The sun caught the flight of the bird, now lower in the sky, but still high above the swaying old reed-heads of the Northmarsh.
The bird had come down from the upper winds and now it quartered over the marshlands. It was as he had seen it over the Southmarsh. The bird searched.
Chalmers walked to where the path cut back towards the village then stepped over a fence of sagging, rusted wire and settled himself down on the small space of rabbit-chewed grass beside the water and the reed-beds. His dogs began to fight over a length of rotten wood. There was peace, quiet and serenity, until Markham heard the bird's call.
"Do you want help? Do you want the guns here?"
"No."
He watched the bird search, and listened for its shrill, insistent call.
"Man'? It's Joel, I'm doing night duty. Sorry to disturb you yeah, I know what the time is… Duane's been on. He's very perky. They have the jerk winged and holed up. Duane says it's close to over. I need your say-so for getting the wheels moving y'know, camera, microphones, lights, action. I guarantee you that the mullahs are about to have a very bad day. They are going to squirm like never before. Duane says it won't fit the Brit picture, going public -Duane says to go quiet till there's a prisoner or a corpse, then hit the mullahs, and hard. Can I start to move the wheels, Man'?.
That's all I need, thanks. Oh, the jerk got the target's wife last night they're so fucking incompetent it's not true but the game's still running…"
How many sausages for Stephen? How many for the nanny policewoman? Did Davies like his eggs turned over? Should Blake be woken? Rankin had found one of Meryl's aprons and wore it tied to his lower stomach so that his waist holster cleared it.
And Perry hadn't been asked how many sausages he wanted, nor about the raid on the refrigerator. There would be a plate for him in the kitchen with sausages, bacon and eggs, whether he wanted it or not. He wasn't consulted because he was only the bloody principal. He felt a sickness in his stomach. He ached for Meryl. Paget came past him, carrying two loaded plates, heading for the dining room, the french windows and the outside hut, where the new team were on duty.
He had to be with her and alone, to kneel and cry for her forgiveness.
The policewoman shepherded Stephen into the kitchen. Davies followed with his newspaper, and Blake in his stockinged feet.
He was an afterthought. The life of the house went on, they were all sitting at his kitchen table.
Paget called out, "And you, Mr. Perry got to keep body and soul together."
They did it for Stephen, forced their cheer down his throat.
"Just going to the toilet start without me."
The window in the lavatory had an anti-thief lock, and the key was in the small wall cupboard. He bolted the door behind him. They were his only friends and the mark of their regard for him was that they tried to clear the mind of her boy from what he had seen, heard, the night before. They tried hard, had to, because what he had seen would have been so hideous, brain-scarring. He heard the banter and the laughter round the table as he unlocked the window. He crawled out through it, took the one fast step across the narrow concrete path, climbed Jerry and Mary Wroughton's fence and dropped into their garden. He had to be alone.
Chapter Nineteen.
He'd hoped, on the way out from London, that there wouldn't be anything sentimental. Littelbaum climbed out of her car and hoisted his bag from the rear seat. Gruffly, he wished her well. She told him it was only a drop-down zone, asked him to check that he'd his ticket, and 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. By the time he was inside the turmoil of the terminal, she was far from his thoughts.
He was early for the flight back to 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 the Bureau's offices in the London embassy.
"Hi, Fonsie, didn't think you'd make it."
"Apologies for not being able to drive you down here, but the good news, I've gotten you an upgrade. 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 reputation as a fixer, and eased the formalities. His arm was round Littelbaum's shoulder as they walked together across the concourse, and his voice had the hushed whisper of confidentiality.
"I hear you done really well, Duane, that's why I bust my gut to get you the upgrade. You're not up to speed on the news? I just got it. State Department's lining up, trumpets and drums, the briefings. Everything'll come out of Washington. It's gonna be our show. There's decks being cleared. I reckon you'll have a personal call from the director tonight, that's what Mary was saying, could even be a call from the secretary. It's our shout, and we're going to milk it."
"Do the Brits know?" Littelbaum grinned.
"They'll be told, when they need to be."
"I did well better, actually, than I thought."
"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 up.~ "Soon as the State Department get the word he's in chains or 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 same degree, is the fracturing of the code of deniability. 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 repercussions can be ferocious. What I'm saying, we have the mullahs by the balls."
"Too right, Duane."
"Whether the Tomahawks fly, whether it's resolutions and sanctions at the Security Council backed by teeth, it's going to be a hell of a rough ride but we've the evidence of state-sponsored terrorism, we've gotten the smoking gun. But you know what? The massive repercussions of the breaking of deniability have turned on events in some shitty backwater Fonsie, you wouldn't believe that place. It's been played out among folk with clay on their feet, Nowheresville."
"I think I have your meaning, Duane. Shame about the casualties… "Irrelevant, you got to look at the big picture. You don't have casualties, you don't win. 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. Guiding him was the call of the sea-birds and the soft motion of water ahead. 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.