CONDITION BLACK MASTER

by Unknown

  They had been in the wood for two hours.

  " I ' m going to shift a few hundred yards along to get a clear view of the side of the house. Do you see the corner of the wood?

  I'll be there. Sing out if you get lonely. Otherwise I'll be back before daybreak."

  "Yeah, okay . . ."Erlich hoped his regret wasn't plain to hear.

  He felt the shake of the bivouac as Rutherford crawled away, and heard the sounds of his body scraping away through the leaves. He heard the wind sigh and whistle after the sound of Rutherford's movement was gone. He heard the ram splatter onto the bivouac. At the house, through his monoglass, he saw nothing.

  Rutherford took pleasure in his slow progress along the wood's edge. Knees. Elbow, Knees. Elbows. And all the while .weeping the twigs from his path, stopping every two or three minutes to study the house and sweep his binoculars over the gardens. Me found a patch of leaves, almost dry, under a beech close to the furthest edge of the treeline and shrugged his way down into their cover. He settled into a nightmarish reverie ol long nights of surveillance in Armagh. He wondered what absurd notion had possessed him to leave his flask behind. A gift from Penny's father. This was the last time he'd go on night exercises with windy Americans without his flask. Anyone who talked that much had to be scared. Probably allergic to rabbits.

  The scream . . .

  Shit . . .

  The scream was desperation.

  He was on his feet. The scream was in the air and in the trees.

  Where, where was the scream?

  The cry. Had to be Erlich.

  The cry was pain and terror.

  He charged, blundering through the trees, through the low branches and the brambles. He couldn't see a blind thing, and he ran with his arms outstretched in front of him, barging off trees and fighting and kicking his way through the undergrowth.

  Gasping and running, knowing that he had heard Erlich's scream.

  A lifetime to where he had left Erlich, through the lashing branches and the catching, tearing bramble undergrowth. And he hadn't a weapon. He had nothing more lethal than a pencil torch in an inner pocket.

  He saw them, silhouetted against the fainter light of the night sky, two of them.

  He saw the punching and the kicking, the frenzy.

  He closed on them. No way that they could not have heard his approach, the bloody elephant's arrival. They must have heard him, and yet had not faltered from the blows and the kicks into the heaving and writhing shape of the bivouac. He had no gun and he had no weapon, and he didn't think about it. He hurled himself forward to get them away from the American, he threw himself at them. His hand flew at an arm, caught a sleeve, rough cloth. The two figures separating. He staggered from a kick to his shin bone. His hand scrabbled to stop himself from toppling, found material, clung to it, and a fist, gloved, smashed at his lace. He was falling, tumbling, out of their reach.

  He yelled, "Stand or I shoot . . . "

  And they were gone. Good fucking bluff. He didn't see them go. He was on his back, no shadows above him, no silhouette bodies. They were gone without a sound. He listened for them.

  He heard the silence, and the wind gale in the trees and the rain driven around him, the moan of the American's pain.

  He found the pencil torch in his inner pocket. He wriggled forward. He pulled back the bivouac cover. He shone the torch on his own face, so that Erlich would see it, know who was with hint, then he swung the torch down. It was a long time since he had seen the face of a man who had been systematically beaten and kicked.

  That was Ireland. Not in Ireland now. In the English countryside, for God's sake. Blood all over the face, and an eye closing faster than paint dried. Rain falling on the face. Erlich was doubled up, knees against his chest, and his breath came in sharp hissed sobs.

  "It's O . K . , Bill, they've gone."

  "Thank Christ for the cavalry."

  "Anything bust?"

  "God knows."

  Gently, he pulled Erlich upright. The blood ran from the cut over the American's right eye and from his nose.

  The covert stuff, that didn't matter any more. There seemed to be a dog barking in the Manor House as they made their way across the field. Too late to worry about being spotted from the village. He limped from the blow on his shin bone, and because he had the full weight of Erlich on his shoulder. He had Erlich's arm wrapped round his neck and his throat, and the man was solid. They sloshed across the middle of the field and the wind and the rain lashed their faces. They ploughed through a gateway and into another field, and the lights of the pub car park came slowly to meet them. Rutherford's fear and shock gave way to anger that Erlich had let himself be jumped. He had probably been reciting Wordsworth. But greater than anger was his amazement. The man was a wreck, done over fit to break. Why? What in God's name for?

  And he hadn't the heart to tell Erlich that at least one of them had been a woman. When he had gripped at a sweater his fingers had caught a bra strap. Might just ruin Erlich's night altogether.

  A car came past them fast, sprayed them with road water, heading away from the village. It was a long two miles to the next village, to the policeman's house.

  Dr Tariq sipped at his fresh pressed juice, as he waited for the Colonel to be admitted. Dr Tariq had little respect for the military men of his country, but his contempt was kept concealed. They were the power of the regime, they were the provider of resources.

  He had no interest in the executioners and the torturers and the interrogators of the regime. He was a scientist, he was responsible only to his work. A laboratory technician had come to him the previous month, spoken of a cousin taken into custody and no word of him had been heard by the family. Could the Director, please, please, use his highly esteemed influence? He had not picked up the telephone. It was not his business. Only his work was his business.

  The Colonel, too, was all business. No niceties with the Colonel of Intelligence, Dr Tariq thought. The Colonel said the name.

  The name was that of Frederick Bissett.

  He repeated the name. "Frederick Bissett of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston."

  "And his rank?"

  "Senior Scientific Officer."

  "His department?"

  "His identification card gives him access to the H3 building."

  He stared out of the window of his office at the broken upper structure that had housed the Osirak reactor. The jagged, wrecked shapes of the crippled reactor were never far from his thoughts, as present as a most recent bereavement.

  " H 3 is where a most acclaimed team of scientists work on the study of implosion, Colonel . . . Bissett, how could he be attracted?"

  "Money, no doubt."

  "You know that?"

  The Colonel opened his briefcase. He passed to Dr Tariq a transcript of the message from London.

  Dr Tariq read it and smiled faintly. "A Senior Scientific Officer, in that department, I would want him, Colonel, subject to your being absolutely satisfied that you are not importing a foreign spy into my team. To have any scientist from Britain's best team would be so exceptionally unusual as to create suspicion on this score, but I will grant that the circumstance of your discovering his possible willingness to join us are themselves so, well, so exceptionally unusual that I believe luck will be on your side."

  Dr Tariq outlined the terms that could be offered to Frederick Bissett, and stated that he would have prepared, by that evening, a list of questions to be put to Frederick Bissett, before a deal would be struck.

  The Swede was crossing the garden, when he saw the Director ushering out the Colonel. He recognised the Colonel. He saw that the Director wore no necktie. He saw the insignia on the Colonel's shoulders and the medal bars pinned on his chest, and he saw the holstered pistol at his hip.

  "Good morning, Director," the Swede called out.

  He was ignored. He hurried on his way. It had been demanded of him that he should seek more complete information. The Colonel ha
d returned to Tuwaithah. The Colonel had come on business so pressing that he had made his appointment before the Director had shaved and before he was fully dressed. Under his breath, as he greeted the members of his laboratory work force already at work, he cursed. An opportunity had been missed.

  Reuben Boll said from the doorway of Bissett's office, "I really must have something on my desk tomorrow morning."

  "Well, I honestly don't know if . . ."

  " M y desk, tomorrow morning, latest."

  "I'll do what I can."

  "Work through the night if you have to. You know what, Frederick? In the old days here, when a man had work on his desk, then he did not go home until it was finished. Before your time, of course, but that was the old attitude."

  Quite simply, he had not the courage to tell Boll. Sara was out that evening, at the parent-teachers meeting at school. She had cleared it with him, that morning, that he would most certainly be home in good time to look after the boys. So he could not work in his office until midnight. He had promised Sara.

  " N o sweat, Reuben, by hook or by crook it'll be on your desk in the morning."

  Penny was still in her dressing gown, and she was half falling out of that, and there was the warm and sleep-battered look on her face that he loved, before she anointed herself with all the garbage.

  "Good grief , w h a t t h e cat brought in this morning?"

  "Darling, this is Bill Erlich. Bill, this is my wife Penny . . ."

  "What in God's name have you two been at?"

  "Just be a love, and clean him up."

  And don't ask any silly questions. Don't even consider enquiring whether the guest has gone three rounds with a pissed-off buffalo.

  She was a State Registered Nurse. She'd have seen worse.

  "If she hurts you, Bill, just scream, and I'll come and thump her."

  Penny directed Erlich up the stairs, and Rutherford made for the sitting room. He pulled the curtains back, tidied the newspaper from the floor. He preferred to drink in the pub in Shepherd Market, but this morning he poured himself a good measure of whisky. He drank. He had two hands tight on the tumbler. He heard the cascade of the bath water upstairs. He drank again.

  They had reached the policeman's house as the first cut of light was coming under the rain clouds. They had powered away in the Astra after five brisk minutes of the policeman's time. Did Desmond, the village constable, know of two young people, one male and one female, capable of administering a cold-blooded beating and kicking? Not much change from the local policeman.

  It was a rough and tough community. Could have been any one of a dozen males and any one of half a dozen females. Not much sympathy from the policeman, disturbed from his sleep and his wife also woken, and his children crying. A blunt suggestion that Mr Rutherford might care to spend a Saturday night with the police in Warminster when the pubs turned out if he thought a beating and a kicking were exceptional.

  It was the least he could have done, to have brought Erlich home. No way he was going to take an F . B . I , man into the Casualty Out-Patients of a National Health Service hospital, no way. All the way home he'd talked and the American had mouthed through his swelling lips. They couldn't be certain it was Colt.

  Between them they should have nailed at least one of them and then they would have been certain.

  Penny came down the stairs.

  She was carrying Erlich's clothes.

  "He's nice . . . "

  Rutherford said, "He behaved like an idiot, lucky not to have got himself killed."

  " H e was hit hard, down under."

  "Did you get in the bath with him to see?"

  He could see her looking at him, questioning. He had the glass in his mouth, held in two hands.

  "I examined his penis and his testicles for injury," Penny said.

  "They're quite nastily bruised."

  "Was it Colt or was it not?"

  The man had said his name was Hobbes.

  Rutherford was behind him, subdued, chewing on a peppermint.

  Erlich was wearing one of Rutherford's shirts, too small at the collar and with the tie trying to cover the gap, and a pair of Rutherford's socks, and Rutherford's wife had tried to clean his trousers and his jacket. And she had washed the cut on his face and even if he looked like a bum his spirits were a good deal restored. Not every day of the week you get a bath and a hot breakfast from an English nurse.

  "I don't know, but nothing else that I can think of makes sense."

  "You don't know, but yet you request an interview to be arranged with Major Tuck?"

  "I want to turn him over."

  " Y o u will have a meeting, you will most certainly not have 'a hostile interrogation facility'."

  "Just a meeting?"

  "Only that, and I would suggest a change of clothes first."

  Colt slept. Deep and undreaming sleep. He slept in the small room in the small house in the quiet road on the outskirts of Newbury. The man he had beaten had been staking out the back end of his home, and the man was American, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and that was not sufficient to disturb his pitch-black sleep. Because of the man, because of the implication of his being in the wood at the back of his father's house, he would not go back. And the farewells and the partings in the dank small hours of the morning, neither were they able now to disturb that depth of sleep. He had held his mother's hand, he had shaken his father's hand, he had ruffled the loose fur at the collar of his dog, and he had gone. He was his own man, waking or resting, and many years since it had been different.

  His own father and mother had never gone to the evenings at his school when the teachers sat at their desks and discussed the performance of the pupils. His own father had once said that he was buggered if he was going to change from his work clothes into his funeral and wedding suit, and put on a clean shirt, to spend an hour listening to the patronising chat of school masters, and his mother for once had not contradicted him.

  Her mother and father had been to every open day at her school, come down in the Bentley, picnic hamper in the boot, that's what Sara had told him.

  As he drove the length of Third Avenue, he thought it was just the difference in their backgrounds. He had not telephoned her to say that he must work late. He had not asked her to miss her evening at the school, but he had left his desk only when he had known that Sara would be waiting for his return.

  The floodlights and the gates were ahead of him. He was held in a column of traffic. He edged forward.

  He was already rather tired, he would be in good shape, if he didn't fall asleep, and he had warned Carol that he would need someone in early to type up his paper. He slipped forward, low gear.

  "Identification, please."

  The Ministry policeman was bent towards the car's side window.

  He produced his card. He held it up. He saw the rain-spattered face against the glass, and the grey toothbrush of the moustache.

  "This is a security check, Dr Bissett."

  "Jolly good, and we had the same yesterday, all our yesterdays."

  "Were you checked going out of H area, Dr Bissett?"

  " I was not."

  " D o you have a briefcase, Dr Bissett, an attache case?"

  Shit, derision, fuck . . .

  " Y e s , yes, I do . . . "

  "Could I see inside your briefcase, Dr Bissett?"

  " M y wife is waiting, if you don't mind . . ."

  "Just see inside, thank you very much, Dr Bissett."

  "I really am in a very great . . . "

  "Then the sooner I've seen inside your briefcase, Dr Bissett, the sooner you'll be on your way."

  "Don't you people have anything better to do?"

  "Very droll, Dr Bissett. Now, could I please see inside your briefcase?"

  His car was flooded with light from the cars behind. He turned and he looked through the rear window. He thought there might be 20 cars waiting their turn to come through the check. It was almost a year s
ince he had last been stopped, last asked to open his briefcase for inspection.

  There was the great sinking weight in his stomach.

  "I've a great deal of work to get done by the morning."

  The Ministry policeman said briskly, "Please, Dr Bissett . . ."

  He was down in the low seat of the Sierra. The Ministry policeman was above him. He could see the face, and the veins in the cheeks and the hair in the nostrils, and the rain falling from the rim of the helmet. His briefcase was beside him. His briefcase was stamped by the lock in faded gold with his initials.

  He reached for the briefcase.

  He undid the catch fastener.

  He had the briefcase on his lap, and he opened it. There was his empty sandwich box, and there was his empty thermos flask, and there were the two files of papers. There was the sticker, red letters on white background, on each of the files.

  The letters made the word that was S E C R E T . Oh, shit and derision . . .

  The barrier was down in front of him. For a moment the Ministry policeman straightened, and Bissett could hear him talking into his personal radio. He felt sick. He felt the sweat damp on his back. He felt faint . . .

  The politeness was gone from the Ministry policeman's voice, a sharp bark.

  "Get that car over to the side, and hurry it."

  The Security Officer was on the point of leaving his office, locking it, going to his weekly meeting with the Director. He rather enjoyed these sessions. A glass of sherry, a general chat, a chance to sit with the one man in the whole place who did not seem nervous in his company.

  His principal telephone rang.

  He picked it up, he listened. He did not interrupt.

  "Thank you, Inspector, thank you. I'm not able to get down for a bit, might be an hour. Just put him on ice. No access, no telephone, don't attempt to question him. Just let him sit and reflect for a while, until I can get down. Yes, it will be as soon as possible. Thank you, Inspector."

  The Security Officer put down the telephone. He gathered up his coat from the chair by the door. His face showed neither excitement nor sadness nor anger. It was this mask-like quality in his face which chiefly made his colleagues uneasy. He walked the corridors and up the stairs to the Director's office. For the life of him, he had not an inkling who Frederick Bissett was.