by Ian Rankin
Cam! He held a snapshot in his head of Cam’s beaming face, that air-hostess-style voice: ‘Hi, I’m Cameron Devereux. Call me Cam, everyone does. I’ll be your contact down here while you’re up there.’ The day they’d gone to visit the Argos ground station, meeting with the men who would be their eyes and ears on earth while they were circling in space. The controllers, with their crew cuts and striped shirts, seated in front of screens that could show anything from the height and trajectory of the shuttle to the pressurisation of the cabin and the heartbeats of the men inside it.
Cam, too, had a striped shirt and a crew cut. He also had a smile. God, that assured smile, a fortune in dental work. Even the mechanics in this country smiled like movie stars. But he had a weak handshake, and would melt like wax if a hand grabbed at his smooth lapel or threatened to tweak his WASP nose. However, there was every chance that he would know something about what had gone wrong, or at least would have his suspicions.
I shouldn’t have been up there in the first place, Dreyfuss said to himself now. He had been chosen over younger men and better men, men more computer-literate, men fitter, more intelligent. He had told the selection panel at his third and final interview: ‘I’m just an airman who wants to be an astronaut.’ Hoping that candour would stand up where his credentials had faltered. It had: the Americans wanted him. Everyone had wondered why …
‘Major!’ It was Nurse Carraway, entering the room on her silent rubber heels. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just taking a look at my flowers.’
‘I didn’t think you were strong enough to walk.’
‘Willpower, that’s all.’ He shuffled back to his bed and sat down on its edge, where General Esterhazy’s heavy knuckles had recently rested.
‘Well, anyway, it’s time for your medication.’ She was holding a tiny paper cup filled with liquid in one hand, and a yet smaller cup containing a mixture of tablets in the other. Dreyfuss accepted both. He put the liquid down on his bedside cabinet and picked one of the tablets out at random, holding it between forefinger and thumb. It was oval-shaped and purple in colour.
‘What’s this?’ he asked. He felt bolder now that Parfit had arrived.
‘What do you mean? It’s just medication.’
‘No, come on, you’re a nurse. What kind of medication? What’s its purpose? What’s its medical name?’
She seemed flustered. Dreyfuss had not seen her flustered before.
‘Well?’ he goaded.
She smiled. ‘Major Dreyfuss, if you don’t want to take the tablets, that is your concern. But I should warn you that I’ll have to report—’
Dreyfuss laughed, shaking his head. ‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘Go on, shove off.’ His grin was purposeful. ‘You’re not a nurse. A nurse on the wards would know what the drugs were called, nicknames, medical names, Christian names. A real nurse would know that. But you, Nurse Carraway, you don’t know anything. As General Esterhazy might put it, you don’t know squat! Incidentally,’ he was on his feet again, shuffling forwards, ‘which one of them do you work for, Stewart or Esterhazy?’
‘Major Dreyfuss,’ she spluttered, ‘I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What’s more,’ he went on, enjoying this, ‘the doctor who came to see me that first time had never seen you before. Plus,’ he said, staring at her legs, ‘I can’t see too many nurses wearing silk hosiery, can you?’
She was staring at her legs too now, as though unable to believe their treachery.
‘Go on,’ he said tiredly, ‘go and make your report.’ And with this he fell back onto the bed and lay there shading his face with his arms. There was a pause of several seconds before he heard her shoes squeak. She had turned round and was going to the door, which opened silently. Dreyfuss felt tired and tricked and used. His head was thumping, and he wondered if any of the tablets in the cup would ease it.
‘Bravo.’
It was Parfit’s voice. Dreyfuss took his arms from his face and jerked his head up. Parfit was standing in the doorway, holding the door open with the tip of a polished black leather brogue. He came into the room, letting the door close softly. His shoes made a solid clacking noise on the flooring as he approached the bed.
‘Do you always eavesdrop on people’s conversations?’ asked Dreyfuss.
‘Goes with the territory, I’m afraid. So how are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘Yes, for the moment perhaps. But everyone around you seems ever so slightly agitated. I shouldn’t think your safety here could be guaranteed for much longer. What do you say?’
‘You mean I can leave?’
‘Well of course you can leave. Nobody’s been forcing you to stay.’
Dreyfuss groaned.
‘Unless, of course,’ Parfit said, ‘they got you to sign any papers.’
‘What kind of papers?’
‘Papers committing yourself to their care?’
‘I haven’t signed anything.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘Very well then. I’ll just make a few arrangements, and then we’ll have you out of here.’
‘Have you told them I’m leaving?’
‘Who?’ Parfit seemed amused. ‘Esterhazy and Stewart? Good Lord, it’s not up to them, is it? It’s up to the doctors and the hospital administrator. I foresee no problem.’
‘They won’t be very happy.’
If anything, Parfit’s smile broadened. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, they won’t, will they?’
He was about to leave, but Dreyfuss stopped him.
‘One question, Parfit,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘What took you so long to get here?’
‘We’ll talk about that elsewhere,’ Parfit said, looking around the room. His meaning was clear: walls really do have ears. Dreyfuss nodded. Parfit again turned to leave.
‘Parfit?’
‘Yes, Major Dreyfuss?’
Dreyfuss was smiling too. ‘It’s nice to see you again,’ he said.
12
Cam Devereux arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport desperately tired and in need of the vacation this was supposed to be. His cotton sports shirt was sticking to him, and his scalp tingled as he ran his hands over his thinning hair. He was so tired. But how could he rest? His mind felt inflamed. How could he stop himself replaying events, seeing that stranger arrive at the ground base control room? Seeing the stranger given an office of his own and a console, ignoring the curious looks of the other controllers? Seeing Argos itself gliding erratically towards earth, flailing across the runway …?
Yes, he needed a vacation. They’d told him that. He needed a complete break; everybody did, everybody connected with Argos. They had ordered him to take a break. So he had chosen to come to London, despite their protests about leaving Europe well alone. London was a city he could happily get lost in, and wander through all day from district to district. He liked almost everything about it, including the things the Londoners themselves seemed to loathe, such as the subway system. So, having waited for his baggage, he headed downwards, beneath the ground, far away from the sunlight and the sky, and bought a ticket to Green Park station, from where it would be only a short walk to his hotel. The other people who got into his compartment of the Tube train were travellers like himself, hauling too much baggage behind them. He himself was travelling light by comparison. You could always buy what you hadn’t brought, especially with the thick wallet of travellers’ cheques they had given him.
‘Look on it as a bonus,’ they had said. A bonus for what? he was tempted to ask. But he had never questioned anything in his life … until now. Now, his head was full of unanswered questions and fears. He again examined his fellow passengers, and saw that they looked every bit as nervous as he felt. First-timers in London, he supposed, and wary of every step.
Maybe at last he could stop looking over his shoulder. Maybe he could stop worrying about what he had seen, what the
y seemed to know he had seen. And had paid him to forget about, paid him by way of a holiday, a swanky hotel, a plastic wallet full of paper money. Maybe they’d leave him alone. And maybe when he stopped worrying, he’d stop thinking about it too.
Maybe, but he doubted it.
Still, he had to make it look like a holiday. He would visit a few of the sights, do a little shopping. All the time waiting for his new controller to make contact. He had asked for one, and they had agreed to his request, though reluctantly. But he had negotiated from a position of strength. He had information after all, didn’t he? He had something to tell. If only he knew what it was …
13
The morning was bright, despite Martin Hepton’s mood. He awakened to his clock radio, just in time to catch a studio debate between someone from the Pentagon and the Minister for Defence turning into a full-scale shouting match. The radio presenter sounded genuinely alarmed as accusations were hurled across the table. Lack of co-operation, distinct misunderstanding of the mood of the European Community, defenders not terrorists, never asked to be here in the first place. Et cetera.
Hepton smiled to himself as he listened. If intelligence and communications were good enough, he reasoned, there would be no arms race: everyone would know what everyone else had. That was why he felt no jab of conscience at his job, even when attacked at parties by people who could not understand why he did what he did. Not that he did very much. There would be the occasional full-scale surveillance operation, covering the movements of a suspected spy or some military attaché. Someone in a car might just notice that another car was following, but they couldn’t suspect that they were being watched from space. Mostly these jobs were for the security services. Now and again they were for the military. There had been illicit peeks at what this or that US listening post was up to; the one at Menwith Hill, for example. Against the rules, of course. Snooping on the enemy was all well and good, but spying on your allies …
Maybe that was why NATO was in such a shambles. European countries were squabbling with each other. America was pulling its defences out and retrenching back in its homeland. A ring of steel was going up around the USA: not just missiles and tanks and manpower, but economic steel and the steel of mistrust. The USA could be self-sufficient if it wished, and that was the way things were headed. Companies were finding it harder to export their goods to the States. Diplomacy had about it the air of the refrigerator. What had gone wrong? Just over a year ago, Hepton had been delighted with the way the world was going. The EuroGreens were keeping things sane as far as the environment went, the left wing of the European Parliament was pushing through some worthwhile legislation. The mood was distinctly upbeat. Even Britain was becoming more … well, European.
So what had happened? Hepton had blinked and the edifice had started to crumble: squabbles, economic downturns, the troubles in Pakistan and Turkey … And now the pull-out. He fumbled for the radio’s off-switch and made for the shower. Standing beneath the spray, he thought of the dream he’d had in the night. Mike Dreyfuss had been in it. So had Jilly. They’d been seeking each other, finding each other, but then losing each other again.
When he came out of the shower, he heard the telephone ringing. He ran, naked, to the living room and picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Martin? Is that you? Thank Christ I’ve found you. I tried at the base but they said you were on leave.’
It was Paul Vincent, sounding edgy. No, more than that, sounding frightened.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m still at the nursing home. I’ve been trying to reach you.’
‘What’s wrong, Paul?’
‘They’ve got guards watching me, Martin. I mean, they watch me all the time. I can’t stand it. They said I could leave soon, but I think they’re planning something, God knows what. Please, come and get me, Martin. I want out of here.’
‘Okay, Paul, just hang on. I’m coming. It’ll take an hour, maybe a bit longer. Just keep calm. Okay?’
‘Okay. But hurry, please.’
‘Paul, I know there isn’t any Dr McGill. They never did take you to hospital, did they? And you didn’t become ill. Isn’t that right?’
Vincent sighed loudly. ‘Yes. They said they were security. I was on my break. They asked me to go with them. They brought me straight here. I drank some tea and the next thing I knew I’d crashed out for a solid day.’
‘Drugs?’
‘They wouldn’t admit it, but I get the feeling they’d been questioning me during that time. The bastards won’t admit anything.’
‘You mean the staff?’
‘Not all of them. No, these were other people. People brought in by Villiers.’
‘With Fagin’s knowledge?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Okay, Paul. Hang in there. I’m on my way.’
‘Thanks, Martin.’
Hepton pulled on a pair of denims and a T-shirt, hardly aware of what he was doing. He slipped on his shoes, grabbed his jacket, then took a last quick look around and left the flat, pausing to check that the lock had connected and to turn the key in the mortise. He didn’t believe Harry’s story of finding the door ajar. He had spent over an hour checking for bugging devices that she might have left behind. He hadn’t found any, but that didn’t mean anything. There were many other possible points of entry into a closed environment or a telephone line: no one knew better than he what technology was capable of.
Shit, if they were listening in on his telephone, they would already know about Paul. He had to hurry.
Outside, he glanced around as he unlocked the door to his Renault. He crouched beside each wheel arch and peered beneath the vehicle, running a hand around the body in search of a tracking device. Nothing. No black Sierra parked in sight. No tramps picking fruit off the ground. He got into the car, fired it up and sped down the cobblestoned street. He started to think about Paul Vincent, and the line of thought led him back to Zephyr. How often did Fagin entertain bigwigs? Three, maybe four times in a year? A large coincidence then that he should have one such party in tow on the day Zephyr chose to blow a fuse. Hepton smiled grimly at this, remembering how he had once used the phrase ‘blow a fuse’ when talking with Jilly about the satellite.
‘You mean those things actually have fuses?’ she had said, and he’d had to explain that he was using layman’s language. She had bristled at this, and insisted that he explain things to her in more technical terms. So for over an hour he’d spoken of SIGINTs and COMINTs and geostationary orbits, while she had listened intently, asking occasional questions. At the end of his explanation, she had smiled.
‘You really are a clever little sod, aren’t you?’ she had said, and he’d nodded. What else could he do?
Clever, Martin, but perhaps not clever enough. He was used to being given orders, used to doing what he was told, to being nothing more than an operative. He seemed a long way from that now. Those uniformed high-ups were still in his mind. Three minutes and forty seconds, and they’d looked pleased. What was it about Zephyr? What was it that was so classified even the control personnel couldn’t be told of it? For he was sure now that the malfunction had been a test of sorts, that it had been being put through its paces, with the brass there to watch, and that it had passed the test.
But what was the bloody test?
If anyone was following him, they were good. He didn’t catch sight of a single suspicious car or person on the drive to the Alfred de Lyon Hospital. Everyone was doing his or her bit to seem genuine, from the lady driver who nearly hit him at a junction to the man whose dog ran into the road, causing him to brake hard.
So far so good. Paul Vincent had sounded on the verge of a breakdown. Hepton didn’t feel too good himself. His body seemed extraordinarily tired and sluggish, his brain befuddled. He was hoping that Vincent knew more than he had been saying to date. It seemed the only way to unlock the hoard of answers to this whole thing.
He made good tim
e on the drive, steered the car through the gates of the Alfred de Lyon and sped up the gravel drive. He didn’t bother with the small car park, leaving his Renault outside the main doors to the building. In the reception hall, he went straight to the admissions desk, where the white-coated lady on duty smiled, recognising him from the previous day.
‘I’ve come to see Mr Vincent,’ he said.
‘This must be his lucky day,’ she said. ‘Two visitors—’
‘Two?’ Hepton interrupted.
‘Yes, a young lady arrived half an hour ago to see him.’
‘A young lady? Short fair hair?’
The woman nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that sounds like her.’
‘Is she still here?’ snapped Hepton. He was growing afraid now. What if he had missed them? What if Harry had already whisked Paul Vincent away somewhere … somewhere Hepton couldn’t find him?
‘Well, I haven’t seen her leave. I’ll try Mr Vincent’s room.’ She picked up the telephone, pressed two digits and waited while the extension rang. Then she frowned. ‘There’s no answer. Perhaps they’ve gone to the sun lounge.’ An attendant was coming from that direction. ‘Oh, Roddy,’ she called. ‘Have you seen Mr Vincent?’
‘I thought he was in his room,’ the attendant called back. Hepton felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck.
‘Where’s his room?’ he said.
‘The end of the corridor on the first floor, but you can’t just—’
He couldn’t just, but he already was: he ran to the sweeping staircase, took it two steps at a time, stumbling at the top, and ran along the first-floor corridor. He pushed open the last door he came to and looked in. It was a large, airy room, the walls cream-coloured and the bed a double. Some of Paul’s things were lying about, but not untidily. There was an en suite bathroom, and Hepton paused at this door before turning the handle, expecting the worst.