The Reluctant Hero

by Michael Dobbs

  The guards stopped as soon as he slipped into unconsciousness, and left him, lying in the shit.

  It was several hours later when they came back for him. They hauled him back to his feet and dragged him out of the cell. Harry allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction as he realized they weren’t headed for the Hanging Room but in the other direction. He was in so much pain and confusion, and had only one eye open, that he had little idea where they were taking him, but he remembered a short flight of steps, they were dragging him upward, to another level, out of the Punishment Wing. Amir Beg had clearly had enough of the rat’s nest of cells for one day. Harry even managed to laugh a little. He might yet die in daylight. One of the guards shook his head in pity. ‘Crazy man,’ he muttered, as they dragged him on.

  An electric buggy was waiting for Sid Proffit and the barely conscious Zac when they got off the plane. An immigration officer stood beside it. He demanded their passports.

  ‘It’s not him,’ Proffit blurted out in explanation. ‘Not Harry Jones.’

  ‘I know that, sir,’ the immigration officer replied as they assisted Zac into the buggy. ‘I met Mr Jones once, several years ago, when he was a minister in the Home Office. I’ve even seen you on your hind legs a couple of times, on the telly in the House of Lords.’

  ‘Oh, really. Was I at all interesting?’

  ‘No idea, to be honest. We remember faces more than facts. And yours is an easy one. Not too many who go round looking like Karl Marx nowadays.’

  ‘Karl Marx didn’t have his suits made in Savile Row,’ the peer huffed.

  ‘He lived just round the corner, sir, in Soho, while he was writing Das Kapital.’

  ‘Did he? You seem remarkably well informed.’ ‘Used to be Special Branch, in my early years.’

  The buggy was approaching passport control; the immigration officer nodded to a colleague and they were waved straight through. Shortly after they drew up outside a sick bay. A doctor and nurse were waiting for Zac, who was laid on a cot while they began an immediate inspection. He barely stirred. The immigration officer took Proffit to an adjoining room where cups of tea were waiting. The peer piled in three sugars and sipped greedily; he needed the energy, he was exhausted. Yet as his strength was restored, he grew agitated. ‘You must do something about poor Harry,’ he insisted.

  ‘Sorry, sir. Not my part of the pitch. Someone will be along soon. But what can you tell me about Mr Kravitz?’

  ‘Not a lot, really. He’s simply a friend of Harry’s.’

  ‘Then he’s a lucky man,’ the immigration official replied, and went back to his tea.

  It was some while before a police inspector arrived. She was accompanied by a sergeant, and once again Proffit began to recount his tale. There were moments when he struggled to contain his impatience, tempted to pull rank or lean on his many years and demand they take immediate action rather than sitting around in an overheated room sipping hot drinks, but events had taken their toll on his old limbs, and he had no suggestions as to what precisely they should do. What could anyone do for Harry now? So he sighed, answered their questions, told them what he could, while the immigration officer chewed his lip, the inspector leaned forward attentively in her chair, and the sergeant scribbled notes.

  ‘There’s Martha, too,’ Proffit said. ‘Heaven knows what she’s up to. She stayed behind to help him, you see. Ran from the plane as the doors were closing.’

  ‘And Mr Jones – what happened to him?’ the police inspector asked.

  ‘I don’t know! All I know is that Harry went into the prison, and he never came out.’

  ‘A little rash of him, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘I do,’ the peer protested. ‘I regard what he did as an act of singular bravery.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’

  Proffit looked with beseeching eyes towards the immigration officer, but he merely shrugged. As he had said, not his part of the pitch.

  ‘You must help him, quickly,’ Proffit pleaded.

  ‘We need to know as much as possible before we can do anything. Can’t go blundering in. You understand that, don’t you, my lord?’ the police inspector said.

  ‘Of course. But only his American friend can tell you more.’

  ‘And the doc says he’ll not be fit for questioning for another twenty-four hours,’ the immigration official said.

  ‘Ah . . .’ The police inspector sighed in resignation, while the sergeant snapped his notebook shut.

  ‘You have to stir yourselves. Pull your fingers out or whatever it is you people do!’ Proffit burst out in impatience. ‘I fear something terrible is happening.’ But his protest was like the last guttering of a candle. He fell back in his seat, exhausted, his beard slumped on his chest.

  ‘We’ve got to wait for the American. Hang on until then,’ the police inspector replied.

  ‘I only pray Harry can hang on, too,’ Proffit sighed mournfully.

  Martha began reading Jamilia, at speed, as she had become accustomed to in her job. It was a story, recounted by a young boy, of frozen hearts, indifference, and family cruelty, of people looking the other way, refusing to see the pain, of the abuse of a young woman, for the reason that she was young, and a woman. Martha’s story, too.

  Suddenly her tears were blotting the pages.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs Riley?’ Bektour asked as he passed.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s just this stale tobacco smoke,’ she lied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘We don’t do this in Britain. I’m not used to it.’

  ‘Get some fresh air,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll be here.’

  ‘I can’t. In case . . .’ In case Harry turned up. A ridicu lous notion, but one she had to cling to.

  ‘Here, take my mobile phone. I’ll text if anything happens.’ He pushed it across the table.

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘And my mother’s very frightened. I hope you’ll forgive her.’

  ‘I’m frightened, too, Bektour,’ Martha whispered, picking up the phone and heading for the door.

  The guards threw him to the floor. His hands reached out to cushion the impact of the fall on his cracked ribs; still he gasped in agony. When he looked up he found himself in a wet room, with tiles on the walls as well as the floor, which had a large drainage hole in its middle. Many of the tiles were cracked and others had been replaced in varying shades of off-white. A collection of buckets, brooms, mops and other cleaning paraphernalia stood guard in one corner. There was also a third guard. He was holding a hose.

  They instructed him to take off his clothes. Even flexing his shoulder to slip off his shirt made him wince. Soon he was down to his underwear. Boxers, and still remarkably white. ‘Mr Klein sends his compliments,’ Harry muttered as he dropped them to the floor. The guard with the hose turned on a tap, and Harry braced himself for the barrage of water that was about to come.

  Yet it was an anticlimax. Instead of erupting in a gushing fist of water, the hose dribbled and had difficulty in reaching across the room. The guard had to place his thumb across the end to create more pressure, like a gardener watering flowers. Harry laughed gently at yet another absurdity in this clapped-out country. ‘Marshal Stalin’s compliments, too, I see.’ The guard with the hose, hearing the dictator’s name, got the joke and nodded ruefully. Harry stepped forward, made the job easier for him. He knew that washing all the crap off wasn’t for his benefit but somehow, even at this time, he preferred to be clean.

  A little further down the corridor was another room. They escorted Harry there, still naked, dripping wet. They didn’t kick or abuse him, but instead grew quiet, as though they were the ones who should be nervous. Harry’s heart sank as he stood at the entrance. It was a room about twice as large as his cell, and although it had no windows it was brilliantly lit. At first blush it seemed like an office. There was a large desk with a plain wooden top completely bare except for a glass ashtray, and a comfortable captain’s chair position
ed behind it. Standing in front of the desk was a simpler, stouter chair. There was a large cupboard against one wall with double doors, a map of Ta’argistan on the opposite wall, and even a coat stand in one corner. There was also a hand basin with a towel hanging beside it. Yet if this was a place of work, it was work of the most appalling kind, for above all the other impressions that Harry was taking on board hovered the sharp smell of antiseptic, not the carefully disguised scent you might find in a place of healing but the sweet-sour, astringent reek that came when the stuff was used in industrial quantities. He looked at the floor. No rug, just bare concrete, painted with thick gloss grey, like a garage. And every leg of the chair in front of the desk was bolted to it.

  So it would be here.

  Harry was still naked and damp. The guards pushed him forward, sat him in the chair, secured him to it with thick leather straps at his wrists and ankles, and one right around his chest. He groaned as they tightened the strap, above the cracked ribs. When he opened his eyes once more, Amir Beg was there.

  He perched on the desk, in front of Harry, sipping a mug of steaming tea. Different glasses, the usual pair still being cleaned of shit. He was staring at Harry’s body, his eyes wandering slowly across it, sizing the man up. There was a peculiar passion in his expression, one that made Harry feel desperately uncomfortable, want to cross his legs, hide himself, if only he could. He wondered it there were something sexual in it all. Harry knew what he had to do, try to knock the bastard off course, deflect him, distract him, because there could be no doubting that his intentions would take Harry through the most excruciating moments of his life.

  ‘I see we’ve both managed to change out of our old shirts,’ Harry said.

  Beg didn’t react, knew Harry’s game. ‘Please, Mr Jones, let us not quarrel about the past.’

  ‘Agreed. Come on, let’s go down the pub and have a beer.’

  And the scene was set. They both knew what they were about. Amir Beg was going to inflict his will upon Harry, in such a manner that what had gone before would be of no consequence. Put the past to rest, and along with it, Harry’s future.

  For Harry, this was no longer a game of survival. He was going to die in this chair. His only choice, if it could be thought of as a choice, was to see whether he could die on his terms, terms that weren’t entirely Amir Beg’s. It would be a victory, of sorts. Beg would win the physical contest, of that there was no shred of doubt, but there was another battle, that of the mind, and of the soul, that Harry was still determined to fight, as long as he could.

  ‘I hope you will understand,’ Beg said, ‘that I admire you, Mr Jones. We have a lot in common.’

  ‘You learn something new all the time.’

  ‘You are a most extraordinary man – no, really. Those scars on your body, they are proof of that. And your willingness to give up your life for a friend.’ As he sipped his tea once more, his spectacles began to steam. He polished them with another of his spotless white handkerchiefs. ‘A noble gesture. I congratulate you. I assume you succeeded and Mr Kravitz is now out of the country.’

  It was a question, not a statement, and Harry knew he was fishing.

  ‘Harry Jones. Member of Parliament. London SW1A 0AA. Sorry, I don’t have a serial number any more, so I’ve given you the post code.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate me, Mr Jones. We are both experienced at what we do. You know I will get what I want eventually. And the sooner you cooperate, the sooner it will be over.’

  ‘My life, you mean.’

  ‘Your suffering.’ Beg rose from his perch and moved across to the cupboard. Taking a small key from his pocket, he inserted it into the primitive lock, and the doors swung open. As he saw what was inside, Harry felt his stomach trying to escape through the back of his throat. Every shelf was packed with items that had been gathered for one purpose, to inflict so much horror upon whoever sat in this chair that they would do whatever Amir Beg asked.

  The Ta’argi picked up a hammer, the sort with a heavy head that was used to crush rocks or bricks. ‘I know what’s going through your mind, Mr Jones. I’ve been in your position, remember. Waiting. For whatever happens next.’ He cradled the hammer in his hands, like a father inspecting his newborn child. ‘They broke my hands, you see, the Soviets. Knuckle by knuckle. And when they had healed, they broke them all over again. I’m reminded of that every day of my life. So much pain. But what you remember most, even more than the pain of the flesh, is the pain of waiting. The fear of the unknown. Simply not knowing what’s going to happen to you. You understand that, don’t you? Your imagination fills with all sorts of horror.’ He looked at Harry, could smell his fear. ‘You see, I meant what I said. We have a lot in common.’

  ‘You cracked. You gave the Soviets what they wanted.’

  ‘But of course. Everyone does. In time.’

  ‘I guess Mr Karabayev must have cracked a whole lot sooner, then. Clever man. He seems to have got out with much less trouble.’

  Harry could see he had hit a target. Beg’s face darkened, almost flinched, the anger bubbling through like a mountain spring. ‘Our President is a parasite,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yet you do his dirty work.’

  ‘I do my work!’ Beg snapped. ‘And one day I shall dance and sing on his grave.’

  ‘You sound as if you might volunteer to dig it, too.’ Beg’s body stiffened in passion. ‘You know, we have a law, passed after the Soviet time, that any man seeking to be President must show he can speak a little Ta’argi. A marker, a sign that we have grown up. That we are free in our own land.’ He ran his tongue along lips that were thin, dry. ‘Can you imagine what he did?’

  ‘My imagination’s pretty stimulated right now.’

  ‘One thirty-second television broadcast. That I wrote for him. For which I rehearsed him.’ He pounded his chest with a crooked hand, claiming his credit. ‘It took more than three weeks before he even came close to getting it right!’

  ‘And now you’re going to kill me for no better reason than that my friend fucked his wife. Let me go, Beg. I could help you do much more damage to him alive.’

  ‘I need no foreigner’s help to get rid of him!’

  ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend.’

  ‘You Westerners have no friends in this part of the world, have you not yet learned that lesson?’

  ‘Nevertheless, we still have our uses.’

  ‘And you have uses for me, Mr Jones. Dead. As a message to all other foreigners who intend to come here and rape Ta’argistan.’

  There was an edge of madness in Beg’s eye, so Harry thought, and a little trickle of spittle falling from the corner of his mouth. Harry knew he was never going to argue his way out of this corner.

  ‘So that’s what you intend to do. After you have broken my hands. For fun. Just like the Soviets did to you. You know, you’re still their puppet.’

  Beg wrinkled his nose in puzzlement. ‘Oh, no, Mr Jones,’ he said, putting the hammer aside on the desk. ‘I have entirely other plans for you.’

  Martha didn’t intend to wander far. She had no wish to find herself lost in a strange city, let alone have any difficulty in getting back to the Fat Chance, just in case. Yet she knew she had to spend a little time away from the cellar. It had become like a crypt.

  She wandered distractedly along unkempt, snowcrowded streets, catching glimpses of a strange woman staring back at her from the reflections in shop fronts and restaurant windows. The new Martha Reilly. A puzzling woman. Was she in love with Harry? If that was so, it was proving a pitifully tangled experience, yet love had always been that way for her. She’d not even liked Harry, at first, thought him too rich, one of those privileged Englishmen who’d had it all too easy, for too long. Just the sort of man who prevented her from getting where she thought she wanted to be. But that had been a superficial judgement, she knew that now, she’d seen the scars on his body that told her his hadn’t been a life spent between satin sheets, even if he could afford them.
He was a restless soul, discontented with his life, looking for something more. They were a lot like each other, and perhaps that was why they fought. Her feelings about all men were twisted, filled with searing memories that had all been glued together, and she’d never succeeded in prising them apart and dealing with them, hadn’t even wanted to, until now. Harry could help, and she wanted his help. Perhaps that was what love was about.

  Yet what a terrible place to find love. She gazed around her, searching above the skyline of Ashkek, beyond the belching chimneys of the power station, to the jagged line of mountains in the distance. They seemed cold and unforgiving; give her the surf of Cape Cod any day. She shivered, despite her new jacket, which was proving less adequate than it looked. Yet those old women squatting on the pavement wore considerably less, their bare arms reaching out from beneath shawls to plead with her to buy their wares, or simply to beg. ‘Ya vas umolyau,’ they whispered, Please, please, their lips cracked, their round eyes filled with tearful memories of better times. Martha hurried on.

  She was lost in her own world of troubles, thinking of Harry, when she looked up to discover that two policemen were standing on the street corner not twenty yards ahead. She grew nervous, sure they would spot the guilty blush on her cheeks. She wanted to take no chances, so cast around for shelter. A few steps away were steps that led beneath an arch to a set of polished wooden doors – a church, Russian Orthodox, its onion dome towering above her head. She recalled her briefing – so many religious remnants had been left scattered along the Silk Road; it might just as easily have been a Buddhist or Hindu or Shamanist temple, even more likely a mosque. The new System, unlike its ardently atheistic Soviet predecessors, didn’t mind very much to whom you prayed, so long as above all else you remembered to worship It. She lowered her head and ducked inside.