Thunder in the Blood (32 page)

He broke off, and in the background I heard the piano again, a different tune this time, the theme all too familiar, picked out with the right hand, the notes descending, plaintive, haunting, a
private message, impossible to ignore or misinterpret. Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. The slow movement. I closed my eyes, listening to the dying chords, numbed. Wesley, at last, was saying goodbye.

A second or two later, there was another voice on the line. Eileen.

‘He won’t come,’ she said. ‘He won’t talk to you. He says there’s no point.’

I smiled, sadder now than I can describe.

‘He’s right,’ I said.

‘So? What do you want me to do?’

I could hear the frustration in her voice. It couldn’t have been easy. I bent to the phone, the television a blur now.

‘Tell him Happy Christmas,’ I said quietly, ‘and tell him…’ I hesitated, ‘… safe journey.’

The Galleywood Suite function room began to empty at midnight. Luis and I sat in the Oldsmobile, across the street. We had a perfect view of the guests descending the hotel steps, the occasional gusts of laughter, the younger couples shepherding their children towards the waiting limousines. Inside the lobby, plainly visible, was Beckermann himself, head and shoulders above his guests, impeccably dressed, a towering bull of a man. Each time a guest stopped and thanked him, he stooped slightly, extending a hand, encircling a shoulder with an arm, accepting an embrace, and watching him I thought again of Raoul Delahunty’s line about royalty, and deference, and money, and what really mattered in America.
‘Harold J. Beckermann,’
he’d said,
‘the living proof the system works.’

At length, the queue of departing guests began to thin. One of the last to appear looked familiar: tall, slim, curly blond hair, the wide smile never leaving the square-set face. I glanced across at Luis. Luis was sitting beside me in the passenger seat. The M 60 was on his knees beneath one of the hotel blankets.

‘His name’s Devlin,’ I said, indicating the figure on top of the hotel steps, ‘and he’s English.’

‘Yeah?’

Luis didn’t look up. He was busy with the machine-gun’s breech mechanism, sliding it backwards and forwards, listening hard,
making sure the register was exactly right. Watching him, I began to understand why he’d been so valuable to Raoul, such a good bodyguard. He had a musician’s care for his instruments, a fanatical attention to the smallest detail.

I looked across the street again, comforted. Devlin had been joined by a blonde woman his own age. She was wearing a long black dress, low cut. She looked wonderful. They talked together for a moment, laughing, then he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. As he did so, Beckermann appeared through the door. He put his arms around them both, a gesture, it seemed to me, of genuine warmth. The woman reached up and kissed him. Devlin looked fondly on. Then a long black car pulled up, a stretch Mercedes, and someone inside leaned forward from the back seat and opened the door. Beckermann shepherded the woman and Devlin into the back, then got in beside the driver. I turned to Luis, telling him it was time to go, reaching for the ignition key, stirring the big engine into life.

We followed the Mercedes out of the city. Soon it became obvious that we were heading south, exactly the same route I’d taken with Priddy, all those long weeks ago. Townships came and went, empty streets, shadowed gardens, front windows twinkling with tiny decorated Christmas trees. Past Ennis, the Mercedes slowed and then turned left. From here, I knew, the countryside was bare, no houses, no townships, just the occasional stir of cattle in the huge fenced fields. I looked across at Luis, meaning to tell him, but he nodded, reading my mind. He’s been here already, I thought, in the back of some pick-up or other, fodder for the afternoon’s entertainment, a journey he’d never forget.

The blanket was off the machine-gun now and Luis had fed the first shells into the side port. The belt fell away from the gun, into the cardboard box in the well of the car beneath the dashboard, and Luis was sitting sideways on, the gun across his lap, his left hand curled around the trigger guard. When the time came and I drew up alongside the Mercedes, all he’d have to do was blast the shells through the bodywork of the door, keeping his eye on the driver. Four hundred rounds of blue-tipped full metal jacket would do the rest.

I fingered the switch that controlled my window, lowering it fully, taking deep lungfuls of air. The lights of the Mercedes were
a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and I knew that there’d be some curiosity already about our presence. This was a tiny country road. To my knowledge, it led nowhere except the Fairwater Ranch. So who were we? And what were we doing on Beckermann’s home turf?

The Oldsmobile hit a deep rut in the road and I had to fight for control for a second or two. I had the Sauer on my lap now, fully loaded, a round already in the chamber, and I recognized the churning in my belly, the anticipation and the waiting tying my insides in knots. I wasn’t new to situations like these, Northern Ireland had seen to that, but I never got this far without a dry mouth and a racing heart, a mix of excitement and foreboding, my body awash with adrenalin, every nerve strung tight.

I glanced across at Luis. The road was straight here, plenty of room for overtaking. He nodded. I pressed hard on the accelerator, feeling the big car respond. In seconds, we’d halved the gap between us and the Mercedes. I looked at Luis again. He had the gun up now, the muzzle an inch or two from the door. His finger was curled inside the trigger guard. He didn’t take his eyes off the road ahead.

‘Now?’

‘Sí.’

I indicated to overtake and hit the throttle again. The Mercedes began to move over, making room. Up ahead, there was nothing. I slowed a little, still travelling fast, 60 m.p.h. on the speedo, but letting the Olds creep up alongside the Mercedes. Inside the Mercedes, I could see faces turning towards us. There were three people in the back. I remembered two of them stooping to get in at the hotel, Devlin and the woman, the third one already there, leaning forward, opening the door. I eased the Olds forward, hearing Luis cocking the big machine-gun, getting ready, then I checked right again, lining us up, seeing the face at the rear window, looking directly at me, the spare, bony features, the wild ginger hair, the hand at the throat loosening the black bow-tie. I stared for a full second, then another, my foot easing on the throttle, my resolution going, everything suddenly wrong.

Luis was shouting now, cursing at me in Spanish, and I was trying to tell him it was impossible, we’d have to call it off, some terrible mistake, but I was still trying to get the words out when
the M60 began to bark, one long explosion, the shells tearing through the thin metal, the machine-gun jumping around, Luis wrestling with it, forcing it back towards the door, spent cases everywhere, bouncing off the dashboard, the Mercedes swaying, wildly out of control. I hit the brake hard, throwing Luis against the dashboard. His head came up again, blood all over his face, and he made a lunge for the wheel, but I fought him off, stamping on the brake again, throwing him against the windscreen, bringing the car to a skidding halt.

After a moment or two, Luis motionless, I got out, the Sauer in my hand. The Mercedes was fifty yards up the road, slewed sideways, every window shattered. I ran as fast as I could. When I got to the car, I circled it carefully, breathing hard, smelling the cordite and the burnt rubber.

Inside the car was a mess. Beckermann was unrecognizable. Parts of his head were missing and blood was still pumping from a Une of holes across his chest. The driver was slumped across the wheel. As far as I could tell, he too was dead. I reached for the back door, wrenching it open. Devlin sat in the corner, hunched up, quite motionless. His eyes were open and he was making strange whimpering noises. He appeared to be in deep shock. The woman beside him lay across his lap. Her hands were clasped tight over her ears, and as far as I could judge she was still alive. Of the other passenger, the face I’d seen at the window, there was no sign.

I stepped away from the car. Then, abruptly, there were a series of gunshots from back down the road. I peered into the darkness, quite certain that it wasn’t the M60, wrong calibre, something much smaller. I began to run again, hugging the side of the road. Ten yards from the Oldsmobile, I stopped, adopting the low crouch they’d taught me at Bessbrook, the one they call the Armagh shuffle, moving very slowly, the gun out ahead of me, perfect balance, one step at a time. Close now to the car, I checked left and right, seeing nothing. Finally beside the driver’s door, I peered in. Luis lay across the other seat, the M60 still cradled in his arms, his head back, the dead eyes staring at me. One of the bullets had hit the very middle of his forehead, up above the bridge of the nose, a small, black hole, a textbook killing.

I eased back, beginning to turn away. Then, very gently, I felt
the pressure at the base of my skull, smelled the sharp, familiar smell of the aftershave he’d always favoured, heard the burr of the soft Scots vowels.

‘Drop it.’

I did what I was told. The Sauer clattered to the ground. Very slowly, I turned round, the gun still to my head.

No doubt about it. The face in the back of the Mercedes. Rory.

30

Late the next afternoon, we were still at the Hyatt-Regency Hotel, downtown Dallas, seventh floor, a nice view of Reunion Park from the big picture windows. Rory had ordered a full Christmas dinner for us both from room service: turkey and stuffing, bread sauce and veggies, and even a couple of unopened crackers. We’d been looking at it now for the best part of five hours.

‘Tell me again,’ I said. ‘It might help.’

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Just trust me.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘The rest of it.’

He looked at me a moment. As a debrief, the afternoon was going nowhere: endless questions, mostly mine; careful evasions, vintage Rory.

‘You’re here to keep an eye on Devlin,’ I said. ‘At least you’ve told me that much.’

‘Have I?’

‘Yes. You said you’ve been close. You said you’ve seen a lot of him. Socially. Business-wise.’ I paused. ‘That makes you either his friend, or his minder. I’d suggest the latter, no?’

Rory refused to comment, but got up and poured himself another Scotch. He’d been telling me since noon that this was strictly a Christmas indulgence, but looking at him I wasn’t so sure. His face had reddened a little since we’d last been together, and there was an uncertainty in his manner that I’d never seen before. He didn’t seem sure of himself, and under the circumstances I didn’t blame him. Leaving three dead Americans on a country road in Texas was a lousy career move, even if his relationship with the authorities had enabled us, quite literally, to walk away.

‘So let’s say I’m right about Devlin,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s say you’ve been looking after the man. What’s he going to do now? What’s he going to say about last night?’

‘Nothing. If he’s sensible.’

‘Ah.’ I smiled. ‘A clue?’

‘Hardly.’

‘But he was there. In the car. A witness. He can’t just ignore it. Pretend it never happened.’

Rory shrugged, nursing the Scotch. ‘Grudge killing. Some half-crazed Mexican. Man like Beckermann. That kind of profile.’ He looked up. ‘This is a violent country. Happens all the time.’

‘You’re telling me he drove the car
and
handled the M–60? All by himself? You’re telling me that?’

Rory glanced up. He looked exhausted. ‘I’m telling you nothing,’ he said.

‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘You’re telling me bugger all.’

There was a long silence. Across the room, Rory stirred. For someone whose life I’d spared, he was being remarkably businesslike.

‘You have a choice,’ he said finally. ‘You can stay here and wait for them to pick you up—’

‘Them?’

‘Our FBI friends.’

‘What for?’

‘You want the list? Arson. Illegal entry.’ He paused. ‘Plus probable homicide charges.’

‘Or?’

‘Or,’ he shrugged, ‘you can come back with me. To the UK.’ He looked at me for a moment, then got up and went to the window. ‘I gather Keogh’s dying,’ he said at last, ‘and I gather you’re close.’ He glanced round at me. ‘Am I right?’

‘His name’s Wesley.’

‘Is that important?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘to me, it is.’

He nodded, saying nothing, not bothering to hide his indifference, and it occurred to me yet again that I’d been lucky all those months ago, having the relationship fall apart in my hands, Rory suddenly gone, yours truly left with nothing but a rumour or two about the Gulf War and the address of a flat in Guildford.

‘Where did you go,’ I said idly, ‘when you left me?’

‘When?’

‘Way back? October? After we’d been to Skye?’

‘Ah.’

Rory smiled, reaching for the Scotch again. I looked at the trolley of congealed food. The custard on the plum pudding was pink. Very Dallas. I yawned, studying my hands.

‘Cyprus,’ I said softly, ‘wasn’t it?’

I looked up. Rory had reddened a little more. At length, uncomfortable, he cleared his throat. ‘Does it matter?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it does.’

‘Then,’ he shrugged, ‘let’s say you’re right. Let’s say it was Cyprus.’

‘So why? Tell me why. Why would you have been there?’

‘Business.’

‘Whose business?’

‘The usual business.’ He paused. ‘HMG business.’

‘On Cyprus?’

‘Yes.’

‘Whereabouts on Cyprus?’

Rory cleared his throat, refusing to answer. His whole manner had changed. He might have been sitting in a court of law. I studied him, drawing on my years at Curzon House, the bits of useless information that stick in your brain regardless. ‘Akrotiri?’ I suggested. ‘The RAF base?’

‘There and other places,’ he nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘But including Akrotiri?’

‘From time to time,’ he nodded again, ‘… yes.’

I shifted down the bed, lying full-length, gazing up at the ceiling. A year ago, Rory would have been with me in seconds. Now, he reached for the last of the Scotch.

‘Akrotiri’s a debrief centre,’ I mused, ‘MI6, your lot, DIS.’ I frowned. ‘Assets from the Middle East, off-cuts from the terrorist groups, the odd disaffected Israeli, they all end up there, don’t they? Before you pass them down the line? To London?’

I looked sideways. Rory wasn’t saying a word. I closed my eyes again. My game. My rules. My shout.

‘This man Khalil,’ I said slowly, ‘Rahman Khalil. The one who was supposed to have gone down with the Extec plane. The one
they never found.’ I got up on one elbow and looked at Rory. ‘Ever know him at all? Heard of him? Friend of Ghattan’s? Ghattan’s bodyguard?’

Rory was shaking his head now, a firm denial, transparently false, too much Scotch, too many questions.

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Ah.’ I smiled. ‘I was just wondering, the way you do. Supposing…’ I frowned, ‘he
didn’t
die. Supposing he
wasn’t
on the plane. Supposing he came over, defected, ended up at Akrotiri? Supposing—’

‘Defected?’ Rory sounded derisive now. ‘Defected from who?’

‘The Americans. And the Iraqis. The ones who knew about the partnership behind the war. The ones who planted the bomb on the Extec plane. The ones who wanted to kill him.’ I paused. ‘That would be a good reason to defect, wouldn’t it? Providing he knew? Providing someone told him?’

‘But defected to who? To where?’

‘Us.’ I smiled. ‘You.’

‘Why? Why should he do that?’

‘Because we could offer him…’ I smiled again, ‘a new life, some kind of future.’ I paused. ‘A safe haven.’

Rory was frowning now, eyeing the complimentary bottle of Napa Valley Chardonnay the hotel had sent up with the food.

‘To make all that work,’ he said slowly, ‘you have to have a motive. So why on earth would we do it? Why on earth would we get involved?’

‘Because the Americans are screwing us on the arms deals. We think our noses should be in the trough, too,’ I shrugged, ‘and they don’t.’

I paused here, wondering if this was too stark a summary of Aldridge’s thesis. He’d put it to me twice and on both occasions I’d somehow missed the main point. Only now, moving the other bits around the board, did I see how obvious it all was. If we didn’t export, we’d die. If we didn’t export arms, we’d die even faster.

I got up off the bed and fetched a Kleenex from the box on the windowsill. Half an hour in the Rio Grande had given me a cold. Rory watched my every movement, nervous, uncomfortable, half the man I’d known in London. I sat on the bed again, my
back against the deep-buttoned velvet of the headboard.

‘If Wesley was right,’ I said, ‘then the Americans and the Iraqis would have needed channels, middlemen, people they trusted to negotiate a deal. That’s the way business works. Wars aren’t any different. Just bigger.’ I smiled. ‘No?’

Rory shook his head. ‘No.’

‘OK.’ I shrugged. ‘So let’s just pretend. Let’s just
say
that’s the way it was. They’d need a couple of guys, one each side, people they trusted.’

‘What for?’

‘I just told you. The deal.’

‘Deal? What deal?’

I looked at Rory a moment. His questions were beginning to irritate me, bends in my road.

I leaned forward, ever patient. ‘It’s December,’ I said, ‘and Bush knows that the war he’s about to fight could be incredibly expensive. Not money. He’s stitched all that up already. No,’ I shook my head, ‘blood, casualties, lives. That’s what he needs to control. And it’s dawned on him that he can’t. So the man needs a deal.’

‘With the enemy?’

‘With Saddam.’

‘Same thing,’ Rory gazed at me, ‘isn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily. Not when you’ve just spent most of the last ten years arming the guy.’

‘You’re saying Bush and Saddam were on the same side?’

‘No. I’m saying Saddam got it wrong by going into Kuwait. That upset Bush. Quite genuinely. But in the end, before the fighting started … they both had a common interest.’

‘And what might that have been?’

I looked at Rory a moment, recognizing exactly the shape of the argument, hearing Wesley’s voice in the background, derisive, contemptuous and very probably right.

‘Survival,’ I said. ‘They both wanted to survive. Bush, politically. Saddam,’ I shrugged, ‘for real. That’s why there had to be a deal, a limit to the war. That’s why the Americans stopped when they did. That’s why they didn’t go after Saddam.’

‘And Saddam?’

‘Agreed to pull his punches.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, listen.’ I leaned forward again. ‘The deal’s agreed through the middlemen. Thanks to the deal, there’s a timetable. First the air war. Then the land war. Everyone knew that’s the way it would go. Stood to reason. You said so yourself. I remember you saying it. Air war, you said, five days. Real blitz. Bang bang. Then the big push, the land war, six weeks or so of solid fighting, up through all those berms and trenches and minefields.’ I was enjoying myself now, power without responsibility, total conjecture, ten parts cynicism to one part fact, the Wesley Keogh view of history. Rory was following me closely again and I wondered for a moment how much of all this was new to him, too. The way intelligence works, no one gets the big picture, or at least no one at Rory’s level. Or, indeed, at mine. I leaned across, patting him on the knee, a friendly, festive gesture. Maybe, after all, we should have opened the crackers. Maybe it would have helped. ‘The air war,’ I said again, ‘and then the land war. Five days, and six weeks. Problem was, it didn’t happen that way at all. No, we had a long air war, then a brief land war. Helped no end with the allied casualties. Got Bush out of the hole.’

Rory was eyeing me with a strange expression, a mixture of impatience and disbelief. ‘The way it happened was perfectly logical,’ he said, ‘if you know anything about war.’

‘Sure.’ I nodded. ‘But
seventy-nine
dead? Do you believe that bit, too? Against an army a million strong?’

Rory shrugged. ‘Luck,’ he said tersely, ‘and bloody good planning.’

We fell silent for a while. Outside, it was getting dark. I wondered about going through the whole thing: Grant, Raoul, Eric Stollmann, but decided against it. Better to concentrate on the essentials. The hinges on the door. The guys that made it happen.

‘Ghattan and his bodyguard,’ I began, ‘are both off the plot. One’s dead. And Khalil seems to have disappeared. Mr Invisible.’

‘So?’

‘You know as well as I do the way it works.’

‘What works?’

‘Deniability. If you run an operation like that, the one thing you have to remove afterwards is the evidence.’ I paused. ‘In
Curzon House, we called it weeding.’ I smiled. ‘What’s your word?’

Rory ignored the question. He was staring into his empty glass, brooding.

‘You think Ghattan and the other bloke were fronting for the Iraqis?’ he said at last. ‘Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s it.’

‘And us? The Brits?’

‘We weren’t in the loop. Not until afterwards. Until Khalil came over. Joined us in Cyprus.’ I smiled. ‘Then we had leverage.’

‘On who?’

‘The Americans.’

‘And who was dealing for them?’

I hesitated a moment. I could hear carols from the television in the next room. ‘Silent Night’, followed by a commercial for some Baptist sect or other.

‘Beckermann?’ I suggested.

Rory frowned. ‘But why? Why would he do it?’

‘Money? Big fat share of all those contracts? Plus a chance to make a little history? Mr America? The president’s man?’

Rory stared at me, still holding the empty glass. ‘But Beckermann’s dead,’ he said, ‘so who’d know?’

I nodded, smiling again. ‘Exactly,’ I said softly.

An hour later, still wet from the shower, I towelled my hair dry, sitting at the vanity unit. Rory was slumped in an armchair across the room, his head back, eyes closed. He’d been on the phone while I was in the bathroom. I hadn’t a clue who he’d been talking to or what he’d said, but I’d checked in my case for Raoul’s report and the photos, and they’d both gone. Later, when the time was right, I’d do my best to get them back, but for now, reaching for a glass and the bottle of Chardonnay, I tried to revive the conversation.

‘Say I come back,’ I said, ‘to the UK.’ Rory opened one eye. ‘What happens then?’

He shrugged. ‘That’s up to you,’ he said. ‘Your life. Your decision. Not mine.’

‘But say I go to the press? The media?’

‘With what?’

‘The story.’

‘What story?’

I paused, sipping the wine, taking the point.

‘Then say I write about it?’ I said. ‘Say I get it all down? All the stuff we’ve talked about? Plus the stuff I’ve not told you? The whole lot? The right facts in the right order? Find a publisher? Get it into print? What then?’

Rory said nothing for a while. Then he got up, rubbing his eyes. He sounded, if anything, bored.

‘Then I imagine people will read it,’ he said, yawning, ‘and draw their own conclusions.’

Wesley died the day before I got back to England. Eileen told me the news when I phoned from Heathrow Airport and I was still numb by the time I got off the train at Exeter. She and Pete met me at the station and drove me down to the nursing home at Exmouth. It was a beautiful afternoon, still and blue and cold, and we walked along the beach, all three of us, while they told me the way it had been.