A Line in the Sand (65 page)

he table as he unlocked the window.

round t

He crawled out through

it,

the one fast step across the narrow concrete path, climbed Jerry

took

and Mary Wroughton's fence and dropped into their garden. He had

433

to be

alone.

Chapter Nineteen.

He'd hoped, on the way out from London, that there wouldn't be

ything

an

sentimental. Littelbaum climbed out of her car and hoisted his bag the rear seat.

from

Gruffly, he wished her well. She told him it

was

a drop-down zone, asked him to check that he'd his ticket, and

only

said that she couldn't stop. Cathy Parker didn't offer her cheek

to

him, or her hand. He watched her drive away and she didn't wave or look back.

the time he was inside the turmoil of the terminal,

By

she

ar from his thoughts.

was f

y for the flight back to

He was earl

Riyadh and he would have a decent

time to search among the air side shops for chocolates for Mary-Ellen and something, maybe a scarf, to post to his wife. He always took chocolates back to Mary-Ellen, and Esther had a drawer filled with the

tokens he'd sent her.

He queued at the check-in.

"Morning, Duane."

He turned. Alfonso Dominguez took the chore of administration work at

s in the London embassy.

the Bureau's office

"Hi, Fonsie, didn't think you'd make it."

"Apologies for not being able to drive you down here, but the good e gotten you an upgrade.

news, I'v

It's the least you deserve. Have

you been in con tad the last hour?"

"No, wasn't able to thanks for swinging the upgrade."

The embassy man shouldered forward to lift the bag on to the scales and

was smarming the girl at the ticket desk. He liked to think he had a

on as a fixer, and eased the formalities.

reputati

His arm was round

434

Littelbaum's shoulder as they walked together across the concourse, and

his voice had the hushed whisper of confidentiality.

hear you done really well, Duane, that's why I bust my gut to get

"I

ews? I just got

you the upgrade. You're not up to speed on the n

.

it

State Department's lining up, trumpets and drums, the briefings.

thing'll come out of Washington. It's gonna be our show.

Every

There's

eing cleared.

decks b

I reckon you'll have a personal call from the

rector tonight, that's what Mary was saying, could even be a call

di

It's our shout, and we're going to milk it."

from the secretary.

"Do the Brits know?" Littelbaum grinned.

"They'll be told, when they need to be."

ally, than I thought."

"I did well better, actu

"You're too modest, Duane."

He enjoyed the admiration.

"Good of you to say that, Fonsie. I said at the start it would take a

week, and this is the seventh day, and it's pretty much all wrapped n as the State Department get the word he's in chains or

up.~ "Soo

a

body bag it'll be the big blast, coast to coast, round the world,

live

TV..."

Littelbaum said gently, "I've been working for this for so long.

What

I've finally achieved, Fonsie, what nobody else has achieved to the ee, is the fracturing of the code of deniability.

same degr

Tehran's

deniability is crucial in their operations, and it's broken. It's been

the screen they've hidden behind and we're taking the screen down."

"And going public."

"And hold on to your seat, Fonsie, hold on tight, because the ssions

repercu

can be ferocious. What I'm saying, we have the mullahs

435

by the balls."

"Too right, Duane."

it's resolutions and sanctions

"Whether the Tomahawks fly, whether

at

the Security Council backed by teeth, it's going to be a hell of a rough

de

ri

but we've the evidence of state-sponsored terrorism, we've

ve

gotten the smoking gun. But you know what? The massi

repercussions

ng of deniability have turned on events in some shitty

of the breaki

ie, you wouldn't believe that place.

backwater Fons

It's been played

t among folk with clay on their feet, Nowheresville."

ou

think I have your meaning, Duane.

"I

Shame about the casualties...

"Irrelevant, you got to look at the big picture. You don't have ies, you don't win.

casualt

I kicked the Brits in the right direction

-what surprised me, they bought the crap I gave them, ate it out of my

hand. What I say, for what was at stake, the casualties came cheap."

"You'll be top of the pile, Duane."

"I think I will be do we have time for a drink?"

The slick in the water lapping against him was an ochre mix from the mud he disturbed and the blood he dripped.

Vahid Hossein had gone to the limit of his strength to reach his

hiding-place. A filthy handkerchief from his pocket had been used as a

field dressing to staunch the wound when he had left her.

After the woman had screamed and her dogs had snarled, when the beam of

her torch had found him then bounced away as she had fled, he had

pushed himself up from her body. He had not realized he had bled

on

her until the torch showed him the blood.

He had gone away into the

night and pressed the handkerchief into the wound but it had pumped blood on

to his vest, his shirt, his sweater and his camouflage tunic.

He had known that he must absorb it, not permit it to fall on the

ground he crossed, because there would be a trail for dogs to follow.

In the darkness, he had gone though the pig-fields, skirted between their half-moon huts, smelt the disgusting odour of the creatures.

of water

Guiding him was the call of the sea-birds and the soft motion

436

ead.

ah

It was as he reached the water, went down into it, that the

numbness of the 4 wound gave way to the pain in his chest, and with the

pain came the exhaustion.

There had once been a track leading through the heart of the marsh, an

old pathway long since flooded. Under the pathway, in dense reeds, a

culvert drain had been built of brick. Lying on his side, Vahid

n kept the wound above the level of the water.

Hossei

e pain came in rivers now. If the marshes had been at the Faw

Th

gues,

peninsula or on the Jasmin Canal, if he had been with collea

th

wi

friends, the pain would have been lessened by morphine injections.

lleagues, he was far from the Faw and the Jasmin,

There were no co

there

morphine. The pain sucked the strength from his body.

was no

consciousness, he would sink lower in the drain's water

If he lost

and

hed into his pocket for the muddied, soaked

drown. He reac

photograph,

in his hand and gazed at the small, distorted face of his

held it

target.

The sun shone on the water at the entrance of the drain, dappling

among

the reed stems. If he drifted to sleep, if he sank into

unconsciousness, he would drown; if he drowned he would never look into

the face. But, sleep unconsciousness would kill the pain. The

bullet

had been from a handgun. One low-velocity bullet, fired at the

extreme

ge was still, misshapen and splintered, somewhere inside the

of ran

cavity of his chest. The entry wound was low under his armpit and he

had not found an exit wound. The bullet had struck the bones of his d been diverted deeper into the chest space.

ribcage an

He coughed. He could not help himself. It came from far down in

his

lungs. He writhed in the confines of the drain. He needed space, air,

437

and couldn't find it. He held his sleeve against his mouth to muffle the sound of his cough and he crawled towards the segment of bright light at the mouth of the drain. He saw the blood on his sleeve and it

eddied from the coarse, soaked material into the flow of the water.

Vahid Hossein did not know how he would survive through the sunlit hours. He prayed for the darkness and prayed to his God for strength.

arkness, with strength, he would go for the last time to the

With d

and over the

house. The blood and the mucus ran from his hand

otograph he clutched, and into the water... They would be waiting

ph

to

hear of him, and learn of what he had achieved. He thought of Barzin, and her body in darkness, the awkwardness with which she held him, d

an

he wondered if she would weep.

f the brigadier with the

He thought o

ar-hug arms, and the laughter that was between them, the trust,

be

and

the tears would come to the cheeks of his friend.

he wondered if

He

thought of Hasan-iSabah and the young men who had gone down on the narrow,

ath from the fortress at Alamut and who would never

steep rock p

return.

thought of them and they all, each of them, succoured his

He

strength.

dead, was never on his mind.

The image of the young woman, living or

e was past.

Sh

The sun was on his face. Protected from sight by the

waving reed-banks, he eased his head, and the shoulder above the

,

wound

out into the light. He was so tired. He wanted so desperately to It was not an option. He recognized the delirium that

sleep.

snatched

ncentration, but could not resist the call for him to show

at his co

strength and courage. They were all around him, the people he knew in

his heart and in his mind. He heard their words, and they cried to him

from close by. He reached above the drain, his fingers groping in soft

mud against the reed-stems, for the launcher. The voices, near to him

and shrill, told him he must hold the launcher through the sunlight hours, and never sleep, hold it until night came... It was blurred, small.

438

ried out above him and flew its search over him.

The bird c

The pain

was back, the dream was over. He saw the bird searching for him and s cry in the silence.

heard it

It was the same silence he had felt

before, when he had believed a man watched for him. He struggled

to

get back into the recess of the mouth of the drain, but he did not have

the strength, and his fear was the same as hers had been when she

was

under him and choked and scratched at his face. The bird hunted him.

Chalmers saw the bird dive.

The man, Markham, slept beside him, lying on his back with the sun m, sheltered from the wind, and the dogs were close to him.

bathing hi

Andy Chalmers had heard the bird call and it had not been answered.

He

saw it tuck its wings against its body and plummet, a stone in freef all, bright light shimmering on its wings.

He watched it, for the briefest moment, pull out from its dive and to cushion the impact of the fall. He heard its

spread its wings

cry.

few seconds, it hovered over the reeds, then dropped. As a

For a

marker, he took an old, withered tree that rose bove

a

the flood marsh,

ad

de

branches with a crow perched on it. The bird came up, sky danced

over the reeds, then dropped again. A faraway tree draped in ivy, alone among the willow saplings on the distant extreme of

which was

the

rsh, was his second point. His mind made the line between the

ma

ee. The bird stayed down, and he knew

perched crow and the ivy tr

s

it

search was over.

Chalmers leaned across he

t

sleeping man, ruffled the hair of his dogs'

cks, murmured his order to them, and slipped into the water.

ne

He

moved away from the shore-line, where Markham slept and the dogs

ithout sound.

watched, w

He had the line to guide him. He half swam,

as icy against his body he was

half walked and although the water w

t

no

nger, no

aware of it. He kept the line in his mind. He felt no a

ssion, no hatred. The shore was behind him, hidden from him by

pa

the

banks. He went quietly, slowly, along the line his mind had

reed-

made.

439

Cathy Parker said to Fenton and Cox, "He's complacent and conceited.

It's not what he said but it's his body language. Littelbaum thinks he's walked all over us like we're the hired help."

Twice he had flapped his arm at the bird, the second time more feebly than the first. He could not drive the bird away from him. If Vahid Hossein could have reached it, the bird he loved, he would have caught it, held it while it clawed his hand and gouged at his wrist, and

he

would have throttled the life out of it, but he could not. When his hand came close, the bird fluttered further away, eyeing him, and