CONDITION BLACK MASTER

by Unknown

  Rutherford was in the canteen of Boundary Hall, listening to the conversations around him.

  Penny wouldn't have allowed him a breakfast like that, not even on his birthday . . .

  " . . . There's no problem with the Christian ethic, none at all.

  It is perfectly proper for the Christian to arm himself with the nuclear deterrent. We've had peace for 45 years in Europe because we've had the bomb. We love our neighbours, that doesn't mean we have to lie down in front of them. Sinners grow bold if they don't think there's punishment round the corner. I've a quite clear conscience with my Maker . . . "

  He had a photocopy of the Personnel report, and he had a digest from the surveillance and from the telephone intercept.

  " . . . I cannot for the life of me see why more people don't join. There's just about everything to be caught in the Decoy pond. It's a unique opportunity, all those police to keep the poachers at bay, no families with squealing brats at your shoulder, no dogs running round fouling the banks. You've got carp, roach, tench, bream, pike, all queuing up to be hooked. What more do people want? Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fishing I'd die of boredom in this place . . . "

  He went through each question that he would put to the little cretin that nobody liked, and who hadn't the bottle to tell his Superintendent that he could get stuffed, that he'd get his paper when it was good and finished, not before. But he wasn't bitching, because the alternative to being given the run-around in Aldermaston was chasing round the countryside with Erlich.

  There might be some who rejoiced in the prospect of the collapse of the intelligence-gathering agencies of the Russians and the Czechs and the Poles and the East Germans and the Bulgari-ans, but not everyone was cheering in Curzon Street. It was going to be damn dull without the old friends. Boundary Hall breakfast went on around him. He was ignored. Wouldn't have been ignoring him if they had known he was Curzon Street, but they didn't know and they chattered on.

  " . . . Spain, Portugal, Tenerife, you can keep them. My sister and I, it'll be the 34th year, consecutive, that we've been to Looe.

  I've done all the travelling I ever want to. When we came back it was Christmas Island to Honolulu. Honolulu to Vancouver.

  Vancouver to Greenland to Brussels. Brussels to London. London to back here. Christmas Island was a real pig of a place. We were in tents for four weeks before the Test. That's no joke, not enough fresh water to keep clean in. Couldn't swim, currents were treacherous, sharks and all out there. Mind you, we had a shark in Cornwall once . . . "

  He wondered how often the others had heard it all. If he'd had to share their table morning after morning, he would have hidden himself behind a newspaper or given up breakfast.

  Time to go and ring Penny, and then time to go and find out whether Frederick Bissett was a fool or a traitor.

  He felt the cold of the barrel against the nape of his neck.

  He slipped his hand behind his head, and took the pistol that had been under his pillow while he had slept.

  His fingers nestled loosely round the grip. He held the Ruger

  .22, and his eyes wavered over the sights towards the bulb in the ceiling. He couldn't be sure that it was the same weapon that had been given him for the hit in London, because all their weapons had the serial smoothed off, but it was a Ruger/MAC Mark I,

  .22 calibre, and wavering towards the light bulb was the snake body shape of the integrally silenced barrel.

  It was as if it was his reward. Been good, hadn't he? Delivered little Bissett right into their laps so they could fill him with whisky and bullshit, and drop a thousand in notes into his inside pocket.

  If it had been the one that he had used in London then they had cleaned it since he had abandoned it in the lock-up garage, and their work was there for him to see, oil on his hands, and oil on the sheet under the pillow.

  He put the Ruger into an unmarked plastic bag. He took out two magazines, unloaded them and slowly loaded them again and then wiped the 20 or so Long Rifle hollow-point bullets that were spare, folded them back into the dishtowel and put them into the plastic bag. It would go everywhere with him. Meanwhile he would wait for the call. The call might come that day, might not.

  Might come the next day, might not.

  Nothing more to it, than to wait for Frederick Bissett to make contact again.

  Rutherford knocked. He stood in the corridor outside H3/2, holding his sheaf of papers behind his back. The door opened.

  Bissett was a mess. He had cut the edge of his nostril shaving and there was still a staunching peck of cottonwool on the wound.

  His hair wasn't combed. His shirt was unironed.

  "Good morning, Dr Bissett. Could I come in, please?"

  "Who are you? I'm sorry, I don't know . . . "

  "My name's Rutherford, James Rutherford."

  He could see into the office. More confusion. Paper on the floor and over the desk, and around the console, and covering two of the chairs.

  "I don't know who you are."

  " M r Boll said you would be willing to spare me a few minutes."

  Rutherford walked in. The door was closed behind him. He looked around him. He had been careful not to step on any of the print-out sheets.

  "What can I do for you?"

  Rutherford smiled his ingratiating smile. "You could find me somewhere to sit, Dr Bissett . . . "

  He thought the man had scarcely slept the night before. He had dark grey shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks were pale as death.

  Bissett cleared the papers off one of the chairs.

  "A few minutes, what for? I've got rather a lot on, well, as you can see."

  It would be a brisk interview, that was how Rutherford had planned it over breakfast. Businesslike, straight to the point, no introductory chat.

  Bissett had his back to him, was picking his way through the paper minefield, towards the chair behind his desk.

  " D r Bissett, I'm from the Security Service . . . "

  The man froze for several seconds and when he reached his desk and turned, the man looked pole-axed.

  ". . . I'm here to deal with your attempt to take classified documents off Establishment premises . . ."

  Bissctt put his hand on his desk, as if to steady himself. He seemed to topple into his chair

  "I've . . . surely, that's . . . already . . ."

  "Your Security Officer called us in."

  "I was told, my department head, Boll, that is, told me it was all finished, cleared up." A wind-blown reed of a voice.

  "How would you rate the material in the files you were attempting to take out?"

  "We've been through all this, for heaven's sake. It's low-grade, my own work."

  "Dealing with what exactly?"

  It was as if, all of a sudden, some confidence returned to the man. " D o you understand nuclear physics?"

  "I don't."

  "Then you won't understand the interaction of a fission explosion."

  "I don't, no."

  "Then there is not a great deal of point in my explaining the material contained in those papers. Anyone here will tell you it was low-grade."

  "Have you ever been approached, Dr Bissett?"

  "Approached? I beg your pardon. I don't know . . . "

  " Y o u don't need to be a nuclear physicist to know what that means. Have you ever been approached by an outsider, anyone outside the Establishment, for information concerning your work?"

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Just answer the question. Yes or no?"

  Rutherford thought the man was hyperventilating. Straight question. Should be a straight answer . . .

  " N o . "

  "If you were to be approached, Dr Bissett, what would be your reaction?"

  "That's hypothetical."

  "Then hypothesize . . . "

  "I suppose, well, I'd go, you know, I'd go to the Security Officer."

  "But you haven't been approached?"

  "I have not."

  Ru
therford watched Bissett's hands. Bissett's hands were moist. He watched Bissett's lips. The tongue was flicking. If he hadn't been from Curzon Street he might have thought there was something to be made of damp hands and dry lips. But he had learned that the very mention of the Security Service frightened perfectly innocent people into irrational anxiety, even outright fear.

  " H o w are your personal finances, Doctor Bissett?"

  " M y what?"

  " Y o u r personal finances." Good grief, the man was an imbecile.

  " I work here . . . "

  "I know that. Just answer the question."

  " I f you worked here, then you'd understand. We happen to live in the most affluent part of the country . . . Don't you work for the government, Mr . . . I didn't catch your name?"

  " D o you have an overdraft, Dr Bissett?"

  " D o I have an overdraft?"

  " Y e s or no . . . ? "

  " Y e s , I have an overdraft. Is this the sort of question you . . ."

  There was a pattern emerging. It didn't matter one way or the other to Rutherford whether Bissett said he had an overdraft or whether he did not. The pattern was more interesting. Every question bred a return question. Not too much to read into it, that the man threw questions back at him, buying him space to think. Interesting . . . He glanced down at his notes. He had the transcript of a telephone call in front of him.

  "Were you at home last night, Dr Bissett?"

  "Where was I ? "

  "Were you at home, Dr Bissett."

  "When . . . ?"

  "Last night."

  " N o . "

  "Where were You?"

  "I worked late."

  " T h e Security at the gate will tell me what time you left."

  "Then I went out, I wanted a drink."

  "What pub did you go to, Dr Bissett?"

  "Well, I didn't actually. I thought of going for a drink, but I didn't . . . "

  "What did you do, Dr Bissett?"

  "I just drove around for a bit. I stayed in my car."

  "Why was that, Dr Bissett?"

  He saw the anger. He had the transcript of Bissett's call to his wife, the claim that he was working late, that he would be home late. He already had the log from the Falcon Gate that told him that it was early evening when Bissett had driven through the checkpoint. He saw a lonely and frightened man in front of him, a man who could not count as a friend any one of his colleagues.

  "I just wanted to be on my own."

  "Wife trouble, Dr Bissett?"

  His fists were clenched. For a moment Rutherford thought he might just come over the top of his desk, launch himself. Bissett exploded.

  "It's not your bloody business, is it? Get your bloody nose out of my life . . . Get out at once. Get out of my bloody office."

  "Thank you, Dr Bissett, I think that will do for the time being."

  He sat at his desk, his head buried in his hands. He squeezed at his temples and he could not rid himself of the pulsing pain.

  Desperately and cruelly frightened. The fear was a barb inside him. His door was closed, and it offered no protection from the fear. The sweat ran on his spine, was clammy in his vest. The sickness was in his throat, he could not shed it. When he moved from his desk, he went to the radiator by the window, and he carried the envelope that he had been given in the Great Western Hotel at Paddington station. It was as though the envelope was the sure sign of his guilt He had not opened the envelope, not in the train, nor when he had reached home and climbed the stairs to bed and found Sara already asleep, nor in the morning.

  The envelope was his guilt, to open the envelope was to secure that guilt. He could not judge what the man from the Security Service knew. His world, Frederick Bissett's world, was crum-bling. No strings, no commitment tell that to the bloody Security Service. Easy enough to say it, whisky in his hand, flattery in his ears . . . no strings, no commitment. All around him was the calm, slow, complacent life beat of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, around him and beyond his reach. All he knew was fear and pain and sickness. As far as he could push it, he stuffed the envelope down behind the radiator under the window.

  It was the sort of meeting that Barker detested. It was the Whitehall machine at its wretched best. The Deputy Chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee was referee. Barker knew him as the former commander of an armoured division in Germany, brought home with the cut-backs, tidied into an area that he knew nothing of to work through to his pension.

  He had Hobbes with him, to make up the numbers.

  Martins he had met on a handful of occasions. He knew of the reputation of so-called "Sniper" Martins, that the man was a celebrity at Downing Street. He thought him second-rate. And the meeting shouldn't have been held at Century, it should have been at J.I.C.'s quarters, the annexe to the Cabinet Office. But Barker quickly understood why the meeting was held at Century.

  The Deputy Chairman was lunching with the Deputy Director General in the executive suite on Century's nineteenth floor. The Deputy Chairman and the Deputy Director General were distant cousins, had been at school together, and then at Mons Officer Cadet College together. Barker didn't have any cousins who were worth knowing, had been to grammar school, had been rejected for military service because of a right leg shortened in childhood by a polio virus.

  The stenographer cleared away the coffee cups. The Deputy Chairman took his place at the head of the long table. Martins eased himself down opposite Barker.

  For Barker to start . . . marvellous. He would start, Martins would follow. They would kick it around. He would do his summary, and then Martins would have the last word.

  Hobbes had written the paper that Barker paraphrased. There had been a shooting in Athens, an Iraqi dissident killed, and an Agency man, who was with him, killed too. The killer's driver had shouted the name of "Colt". The shooting in Clapham of an Iraqi whose hand had been in the state airline till. The face of the same killer might have been identified. In both killings the weapon had been a silenced .22 calibre pistol. This Colt was British, a fugitive from justice, already wanted on a charge of attempted murder. Colt had recently been in Britain, might still be within the jurisdiction. Iraqi involvement clear-cut. Another matter - not connected - but the warning of a prospective Iraqi fishing expedition amongst the staff of the Atomic Weapons Establishment . . . What to do? When and where to stamp on the Iraqis?". . . And the Americans, of course, wish for a result."

  A dry smile from "Sniper". Wouldn't have been even the ghost of a smile when Barker had first met the man, before that lunatic escapade in the Beqa'a, no more than a cringing little arse licker he'd been then.

  "And that has very little to do with us."

  "I merely state the position."

  " Y o u don't have enough to go to court."

  "That's for the Director of Public Prosecutions."

  " I ' m simply observing, Deputy Chairman, that he'd be laughed out of the Central Criminal Court."

  "I wasn't aware, Deputy Chairman, that Mr Martins had any experience of British criminal law." The Deputy Chairman flapped a hand down the table, as if to wave the combatants apart.

  " W e have, in my view, enough to justify the expulsion of at least five or six members of their embassy staff," Barker snapped.

  "I would most strongly oppose that course of action, Deputy Chairman." Martins cracked his palm down onto the sheened table surface. Another new gesture, acquired since the man had dined with the Prime Minister, Barker supposed.

  "With or without evidence to satisfy a jury, we cannot tolerate Iraqi terrorism, state-sponsored terrorism, on the streets of London."

  "Talk i s cheap . . . "

  "That is insulting and unwarranted."

  "Have you the faintest inkling of the consequences of the action you propose?"

  "I am interested solely in the security of this country."

  Martins turned so that he faced the Deputy Chairman. He ignored his adversary.

  " W e are, damn near, near as m
akes no difference, in a state of war with Iran. We have, because of quite colossal bungling, no network inside Iran. We are blind in that country, and deaf.

  What little we know of the political goings-on inside Iran comes courtesy of the intelligence agencies of Iraq . . . is that point taken? I make another point . . . Iraq is currently rebuilding her entire infrastructure. They have billions of oil dollars to spend, they are hunting high and low for contractors with the expertise they require and, God willing, contracts will come our way . . .

  And yet here we are being asked, on the flimsiest of evidence, to march up to their front door and toss half a dozen accredited diplomats out of the country. I lose my major intelligence-gathering source in Iran, my country loses - and the French and the Germans will pick them all up - billions of dollars' worth of trade, all because the Americans want a result."

  " Y o u r attitude is craven."

  " Y o u r way, I'll tell you what will be achieved, sweet nothing

  . . . except that we lose contracts, lose goodwill, lose good information. I won't sit back while a painstaking process is sacrificed for a wasteful gesture. Century is the real world, apparently Curzon Street is not."

  Barker looked to Hobbes for support. Hobbes looked away.

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen . . ." said the Deputy Chairman.

  " A n d you have not, Mr Martins, addressed the issue of the Atomic Weapons Establishment . . . "

  " I f indeed, sir, it is an issue. The Israelis have been asked for more detail. They have been unable so far to provide it. It's in their court."

  The Deputy Chairman smiled again. Barker thought that if such a man had ever commanded an armoured division then the army needed winding down.

  " S o what is your suggestion, Mr Martins?"

  "Pretty simple, isn't it?"

  " D o please enlighten us," Barker snarled.

  Martins beamed. "Find this Colt and shoot him . . . "

  "You're not serious?"

  "Find him, shoot him . . . and bury him deep."

  He carried the day. Barker had seen the eye of the Deputy Chairman brighten. He had seen the bully confidence of "Sniper"

  Martins win the hour. It did not go into the stenographer's notebook, of course, but that was the decision of the meeting, two votes to one, and Hobbes was not asked his opinion.