Blackmail North

by Philip McCutchan

  Blackmail North

  Philip McCutchan

  © Philip McCutchan, 1978

  Philip McCutchan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1978 by Hodder and Stoughton Limited.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  One

  “GET ME OUT of London,” Shard said with an edge to his voice, “and I don’t give a damn where the hell you send me. London’s bloody.” He looked at the man sitting behind the large, beautifully polished desk: Hedge scarcely knew what London was like in summer, at the height of the tourist season. The Foreign Office protected him from the dust and heat, his chauffeur-driven Jaguar kept him aloof from the vulgarity of the crowds. He was, after all, Hedge — the screen nicely set around the Head of Security, Hedge by function though not, strictly, by name. A prickly Hedge by nature, but one that unprotected might wilt fast under an overdose of summer London. Shard, on the other hand, was too much in touch: English, pure English, seldom encountered on the streets, though there was American in plenty, not least underfoot: Regent Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street, dotted with introdden chewing-gum that nothing would eradicate; Westminster Abbey and a lolly stick lying on the Churchill memorial tablet in defiance of the notice adjuring the devout not to suck ice-creams inside; traffic, police mobiles and all, jammed solid by cars from every corner of the world, and crowds, crowds everywhere — tubes, buses, pavements like a gigantic sardine-tin frizzling under a hot sun and no air and all its occupants, as oily from sun-tan lotion as any genuine sardine, casting their litter like confetti. London was a big smell of sun-tan lotion, of hamburgers being open-air cooked in tourist spots such as between the Cutty Sark and Chichester’s Gipsy Moth, and of body sweat in such concentration that not all the deodorants in the world could cut through the atmosphere. London: once again, like the rest of the country, suffering a long-drawn drought.

  Shard, knowing the craziness of trying to take his car into central London, had just tubed and walked from his office in Seddon’s Way off the Charing Cross Road: Hedge’s querulous voice had come through the security line at him, demanding his presence at once if not sooner. Now, seated in the calm and dignity of the Foreign Office, he had asked what it was all about.

  “It’s about a man,” Hedge said carefully. “You may have to travel.”

  That was when Shard had castigated London. “What man,” he asked when he had finished, “and where?”

  “I don’t know where. Events will dictate that. As to the man …” Hedge leaned his elbows on his desk and held his fingers with the tips together, parson-like, in front of his face, staring through them at Shard. “Our Prime Minister —”

  “Is just back from Libya. This I know.”

  Hedge frowned. “Please don’t interrupt me, Shard, I don’t care for it. If I may go on?”

  Shard waved a hand and grinned. “Sorry! But I have work to do and time presses, Hedge.”

  Hedge breathed hard down his nose. “Someone else has come in from Tripoli as well. Not with the Prime Minister — a separate flight. But they’re linked — in a sense, that is.”

  “Who is it, Hedge?”

  Hedge put on an undercover-man look and dropped his voice a fraction: Hedge didn’t trust even the Foreign Office walls not to have large, flapping ears. He asked, “Does the name Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh mean any thing to you, Shard?”

  Shard lifted an eyebrow. “Not a thing. Should it? A good Scot, no doubt, but —”

  “Not a Scot, no. Married to a Scots girl, née Fiona Morrison, but he’s as black as coal.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. He has the right ideas, though — or had. He’s British, don’t you know.”

  “The old Empire?”

  “Quite so, yes. He was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, during the war. Hence the name. The Edinburgh Castle was a former Union Castle liner taken into Royal Naval service as an accommodation ship off Freetown, and the father was believed to be one of the crew. And Scottish names were always popular, you see.”

  “And this man’s the one flying in from Tripoli? What’s the background?”

  “Dangerous,” Hedge answered. “It never reached the press and I only hope to God it never does.” Hedge loathed the press at the best of times, regarding it as the natural enemy of security. “This is all Top Secret, Shard —”

  “To be burned before being read?”

  “Yes.” Hedge, who hadn’t taken in just what Shard had said, proceeded. “Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh came into Britain in the early sixties at the age of nineteen with some academic distinction behind him — he’d done brilliantly at his secondary school and won a scholarship to Durham University via Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone. He left Durham with a degree in geology. Subsequently he was taken on by a major oil company with interests in the North Sea oilfields. Later, perhaps rather curiously, he developed an interest in Zionism, and because of this was said to have welcomed being sent by his company to Israel three years ago, where —”

  “Israel hasn’t any oil, has she?”

  “Not,” Hedge said, “since 1974, no. The interim agreement of that year returned the Sinai oilfields to Egypt. Thus Israel lost the only oil she directly controlled. Nevertheless, there were hopes in the air of finding another source, hence Mackintosh. There was another point: the Israelis were building big underground storage tanks in the south — oil reservoirs — and they were having trouble with seepage. Mackintosh was also to advise on that. So out he went to Israel, without his wife, who was to join him later.” Hedge paused, giving weight to his next remarks. “Before she could join him, he became involved in the fighting during an Arab attack on Haifa. He was taken prisoner by the Palestine Liberation Organisation … and after a few weeks was handed over to the authorities in Libya.”

  “Why?”

  Hedge lifted his hands. “We don’t know. Of course, the political set-up in the Middle Last was different then — Libya was more or less on terms with Egypt, for instance, before Sadat went to Israel. Anyway, what we do know is this: he’s just been released by the Libyans and has already flown into the United Kingdom. Not a civil airline — an aircraft of the Royal Air Force, which landed him at Biggin Hill. We’ve been notified that his release is an act of goodwill —”

  “To coincide with the Prime Minister’s visit?”

  Hedge nodded. “It would appear so, yes.”

  “But you feel there’s more behind it?”

  “Very perceptive of you,” Hedge said sardonically. “Yes, we do.”

  “Which is where I come in?”

  Again Hedge nodded. “Correct. Mr Mackintosh is known to be a loyal British subject and, I say again, one interested in the Zionist cause. And there’s his oil industry expertise — and that, we believe, is the nub of it. Do you follow?”

  “Not entirely, Hedge.”

  Hedge leaned forward. “An infiltration. He’s been a year in Libyan hands, time enough to have been indoctrinated and —”

  “Indoctrinated — in spite of his Zionist inclinations?”

  Hedge gave a hollow laugh. “My dear chap, you’re a man of the world! You know how these people go to work — complete seclusion, varying treatment, constant repeti
tion of ideas, no access to international news. Insidious talk about how the British whites are using his brain, his knowledge, his particular expertise — all for their own ends. Remember he’s black. We’ve not always behaved well to the black population — these people can play upon that with endless variations, Shard, and sound very authentic in the process! Aren’t I right?”

  “Yes,” Shard said, frowning. “You have a point, I agree. What’s their objective, d’you think?”

  “The wrecking of the British oil industry. The turning off of the North Sea taps —”

  “We’re not all that much of a threat to them, are we?”

  “— and the blocking of the explorations in the Channel and off Ireland. Yes, we are. Events are moving against the Middle East as a main source of supply, Shard. Take Mexico. For some years past they’ve deliberately under-estimated their reserves — there’s been a lot of secrecy. Now it’s known they have massive reserves, something like 60,000 million barrels. They, and us, look like shifting the whole world energy pattern, and the Arab countries are worried so I’m told.”

  “It’s a big project, isn’t it — to put us out of production?”

  “Certainly not too big. Remember, Mackintosh is a trusted oil man friendly towards the Jews. The last we’d suspect, especially after a period in Arab goals. If they’ve suborned him, he could do an immense amount of damage to our prospects.”

  “They wouldn’t think we’d suspect a brainwash?”

  “They might. You have a lot to learn yet, Shard, about international pressure-methods. They’ll have covered that — he’d give the right reactions as a matter of course.”

  “So what’s he supposed to do, according to your theories, Hedge?”

  “Not my theories alone. This comes from high up. As to what he might do, we can’t yet say. But I suggest he could form a nucleus of persons inimical to our oil interests and suborn them from their loyalties.”

  Shard grinned. “Sounds a trifle old-fashioned, does that, Hedge. A touch of fantasy, a phrase from the past — your phrase, Hedge?”

  Hedge shifted irritably and his face deepened from its plush-living pink to red. “I’ve told you before, I detest your wretched flippancy. It’s so … so unbecoming to a senior detective. It might have been all right in your Yard days, but not now you’re attached to us.”

  Shard grinned again: Hedge was, as ever, Hedge. A man of pompous outlook and one who for snob reasons always stressed the fact that Shard was merely ‘attached FO’ and thus was not really of the glorious fraternity in its fuller sense. Hedge proceeded in a lofty tone: “There are still such things as loyalties. Mackintosh, who was born into the Empire, is said to understand this. If times have changed for him, he can be dangerous.” He added with emphasis, “Because of his company’s trust in him.”

  “Loyalties that may have changed …”

  “Precisely … Mind you, I don’t say they have, but we must be on our guard.”

  “And me?”

  Hedge said, “Mackintosh has to be under surveillance from now on out.” He gave a grimace, surprised at and disparaging of his own Americanism. “That mean’s you, Shard. Distant but watertight. It starts in one hour precisely. There’s to be an interrogation at the flat. You’ll not be involved, but you’ll be watching on closed-circuit TV. You’d better get over there.”

  * * *

  ‘The flat’ was in Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge. Before leaving, Shard went down to the security section in the FO’s basement and had a word with his Detective Sergeant, Harry Kenwood; then shoved his way through the tourists into Birdcage Walk where by good fortune he managed to contact a taxi as it disgorged a crowd of Germans in Levis. The taxi fought its way into Knightsbridge, where Shard paid it off: you didn’t take taxis right to the flat, you walked a discreet distance. And you didn’t walk direct. Shard did some twisting and turning and back-tracking, the sort of carry-on beloved of Hedge; ten minutes later he was inside, sitting in luxury behind double-glazed windows, his skin cooled by air conditioning, and a whisky-and-soda standing on a walnut table beside his comfortable armchair. Opposite him was the twenty-one-inch screen of the closed-circuit eavesdropper; from his position of comfort, he watched mental pressure mounting. Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh was a big-built man with a strong face, now shining with sweat. There was a small moustache, neatly trimmed, and the head was bald. The face, and never mind Hedge’s reference to coal black, showed the fifty per cent contribution from Britain: medium brown in colour and with a less flat nose than a full-blooded West African would have been endowed with. It was intriguing to guess at who the father might have been, that unknown sailor from the old Edinburgh Castle who might or might not have been a Scot; and Shard found an irrelevant thought coming into his mind. His own father — and there was no connexion — had served in Freetown in the wartime days and Shard happened to know there had been another ship, another barrack-stanchion of the naval scene, a ship named Philoctetes; the naval personnel had known her as the Feel-her-titties … Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh had been lucky.

  Shard listened to question and answer and watched for reactions: he felt this procedure was far from fair but acknowledged that the whole world had become a bastard and you had to fight without compunction. There was a good deal at stake: Britain was going to depend on the oil revenues to get out of her economic mess. There were three interrogators, men with hard faces and unpleasant mouths sitting with wide spaces between them and a bright light in front of them, its beam directed full onto Mackintosh’s face so that Shard could see every movement, every wince, every second of indecision or hesitation, every flicker of the eyes, could see it all much more closely than could the interrogators themselves: he could almost smell the man’s sweat.

  “You saw the treatment … varied, I believe that was your word?”

  “Yes.” The Scots accent seemed incongruous.

  “In a little more detail, then. How did it … vary?”

  “They gave me very comfortable quarters for some of the time. And good food, drink even, whisky. Exercise was allowed —”

  “But not freedom?”

  “Not freedom, no.” There was a pause; Mackintosh licked his lips. “Not at first.”

  “When?”

  “Just a few days before I was released, that’s all. I didn’t know I was to be released, and I was pretty surprised. I had the feeling I was being watched, though. I doubt if I’d have been able to leave the country.”

  “You’d have wanted to?”

  “I would.”

  “Yes, I see. Now, to go back to your treatment. That was the good part. What about the bad?”

  There was a longish pause; sweat ran freely down the man’s face, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes. A sharp command came from the speaker behind the light: “Hands away, please. Look at me — look at the light. And answer the question.”

  Mackintosh obeyed. “I was beaten. Sticks, whips. I was put in a cell, a sort of dungeon, very old I’d say it was, and plenty of livestock. I was scared there might be scorpions, but I never saw one.”

  “Anything else? Shock treatment, for instance?”

  “That’s right, the electric shock business.”

  “Yes. Don’t be modest, Mr. Mackintosh, we want the details.”

  The tongue came out again: there was a reluctance in the eyes, a reluctance to put it into words. The interrogator pressed, sharply: “Sexual?”

  “Yes. The private parts. God … it was painful.”

  “After effects?”

  “I know what you mean, but I can’t say yet.”

  “You’re married, Mr Mackintosh, so you’ll soon be finding out. What did they wish to learn from you?”

  “What I was doing in Israel.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “Yes.” There was a defensive note in the voice. “It wasn’t that secret. They could have found out from others.”

  “But it was you they had. So you told them. Did th
e bad times come to an end?”

  “No.”

  “So there was more they wanted.”

  “Yes, there was. Detailed information about the British oil discoveries, production figures, projected plans, details of pipelines and procedures for getting the oil ashore. And I did not tell them.”

  “I see. You told them nothing, nothing at all?”

  “I told them what they could find out for themselves. The rest, no.” Mackintosh paused. “That is, I had the background knowledge to lessen the beatings … by making up things to satisfy them. You won’t blame me for that!”

  There was a quiet laugh. “Good gracious no, so long as you didn’t blow anything inadvertently. I’d like it all written down if you don’t mind. Just what you told them, in full detail.” A large pin-striped backside filled Shard’s screen while writing materials were handed over, then he watched Mackintosh’s face as the story was committed to paper.

  *

  A Major Harcourt had been the boss interrogator: he asked Shard afterwards, “What’s your view?”

  “His reactions seemed genuine. Major.”

  “Check. I thought so too. And he looks honest — that may sound naive, but I’ve always found it a good general guide. Not necessarily in this case, though.”

  “You mean —”

  “Assuming he’s been indoctrinated, converted to the cause, he’ll see himself as being honest to his new masters while he’s lying to us — d’you follow? So his face, his reactions, won’t show dishonesty.” Harcourt laughed. “That doesn’t sound very scientific, I know. It’s superficial. But I’m not too happy about his written report, Shard.”

  “Why not?”

  Harcourt waved a hand. “Libya’s an oil country, isn’t it, a producer. They have the know-how … and what Mackintosh told them, or says he told them, was child’s stuff to an oil man. It would never have satisfied them.”

  “But he’d have been aware of that, too.”

  “Yes, I know. But that’s what he says he told them —”

  “Which he must have known wouldn’t satisfy us!”