HOME RUN

by Gerald Seymour

  The lorry travelled through. The seals of the containers had been legally broken. He had his manifest list signed, stamped.

  The driver was free to drop off at an assembly of addresses the contents of his containers. He had brought into Turkey, quite illicitly and quite easily, four LAW 80 armour-piercing missiles, and he carried in his wallet a passport-sized photograph of the man to whom he would deliver four wooden crates, and he'd get a holiday with the wife and the kids in Majorca on the bonus he was promised for the successful shipment of the particular cargo that was stowed at the bulkhead of the container that was immediately behind the driver's cab.

  A piece of cake, the Customs point at Aziziye.

  The lorry headed for Istanbul.

  The envelope contained a dog-eared and well-scuffed Shenass-Nameh Recognition Paper, and a Certificate of Military Discharge following injury, and a Driver's Licence for a commercial vehicle. Included also in the envelope was a letter of authentication from a factory in Yazd that produced precision ballbearings and would therefore be classified as important to the war effort. And there were bank notes, rials.

  As he took each item out of the envelope, Charlie held it against the light that hung down from the ceiling of the room at the back of the barber's shop. He looked for the signs of overwriting and overstamping. It was right that he should check carefully. His life depended on them. He paid cash, he paid in sterling, £20 notes. He thought that the forger could have bought a half of the Aksaray district with what he made in documentation provided for the refugee exiles. He thought that he was a case of interest to the forger, because the forger had told him, not the time before, but the time before that, had confided in Charlie, that he was the only customer who looked for documentation to go back inside Iran. The barber's shop was in the centre of the Aksaray district that was the Little Iran of Istanbul. To the room at the back of the shop there came, by appointment, a stream of men and women seeking the precious papers which were required for them if a new life were to be born out of exile. And he charged . . .

  He charged what he thought he could get, and those from whom he could get nothing received nothing from him. For a Turkish passport he charged $500, and this was the bottom of his range and full of risk to the bearer because the number would not tally with any of the records maintained on the Interior Ministry computer. For a British or a Federal German passport, with entry visa, he would expect to relieve his customer of $10,000. Most expensive, top of his range, was the American passport, with multiple entry visa, and there were very few customers who had managed to secrete that sort of cash, $25,000 in used notes. Sometimes, but only occasionally, the forger took diamonds in lieu of cash, but he was loth to do that because he had no knowledge of precious stones and then he must go and put himself at the mercy of the young Jew in the Covered Bazaar that was a thousand metres away down Yeniceriler Caddesi - and he might be cheated. With fast and busy fingers he counted the cash.

  When they shook hands, when Charlie had pocketed the brown envelope, when the forger had locked away the money, then Charlie noticed the tic flicker on the right upper eyelid of the forger. Charlie did not consider that the tic flicker might have been caused by fear, apprehension; he thought the twitching came from an over indulgence in close and painstaking work.

  Charlie Eshraq walked out into the sunshine.

  He looked up the street for his shadow. He saw Park. He was at least 150 yards up the street. Charlie was about to wave a curt acknowledgement when he saw the shadow turn away from him.

  He had first seen the tail in the Aksaray district, where the walls were covered with posters that rubbished Khomeini, where the kids gathered to plot crimes that would bring them the money to get out of Turkey and onwards into Europe. He had first seen the tail when Eshraq had come out of the doorway of the barber's shop and started to walk towards him.

  He wasn't sure whether there were two cars, but he was certain that there was one car. There were three men, on the hoof. There was the man in the forecourt of the cafe who stood and then came after Eshraq as soon as he emerged into the sunshine; he was a tail because he left three quarters of a glass of cola undrunk. There was a man who had been leaning against a telephone pole and who had been busy cleaning his nails, and his nails didn't seem to matter once Eshraq was out. There was a third man, and when the car had pulled level with him then he had spoken quickly into the lowered front passenger window.

  He knew a tail when it was in front of him.

  He'd thought that the tail was good in Istanbul. He'd thought the tail was better in Ankara. He didn't doubt that the tail had been in place from the time they had walked out of the terminal of the Esenboga airport, but he hadn't picked it up until Eshraq had gone park walking with the young man who called himself Terence. In the park, the Genclik Park, with the lakes and the artificial islands and the cafes, he had kept himself back and he had watched Eshraq and his contact from more than a quarter of a mile. Three men again, but different from those who had done the footslog in Istanbul.

  He could have rung Bill Parrish, and he didn't. He could have called up the ACIO, and he didn't. They had passed him on from the Lane. They would be into the priority of Harlech's case, and sifting everything else that had taken back seat to the Eshraq investigation. They wouldn't have wanted to have known that there was a tail on Eshraq.

  He acknowledged that the tails were in place. He allowed them to stay in place.

  A man who wore a new black leather jacket, and who had a trimmed goat's beard, he saw him in the Genclik Park and he saw him at the airport when he and Eshraq boarded for Van.

  There was no communication between them. There was no bond in formation. Eshraq was moving to the frontier and Park was his shadow. They hardly spoke. When they spoke it was commonplace and factual. They spoke about where Eshraq was going, how long he would be there, where he would be going afterwards. That didn't bother Park, and it seemed to him that it didn't concern Eshraq. No need for it to have concerned either of them. They were the subjects of a deal.

  And if Eshraq had a tail on him, had had a tail ever since he had walked clear of the barber's shop in the Aksaray district of Istanbul then that was his worry, not Park's.

  49841/TL/7 6 87.

  T o : TURKDESK, CENTURY CC IRANDESK, DDG.

  From: ANKARASTATION

  MESSAGE: CE Vanwards, in company of Park. Transhipment from UK complete, no hitch, and now in transit Vanwards. Have fully briefed up, beefed up, CE on communications procedures, and agreed that most epistles will be hand carried out by courier. CE in good humour, good morale.

  Eye stressed need for detail in material rather than frequency.

  My opinion, eye think they have major handful tripping over their frontier. Eye didn't meet Park. CE ignores him, says he is harmless. In answer your query - TURKDESK CENTURY 6 6

  87 - CE says Park is no problem, but frightened of being away from home without him Mum, exclaimer . . . CE will cross 9

  6 87, using Dogubeyezit checkpoint. CE has necessary papers to drive commercial vehicle inside, will be carrying hardware via commercial van, and supply of electrical flex as per your suggestion. Upsummer: No problems, looks good, more follows.

  MESSAGE ENDS.

  * * *

  "You off then, Henry? That'll be a break."

  "I'll be in London, Mattie, reporting back."

  "I won't be sorry, Henry, if they slap your wrist."

  "Probably will, won't be for the first time . . . What I was saying, it's not quite a matter of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone. There's still one horse in the stable. Eshraq is in the stable, not for much longer, but he's there right now.

  Are you quite sure there is nothing you wish to add to what you have already told me?"

  "Quite sure."

  "When I get back, if there's still enough light, we might get the mallets out again, very soothing is croquet. Do you think we should have a nightcap, one for the stairs?. . . . "

  Bogham
mer Bill was a blip, lime-shaded, on the emerald wash of the screen.

  The operator, the egghead of the radar room crew, had identified the blip, and called over the 2 i/c to watch its progress.

  The crew of the Type 22 guided missile frigate were on Defence Watch. They were dripping sweat, those in the radar room, those on the bridge, those manning the 20mm rapid fire close engagement guns. The middle of the night, and the temperature close to 95 Fahrenheit, and all crew members swaddled in the white gown action suits and hooded.

  The technician knew that it was Boghammer Bill from the speed of the blip on the screen. It was a Swedish built patrol boat and the fastest craft in the Gulf.

  The Type 22 would not hang about, not in the waters where it was now cruising, maintaining radio silence and blacked out, just outside the Iranian twelve mile limit, for any more minutes than were essential. The 2 i/c thought the world was getting dangerously daft. There was a bright moon, high in a clear sky, and there was no wind. It was a ridiculous night to be stooging just off the limit without identification or prior warning. They were east of the Iranian island of Larak and west of the small fishing harbour of Minab, far too bloody many sea miles from their regular station, on escort duty in the Straits of Hormuz. The 2 i/c knew the mission, but he didn't know his skipper's Rules of Engagement orders if they came under Iranian fire. They had been watching the dhow on the screen for more than half an hour, and they could picture the fishing craft chugging on a small engine away from Minab. The 2 i/c knew it was the dhow they were to rendezvous with because its course was directly towards the longitude/

  latitude reference that he had been given, and there were no other crawling blips on the screen. It was now seven minutes since the patrol boat had speared on to the screen, going fast out of Bandar Abbas, powered by engines that could attain in excess of 50 knots. Staccato reports from the 2 i/c to the bridge, gestures that were self evident from the technician to the 2 i/c. The dhow was on course for the rendezvous, and Boghammer Bill was on course to intercept the dhow some four miles short of the rendezvous. No hiding place, not on a clear night.

  When he was home, on leave, when he was in Plymouth, the 2 i/c's idea of relaxation was to get himself up to one of the Devon water supply reservoirs and to put a small roach on to a damn great treble hook and let it flutter underneath a big bobbing float until it attracted the attention of a pike. Of course, the 2 i/c never saw the pike actually close on the tethered roach, couldn't see under the murk of the reservoir surface, but he imagined it. He told himself that the pike didn't stalk its dinner, it charged it. He thought of Boghammer Bill as the pike, he thought that some poor creature on the dhow was the roach bait. He watched the blips closing, he watched the racing speed of the blip that was Boghammer Bill. The blips closed, merged.

  * • •

  He had waited in his office at the Ministry building.

  He had waited for the final message to be telexed to the Communications rooms in the basement.

  In place were the arrest at sea of the official who worked in the Harbourmaster's office at Bandar Abbas. In place were three teams of men from the Revolutionary Centre for Volunteers for Martyrdom, settled into a Guards Corps barracks at Maku that was close to the main overland crossing point from Turkey. In place were three men who had tracked Eshraq from the airfield at Van to Dogubeyezit.

  There was one aspect of the situation that still puzzled the investigator as he cleared his desk, shovelled the maps and the briefing notes into his case. Furniss had named Charlie Eshraq, and yet Eshraq was in Dogubeyezit. Eshraq was in the Ararat Hotel in Dogubeyezit. Why was he not warned off?

  At this time, he did not concern himself with the man who had accompanied Eshraq from Istanbul to Ankara to Van to Dogubeyezit. Time enough for that, but later.

  His car waited. At the military airfield, an aircraft waited.

  He was a coming man. When he had Eshraq at the border he would be a man who had arrived. . . . If Eshraq came to the border. Very confusing.

  He had started early, certainly before Mattie Furniss was on the move. He had gone to his flat, one bedroom and a large living room and all the usuals, which was plenty for him, fixed rent, too, and they couldn't get him out, to collect his post.

  He sat on the bench in front of the spinning soapy window.

  He had raised a few eyebrows. There weren't many who came to the launderette and stuffed into the cavern an armful of clean, ironed shirts. He'd paid for a double rinse, which he thought would be sufficient to sort out the starch once and for all. He gazed at the maelstrom in front of him. He was a regular and sometimes there were people there who knew him and talked to him. Quite a little social club on a Thursday evening.

  He doubted there was a man or woman in the building who would want to hear what he had to say. Certainly not the Director General, who was giving him fifteen minutes. And it was bad news for him that the DDG was on his way that morning to Washington.

  When his shirts were washed, rinsed and dried, he folded them carefully and carried them back to his flat and gave them a quick iron.

  His car was on a good parking place, too good to lose, and so he took a bus from Putney Bridge along the river route to Century.

  No one loved the bearer of evil tidings. But what choice did he have? He believed that Mattie was lying.

  The dog was chained to the leg of the one solid garden seat. Mattie strode behind the mower. He had George at the wheelbarrow for the cuttings. He made neat lines.

  He knew where Henry Carter had gone. Poor old Henry, and not half as clever as he'd thought, he had seen to it that the telephone in the hall was removed, but he had forgotten the telephone in Mrs Ferguson's bedroom.

  He did the croquet lawn, close cut. He assumed that George was prepared to be outside with him, ferrying the cuttings to the compost heap, because George had been instructed to mind him.

  His name is Charlie Eshraq . . .

  Mattie mowed, pure straight stripes, and he scrubbed from his mind the echo of his own words.

  " . . . But he has told you nothing . . . "

  "That is quite correct, sir, he has admitted absolutely nothing."

  The Director General's smile was withering, "But you don't believe him."

  "I wish I could, sir, and I cannot."

  "But you have no evidence to substantiate your distrust?"

  "I have the conviction that a man who is driven by days of torture to name his field agents is not going to be allowed to stop there."

  "But why do you think he didn't make his escape before giving Eshraq's name?"

  "Ah, yes. That, sir, is a hunch."

  "And you are prepared to damn a man because of your hunch."

  "On the basis of what I might rephrase as a lifetime of listening to debriefs, sir, I would simply avoid sending this young man into Iran until we are certain. No one has explained to me the reason for the haste."

  "There are all sorts of things that you don't know, Carter."

  There was a light knock. Houghton walked in like a man who has been told that his banker has defaulted. He didn't seem to notice Henry Carter. He laid a single sheet of paper on the Director General's desk. There was the moment of quiet while the Director General ferreted in his breast pocket for his reading glasses.

  "From our naval friends in the Gulf. You'd better hear what it says, Carter. It's timed at 0700. Message: No, repeat no, rendezvous. Subject craft intercepted by Iran Navy Boghammer missile boat. Believed all crew of subject craft taken on board before subject craft sunk. Boghammer returned to base, Bandar Abbas. We resuming escort duty . . .

  Message ends."

  The Director General placed the sheet of paper back on to his desk. He removed his reading glasses.

  "What would Furniss say?"

  "Mattie would say that he had been through a hell that neither you, nor I can comprehend in order that we would have had the time to get those three men clear. Mattie would say that our lack of resolution condemned our network
to death."

  "He admits the names came from him?"

  "Yes, but only after withstanding what I reckon to be anywhere between five and seven days of torture."

  "If he admits that, why then can he not admit to naming Eshraq?"

  "Pride," Carter spoke the word as if it were an obscenity, as if he should now go and wash out his mouth with soap.

  "What in God's name has pride got to do with it?"

  "Eshraq is more or less part of his family. He cannot bring himself to admit that to save himself from pain he would betray his family."

  "Are you really telling me, Carter, that Furniss would sacrifice Eshraq for his pride?"

  "Just my opinion, yes."

  The Director General went to his safe. He obscured the combination from Henry Carter's view. He played the numbers, he opened the safe. He took out a file. The file was old, worn. The writing on the outer flap was faint, faded. "Since he was taken I've been looking into Furniss' history. I've come across nothing that indicated any vestige of vanity. I have found only a man of outstanding loyalty and steadiness. Did you know that he was in Cyprus during the Emergency, in the Guards with a platoon, very young? Did you know that?