by Oliver Tidy
*
After a textbook landing, the leviathan of the skies taxied a few hundred yards before coming to a stop in a place not unlike the one they had left a few hours before. A huge hangar dominated the background, military vehicles were parked on the tarmac and uniformed personnel were milling around under the floodlights that illuminated the gloom of the early evening. Only the greenery that surrounded the area and the lack of rolled up shirt-sleeves suggested a cooler, wetter climate.
The killing of the engines was a blessed relief. Sitting alone with his thoughts in the sudden quiet, the full weight of the position that he’d put himself in pressed in on him. He was back in England. Back where he could be arrested and imprisoned by either the police or the Army. He had no escape route from it and he’d delivered himself to them, right into their hands. He battled to suppress the anxiety that was rising up in him.
Out of the window, he noticed another vehicle, a large nondescript family saloon, out of place amongst the military hardware. Beside it stood two men in suits, grim expressions on their faces, staring across in his direction. According to Havers, he was to expect a welcoming committee, although to the soldier there was little welcoming about their expressions or body language. They could easily be police, thought Sansom. Well, whoever they were, he was sure they were there for him. The time had come to walk his talk – face up to whatever they had planned for him.
The ramp at the tail of the plane began to lower in a whine of electronics and machinery. A wedge of a late English summer’s evening filtered in and widened to engulf him. Sansom drank in its familiar, dank fragrance. The Wing Commander appeared at his side. Sansom stood to take the offered hand.
‘Welcome to RAF Lyneham. The end of the line. Good luck to you, whoever you are.’
‘Thanks for the ride,’ said Sansom.
‘Thanks for the tenner,’ laughed the other. ‘I take it you can find your way out. Your reception committee is waiting for you over there, I understand.’ He pointed in the direction of the two men. ‘Miserable looking buggers, if you ask me.’ He clapped Sansom on the shoulder and turned back to his cockpit. Sansom picked up his bag and eased himself past the crates fastened in the cargo hold, down the ramp and on to British soil. The moment he was out, the two men began walking towards him.
*
DI Tallis sat frowning down at the telephone that he’d just replaced in its cradle on his work desk. Four times in the last two hours he had been unable to connect with Martins, the MI6 officer who had been his contact regarding Sansom. In the past few weeks he had built up a rapport with the man with whom his original old acquaintance in the service had put him in touch. Tallis had particularly asked to be kept informed on this day – the day of Sansom’s return – regarding the arrangements for, and arrival of, the soldier. When he had spoken to Martins just before lunch, he had been assured that Sansom had arrived at the military base in Turkey and was scheduled to depart on a plane at approximately four o’clock local time, two hours ahead of GMT. Allowing for a four-hour flight, Tallis calculated that Sansom should have been touching down anytime if he had not already. The four times that he had rung Martins’ number there had been no answer. He drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought and, naturally, worried.
Tallis had been unable to make himself part of Sansom’s welcoming committee owing to a court attendance. Infuriatingly, the defendant had agreed a plea bargain at the eleventh hour and he had not been needed. He now sat with his anxiety from the not knowing gnawing away at his insides. He reached into his top drawer and took out one of his stomach tablets, washing it down with the cold remains of an earlier coffee.
After some ferreting around in the system, he found the central number for MI6/police liaison. Asking to speak to Martins, he was put through to a woman who was clearly not him. Explaining that she was unable to help him speak to Martins, she took his contact details with the assurance that she would pass them on at the earliest opportunity. After decades in the police, Tallis knew all about that. Once more, he tried Martins’ mobile. Once more it rang and rang until the answer phone message began.
Perturbed but with nothing else to do, he stood, retrieved his coat from the hook behind the door and, flicking off the lights, headed home. He comforted himself that he would have news soon enough and looked forward to the following few days’ leave that he had arranged. It had been agreed that he would drive up to London, not just as Sansom’s friend and contact, but also as a witness to the testimony he would give about some dirty business involving the former Minister for Defence Procurement. Sansom had come back from Turkey to tell the authorities about Bishop’s involvement in under-the-counter arms dealing with a South African named Botha, who was now dead. For his own deeply personal reasons, Tallis was just as keen as Sansom to see Bishop face the music.
*
The larger of the two men was clearly in charge. Reaching Sansom, his face assumed a friendly, if business-like, expression. ‘Acer Sansom?’
‘I am,’ said Sansom.
No one offered to shake hands.
‘Good. My name’s Osman. This is Sharp,’ he said, indicating his colleague. Sharp barely inclined his stern features in Sansom’s direction. ‘We’re your shuttle service. We’re just here to get you from A to B, so if you’ll follow us,’ he turned to lead them back to the vehicle.
To Osman’s obvious surprise, Sansom said, ‘Do you mind if I see some ID?’
Osman smiled back at him. ‘You should know that our service doesn’t carry any official ID.’
‘Something then to show that you are who you say you are.’ Osman exchanged a quick look with Sharp and after a brief hesitation reached into his inside pocket to remove his wallet. In the moment that his jacket widened Sansom glimpsed the fabric of a shoulder holster. Flicking open his wallet, he showed Sansom his driving licence. ‘Best I can do I’m afraid. Bit nervous, are we?’ He didn’t appear pleased at having to comply with Sansom’s request.
‘I have good reason to be,’ said Sansom. His mind registered the identity of the man as it formed several questions about the pair. Most important of these was why were they armed? That didn’t seem normal or necessary to him in the circumstances.
At the car, Sansom went to open the boot to stow his bag. Sharp put a restraining hand on the vehicle.
‘Put it on the seat beside you in the back,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a few things in there.’
Sansom did as he was told, sliding in behind the two men.
Sharp steered them towards the exit, while Osman swivelled in his seat to face Sansom. ‘Right, our instructions are to drive you straight up to London. You’ve a meeting at Legoland tonight, so I hope you’ve had some rest on the flight.’
‘Legoland?’
‘Sorry,’ said Osman, ‘SIS headquarters. We haven’t eaten since lunch and probably you’ll want something soon enough, so we’re going to stop at a motorway services, pick something up. Should be there within the hour. Any questions, feel free to ask but I can tell you now, we’re just your taxi service. Apart from your name, neither of us has any idea who you are. And to be honest, we don’t really care.’
Sansom took Osman’s little speech as his cue to shut up, sit back and enjoy the ride.
*
Neither of the men in front had had anything to say to each other or him en route to the food stop. The atmosphere in the vehicle became oppressive and Sansom tried to distance himself from it with thoughts of Eda and the life he’d just left behind. He succeeded only in feeling miserable. He stared out of the window at the overcast grey day of the type he remembered well as being characteristic of English summers. It didn’t help. He was only reminded of his previous life, a life that had involved a family, a home and a career, none of which he had now.
The knowledge that probably both of his escorts were armed continued to niggle at him and by the time they had covered the fifty or so miles to the motorway services Sansom was grateful to be able to escape the claustropho
bic confinement.
As the three of them got out of the car, Osman said, ‘We’re going to have a quick smoke. We’ll see you inside in a minute. Burger and chips all right with you?’ He reached into his pocket and took out a ten pound note. ‘I’m guessing you haven’t got any English cash on you.’
Hungry, Sansom took the money. ‘Thanks.’
‘Get a receipt, will you?’ said Osman, ‘and I’ll be needing the change. The service isn’t what it was.’
What is? thought Sansom, as the two men turned their backs on him for the smokers’ area. He headed off in the direction of the main building. Fast food wouldn’t have been top of his list, but he figured that he’d better stay where they could find him – and he was hungry. And then the idea that they were prepared to let him out of their sight at all entered his mind to puzzle him. He thought that was sloppy. Not what he would expect of an SIS escort. Osman was right: the service definitely wasn’t what it used to be.
Sansom emerged from the toilets freshened up with a quick face wash a couple of minutes later. He guessed that the two men would have finished their smokes by then and would be in the fast food outlet wondering where he was. He was wrong. They were nowhere to be seen. He took his place in the queue, selected a set menu when his turn came and took his order to a table well away from other diners. Halfway through his meal the two men still hadn’t arrived. He went out into the main walkway but could see no sign of them. Going back to his table, he finished his food, assuming that they must have slipped past him into the toilets while he wasn’t looking.
He deposited his tray and rubbish at the appropriate station and went out in search of them. Perhaps they had decided to eat somewhere else after all. They didn’t strike him as the sort to have come and got him.
A quick scan of the inside area showed no trace of the two men. Coming to a glass wall that overlooked the parking area, his recently consumed meal threatened to rise up out of him. Two police cars had pulled up alongside the car he had arrived in. Six police officers were in varying attitudes of action around it. Three of them were inspecting the contents of the boot. As he watched, rooted to the spot, he thought his eyes must be deceiving him as another car pulled up, another plain family saloon. Out of it stepped Osman and Sharp. They flashed identification at the police that they hadn’t shown to Sansom, looked briefly into the vehicle’s open boot and immediately began organising things.
Under the compelling influence of his natural suspicion and well-developed sense of self-preservation, Sansom retreated back into the shadows. He doubted that it would be long before they came in looking for him. The memory of Osman’s firearm leapt back into his mind. Things began to fall into place. He didn’t know what was in the boot of the car, but he was willing to bet that it was something that would validate and warrant the presence of armed officers, who in this case could well be operating a shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy.
He began walking as quickly as he could towards the rear of the building, every nerve in his body tensed for the shout of, ‘Stop! Armed police!’ and for recognition and pursuit.
Understanding that he was exposed in the main walkway, he moved into a large, almost empty restaurant. Whoever would be organising the search for him would move to secure all exits quickly and so if he were to stand a chance of escape he had to leave the building quickly.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw a face that he recognised standing in the walkway looking directly at him – a suited man who had been in the toilets, the same man who had sat a few tables away from him in the fast food outlet. Sansom had idly dismissed him as another travelling sales representative, like so many others who drifted in and out of the motorway pit stops. But the man had recognition and purpose on his face and as Sansom watched him he spoke into his sleeve and advanced. There were perhaps twenty yards between them.
Sansom hurried around a corner to be confronted with the kitchen door. He pushed through it, knowing that his pursuer would not be far behind.
The man burst through seconds later, a pistol drawn. The faces of the few people working in the kitchen were turned towards him; turned towards where Sansom had just entered and now stood with a fire extinguisher raised above his head. Too late, the man realised that his quarry was behind him. Sansom brought down the fire extinguisher on the man’s head, sending him sprawling, unconscious. The firearm slid across the tiles underneath an industrial fryer.
As the staff looked on, frozen in their various poses by what they were witnessing, Sansom bent down to the prostrate man and spoke calmly into the communications in his sleeve. ‘Suspect has exited building dressed in kitchen overalls and is heading towards the trees.’ He stood and, as convincingly as he was able, shouted at the staff still mesmerised there: ‘Everybody out. He’s wearing a bomb!’
None of them needed a second telling. As one, they surged for the exit, either convinced by the bomb story or just glad of an excuse to get away from a crazed man. They burst out on to the service area beyond. As the door swung shut behind them, Sansom glimpsed a fluorescent-jacketed police officer pursuing one of them across a grassed area.
Snatching a long overcoat off the rack, he slipped it on, pulled up the collar and went back into the restaurant, covering the floor space at a fast walk. He crossed the main walkway into another store at the opposite side of the complex and headed towards the back of it where he knew there would be an exit. Thank Health and Safety for fire escapes. With a confidence that makes ordinary people not want to challenge, he pushed through into the storage area and followed a trail of light to the little window in the fire escape door.
He could see no one. Pushing it open confirmed his hopes that they must have all hurried around to the other side of the building. Taking his chance, he sprinted the short distance into the car park, cover and temporary safety.
From behind the parked cars he saw that another police vehicle had arrived. If they hadn’t already, they would soon start sealing off the car park exits. He threaded his way through the dozens of stationary vehicles to the adjacent petrol station.
Several large lorries were queuing for refuelling. One was slowly rolling to the exit. He ran up to it and banged on the driver’s door. The driver stamped on the brake and wound down his window. An angry bearded face stared down at Sansom. ‘What’s your fucking game?’
‘Sorry, please, help me,’ pleaded Sansom. ‘My car’s just broken down. My wife’s in labour at the hospital. It’s my first kid. I just need a ride to the next motorway exit. Please.’ The driver hesitated a moment then shook his head and wound up the window. He began edging away. Sansom cursed and looked after him. He must have made a pitiable sight in the man’s mirrors because the driver came to a stop again and, dropping the window, called back to him to hurry up and get in.
Two minutes later Sansom was back on the M4, showering the driver with his gratitude and fictions of the imminent arrival of his first son. In the brief interludes in the constant conversation that he was engaged in and the lies that he was fabricating, he thought only of prioritising his need to get as far away from there as he could as quickly as possible. His enquiry into and understanding of what had gone wrong – his betrayal – would have to wait.
***
4
To Sansom’s genuine and garrulous thanks, the driver dropped him on the hard shoulder at the next motorway exit, wishing him luck with making the birth of his son.
The signs approaching the spot, illuminated by the vehicle’s headlamps in the falling dusk, indicated that it was Junction Fourteen. It provided options north on the A338 to Oxford, or south on the same highway to the towns of the south coast and the county of Hampshire where his friend, DI Tallis, lived. Tallis was at that moment one of only two people in the country that he felt he could trust.
The soldier was grateful for the darkness that had now almost fully descended. The absence of light made him feel less conspicuous than he might otherwise have been in an area where pedestrians were not encour
aged or catered for. He scrambled up the grass bank, over the barrier at the top and headed quickly towards the glow of a petrol station a few hundred yards away.
He needed a payphone and as far as he was aware those things were still available in certain places. He hoped the petrol station was one of them. He felt for the change from his meal and became aware of a small weight in the coat pocket. He fished out a mobile telephone. Patting himself down, he also found the wallet of the man whose coat he had ‘borrowed’.
Moving out of sight round the back of the petrol station, he took out the phone and scrolled through the contacts list, hoping for a number for something like the old Directory Enquiries. His luck was better than that. The handset was enabled with an Internet browser. He searched for a general number for Hampshire County Constabulary, noted it and rang. He asked for a contact number for Detective Inspector Tallis and was told that he was off duty and that that his number could not be given out. He then spent a difficult couple of minutes convincing the switchboard operator that this was a life or death matter and for DI Tallis personally. Eventually, the operator agreed to pass on the number that Sansom was calling from to an on-duty officer, who in turn would attempt to locate DI Tallis at home.
‘Is there a message for the Detective Inspector that might encourage him to return your call,’ said the patient but clearly unhappy operator.
‘Yes, there is. Tell him that Daniel Fallon is in serious trouble and needs help urgently.’ Ending the call, Sansom hoped that Tallis would remember the fictitious name he had used in Bodrum when they had last been together.
He cowered in the shadows of the petrol station, sheltering from a light rain that had begun to fall. Clutching the mobile phone, he speculated on what he could do if he got no call back from Tallis. He was forced to reflect dismally on his return to his homeland. Had he just allowed his paranoia to overtake his reason back at the services? He went over the chain of events as he remembered them, looking for an alternative plausible explanation for the way things had unfolded. But the only explanation he could come up with was the one that had been his gut reaction as the situation had unravelled – he’d been set up. There was no passing off as the fictions of his imagination the fact that a man had burst into the kitchens of the eatery in pursuit of him with a gun drawn. Put in that position again, he would react in the same way: move into survival mode, act first, ask questions later. He’d learned that the hard way and it had served him well as a maxim more than once in his life.