He drove the entire distance to the airport expecting to encounter a police roadblock at any moment. He abandoned the car at San Mateo. From there he took a cab to the airport.
He felt he was leaving a trail a mile wide.
He checked in with the airline, kept his overnight bag, and walked toward the departure gate. He had twenty minutes to go. He went to the metal-detecting station, put his bag on the conveyor belt, and stepped through a metal-detecting frame under the eyes of a guard. No alarms sounded. He recovered his bag and commenced the walk toward the departure lounge. Fifteen minutes to go.
The plane was delayed. Fifteen minutes turned into twenty, then twenty-five. Brewer paced. He watched the long corridor back to the metal-detecting station, looking for police.
He told himself he was safe. They might not have found the van yet. And if they did, they might not have gotten his rental car’s license number. And if they did, they certainly couldn’t have found the car itself yet. And if they did, they would not know that he’d taken a cab to the airport yet. And if they did, they had a whole airport to search and—And if he escaped, it would be only with the greatest good luck.
The flight attendant called all passengers to board the plane.
Now he sweated out the slow shuffle of passengers filing up the passageway to the jet, the shuffle along the aisle to his seat. The stowing of gear, the chatting with the stewardesses, the fooling with newspapers and glasses and seat belts.
Finally, the doors were shut and sealed. The plane rolled out on the runway to take off. Six hours nonstop to New York.
When the plane was airborne, he opened his bag and eased out the Prysbyl box. Inside were 144 chips. ANAC/23419.PRN. The last pieces on Iran’s shopping list.
12
McCall returned to the empty safe house to pick up three days’ taping of Rock’s phone calls.
Rock had a long conversation with the yacht Lipstick Two in the Bahamas. Still in Paris and still pining for the child in Cairo, Rock discussed her at length. Lipstick Two tried to entice him to the Bahamas with “someone nearly as nice.” But Rock declined. There was a chance he might see the child in Cairo after all.
There were a number of other calls he didn’t return.
Only Beeldad in Madrid was called regularly. And then they both spoke in a code with innuendo. Rock was insisting on the absolute trustworthiness of the explosives. “The usual sources won’t do, Beeldad. This stuff has to be absolutely reliable.” Beeldad agreed to redouble his efforts.
At 7:30 that evening, Brewer took the British Airways flight from JFK in New York to London. At 10:00 P.M. McCall flew from Washington. His destination was also London.
Harrow School lies about twelve miles northwest of the center of London.
Brewer arrived there in a rented car in late afternoon. He gazed about the grounds, then glanced skyward. The brilliant and dry autumn weather was about to end. The streaming sunlight would soon be smothered by flotillas of black clouds sailing from the North Atlantic.
On the playing fields, young athletes from some of Britain’s wealthiest families scrimmaged, shouting urgently to one another. Beyond them, straggling into the first Harrow building, constructed in 1611, was a late-season tour group.
Brewer found the boy’s room without difficulty, at the top of a winding stone staircase probably three hundred years old. Brewer rapped on the door. Then again. He tried the door and it opened easily.
Brewer stepped inside. The boy was a sports jock: Cricket bats hung on the wall. Photographs of a soccer team holding a silver cup. A pair of tennis rackets leaned against a wall. And peering out of a closet at Brewer was a golf bag. Hung over the closet door, tied by shoestrings, was a pair of track shoes.
Brewer heard the sound of steps on the stone stair. A boy. He called to another boy angrily: “Half an hour, I said, dammit!” He was just outside the door. “No, no, Rogers! That’s the wrong one.” His steps descended.
Brewer looked out of the window. The boy was wagging a finger at another, smaller boy. Both wore cycling gear, including a leather box cap.
Brewer stepped into the closet and rooted in a canvas bag. His hand found just what he wanted. He straightened up, crossed the room in three strides, and exited through the door. He walked along a stone balcony to another stairway and descended to the courtyard at the other side of the building.
The boy waved Rogers off with another admonition. “In a half hour, Rogers! Be there!” And he mounted the steps to his room.
The difficulty with the clandestine life is the paranoia that trails after it. It induces a permanent state of mental furtiveness. The eyes are forever glancing over the shoulder.
A simple meeting for even the briefest of conversations becomes fraught with problems that match those of a major diplomatic conference. Where shall we meet? Is it safe? Does it have escape routes? Is it too much in the open? Do we blend into the surroundings? What are the chances that we will be observed? It mustn’t be too secret or the opposition will read all kinds of meanings into that. But not too public—for chance and bad luck happeneth to all agents.
Then there’s the problem of getting to the meeting. Evasive action is employed to elude shadows. Switching cabs, taking the Underground, then jumping off the train at the last possible moment, making feints, using decoys. The antics can be amusing.
Brewer dispensed with all that. He simply got on the Underground near his hotel and rode to the British Museum.
But he knew that Attashah would make elaborate maneuvers, especially in London, where he was well known to the exiled Iranian community. Attashah knew his name was on more than one anti-Khomeini hit list. He was very careful to conceal himself in that city.
In fact it was Attashah himself who chose the meeting place: the British Museum, late in the afternoon, in the hall of the Elgin marbles.
From the Underground, Brewer walked in a drizzle to the museum. Guards at the door were searching packages, attaché cases, and handbags routinely.
Attashah was already there, playing the assiduous tourist, staring at the marbles and tapping his chin with the guidebook. He wore as usual his black suit, white shirt, and muted blue polkadot tie. Over his left arm hung a raincoat and the crook of a large black umbrella. London, the land of the black mushrooms.
There were only two other people in the whole room: an elderly couple, deeply engrossed in animated conversation in front of one of the friezes as they thumbed through several texts.
Brewer walked up to Attashah directly and nodded at him, then watched the pained expression on Attashah’s face as the lidded eyes glanced about. Attashah cleared his throat irritably.
“You’ve got good taste, Attashah.” Brewer swept a hand in the air. “The Elgin marbles.”
“Stolen, I believe, from the Greeks,” Attashah said.
“Saved from destruction by the Turks, some say.” Brewer grinned at him. “Aren’t the Turks related to the Iranians?”
Attashah’s back stiffened. Did anyone call him Rooley? Or Roo? Did he ever roll a passionate maiden in the hay? Did one ever say, “I love you, Roo,” in Iranian or in English—in pig Latin, for that matter? Better still, did Attashah ever, with an erotically husky voice, say, “I love you, duckie”? Was he ever a carefree boy writing love poetry or was he always an implacable, humorless fanatic? Would the world be better off without him?
The fanatic was a fanatic without choice. He was born that way, with the genes arranged that way. And as soon as life set him on his little feet, Attashah had scurried into life looking for a cause to dedicate himself to. No choice. No free will. It was stamped on his rump like a manufacturer’s label: Fanatic.
“These marbles belong in Greece,” Attashah said. “They are part of the Greek heritage—no matter what reasons the British give for bringing them here.” He fixed his judgmental eyes on Brewer. “The thief always has his excuses.”
“Yes, I do. My excuse is I was paid handsomely by the Iranians.”
“The situations are hardly comparable, Mr. Brewer,” Attashah answered. His eyes said, “Someday I will kill you, Mr. Brewer.”
“Why not? I’m a thief—a very successful one.”
Attashah’s eyes searched Brewer’s. “Did you—are you saying you got the ANAC parts?”
“Yes. A hundred and forty-four of them. Would you like more than that?”
Attashah lost his composure. He exhaled sharply, then tried repeatedly to clear his throat. He was clearly stunned. In his eyes was barely concealed joy. “Splendid,” he said at last.
“That’s the lot, Attashah. I’ve got your grocery list safely stowed and ready to move.”
Attashah looked at him with something close to admiration. “You are a very gifted man, Mr. Brewer.”
Brewer ignored the praise. He still heard other words from Attashah from another time: “You have no choice, Mr. Brewer,” he had said in his executioner’s voice.
With his eyes roving over the Elgin marbles on a damp day in London town, Attashah was daring to dream. He was trying on his role of Iranian hero, the man who engineered the American parts caper. How rapidly his star was rising in the Persian sky.
The Minister’s secretary signed for the package. Without touching it she quickly called a gentleman from security, who hurried it off in a bomb truck across London to the laboratory where a group of explosives experts waited to have a look-see.
There the wrapping was carefully photographed. Then the package was weighed. Then the interior silence was explored by a medical stethoscope which searched for the sound of ticking or a movement of parts within. Magnetic detectors sought some sign of lethal life—a battery or two, perhaps—or for metallic parts (there were none). Later, a series of X rays revealed a perfect sphere inside with no contours to suggest a detonator.
One of the experts, groping for a simile, noted that it was about the size, weight, and density of a cricket ball. Or a plastic hand-bomb, said another sourly.
Before opening the package, the lab men submerged it in a tub of water for half an hour.
Then, with great care, the soggy wrapping was pulled off. The carton was snipped open. Within, the tissue wrapping, now in sopping shreds, was pulled away with tweezers. And there was revealed a cricket ball—a combat veteran of many innings, gore-scarred and grass-stained. On its surface was the single word HARROW.
Sheepishly, the security man hastened back to the Minister’s office, bearing the ball in a large manila envelope. Inside, along with the cricket ball, was their official laboratory report outlining procedures used and conclusions drawn: a used cricket ball from Harrow public school, mailed from Harrow three days before.
After a pleasant lunch the Minister returned to his office to find the manila envelope containing the ball and the lab report. To him the message was quite clear.
He called his son at Harrow. The boy was hunted up and brought to the telephone. His father asked after his health and chatted with him for a few moments.
“Did you send me one of your cricket balls?” he asked his son.
The boy was stunned. Why on earth would he ever mail a cricket ball?
Afterward, the Minister sat in his office, staring at the cricket ball on his desk and waiting for the phone call that was sure to come. On a hunch, he had a protective squad dispatched to Harrow to watch over his son.
Charlie Brewer called at four. He identified himself as Mr. Cricket and the Minister immediately accepted the call. They arranged to meet the next day at three.
The ways of seducing a man who controls power are many, and Charlie Brewer had seen most of them used. He was guided by an old cliché tirelessly reiterated in the arms trade: All men are corruptible. There are no exceptions.
Even a British departmental Minister who wields great power behind closed doors is vulnerable: He may harbor shameful secrets; he has been passed over in favor of another; he has an ambitious wife; he has created a bleak, impecunious future through gaming indiscretions; he has deep affection for his young son at Harrow. No matter. Any one will do.
The pattern is usually familiar. After the question “What do you want me to do?” once the deed is done, a whispered phone message or a written note imparts a seven-digit number—a Swiss bank account number, in the name of a research group or a fund with a resounding philanthropic name. The Minister can use the money as he wishes—to pursue research or altruism (he is the sole holder and user of the secret fund) or to spend on his son who has so heedlessly lost his cricket ball. Such a handsome lad. Such a vulnerable child. Another politician is rendered submissive to the secret government of ruthless men.
Shortly before three that afternoon in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, a group of Americans lumpishly strolled along behind a tour guide who pointed with still-dripping umbrella at statue after statue of British heroes. Here’s Nelson, embodiment of Britain’s dauntless spirit. And Wellington. And there in the shadows, peering quizzically out at the world, is the legendary Kitchener.
As they bumped along in their damp raincoats, the group craned their heads upward at the vast high dome, their coughs and sneezes carrying clearly.
It was a slow day for visitors. Arctic turbulence had sent a marine low-pressure system spinning down from Greenland. The meteorological service reported severe storms on the North Sea and predicted a week of rain. November was not a tourist month even in the best weather, and with the downpour outside, the tour group had the cathedral almost to itself.
The guide was discussing the lofty cathedral windows and the effects of the Luftwaffe bombings, when the left-most large cathedral door swung open. In dirty gray light the Minister entered, collapsing his large black umbrella and shaking it three times. He then walked to the last pew on the left and sat down, hat in lap.
The group, coughing and snuffling, continued on scuffing feet to the altar and to the memorial to the American war dead of World War II in the Jesus Chapel. It proceeded down a side aisle past the apse, the guide still wagging his umbrella skyward and calling off the features in practiced tones.
The damp little group proceeded along the aisle to the rear again. The doors swung open. The Minister was quite alone.
“Good afternoon, Minister,” Charlie Brewer said.
The man turned in the pew and looked up at Brewer. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said.
“Quite right,” Brewer replied. “We haven’t.”
“Yes, yes,” the Minister said impatiently. He rubbed his hands and looked unhappily out at the vast world of interior cathedral walls and rising arches, reaching for heaven.
Brewer read the circles under the man’s eyes, the drawn expression, the sallow complexion—classic signs of a man in a trap.
Brewer entered the pew behind the Minister and sat. “I have had a delightful tour of your most impressive cathedral, Minister,” he said.
“I see.” The Minister was unable to mask the anger and scorn he felt. With both hands resting on the crook of the umbrella, the man radiated imperiousness and arrogance. From one end of the year to the other, he would rarely address a Brewer. A man with enormous financial needs, he was also circumspect: He would never have permitted Brewer to approach him with a bribe. He dealt only with men from his own circles—school, party, class.
He betrayed his impatience. “How may I help you, Mr. Cricket?”
Brewer studied the side of the man’s face in the sullen light. “A small assistance. Nothing to trouble you too much. Something you have done for others a number of times. And of course a little something for you from me in return, to express my appreciation.”
The Minister seemed to relax a bit. His expression sifted Brewer’s words. Something manageable. With compensation. Not blackmail. No threat to his son.
“You will accept my apologies, Minister, for the cricket ball. It served merely to get your attention.”
“And as a threat?” The Minister leaned forward.
Brewer shrugged. “That won’t be necessary. Your son is of no intere
st to me. I’m sure we can do business, Minister.”
“What is this business?”
Brewer drew from his inner raincoat pocket an envelope. “A certificate, that’s all.”
The Minister opened the unsealed envelope, unfolded the sheet inside, and in the poor light studied the document. “An End User’s Certificate.”
As you see.
“That’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
The Minister reread the document. “I see.”
“Excellent, Minister. It will naturally require the usual ‘walk through’ for the appropriate authorizations. One doesn’t want U.S. Customs impeding the shipment for lack of proper documentation. You can appreciate that, of course.”
The Minister seemed flaccid, spent. He was expecting a threatened kidnapping of his son. And now that he was relieved of that concern, he was beginning to react to the bribery offer.
“I feel as though I am being raped,” he said.
“But then, Minister, you are hardly a virgin. Shall I quote some appropriate chapter and verse—going back ten years to Mr. Peno Rus?”
“Enough. I will do this as quickly as possible.”
“Excellent. To seal the bargain, I present you with a Habana Classico.” Brewer extended a glass tube hermetically sealed and containing a cigar. “And, of course, the matches.”
The Minister accepted the cigar. Then he took the matchbook and opened the flap. His eyes read the seven-digit number, then looked at Brewer.
“The usual fee, Minister.”
The Minister tucked the envelope into his breast pocket. He handed the cigar back to Brewer. “Not my brand,” he said. And the matchbook was thrust into a side pocket of his coat.
He arose without another word, strode to the large door at the left, placed his hat on his head, and stepped through the doorway, popping open his large black umbrella as he went. A moment later the huge door swung shut, and Brewer was alone in the dusk. Somewhere he could hear a jet of rainwater spattering on paving.
He looked down at the glass tube in his hand. Not his brand either. He would give it to the Syrian Fat Man in Paris. The Fat Man’s brand was anything burnable. Brewer stood up. Now came the toughest part of his whole smuggling operation.
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