Parfit smiled. ‘It’s not ours, I just borrowed it from someone who happened to owe me a large favour.’
Dreyfuss nodded.
‘So,’ Parfit was saying, ‘I think you’d better start at the beginning, hadn’t you?’
‘I nearly died up there.’ Dreyfuss turned towards him. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘But if you’ll remember, I did warn you. That’s why we’re sitting here today.’
Yes, Dreyfuss remembered all right. The telephone call telling him he’d been picked for the Argos flight, and then the arrival at his home of a man in a pinstripe suit, introducing himself as ‘Parfit, Foreign Office’. He had come, so he said, to give Dreyfuss a pre-briefing briefing. In fact, he had come with a warning.
The first thing he had done was go through Dreyfuss’ curriculum vitae, but in much more detail than the interview panel had done. He had cited Dreyfuss’ age as a point against him. Other minus points included lack of experience and slight problems of stamina. Dreyfuss, who had been elated at the news of his selection, began to feel distinctly uncomfortable at this.
‘Yes, but they still chose me,’ he had said.
‘Exactly, Major Dreyfuss,’ Parfit had replied. ‘Exactly.’
So there had to be a good reason, and Parfit was intrigued to know what it was. Dreyfuss had been bottom of the British list of candidates — no disrespect intended — and they couldn’t figure out how he could come top of the American list. But there would be a reason, and it was judged worth warning Dreyfuss to be on his guard, and to give him a few tips, a few lessons in the art of survival in a hostile environment.
‘You were right about that,’ Dreyfuss said now. He had just been telling Parfit what he had told Stewart, but in a little more detail this time. ‘I didn’t get into a space shuttle, I got into a coffin.’
‘So you think the shuttle itself is the coffin that had to be buried?’
‘Don’t you?’
Parfit rested his head against the seat-back, thinking things through. ‘No,’ he answered at last. ‘No, I don’t, not entirely.’
‘So what do you think was being buried?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps we should just ask General Esterhazy. He seems to be involved after all, doesn’t he?’
‘But you don’t think Frank Stewart is?’
‘If he were, he wouldn’t have been asking you questions the way he did. He wasn’t questioning you to find out how much you knew. He was doing it because he doesn’t know much of anything himself.’
‘It’s a military thing then?’
‘Perhaps. Whatever it is, someone’s going to a lot of trouble over it, which would seem to indicate that it is fairly special and not very small in scale.’
‘Such as?’
‘I could only posit a few guesses.’
‘Posit away.’
Parfit sighed. ‘Anything between an assassination and a war.’ He paused. ‘They’re not mutually exclusive.’
‘A war?’
‘Why not? Look at the way things are going.’
‘Christ... a war.’ Dreyfuss felt weak again. ‘But wait, if it’s such a big thing, why did they keep me alive?’
‘Well, that’s easy enough. Five men had already died, and yet you had been pulled alive and in surprisingly good health from the wreckage. The TV cameras and newspapers caught all that. So your sudden death in hospital would have looked a mite suspicious.’
‘We were all supposed to die, though, weren’t we? All the crew?’
‘It looks that way. A kamikaze mission to launch a communications satellite. An unlikely scenario, you’ll admit.’
‘But it wasn’t just a comms satellite, was it?’
Parfit turned towards Dreyfuss and smiled, seeming pleased that he had worked this out. ‘The question is,’ he said, ‘what was it?’
‘I know one way we might find out.’
Parfit seemed interested now.
‘How?’
‘My controller on the ground, Cam Devereux. He might know.’
Parfit nodded. ‘It’s an idea. But even supposing he knows anything, why would he tell us?’
Dreyfuss seemed not to understand the question.
‘I mean,’ Parfit said, ‘why should he be friendly towards us? Can we assume he’s not in on it — whatever “it” is?’
‘Well,’ said Dreyfuss, ‘can you think of anyone else who might have the answers?’
Parfit considered this. ‘Off the top of my head, no.’
‘Besides which,’ Dreyfuss continued, ‘I got on well with Cam. He sent flowers to the hospital. We struck up what you might call a special relationship.’
Parfit raised an eyebrow. ‘Any particular reason why?’
‘We had something in common,’ said Dreyfuss. ‘As kids, we were both scared to death of roller coasters.’
Parfit stared at him. Dreyfuss smiled back.
‘Well,’ Parfit said, ‘I suppose we’ve nothing to lose by talking to Mr Devereux. Best wait until we’re safely back in the embassy compound, though. We’ll try and contact him from there. All we need to do now is find someone who would know what that readout meant. Ze/446 — you’ve really no idea?’
‘No, but if Cam Devereux can’t help, I might know someone who can.’
Now Parfit looked genuinely impressed.
‘A friend of a good friend of mine,’ he continued. ‘He works with satellites in the UK.’
‘And what is his name?’
‘His name’s Hepton,’ said Dreyfuss. ‘Martin Hepton.’
16
Hepton took his car to the long-term car park at Heathrow and slept the night there. He awoke cramped and stiff, locked the car and wandered off towards the terminal building in search of breakfast. He hadn’t been to Heathrow in what seemed like years. The place was huge, a city almost in itself. Eventually he found what he was looking for, and drank two cups of coffee before buying an overpriced croissant, then another, then a third, chewing each one slowly as he considered his options. His first plan still seemed the best: get in touch with Dreyfuss.
It was early, but the cafeteria section was busy with business executives and security men. Hepton felt scruffy and a little too obvious. He went to the toilets and washed, tidying his hair as best he could. At the sky shop, he bought a comb and a toothbrush. He also bought two newspapers, neither of which carried any mention of Paul Vincent’s death. Not that he had expected them to.
He found a cashpoint machine, and was about to empty it of his day’s maximum allowance when he hesitated. Would they have access to his bank account? By ‘they’, he meant Villiers and Harry. If so, they could track him as far as Heathrow just by tapping into the present transaction. On the other hand, he had to have money, and if he took it out now at least they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint him to London itself. He might even be about to get on a plane, mightn’t he? Running scared and flying for cover. So he pushed the card home, tapped in his identity number and withdrew ten crisp ten-pound notes.
He had decided to leave the car here. For one thing, they had his licence plate number and the car’s description, so he didn’t want to drive it around London. Besides, he had the feeling that in London a car might actually slow him down. It wasn’t a series of roads out there; it was a jungle. Which was all to the good. He wanted to lose himself there, and hope the big-game hunter in the black Sierra went home without a kill.
He took the uncrowded Tube train towards town. It filled up as it hit west London, then became claustrophobic as it neared the centre. South Kensington came as merciful release. But all he was doing here was changing platforms to the District and Circle Line, and the train that eventually arrived was again crowded. How could people live like this? He thought of green fields, of Louth. Of hangings and cars trying to crush him... Safety in numbers: that was what a city provided.