INCARNATION

by Daniel Easterman

  He looked frankly at her body. She was right to admire herself, he thought. He’d seen twenty-year-olds who would have envied her firm breasts and flat stomach.

  ‘I’ve got to get back to the office,’ he said. ‘Things are brewing.’

  ‘So I see,’ she said. She stood up gracefully, and poised herself like a cat, and moved towards the bed.

  The phone rang angrily. Farrar swore. The only person who had his number here was his secretary. He rolled over, reached for the phone, and dragged it off the hook.

  ‘Farrar.’

  ‘Sir Anthony, it’s Linda. I’m sorry to disturb you, but it’s somewhat urgent. I have Mrs Laing’s daughter on the other line. She wants to speak with her mother.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, can’t you ask her to wait?’

  Elizabeth was kneeling on the bed now, smiling at him invitingly.

  ‘Not really, sir, no. She’s a little distraught. Apparently, she’s been trying to get hold of her mother for some time. That’s why she rang me. She says it’s an emergency.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘At a clinic in Esher. I can get the number, if you like.’

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘It’s Maddie,’ he said. ‘She’s in some sort of clinic. She wants you to ring back. Shall I get the number?’

  Her face seemed to crumple. Behind her, against the open window, the curtain flapped and flapped like a tramped bird’s wing. She shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said in her quietest voice. ‘That’s all right. I know it by heart.’

  He murmured a quick explanation and put the phone down. When he looked at her again, her face had gone rigid, and her arms were folded, tight as a baby’s swaddling, across her unprotected breasts.

  CHAPTER TEN

  There was a tailback six miles long and three lanes broad on the other carriageway. The late afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the roofs of the slowly crawling cars. Hot, frustrated drivers, eager to be home, fumed and fretted in their narrow metal cages. An air-conditioning salesman could have spent the rest of his life on a sun-licked beach had there been world enough and time to pitch his wares to each and every one of those sweat-tormented souls. For once, David felt he was headed in the right direction.

  ‘Your people use Arwel’s place a lot, do they?’ he asked.

  Chris Donaldson popped a mint in his mouth and sucked hard. He offered one to David, who shook his head and started sneezing.

  When the sneezing petered out, he glanced briefly at his companion. Donaldson was in his mid-thirties, suntanned, fit, probably very attractive to women. His clothes fitted him as they might have done a model on a catwalk. David wondered where they’d found him. Maybe he was the first of a new breed, designed to be impervious to the lure of tainted women deployed by foreign agencies.

  ‘Section Six, you mean? We go down there all the time. It’s a wonder our paths haven’t crossed before. I’ve had them all down at one time or another: dissidents, Kurds, Shi’ites, defectors, would-be defectors. Sometimes I think we’ve had half the population of Mesopotamia down there enjoying Welsh cooking and English scenery.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as Welsh cooking. Watch out!’ Chris overtook a white Mercedes.

  ‘All they’re fit for is rugby and bloody awful choirs singing “Ar Hydy Nds”.’

  ‘That’s a bit hard. There’s Joe’s ice-cream.’

  'Italian.’

  Donaldson smiled and glanced to the right. The tailback had stopped moving now. What if one of the drivers had a heart attack? he wondered. Or a woman could go into labour.

  ‘There used to be Jews,’ he said. ‘Lots of Jews. In Baghdad. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yes, I knew that.’

  ‘All gone now. All driven out.’

  ‘What’s going on there? You didn’t hitch a lift just to chat about the disillusioned hordes of Iraq pouring their mangled hearts out to you over the ice-cream.’

  Donaldson heaved a sigh and slipped another mint into his mouth.

  ‘What do you know about a man called Umar alii?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Hardan Wandawi? Muhammad Slaibi?’

  David shook his head.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling out of my depth already. Don’t you think we should have a joint meeting?’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know. That’s for our bosses to decide. To be perfectly honest, the fewer involved in this, the better I’ll like it.’

  David knew what Donaldson meant. At joint meetings, everybody kept his own counsel, and nobody gave away any information that might actually be of benefit.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. As he spoke, he glanced in the vanity mirror. The Mercedes had pulled out from behind a red Sierra and was keeping pace. Chris stepped down hard and pulled ahead, then slipped in ahead of a Jaguar cruising at ninety.

  ‘Uncle Saddam is getting itchy fingers again. Seriously itchy. After the almighty cock-up that was made of intelligence before the Gulf War, we’ve all been on our best behaviour.’

  David nodded. He had not been directly involved, but, like everyone in the service, he knew only too well that Western intelligence agencies had messed up badly back in 1990. They’d got just about everything wrong they could have done. A few days before Iraqi troops crossed the border into Kuwait, MI6 stated magisterially that the possibility of an invasion was ‘very remote’. A few heads had rolled, others had eaten copious quantities of humble pie, and the machinery had gone on much as before.

  ‘This time I think we’ve got it right. We’ve got some people on the ground, good people. There’s regular feedback - I won’t say how, you don’t need to know. Three weeks ago, Zircon came in with radio signals between Baghdad High Command and five divisional commanders stationed between Najaf and Basra. They all received orders to move troops south to an area round the naval base at Umm Qasr, right on the Kuwaiti border.

  ‘Since then, we’ve been receiving daily satellite photographs. Kennan, Crystal and Lacrosse have all been programmed to home in on southern Iraq, and the Keyhole satellites are doing broader sweeps. There’s a lot of movement, in all directions. We think he’s doing what he can to confuse us.’

  ‘Do the Kuwaitis know?’ David glanced in his mirror to see the Jaguar swing out and flex his muscles as he heaped on more speed and cut away in the outside lane. He could almost imagine the driver’s nostrils flaring as he moved past. The Mercedes was right behind again.

  ‘Tail?’ asked Donaldson.

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘One of yours or one of mine?’ Chris asked.

  David shrugged.

  ‘Ring Central for me, will you?’ asked Chris. ‘I’m going to pull off at these services. Any minute now.’

  David lifted the car’s telephone and keyed in a five-digit number. He could feel another sneeze starting.

  ‘Monitor, please.’

  He was patched through immediately to MI6’s Agent Monitoring Unit.

  ‘The number’s K775 KYD,’ said David. If they slowed, the other car fell back, if they picked up speed, it did too. A blue van pulled in between them.

  David repeated the number. He could hear a keyboard being tapped at the other end. Ten seconds later he had answer.

  ‘It’s legitimate. Belongs to a man called Scudamore. He owns an antique shop in Bristol. He’s quite clean.’

  David shrugged and keyed off. He passed on the information.

  ‘He’s a tail,’ insisted Chris. ‘Not a very good one, but a tail.'

  The slip road appeared on their left, and Chris swung gently in. He headed down to the cars-only park and found a space. Moments later, he saw the Mercedes pull in behind them. There were few spaces, and the driver had to cross through to the next set of bays before finding room. They waited. No one got out.

  ‘Let’s have a word with Mr Scudamore,’ David said, opening his door. Donaldson got out with him, and they walked directly towards the Mercedes. A mi
ddle-aged man dressed in a white linen suit, blue shirt, and vibrant bow tie sat behind the wheel. He saw them coming, switched on his engine again, and pulled out quickly, driving off towards the exit.

  They watched him go, amused at the silliness of it. David resolved to find out more about Mr Scudamore when he had the chance.

  ‘Since we’re here, let’s at least get some coffee,’ said Donaldson.

  ‘Any idea where we can get that at a motorway cafeteria?’

  ‘Don’t be so cynical. Some of the best coffee in the world is brewed in places like this.’ Donaldson grabbed his arm and steered him towards the entrance.

  They found a table in a corner away from the main eating area, next to a loud fruit machine that seemed quite happy to play itself over and over while waiting for customers who never showed up.

  Donaldson cradled a cup of espresso.

  ‘Real china,’ he said. ‘Real coffee. Britain is growing up.’

  David pulled out his handkerchief just in time to block the enormous sneeze that had been brewing for several minutes.

  ‘Britain is buggered. What’s going on in Iraq?’

  Donaldson smiled.

  ‘Hay fever?’

  David nodded.

  ‘What do you take? Antihistamines?.’

  ‘Yes. But I’d rather not. Nasty side-effects.’

  ‘You should see a homoeopath.’

  David nodded politely, but he hadn’t the least intention of seeing one. People had been recommending all sorts of weird and wonderful cures to him for years, but he’d bothered with none of them. Better the devil you know ... He sneezed again and blew his nose.

  ‘In answer to your question,’ said Donaldson, ‘a week ago, all communications between Baghdad High Command and field units ceased. We assume that they’re now talking through the hard-wired fibre optics system they laid down before the Gulf War. We can’t intercept anything they decide to put through that.’

  ‘Why make the shift? Why alert us in the first place?’

  ‘We think he’s playing games. It wouldn’t be the first time. Current reading of the situation says Kuwait is a bluff. The trouble is, there’s no sure way of knowing what else he might try.’

  ‘Surely he’s had his fingers burnt too many times?’

  Donaldson shook his head.

  ‘Not really. He thinks he’s invincible, because he always gets away with things. He came out of the Gulf War with almost everything intact. We let him stick it into the Shi’ites, we let him do almost anything he wanted with the Kurds ... He goes quiet for a while, then …’

  He sipped his coffee. It had been stewed senseless.

  ‘Look, keep this to yourself, David. It’s supposed to be seriously hush-hush. So far, the only person outside our section who knows is your desk head, Farrar. If he decides to brief you, just look suitably surprised.’

  'Does he know you were there today?’

  Donaldson set his coffee down, barely touched.

  “Not drinking yours?’

  ‘I asked if Farrar knew you were there today.’

  ‘I really can’t say. Let’s say that, had he turned up, I’d have made a sharp exit. He’ll hear eventually.’

  ‘He’s not a man to cross.’

  'I’m aware of that.’ Donaldson paused and took a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket. He offered one to David.

  ‘No thanks. If I smoke, I prefer …’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ Donaldson lit his cigarette. He sucked on it thoughtfully, and exhaled a slow cloud of pale blue smoke. ‘Speaking of Farrar,’ he said, 'I hear you and he aren’t on speaking terms.’

  ‘No, we speak. It’s just ...'

  ‘A little bother with your wife.’

  ‘Not a little bother, no. She’s been having an affair with him for three years. I found out a few weeks ago when she left me and moved in with him. I’d rather not talk about this, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Actually, I do mind. We’re talking about national security. If you and Farrar aren’t able to communicate ...’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s all intensely civilized. I’d like to strangle him, and no doubt he finds me a bit of an embarrassment. But if anything happens, it’ll be in the waste ground behind my local, not in the office.’

  ‘I can depend on that?’

  David hesitated. Donaldson was a total stranger.

  ‘Shall I tell you the truth?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sorry she’s gone. She was an unkind woman, self-centred and vain, and she made life miserable for all of us. If Farrar wants her, he’s welcome to her. They suit one another. Now, you were about to tell me something hush-hush.’

  Beside them, the fruit machine galloped through a new routine, beeping and whirring its little heart out. But nobody came to play it.

  Donaldson laid down his cigarette and cleared his throat.

  ‘Diogenes scored a hit last week. Five past four on Thursday afternoon.’

  Though David never had recourse to its intercepts, he was familiar with Diogenes, a listening post based at Sinop in Turkey, run by Americans, and manned by British technicians from GCHQ.

  ‘Somebody in Baghdad was careless. One of the men I mentioned earlier, Muhammad Slaibi. He’s a civilian with the military rank of colonel. A Baath Party bigwig with responsibility for foreign exchange. He was using a car-phone without a scrambler, and he and the other party were speaking in English. The other man was the Chinese ambassador. Li Shuo. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. He was very close to Deng. Some people think the ambassadorship was a means of putting him out to grass.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It wasn’t a long conversation, but it told us a lot more than either man would like us to know. A meeting is being set up for next week. Do you know someone called - I can’t pronounce this properly - Chen Tiaoyuan?’

  ‘Not personally. He’s the Chinese Minister for Minerals and Petroleum. A tough customer. One of the most powerful men in the Chinese politburo. He’s a chain smoker who practises chi gong regularly. They say he’s inordinately fond of the Peking Opera: he attends every performance of The Dream of the Red Chamber. They even come to his house and put on special performances for him and his family. He’s probably got more guanshi than the rest of the politburo put together.’

  ‘Guanshi?’

  ‘Pull. Contacts. Knowing people in the right places. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of Arabic words for it. Chen’s been to Baghdad a few times, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Mainly for conferences. But this isn’t a conference. He’s going to be the guest of honour, but attendance will be strictly limited. Saddam, the Iraqi Petroleum Minister, Li Shuo, Slaibi, and a handful of very private secretaries from both sides.’

  ‘I don’t see ...’

  ‘It was a long conversation. Slaibi’s a talkative man. They argued a little.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About whether Iraq could supply China with four hundred million barrels of oil over the next ten years.’

  ‘Four hundred? That’s ...’

  ‘It’s about half Iraq’s annual production.’

  ‘Is it? I was going to say it’s a bit under half of what China produces. What’s going on? The Chinese don’t need to import anything like that much.’

  ‘But they do need to import?’

  'Increasingly, yes. All the same, they have enormous reserves. They just need to up production.’

  David had ordered an Earl Grey tea with a sticky bun. He poured the tea into his cup and added a slice of lemon. Once upon a time, they’d called places like this transport cafes. Now they’d grown posh, all bright plastic and stainless steel. He sipped the tea. Nothing had changed.

  'I’m having difficulty tying all this together,’ he said. ‘In the car, you told me about troop movements. Now it’s a meeting to discuss oil exports.’

  ‘Our analysts think they’re connected. I mentioned two other names. One was Umar al-Hani. His name came up. Your man Chen wants to meet him while he’s in Bagh
dad. Al-Hani’s a general. To be precise, he’s the general in overall charge of weapons development within the Iraqi republic. The ambassador made a curious remark. He said “It’s only a matter of weeks now. Put everything in place. There’ll be no time to lose once the test is completed.”

  ‘We think they’re ready to supply a weapon to Saddam. Not just parts. A complete weapon. We think that’s what the troop movements are all about. He’s going to start another war. And this time he plans to win.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘You might have waited for me.’

  Sam nodded and continued eating. He’d heated up some sort of pie and chips in the microwave. Ever since his mother’s departure, the boy had grown ferociously independent. It worried David a little: if he was cooking his own meals now, what else might he demand to do in a year’s time?

  'I suppose there’s more food in the fridge?’ Another nod, another mouthful of chips. David went to the fridge and pulled out a Marks and Spencer’s Chinese platter.

  ‘You want to share some of this?’ He waved the box at Sam. Another nod, a forkful of pie.‘You realize you haven’t said a word to me since I got in. Not even “I had a good day".’

  ‘You didn’t ask. You only complained about me starting before you.’

  ‘Very well: did you have a good day?’

  Sam shrugged.

  ‘So-so.’

  ‘So-so?’

  ‘Billy fell in the lake. We had to fish him out. His mum was mad.’

  'I should think so. Is he all right?’

  ‘He spewed up some weeds and stuff, but he’s fine. How about your friend, is he alive?’

  David started unpacking the individual items and putting them in the oven.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a bit complicated. I may know more tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re going down again?’

  ‘Afraid so. There’s a boy there. He looks about your age, but he’s twelve. Or so he says. Maybe, after this is all over, you can meet him.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got plenty of friends.’

  ‘Believe me, you can always do with more. He speaks Uighur.’

  Sam snorted. ‘Oh, that!’ His father’s repeated efforts to give him Uighur as his second language, just as his own mother had passed it to him, had been dismal failures.