A Line in the Sand (28 page)

Yesterday, your husband came to the school to collect Stephen. He was,

we now know, accompanied by an armed bodyguard. It was not his

intention that the presence of the bodyguard should be known, and

that

was an act of deceit. The bodyguard, after a grossly irresponsible incident with his pistol an incident that could have led to the gun firing in a crowded playground in the head-teacher's hearing, spoke to

the local police after she, quite rightly, had called them. I~ his explanation to the local police, he spoke of a threat to your husband that necessitates his constant protection from terrorist attack. We feel, after very careful consideration, that a threat to your husband represents, also, a threat against your husband's family-' "You're blathering, Barry. Why don't you say what you mean?"

Carstairs pushed aside his notes. There was a curl of anger at his lips.

"I was trying to do it the decent way. What Frank's done, what's in

his sordid past, I don't know and I don't care. What matters is that his family is exposed to bombs and guns, in our school. The children and staff here are all threatened by terrorists. Their safety is

paramount. Stephen, as much as his stepfather or his mother, could be

a target. If he is a target, then everyone at this school is a target.

He's out, he's no longer welcome here."

"You can't do that, not to a child."

The woman, Miss Smythe, leaned forward to intervene, and spoke with a

low, intense voice.

"We can do it, Mrs. Perry, and we are doing it. My department, after full consideration of the facts, has decided to back the governors'

recommendation. We're foursquare behind them. As soon as is

practical

181

we will communicate with you on proposals for alternative education for

t I can't say when that will be.

Stephen, bu

A thought, Mrs. Perry.

Is

e for Stephen to move away, stay with an uninvolved

it possibl

relative,

and attend school elsewhere?"

. We are together, a family."

"It is not

l have to sit at home," Carstairs said.

"Then he'l

"I'm sure Mrs. Kemp'll loan you some books but he's not coming back here."

stairs, always have been,

"You are despicable. You are, Barry Car

a

second-rate rat, always will be."

n is no longer a pupil at this school.

"As of now, Stephe

Take him

home."

"And Frank thought of you, and your stupid wife, as a friend."

"Your problems aren't ours, they don't concern us, get off back home.

And when you get home you should call for a removal van and take your problems away. You're pariahs, you're not wanted."

There was

much

so

she could have said. Meryl thought, in that moment,

that weeping and pleading would have shamed her.

ed them with

She ey

ntempt and none of them could meet her gaze.

co

Once before she had

been through the business of shame, and she would not go there again.

ng, no cringing, not then and not now.

No beggi

Nine years before,

she

gned from the haulage business where she worked the logistics

had resi

computer, four months after the Christmas party. Hadn't been drunk,

, before that party, or since.

incapable

Too drunk, too incapable,

to

know which of the men had done it. It could have been any of the

thirty-eight drivers, twelve loaders, three managers and two

directors.

She would have needed DNA testing to learn which was the father of the

embryo baby. She turned. Living with Frank, loving him, bringing up

her child together had erased the shame. She left them behind her, 182

the

silence clinging in the room, and strode down the corridor to fetch her

son from the common room.

They would be watching her from the head-teacher's office as she led the child back across the empty playground towards the car, their

faces

would be pressed against the glass. She had shown them defiance,

but

by the time she reached the car the pain and the despair hit her.

With her boy beside her, she drove into the town centre to buy the length of net from which she would make the curtains.

ation: SECRET.

Classific

April 1998.

Date: 4

ct: JULIET SEVEN

Subje

script of telephone conversation (secure using SB mobile at

Tran

Juliet

location) between GM, G Branch, and Juliet 7.

7

Hello? Mr. Perry? Good,

GM:

got you. I'm Geoff Markham, I came

down

e you with Mr. Fenton.

to se

raid I didn't make much of a contribution.

"F

This is a secure call.

What I mean is, we can talk frankly. There's a bit to talk about...

there?

Are you

I'm here. What is there to talk about?

J7:

appreciate my difficulty, the same as before.

GM: You

It's the same

difficulty as Mr. Fenton had?

J7: You've a difficulty very funny. Try your difficulty on me.

GM: The difficulty is that I cannot share sources of information

available to us.

J7: Join the queue nobody tells me anything.

GM: Let's try to keep calm. That way we make better decisions. J7: 183

decisions?

What

is not easy. Frankly, the situation around you and your

GM: This

family has deteriorated, we believe.

J7: Spell it out.

GM: That's my difficulty. As I've already explained, I cannot 17: you don't trust me. Nobody [expletivel trusts me -that's

Because

why I

intend to make my own [expletive] decisions.

GM: Please, please, listen

to me. My judgement, based on information

I

am privy to, is that you and your family should relocateJ7: Your

you can shove it up your [expletivel.

judgement

d the word 'deteriorated' - I'm not using that word lightly.

GM: I use

You should go hear me out. We can make all the arrangements within a

matter of hours.

J7: I provided information, and I am not trusted sufficiently to be t use that information was put to.

told wha

GM: That, too, is one of my difficulties. I, too, am not need-to-know on that information.

J7: Then stop playing bloody errand boy and [expletive], well, find out

Wait.

[Pause of 38 seconds] J7: Meryl's just come home. She took her son to

school, and was told at school that they're barring the boy

[expletivel

bastards. You think I'll run away because of the say-so of those

e] bastards? Think again.

[expletiv

is a situation of grave danger.

GM: It

t running, not again. This is my home.

J7: I'm no

you would reconsider when matters are less fraught.

GM: Perhaps

J7: I make my own decisions. I am staying. (Call terminated)

184

The tanker, moored at the offshore jetty, had started to unload its cargo of 287,000 tonnes of crude. The master stood with his engineer officer on the small stern deck behind the tower of the bridge and inflatable, covered by tarpaulin

accommodation block. The

sheeting,

d a schedule. It was

was stowed beside them. They discusse

important

for them to plan the length of time the tanker spent there for the crew

and the sailing time back into the English

to take shore leave,

Channel. Time was critica& The great tanker should not reach the point

in the Channel too early or too late to make the pickup. Neither

man

tertained the slightest doubt that he would be on the beach, and

en

that

an enemy of their country would, a few hours before, have been

killed. They made calculations:

justifiably

because they had been delayed in taking their place at the offshore jetty it seemed unlikely that the crew would enjoy more than a few hours of shore leave in the Swedish port.

The restaurant was on no list in good-eating guides that Harry Fenton had ever seen, but it was where the Israeli had said they should meet.

It was an unpredictable place for the Mossad station officer to have chosen, and one where it was unlikely his enemies would look for him.

nfused. You are confused because you have

"So, Harry, you are co

spoken

with your

-affairs

foreign

people who are an apparatus of appeasement.

ey're telling you that Iran is misunderstood, more sinned against

Th

be permitted to take a rightful place

than sinning, and wants only to

the affairs of that region.

in

Allow me, because you are paying for

od, to disabuse you of what you have been told and

this excellent fo

to

further your confusion. Before he was killed, Rabin tried to alert the

international community to the need to "strike at this viper and crush its skull", and he was a man criticized in his own yard as a peace monger They were strong words from a man vilified for attempting

a

the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian enemies. Why?"

deal with

They were in the further reaches of east London, under railway arches 185

and facing a line of boarded-up shops. It was small, dingy and,

frankly, unclean, but the Israeli said the restaurant served the best Afghan cooking in the city. He ate with enthusiasm. Fenton was less sure.

"Why? Because we, in Israel, understand the real threat. We understand it while many in Europe refuse to open their eyes.

Everywhere a bomb explodes or a bullet impacts we find the fingerprint of Iran. They pay for, equip and train the Hizbollah in the Lebanon, and Hamas for the Palestinians. The bombs on our buses, in our

vegetable markets, are placed by proxy but they are theirs. Yet what they're doing now is only a pinprick, Harry, in comparison with what they intend."

The Israeli pushed the cleaned plate away from him, wiped his mouth vigorously with the paper napkin and laid the palm of his hand over his

glass. Fenton masked the taste of the spiced baked vegetables, and sauces, with beer and was now on his third bottle.

"What they intend is to gain a triple arm of weaponry with which they may dominate the oilfields of the region. For the development of

the

nuclear site at Bushehr, and they already have small quantities of plutonium, they will beggar their own people and bankrupt the state.

They are scouring the Asian continent for the necessary chemical

agents

for an independent poison-gas manufacturing industry. What is the work

the scientific community of Iran is given? The means to deliver a warhead containing the most revolting disease known to man anthrax, foot-and-mouth, any bio-toxin, any of the peasants' Weapons of Mass Destruction.

utting these weapons and the missiles

Where are they p

to

deliver them? In tunnels.

ere they are beyond the

They bury them wh

reach of conventional attack. Only once have we been able to strike at

such targets. Do you know how we achieved that, Harry, with whose help? Were you never told, Harry? If not, it's not for me to tell you."

The meat on the plates laid in front of them was unrecognizable as part

of any animal Fenton knew. He assumed it had been a young lamb,

thought of what had happened to it was

ritually slaughtered. The

sufficient to stifle his appetite.

186

anian programme for the manufacture of Weapons of Mass

"The Ir

igence community,

Destruction gives me, and the rest of our intell

d

ba

nights. It's the big picture.

of Israel will

It's what the people

ce in the future.

fa

The Mossad and the general staff have to plan

the

ur state against nuclear devices, against nerve gases,

defence of o

against toxins, but that is in front of us.

re

The present... Igno

e

th

denials, ignore the protestations of fluent, gentle diplomats who

make

is

your foreign-affairs officials feel comfortable. The present

at

th

every attack abroad by the Iranian killer squads has the

ization

author

of the highest echelons of government. It's only the appeasers who say

otherwise. Government provides the training for the killers, the

plomatic pouches, the digital secure-phone links, the

weapon~s via di

passports, the finance. Every operation abroad is laid before the minister, the interior minister and the defence minister

foreign

sitting in the National Supreme Security Council. It is authorized, d, on one condition only.

sanctione

The condition? There should be

no

oking gun in Iran's hand... Look in your files, Harry, it is there sm

if

to see it.

you wish

Is there something wrong with your food, Harry?"

barely touched his meat, hardly eaten enough to offer a

Fenton had

pretence of politeness. He grimaced, and signalled for more beer.

have

"If you don't eat, Harry, you'll just fade away... The Germans ne deals, appeased them, looked for the easy life and the French,