‘You haven’t understood, have you?’ complained the woman. ‘I’ll cut you off without a penny! Is your little tart prepared to live with you in some squalid terraced house in some squalid terraced suburb? Practically all your salary goes on whisky!’
If he had to call in the investigatory branch and was found to be lacking in leadership, which was an accusation that could be levelled against him, he wouldn’t even have that salary, Bell realized.
The man told Millington to call him Peter and said he knew sources from which anything could be bought. He had a gold tooth which shone when he smiled, which he did frequently, and wore a very creased but well-tailored lightweight suit.
‘I’m interested in a particular product,’ said Millington. ‘I want guns, ammunition. Explosives, too. Rocket launchers, if they’re available.’
‘Who are you?’ demanded Peter. ‘What do you want them for?’
‘That’s none of your business, any of it.’
‘You expect me to trust you, a complete stranger!’
‘How else can it be, meeting for the first time?’
‘My colleagues are cautious people.’
‘I’m a cautious man,’ said Millington.
‘The sort of things you want would be expensive: fifty, sixty thousand dollars, if they could be obtained. Do you have that sort of money?’
‘Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?’
‘I would think, if you have that sort of money, that you would already have your suppliers: that you wouldn’t have to come shopping like this,’ challenged Peter.
The other man had seized the opening, thought Millington hopefully. He said: ‘Where I get my money from … why I deal like this … is something else that need not concern you.’
Peter smiled and the tooth glittered. ‘I see!’ he said. ‘So it’s straight crime, not religion or fanaticism. Or perhaps you’re setting yourself up as a middleman, intending to sell on for a much better price than you pay.’
Millington said nothing, staring expressionlessly across the table at the other man. He wondered how far he could stretch the obvious greed. And whether there was benefit anyway.
Peter finally broke the silence. ‘I need proof that you can pay.’
‘I guessed you would,’ said Millington. From his pocket he took a pay-to-bearer cheque, a money draft that could be cashed by anyone simply by presentation at a bank, in the sum of $100,000.
The other man’s tongue came anxiously out over his lips. He said: ‘You will have to come into East Beirut with me, to meet my colleagues.’
‘No,’ refused Millington at once. East Beirut probably qualified as the kidnap capital of the world: a religious dispute which had begun as a doubtful conflict between Christian and Muslem had degenerated into a territorial war of protection rackets and extortion between rival gangs, as so many religious disputes did.
‘Then we can’t do business,’ said Peter with attempted finality.
Millington shrugged with finality of his own. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘Then we don’t do business: I’ll deal with somebody else. You think I’m stupid enough to expose myself over there? Go away, Peter! You’re an amateur and I don’t do any sort of business with amateurs.’
The contemptuous rejection had just the sort of effect Millington intended. The other man flushed at the dismissal and said: ‘No! Wait! I need to consult.’
Millington looked at his watch again, in further obvious dismissal. ‘I won’t be here after tomorrow. You make your mind up soon, OK?’
The telephone call to Millington’s hotel room came from Peter within two hours.
The dividing line between East and West Beirut is not straight and definitive. It meanders, following understood but winding streets and highways. Very shortly after setting out from the hotel Millington realized that Peter was guiding him along an even more twisting and confusing route, trying to make him lose his sense of direction, which he didn’t. He remained exactly aware of where he was, knowing when they stopped at the bar that they were still in West Beirut, but only just: he guessed the distance into the other lawless and un-policed part of the city was less than one hundred yards.
There were four men waiting for them, in a curtained alcove at the rear of the main, smoke-filled, backgammon-clicking room. Millington was uncertain of the nationality of one of the men but guessed the other three were Lebanese. There were no introductions: one of the Lebanese, a bearded man, appeared to be the leader. Arabic coffee and arak were ordered and offered: Millington refused anything. There was practically a repetition of the earlier conversation with Peter on the hotel terrace with eager assurances – too eager, Millington thought – that whatever weaponry he sought was available. When the inevitable demand came from the bearded man for him to prove his ability to pay, Millington laughed and shook his head. ‘You surely didn’t expect me to carry the money draft with me, did you?’
‘Then we do not know you can pay!’
Millington jerked his head towards the silent, gold-toothed Peter. ‘He saw it. He’s the guarantor.’
‘That’s not enough.’
‘It’s got to be.’ Millington came forward across the table, leaning close to the spokesman. ‘I’m becoming bored. I think you’re being stupid. I didn’t bring an open cheque because I didn’t intend to be robbed. Just as I don’t intend to be drugged and carried back into East Beirut for some futile ransom attempt, which is why I am not drinking anything. If there is an attack to get me across the dividing line by force at least two of you, maybe more, are going to be killed. And whatever the outcome of this meeting, any deal we come to is cancelled if I get back to my hotel room to discover it’s been ransacked, to find the cheque. Which isn’t there anyway …’ He paused, then: ‘We either deal, sensibly and properly, or we don’t deal at all. Understood?’
‘There should be trust and understanding between us,’ said the leader of the group.
‘Rubbish!’ said Millington. ‘We’re crooks, cheats, both of us. I’d be a fool to trust you, just as you’d be a fool to trust me. Our protection is our both recognizing that.’
After the deal was struck and the collection arrangements made, Millington insisted that Peter guide him back to the hotel. As they picked their way through the twisting streets Peter said: ‘How did you guess the idea was to go through your room when you said you didn’t have the cheque with you?’
‘It was what I would have done, in your circumstances,’ said Millington.
‘Would you have really done the other thing, if they’d attacked you outside the bar? Tried to kill them, I mean?’
‘To get back to my hotel we take the third on the left along this street, go about two hundred yards, make another left and then right, to the main road. The hotel is further along, still to the right,’ said Millington.
Peter stopped, frowning sideways at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Answering your question,’ said Millington. ‘I know exactly where I am and how to get back. Having you along was my insurance, to reach the hotel. I’ve had a gun pointing at your back ever since we left the bar. I could not have been attacked quickly enough to prevent me firing. I’d have shattered your spine. If you hadn’t died immediately you would never have walked again.’
It was one of Bell’s regular nights to stay at Ann Perkins’ apartment. They ate in, which they customarily did, and she cleared the dinner things while the coffee was brewing and served it away from the table, with brandies for both of them. Bell, who had drunk less than normal, was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to talk about the spy within the Factory, which he accepted at once was an appalling breach of security but it didn’t seem to matter any more, as so much else didn’t seem to matter. And so he did. He sat her down directly opposite and set out all the failed missions and leaked information. He stopped short of disclosing two things. One was of having sent a loyal officer to his death, wrongly believing the man to be a traitor, which was a mistake he had admitted to no one.
The other was believing he’d embedded a source of his own within KGB headquarters in Moscow but of not being sure any longer, because there had been no attempted contact. Which meant, if the man had been detected, that Bell had destroyed not one but two people.
By the time he stopped talking their coffee was cold. Neither had attempted to drink any brandy. Ann said: ‘You’ve got to bring in an official investigation immediately. You don’t have any choice.’
‘They’d probably regard our affair as a security risk. Force both our resignations,’ cautioned Bell. ‘Certainly they would with me, if they realized how long I’d delayed. They wouldn’t like the drinking, either.’
‘What are you saying, for God’s sake?’ demanded the girl angrily. ‘It’s not us we’re talking about. It’s the department!’
‘Have you forgotten what Pamela said, about money?’ asked Bell.
‘Darling!’ implored Ann. ‘I’d be happy with you in a cave. Forget it. But do something quickly about the Factory. You built it up. Don’t sit by and see it all destroyed.’
Millington had insisted upon a week for his arrangements, not sure even if that were sufficient. He took the first ferry from Beirut back to Cyprus the following morning and liaised with London through the secure intelligence channels in the British embassy there. All the available boats and launches at the British military base at Akrotiri were obviously official, so he had to buy a local fishing boat, which stank and leaked but which had, according to the engineer who accompanied him, a sound engine that wouldn’t let them down. In the intervening days the hull was caulked and sealed by other men from the military establishment. The surveying engineer thoroughly serviced the engine.
Millington took five servicemen from the base as crew. They were told it was a security operation about which they needed to know nothing. They were to act simply as crew, remain absolutely silent to prevent revealing their identity and not consider using the guns concealed in the engine cowling and below the wheelhouse chart table until they saw Millington fire, in which case they were to shoot to kill and end any confrontation as quickly as possible.
The exchange spot had been chosen carefully during the bar encounter with the gun runners. The handover was to be at sea off Baniyas on the Syrian coast, ten miles offshore to keep them in international waters and therefore safe from either Syrian or Lebanese interception, and sufficiently far north to avoid any Israeli interference.
It went perfectly. Millington sailed early on a looping course towards Turkey before turning south, approaching parallel to the Syrian coast. The Lebanese boat was exactly where it should have been. The two vessels came softly together and were held by fore and aft lines while Millington went aboard and examined the crated weapons by torchlight and then nodded for them to be swung inboard. As the crates were moved, Peter sidled up and said: ‘Isn’t this a two-way deal?’
Millington had cashed the bearer cheque in Cyprus. He handed over the wrappered bundles of notes. When he reached the last, Millington said: ‘I think I would like to deal again.’
‘The same contact procedure as before,’ agreed Peter.
On Millington’s instructions, the military crew took the fishing boat directly to the base harbour at Akrotiri, bypassing any official arrival formalities at any Cyprus port. The crates were transferred to a transport aircraft and Millington flew in it back to England. Some of the weapons were so new they were still packed in factory grease. All were of Czech manufacture.
‘A big-time supply ring?’ queried the Director General.
Millington shook his head. ‘Efficient but definitely not big time. They’re thugs, only worried about the money, careless about security. They’ve only one use: they’re well-connected so they know how to get hold of the stuff.’
This looked like a successful intelligence operation and Bell was excited, after so many failures. He said: ‘From the condition of the weaponry, it’s coming direct from Czechoslovakia. Which means Czech intelligence, obeying Moscow’s instructions. It’s a KGB operation, pure and simple: supplying world revolution, no matter what the cause or reason.’
The Director General looked better and was behaving more dynamically than when they’d last met, and Millington hoped the improvement would last. He said: ‘It’s important that it’s properly destroyed. Catching a boatload on its way to Libya or Ireland doesn’t really matter a damn. It can be replaced in days.’
‘Make sure you get it right then,’ warned Bell. ‘You’ll only get one chance.’
Millington got full value from his fishing boat purchase because they used the vessel on two subsequent pickups. Each was for around $100,000 and each included factory-new weapons, always from Czechoslovakia. After examination in England the guns, rifles, grenades, rocket launchers and Semtex plastic explosive were all destroyed at a government ordnance depot.
Always Peter, the man with the shining tooth, was the intermediary. During their meeting to arrange yet another shipment, Millington said: ‘I was wrong about you, wasn’t I? You’re not a courier, acting for the rest. You’re the boss.’
Peter smiled his dazzling smile. ‘I don’t like taking chances, any more than you do. I like personally to assess from the beginning if I’m running any danger. How did you guess?’
‘That first deal,’ said Millington. ‘I handed you the money and no one objected. That wouldn’t have happened if you’d been a nobody.’
‘I’ve reached conclusions about you, too,’ said the man. ‘You’re dealing, aren’t you? That’s the only explanation for the amount of stuff you’ve taken. And for the sort of money you’ve always got available.’
‘A spit in the ocean to what I could earn, if I could increase my supplies,’ said Millington. ‘The market is huge: America, Latin America. Africa sometimes. You asked me the first time why I was shopping around. That’s the reason. I’ve got a lot of suppliers but I still can’t get enough.’ The intelligence man stopped, content for the other man’s greed to take over.
‘Maybe we could do more business?’ Peter offered.
Millington shook his head impatiently. ‘What have we dealt with so far? A ton at a time. Sometimes less. I need more, Peter. Big consignments.’
‘You making a proposition?’
‘Your stuffs good: factory fresh,’ praised Millington. ‘Why have we got to go on at this level, with this bunch of small-timers you work with here? Why don’t you cut them out altogether and set up business with me? Just the two of us, with my organization to back us up.’
‘What’s my cut?’ demanded the man at once.
‘Yours are the contacts, through whom it’s all going to work. What about fifty per cent, after deduction of all operating costs?’
Peter nodded, satisfied. He said: ‘You ever been to Istanbul? It’s a fascinating place.’
Bell was desperate to remain in charge at the Factory: if he lost the Director Generalship then, he’d convinced himself, he’d lost everything. Every last vestige of self-respect. Outward respectability among his friends. Ann, too. Pamela didn’t matter: he’d lost her years before but he’d end things with Ann, too, because he was too proud to have her around to see him sink even deeper into a swamp of alcohol. And that was all that would remain, alcohol, if he didn’t have the Factory.
One last chance, he promised himself in sudden urgency. He’d try once more personally to smoke the mole out of the department. It would mean a sacrifice. But that was a necessity of generalship: the strength knowingly to sacrifice a small number to ensure the safety of a greater.
Ann would despise him for it, he guessed. But not as much as he despised himself.
For the first month after they’d established themselves in Istanbul, in a tumbledown office among twice-a-day wailing minarets, Peter insisted upon protecting his contact further along the purchasing chain. Millington did not protest because on his part he wanted to conceal the fact that the vastly increased amount of terrorist weaponry they were buying was going straight to England for destructi
on.
But then Peter became boastful. For several days there were veiled hints of how important he was and once, when they were driving to lunch, the Lebanese indicated a large factory building and asked if Millington did not think it impressive. Actually Millington didn’t but he considered the remark intriguing. The next time Peter announced he had a clandestine meeting, Millington set out in pursuit, confident of his professional surveillance superiority. Which it proved to be: Peter never once detected him. The pursuit ended at the building that Peter had earlier admired.
It was difficult for Millington to gain entry, so well was it guarded. He succeeded only by using a crane gantry to gain a lower platform and then climbing actually on to the sloping roof, seeking the skylight. When he found it, Millington didn’t need to go in anyway. He had simply to look down at the Aladdin’s cave of annihilation below him. The idea how to destroy it all, right back to source, came abruptly and complete. Millington’s one regret was that he would not be able to do it himself because it needed professional, technical men.
The Western media were never to isolate the significance although they reported a great many of the incidents. In Ireland and in three separate Middle Eastern countries grenade-throwers killed themselves. There were five reported cases of timer-set bombs going off at the moment of assembly and others not going off at all. Machine guns and pistols exploded in assassins’ hands. There was a shoulder-held rocket firer which needed a fireproof plastic shield to protect its operator from flashback burns; it melted, so the operator was blinded at best but more usually burned to death. Semtex plastic explosive became so volatile it exploded the moment its handlers started trying to make a bomb.
‘Spectacular!’ said the Director General.
‘I only had the idea,’ qualified Millington modestly. ‘It was the Technical Division people who risked everything, actually going into the warehouse.’
‘We’ve destroyed the credibility of any terrorist supplies coming out of the communist bloc for months!’ said Bell euphorically. ‘Because of you we got in and switched every delayed timing device to instant. We did that to grenades, too, so that they exploded the moment the pin was pulled. We distorted barrel rifling, so guns jammed and blew apart. We doctored the plastic explosive with nitroglycerine, to explode at any moment. Every protective shield was changed. We’ve created chaos!’
The Factory Page 12