The Accidental Spy

by Jacqueline George

  “What? Why?”

  “We need a cross-over,” said Rene. “RomDril don’t have anything with a 1501 thread on it so we can’t get onto the drill-pipe.”

  “But…”

  “No time for that,” said Terry. “Get your ass back in your car and off you go. We’ll need it back up here at six this evening, so you’ve just got time.”

  “Florian’s sending a pick-up as far as the police post,” said Rene. “We were just wondering how we would get some-one to meet it. Wait a minute, and I’ll get you some invoices to go down to Florian.”

  The Virgin drove south in a mood of resignation. It was a boring drive at the best of times, but being forced to do it because RomDril did not have a normal complement of cross-overs on their rig – well, that made it worse. And the drive gave him plenty of time to worry about the missing container.

  He did not see Danka again until the next Hash. Her news was not good. “Is not present, Virgin. Nothing. Janusz look everywhere, but not present. He say that there is one place at the back where he cannot see. The Army keep old trucks there, and possible it is there. Janusz cannot go there but he say that if you come up from behind, you can see everything, if you want.” He thanked her and acted as if it did not matter.

  In the office next morning he mulled over the problem. Should he call Elena and give her the bad news, or should he wait until he could go and look for himself? That was the question. And then he had an inkling of an idea. He left the office as soon as he could and went home to change into coveralls.

  He went to the rig. It was a beautiful day to be outside, clear spring weather with only a hint of the oppressive summer heat waiting ahead. March was ghibli season, when dry dust storms from the desert could blanket everything for days at a time and shut down all movement in the oil fields, but today the wind blew cool and fresh, straight from the sea. Without the missing container on his mind, The Virgin would have been happy to be out visiting the rig. Terry was busy with a novel, reading with his feet up on the desk, ignoring the rig slowly drilling out the cement plug that Rene had set the night before.

  “Hey man! Bored with the office?”

  “How d’you guess? Hey look – mind if I climb the mast? Should be a good view today.”

  Terry thought about it for a second then put his paperback face down on the table. “Why not? Sounds like a good thing to do before lunch. Think I’ll come with you. Let’s go inspect your gear first, and then we’ll go up.”

  There was a short section of safety cage around the beginning of the ladder to the monkey board. Higher up the cage had been wiped off during some long-ago rig move and never replaced. The safety harness must have gone the same way, and the two men climbed free, the old-fashioned way. The Virgin was glad it was an A-frame derrick and the ladder leaned in a little. A single mast would have had a truly vertical ladder.

  They stepped out onto the monkey board. It was empty. All the drill pipe was in the hole, bar a few stands swaying gently with the rhythm of the rig. The wind was stronger here and The Virgin felt uneasy at the way the floor danced beneath his feet.

  Terry was breathing heavily. “Damn – I’ve got to give up those cigarettes. I used to run up and down here like nothing when I worked for a living.”

  “Old age, Terry, old age. Your lady’s going to trade you in for new model one of these days.”

  “Some chance of that! She’s about the same shape as I am. Or even fatter. Come on, let’s keep going before I change my mind.”

  They were already thirty metres above the drill floor, say thirty-five above the ground. They stepped out onto the next ladder and carried on climbing the remaining twenty-five metres or so up to the crown. The Virgin felt gravity dragging at his mind. He did not look down, and gripped the steel ladder rungs fiercely.

  The crown platform was filthy. In the centre of the platform sat the black mass of the crown block, its multiple pulleys carrying the heavy drilling line. Grease spatter from the drill line coated everything. The Virgin crept cautiously along the narrow walkway around the sheaves of the crown block, touching nothing, hand held centimetres above the railing just in case. The mud pumps and the vibrations of the turntable made the world dance under him. He looked down. The ground looked a long way away. Sixty metres – say two hundred feet in the old money. Terry looked out contentedly over the sea, the wind flapping his shirt. The blue-grey, ageless Mediterranean – far from wine-dark – stretched to the sharp line of the horizon.

  The Virgin turned and searched inland. Eyetie Joe’s camp was below, a scatter of rickety accommodation units set in tall weeds, with a bone-yard of derelict construction equipment and tanks behind them. The tannery lay beyond, a modern industrial complex ready to equip all the neighbouring countries with the finest tanned leather. He tried to pick out the Army camp attached to it. It was a small spread of buildings at the back, set around a tennis court with floodlights. They must be the ones that Janusz had worked on. Behind the buildings, on the side towards the rig, was another bone-yard. It was much smaller than Eyetie Joe’s and contained smaller items of dead equipment. The Virgin scanned it carefully. No container in sight, but a low corrugated iron building ran along the fence, with its back towards the rig. It had a single pitched roof sloped out to the fence. The Virgin guessed that it was covered parking for trucks and large vehicles, and that it was open on the other side. It could be hiding the container. He would need to look at it from the front. If he could follow the rough track that ran through the stones and weeds of the surrounding waste land, he would skirt the Army camp and the tannery. He would be able to peep under that roof.

  “Crappy sort of place, ain’t it?” Terry was standing beside him.

  “Wouldn’t win any prizes. Rubbish everywhere. If only you could sell all that gear for scrap. You could fill ships…”

  “Yeah. Never understood why they don’t do it. Just let everything rust away. Remind me why I love this country. You ready for down?”

  The Virgin had an opportunity to look more closely for the container that Saturday. That week the post-run Bash would be held at Eyetie Joe’s. He skipped the Hash and went straight to Eyetie Joe’s, arriving twenty minutes before dusk and long before the Hashers were due. Parking his car beside the empty mess-hall, he stripped to his jogging clothes and took an evening run for exercise.

  He soon found the track he had seen from the rig. It must have been a regular path for Eyetie Joe’s workers at one time because there was a hole in the rusted fence to give easy access. He dipped through the hole and started to jog up the rough track. It took very little traffic to keep a path open in this dry and dusty land, and he was able to run freely out into the empty space behind Eyetie Joe’s. There was little to see; dust, stones and the occasional camel-thorn. He jogged on, trying to orient himself and pick up the fence-line of the tannery.

  It was not far away. The path headed straight for the tannery, evidence that at some time there was a lot of contact between the inmates of the two camps. Perhaps in the high old days when all the contractors were busy, the Italians and the Poles had got together to party. Now the Italians had all gone home, but their path remained. The Virgin jogged on, breathing heavily. He was being taken to the nearest corner of the tannery camp, just at the junction with the Army camp behind it. The Virgin avoided staring at the Army camp and looked straight ahead.

  This was when he might get stopped. Not very likely in the slack and laid-back atmosphere of Sabah, but you never could tell when some crazy young bully with a Kalashnikov might decide to play the revolutionary. As he drew nearer he was aware of a figure behind the wire. A lightly built man in a white djellabiyah and turban. He had an old man’s stoop. He watched The Virgin intently as he approached.

  The Virgin forced himself to relax. This figure did not look military even by the casual standards of Tabriz. There was no Kalashnikov for a start. Then The Virgin made out goats foraging behind him; he was a goatherd, nothing more.

  When he was
close enough to see the old man’s straggly white moustache, The Virgin waved.

  “Salaam Aleikum,” called the man. “Marhaba!” He was still rapt by the sight of an adult running.

  “Salaam,” The Virgin called back and speeded up a little. The man’s goats were grazing in the Army bone-yard. Beyond them he could look under the long roof he had seen from the rig. It was nearly empty. Two deceased trucks and a trailer stood in the shade. The weeds the goats were exploring had not been disturbed in a long time. He continued on his way, not looking back. He would run around in a loop and head back to Eyetie Joe’s. With a bit of luck he would get back before the Hashers arrived and no one would see him. He was already due for a compulsory drink for the offence of Bashing and not Hashing. If no one saw him return, he would avoid being given an additional one for secret jogging.

  Next day he sent Abdul to the Post Office to search for a missing parcel sent by Elena, and pretended disappointment when he returned empty handed. He called and gave Elena the bad news. She seemed resigned and he got no hint of what would happen next. He decided to put his troubles behind him and go looking for a game of volleyball with the Filipino nurses.

  - 23 -

  The Virgin returned to the office from a design meeting with Tayfun to find a fax from Karelia curling out of the machine. He tore it off and read. A short letter from Houghton.

  Dear Mr Cartwright,

  Thank you for your hospitality during our recent visit. Please find the time to visit us in Poole on your next trip to England, and I will be happy to return your kindness.

  I have a favour to ask. There has been a request from our insurance company for the return of the insurance certificate for the chemical shipping container. Unfortunately we cannot locate this certificate and we believe that it may have been sent – by mistake – with the container itself. Perhaps your client has it. I wonder if you would be kind enough to ask him to check? If he has not yet found it, it should be located with the other documents relating to the container in a waterproof envelope on the inside of the security cover for the tank valves. This cover is on the front right-hand side of the tank and is secured with a small padlock. The key to the padlock was sent with the shipping invoice and certificate of origin, and your client should already have it.

  I am sorry to trouble you and your client with such a simple bureaucratic matter, but your help would certainly be appreciated,

  Yours sincerely,

  R.T. Houghton

  Export Sales Manager

  The Virgin re-read the letter and wondered what Stanford was up to. London must have some kind of surveillance on Major Jamal’s office. Perhaps they were counting on watching cars and seeing where they went to retrieve the certificate. Perhaps the surveillance would be from a satellite. He went to the window and looked up. The sky was cloudless. Good weather for satellites, he supposed but that was no guarantee of success. Even if Major Jamal or Captain Zella were inclined to help, they were quite capable of putting things off until tonight. Then again, he mused, did satellites rely on old-fashioned cameras nowadays? Didn’t they have things like infrared sensors and special cloud penetrating radar? Thinking about it, he had even heard of ground penetrating radar. He gave up thinking and called Major Jamal. He offered to fax him a copy of the letter but Major Jamal did not seem to think it was necessary. He probably had a copy anyway.

  He was in Tayfun’s office later that morning looking at cement lab reports spread over the desk when they were both surprised by a heavy rumble of thunder. That was unusual in Sabah at any time but unheard of in the dry months. They stopped reading and went to the window. The sky was still cloudless but the thunder rumbled again, longer and louder this time.

  They looked at each other. “Thunder?” asked Tayfun. The noise came again, this time sharp enough to make the windows rattle.

  “Must be blasting,” said The Virgin. “I wonder what they’re up to.”

  As they watched, a dark grey cloud rose above the houses in the distance. The explosions were clear and frequent now. A massive blast threw debris high into the sky. An instant later they felt it shudder through their feet.

  “My God – it must be an ammunition dump,” said Tayfun as some sort of missile corkscrewed a trail of smoke up into the air. A whistling rush from behind the TAMCO building ended in a powerful blast. They stood stunned for a moment and listened to a cascade of falling glass.

  “I’m getting out of here,” said The Virgin and dashed for the corridor. It was full of men running for the stairs. He joined the rush.

  Think, think, think, he told himself as he ran. The wide marble staircase down to the lobby was a mass of shouting, panicking men. Tayfun threw himself into the crush but The Virgin held back and waited. Someone fell and suddenly he was looking down at a tumbling mass of humanity on the lower flight. For a moment men were rolling and crawling over their friends until they could get to their feet. As quickly as it had happened, the blockage cleared and the rush was on again.

  The Virgin watched in disbelief as the flood of men cleared and the staircase emptied leaving only two bodies, one moving feebly. It was un-naturally quiet in the lobby. He walked slowly down. As he turned onto the last flight of steps he saw that the large plate glass windows surrounding the main door had dissolved into heaps of shards. There was another whistling rush and he threw himself to the ground, covering his head in a reflex as an explosion split the air.

  Beside him was the body that was lying still. He was looking into the staring eyes of a bald man. His glasses were crushed between his head and the white marble step. The Virgin took in the twist in his neck and realized that the man was dead. Reluctantly he reached out to feel for a pulse, knowing it was useless. The touch felt repulsive and he made no real effort to find the vital spot.

  A moan came from the other man, and muttering in Arabic. The Virgin got to his feet and moved to help him. He had broken his lower leg; that much was obvious. His leg lay along the step and the ugly angle in it was clear. He looked young. Slim, bearded, with a mass of disordered hair. He was in pain; his face was white and beaded in sweat, a dribble of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Another crash came from outside.

  The Virgin knew he had to get under cover. Without thinking, he scooped the man up in his arms. The man screamed and fainted. The Virgin carried the body down to the lobby floor and turned sharply to hide under the steps. He laid the man out on the floor beneath the sloping concrete ceiling. They should be safe enough. He cowered and listened nervously.

  God bless the Tabrizi Army, he thought. I wonder what piece of stupidity caused this? He had heard of something similar in Islamabad, an ammunition dump exploding and showering part of the city with unexploded shells and live mortar bombs. MacAllans had the corner torn off a pump unit by the force of an unprimed 150mm shell hurtling down out of the blue. He had spoken with the engineer who had been there that day. He had rushed to join all the other MacAllans hands that were cowering in the vehicle maintenance pit in the workshop, but the thought of a shell coming through the roof and into the pit had put him off. He had taken refuge under a large Cat generator. The Virgin remembered that bombardment had lasted for hours.

  The man beside him started to come round again. He was trying to focus his eyes and make sense of his situation. The Virgin patted his shoulder by way of re-assurance but the man just moaned. He wondered if he could find the man some water. There was a coffee machine on the floor above; that had paper cups, but it was a long way away. As if to confirm The Virgin’s decision to stay under cover, the ground shook again with another thunderclap.

  He looked back on the following hour as one of the worst of his life. There was nothing he could do for the man with the broken leg. They just had to wait until it was safe to go outside. All the man could do was wait and suffer, but he had decided not to do it in silence. He started to cry out, sometimes in hysterical chanting and sometimes letting his voice rise to a penetrating shriek. The Virgin quickly gave up
trying to comfort him and just tried to shut out the noise.

  It was the shrieking that eventually brought help. The large explosions tailed off until nothing but the distant crackle of exploding small arms ammunition could be heard. A face peeped under the stairs and soon a crowd of shouting, officious volunteers surrounded the injured man. The Virgin left them ordering each other to do something and crept away.

  Outside the world appeared more or less normal. The explosion that had broken the windows at the front of the TAMCO building had come from something hitting the ornamental fountain outside. It was wrecked and water gurgled in the gutter. Apart from that, he could see no damage. His car looked safe and he gingerly drove into town.

  Abdul and Rabka were waiting for him, glad he was safe. “It was the Americans,” said Abdul. “My brother says before the explosion he saw a big plane flying high up, and the Israelis only have small planes. So it must have been the Americans.”

  “How are your families?” asked The Virgin. “Do you want to go home?”

  “Yes – we are going,” said Rabka. “We have telephoned and they are safe but my mother is crying. We were only waiting to see you first.”

  “I think you should go home too,” said Abdul. “After this the Army will be stopping all the roads. And make sure you have your desert pass and TAMCO pass and your badaka with you all the time, or you will have trouble.”

  The Virgin toyed with the idea of going to Barani to sit around with Danka for company, but he did not want to sleep there, and he definitely did not want drive around after dark. He gave Florian a quick call and locked up the office.

  Next morning the traffic flowed normally as he left home. In the centre of the first roundabout sat two Toyota pick-ups with twin light antiaircraft guns mounted in their trays. Their crews, wearing an assortment of military clothes, headscarves and sandals, were seated around a small cooking fire. The Virgin continued into town and passed soldiers at every intersection. At the traffic lights near his office a larger group was sitting by two Russian APCs. The traffic lights had been switched off and two young soldiers were extending the chaos by their efforts to control the crossing.