The Devil's Breath

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Neat,’ he said. ‘Neatly done.’

  *

  By six o’clock, Washington time, Emery had enough of the detail to warrant another call to Sullivan.

  Under the circumstances, the Polizeichef in Bad Godesburg had been remarkably helpful. On the transatlantic line, he’d limited his indignation to a curt sentence or two about unauthorized operations on Federal territory, and had extracted a loose promise from Emery that the entire episode would be subject to an immediate bilateral inquiry. The terms of that inquiry would naturally be settled at a higher level, but in the meantime he was prepared to share what little Intelligence he had.

  Assali, the Palestinian, had been dead before he hit the ground. The killing was extremely professional and carried all the hallmarks of a sophisticated Mossad operation. Assali had been due to meet an American called Lacey, a resident at the hotel. The name Lacey was evidently an alias. A search of his hotel room had revealed other documents in the name of Telemann. Herr Telemann appeared to live in Maryland. His wife’s name was Laura. The Bureau had acquired three photographs of her from an inside pocket of a holdall. He was looking at them now. For the record, Frau Telemann was in her late thirties, with a nice figure and good legs.

  Listening, Emery had tried to hurry the laconic German police chief to a conclusion. Where was the American now? What did they have on the hit squad? How wide were they spreading the net? The German stonewalled each question, telling Emery that the investigation was less than four hours old, that preliminary enquiries were incomplete, that it was far too early to expect anything really solid. Realizing the truth of it, that Telemann and the guys with the guns had gone, Emery had brought the conversation to an end.

  Now, hearing Sullivan lift the phone, he did his best to preempt the inevitable obscenities. Damage-limitation, he told himself, was a subtle art.

  ‘I’ve talked to the Germans,’ Emery said briefly. ‘They’ve got nothing.’

  ‘Except Telemann’s name.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And mine?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘You’d better be right.’ Sullivan paused. ‘So where is he?’

  ‘They don’t know.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But …?’

  Emery hesitated, remembering his last conversation with Telemann, thirty-six hours ago, the man still up in Hamburg, fantasizing about Otto Wulf. At the time, he hadn’t taken much notice. Now, suddenly, it was very different. The Agency’s pet bulldozer had thrown a track. Anything might happen.

  Sullivan was still waiting. Emery could hear his knuckles drumming on the desk.

  ‘There’s a German industrialist,’ he began carefully, ‘Telemann thinks he might be implicated …’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ He paused. ‘But then he thought this Assali guy was implicated too.’

  ‘The guy in Bad Godesburg? The Palestinian?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re saying he had the guy killed?’

  ‘I’m saying he was part of it, sure.’

  ‘Shit.’ Sullivan paused. ‘So who’s this other fella? The industrialist?’

  Emery closed his eyes for a moment, knowing where the conversation was headed. ‘Wulf,’ he said slowly.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Sullivan was back, his mouth very close to the phone. Three blocks away, Emery could practically smell the man, the meaty scent of his breath, the big podgy hand wrapped around the phone.

  ‘Otto Wulf?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Holy Jesus.’ Sullivan paused. ‘And you’re saying he’s next on the list?’

  Emery nodded. ‘Could be. I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘But yes, it could happen.’

  There was another silence, longer this time. Next door, Emery could hear Juanita bullying the coffee machine. Then Sullivan was back on the phone again, the voice softer, intimate, infinitely more menacing.

  ‘Get yourself over there,’ he said. ‘Go tonight. Take whatever you need. But don’t come back without him. You understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Emery hesitated, gesturing mutely at the mountain of paperwork on his desk. ‘But what about—’ he shrugged ‘—the rest of it?’

  ‘Fuck the rest of it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Emery hesitated again, watching the door open, seeing Juanita’s hand appear with a brimming cup of coffee. Then he bent to the phone, another question on his lips, realizing too late that Sullivan had hung up.

  Juanita crossed the office and left the coffee on a small coaster. The coaster featured a tourist view of Manhattan Island. It had appeared the week they’d moved in, her own small joke. Now, Juanita back outside, Emery stared at it. Key parts of the puzzle he was beginning to understand. Gold. Dave Weill. The absolute lack of any Intelligence from the usual Middle East sources. There were ways these half-clues could just add up, a kind of negative arithmetic, but a result none the less. He looked at the coaster for a little longer, speculative, then reached for the phone again, opening a drawer, taking out a long brown envelope, shaking the contents on to the desk. Laura answered on the third ring. He could hear Bree, singing, in the background.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said briefly. ‘We have to go to Europe. Tonight.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘You.’ He scowled, reading the letter from the clinic again, still thinking of the dead Palestinian. ‘And me.’

  Book three

  21 September 1990

  11

  The two statements lay side by side on the President’s desk. Sullivan looked at them. Even upside down, he knew them word for word.

  The President picked up one of the two sheets of paper, leaning back in the big chair, revolving it slightly, letting the light from the window fall on the three brief paragraphs. The text was datelined Baghdad, 20 September 1990. It had been in the hands of every major Western media outlet for at least ten hours. Already, on the CNN rolling newscasts, word from the Revolutionary Command had elbowed out every other item.

  The President read it for the third time.

  ‘The mother of all battles,’ he mused. ‘Not a single chance for any retreat.’ He looked up, directly at Sullivan. ‘Neat phrase, don’t you think?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Mother of all battles.’ He tapped the news release. ‘Who writes this guy’s speeches? We have a line on that?’

  Sullivan shook his head, grunting, looking down at the notepad on his knee. Emotionally, he knew, the President was now committed to kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait. That meant offensive military action – an invasion – and there were powerful elements in Washington determined to resist him. Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon had any appetite for a real fight. They saw the downside, the risks, the body-bags, the prospect of another interminable war. They wanted to wait for sanctions to bite. They wanted to starve Saddam back to Baghdad. Problem was, Saddam didn’t see it that way, and with one of the world’s largest armies in Kuwait, he didn’t have to. Sullivan toyed with his pen, thinking about the military again, the endless round of briefings, the armfuls of statistics they brought to every meeting, the answers they came up with when they translated Presidential resolve into hard numbers. Retaking Kuwait City would need half a million men. Casualties would number thousands. Public backing for the war might not survive the first week’s fighting. Was Kuwait City really worth that kind of risk? Should the President hazard a second term of office for an unelected despot? Was foreign policy to be entirely shaped by oil? Sullivan shook his head, glad that the responsibility wasn’t his, looking again at the President.

  Abruptly, the President stood up, leaving the communiqué on the desk and walking to the window. ‘Tell me again,’ he said.

  ‘It happened yesterday, sir. Up in the Catskills. Guy runs the stud found four horses dead in the paddock. He called in the veterinary surgeon, and the vet called the police.’

  ‘W
hy?’

  ‘He found an aerosol. It’s down in New York now. Exactly the same as the one the guys found in the hotel.’

  ‘Same contents?’

  ‘We think so.’

  The President nodded, turning back into the room again, his face furrowed. Even for a man with his appetite for work, the last six weeks had come close to breaking him.

  ‘We heard anything more from these guys? A note or anything?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Sullivan paused. ‘But then we don’t have to.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The stud’s owned by an Arab. The money’s Saudi. Fahd’s no friend of Saddam, so I guess—’ he shrugged ‘—our friends are sending the same message a different way.’

  ‘But nothing specific? No more dates? Deadlines?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Sullivan said nothing for a moment, studying the notes on his lap, remembering the last conversation with Emery, his refusal to jump to conclusions, his indifference to the realities of political life. He’d tasked the man to find answers, and all he’d got was a nasty little incident in Bad Godesburg, and the prospect of a major quarrel with the Germans. The consequences of the latter were all too predictable. White House staffers had no business running operations of their own, and if the truth about Telemann ever surfaced, then Sullivan was strictly history. He’d spent most of his career offending the major bureaucracies, and none of them would shed a single tear at his departure. Poaching a guy like Telemann from the Agency was emphatically off-limits. Letting him run with the Israelis was worse. The best he could expect if the media scented the smoke in the wind, if his luck ran out, was early retirement and political oblivion. The worst didn’t bear contemplation.

  Sullivan glanced up. The President was still looking at him, still waiting for an answer.

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said. ‘We have nothing on that.’

  ‘Why not?’ the President said again. ‘You wanna tell me?’

  Sullivan gazed at him for a moment, old friends, and then shook his head.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘OK.’

  The President returned to his desk, picking up the other sheet of paper, scanning it quickly. The message from Tel Aviv was twenty-four hours older than the communiqué from the Revolutionary Command Council. In it, Prime Minister Shamir had been concerned to dispel any doubts about Israeli resolve. Israel, he’d promised, would take on Iraq by herself if the US chose to withdraw. Aggression would be met with aggression. An eye for an eye. Survival in the Middle East demanded nothing less. The President pushed the statement towards Sullivan. Sullivan left it on the desk. He’d read it a day and a half ago, understanding at once the dangers it represented. Now he looked at the President.

  ‘Have you talked to them since?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘They mean it?’

  ‘Sure they mean it.’ He sat back for a moment, staring out of the window again, the message still on the desk. ‘You know what that is?’ he said at last. ‘That piece of paper?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It’s Saddam’s best shot. Forget ballistic missiles. Forget going nuclear. Forget chemical weapons. Nerve gas. New York. All that stuff. No, Saddam’s best shot is that piece of paper …’ He nodded at the desk. ‘The moment the guy drops a Scud on Tel Aviv, this war’s over. There’ll be another war after it. Right next day. No question. The Israelis will be in, and we’ll be in, and the Brits probably too, but the rest of them … the Syrians … the Eygyptians … the Moroccans … they’ll all be back home …’ He paused. ‘Telling the world what bullies we are, telling Saddam to hang tough in Kuwait, doing all that stuff about imperialism and the Third World …’ He paused again, shaking his head. ‘We can’t afford to fight that kind of war any more. Whatever happened on the battlefield, we’d lose it.’ He looked at Sullivan again, an air of slight surprise, as if the man had suddenly appeared from nowhere. ‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘how do we do it?’

  Sullivan blinked. ‘Do what, sir?’

  ‘Rein in the Israelis?’

  Sullivan nodded, understanding the logic only too well, thinking of Ross again, the news he’d passed on about the man McVeigh, back in touch, somewhere in Israel.

  The President was still looking at him, his head cocked on one side. ‘Well?’

  Sullivan gazed at the desk for a moment. Then he stood up, bringing the conversation to an end. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said carefully. ‘Yet.’

  *

  McVeigh sat in the cab of the big Scania truck, bumping towards Bethlehem, wondering again exactly what Cela had meant.

  She was sitting beside him now, her body wedged between his and the big Israeli kibbutznik, Moshe. Moshe was driving, his huge calloused hands gripping the wheel, his eyes never leaving the road or the mirror, cursing in Hebrew and stamping down through the gears whenever a bus or a bend in the road slowed the truck’s progress. Since the incident in the orchards, Cela had evidently talked to him, telling him not to worry about McVeigh, telling him the Englishman was a friend.

  McVeigh looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, and her head was back against the greasy seat, and her body swayed and jolted over the rough roads. An hour or so out from the kibbutz, he’d asked her who killed Yakov. He’d shouted the question in her ear, fighting the clatter of the big diesel, confident at last that Moshe spoke no English. At first, Cela had ignored the question, smiling at him benignly, nodding as if he’d made a comment about the weather or the qualities of the coffee from the Thermos they’d just emptied. But then he’d put the question again, his mouth close to her ear, enunciating each word, and she’d looked away for perhaps a minute, thinking about it, watching the sun rise steadily over the fishponds in the fields beyond the roadside. Then she’d touched him lightly on the knee and beckoned him close.

  ‘Is that what you’ve come to find out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘And who else?’

  ‘Does it matter? Does it make any difference to the answer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The truck had juddered to a halt at this point, the beginning of the morning rush-hour on the outskirts of Tiberius, and Cela had paused, looking ahead through the dusty windscreen at the road plunging down towards the Sea of Galilee, a huge bowl of deep blue water, cupped by the haze-brown mountains.

  ‘Answers depend on questions,’ she said at last. ‘And answers depend also on who asks the questions.’

  ‘I ask the questions.’

  ‘Of course.’ She’d looked at him. ‘And who else?’

  Now, 3 miles from Bethlehem, McVeigh gazed out of the window, still brooding on the conversation. Coming down from the pool in the mountains Cela had told him there was someone he should meet. This person, whom she didn’t name, lived on the West Bank. Meeting him would not be easy. She would have to be there, and that would mean they’d have to travel together. Travelling together wouldn’t be easy either, but there was a way of organizing it that would get round most of the problems.

  Quite what the problems were, McVeigh had never discovered, but his morning had begun even earlier than usual with a knock on the door at half-past two. Outside, in the darkness, he’d found Cela. She was wearing jeans and an old three-quarter-length coat. She had a scarf around her head, tied into a knot at the back. In the light from the hut, once McVeigh had found the switch, she looked like a peasant, a land girl, a first generation import from Eastern Europe or one of the Russian republics. Amused at his surprise, she’d told him to pack his bag. He’d done so, following her through the sleeping kibbutz to a long, low building beside the road. Inside, he’d found Moshe and a handful of other kibbutzniks, crating chickens. The chickens lived in long rows of square pens and they were lifted out one by one, their necks broken with a single movement of the wrist, their twitching corpses packed into plastic
crates. Outside, McVeigh had helped stack the crates on the back of the big Scania, his work monitored by the glowering Moshe. They’d left shortly before dawn, no formal introductions, no clues as to where the journey might lead, just the conversation on the descent into Tiberius. Questions. Answers. More questions. And that strange line about who, exactly, was running McVeigh.

  All morning they’d driven south. After Tiberius, Nazareth. After Nazareth, the coast again, and the distant brown sprawl of Tel Aviv. Inland, on an industrial estate in one of the suburbs, they’d stopped for an hour and off-loaded the chickens. Cela had worked alongside Moshe, and being with them, McVeigh had begun to sense the shape of the relationship, brother and sister, Moshe gruff and burly and protective, Cela taunting him with her grin and her giggle, and her repertoire of schoolgirl tricks.

  The truck empty, they’d headed inland again, joining the big highway that swung past the international airport. Jerusalem had appeared in the late afternoon, back up in the mountains, necklaced with new towns, the sun lancing off the golden domes. They’d skirted the Old City to the north, Moshe taking the wrong turn, wedging the big truck into an interminable traffic jam that inched past the Damascus Gate. The noise had been beyond belief, bus drivers leaning on horns, taxi drivers abusing pedestrians, moneychangers shouting the odds on tight fistfuls of Jordanian dinars. Watching, McVeigh had marvelled at Moshe’s nerve, the man losing patience with it all, wrenching the truck into a series of complex turns, ignoring the traffic and the insults, bullying his way back to the Bethlehem Road that wound around the dusty shoulder of the Old City.

  South of Jerusalem, on the West Bank, the country had begun to change again, rolling barren hills dotted with olive trees, and now, minutes away from Bethlehem, McVeigh sat back, gazing out at the small stony fields, the donkeys laden with crops, the kids in the soft light of early evening, standing by the roadside, watching the truck roar by. The place was on a different scale to Israel, a smaller, wilder landscape, less productive, poorer, and McVeigh smiled, knowing at once that he infinitely preferred it.

  They parked the truck in Manger Square, an acre or so of grimy bedlam in the middle of town. Moshe killed the engine, stretching his huge body behind the wheel and gazing out at the milling crowds of tourists.