A Line in the Sand (26 page)

might be a week, before his patient could be interrogated.

He walked on down the empty corridors. The Branch men were with him, 166

said they were looking for a coffee machine. His footfall stamped to

the stairs.

There was a fight in Casualty reception. A drunk with blood

streaming

from a forehead wound swung a fist at the security people. He didn't care and threaded his way past them.

He went to the parking area and his car.

He wished he smoked. He wished he had a hip flask. He wished he

was

warm and wet-sweaty with Vicky. He wished he worked for a fucking bank.

He sat in the car.

The wail of a siren approached, and he watched the staff gather at the

door to meet it, the flurry as the stretcher was hurried inside. He waited. He was cold, tired. He had seen how the bastard had watched them, listened to them, fooled them, and the first day of the week was

ten minutes off its end. And he couldn't imagine why Littelbaum had found it important to stay behind.

He was slumped in self-pity, and wondered whether the bank would turn him down by letter or by telephone. Damn sure they wouldn't accept him.

God, or

He wouldn't tell Vicky what he'd said, about playing

tell

her how her buzz phrases had been sneered at... The American eased the

car door open and lowered himself into the seat.

"First, thanks for being so on the ball and giving me space. You did

well. God, what depressing places hospitals are... You see, Mr.

Markham, it's all about Alamut.. . the sort of places we'll all end in, not able to do a lot about it... Alamut is the key... Markham

began

to drive away, and had to swerve out of the path of another

ambulance.

"I'd need convincing I did anything well. Right, Mr. Littelbaurn, tell me why Alamut is relevant."

167

e had known Alamut, been there, then he wouldn't have talked

"If h

to

me."

Markham gasped, then laughed out loud.

"Why, Mr. Littelbaum, did he talk to you?"

"The policemen were very co-operative, heard what you said, about blood

and murder. One needed to piss so the other took his place in the or."

corrid

"Why?"

e talked to me because I poked the tip of my pen into the

"I fancy h

middle of the three femur fractures."

"Didn't he scream?"

"He probably did, but I had my handkerchief and my fist over his mouth.

d to talk more than he wanted the poke of my pen if he'd been

He wante

to Alamut then he wouldn't have cared about the pain."

"What did he say?"

ad.

Markham drove recklessly fast on the open ro

"Heh, Mr. Markham, would you slow down, please? I don't want to be

going back to that place on my back ease it off, please. He said

the

guy came off a boat, and I told him we knew that. I hadn't a name, and

is

neither had he. I hadn't a face, but he had. The face

interesting,

oured, it's what I imagine to be the edge of Caucasian,

it's pale-col

and there's no facial hair. English, English accent, not American.

Tall but not exceptional, hair not black matt, didn't get the eyes...

d be late thirties.

Age woul

He crashed the car because the guy sort

of

frightened him."

"Weapons?"

168

"He started to tell me I think he was trying to talk about a launcher.

Yes, he wanted to tell me the lot, I had the pen right in front of his

he didn't.

face, but

I think he wanted to tell me, but he fainted."

"Associates?"

"The faint wasn't acted. He got another poke, but he was gone cold, like Smoky Joe had hit him and the law came back from its piss."

"So what do we have, Mr. Littelbaum?"

"Enough to think on. May I, first, educate you on Alamut? With education, you get to understand the Anvil, what he'll do, the sense of

the danger he poses, the dedication to his orders. In

sacrifice,

the

year 1152, Mr. Markham, two of the fida'is were sent from Alamut

to

d the Second of Tripoli, that's the port city in

kill Raymon

present-day

rthern Lebanon. Raymond the Second was the Christian crusader

no

king.

hose the most public place in his city to kill him, where he

They c

would be surrounded by the maximum security. The place they chose was

the main gate of the city. Imagine it, crowds, traders, travellers, s, the greatest audience in front of which to demonstrate their

guard

power and their commitment. They stabbed

mond

Ray

the Second to death

the gate of his own city,

at

and they would have known that within

moments they would be chopped into small pieces by his guards.

That's

hat's what you're up against."

Alamut for you, Mr. Markham, t

attern of his breathing.

He pretended to sleep and made a p

and his buttocks.

Her breasts and stomach were against his back

They

re naked in the bed, but for comfort's sake not for loving.

we

Sometimes

he heard the engine of the car parked beside the house, as if Blake boosted the heater. Sometimes he heard a car coming slowly by and stopping; then there were quiet voices and chuckled laughter.

Sometimes

the empty whistling of the wind, and the distant ripple

there was

surge

of the sea on the beach.

169

If he pretended to sleep and his breathing was regular then he hoped it

would be easier for her to sleep.

He lay on his side with her warmth against him and he played the

television's quiz game in his mind. The grinning show host asked

the

questions, and bright-eyed Frankie answered them.

Where was Iran?

"Iran, with a territory of 1.68 million square kilometres and a population estimated in excess of sixty million, is at a pivotal

geopolitical position between the Middle East and the Asian

subcontinent where it cannot be ignored and is unlikely to be

humoured."

What was the government of Iran?

"Iran is ruled by Islamic clerics categorized as fundamentalist and conservative in the extreme, but the government has loose

relationships

rganizations of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the

with the o

autonomous private armies of clerics boasting vengeful actions

against

Western cultures."

What was WMD?

"Weapons of Mass Destruction, chemical and microbiological and nuclear,

are all the subject of urgent research programmes in Iran."

ixing machines?

What was the requirement for m

"The manufacture of the chemical air droplets to be included in the warhead, and for the lining material of the interior of the missile equire dual-purpose

body that must withstand extreme temperature, r

mixing machines sold on fraudulently prepared export dockets."

What was the fate of a spy in Iran? What did they do with a spy in Iran?

"A spy in Iran is either hanged in secret on the gallows at the Evin gaol, or hanged in public from a crane in a Tehran square and hoisted 170

so high that the crowd can better see his death dance."

A final question. Had to answer correctly to win the holiday for

two

in Barbados and the new fitted kitchen, the food liquidizer and the creen television. He squirmed in the bed.

wide s

were the consequences in Iran of the spy's report on a military

What

factory at Bandar Abbas?

er told, don't want to know, better

"Don't know, can't answer, was nev

t knowing."

no

ck, to the darkness of the

To bla

room, and no prizes to carry away.

point on the shadowed wall, stared at it.

He took a

She was asleep.

If

slept he would dream of the crane.

he

She didn't know of the crane,

and she slept. There was a small gale of laughter, from the side

of

the house, and a car drove away. He was drifting... He had always cied Emma Carstairs, and always thought she rather fancied

rather fan

him.. . drifting, but not sleeping. If he thought of Emma

airs,

Carst

d her wriggling her hips to work off her knickers,

her bold smile an

her

hands taking his to the buttons of her blouse, then he wouldn't sleep, e didn't sleep then he wouldn't see the crane. He stared

and if h

at

wall.

the bare

Eight.

In the last minutes of the night he moved like a wraith.

off Fen Hill and kept inside the tree-line, skirting the end

He came

of

land.

the marsh

The high winter tides, blown by storms, and the heavy

winter rainfall, had made the ground he covered into a swampy bog.

The

water was always above his ankles and sometimes above his knees but he

left no visible track of his advance, and he was hidden by the

e.

tree-lin

He left behind him the carefully concealed sausage bag

and

the weapons because, at this time, he had no need of them.

171

When he came to a small stream feeding the marsh it was necessary

for

ng at his boots and

him to wade up to his waist, the sediment clawi

s

hi

legs. The higher ground of Hoist Covert, the name he had read from his

map, was ahead of him, and the faint outline of the church tower loomed it.

beyond

He moved fast. Once he was out of the bog land and the marsh, he

did

not stop to unfasten the laces of his boots and empty out the stale er and the mud.

dark wat

It was all familiar to him. He crossed the

ground as if he were again in the Haur-al-Hawizeh reeds. It gave

him

d. He did not move as a trained

comfort to be on familiar groun

ldier

so

manuals, but used instead the

would, working from instructions and

nate skills of a predator.

in

He did not have to consider the dangers

of silhouette, of breaking cover, of leaving a scented track behind him. It was natural to Vahid Hossein that he should go as a stalking searching for a prey.

animal

ad kept a steady pace and broke it only once when he had seen

He h

a

n come with binoculars and sit on a bench between Hoist

single ma

Covert

that led back to the church.

and a path

He stopped then and checked

the ground ahead of, behind, and to the side of the man and watched the

traverse of his binoculars. He was only twenty metres from the man ssed him, in scrub cover.

when he pa

He assumed that the man had come

to the bench to watch for birds from the viewpoint that overlooked the

marshes; it was a point squirrel led in his mind for future

n.

attentio

He moved on past high fences and garden hedges and a sign marking

a

narrow worn path towards the village.

He climbed a fence and used garden shrubs to mask his movement He crawled on his stomach through a gap in a hedge, lifted a length of chicken wire to go under it, and replaced it. Twice he was within five

172

metres of a house and could hear voices inside, but he kept from the arc of light thrown from the windows. Once he stopped and retraced his

steps because a back door opened and a dog, bouncing and barking,

was

put out to run on a patch of grass. He needed to know where the dogs were: they were a greater enemy than the people.

The houses he went by were of old brick. Some were the homes of

artisans, with wilderness gardens stacked with rubbish bags and

discarded kids' bicycles, as they would have been in south Tehran.

Some

were the homes of the affluent, with little tended squares of lawn, heaps of raked leaves and the smell of dead bonfires, as there would around the villas on the slopes above Jamaran where the

have been

tagt-ut-tee lived, the idol-worshippers who only pretended to re sped chings of the Imam.

the tea

It was for reconnaissance. It was to find the way in and know the way

out.

heard the noise of cars ahead, slowing and changing down through

He

their gears. He was beside a fence and hidden by ornamental bushes th. It was well timed .. . He had arrived at his

from a small pa

light enough for him to see ahead, and dark

vantage-place when it was

enough to preserve his cover. It was the few minutes of the point between night and day. He could not yet see the vehicles because

were blocking his view. He lay very still. A woman in a

bushes

night-robe came out of her door and he heard the clink of the bottles arried.

she c

The light above her door flooded the path as she went

to

e.

the gat

The empty bottles rattled onto the concrete and she went

back inside, slamming the door behind her. He saw the lights of cars ross the houses ahead of him, and illuminating the open

rolling ac

ground.

He crawled on. The photographs of the house and the target man were o his memory.