Whispers of betrayal tg-3

by Michael Dobbs

  Sun Tzu once wrote that the greatest battles are those that are never heard of. Well, screw Sun Tzu. The whole of London was going to hear about this one.

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= It seemed logical to Scully that he should stay behind and fire the charges. He couldn't run, and if someone had to go down, better it be him. He had so much less to lose.

  And he owed everything to Amadeus.

  Sure, so Scully had saved him in the Falklands, but that was his job, part of the deal, what he'd signed up for. Amadeus owed him nothing. Yet throughout their time as Paras, Amadeus had always been there for him, not just as an officer but as a leader. A great leader.

  Like the time Scully had found himself in a bar in Sardinia, in search of a little R amp;R after ten days of rigorous NATO exercises. He'd been nursing a drink at the bar when he'd noticed an ape who passed as a US Army artillery officer from Louisiana. Plenty of apes were officers, but this one had succeeded in attracting Scully's attention by standing next to him at the bar and insisting that royalty was incest. Well, perhaps they'd tried that, too, but what Scully couldn't ignore was the further opinion of the officer from Louisiana, expressed at bar-room volume, that this made the Queen nothing better than a laboratory-bred rat. A German rat at that. So Scully had hit him. Bloody hard. So hard that he'd broken the American's nose, and with it broken his own career, for military regulations insist that striking an officer, even an alcoholic American example, is tantamount to striking a match while sitting in a puddle of petrol.

  Scully was dead meat – until Major Amadeus, the Company Commander, had taken the American to one side and explained that Sardinia was full of weird and improbable stories. One story going the rounds was about how a US lieutenant had got himself creamed by a British NCO in a bar brawl – who ever heard of such a thing? A still wilder rumour concerned the attentions paid by that same lieutenant towards two rank-haired young men in the back room of the same bar. Amadeus had carefully and in considerable detail explained how, even in these liberated days, a cokehead from Louisiana with what seemed to be a persistent case of hay fever was scarcely in a position to go round insisting on investigations into what happened to his nasal passages in the back rooms of bars. No, the stories were not to be believed, none of them. The complaint had been dropped.

  Amadeus was a great leader of men. A great friend. He'd even been godfather to Scully's only child, a boy, Peter, named after Amadeus, although Scully would never admit as much to his wife.

  Pity about the boy. Scully had been on manoeuvres when it happened. His wife was a neurotic bitch with a mouth full of venom and a bathroom cupboard full of pills. Every type of pill. Pills to sleep with, pills to wake up with, pills that relaxed you and pills that made you prance around the sergeants' mess and act like a tart. Pills to fuck with and pills to stop babies with, but God knew why she needed them because after Peter the last thing she was interested in was fucking. At least fucking Scully. Always had a migraine, no matter how many pills she took.

  Anyway, Peter had found the pills. He'd been only seven, poor little bastard, and Scully had got a message on exercise in Germany that he'd been granted compassionate leave. Took him totally by surprise. Why the hell did he need compassionate leave?

  She was supposed to have been taking care of Peter. Same as she was supposed to have been taking care of Scully. Fucked up on both counts. Then fucked off.

  So Scully had so much less to lose than the others.

  Which is why he'd stayed behind and touched the bare wires to the battery terminals.

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= The noise of the three collapsing chimneys could be heard across central London. Nearly a million bricks falling from a height of 337 feet, carefully executed so that they fell inside the walls of the power station where they could do no harm and where the noise would be amplified like a huge drum. Even inside the chamber of the House of Commons, two miles down the river, they knew that something quite extraordinary had taken place, but precisely what no one was sure, not until the cloud of dust had settled. Yet as the wind blew away the debris and the air cleared, two things were seen at Battersea. The first was the single remaining chimney, huge, white, illuminated so that it could be viewed from many miles around, pointing like a raised middle finger in the direction of Westminster. A symbol of defiance and contempt. In a campaign that had consisted entirely of symbolic gestures, this struck Amadeus as being particularly apposite.

  The second thing to be seen at Battersea was a figure emerging from the dust. Scully had been blown over and beaten by the blast, shaken until he thought the fillings would be rattled out of his teeth, covered in dust and cut by flying debris. But he had survived. There was no point in trying to run. His leg now refused to work, he could barely walk. So he grabbed a piece of metal scaffolding to act as a crutch and, with considerable difficulty, had levered himself to his feet. Then he had walked towards inevitable capture.

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= It was the young officer's first month as a member of the Armed Response Unit. He'd managed to get all the way through the Lippitts Hill training camp in Epping Forest without screwing up. Absorbed all the lectures, learned how to tuck his trousers into his boots, earned his Marksman classification on a whole bunch of weapons and succeeded in impressing the superintendent. Done it all – except, that is, for the active service bit. Now he'd been thrown in at the deep end, and word had come down from on high that these men were dangerous, enemies of the entire established order. That no risks were to be taken.

  Thoughts tumbled inside his head, pushed savagely around by the pounding of the Air Support Unit helicopter that hovered overhead. He could feel the sweat beginning to prickle on his brow, but he had a good sighting through the night scope of his Heckler amp; Koch MP5. A single-shot carbine in its police variant. A single shot was all a trained marksman was supposed to need.

  As Scully emerged from the fog of dust he appeared to be holding something. Something about the size and shape of a rifle. It was at his shoulder, and he was waving it in the direction of the police line. Christ, the guy was tooled up. Game on. At that precise and wretched moment, elsewhere on the field another officer stumbled over debris in the dark and fell with a cry. The radio spat into life and the novice's earpiece exploded inside his brain with shouts of 'Officer down! Officer down!'

  Inexperience. Fear. Excitement. Adrenaline. Distraction. Perhaps even an in-built desire to do it for the first time, a dark fascination to see how it would feel that the psychologists hadn't unravelled.

  So the officer slotted Scully from a distance of almost sixty yards. The soft-point nine millimetre round had a muzzle velocity of thirteen hundred feet a second. It struck the side of the breastbone and began to spin along its axis, dumping its energy and tearing a hole in his chest all the way through to his heart. Blew poor Scully clean away.

  SIXTEEN

  The destruction of the power station was not the only bomb incident that night. In the early hours of the morning the emergency services received an anonymous phone call through a computerized voice synthesizer. It indicated that a car parked in front of a terraced house in the quiet residential street of Mayday Avenue in Clapham contained a bomb. It also mentioned that the bomber was asleep inside the house.

  Sky News received similar information, equally anonymously, about fifteen minutes later.

  There was immediate suspicion about the authenticity of the report, given the rather picturesque name of the location. Mayday Avenue? But who the hell was going to take any chances after a night like this? So, as quietly as is possible at two in the morning, Mayday Avenue was cordoned off and sniffer dogs sent in.

  When they reached the suspect car, the dogs responded with great enthusiasm, running round and round in excited circles. When the VIM check revealed that the car had heavyweight military connections, things began to fall into place. Could this be the car that had transported the explosives to Battersea? Were the bombers inside the house?

  Only one way to find out.

 
An inspection through a night scope revealed that the downstairs windows were encased in metal security grilles. The front door also appeared to be reinforced. Perhaps nothing more than sensible precautions against domestic burglary, but also potentially the signs of fortifications around a bomb factory. There were other problems. Access from the rear was severely impeded by a series of gardens and walls – they wouldn't be able to get a large force of men in that way without disturbing every cat in the neighbourhood. It had to be through the front door.

  Oh, but there were so many uncertainties. They had no idea about the internal layout of the house, or who might be sleeping where. If there was a bomb in the car, should they try to disable it first? Or try to evacuate the rest of the street, knowing that it would take hours and almost certainly alert the bombers? No, it had to be simplicity and speed. Delay was not an option, if for no better reason than that Sky TV had already arrived and other news cameras would be hot on their heels. Soon this place was going to be a circus. They had to go straight in.

  A bomb-squad Land Rover was driven up as close and as quietly as possible to the front door. One end of a metal chain encased in sound-smothering plastic was attached to the chassis, while the three-foot metal bar that dangled from the other end was carefully dropped through the letter box. It was known as an 'enforcer'. Then the engine of the Land Rover was gunned and the clutch slipped. The metal chain went taut, the Land Rover hesitated as the tyres scrabbled for more grip, then lurched forward several yards. In its wake came the noise of splintering wood, and what remained of the front door of Number 27.

  Suddenly Mayday Avenue was filled with the sounds of chaos – the angry shriek of a car alarm as the flying door buried itself in the windscreen, the howling of terrified dogs, the grave-spinning screams of officers as they poured though the hole in Number 27. Then the sound of other doors being smashed in, followed by more screams.

  It was over in seconds. Only two occupants and no resistance, which in the circumstances was scarcely surprising. It's damned difficult to resist when you're caught naked in bed with your arms and legs wrapped around each other.

  The sounds and sights of that night were captured for posterity and profit by the cameras of Sky TV. They could see it all from their position at the far end of the road, shooting from the bedroom window of a house owned by a quick-witted Asian family who had demanded five hundred pounds cash-in-hand for the disruption. Had they known it they could have bargained for considerably more. The video images were dark and grainy, lit only by the street lamps and lacking the sunlit clarity of the footage from the Iranian Embassy siege, but it was an exclusive on a night when competing newsrooms would slit veins for half as much. Sky had it all. The dark shapes of police in Kevlar-coated body armour scurrying along the road, crouching for every inch of cover. The Land Rover reversing into position. The brief tug of war and its explosive aftermath. The sudden invasion of the house and, only minutes later, the faint image of two bodies being dragged through the remains of the front door and spreadeagled on the pavement outside. Even in the poor light it was possible to see that one was a woman. It was only when the man started struggling that anyone was able to tell that the two were still alive. A boot on the back of the neck rapidly put an end to the protest.

  There are many ways for a man to be humiliated. Being caught in the wrong bed is, perhaps, reasonably common, being suspected as a terrorist considerably less so. But being dragged goose-bump naked into the street and left lying face down on the freezing pavement for many minutes is a humiliation afforded to few. Yet then to be raised, arms manacled behind the back, and presented to television audiences around the world, with your career, self-respect and manhood withered in the cold, is all but unique.

  For Colonel Abel Gittings, OBE etc, these humiliations had come all rolled up together.

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= Goodfellowe heard the blast through ears deadened by alcohol. He was drunk and wallowing in it. Not entirely his fault. The diet had lowered his resistance to alcohol, and what little tolerance remained had been finished off by Elizabeth.

  It wasn't as if he didn't understand. He wasn't an insensitive, uncomprehending male. She had problems that weighed heavily on her humour and left her distracted, unable to concentrate on the little rituals of courtship. 'It's because I love you that I don't have to pretend,' she explained. That was good enough for Goodfellowe. If the magic of their moments together had waned, squeezed aside by her money problems, it would only be for a short while. One of those relationship things. Anyway, he'd been distracted, too, with COBRA and all. Power was a great aphrodisiac, but there was the other side of it which could also leave you knackered at the end of the day. No matter, soon it would all be over, they'd be back to normal, and then he would find that memorable moment when he would ask her to marry him and they could put it all behind them, in bed, like they used to. Hell, no rush.

  So, late that evening after the final vote, he had dropped in at The Kremlin. He wanted – needed – to say hello. Cheer her up, if he could. Or was it to cheer himself up? Anyway, he arrived.

  'Missed you,' he explained.

  'Me, too,' she replied, and meant it. She squeezed him briefly but passionately, then sat him down at one of the tables and proceeded to fetch a very special bottle of Crimean champagne, from Massandra, which came with the crisp hint of gooseberries and apple blossom and was the colour of gently baked biscuit. The cork came out with an understated explosion of joy and he relished the moment, playing with the wine, pushing it around his mouth with his tongue before allowing it to trickle slowly down the back of his throat. 'This is superb. Terrific. To what do I owe this pleasure? Guilt?' A clumsy joke which deserved its fate of being ignored.

  'Celebration. I think I've found a new financial backer,' she muttered softly.

  That's fantastic. Who?' he responded with enthusiasm.

  'He's called Ryman. An old friend.'

  'Wonderful!' Then Goodfellowe paused, ransacking his store of recollections. 'Ryman. An old boyfriend.'

  'You've got an excellent memory, Goodfellowe.' She smiled for the first time that evening. It needed more practice, he thought, the first attempt was unconvincing.

  'Forgive my stupidity, but why would an old flame of yours want to lend you money?'

  'For old times' sake, stupid.' Her lips puckered, she was flirting, the old Elizabeth, teasing him, but the eyes still looked serious, bitter-sweet. 'Don't tell me you're jealous, Tom. It's the first good thing that's happened in ages and I could really do without any menopausal male inadequacy right now.'

  Was he jealous? Perhaps. But to him her words seemed an unnecessarily brutal attempt to put an end to that line of conversation.

  She had mentioned the name only once before, during a long and deliriously alcoholic evening they had spent at a country hotel owned by a friend of Elizabeth where, in an elaborate game of foreplay, they had left their bedroom strewn with the confidences of their previous entanglements – although, to be fair, most of the confidences had been Elizabeth's. He'd been married so long that his only entanglements in recent years had been with duvets. She'd used her past conquests to goad him, to inflame his male possessiveness to the point where he needed to invade and reclaim every inch of her. If she lived to be as old as Methuselah she was never going to forget the drapes of that particular four-poster. They had loved and laughed, then loved a lot more, and he had forgotten all those names and past indiscretions of hers that had scratched away at him – until now.

  'He lives in the South of France,' she hurried on, as though aware that some further explanation was called for but keen to redirect it onto safer, foreign fields. 'Bit of a playboy. Inherited squillions.'

  'And keen to help.'

  She nodded and held his gaze.

  'So what happened between you two? Why didn't it work out?'

  'As I said, he's a playboy. I found him in bed with my best friend.'

  'Thought you didn't do jealousy.'

  'I don't. But I
do a fine line in revenge. I put sugar in the fuel tank of his yacht on a night when they were sailing off for one of their little trysts. Left them stranded for hours. They had to be rescued by the coastguard, got lots of local publicity. Unfortunately, she had told her husband she was going to a cookery class.'

  'Ouch. And he forgave you after that?'

  'The boyfriend? Well, that's all ancient history.'

  Until now. Goodfellowe chided himself. He had to be grown up about this. 'Well, if he's willing to help, that would be…' – he stretched for the word, almost stumbled – 'helpful.'

  'It would be a loan. I'd have to let him have a share of the restaurant until I'd repaid it. But he wouldn't interfere.'

  'A sort of -' he was about to say 'sleeping partner' until something he was forced to recognize as menopausal male inadequacy gripped him savagely by the throat. 'You've discussed this with him?'

  'Of course. We had dinner last week.'

  The night of that little white lie, no doubt.

  'I'm hoping we can finalize it this weekend. It would be a great weight off my mind, Tom.'

  'Mine, too.' Hell, he'd got to stop being such a wimp. This was great news. A new start for Elizabeth, a new start for them both. He squeezed her hand, leaned across the table and kissed her. Perhaps it was the table between them that prevented it from being the long and lingering expression of desire he had intended to show. 'I'm so happy for you. Well done.'

  'Thanks, darling. Means me playing hooky next weekend. He can't come to London. I've got to meet him halfway.'

  'Where?'

  'Paris.'

  At which point Goodfellowe had decided to get seriously drunk.

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= If modern Prime Ministers lead less decadent lives than some of their predecessors, it's perhaps less to do with their virtues than with their diaries, which are crammed. Packed to the point of exhaustion. It leaves them little time to relax, still less time to think. Scarcely time to fit in a good game of cricket or a prayer meeting, let alone a torrid affair.