Deaken's War
Page 27
“That’s wonderful” she said. She hoped the conceit wouldn’t last. It was going to be difficult enough to learn how to love him again without additional barriers.
“It’s nice to be properly recognized,” he said.
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
He seemed to miss the point. “I got worried that it took Deaken so long to go to South Africa,” Suslev admitted. “I think that was the greatest uncertainty, the delay involving his father and the South African intelligence service. I didn’t expect to have to manoeuvre him there, with all that bullshit about Dakar and boarding the ship.”
“What about the second boat?” She yearned to deflate his pride.
“That was a surprise,” he conceded. “I knew there’d be something and guessed it would be mercenaries. In the event, two ships gave us a better propaganda result, because of the seizure of the Bellicose.”
“How could you be sure of being identified?” she said.
He shook his head. “I knew I’d be on the South African security files: I spent most of my time in Angola making myself obvious—I even saw them photographing me. It was logical that when Deaken, with his family connections, got to Pretoria with his story they’d check out the Underbergs in security, try descriptions and end up with me. That was the lure, the bait I knew they’d have to follow, because of their neurosis about Russian involvement in Angola and Namibia.”
“You’d have been in trouble if they’d extended the search beyond their own security service.”
“But they didn’t!” he said triumphantly. “South Africa has even paraded the real Rupert Underberg at press conferences and insisted he’s nothing more than a senior clerk in their Foreign Office …” He sniggered. “And got the rest right! They actually identify his visit to the Seychelles as the time when we got all the passport details to make our own copy. And been laughed at and condemned for trying to avoid the truth. The French have retrieved my hotel registration in Monaco, with the passport number … Underberg’s passport number … and directly accused Pretoria of lying. I used it for all the car- and lorry-rental registration forms too. And for hiring the last villa to hide the boy in. South Africa’s illegal seizure of the Bellicose, as well as their involvement in the carnage at Toulon, makes the evidence against them overwhelming. It’s years since they’ve been hurt so badly internationally.”
“Did Israel work out as well?”
“Absolutely,” he said, enjoying the boasting. “Up to now there’s been an incredibly close business liaison between Israel and South Africa. Israel’s largest export is the polished diamonds it gets rough cut from South Africa and that’s only a small part of the business and commercial ties. Now it’s damaged, probably forever. It’ll certainly be years before either Jerusalem or Pretoria trust each other. I used the same Underberg passport going in and out of Israel, so again there’s official registration on airline immigration forms and hotel documents. As far as Israel is concerned, it’s incontrovertible proof of a South African government employee stirring up a dissident, anti-government group and using them in an operation to smuggle weapons through to an area where they’re involved in conflict. And by exposing Azziz, a Saudi Arabian with direct links to the court as the supplier of those weapons, and having him made look foolish by the Israeli involvement, whether by dissidents or not, puts back for years any chance of the Saudi peace plan for the Middle East and any recognition of Israel. The Saudis have lost face and Israel has been shown to be a country treating its settlers so roughly they’ll try armed resistance rather than look for the Promised Land.”
Suslev paused, splaying his fingers. “We’ve made fools of South Africa internationally, and split them from one of their closest allies, Israel. We’ve made Israel and Saudi Arabia turn away from each other and run back into their comers. And we’ve strengthened our position in Angola by convincing SWAPO and every other nationalist group on the entire African continent that they shouldn’t trust any other arms supplier but Moscow.”
The woman looked sadly away. “What about Deaken?” she said.
“He’s a hero. He killed the terrorist who kidnapped and murdered his wife. That’s the official version anyway— that she was shot during the struggle.”
She shrugged. “I thought he was a nice man; gentle, frightened and nice.” She paused, wanting to make the point. Then she said, “He loved his wife very much … didn’t want her used …”
“Sure you’re all right?” he said, reverting to his earlier question.
“Shouldn’t I be?” she said. “People pay thousands for that sort of vacation.”
“None of it would have worked without you,” insisted Suslev.
“Didn’t it upset you?” she demanded.
He felt foolish at having been carried away by his own euphoria. He came forward, pulling her into his chest, excited by the feel of her closeness. “You know it did,” he said softly. “We talked about it before it ever started and agreed it wouldn’t matter … that it wouldn’t count.”
She pushed away from him, looking up into his face, wanting to feel some emotion at his touch and failing completely. They had lost too, she decided.
To break the moment between them, he took the false duplicate passport of Rupert Underberg from his pocket and tossed it onto the dresser, alongside the citation certificate.
“It’s gone on for so long,” he said, “that I think I’m going to miss not being Rupert Underberg.”
“I’m not,” said the woman. “I hated being Carole, being a whore. I just want to be myself again.” She didn’t think it was ever going to be possible.
A Biography of Brian Freemantle
Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain’s most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.
Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the Daily Mail, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city’s orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle of newspapers.
Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with Charlie M. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carré, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series, The Blind Run, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is Red Star Rising (2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.
In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle’s other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia’s organized crime bureau.
Freemantle lives and works in London, England.
A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.
Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.
Freemantle’s parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.
Brian Freemantle and his wife, Maureen, on their wedding day. They were married on December 8, 1956, in
Southampton, where both were born and spent their childhoods. Although they attended the same schools, they did not meet until after they had both left Southampton.
Brian Freemantle (right) with photographer Bob Lowry in 1959. Freemantle and Lowry opened a branch office of the Bristol Evening World together in Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, England.
A bearded Freemantle with his wife, Maureen, circa 1971. He grew the beard for an undercover newspaper assignment in what was then known as Czechoslovakia.
Freemantle (left) with Lady and Sir David English, the editors of the Daily Mail, on Freemantle’s fiftieth birthday. Freemantle was foreign editor of the Daily Mail, and with the backing of Sir David and the newspaper, he organized the airlift rescue of nearly one hundred Vietnamese orphans from Saigon in 1975.
Freemantle working on a novel before beginning his daily newspaper assignments. His wife, Maureen, looks over his shoulder.
Brian Freemantle says good-bye to Fleet Street and the Daily Mail to take up a fulltime career as a writer in 1975. The editor’s office was turned into a replica of a railway carriage to represent the fact that Freemantle had written eight books while commuting—when he wasn’t abroad as a foreign correspondent.
Many of the staff secretaries are dressed as Vietnamese hostesses to commemorate the many tours Freemantle carried out in Vietnam.
The Freemantle family on the grounds of the Winchester Cathedral in 1988. Back row: wife Maureen; eldest daughter, Victoria; and mother-in-law, Alice Tipney, a widow who lived with the Freemantle family for a total of forty-eight years until her death. Second row: middle daughter, Emma; granddaughter, Harriet; Freemantle; and third daughter, Charlotte.
Freemantle in 1999, in the Outer Close outside Winchester Cathedral. For thirty years, he lived with his family in the basement library of a fourteenth-century house with a tunnel connecting it to the cathedral. Priests used this tunnel to escape persecution during the English Reformation.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
copyright © 1982 by Innslodge Publications Ltd
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Prologue
Deaken’s War
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Epilogue
A Biography of Brian Freemantle
Copyright Page