A Sentimental Traitor (15 page)

But even as she bit her own tongue, she was reprieved. He didn’t seem to have heard. His face was creased in concentration. ‘You know, Jem, you may have a point. It’s all about
power and money, isn’t it?’

‘What is?’

‘Everything. Football. Life. Politics. Mass murder. Something like that’s got to be behind the attack.’

‘So where do we look?’

‘I dunno. Business class?’

Their heads almost clashed as they bent over the screen. Business class had been almost full, but not quite. A couple of seats spare. Eighteen names in the remainder.

‘These are the people who we should be concentrating on, Jem, their jobs, their personal circumstances, that sort of thing.’

‘How do we do that?’

‘I could try Shelagh.’

‘Let’s start with the Internet,’ she said firmly. ‘All the victims will have got some sort of mention in the media – obituaries, local news reports, company press
releases, something that will get us started.’

‘Could take time.’

‘I might do it.’

‘You would?’

‘I could be persuaded.’

‘How?’

She placed the laptop to one side. It was some considerable time before either of them spoke again.

‘By the way,’ he panted, lying back, a bead of sweat trickling from his forehead onto a sofa cushion, ‘they’re brown.’

‘What are?’

‘Shelagh’s eyes. Since you asked. And there was nothing like this between us.’

‘Ah, just a friend. I see. And if I remember right, that was the year they discovered a cure for the common cold and Auchtermuchty Athletic became European Champions . . .’

Patricia Vaine’s office was uncompromisingly functional, except for a solitary framed photograph on her desk. It was of her cat, Freya. Other senior figures in Brussels
were surrounded by frippery and unnecessary aggrandizement, in offices spread out like tennis courts or dashing around on private jets, but in her view, the less people saw of her, the better.

A knock at her door disturbed her concentration, rapping out Morse code for ‘B’. Bukowski’s little joke.

‘You might want to watch this,’ he said, scuttling in and making for the bank of four screens that were mounted opposite the sofa. He played with the channels until he had found what
he was looking for. It was a Russian news channel, no translation, and with a mediocre picture full of stray pixels and stiff movements betraying an inadequate feed to the satellite, but what it
showed more than made up for the poor technical quality. It was broadcasting the scene from the outskirts of a shabby town with all the drabness and decay that marked it as part of the old Soviet
Union. The road was rough, the buildings soulless and dust-smeared. The sky threatened rain, everything appeared as grey, except for the fire that was raging from the roof of a three-storey house
in the centre of the screen. As she watched, angry trails of dark smoke twisted into the air, and there was the sound of explosions. She struggled to recognize any snatch of the commentary that was
being poured out in breathless style by the commentator, then she saw a flash of a fresh explosion on the second floor of the house. A mortar round. That was when she heard the only words she
understood. Abdul Mohammed Ghazi.

‘It seems they’ve tracked him down,’ Bukowski said.

‘Who? Where?’

‘The Russians.’

‘This is Russia?’

‘No, it’s some little shithole in Azerbaijan, about ten miles from the Russian border. It seems the Russians decided not to bother with the border formalities, just went in after
him.’

Azerbaijan was a nominally independent republic that hadn’t been part of the Russian empire since the Berlin Wall came down, but old habits die hard, especially in troublesome frontier
areas populated by militant Muslims. The Russians had never showed much patience with ragheads.

Patricia tucked her legs beneath her on the sofa as though ready to pounce, while Bukowski stood, offering sporadic translation, but words were scarcely necessary to understand what was going
on. The house was substantial and set back from the road, protected by a robust wall of stone, and the Russian fire was being returned from within the building with some pretty formidable hardware.
The assault seemed shambolic, accompanied by much screaming and uncoordinated firing of weapons – these troops were border guards, not the best the Kremlin had to offer, which suggested the
assault had been mounted in a hurry. Those inside were giving a good account of themselves, and several bodies clad in the green uniform of the border guard service could be seen lying in the
roadway by the wall. Yet the defenders were surrounded, with nowhere to go, and the roof was burning down upon them. There was so much smoke that neither side could get a clear view of their
targets, so the Russians contented themselves with pounding the house to pieces with mortars. It didn’t stop retaliation. The camera, in wide shot, showed a truck being blown on its side and
erupting in a fireball before the scene hurriedly moved back to concentrate on the inferno of the building.

Slowly a story emerged from the commentary that Ghazi had been betrayed, his hideout uncovered, and surrounded, and now the Russians were going for him as if every man in the assault party
expected to receive a sizeable chunk of the fifteen-million-dollar reward.

‘Not a very exotic place for a super-terrorist to hide,’ Bukowski muttered.

‘Or to die.’

The end was inevitable, but took nearly fifty minutes to reach its climax. Slowly, as the walls, windows, ceilings and staircases of the building were reduced to rubble, the returning fire from
within began to fade. Resistance became sporadic. Then it ceased. Shouts were coming from within the building, cries of submission, then a man stumbled out, blood pouring from a head wound and into
his eyes, matting his long hair across his forehead. He stood still, raised his hands.

‘It’s not Ghazi,’ Patricia whispered, as both the cameras and Russian troops closed in. ‘Too tall.’

More shouting. The fighter lay down in the dust and debris of the front yard. Almost immediately two other men followed, emerging from what had once been a front door but was now no more than a
jagged, gaping hole, dragging a wounded colleague between them. Slowly, reluctantly, they knelt, and lay in the dirt. Yet still there was a sense that the moment was unfinished.

‘Will he give himself up, or take his own life?’ Bukowski wondered out loud.

‘He’s a commercial killer, what do you think?’

And there, emerging from the hell that was behind him, a figure appeared.

‘That’s him!’ Patricia whispered in a tone that sounded strained and urgent, as if she were no longer a spectator but was a player on this bloody field.

He was dressed in a simple smock of the local fashion with billowing cotton trousers that had a dark-red stain growing down the right leg. An arm of the smock seemed badly scorched. The face was
pale, almost Western, despite the smears of smoke, and the beard and hair short, kempt, in a manner that would raise no alarm on the streets of Europe. He stood still, defiant, looking around him,
and at what lay ahead, his arms at his side, silhouetted by the flames that seemed to be reaching for him and almost disappearing in the swirling wisps of smoke. The scene was almost biblical. For
a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the crackling of the fire that was consuming the building behind him. At last, he took a step forward, limping. Then, another. And another.

A shout of command rang out, sharp, like an officer on a parade ground. Suddenly a hand appeared in front of the camera lens, its fingers splayed, covering the view. The screen went blank,
pixels dancing in desperation, trying to work out what they were missing. Sounds of some muffled explosion. Then the transmission went dead.

The stately pile of oriel windows and Tudor brick called Chequers is the country retreat of Prime Ministers. Put another way, it’s where they go to cry. Yet, all politics
being imagery, they have to put on a brave face, which was exactly the position in which Ben Usher found himself. He had gathered his backbenchers for a Sunday ‘strategy session’, where
he and other ministers would tell the flock how high and in which direction they were to jump in the run-up to the election. ‘This is war!’ he shouted, banging the podium at the end of
the Long Gallery, which was heated almost to excess by the crush of bodies sitting in rows of seats laid out before him. There wasn’t much that was original in his conclusion; Clausewitz had
long ago defined war as being a continuation of politics by other means, except modern elections didn’t really deserve to be dignified by such high-minded analysis. For Usher, elections came
straight out of a spaghetti Western, with several gunmen confronting each other, eyes darting, buttocks clenched, knowing that for whoever lost, there would be no tomorrow. Not that defeated Prime
Ministers were shot, of course, that would have been an act of almost too much kindness. No, instead they were dragged from the scene, unwillingly, sometimes in tears, and left in an afterworld of
reminiscence and regret. Few avoided that fate. Perhaps it had been different for John Major. He, at least, had his cricket. There were rumours that the Long Gallery had been used as an indoor
wicket at some point in the past. But Usher hated cricket, so he banged the podium even harder, put on a brave face, and pretended absolute confidence in victory. Only twelve weeks to go, he
reminded them. Twelve weeks until that first Thursday in May. He followed that up with some traditional bollocks about summoning up the spirit, facing the enemy and marching to the sound of
gunfire. Why did his job always seem to reduce itself to grotesque cliché?

Then, as he faced the sea of upturned faces, many of which were glowing, and a few sweating, a thought struck him. May. Hay fever season, during which he suffered excruciatingly. Coughs,
embarrassing splutters, headaches that felt like an exploring corkscrew, a nose turned hydrant and a throat that rasped itself raw. Bloody rape seed, but he couldn’t complain, it would only
have lost him the farmers’ vote. But what confounded idiot had decreed that elections should be held in May? With the Easter holiday to screw things up just as the campaign was getting into
its stride? Clint Eastwood never had to fight his battles with a soggy handkerchief stuffed up his sleeve.

He was glad when he had finished hectoring his troops. He was too much of a professional not to have done it well, but he wanted to escape, get some fresh air, strip off the veneer of exhaustion
that seemed constantly to cling to him, and as the party chairman took his place at the podium the Prime Minister gestured to Harry Jones to join him. Harry didn’t need encouragement, and
wasn’t the type to show false enthusiasm. Always played the game by his own rules. Aggravating bloody man. Thank God they weren’t all like him, but then, thank Heaven, a few of them
were. Usher opened a door that was hidden in a dummy bookcase and disappeared into the Cromwell corridor. Harry followed.

‘What’s up, Ben?’ Harry enquired as they passed by portraits and a mask of the great regicide.

‘Oh, nothing. I’m just not used to being on my own any more.’

They continued in silence until they had made their way outside, into the rose garden.

‘I guess you’ve heard enough of those rallying calls from beaten-up generals,’ Usher said, popping an aspirin into his mouth as he squinted into a lowering sun.

‘Actually, not too many,’ Harry replied.

‘No, that’s right. I looked in your file once. You didn’t do many regular wars, did you? Yours were largely unofficial, in strange places the British Army wasn’t supposed
to be.’

‘The sort of thing my bosses could deny absolutely if things got screwed up.’

‘So no rousing speeches.’

‘Usually just a gentle whisper in the ear and a quick check to make sure I’d updated my will.’

‘You were a useful man to have around.’

‘I think the word was expendable. Anyway what were you doing with my file?’

‘Was thinking of offering you a job, a big one, but then I saw you’d already turned it down under my predecessor. There was a note somewhere, in his own handwriting, said you were an
awkward sod. So many medals, so much insubordination. Quite a few bodies left along the track, too, I seem to remember.’

‘Wars have this nasty habit of requiring casualties, Ben. Don’t forget that, if ever you feel tempted.’

The Prime Minister paused, a little solemn, still staring into the setting sun. ‘They say I’ve lost the plot, Harry.’

‘That’s not true, Ben.’

‘No, but I have lost the initiative. And the electorate. Bit like losing your virginity. Once it’s gone . . .’

Harry didn’t argue.

‘If only we’d been able to find that bastard Ghazi before the Russians, drag him down Whitehall. Beat the truth out of him . . .’

‘You having doubts? About what the truth is?’

‘Politics and truth. Now there’s an interesting proposition in election year.’ He paused, lips working, as though he had a sour taste in his mouth. ‘They shot him, you
know, Ghazi. In cold blood. They said he was wearing an explosive belt, that it killed him and everyone he was with, but that’s bollocks. They shot every one of them, wanted them out of the
way. Embarrassment at the fact it was one of their missiles, I suppose. Or sheer bloody stupidity. So we’ve lost the chance to interrogate them. We’re back where we started.’