Westwind, Page 3

  ‘Where the hell’s the soda?’ he muttered. The streets of Bonn were in a mid-evening hiatus. Nobody seemed much bothered about the official car or its cargo – there had been so many such cars in Bonn of late – and this suited Esterhazy fine. The last thing he needed was either cheers or jeers. If they cheered, were they cheering because they were glad to see the back of the American forces? Or because they were glad of those forces and wanted them to stay? God alone knew. Ben Esterhazy didn’t. The talks had dragged today. The interpreters seemed to be in some kind of stupor, and the delegates likewise. It was winding down, the pull-out already being implemented. All they were really talking about now was the dotting of a few i’s. That had never been Esterhazy’s way.

  But now his part in the comedy was over, and tonight he was flying back to the States. He relaxed, sipped his drink, rested his head on the seat-back. He was going home. The work was done. He’d put in an appearance for the sake of appearances, he’d signed this and that piece of paper. Now he could go back to the men in Washington and tell them it was done. Not that they really cared. If Europe wanted to go it alone, let them. That was democracy’s attitude. But if there were to be a war, the men in suits would be the first to take cover, and the first to order the troops straight back into the kill zone.

  ‘Well, fuck them.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Sir …’

  Esterhazy realised that the aide’s hand had reached into an attaché case and come out with an envelope, towards which he was trying to attract the general’s attention.

  ‘What the hell is it?’ said Esterhazy, snatching at the paper.

  ‘Message came through for you, sir,’ said Bosio. ‘Sorry, I forgot to give it to you earlier.’

  ‘Idiot.’ Esterhazy tore open the envelope and unfolded the note inside.

  SORRY YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT TO THE BURIAL.

  For the first time that day, General Ben Esterhazy smiled.

  4

  Martin Hepton put down the telephone. At the third attempt, he had found out something concrete about Paul Vincent. He had found out that Paul was no longer in the hospital. He had been sent on to a rest home for a period of ‘recovery’, as the hospital doctor had termed it. Exhaustion, that was all it was. That was all.

  Hepton walked along the corridor, paused outside the gym, then pushed open the door. It was a well-equipped gym. Healthy bodies meant healthy minds. Not that anyone ever used the gym. No one except Paul Vincent. Hepton went to the multi-gym, the so-called ‘torture machine’, and hoisted himself up on the arm-lift bar. He brought his chin up to touch the bar, then relaxed his arms until his toes touched the floor.

  ‘That’s one,’ said the voice behind him. It was Nick Christopher, smiling, letting the gym door swing shut behind him.

  Hepton smiled and pulled himself off the floor again, straining this time, coming down heavily.

  ‘Two,’ counted Christopher.

  ‘Enough for today,’ said Hepton, feeling the blood pound in his chest.

  ‘Is this man out of condition? I ask myself.’

  ‘Okay, let’s see you do some.’

  ‘Stand aside, shrimp.’ Christopher pulled a crossword book out of his back trouser-pocket and handed it to Hepton, then gripped the bar and heaved himself aloft. He managed fifteen pulls, then rested, breathing hard.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Hepton.

  ‘If there’s one thing regular sex does for you,’ explained Christopher, taking the book back, ‘it gives you a strong pair of arms.’ They both laughed.

  ‘I wouldn’t know sex if it hit me in the face,’ Hepton said.

  ‘That’s your problem then,’ Christopher said. ‘You can’t tell the difference between sex and a slap in the face.’ He paused. ‘How are things with Jilly?’

  ‘What things? I haven’t heard from her since she went to London.’

  ‘Have you tried calling her?’

  ‘Only every day.’

  ‘So do you get the feeling it’s all over?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Martin.’

  Hepton shrugged. He gripped the bar again and managed two more hoists.

  ‘What about Paul?’ Nick Christopher asked.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Have you managed to find out anything?’

  ‘Apparently he’s gone off to some rest home.’

  ‘Jesus, it must be bad then. I thought those places were for the dying and the dead.’

  Hepton tried a third hoist, failed, and dropped to the ground. ‘Better book me a room in one then,’ he said. ‘After you’ve bought me a drink.’

  They sat down in the cafeteria, drinking cans of cola and eating crisps.

  ‘Is this supposed to be brain food?’ Christopher asked. Then: ‘What do you think of that shuttle, the Argos, crashing like that?’

  ‘I think our man was lucky to get out in one piece.’

  It was front-page news, of course. Tomorrow it would be relegated, but for today, Major Mike Dreyfuss was famous, which was, Hepton supposed, what the bastard had always wanted. Hepton had two very good reasons for being jealous of Mike Dreyfuss. For one thing, the man had actually touched the skies, while all he, Hepton, could do was watch them.

  For another, Dreyfuss and Jilly went back a long way. They had never been lovers, perhaps – though he had her word alone on that – but they had been friends, very close friends, and while she had allowed Hepton into her bed and her body, her mind had stayed closed to him. Yet she had spoken of Dreyfuss with such tenderness …

  ‘Well,’ Nick Christopher was saying, ‘I can’t see him having an easy time of it. I mean, there he is in America, the sole survivor of a disaster in which all the Americans on board perished, and here we are kicking the Yanks out of Europe, making us not very popular over there.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Hepton. It was all he could do to stop himself from smiling. He stuffed his mouth with crisps instead. Yes, front-page news Dreyfuss might be, but for all the wrong reasons.

  5

  The light was diffuse and coloured the burnished gold of … The description ended there. His mind wasn’t up to it. He decided to open one eye, just a little, and saw an underwater blur of greys and blues and whites, bathed in the same golden light. He blinked, opened both eyes and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed. A private room. Lavender paint on the walls, machines standing beside the bed, a drip feeding his left arm. Through the slats of the blinds streamed the day’s raw sunshine. Golden light.

  He was alive then.

  A nurse sat dozing in the heat, a paperback novel on her lap. Where was this? Why was he so sore? His mouth was raw. Then he remembered – the shuttle had crash-landed. Couldn’t get the undercarriage down. Couldn’t get anything to work. Total shutdown of the onboard computer. Now how the hell could that have happened?

  And what about Heinemann, O’Grady, Marshall, Wilson, Adams? Were they alive or dead? The fate of Hes Adams especially interested him. He let out a little whistle of air, as much as he could manage without feeling pain. It was enough. The nurse stirred, opened her eyes and smiled at him. Then closed them again as she stretched. A good big early-morning yawn, and then another smile, as though they were waking up in bed together; lovers.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Dreyfuss. How do you feel?’

  Dreyfuss. That was his name. It was as good a name as any. He tried answering her question, but his throat was dry and sore. He swallowed painfully, and she seemed to understand. Rose from her chair and poured some water from a jug into a glass. There were flowers on his bedside cabinet. Not many of them, a couple of small bunches.

  The water was tepid. He had trouble swallowing.

  ‘Thanks,’ he rasped. ‘Needed that.’ Speaking was like rubbing something raw against sandpaper.

  ‘You’ve been asleep a long time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Several days, I think. I’
ve only been on shift a couple of hours.’

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Sacramento General.’

  It sounded like the title of a bad western. He supposed it was a hospital in Sacramento. He’d never been to Sacramento before. One of his reasons for wanting the shuttle mission was so he could see a little more of the States. He’d only been three times previously, and then never for long. As a child, growing up in the rapidly disappearing slums of east Edinburgh, he had dreamed of all this, of spacemen and of America, playing out the dream with toy spaceships that he would send hurtling to their doom.

  ‘The others …’ he began, but already the nurse had pushed at a buzzer above his bed. God, her body looked good, wrapped in the flimsiest layer of white cotton. He could almost taste … What was it he could taste in his mouth, right there behind the caked dryness and the lees of water?

  It was smoke, blood, fear. And hands tearing at him. Why were hands tearing at him?

  ‘Good afternoon, Major Dreyfuss.’

  A man in a white coat, stethoscope swinging reassuringly around his neck, had pushed open the door. Behind him came two others, one in a general’s uniform, the other looking like a worrier from the State Department. They stood slightly to left and right of the doctor, like tumours growing out of his sides. Good, thought Dreyfuss: his powers of description were coming back.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, but the doctor was studying his chart, and then studying the nurse. He smiled at her.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you before, have I?’

  She smiled back. ‘No, Doctor. The name’s Carraway.’

  ‘Well, Nurse Carraway, has the patient been behaving?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’ Now she was looking towards Dreyfuss, and there was that smile again. The doctor turned towards him too.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘One hundred per cent, Doctor. When can I get up?’

  The doctor laughed. ‘Not for a while yet, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’ snapped the general. It was a serious question.

  Dreyfuss closed his eyes.

  ‘I’ve had a relapse, Doc,’ he said. ‘I’m allergic to goons.’

  ‘Why, you sonofabitch—’ started the general, only to be stopped by the civilian’s upraised hand.

  Dreyfuss opened his eyes and stared at the slats of the blind, trying to recall where he had seen that colour before, that golden colour, and heard those words before, too.

  A ball of flame. Fuel igniting. And the voice of Hes Adams in his ear: you sonofabitch.

  ‘Leave him be, Ben,’ the civilian was saying. ‘He’s traumatised, probably doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

  ‘He knows all right.’

  ‘Come on,’ the civilian insisted, leading the general towards the door. ‘I’ll buy you a drink and you can bore me with the story of Bonn.’

  The doctor watched them go and seemed to relax a little. He approached the bed.

  ‘Nice chaps,’ Dreyfuss commented. The doctor seemed not to understand, then smiled.

  ‘You mean General Esterhazy and Mr Stewart.’

  ‘If that’s who they were.’

  ‘That’s who they were.’ The doctor watched Dreyfuss sip more water. ‘Throat sore?’

  ‘A little,’ said Dreyfuss. ‘Listen, I meant what I said back there. When can I get up?’

  ‘Just hang on in there.’ A pencil-fine beam of light shone into Dreyfuss’ left eye, then his right. ‘What do you remember about the accident, Major?’

  ‘What accident?’ Dreyfuss smiled at the doctor’s look of alarm. ‘Only joking,’ he said. ‘I remember a ball of flame; it really did look like a ball, too. I felt like I could have given it a kick. I didn’t, though. It kicked me instead. Then I suppose I must have passed out.’

  ‘And where were you when this happened?’

  ‘On the shuttle, of course. The shuttle was called Argos, and we were coming in to land, and there were six of us.’

  ‘And what had the shuttle been doing?’

  Dreyfuss made a show of trying to think.

  ‘Major?’

  ‘I … don’t seem to remember that,’ he lied, though why his instincts told him to conceal his returning memory was a mystery.

  ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ Dreyfuss caught Nurse Carraway staring at him fixedly. But when his eyes met hers, she slapped a smile onto her face again. ‘Do you remember the names of the other crew members?’ the doctor was asking.

  ‘Let’s see.’ Dreyfuss tried to look as though he was thinking hard. He wondered why Nurse Carraway was so intent on his answer. ‘Heinemann,’ he said at last, ‘Adams, Marshall, O’Grady, Wilson.’

  ‘Good, Major Dreyfuss. Now think back.’ The doctor began to check his pulse. Dreyfuss had the idea that this was less even than a routine check; that it was a cover under which the doctor could ask his questions. Without knowing exactly why, he had the feeling that there was a good reason why he shouldn’t tell him everything he knew. ‘What,’ the doctor was saying, ‘is the next thing back that you remember before the fire?’

  This was perfect: they expected – wanted – him to have amnesia.

  ‘Major?’

  ‘Well …’ Dreyfuss started, licking his lips. He stared at the lavender walls, at a concerned Nurse Carraway, at anything that might appear to be jogging his memory. ‘I remember taking off, the whole thing with ground control, with Cam Devereux – he was my contact on the ground. Everything was going according to schedule. But … I’m not sure why we were up there in the first place. No, wait, we were launching a satellite, right?’

  The doctor smiled.

  ‘That’s right, Major. Launching one of our communications satellites. Don’t worry.’ He patted Dreyfuss’ shoulder. ‘It’ll come back to you in time. This sort of thing is quite usual in cases of trauma. And you took a few nasty bumps when you landed.’

  ‘Nothing serious, though?’

  ‘No, nothing serious. You just need to rest. Does your head hurt?’

  No, his head didn’t hurt. He put his right hand to his forehead and felt a plaster there.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a bit of a headache.’

  ‘We’ll get you something for that. I’ll be back to see you shortly. Meantime, if there’s anything you need, just ask Nurse …?’ The doctor had forgotten her name.

  ‘Carraway,’ she said. She smiled at Dreyfuss again, her hair the colour of honey. And he smiled back. By which time the doctor had left the room and the door was swinging shut. A voice was raised somewhere in the corridor. The goon, thought Dreyfuss, the one called General Ben Esterhazy.

  ‘Can I see a newspaper?’ he asked Nurse Carraway. She was sitting down with her book again, legs crossed. Were those silk stockings she was wearing? Since when were silk stockings regulation issue for nurses?

  ‘I’ll have to check on that, Mr Dreyfuss.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear? It’s Major.’

  ‘Of course it is. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  She had risen to her feet, but instead of leaving to fetch a paper, she approached the bed.

  ‘Can I just ask one thing?’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘How can I stop you?’

  ‘I was just wondering …’ Her fingers stretched towards him, stopping just short of his throat. ‘I was wondering how you got those bruises on your neck.’

  Hes Adams’ fingers trying to wrench the life from him, when they were both already dead.

  ‘What bruises?’ he said, his eyes clear and honest.

  She smiled, but uncertainly. Then walked to the door and opened it, turning back to look at him before leaving. Dreyfuss checked that there were no cameras trained on him from the corners of the room, no holes drilled in the wall. Seeing none, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile.

  6

  Parfit stared at the security room’s various screens as they relayed the passing parade outside the embassy. Most days now there was a demonstration
of some kind. It might be the French embassy or the German embassy. But mostly, as today, it was the British embassy. Today’s crowd was small. Thank the unseasonal Washington drizzle for that perhaps. They were yelling something, but the cameras hadn’t been wired for sound, not outside the perimeter wall at any rate. It didn’t matter. He knew the gist of their chants. You don’t want us, we don’t want you – that sort of thing. And he took their point. Whether he agreed with it or not was irrelevant.

  There had been some ugliness in other parts of the country. It was tempting to say the less civilised parts. A section of the USA would forever stay frontier country, and God help any unwary English tourist straying too far from the safety of their metropolitan hotel. So far this week, Parfit had had reports of two firebomb attacks on British businesses in Boston and New York, several broken windows, threats, casual violence, and sixteen muggings, one of which had taken place in a picnic area of Yosemite National Park.

  Then there were those who were merely annoyed: the British businessmen who were losing contracts, the British immigrants who were being harassed at work. And all of it filtered back via the great brown fan to the Washington embassy, where some of it landed squarely on Parfit’s too-small desk.

  ‘Looks peaceable enough, Mr Parfit,’ said Tom Banks, one of the security team whose job it was to watch the screens, seeking breaches in the line of defence.

  ‘The rain will cool their tempers, Tom,’ said Parfit. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Bye, Mr Parfit.’

  He was headed for Johnnie Gilchrist’s office, the inner sanctum. Towards Gilchrist’s door, the carpet pile seemed to grow discernibly deeper. It was said that this was because so few people dared disturb Gilchrist in his lair. Like many myths, there was a core of truth to it. But Parfit knocked anyway, his distinctive three short raps and one long.

  ‘Come in, Parfit.’ Seated behind his desk, half-moon glasses resting precariously on his aquiline nose, Gilchrist could look tame enough, more the retiring scholar than the shrewd – and vicious – career diplomat. He and Parfit had sharpened claws on one another in the past, but at least each understood the other’s territory. Gilchrist’s job was to get things done, no matter what. Parfit’s job was damage limitation. There could never be one without the other.