by Jeremy Duns
Charamba had heard of the South Africans’ plans for a summit from a paid informant within ZIPRA. Evidently someone somewhere – perhaps the same informant – had talked.
‘Who is this?’ he repeated, his voice now more insistent.
‘Patience, Professor. All will soon be clear. I represent a group of men who want those negotiations to take place, and to be fruitful. And we want you to take a leading role in them.’
‘What? You must know my position – no negotiation with the whites on this. Majority rule is not something to debate—’
‘I’m very familiar with your position, Professor, but we want you to . . . adapt it.’
‘And why should I do this for you, a total stranger calling me up at my house?’
‘Haven’t you guessed yet?’ the man on the other end of the line taunted. ‘I want you to dismiss everyone from your house. Your sentries can continue to patrol the grounds, but there must be nobody in the house when I call you back in precisely one hour from now. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, but why should I—’
‘Because we have your daughter and grandson, Professor.’
There was a clunking sound and then another voice came on the line, its urgency breaking through a field of static.
‘Father, it’s me, Hope! I’m here with my son, Ben. We’re both scared. Please – do whatever these men say.’
There was a click and the line went dead.
Charamba rose from his chair, his face drawn, and opened the door of his office. Phillip Gibo, his chief bodyguard, looked up in surprise.
‘Get everyone out,’ Charamba said quietly. ‘Get everyone out of the house at once.’
Chapter 27
Rachel took the paper from the terminal and read the message from the Interpol bureau in Helsinki. It was to the point:
SUBJECT ERIK JOHANSSON. MASEL.
She found the Interpol sheet on top of a filing cabinet and ran her finger down the codewords. There it was. ‘MASEL: We are sending photographs and fingerprints to you by teleprinter immediately.’
She put the sheet down and reached for the pack of cigarettes and lighter in her purse. She lit one and leaned back on the table, enjoying the rush of nicotine. She had taken three puffs when the machine started up again, and she crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray and watched as the photograph came through.
Chapter 28
Matthew Charamba took a deep breath and picked up the telephone.
‘Is the house clear?’
‘Have you hurt them?’
‘Is the house clear?’
Charamba’s flesh crawled at the menace in the voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. No, we haven’t harmed Hope or Ben, and have no intention of doing so provided you cooperate. Would you like more confirmation that we’re holding them, and of their identities?’
He thought about it. He hadn’t had any contact with Hope since she had left that terrible day, so he hadn’t even known she had a son, but he didn’t doubt it was her for a moment. Even ten years on, he would have recognised her voice anywhere. He could ask them for some kind of confirmation – the name of her favourite song as a child, perhaps, something like that – as a way of stalling them so he could make some investigations, but he couldn’t think of anything, and something told him it wasn’t a good idea to try to fool the man behind the voice.
‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I believe you.’
‘That is also good. Now understand this, Professor, because it’s very important. You can tell no one about this. Not the newspapers, not your aides – nobody whatsoever. If we have any indication that you have told anyone, or indeed have even considered telling anyone, your daughter and grandson will die. If you don’t follow our demands to the letter, they will die. If you don’t agree to all of the conditions we have set out for the summit, they will die. If it becomes clear in the summit or at any other time that others know of this, they will die.’
Charamba took a tissue from the pocket of his dressing gown and wiped away the sweat from his face.
‘Your idea can’t work. Even if I can arrange to be invited to the summit—’
‘Oh, we think you can, Professor. We think they’ll be glad to have you there.’
‘Perhaps. But only because they know my position. If I weaken it at all, they’ll know at once I have been pressured.’
‘We don’t think so. I think you’ll see that our conditions are more than reasonable. We have even made some concessions from the last round of negotiations, which we think you can successfully argue for.’
‘The last . . . !’ He tried to contain his anger. ‘You’re crazy if you think I’ll go along with this. The last round of talks put off majority rule for a century!’
‘We’re not at the negotiating table now, Professor. I’ll call back later to explain to you precisely what we expect. You mustn’t speak to anybody about this, remember.’
The line went dead.
Chapter 29
The telephone rang in the bedroom of the large Georgian townhouse in Mayfair. In the antique four-poster bed, Sandy Harmigan groaned and opened his eyes. He reached for the receiver on the side table, his mind quickly registering that the call must mean an emergency of some kind. As Chief of the Service, he was rarely woken by the telephone unless it was to herald death or disaster.
‘Yes?’ he said, glancing at his watch on the table as he did so. The luminous hands told him it was just after three o’clock.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, sir – it’s Reception. I have an urgent call for you from the night desk.’
He sat up with a jolt. Rachel was on duty tonight. He suddenly felt his heart hammering in his chest. On the other side of the bed, a body stirred.
‘Who is it?’
Harmigan looked across at his wife. She was wearing a black silk eye-mask and her skin was very pale without its customary coating of make-up. She looked, it struck him, like an embalmed corpse.
‘The office,’ he said.
She shifted her weight and turned her back to him. ‘Would you mind taking it downstairs?’
It was a strictly rhetorical question. Harmigan told the operator to hold the line, replaced the receiver on its cradle and climbed out of the massive bed. He slid into his slippers, closed the bedroom door behind him and padded downstairs, where he picked up the telephone on the dresser in the hallway and told the operator he was ready. There was a brief pause while the signal was scrambled, and then a woman’s voice came on the line.
‘Sandy?’
‘Rachel – are you all right? What’s going on?’
‘Me? I’m fine.’
Relief surged through him. Nothing had happened to her. He could have dealt with anything at all but that. He realised that he’d been terrified of hearing of her death without his even being consciously aware of it. Then there was a constriction in his chest again, as he redirected his mind to finding out whatever other emergency was taking place instead.
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m sorry to call you at home.’ They had agreed long ago that she would never do that, and there was an awkward silence at her tacit acknowledgement of their affair. Then she cleared her throat and went on. ‘Something’s turned up – or rather, someone has. I’ve just received a photo-telegraph from Interpol in Helsinki and I’ve compared it to the ones we have. He’s got a beard now and has aged a bit, of course, but I’m sure it’s him.’
‘Rachel, it’s three o’clock in the bloody morning. You’d better be talking about Lord Lucan or I won’t be very happy.’
‘It’s Paul Dark.’
Harmigan pressed the receiver closer to his ear.
‘What?’
‘The Finns took him into custody a few hours ago after he stole a motorbike and a helicopter, leaving two people dead. He then escaped from custody and Interpol have issued an alert as a result. I followed up and asked them to send me a photograph
, and it’s definitely him.’
‘That’s not possible. The bastard’s dead, frozen solid on some shitty island. As you well know.’
But even as he said the words he knew they weren’t true. Six years ago, Rachel had been insistent Dark might still be alive, but she had no reason to lie to him about the Finns or Interpol’s photograph. Helsinki was also just a few hours from where Dark had last been seen – but no body had ever been found. He’d even sent Sudbury out to have a look, but he’d just been met by blank stares from the local fishermen.
‘I’ll be there in an hour,’ he said. He hesitated for a moment, other words on his lips, then hung up.
He stood in the darkness of the hallway for a few seconds, then lifted the receiver again and dialled a long-distance number. Campbell-Fraser picked up on the second ring.
‘Roy, it’s Sandy in London. I’ve just had a rather alarming call from one of my subordinates about a development in Finland. Please tell me this has nothing to do with your little operation.’
Campbell-Fraser noted Harmigan’s phrasing – the last time he had spoken to him it had been ‘our’ operation, and there had been nothing ‘little’ about it. The substantial costs involved in mounting the job had forced him into calling on Harmigan for help, but he had judged the opportunity too good to miss. Failure would have serious repercussions, both from the international community and closer to home – Smith would sack him, perhaps even gaol him. But he had it in his power to secure Rhodesia’s future.
‘I was about to call you,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got off the phone with my team leader, Weale. The boyfriend got involved somehow, but it’s under control now. We have the girl and her son—’
‘It’s the boyfriend I’m worried about right now. Didn’t you think to look into his fucking background?’
Campbell-Fraser was taken aback by the ferocity in the other man’s voice. ‘We did. He’s just some middleaged Swedish hippy. Works nights for a charity. What’s going on?’
Harmigan sighed deeply. ‘That is not who he is, Roy. He’s a highly trained Soviet agent by the name of Paul Dark.’ He ran a hand through his mane of hair, thinking. Part of him wanted to give Campbell-Fraser an almighty bollocking, but other than relieving him of his anger he knew there would be little point. Time was of the essence. ‘When you say the situation’s under control, what do you mean, exactly? How are you proposing to exfiltrate your men? Interpol’s slapped an alert on Dark and the Swedes will be looking out for your lot by now, too.’
‘They’re heading back on a flight in a few hours. As far as we know, none of the passports has been compromised. Weale has already called Charamba and informed him of the situation, and I’ll take over as soon as they arrive.’
‘Good,’ said Harmigan, relieved. ‘But tell Weale to stay in Stockholm. I need him to find Dark.’
There was a moment’s pause on the other end of the line. ‘And how do you propose he does that, exactly?’
Harmigan considered the question, looking at his own reflection in the darkness of the hallway mirror. ‘The Swedes have a counter-intelligence unit,’ he said. ‘This will be their job. I’ll let them know one of my men is in town and will come to be briefed on their operation as there’s a British national involved. What name is Weale using?’
‘Frederick Collins. But, Sandy, I don’t think this is a good idea. Why not have one of your people there handle it?’
Harmigan laughed bitterly, thinking of Maidment, the 58-year-old Etonian who ran Stockholm Station. ‘None of them has your little crew’s particular brand of . . . expertise, let’s say. Anyway, I don’t want to drag my people into this. The entire point was for Service personnel to remain uninvolved precisely in case the wheels came off. Now thanks to your team’s sloppiness a wheel has come off, so I think it’s perfectly reasonable you’re the ones to put it back on again.’
‘I appreciate that, but John isn’t trained to—’
‘Oh, please. He spends his life impersonating wogs in the bush – he can certainly pretend to be one of my men for a few hours. He’s British-born, if I remember. We need this mess sorted out immediately, and he’s there. What’s your comms setup?’
Five minutes later, Harmigan replaced the receiver and walked back upstairs. Celia’s bedside light was on and she was sitting up reading a paperback, her eye-mask pushed up over her forehead.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘You look like death warmed up.’
‘Paul Dark’s alive.’
She closed the book and placed it on her bedside table.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m going into the office to find out more – but it fits. He’s in Finland. Well, probably Sweden by now.’
‘Who’s discovered it?’
‘The night officer . . . Rachel Gold.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘The Jewess? Well, she did claim he was alive before, didn’t she?’
He sighed, knowing what was coming. ‘Yes.’
‘But then there was that business with Gadlow in Malaysia. And she’s not in the circle. Do you think you can afford to have her deal with this?’
‘Dark’s a completely different kettle of shit from Tom bloody Gadlow. Dark knew pretty much everything we have, and Gold knows more about him than anyone in the world.’
‘More than you, even?’
‘Much more. So yes, I’m going to use her on this.’
Celia Harmigan placed a hand to her mouth and yawned widely. ‘Well, it’s your agency, Sandy.’ She plumped up the pillows behind her, then squinted at him. ‘You’ve got your shifty look on. Is there something else?’
‘Yes. Dark’s got in the way of the Charamba job.’ He explained the situation, and she listened, her face cold and thin-lipped.
‘I see. Well, you’d better make sure you get hold of him before he can cause any more mischief. I don’t want the plan ruined because of your incompetence.’
She leaned over and switched off the light, then pulled down the eye-mask and disappeared back beneath the sheets on her side of the bed.
Chapter 30
Weale circled the telephone booth and consulted his watch again. The Commander was three minutes late with the call. It was an eternity in a situation like this, and he was beginning to worry that something had happened. Was the operation in danger of being exposed, or had Campbell-Fraser decided to cut off all contact because it already had been? That was the nightmare scenario, as they had to get out of the country within the next few hours – if they didn’t they’d be on the run from the Swedish authorities with no way out, and with two hostages to keep them company . . .
The telephone rang and he grabbed at the receiver.
‘Leopard One here.’
‘Hello, Captain Weale. We met last year in London.’
It took Weale a moment to recover, but then he recognised the voice: it was the overly suave Chief from British intelligence, Harmigan. The Commander had dragged him along on a ‘fact-finding mission’ to meet him and a few others in the Service last year, but the only facts he had found were that England was still as cold and dreary as it had been when he had left it as a child and that British intelligence was run by pompous asses.
‘Yes,’ Harmigan said, as though reading his thoughts, ‘you didn’t much like me. Well, the feeling’s mutual. I suspect you thought me a dull old stick with no idea of the harsh realities you deal with when operating behind enemy lines.’ Weale didn’t say anything – that was precisely what he had thought. ‘You’re mistaken. I was in your boots, or ones rather like them, not so many years ago, and I have a very good idea of what your work entails. And you have utterly fucked this operation up by not carrying out more thorough checks on the boyfriend.’
Weale had heard enough. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he growled, ‘but I don’t have to listen to this crap. I take my orders from—’
‘Major Campbell-Fraser, I know.’ Harmigan laughed unpleasantly. ‘But I’m afraid you do have to listen to m
e, Captain. Thanks to your carelessness, we’ve had to change plans. Campbell-Fraser gave me your number because, you see, he takes his orders from me.’ Weale drew his breath sharply, and Harmigan went on. ‘Yes, I’ve been running this operation and now you’re going to take your orders from me directly so we don’t have any more cock-ups and jeopardise the whole thing.’
‘I don’t believe you. The Commander hates the Brits.’ As do I, he felt like adding.
‘He doesn’t usually stand for “God Save the Queen”, it’s true, but Roy and I go back a long way. And we happen to have complementary aims here, which is of course the continuation of white rule in Rhodesia. Strange bedfellows and all that. He came to me with this operation and I provided a great deal of the money and logistics for it. You can call him to check if you like, but we don’t have much time thanks to your errors, and if you think about it for a minute you’ll see that the only other way I’d know to call this number at this time, or the fact you’re travelling under the name Frederick Collins, or that you’re holding Hope Charamba and her son in a flat just off the central square in Vällingby, would be if your operation was entirely blown, in which case I doubt we’d be chatting on the telephone, don’t you?’
Weale had fallen silent.
‘Good. I’m so pleased we understand each other. Now, let me hear you speak in a British accent. You’re going to have to fool a few Swedes, and they’re not as stupid as they look.’
Harmigan sat in his office smoking for a few minutes, then pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He walked across the carpeted corridor and took the lift down to Rachel’s office. Papers were spread across her desk and she was reading them with an expression of intense concentration.
‘So you found the files.’
She looked up. ‘Yes, Archives dug them out for me.’
‘Good.’ He walked over to her desk and perched himself on the corner. ‘You’ll soon remember most of it, I expect. I need you to present to the JIC in . . .’ he looked at his watch ‘. . . an hour from now. Think you can manage it?’