by Hugh Miller
Philpott assured him the figures would be of great assistance. They would help, for a start, in putting Philpott to sleep later on. Nothing worked better on his insomnia than rows and columns of dry official figures.
The car supplied by Deerpaul’s office was mechanically sound and it handled very well on the rough half-formed roads between Jammu and the southern territory of the Vale of Kashmir. The suspension, on the other hand, was the hardest Philpott had ever withstood. At ten minutes to nine in the evening he drew up fifty metres from the perimeter fence of the farm, with an ache in his back that would take his New York chiropractor a month to put right.
He left the car locked up at the roadside and walked across wooded land in the direction of the farm. Deerpaul had provided a powerful MagLite torch but Philpott chose not to use it. Instead, he walked along in almost total darkness, making himself see. When he came out of the woods and was approaching the fence, he could make out the dull sheen of the wire against the surrounding blackness.
He stood by the fence for a while just listening. There were the sounds of animals, the rustle of leaves and grass in the soft breeze, an occasional small sound — bumps, the scraping of a chair on a stone floor — from the cottage at the centre of the farm. Nothing special, no indication of bustle or business. Everything he heard was consistent with a quiet, sleepy farm.
He walked along the fence, feeling for a gate, and eventually found one. It was a high double gate with two heavy padlocks. Philpott paused to consider if it would be worth his while to go over the fence. He decided to do it.
Back where he had first stood listening, there was a broken plastic bottle crate lying in the grass. He went back and found it and stood it on end close to the wire. When he climbed on it the crate dipped under his weight and creaked ominously, but it held.
He paused, licked the tip of his right forefinger and touched it to the top wire of the fence. The shock was severe enough to throw his hand away from the wire. He wet his finger again and touched the next wire. Nothing.
His leather gloves, as always, lay flat in his right inside jacket pocket. He put them on and gripped the top wire of the fence. The manoeuvre he was about to use was not one he would let any of his agents see him employ; it was ungainly and ergonomically unsound, and it would certainly make someone like Mike Graham laugh like a drain. It would make his doctor despair, because ever since Philpott’s heart attack a few years earlier, the old physician regularly complained that he didn’t take his health seriously enough. But the manoeuvre usually worked for Philpott, and for the moment that was all that counted.
He got up on his toes on the crate, then bent his knees sharply, keeping hold of the wire.
‘One.’
He breathed in, flexing his legs, pushing his shoulders as high as they would go.
‘Two.’
He repeated the move, stretching his back as far as he could, getting right up on his toes. He came down again and this time he crouched. He took a deep breath.
‘Three!’
He shot up, aiming himself into the air, pushing with his toes and pulling with his forearms. His body went up in an arc and sailed over the fence. He landed on his feet on the other side and sank to a squatting position.
When he was sure he had raised no alarms, he stood up. He brushed his jacket and began walking towards the dim lights of the cottage.
Halfway across the compound he heard a noise behind him. He turned and saw lights approaching. It was a truck, bumping over the stony ground between the perimeter fence and the road. Philpott dropped to the ground and flattened himself in the grass.
The truck stopped, someone got out to open the gates, then it rumbled through and stopped in front of the cottage. Philpott waited, listening for the sound of the gates being locked again. But no sound came from that direction. He noted that a clear escape route was now available should he need it.
As he lay there he saw someone being helped out of the back of the truck and led into the cottage. It looked as if there were two other people as well.
The cottage door opened, spilling out a fan of yellow light, then closed again. Philpott ran across the grass at a crouch.
He stood to one side of the largest of the three lit windows and peered in at the side. At a table, below an oil lamp dangling from the ceiling, a nervous-looking young man sat with a thick wad of money in front of him. On the other side of the table an old man stood, wagging a finger as he addressed the young man. Lurking back in the shadows were two men with the kind of faces Philpott generally described as being born for the gibbet. On a side table was a bulging sack and on another table beside it, a pile of unmistakable merchandise in telltale plastic bags: heroin, nearly fluorescent in its stark whiteness.
Philpott pulled back from the window. This was an odd happenstance. He had come looking for evidence of a black market in charity goods and stumbled on a drug-running operation.
He stood a moment longer, wondering about a course of action. Finally he decided the best thing was to leave and evaluate the evidence over a large brandy, preferably somewhere quiet and comfortable.
As Philpott made his way through the darkness towards his car, back in New York it was close to noon. C.W. Whitlock was in the Sculpture Garden on top of the twentieth-century wing of the Museum of Modern Art. It was a bright and reasonably warm day, but very few people had ventured out to the garden.
Whitlock pretended to give most of his attention to a bronze head of a girl, while his companion feigned interest in a pencil-slim Giacometti figure beside it.
‘Did it never occur to you, Bridget,’ Whitlock said quietly, ‘that you were bound to get caught in the end?’
The woman shrugged. She was approaching middle age, a small and tidy woman with attractive dark hair streaked with grey. She wore oval glasses with tortoise-shell frames which she kept pushing nervously along her nose.
‘The work, the cause, was everything, you know? Getting caught was a hazard but it was hardly worth considering, since the work had to be done anyway, risk or no risk.’
‘So you never feared for your own future? You never thought about the possibility of being shut away for the rest of your life?’
‘I thought about it late at night. Sometimes. The same way I occasionally think about death, or getting mugged, or finding myself walking down Fifth Avenue with no clothes on — all that insecure stuff was there, but it didn’t hinder me, it didn’t make me draw back from what I had to do.’
‘None of it came to anything,’ Whitlock said. ‘Don’t you find that disheartening?’
‘No. What mattered was my, my …’
‘Subversion?’
‘Sure. Right.’ She pushed the specs back along her nose. ‘I was doing what was right. I thought that then and I think it now. So I admit it was kind of absurd, it was a wrong tack in just about every respect, but it was something carried out in the right spirit.’
‘I think I understand.’ Whitlock moved on to the next sculpture. The woman moved too.
‘You think I’m a real dope, don’t you?’
‘No,’ Whitlock said. ‘I don’t agree with a thing you did, but I don’t condemn you for it, and I don’t think you’re anywhere near being a dope. A starry-eyed idealist, maybe …’
‘So where do I stand?’
‘Looking at the situation one way, it’s kind of grave,’ Whitlock said. ‘Looking at it another — well, no harm’s done…’
‘But there are consequences at law,’ the woman said.
‘If you ever found yourself having to face them.’ Whitlock turned to her. ‘That’s why I suggested we meet up here. Away from people keeping tabs. I’m prepared to let you vanish.’
She stared at him. ‘For real?’
‘Absolutely.’
She went on staring. ‘There’s a price, right?’
He nodded.
‘How much?’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake.’ Whitlock looked affronted. ‘I don’t mean money.’
<
br /> ‘What, then?’
‘A free and detailed confession.’
‘How detailed?’
‘I’ve written it out already.’ Whitlock took two folded sheets of paper from his pocket and handed them to the woman. ‘Why don’t you go over there, sit down and read it. If you feel you can sign it, then I’ve got a pen with me, too. We can have this whole thing sewn up before we get back to street level.’
‘And what happens then, assuming I sign it?’
‘Well, I happen to know you’re not strapped for money, and you’ve got fast foreign transfer facilities set up already …’
‘You’re thorough, Mr Whitlock.’
‘Frankly, Bridget, there’s nobody to touch me in that department. As I see it, you can take off for anywhere you want. I’m sure you’ve somewhere in mind, a hinterland.’
She nodded. ‘How long have I got?’
‘Forty-eight hours, tops.’
She opened the papers, glanced at them a moment, then said, ‘Give me the pen. I’ll sign now.’
‘Without reading your statement?’
‘You’re an honourable man, right?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Well then. There’s no problem, you won’t have stuck me with anything I didn’t do, and I’m sure my darkest deeds will be presented in the kindest possible light.’
She put the statement on the plinth of the Giacometti and signed and dated both sheets.
‘There.’ She handed it back to Whitlock. ‘Will this do any practical good, do you think? Or is it just an exercise in detection and tidying up?’
‘I hope it’ll do some good,’ Whitlock said.
‘Fine.’ She smiled and turned away. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I should be getting along. I’ve a lot of packing to do.’
22
The first thing Philpott did when he got into his room at the Hotel Jammu Ashok was pour himself a large brandy from a bottle of Remy VSOP he had brought with him. He then settled down to think over the situation. When he reached a decision, he had another large brandy.
Before turning in for the night he put through a call on a scrambler circuit to C.W. Whitlock. There was a delay while the decoder at the US end connected, then Whitlock came on the line.
‘I believe I’ve stumbled on something that will be more than a simple addition to what TF3 are doing out here,’ Philpott told him. ‘But I’ll let you know more later. Has anything important turned up?’
‘Well, yes,’ Whitlock said. ‘It cancels part of your reason for going to Kashmir. Policy Control have sent us a memo.’
‘Yes?’
‘They’ve fixed a date for a techniques-and-procedures review. Two days from now.’
‘What, even though they know I’m not there?’
‘That’s it.’
‘But how can I defend myself if I’m not there?’
‘Strictly speaking,’ Whitlock said, ‘you don’t need to put up a defence, or put in an appearance, since technically you’re not under attack.’
‘In other words they can bulldoze whether I’m there or not.’
‘I’ll be here, sir. And I fully intend to speak up on behalf of our freedom to swing to our own rhythm.’
‘Do we have much of a case?’
‘I’m working on it.’
Philpott paused and swallowed more brandy. ‘What do you really think, C.W.? Can my skin be saved here?’
‘Anything’s possible. And I’ll be trying my hardest.’
Meanwhile, in open country one hundred and sixty kilometres north-west of Philpott’s hotel, Mike and Sabrina, still on horseback, were making their way north with the guidance of the stars. As an exercise in root-level self-sufficiency Mike would have enjoyed it; as a necessity he found it frustratingly limited. He would have felt better about everything, Sabrina told him, if he’d had something to eat.
‘The horses have done a lot better than us,’ she said, her voice echoing eerily in the dark. ‘All that good fresh water, and the fodder — those were nice people.’
Under other circumstances Mike would have found them delightful. But he had been hungry for many hours now, and entering the village he had entertained the hope of a meal, anything at all to cancel his hunger. It was not to be. The people were transients. It was a ghost village, and although there was a good well, and the people carried fodder for their animals, there was no spare food for human beings.
‘It could only happen to us,’ Sabrina said now.
‘What could?’
‘Coming on a band of travelling acrobats and jugglers.’
‘Starving acrobats and jugglers,’ Mike corrected. ‘Who seemed to value their animals’ health above their own, I might add.’
‘They were just honest and kind, Mike. You still find that in India. Decent people who don’t think about themselves all the time.’
‘Whatever. I’m still hungry. I thought it would have passed off by now. It’s supposed to, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s just concentrate on making headway. Maybe when we hit a decent-sized town we can sell the horses and get ourselves some food.’
‘Ssh!’ Mike stopped his horse.
‘What is it?’
‘Ssh!’
They sat in silence. The horses were motionless. There was scarcely a breeze.
‘What did you think you heard?’
‘It was like somebody choking back a cough,’ Mike said.
They listened again.
‘I guess it must have been your turn to hallucinate,’ Sabrina said.
‘Don’t make jokes about it. I’m being cautious, I’m staying alert. It’s part of the job.’
‘Oh, sorry. I forgot myself. I should have been concentrating on learning all I can from you.’
Sabrina couldn’t see Mike’s face but she could imagine his expression.
‘Any little thing, any implied criticism, and you go all defensive,’ he said.
His horse snorted. Sabrina couldn’t help imagining it was a response to what he had said. She laughed.
‘Go ahead,’ Mike said. ‘Laugh. Mock. Mockery’s the gusto of tiny spirits. You know that?’
‘I bet you’re glad you opened that fortune cookie.’
Mike began to say something else but Sabrina never heard it. A hand grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her off the horse. As she hit the ground she was punched on the ear.
There was sudden light. On both sides of the road kerosene flares were lit and Sabrina saw the turbaned men who held them.
More bandits she thought. This country is all bandits …
She saw Mike. He was rolling away from two men who tried to hold on to him. Sabrina was already into the same manoeuvre. As her shoulders were grabbed she ducked her head and somersaulted, making the hands lose their grip.
Men shouted. Sabrina rolled twice and jumped to her feet. At a sound behind her she shot out her arm and swung left, chopped a man on the upper lip and felt the bone crack.
‘Eight!’ Mike shouted. ‘Eight of them!’
That was something she could learn from him, the ability to calculate while he was defending himself.
‘Check!’ she shouted back.
A man howled as Mike leapt in the air and kicked him in the belly. Another man screamed as the torch he was swinging was pushed in his own face.
‘Two down!’ Mike yelled.
Sabrina ran ten paces, braked and turned, arms extended and fists clenched. She hit two men. One of them dropped to his knees and she chopped him on the throat.
‘Three!’ she shouted.
The other man came at her, waving a knife. She ducked, heard the knife whistle past her ear, clenched one hand around the other and slammed them into his face. He dropped without a sound.
‘Four!’
Mike had commandeered the fallen torch and was swinging it like a fiery claymore. The flames roared in the faces of the remaining four bandits as they tried to consolidate into a phalanx. Sabrina paused to kick a man in the chest a
s he tried to rise, then threw herself at the four trying to surround Mike.
‘Geronimo!’
She caught one by the ear and ran sideways, pulling him off balance, making him scream and flail his arms. The other three scattered, confused. Mike grabbed one by the arm and twisted it. The shoulder cracked and the man fell, howling.
‘Two left!’ Sabrina shouted.
‘And running!’ Mike yelled.
He picked up a fallen torch and held it above his head. Two bandits were running off into the scrub land. The other six, in various stages of injury and semi-consciousness, were strewn along the road.
Mike looked at Sabrina and grinned. ‘Geronimo?’ he said.
‘It just came out.’
Mike wiped his brow. ‘We showed ‘em. They’ve got a lot to learn about dirty fighting.’
Sabrina threw back her hair and pointed as something glinted in the flickering torchlight. ‘They have transport.’
Mike picked up another torch and handed it to Sabrina. They walked across the scrub and took a look. Parked behind a clump of bushes was a battered Ford truck.
‘Hallelujah,’ Mike said quietly. ‘I can hardly believe it.’
He got behind the wheel, located the key and turned it. The engine started and turned over with a powerful hum. He revved and the note rose to a whine.
‘Hallelujah again. It’s been souped.’
‘It’s vibrating kind of wildly,’ Sabrina said.
‘It’s been abused,’ Mike shouted. ‘What can you expect from bandits? It should hold up for us, if we take it easy.’
Sabrina went back and surveyed the damage. Three men were on their feet. They backed away as she approached. The three on the ground were not moving. Sabrina pointed to the horses. ‘They’re yours,’ she said. The three men backed off some more. ‘Ride them in good fortune.’
From the road she picked up an old Webley.38, a knife and a leather pouch, then went back to the truck. As she got in beside Mike she shook the pouch in his face. It jingled.
‘Currency,’ she said. ‘Breakfast.’
Philpott met Ram Jarwal for lunch in the sunny, fragrant garden of the Tao Café in Srinagar. The food on the menu was mainly Chinese. Both men ordered chow mein, with spring rolls for starters. Ram’s manner seemed subdued; Philpott, who had never met him before, assumed that was how he was.