Now the Home Secretary's imposed a ban on visitors until further notice.'
'How long can that be maintained?'
'Only a few days. You can bet that a fellow like Farrell will know his rights down to the last letter.'
'And if the ban's lifted?'
'He'll be able to have one fifteen-minute visit a day, but only in a closed environment with prison officers present. That is, if he's graded Category A — which I've no doubt he will be.'
'And who was the guy who tried to visit?'
Fraser checked his notes and said, 'He identified himself with a driving licence in the name of Peter Smithies — but of course it turned out the licence had been stolen.'
'So the PIPA know where Farrell is anyway?'
'Oh yes. They know.'
That evening, for a change, I ran home. It was a good distance — about my usual eight miles — and I'd sussed out a route through the lanes that was almost entirely free of traffic. But again I had trouble with my rhythm.
Even more now I was feeling the pressure, and I was so needled by the contradictory thoughts chasing through my head that I couldn't settle to a steady pace.
I was pleased now that Operation Ostrich was going down, as it promised genuine action to distract me, and the chance of doing a hard job well. Besides, I positively looked forward to topping al-Khadduri. At the same time, I was apprehensive about leaving the UK with my own affairs in such a mess. On the one hand it seemed there was nothing to be gained by hanging around at Hereford. If or when the PIRA came on the air there would be plenty of trained negotiators on hand to deal with them; in any case, I was fairly sure that if I did demur about going, the legiment would order me to.
Yorky Pose had admitted as much. On the other hand, Hereford was the last place I'd seen Tim and Tracy, and my natural inclination was to cling to any trace of them that I had. iF i went overseas and someone made a cock- up in my absence, I might never see them again; my whole life would go to ratshit. Similarly, if I went under in a foreign country, Tim would never remember his father, we would never get to know each other properly. What sort of a person would he grow up to be without me to guide him? What would Tracy do, left without support?
Trying to think everything through, I realised that although I'd already made a will I might need to make some adjustments. As things stood I'd arranged to leave a small amount of money for Tim, who'd get it when he was eighteen, and the house to Tracy. She and I had talked all this through before, and she'd agreed that if I died she would adopt the boy. But now — to face the worst — there was a chance that she might not outlive me. I decided that in the morning I'd better go into town to visit my solicitor, the owlish Mr Higgins.
As for Farrell — I couldn't help feeling nervous about the situation. At least the bastard hadn't escaped. I'd half expected the Colombians to let him out, through corruption or sheer incompetence. Now he was behind bars in Birmingham, and it sounded as if he was too ill to cause trouble for the time being.
But sooner or later he'd start to agitate, and when he did he'd stir more trouble than all the turds in China.
FOUR
I was at the solicitor's office by nine o'clock. 'Thos C.
Higgins & Partners' said the highly-polished brass plate beside the door. I had no appointment, but I knew Higgins kept the first half-hour of the morning free and was confident he'd see me. In fact he walked up to the front door at the same moment as I did, and greeted me like an old pal, spectacles flashing.
His office smelt of lavender furniture polish, and the handsome grandfather clock was ticking away as steadily as ever in a corner. Since he knew my affairs well, there wasn't much explaining to do, and I soon put him in the *picture.
'I don't know if it makes any difference,' I said, 'but Tracy's pregnant.'
'Is she?' he exclaimed. 'Congratulations!'
'Well, it's only two months so far.'
'You mean you would like to make the child a beneficiary of your will?'
'That's what I was wondering.'
'I think it's hardly possible. I mean, if she were, God forbid, to be killed during the next few weeks, the child could not survive.' He paused for a moment, then said, 'Is there no one else you could name as a residuary legatee?'
I shook my head. 'As you know, I'm an orphan. I don't have anybody.' Then suddenly an idea came to me, and I said, 'I know. Yes. I'd like to nominate a colleague: Tony Lopez.'
'Is that his full name? Tony?'
'No, it's Antonio. He's American, Puerto Rican by origin. If Tracy and I are both written off, I'd like him to get everything. But the most important thing is that I'd like him to be the guardian for Tim.'
'Very well,' replied Mr Higgins cautiously. 'I'm sure that can be arranged. I shall need Mr Lopez to complete certain documents, of course.'
'Sergeant Lopez,' I said.
'Sergeant. I'm sorry.'
Mr Lopez! Just thinking about it creased me up.
Tony was so much the professional soldier that the very idea of him being a civilian seemed ridiculous; I knew he'd bust his butt (as he would put it) laughing about it.
The morning's highlight was the arrival of the quads.
Seven brand-new Honda Big Reds — one for each member of the team, one spare — were decanted from a truck into the tender loving care of the MT section, which at once set about destroying their glamour and making them look as nondescript as possible. By the time our lads went down to take delivery of the bikes their appearance had changed completely. Not only had every trace of scarlet paint been scraped, rubbed or grit- blasted off and replaced by a drab sand-colour, but the engine numbers had also been ground.off the crank cases with emery wheels and the serial numbers scraped off the frames. The ignition keys had been stripped of their numbers so that no identification remained, and the engineers had cut different numbers of notches in their rims, one to seven, so that they could still be matched to the right bikes.
As Whinger remarked, such treatment didn't exactly enhance the value of the machines — but then, after the operation had gone down, we weren't planning to auction them off in the main souk in Tripoli.
We'd all ridden quads before, but we got a quick run-down on this latest model from Mike Molloy, the MT officer, a grizzled little terrier of a captain. 'They're fully automatic,' he said, sitting on one to demonstrate.
'No clutch. The gear pedal's this one, by your left foot.
As you move off, just keep coming up with your toe Super Low, One, Two, Three, Four. For reverse, push this red button on the panel between the handlebars, then down with the gear lever. Nothing to it.
'Watch your starts, though. The motor's quite poky,
and if you give it too much throttle it can put you on your back. As you'll see from the manual, wheelies are not recommended.' To demonstrate his point he started the engine, kicked into gear and revved up sharply. For a second I thought he'd overdone it. The bike seemed to leap into the air. It shot forward, but at the same time the front wheels came high offthe ground so that it was almost vertical, and Mike was clinging on like a jockey on the back of a rearing horse. A tiny bit more power and he'd have gone right over backwards, but in fact he came down safely and switched off. 'See what I mean?' he said.
'Another thing to look out for is the tyres. As you realise, they're designed to operate at very low pressures — two point nine p.s.i. - cross-country. If you find you've got to run on tarmac, blow 'em up to at least double that or you'll knacker them.'
We were given basic instruction in maintenance changing wheels, mending punctures, adjusting brakes, fiddling carburettor jets and so on — but Stew Stewart arranged to come back another day and go through the drills for things like ignition faults and fuel blockages.