The burial! Hes Adams’ face swam into view amidst the smoke and sparks and heat.
Stewart could see his words having an effect. ‘What is it?’ he hissed. ‘That means something to you, doesn’t it? Has it jogged your memory, Major? Not that I believe for one moment that you really have got partial amnesia. I’ve got to hand it to you, though. You’ve got the doctors fooled.’
‘Nurse Carraway wasn’t a real nurse.’
Stewart nodded. ‘So I understand. Ben Esterhazy had her planted here. I didn’t know anything about it.’ His voice fell again. ‘It’s him you’ve got to be careful of, not me.’ Dreyfuss stared at him stonily. Stewart shrugged his shoulders. Then he changed tack. ‘I hear tell,’ he said, ‘that when you landed, the ground crew had to prise Major Adams’ fingers from off your throat. Adams was one of Esterhazy’s men too. He was his golden boy at one time, but then he screwed up on a mission. Got himself compromised. Then suddenly he ends up on Argos. That made me a little curious. What was going on up there?’
Dreyfuss was thinking. Yes, it was true: Esterhazy and Adams had the same words at their disposal — “coffin’s got to be buried”; “sorry you couldn’t make it to the burial” — and it meant something to both of them, something worth dying for, worth killing for. He had to tell someone. His brain was feverish. He felt he would burst if he didn’t speak. Where was Parfit? Parfit should be here, not this American secret serviceman. The confessor was wrong, but still the need to confess was strong. Too strong.
He cleared his throat as a prelude. ‘We were up there to launch a communications satellite,’ he said. ‘That’s what I thought. But it was like some joke was being played on me, like I wasn’t being let in on something. They were grinning... I think the rest of the crew knew. Hes Adams definitely knew what was going on. We launched the satellite okay. Then I saw some figures on the screen, co-ordinates I thought at the time. And a series of numbers. There was one sequence that kept repeating itself. I tried to memorise it, but it was way too long. I remember how it started, though: Ze/446. I wondered about that, but nobody seemed too bothered. Then I asked Hes — Major Adams — about it, and he laughed.’ Stewart’s face was so intent at this point that Dreyfuss felt nothing would tear the older man’s eyes off him. ‘I knew then that something was wrong. And I felt that I wasn’t intended to get off the shuttle alive, because I’d been stupid enough to tell what I’d seen to the one man aboard who knew what it all meant. Then later,’ he continued, swallowing, ‘when we were dying and everything went haywire, Adams started choking me. He was mad, screaming at me, “Coffin’s got to be buried!”’
Stewart looked startled at this, then sat back in his chair, as though he were thinking hard. He folded his arms and seemed to require no more from Dreyfuss for the moment. Dreyfuss was thinking too, thinking how hungry he suddenly felt.
‘Now hold on,’ Stewart said at last. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight...’
‘Got what straight, Mr Stewart?’ asked Parfit, stepping into the room.
Stewart looked embarrassed, but recovered quickly. ‘Just asking the major here some questions about the flight.’
Parfit looked towards Dreyfuss. ‘And does the major want to be questioned?’ he asked.
‘The major wants to be told he can get out of here,’ Dreyfuss said, remembering now that he was angry with Parfit, who had left him here for so long.
Parfit made a sweeping gesture with his arm. ‘Your carriage awaits,’ he said.
Stewart was rising to his feet. ‘Wait a minute. Major Dreyfuss can’t just walk out of here. He’s under medical care.’
‘Nonsense,’ Parfit replied. He went back to the doorway, leaned out into the corridor and picked up a large paper carrier bag. ‘I hope these fit,’ he said, bringing the bag to the bed.
Dreyfuss was already on his feet. He opened the bag and brought out trousers, underwear, a cotton shirt, socks and a pair of canvas shoes.
Stewart watched him dress, but his words when he spoke were directed at Parfit.
‘You know this is crazy, don’t you? Esterhazy will blow all his fuses when he finds out.’ But he sounded as though this was not a wholly unpleasant thought.
‘I’m hoping he does just that,’ Parfit returned.
Dreyfuss knew there was some undercurrent to this exchange, something they were managing to say to one another without his understanding. He slipped on the shoes. The clothes were a near-perfect fit.
‘Ready?’ said Parfit.
‘Ready,’ answered Dreyfuss.
‘I’m glad we managed to have some time together, Major,’ Stewart was saying. Dreyfuss smiled but did not reply. Parfit had already turned in the doorway, and held the door open as Dreyfuss took his first steps out of the room, into the bright, disinfected corridor.
Parfit kept a couple of steps ahead of him as they walked. Dreyfuss felt elated at first, light-headed, but then started sweating. He had paced his room, but that had called for little real exertion. Now, after sixty or so strides, his hair was prickling and his back began to feel damp. The corridor was quiet: no staff, and all the doors except his own looked to be locked tight. They came to a set of swing doors and opened them. Now they were in a larger, noisier, busier corridor, one of the hospital’s main arteries. Dreyfuss looked back at the doors they had just come through and saw that a large NO ADMITTANCE sign and a radiation symbol warned the unwary against entering his own silent corridor.
He had been expecting to see an armed guard at least. What had been stopping journalists from trying to visit him? Not just that sign, surely. Then he noticed an orderly sitting on a chair by the door, pretending to be on his break and browsing through a newspaper. His eyes were toughened glass as they fixed on Dreyfuss and Parfit, and Dreyfuss knew he was a guard of some kind, but an unobtrusive one.
‘Does he know who we are?’ he said to Parfit as they walked on.
Parfit glanced back towards the orderly. ‘Well, he knows who I am. I’ve had to get past him to see you, yesterday and today. But he’s here to stop people getting in, not coming out.’
‘What took you so long to come back?’
But Parfit was flurrying on again, and it took all of Dreyfuss’ energy and concentration to keep up with his pace. The question lapsed.
‘How much did you tell Stewart?’ Parfit asked.
‘Quite a bit.’
‘Mmm. That’s all right then.’
‘What do you mean?’ But Parfit wasn’t about to answer this question either.
Everybody was too busy being sick or being a comforter of the sick to pay them much attention, but at the main door, Dreyfuss hesitated. Something would happen. They’d be stopped. He’d be dragged back to his room and questioned again. They wouldn’t get away with it. As Parfit approached the glass doors, they opened on a motorised hush, and then both men were outside.
Outside, it was warm, but with a strong breeze. And there was cloud cover. A storm was coming. Dreyfuss began to shiver as the sweat on his body cooled. A large sedan pulled up to the kerb, and Parfit opened the back door, ushering him inside. The driver was a thickset man with the face of a well-used hammer. He stared at Dreyfuss in the rear-view mirror. Parfit closed the door after him and they drove off.
‘This is Ronald,’ Parfit said to Dreyfuss.
Ronald nodded, unsmiling, then concentrated on his driving.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Dreyfuss.
‘Washington. There’s a private jet waiting for us at the airport.’
‘A private jet? Is that standard Foreign Office issue?’