Run Around (12 page)

Harkness and Witherspoon would have appreciated a remark like that, thought Charlie. He hoped to Christ the neighbouring immigration official who had actually checked the man through was on duty. To Cockson he said: ‘You're a trained observer. Describe him to me.'

The policeman hesitated and then said: ‘Average height, five feet ten or five feet eleven … Well built although not heavy: fit looking. Very dark hair and quite dark skinned, too.'

‘I remember that, as well,' came in Oliver. ‘The skin colouring, I mean, against the British passport. Not that it means anything these days. But there was also something about the way he held himself.'

‘Held himself?'

‘I work out a bit,' said the immigration man. ‘Try to stay in shape. That was my immediate impression of this man: that he held himself and walked like someone who likes to keep in shape. And he does, from the photograph, doesn't he?'

‘Impression formulated at the moment?' pressed Charlie, cautiously. ‘Or impression after you'd been shown the photograph?'

‘Then,' said Oliver, at once. ‘The bastard could have held her up with one hand if he'd wanted to.'

‘What time did it all happen?' asked Charlie.

‘Seven,' said Cockson.

‘Definitely,' confirmed the younger man.

‘Why so certain?' demanded Charlie.

‘We both came on duty at six,' said the policeman. ‘And because I knew there would later have to be a report by the airport police I made a point of checking the time. It was definitely seven.'

‘How was he dressed?' asked Charlie, wanting to build up the description.

‘Grey suit,' said Cockson. ‘Black shoes. A coloured shirt, blue, I think. I know it wasn't white. Can't remember what sort of tie.'

‘Was the suit patterned grey, check maybe, or plain grey?'

‘I can't say,' admitted the policeman and Oliver shook his head, unable to go further either.

‘Topcoat or mackintosh?'

‘Not that I can remember,' said Oliver.

‘Or me,' said Cockson.

‘Hat?'

‘No,' said Cockson. The immigration official shook his head again.

‘Was he carrying anything, a briefcase or a travel bag perhaps?'

‘Again, not that I can recall,' said Cockson.

‘Or me,' said the younger man.

‘Newspapers or a magazine?'

Both men shook their heads this time.

‘Umbrella?'

‘You're trying damned hard, aren't you?' said Cockson.

‘I get awarded points,' said Charlie. ‘So was there an umbrella?'

‘No,' said the policeman.

‘No,' said the immigration man.

‘Is there anything, anything at all, that you can remember about him that we haven't talked about?' persisted Charlie.

Neither man replied at once, considering the question. Then Oliver said: ‘I'm afraid not.'

Cockson said: ‘I don't think we've contributed a lot.'

‘You've been very helpful, both of you,' assured Charlie. ‘I'm grateful.'

‘What's he done?' asked Cockson.

‘Nothing yet, I don't think,' said Charlie. ‘It's what he might do.'

Charlie imagined, wrongly, that he was fortunate in the other immigration man being on duty. His name was Jones. He was a balding, fat-stomached man and within minutes of their meeting beginning Charlie guessed, correctly, that Jones was counting off the days to his retirement. Jones vaguely remembered the girl collapsing although he didn't recall the date being the 13th or what time it was in the evening. Enough people seemed to be helping, so he'd left it to them. He shook his head at the offered picture and when Charlie asked about the passport demanded in return if Charlie had any idea how many British passports he examined every day. Charlie patiently recounted the physical description, adding the street clothes this time, and Jones said: ‘That could be anyone of a thousand men,' and Charlie agreed that it could.

The contact with the Director was on an open, insecure line so the conversation had to be circumspect.

‘Positive?' demanded Wilson.

‘Not positive but enough to pursue.'

‘Know where to go?'

‘No.'

‘Can you find out?'

‘It's going to be a long job.'

‘Need help?'

Charlie considered the question, thinking again about relying on others and the danger of banana skins. He said: ‘Probably some impressive government-sounding pressure later, but at the moment I'd like to try it by myself.'

‘Run it your way,' said Wilson, supportively.

‘I'm going to book into an airport hotel.'

‘I don't give a damn about the cost.'

Charlie hoped Harkness had been in the room to hear the remark: it would ruin the deputy's day. Cautiously Charlie said: ‘Let's keep the other checks in place.'

‘They are,' assured Wilson.

Charlie worked upon the assumption that the dark-skinned man would have moved with the professional expertise he had shown in Primrose Hill Park. Which meant 7 p.m. on the 13th would have been a comfortable arrival for whatever flight he was catching but not too early, because trade-craft training on both sides is that a loitering person attracts attention. And a professional would not have taken that risk, even in a crowd-concealing situation like an airport departure lounge. Charlie decided three hours was the absolute maximum. Ten o'clock then. Still a haystack but at least it had a shape. He hoped. It was a hope that faltered almost at once. Charlie realized he'd embarked upon a practically impossible task, trying alone to work out what he wanted by studying the ABC flight guide. So he sought guidance from the deputy duty officer in the control tower, confident the man's specialized knowledge would avoid banana skins. When Charlie explained what he wanted the man shook his head in bewilderment, complaining that it would take forever, but Charlie said it wouldn't, because he was concentrating only on seven European destinations. It was still very late when together they produced the final list.

Between seven and ten o'clock on the night of the 13th four aircraft departed London Heathrow for Vienna, five for Paris, two for Geneva, one for Brussels, three for Madrid, two for Berlin – via Frankfurt, of course, where he could have disembarked and re-routed to any of the target cities – and three to Rome, with one internal connection to Venice.

‘I wish you luck, whatever you're trying to do,' said the man when they finished.

Charlie booked into the Ariel Hotel, eased his protesting feet from his Hush Puppies and ordered turkey sandwiches and a bottle of whisky from room service, the Director's remark about expenses still clear in his mind. Eighteen aircraft, he thought. How many people made up a cabin crew? Depended on the aircraft, he supposed, but he decided to calculate using an average of ten. Which gave a maximum of a hundred and eighty people to question, if the enquiry went its full length. Like the control tower official had said, he needed luck. A lot of it.

‘Well?' demanded Clayton Anderson.

‘All set, Mr President,' said the Secretary of State.

‘It sure as hell better be,' said Anderson.

Chapter Eleven

Clayton Anderson reckoned he was on stream to reverse a trend and it was about goddamned time, after Watergate and Irangate and every Cabinet member and his brother from all those previous goddamned administrations filling up the cash boxes against their inevitable end-of-term retirement. He guessed those goddamned Ivy League Eastern newspapers had tried hard enough – knew they'd tried hard, from some of their half-assed enquiries – but they hadn't come within a mile of getting an armlock on Clayton Lucius Anderson. Throughout the first four years of his presidency until now, halfway through the second term, there hadn't been a whiff of scandal anywhere, everyone who mattered keeping their trouser fly properly zipped and up front in church on Sundays, like they should have been, reassuring all those good folks out there in heartland America that Washington DC was at last in safe, firm hands. He'd achieved a hell of a lot to reassure those good folks out there in heartland America. In the first term he'd sat on inflation tighter than a man on a hog-tied calf and rallied the domestic economy with the right sort of fiscal policy that gave the farmers and domestic industry the protectionist edge they'd been demanding. Only right that domestically the polls should show him the most popular White House incumbent since Truman. So now it was time to go for the big one, the coup that was going to take him from office remembered not just as honest Johnnie Appleseed but as the international statesman who solved an insoluble problem and brought to the Middle East the peace that had defeated every world leader and every government since the creation of Israel. The International Room was already prepared at the memorial library in Austin – bigger and better than Lyndon Johnson's – and this was going to be its focal point. Which was why there couldn't be any screw-up.

‘Quite sure?' he demanded.

‘Nothing's been overlooked, Mr President.' James Bell, the Secretary of State, replied respectfully although the two men were old friends from Congress days. Bell's appointment had been his reward not only for successfully masterminding Anderson's election the first time but for retaining those Congress links and associations, minimizing over the past six years any conflict between Capitol Hill and the White House.

‘It's got to be more than just getting them around the same table,' insisted the President, unnecessarily. ‘There's got to be some hard, concrete proposal at the end of it. A homeland.'

‘We've worked on it for a year, six months before anything leaked publicly,' reminded Bell. ‘Jordan want it and Syria want it and Egypt want it and Arafat wants it and the very fact that Israel is finally prepared to come face-to-face is proof that they want it, too.'

Anderson, who was a hard-boned, heavy featured, angular man, swung his chair around from the Oval Office desk, so that he could look out over the gardens and the Washington Monument beyond. He said: ‘So what about Moscow?'

‘I personally sounded them out, during the visit in July,' reported the Secretary of State. ‘There wasn't any doubt. They want it settled as much as everyone else. It's gone on too long, like a running sore.'

‘You think we can trust them?' Anderson had a Texan's suspicion of anything communist, which had made the international gatherings during his presidency difficult. He didn't even like the colour red.

‘The Middle East has been draining the Soviets dry for years. Now their reforms mean they've got to divert money away from the military and from military aid and into their domestic economy,' said Bell. He was a shiny cheeked, roly-poly man who didn't intend returning to his New York law practice when Anderson's term was over. He was as aware as the President how successful the administration had been and was already receiving approaches from businesses wanting the respect and prestige of his name on their boards. There was also the television approach and that appealed to him. Nothing tacky, of course. The sort of advisory capacity, commenting upon momentous world events, that Kissinger had. And there was the book, of course. And the lecture circuit, like Kissinger again. Bell was calculating $2 million at least, when it all came together. It meant they could go on living in Georgetown and he knew Martha would like that. She enjoyed Washington: the impression of being at the centre of things. He'd already decided to take her to Geneva.

‘I mean this to work, Jim.'

‘So do I, Mr President.'

‘So what's our security cover?'

‘I've given the CIA Director a personal briefing. Every station in every involved country is on maximum alert, for anything that might sound a bell,' reported the Secretary of State.

‘And Geneva itself?'

‘Quite separate from the normal Secret Service cover the CIA are sending a team of ten,' said Bell. ‘The supervisor is a man named Giles, Roger Giles. He's their Middle East expert; served as station chief in Amman and Cairo. Brought back to Langley two years ago to head the desk there. First-class guy.'

It was unfortunate the country didn't any longer erect monuments to their presidents like that obelisk out there beyond the White House lawn, thought Anderson, swivelling back into the room. He said: ‘You know what's a pity?'

‘What?'

‘That after all the work I've put into this – a whole goddamned year of background pressure and give-and-take diplomacy – that the public signings and agreements are going to be between the Arabs and Israel and the Palestinians,' complained the President. ‘I should have been there, to be seen as the architect.'

‘You'll be acknowledged as such,' assured the Secretary of State.

Would it be possible for him to be nominated for the Nobel Peace prize? wondered Anderson. Kissinger had shared it, at the end of the Vietnam war. But with Le Duc Tho, not Nixon. He'd have to have the archives check the protocol for him: a scroll like that would look damned good as the centrepiece in Austin. Anderson said: ‘This is the milestone one, Jim. This is the big one we're all going to be remembered by.'

‘That's how I see it, too, Mr President,' said the other man. Both of us remembered, he thought.

David Levy left the Foreign Minister's office inconspicuously through the side door, merging easily into the throng of people in the outside corridors of the Knesset, letting their flow carry him past the Chagall murals towards the exit.

In the forecourt outside, protected against terrorist outrage by the decorative metal fence, he hesitated in the pale sunlight, gazing out over the Jerusalem hills and the valley from which the cross of Christ was supposed to have been cut. How much blood had been shed over this land in the two thousand years since then, he thought. It seemed difficult to imagine that it would ever stop. Or that Geneva could be the way.