the north-west slowly and without lights. They watched it stop and put down a boat. It was 0220.

  “Come on,” whispered Beria, “we’ll go down the other side.” They went across the cliffs quickly and began to run back down the slope. This time it was Andropov because he was in the lead.

  “Yuri! There’s another one!” Lincoln lay also without lights, to the south of the island. A boat was pulling away, full of men. “It was a trap!” yelled Andropov, panicking. After all, he was not a field agent. And he suddenly saw the horrifying possibility that he might even be responsible for the first really embarrassing international incident involving the Federal Security Service.

  “I don’t think so,” said Beria more calmly. “Let’s go!”

  They ran towards their dinghy; it was 0226. They paused for breath in some scrub by a small pool at the head of a waterfall.

  “What do we do now?” asked Andropov, frankly by now out of his depth. Beria rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and chin. “We wait, I think. We’re too late for the rendezvous anyway.”

  They sat in silence, gasping, Suddenly in the sigh of the wind from the north-east came a muffled detonation, followed by a strange metallic sound.

  “What’s that?” muttered Andropov.

  “Grapnels,” said Beria. “Someone’s coming up the cliffs.” The wind backed abruptly, carrying voices from the south-west, with the crunch of a landing boat. “The other boat,” whispered Andropov.

  Then, in the water right beside them, a loud bubbling splash. They shrank back into the bushes. Out of the pool under the cliff waded someone carrying in one hand a torch, and in the other a huge black Colt .45 automatic pistol.

  Glorious Revolution

  The Bee leaned against the guard rail at the very point of the bows like some strange figurehead on the Glorious Revolution. His eyes probed the darkness as though he could see the island upon which he was certain he would find his beloved Hummingbird although he knew very well it was eight hours’ sailing time away. He was in his mind already on the little piece of land, discovering and rescuing his lover, alone, like a hero of romance.

  The sea boiled around the bow throwing up glinting salt spray. The moon was low, fat and full - a pitiless cover from the darkness.

  The Bee had always loved the dark because it hid things. As a child in Shanghai whenever he wished to hide he found the darkest corner and crawled into it until he became part of it. He had hidden much as a child, for his father had been a Western sailor who had loved his mother and left her. From the earliest moments of his life he had had pale skin, big ears, a long bony face and round eyes. All this he had been forced to wear like a terrible scar for the children in his neighbourhood laughed at him, fought him, drove him into the dark corners. But there came a day when he had begun to fight back.

  He fought physically at first, but then intellectually also and as he beat them on the street with his fists, he beat them in the classroom with hard work. He became a star pupil. But they still laughed behind their sleeves. He worked even harder and won a scholarship to Beijing University.

  The night before he left he raped the sister of his greatest enemy. The experience had disappointed him. In Beijing also he had been an outcast and in consequence a star pupil. His speciality was languages. He impressed his tutors. He impressed a man whose offices were in 15 Bowstring Alley. The chances of his parentage, birth and upbringing made him a perfect agent: he was secretive, lonely, hardworking, meticulous; he hated himself as well as everybody else and in consequence found it no strain to assume other characters for great lengths of time; he had come to terms with this self-hate, however, because he had proved himself superior to the people who had begun it - therefore, although he remained utterly ruthless, there was little chance of him becoming utterly psychopathic and breaking down, in the short term at least.

  He met the Hummingbird on his last course before becoming fully operative as a SAD agent. All he could think was how beautiful this person seemed to him. It always seemed strange to the Bee that the beautiful Hummingbird returned his feelings. They became a team. The Bee was the thinker, the planner, the Control; the Hummingbird was the executive. Singly they were dangerous, together they became deadly.

  At 0220 local time the Bee was rowing silently towards the island in the small black rubber dinghy, his heart thunderous in his broad chest at the prospect of seeing his beautiful Hummingbird again. He had a powerful gun designed to launch a grapnel up cliffs in excess of 200 ft in height. At the foot of the north-eastern cliffs he knelt in the unsteady dinghy and fired this upwards. It arc
hed against the moonbright sky and over the edge of the cliff.

  He pulled it. It held. He had a torch, a pistol, and a light machine-gun. He secured them all to his body and began to climb. By 0235 he was on the edge of the cliff. He moved forward swiftly and silently. There was a sound of falling water: he went towards it. Then, a little way in front, he heard a scuffle of movement. He stopped. The sound came again. His heart was like an earthquake in his chest. He whistled their call sign. It was returned. He called, “Hummingbird.”

  An indistinct shape moved in the dark, splashing in water. He raised his torch. “Don’t!” cried the Hummingbird. Too late. The Bee saw the Hummingbird there in the pool of light. He began to scream.

  Indian Ocean

  Just after they had all gone back to the island for the second time, the Radio Operator on the Lincoln picked up the first emergency broadcast. He went to the bridge at a run. “What is it?” asked the Captain. The Radio Operator told him.

  “Mary, Mother of God!” The Captain swung round. “Slip the anchor. Full steam ahead. Give me searoom!”

  The Radio Operator mentioned the men on the island. “They stand a damn sight more chance than we do. Engine Room? Give me flank speed NOW! Somebody get Hannegan the ‘chopper pilot up here!” Lincoln began to move: it was 0240.

  The Radio Operator on Glorious Revolution finished relaying the Bee’s final message to Beijing. He turned the dial and caught the end of the message. He listened. It was repeated. He ran to the Officer of the watch who ran to the bridge and told the Captain. The Captain went dead white and ordered full speed. The ship began to move: it was 0255.

  The submarine Commander looked at his watch. “They are late. We will return in an hour.” The submarine turned on the surface and began to move out to sea. The Radio Operator was not at his post because absolute radio silence was being observed. The Emergency message was never received. The alarm was raised by one of the watch. “What’s that?” the man suddenly demanded. Everyone on the submarine’s high fin jumped.