Harry's Game (18 page)

Across in Germany they'd be asleep now. The wife and the kids, tucked up in their rooms, the familiar bits and pieces round them. The things, semi‐junk, that they'd collected from the duty-91

free lounge and the market places where they went shopping when he was off duty. Knick-knacks that brightened the service furniture they lived off. Josephine didn't fit in there, was outside that world. They'd be up soon. Always had an early breakfast on Sundays. Someone would take the boys out for football. That was regular. And his wife ... how would she spend a cold Sunday in North Germany? Harry was half asleep. Not quite dreaming but close. She'd go visiting, walk out along the line of officers" detached houses for a coffee in mid‐morning, and stay for a drink before lunch, and have to make her excuses, and there'd be laughter when she'd flap about the lunch in the oven. Perhaps someone would ask her to stay and share theirs. That would be par for the course. And they'd say how sorry they were that Harry was away, and how suddenly he'd gone, and fish for an explanation. The questions would confuse her, and embarrass her, because they'd expect her at least to have an idea of why he'd vanished so quickly. And she wouldn't have an answer.

Could she comprehend it even if she did know? Could she assimilate this tatty, rotten job?

Could she understand the man that was hunted, and the need to kill him? Could she accept what might happen to Harry? "I don't know," Harry said to himself, "God knows how many years we've been married, and I don't know. She'd be calm enough, not throw any tantrums, but what it would all mean to her, I've not the faintest idea.'

That would all sort itself. And when the answers had to be given then Josey would be a fantasy, and over.

Billy Downs was in his bed now, and asleep. He'd come back to find

his wife sobbing into her pillow, disbelieving he could be freed, still suffering from the strain of the phone call she had made hours earlier. Many times he told her it was just routine, that there was nothing for them to fear. Relax, tiiey know nothing. It's clean. The trail is old and cold and clean. She held on to him as if uncertain that he was really there after she had mentally prepared herself for not seeing him again as a free man. The terror of losing him was a long time thawing. He put a brave face on it, but didn't know himself the significance of his arrest.

But to run now would be suicide. He would stay put. Act normally. And stay very cool.

As soon as he came off duty, in the small hours of Sunday morning, Jones asked to see his commanding officer. His platoon lieutenant asked him why, and about what, but die shuffling private merely replied that it was a security matter and that he must see the colonel as soon as he woke. He was marched up the wide steps of the mill, enclosed with the dripping walls festooned with fire‐ and parcel bomb warnings and urging the soldiers to be ever vigilant, and shown into the colonel's office. The colonel was shaving electrically and continued with the modern ritual as the soldier put together his report. Jones said that while searching a social club the previous night he had seen a man he definitely recognized as having been the transport officer at a base in Germany where his unit had refitted after a NATO exercise. He 92

said that the man had given his name as McEvoy, and he explained about his kicked ankle, and the instruction to forget what he had seen. There was a long pause while the officer scraped the razor round his face, doubtful what action to take, and how he should react. The minute or so that he thought about the problem seemed to the young private an eternity. Then he gave his orders. Jones was to make no further mention of the incident to any other soldier, and was confined to barracks till further notice.

'Please, sir. What do :

I tell sergeant‐major?'

'Tell him the MO says you've a cold. That's all, and keep your mouth shut. That's important.'

When the soldier had about‐turned and stamped his way out of the office the colonel asked for his second in command to come to see him. Sunday was normally the quiet morning, and the chance of a modest stay in bed. The second in command came in still wearing his dressing-gown. To the colonel the position was now clear.

'There's all these chaps running round in civvies. I think we've

rampled on one. If we say we've done it, there's going to be a hell of a scene all the way round, lot of fluff flying, and problems. I'm going to ship Jones out to Germany this afternoon and have the page of his log destroyed. We can take care of this our own way and with rather less palava than if it goes up to old Frost at HQ.'

The second in command agreed. He would ask for the log book, and deal with the offending page personally. Before his breakfast.

Early Sunday morning in Belfast is formidable. To Harry it was like the set of one of those films where there has been a nerve gas attack and no one is left alive. Nothing but grey, heavy buildings, some crazily angled from the bomb blasts, others held up at the ends by huge timber props. Outside the city hall, vast and enormous and apparently deserted, the pigeons had gathered on the lawns. They too were immobile except when they ducked their heads while searching for imaginary worms in the ground. No buses. No taxis. No cars. No people. Harry found himself scurrying to get away from so much silence and emptiness. It was almost with a sense of relief that he saw a joint RUG and Military Police patrol cruising towards him. This typified the difference for him between Aden and here. When he was on his own in Mansoura he had shut himself away from the safety of the military and accepted that the run for home would be way too long if his cover was blown or he gave himself away. Now he had the army and police all round him. He was part of their arm, an extension of their operations.

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Yet he felt the very closeness of the security forces was unnerving. The agent operating in hostile territory has to be self‐sufficient and self‐supporting. All just as applicable to the British agent working in Great Britain. Can't be like the little boy with the bloody nose running home to Mum. In Mansoura it had been quite conventional and therefore more acceptable.

Not only was the city centre deserted of people. It was battened down for the day. Iron railings, their tops split into sharp tridents, blocked off the shopping streets that fanned off Royal Avenue. The turnstile gates into the security precincts were padlocked. Shops inside and outside the barricades had their windows barricaded and shuttered.

Down near the post office he found a bank of empty phone boxes, with only the work of vandals to prevent him taking his pick from a choice of six. It was cold inside the booth, with the wind cutting through the gaps left where the kids had kicked out the glass in the

days before the army operated in strength in the city centre.

He took from his pocket a pile of ten‐pence pieces and arrayed them in formation like fish scales on the top of the money box, and dialled the London number he had memorized in Dorking. If he had gone through an operator some of his call might have been overheard. This was the safe way. The phone rang a long time before it was answered.

Davidson heard the ringing when he was at the bottom of the stairs.

Against its shrill persistence he fumbled with his key ring to release the three separate locks on the heavy door, and stumbled across the darkened room where the blinds were still down. He picked up the receiver.

'Four‐seven‐zero‐four‐six‐eight‐one. Can I help you?'

'It's Harry. How are the family?'

'Very well, they liked the postcards, I'm told.'

That was the routine they had agreed. Two sentences chatter to show the other that he was a free agent and able to talk.

'How's it going, Harry boy?'

'Middling. I'll get the report over first. Then we'll talk. Going in ten from now.'

That was time enough for Davidson to get the drawer in the leg of his desk open, switch on the casette recorder and plug in the lead to the telephone receiver.

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'Going now, okay? The man is in Belfast still. I'm sure of that. He is apparently under great stress and while on the run shortly after the shooting was with a girl called Theresa. No second name. She's from the Ballymurphy area. He tried to screw her, and she's telling her friends that he couldn't make it, because he was so wound up about the shooting. She's late teens or early twenties. She was at a dance last night in a green‐painted hut in Ardoyne. She was wearing pink, tight skirt. The army heifered their way in, and picked up about a dozen blokes, some of them in Theresa's group. They should be holding them still, unless they work bloody fast. One of them can identify her. So she's worth a bit of chat and then I think we'll be homeward bound. Seems straight sailing from here. That's the plus side. Now the and. In the club I was lined up for an ID check. Lance‐corporal from Wales asking questions, a young boy writing down the answers. The boy recognized me. God knows from when, but he did. I'd like it sorted out. I'm going to lie low for today, but I may have a job of sorts coming up. That's about it, basically.'

'Harry, we were worried when we didn't hear anything.'

'I didn't want to call in till I had something to say.' 'But I won't mess you about. But I know you're not staying where

we planned for you.' 'Too bloody right. Right little army rest house. Right out of the

interesting areas, and I take a peep at the place and out comes some

squaddie in plains. Shambles that was. You should crucify whoever

sold you that pup.'

'Thanks, Harry. I'll kill them for it. I'll go high on it.'

'I've made it on my own. Quite snug, on the other side of town.

Let's leave it that way. I'll call you if anything else shows up.' 'We'll do it your way. It's not usual, but okay. Nothing more?' 'Only tell the people who pick the girl up to go a bit quietly.

Don't ask me what the source of this is, but I don't want it too

obvious. If you can get her in without a razz‐amatazz you should

have your man before anyone knows she's gone, and can link her to

him.'

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Til pass that on. Anything else?'

'Nothing more. Cheers. Good hunting.'

Davidson heard the phone click down. The call had lasted one

minute and fifty‐five seconds.

I larry let the receiver stay a moment in his hands after he'd pressed clown the twin buttons with his fingers to end the call. He would have liked to talk with Davidson, unimportant small talk. But that would be unprofessional. Dangerous. Soft. Diverting. Pray God they would get the bastard now. He began to walk back to a lonely day at Delrosa, as the city on half‐cylinder sparked to life.

Davidson had been surprised that Harry had rung off so fast. He reached down into his drawer and spun back the spools of his tape a tew revolutions to check that the recording had operated correctly. I Ic then wound the tape back to the beginning and played the tape from start to finish, taking a careful shorthand note of the conversation. He then rewound the tape back again to the start and played it once more this time against his shorthand. Only when he was satisfied that he had correctly taken down every word spoken by Harry did he disconnect the leads between the tape and the telephone. He searched in his diary, at the back in the address and useful numbers section, for the home phone of the Permanent Under Secretary.

'I thought you'd want to know, after our talk the other day. He's surfaced. There's some quite useful stuff. Should give a good lead. He sounded a bit rough. Not having much of a joy ride, I fancy. I'll call you in the office tomorrow. I'm quite hopeful we may be on to something. Yes ...

I'm going to pass it on now.'

His next call was to an unlisted extension in the Ministry of Defence.

Minutes later Harry's message was on a coded teletype machine in the red‐brick, two‐storey building that housed the intelligence unit at army headquarters, Lisburn. It was of sufficient immediate importance for Colonel George Frost to be called from his breakfast. Cursing about amateurs and lack of consultation he set up an urgent and high‐level conference. He summoned his own men, the 39 Brigade duty operations officer, Police Special Branch, and the army officer commanding the unit that controlled Ardoyne. The meeting was called for nine, and the unit officer was given no information as to why he was wanted at HQ, only told that on no account were any of last night's suspects to be released. Davidson had somewhat shortened Harry's message. Believing that an arrest was imminent now, he too had decided that the report of the recognition should be suppressed and should go no further. A million to one chance. It wouldn't happen again. Could be forgotten. Only cause a flap if it went official.

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While he was waiting for the meeting Frost reflected on the punched capitals in front of him, deciphered from the code by one of the duty typists. It was detailed enough to impress him, improbable enough to sound likely, and the sort of material you didn't pick up sitting on your backside in the front lounge. When he had read his riot act at the General about being kept out of the picture he'd heard of the three weeks" crash training course, and been told the arrival date. The source was now about to start his second week. Five lines of print that might be the break‐through‐‐and might not.

It was the sort of operation Frost detested. Ill‐conceived and, worst of all, with the need for fast results dictated by political masters. If he's working at this pace, involved enough to get his nose stuck into this sort of stuff, then Frost reckoned he had about another week to go. That would be par for the course on a job like this. That was always the way. Crash in hard while the trail is still warm. You might get something when you stir the bottom up. But not discreet. No, and not safe either.