The station chief said, ‘Don’t think of opening them here. I saw the inventory and didn’t want to know that much. Another of Lawson’s hare-brained games? Count me out. Just give me a signature.’
On the paper offered him — and it referred to the delivery and collection of ‘unspecified items’ — Deadeye scrawled an unrecognizable name. He picked up the packages, one under each arm. Under his right elbow, beneath the paper, was a canvas bag that held a Heckler & Koch machine pistol; under his left elbow, and beneath that wrapping, was a holdall with stun and smoke grenades, a Glock 9mm pistol, sufficient ammunition for the two weapons to fill five magazines, and a field medical kit.
‘So that there are no misunderstandings — and please pass this to the esteemed Mr Lawson — should any of these “unspecified items” be used inside the borders of the new greater Germany then he, you and whatever ragtag army he has in tow will be pegged out to dry. Still living in the Good Old Days, is he? From me, please quote verbatim, the time when we could run round like an occupying power is gone. No offence, and nothing personal, but just fuck off out of here soonest.’
He was shown the door. Deadeye was led up a staircase, taken through the lobby, damn near slung out of the embassy entrance. ‘Wanker,’ he murmured. Rain dripped on to the paper wrapping. He walked down Wilhelmstrasse, past the German police guards — more wankers — and threaded through the chicane of concrete blocks in place there to prevent a suicide bomber in a vehicle achieving martyrdom. He used few words, wouldn’t have wasted them on the station chief. Truth was, he rather liked Mr Lawson. That he did not walk easily, down Wilhelmstrasse, in the late afternoon when the pavements were crowded with the spill-out of ministry workers, had nothing to do with the weight he carried under each arm. In the bathroom, before breakfast, he had checked his testicles and the bruising was still there. After three days there were still technicolour shades round them, but Deadeye hadn’t complained, was never a moan-merchant. In fact, he was pretty damn pleased that Mr Lawson still called him up.
His name, Deadeye, had been with him for twenty-six years: once he had been a young marine, cosy in the sanger on top of Londonderry’s walls with his rifle and its mounted telescopic sight. The Provo guy had been eleven hundred yards away and had taken the M-1 carbine out of the boot of the car and been sniped. His company major had called it the ‘finest exhibition of marksmanship I ever heard of’, and his colonel had congratulated him on ‘bloody fine shooting, real Deadeye Dick stuff’. It had stuck. He was Deadeye in the Special Boat Squadron when he was married to Leanne, Deadeye as an instructor at the Commando Training Centre, Lympstone, when he was married to Mavis, Deadeye in the first Iraq war as an increment with SIS, holed up with a big bloody radio and his rifle in a Kuwait City apartment block, when he was married to Adele … He was still Deadeye, but wasn’t married to anyone.
He turned off Wilhelmstrasse and, in the far distance, saw the minibus. The rain had come on harder, but he reckoned the paper wrapping would hold till he reached shelter.
That he worked at all, that his loneliness in a one-bedroomed flat on the outskirts of Plymouth was ever broken, was due to Christopher Lawson. No one else called him. The bloody wives didn’t, or the kids. He didn’t do reunions, men getting pissed and polishing reputations. He had no friends. To kill the time he put together expensive models of men o’ war from Nelson’s time, with intricate rigging, and waited for the phone to ring. That loneliness, with the model kit for company and the phone not ringing, hurt deep.
He reached the minibus, dragged open the door, climbed in. They were all there, squashed in, except Dennis. Lawson was in the front, had the passenger seat, and Adrian was at the wheel. Their breath had misted the windows. Deadeye squeezed between Bugsy and Shrinks, then chucked the packages in their wet wrapping over his shoulders on to the laps of Davies and the girl. He didn’t give a toss for his grunt and her squeal. Lawson looked at him, quizzed with a raised eyebrow, and Deadeye nodded.
‘How was my colleague?’
Deadeye said, ‘He badmouthed you, Mr Lawson.’
‘Predictable … He won’t for much longer, if I’m right. Yes, time for a bigger picture.’
Deadeye thought Mr Lawson always did the big picture well, and he settled back in his seat to listen. Well, it would help to see the big picture, help good.
‘I told you, back in London, that my supposition was of a warhead being brought from Russian territory — to be precise, as I was then, from the former closed city of Arzamas-16 — for delivery and sale to a Russian ethnic criminal organization. I believe, after that sale, a second deal will be struck with a purchaser who will attempt to detonate that warhead in a city in western Europe, probably in the UK, or in the United States of America. The aim of Operation Haystack is to disrupt such a deal and to destroy such a sale. To that end I am endeavouring to insert our man, November, as far as I can into the bowels of that criminal organization. We have made progress.’
Lawson paused. He seldom rushed on explanations when they had to be given. He believed a stuttering drip-feed of information better held the attention of an audience. By stopping in his monologue, he had the chance to look around him, to study the faces and see where support rested, where antagonism built.
‘Take the story of Oliver Twist. Forget about Oliver, but recall the character of Sykes. Sykes had a dog, a much whipped mongrel that harboured no malice and followed its vile master. After Sykes had, most brutally, murdered a pretty girl, he fled. There was a hue and cry. Diligent citizens pursued Sykes, anxious to apprehend him, see him tried, condemned and hanged — but they lost him. Sykes would have escaped but for the loyalty of the mongrel, which refused to be abandoned. The dog trailed him, found him. He could not throw it off. Allusions to this may be flawed but the conclusion is justified. The pursuers followed the dog. The dog handed them their man. We have a dog and we call him November. Understood?’
No questions, but Bugsy passed round a little box of breath-freshener pills. He looked into the faces of the girl and young Davies, saw outrage and enjoyed it.
‘At every opportunity presented me, I have endeavoured to push our man, November, further from dependence on us. I have no interest in him believing that we hold his salvation in our hands. We are achieving this aim. We saw it today, November supported by Reuven Weissberg. Links are in place. Reuven Weissberg, and our mongrel has led us to him, is a considerable player in the ranks of organized crime, well capable of purchasing and selling on a device from Arzamas-16. He is—’
Shrill, a voice from the back: ‘I don’t think I’m hearing this … Are you just using Johnny Carrick — yes, he does have a bloody name, is not simply a codeword and a file number — like he’s a half-dead fish hooked on to a treble and lobbed into a lake to catch a damn pike? He’s owed more, a bloody sight more, than you’re offering.’
‘Charmingly put, my dear. As I was saying, our man is embedded in the world of Reuven Weissberg. If I’m correct, Reuven Weissberg will travel in the next few hours to the East and will have a prearranged rendezvous to take delivery of the device, the warhead, whatever. Our man has to lead us, show us where to be. Then we deal with the matter. Questions?’
He saw that the girl shivered. Saw also that young Davies had slipped an arm loosely round her shoulder, doing the comforter role. He thought questions, accusations, were blurring the girl’s mind and her lips moved, but she didn’t cough out her hatred of him.