They all knew the risk he had taken. They let his nerves steady. He was sat in a chair and he told them, in a stumbling monologue, all that he knew about the restaurant, about the bus, about the invitation list to the celebration meal. When they had finished with him, teased out of him the precious information on which the plan depended, he was taken out by Penny Flowers to be told of the new life offered him. After he was gone, after the final assessment of his information, the cypher messages were sent and the mission was launched.
"What do you mean the "greater evils"?"
"Try the missile programme."
"Five years ago yes? how far along that line were the Iranians?"
"We were getting a mess of reports on the warheads but all contradictory, on when they'd be ready with nuclear, chemical and microbiological. We could handle that, live with it."
"Explain that, Mr. Littelbaum."
"We thought we had a little time, but not with missiles."
"They weren't contradictory on the missiles?"
"Very clear, very precise. Without missiles, warheads don't count. They were up to speed with the missile programme, maybe two years away."
"You cannot launch a warhead until you've a missile."
"Go to the top of the class, Mr. Markham. We needed to buy the time, to slow the programme. But the installations are underground, bomb-proof, have air defence, with an army round them."
"Enter Juliet Seven."
"He gave us the way in. We couldn't reach the hardware, so the option we had was with their personnel."
The director was in the front of the bus, a double seat to himself. Behind him sat the project managers, the scientists and the foreign engineers. He was relaxed and felt a sense of happy satisfaction. Behind him he heard the gentle, joking banter of the men who had made possible the advancement of Projects 193, 1478 and 972, and the babble of Farsi, Russian, Chinese and the North Koreans' dialect. It was a worthy occasion, the retirement party for his colleague who controlled Project 972, and he had personally taken time to oversee the arrangements in the restaurant, down to the detail of the menu that would be served and the music that would be played. He rocked contentedly in his seat. He had believed, ever since his education in mechanical engineering at Imperial College, London University, that a happy team was a productive team.
The bus sped down the narrow road beyond the docks and left the city behind. He was lighting a cigarette, the flame close to his nostrils, when the driver stamped on the brake. He saw the man peering ahead. Through the cigarette smoke and the windscreen, a red light waved in the night's darkness. The bus slowed as the driver pumped the brake. He leaned forward, to make out a shadowed figure behind the light, and then a road-works emergency sign. He disliked lateness and glanced at his watch. He saw, thought he saw, a figure pass beside the bus carrying something, but could not be certain. The barrier was pulled aside and the bus powered on past the man holding the light. He eased back into his seat. Above the cackle of accents and laughter, the director heard the single thud from the side of the bus behind him and twisted instinctively towards the source of the noise. The last thing that registered clearly in his mind was the sight of the wall of fire coming like a torrent in spate through the bus. In the final moments of his life, the fire surged against his clothes, the skin of his hands and face, and beating in his ears were the screams of the scientists and foreign engineers. Trapped in the bus, with the flames and the screams, there was no possibility of escape.
"The personnel burned to death. Christ."
"We delayed the programme.~ "But the missile factories were the same the morning after."
"Not the same. Yes, bits of metal remained in underground workshops, but the team was gone. Take the team away and you screw the projects. Men matter. It's simply not possible to fly in replacements and carry on as if nothing had happened."
"The missile programme was the greater evil?"
"In three years they would have had the capability of striking against any country in the Middle East, including Israel even the possibility of reaching southern Europe. We bought five years.
"What was the lesser evil?"
For three consecutive days the satellite photography showed the skeletal shape of the burned-out bus. On the first day the movement of rescue workers retrieving bodies could be clearly seen from the enhanced pictures, with fire engines and ambulances. Radio Tehran carried reports of a tragic road accident in which twenty-four men involved in the petrochemical industry had died. The next day the photography showed a small group of forensic experts, identified by their white overalls, crawling through the gutted bus, and Radio Tehran made no mention of the accident. On the third day the pictures beamed from the satellite showed the bus being loaded on to a flat-top lorry, and Radio Tehran's bulletins had brief reports of local funerals. By that third day, the United States Navy fast patrol boat had returned to normal duties, and the United States Air Force had flown five agents of the Mossad to Israel and the life of Gavin Hughes had been painted out.
"Twenty-four men killed did I hear right, Mr. Littelbaum? Is that what you're telling me? I can barely believe what you're saying."
"What you heard a programme was delayed."
"That was the greater evil?"
"Their Weapons of Mass Destruction threatened our interests."
"And what the hell was the lesser evil?"
"The involvement of Juliet Seven Gavin Hughes. The mission was done skilfully, and they'd a poor forensic infrastructure. It was days, going on two weeks, before they could confirm the initial suspicion of sabotage, and by then Gavin Hughes had ceased to exist."
"I'm damn near speechless, it was pure savagery."
"We were looking after our backs, and we did it well."
"You were involved?"
"To a small degree, liaison yes, I was involved."
"Did you consider the human misery the widows, the children?"
"We considered the effect of the missile programme. I don't really find emotion helps me get through the day."
"What about the little, awkward matter of state-sponsored terrorism?"
"Not applicable."
"If the Iranians kill one of their Kurds in Berlin, wherever, or a man anywhere in Europe who's planning murder, mayhem, in Tehran, we shout, scream, recall ambassadors, impose trade sanctions. We call it state-sponsored terrorism."
"Correct."
"If we roast twenty-four Iranians-' "We call it looking after our backs."
"Forgive me, but that is mind-bending hypocrisy."
"You are driving too fast again, Mr. Markham."
"And if the Israelis go into Jordan to murder an activist?"
"That is justifiable self-defence. You should slow down a bit, Mr. Markham. I would suggest to you that the prime objective of an intelligence agent is to further by clandestine means the objectives of the tax-payers who put food in his gut and a roof over his head."
"I believe in morality."
"I don't get to mix with people who use that word often… That's a better speed, thank you."
"I hope you sleep well at night."
"I sleep excellently, thank you. If we all talked about morality, Mr. Markham, we'd none of us finish a day's work."
"You used that poor bloody sales engineer."
"What the lady, Miss Parker, said, your work took you to Ireland. Unless you were completely useless at your job, I would have to assume that you "used" people, were competent at running agents, manipulating them, exploiting them. Then you let them go… They did a job of work for you… Did you go and see your line manager and bleat about your unhappiness at the ethics of running informers?"