by Adam Hall
Ground close watch it.
The situation, Quiller, is simply this. Even if you have only a one per cent chance of surviving the end-phase, London would appreciate your making the attempt.
One always has to paraphrase just a little, with Loman.
Then I’d called to Chirac to start up and I was here because I was an old ferret sharp of tooth and I knew my warrens and I’d run them before and I’d run them again because the chance I believe in is the one-per-center and that is the way of things, as I see them. Pure logic, of course: the high risks of my trade drew me to it and that is why I ply it, and the greater the risk the more I am drawn and when the risk is expressed as a one per cent chance of survival then I’m hooked and damned and hell-bound and don’t get in my way.
Their mall heads, I suppose, were raised there among the shadowed crevices of rock as I drifted down, a great circular petal reflected in their gold-rimmed eyes.
Side of a dune and I was badly placed and pitched flat and the sand burst and I blacked out.
The supply ‘chute was draped across a spur of rock like a sheet hung out to dry. The shroud lines were badly twisted and I had to cut some of them before I could free the two containers, and with each jerk of the knife everything went red again and I had to rest, leaning on the hot surface of the rocks. When I could manage it I dragged the canopy down and folded it and stuffed it into a fissure: all they needed was a landmark but we were all right at the moment because there were some vultures coasting not far away and they’d have sheered off if there were any aircraft about.
When I’d looked at the containers I went across to the niche in the rocks where I’d left my camp. Chirac had found the transceiver when he’d come for me last evening, and stowed it here out of the sun’s direct heat.
Tango.
Loman wasn’t going to like it.
He would have been trying to call me up, I knew that, but I hadn’t set to receive before I’d dragged the canopy out of sight. Chirac would have picked him up in the gassi an hour ago and dropped him somewhere near base and since then he’d been trying to call me and by this time he’d be certain we’d failed and he was right and he wasn’t going to like it when I told him.
Tango receiving.
I could hear them scuttling, perhaps in fright at his voice, sharp and metallic and amplified. I said I was in the target area.
What was the delay?
Bad landing
Are you injured?
No.
Then I saw the vultures drifting away and knew that there wasn’t any doubt left: we’d hit a dead end. We’d thought this mission had an all-or-nothing end-phase, either I’d blow Tango Victor off the face of the earth or the opposition would get her and kill me before I could do it. The idea of a compromise hadn’t occurred to us: that I’d get here for nothing, and too late.
I would appreciate your situation report.
Talked like a bloody schoolteacher. I’d soon stop that.
We’ve had it, Loman. The timer’s been smashed.
Five seconds.
Please repeat.
I suppose he had a point. When you’re sending the last signal of a mission you might as well make it clear what you’re saying, if only for the record.
The supply ‘chute came down on the rock outcrop and the impact has smashed the timing mechanism.
A longer pause. I waited, listening to the sky.
My lips tasted salty, had blood on them. It had been dripping on to the shale and I’d only just noticed it and I wiped my hand across, well, what would you expect, I’d hit the side of the dune with my face and opened the stitches.
Loman asked
What is that noise?
Helicopters.
Silence from the black speaker-grille.
In his mind he was trying to reorganize the end-phase, signalling London for directives, recreating the ruins I’d just told him about. And he couldn’t do it.
How long have they been there?
About a minute and a half.
How far away?
Five kilometres, maybe six.
I watched them. There were three of them.
What is your situation appraisal?
I wiped my hand across my mouth again.
They got us on the scanners but not too accurately. They’re starting a square search due east of me, three of them.
Are they moving towards your position?
No. Directly away, at right-angles.
I didn’t see it could matter. I didn’t see it could matter to him or the mission or London because if they found me I was a dead duck and if they didn’t find me there wasn’t anything I could do here. I wished he’d stop asking questions, too tired for it, not on form.
Are they military aircraft or civilian?
Oh for Christ’s sake Loman we’ve had it, I’ve told you the timer’s been smashed, didn’t you hear me?
Are they military, or civilian?
I shut my eyes, let them water, sand had got into them when I’d hit the dune.
Ten seconds.
I can’t see from this distance. They’re close to the sun.
I am going off the air for thirty minutes but please keep open to receive.
Silence.
Thirty minutes: he’d signal London now for a directive, ask them what to do, but there was nothing to do. He’d tell Diane to use the phone and contact Chirac and request him to stand by with the helicopter but it’d only be a gesture because Chirac wouldn’t be able to pick me up without exposing the target area and if he came in after they’d found me there wouldn’t be anything to pick up anyway, nothing alive.
I opened my eyes and squinted towards the horizon. The three choppers were moving back along their initial course, farther south by one prescribed strip of their sweep. They could see these rocks but they couldn’t see me because I was in shadow and sighting through a gap in the shale. I’d buried my ‘chute under the sand before I’d come here, and last evening Chirac had taken down the fabric shelter I’d set up near the plane, so there was nothing for them to see.
The birds had come down five hundred yards away and I watched them. They’d obviously been there when I’d landed and the ‘chute had startled them and now they were back, feeding on the pilot and navigator. The helicopter crews couldn’t have noticed them or they’d come to investigate because they’d know that the presence of vultures marked the presence of recent life.
Urge to sleep now overwhelming. I took a final look at the timer to make sure it hadn’t been the subject of hallucination but it hadn’t changed: two of the brass lugs were snapped off near the flange and half the main body of the mechanism had been so badly impacted that I could see one of the intermediary gear-trains lying askew and thrown out of mesh. Strictly no go.
I crawled deeper between the rocks because of the dark nightmare shapes over there: they reminded me of terror and I didn’t want them to see me, to come for me in my sleep.
My eyes closed and the great weight of my head came to rest against the rockface, a last thought, we got close, tell London we got close.
Said I could hear him.
Caught me in a low sleep-curve, groggy.
Zenith 06.31.
I have been in signals with London.
They were still there, I could just catch their distant purring, throp-throp-throp.
Can you hear me?
Hear you.
What is the position of the helicopters now?
Damn his eyes, won’t ever leave you alone.
I reached for the water bottle and got the cap off and drank, tasting the blood on my mouth. The sun’s heat was beginning to strike into the niche and I couldn’t get my legs in the shade. Took my time, thirsty, and he said could I hear him and I didn’t answer till I’d finished my drink because that was more important. Then I told him They’re shifting to a second square.
How clearly can you see them?
About distance shot.
Could they see you
, if you went into the open?
No.
Of course I should have known.
Will you please verify that the timing mechanism is out of action, irreparably?
Verified.
Is there any damage to the main components?
No.
Please verify.
I should have known by his insistence on these things.
There’s no external damage. The timer took the shock.
What is your physical condition?
I need sleep.
He considered this.
Are you capable of carrying the device as far as the freighter?
Should have known, shouldn’t I, what he was going to do to me.
Perfectly capable.
Silence for half a minute. I thought he was calculating something. Maybe he was.
Quiller.
Hear you.
London would like you to proceed with the end-phase.
How the hell can I do that if the timer won’t I didn’t finish.
Got it now.
The sun was burning on my legs and I drew them up, forcing myself higher against the rockface, the effort increasing the circulation and bringing me fully awake. I would have to think about this. He was saying:
Control has asked me to point out that your action would be seen as generous, and therefore much appreciated.
Death sentence.
Civil of them.
He didn’t say anything; I suppose he was giving me time to think. They were all being very considerate.
Give me ten minutes, Loman, will you?
Of course. There’s no immediate hurry.
I clipped the mike back and stared through the cleft in the rocks. They were still at it, their ragged plumage fluttering as they jerked about, hooking at the meat. That, at least, I would be spared.
Of course the potential expendability of an executive is part of the contract and we know what we’re signing. The Bureau is the sacred bull and its first credo is that the mission is more important than the man, otherwise you wouldn’t be issued with a capsule if you wanted one, on your way through clearance. And after all, providing you accept the fact at any given time during an operation that you’ve become expendable the actual means of dispatch don’t matter: all we ask is that it shall be quick and the only thing quicker than a cyanide pill is putting your thumb on a nuclear detonator.
I couldn’t assess my chances when they shifted their search over this area and found me: the thing was that I’d want to initiate some kind of hostile action and they’d finish me anyway. That situation was entirely academic in any case because if London wanted me to complete the mission I’d have time to do it before I was seen.
And I didn’t have any choice. I had contracted to hazard my life if the needs of a mission demanded and that was that. I was only taking time out to think about it because if there was an alternative I wanted to use it, but I knew there wasn’t one: Loman would throw me to the dogs if it suited his purposes and his present purposes were to go back to London with his instructions carried out and Tango Victor obliterated. Technically there wasn’t an alternative because we didn’t have time to send for a new delay-mechanism and without one the only way to detonate was to press the button myself.
Sense of unreality creeping on me because the whole thing was so calculated: I’d come close to dying in Tunis among the flying glass and in Kaifra when the marksman had me in his sights but there’d been no time to think about it, and now there was.
Bloody little organism up on its back legs and whining, don’t want to die, shuddup.
My ten minutes wasn’t up but I’d had all the time I needed and it was no good sitting here with this strange hollow feeling, the almost physical sensation of the life blood beginning to drain away. Possibly normal: a question of mind over matter and when the mind knows that death is imminent the body starts dying automatically, it happens in Africa, put a curse on a man and he’ll die without a mark on him.
Irrelevant.
Mission running, end-phase initiated, instructions perfectly, clear, so go on, pick up that mike.
Loman.
Receiving you.
Just tell me again, will you, what exactly I’m going to achieve?
No change of tone when he spoke. He’d known I’d have to do it. He’d known, earlier this morning when he’d walked across the sand and stood with his back to me, that I wouldn’t refuse. And so had I.
They’re bastards in London, mean with the money and slow on promotion and that sort of thing, but certain gestures are made in the name of decency: despite the contracts we sign they like us to feel that we’re not irrevocably committed, that when the crunch comes we’ll still have a part in the decision-making. But it’s only a gesture, the same as being asked if you’d like a blindfold before the bolts click back.
It is less a question of what you’ll achieve than of what you will vouchsafe your country to avoid. If the objective is not destroyed, the influence of the United Kingdom at the international conference tables will be greatly enfeebled, and her work for peace tragically undermined.
I waited but that was all he said. The second half of the equation was tacit: compared with these disastrous eventualities, what value had the life of one man?
All right, Loman.
Pause.
You are prepared to complete your mission?
Did you think I’d back out?
No.
Never make a mistake, do you?
Wished I hadn’t said it but an hour from now he’d be alive and I wouldn’t and I hated him for that, for that alone and for nothing else.
The most important mistake I could have made, Quiller, would have been to choose an executive in the field with a sense of responsibility less admirable than your own. Please accept my compliments.
A certain style: the man had a certain style, give him that.
Good of you.
She’d be there, I supposed, listening and not liking it, her own fault, she shouldn’t have looked for work in this trade, her downy arms and her sooty face and her quick little way of nodding, all I knew, really.
Loman, is that girl there?
Yes. Do you want to No. Just do something for me. Get her out of it when this mission’s over, get her out of this bloody trade, it’s not for her. Do that for me.
Then it occurred to me that this was the final signal, so I ended it the way the little bastard would want me to, right out of the copybook.
Tango out.
Chapter 20
DETONATION
They flew up screaming as I neared them, one of them with meat hanging from its beak. I remembered them from the nightmare, and had to stand still for a while, the sweat running on me, until something inside the spirit of a dying man was roused to his last needs, and I managed to go on towards the freighter, the weight of the two containers slowing my feet through the sand.
The birds didn’t go far away: I’d interrupted their feeding and by the time I reached the doorway they’d settled again. I thought it odd how the chemical processes of life were still going on: a minute ago I’d drunk the last of the water, and these birds were busy absorbing nourishment, but very soon we would no longer exist. The scene was surrealistic: a man and some birds perpetuating the motions of life in a desert landscape, without purpose.
The influence of the United Kingdom at the international conference tables, so forth. Purpose, yes.
I took great care going into the freighter because some of the cylinders had been lying at an angle and could fall if I caused vibration. This is characteristic of the end-phase of a mission: you take pains to see that at the eleventh hour you don’t wreck everything you’ve been working for.
I didn’t think I could go into the actual freight section and set up the device without the risk of inhaling gas: the movement of my feet could stir up the bubble pooling there. The flightdeck wasn’t contaminated because it was at a higher level, so I carried the containers inside and sl
id the door closed after me, switching on the torch.
Stifling heat, tendency to claustrophobia, not because the cabin was small but because I knew I would never leave it in the form of a living creature. Rapid increase of sweating, pulse accelerated, mouth dry: the organism mortally afraid and the forebrain alone driving it on, forcing its hands, arranging the movement of its fingers, performing the necessary motion’s that would assemble the black-painted components as required.
Annular clamp, the brass threads smelling of silicone lubricant and an additive, the toggle action precise and almost silent as I brought the levers home and set the pins.
By-pass conduit, the channels lined up by a sprung ball-and-socket: I listened for the click and the lingering musical tone of the spring.
Main body-locking, the three-start thread fairly coarse, but even so there was provision for alignment by sighting, to avoid the risk of crossing them. Push-fit pin location, precise to less than a thousandth: the entire mechanism was built to maximum-security specifications, giving me confidence in it.
It had to perform with absolute satisfaction and somewhere in the last confused interplay of thoughts I felt adamant about this: since I was prepared to detonate it I didn’t want it to fail me because of slipshod work at some stage during its manufacture.
Oven heat.
Aware of my breathing, rather loud in the confines and faster than normal. Sweat in the eyes, stinging. Some area of the brain noting the immediate environment, instinct plus training: appraisal of physical factors in hazardous situation. Instruments and controls, parachutes, pair of tennis shoes in the open locker, carved teakwood statuette, copy of Playboy, so forth. Nothing significant.
As I worked I could hear them cackling outside. The sand was still piled against the Perspex windows and I couldn’t see them but they were much in my mind, adding to the incipient terror that was trying to overwhelm conscious thought.
Cackle cackle.
The awful thing was that I couldn’t hear them without seeing them in my imagination, tugging and pulling as they fed. If they’d been doing anything else, if they’d simply been flying around like ordinary birds, they would have kept me company in these last minutes. As it was, the world I was leaving had the aspect of nightmare.