Gerald Seymour - Home Run

"When I go back again, inside, I have to have armour-piercing."

"One step at a time, dear boy."

"What else, sir?"

"Well, just remember what a fine girl Juliette was. Put the rest of it out of your mind. You've done enough."

"With armour-piercing weapons I can take out the Mullah who sentenced her, and I think that I can get also to the investigator who tortured her. I have identified both of them."

He saw that Mr Furniss was staring out of the window. He thought he understood why Mr Furniss had turned his head away. The view from the hotel room window was nothing more than a mass of different, improvised roof tops. It had been Mr Furniss who had told him the detail of his father's execution and the hanging of his sister. Each time, then, Mr Furniss had turned away his face.

"But if I don't have the armour-piercing it would be much harder. In fact, I don't know how it could be done."

"I think it would be better, Charlie, if you didn't come down to Bibury again… more professional that way."

"Is that going to be a problem, that sort of weapon?"

"Dear boy, I've told you where to go. You can buy anything if you have the money. Do you have the money?"

"The money is no problem, Mr Furniss."

Parrish wasn't surprised to find that Keeper had beaten him into the Lane.

He poured himself coffee from the percolator.

"Nothing…?"

Park shook his head.

"… What have we got?"

"Surveillance on Manvers' place. The name and type at ports, airports… nothing's showing."

"Something'll show, it always does."

"Well, not yet it hasn't."

"What I always say… Fortune favours the patient."

"It's bloody hard," Park snapped. "I don't think I was cut out for Fortune."

Mattie was tired. He had slept badly because the young man with a blanket bed on the floor had tossed, rolled, right through the night, and then been gone at first light.

He was elated. This visit to the ruins in Toprakkale military was the zenith of his whole journey. But he was running late.

That was inevitable, given the fascination of the ruins, and he had to get the car back to Van, pack up his bags, settle his hotel bill, and catch the flight to Ankara.

Because he was exhausted, excited and in a hurry, he was not aware of the Dodge pick-up closing on him from behind.

He had not thought twice about the tractor hauling a trailer from a sheep pen by the roadside ahead of him. He had not planned his route from Van to Toprakkale, merely followed the map. He did not react well… The tutors at Portsmouth would have been disgusted. All those hours teaching him AOPR: Awareness, Observation, Planning, Reaction. If it had been Mattie's class and a youngster had let himself into that mess at the training centre, Mattie would have roasted him in front of all the others.

A straight stretch of road was all he saw. The road ahead empty except for the tractor and its long trailer stacked high with bales of fodder. It was empty behind him, and he wasn't checking, except for the pick-up.

Mattie should have been in a performance car. He should have been using a professional driver. He should have seen the block ahead, and the block behind.

The tractor stopped.

And that should have triggered the alarm bell for Mattie.

He should have gone off the road, risked a soft verge. He should have tried the "bootlegger turn", hand brake on and wheel spin to throw him round.

He was like a lamb to the slaughter. He pumped the brake gently, he brought the Fiat 127 to a stop. He pressed the horn, once, politely.

There was a violent shuddering crash as the Dodge pick-up smashed against the boot of the Fiat. Mattie was flung back, skull against the head rest. He twisted, heart-racing, sickening fright welling into him, to look behind.

Men running from the pick-up towards him, one from either side, and a man coming at him in front, charging towards the car. He saw the handguns and the machine pistol.

Three men coming at him, all armed. His engine had cut when he had been rammed.

The door beside him surged open. Christ, and he hadn't even locked his door…

He shouted loudly, in English, "I haven't got much money, I'll give you…"

He was pulled out, thrown onto the road surface, a boot went into his face, his wrists were heaved to the small of his back and he felt plastic ties going sharply into his flesh. He was dragged towards the rear door of the pick-up.

Mattie understood. He would have been a bloody fool not to have understood.

He was lifted and thrown hard into the back of the truck.

The doors slammed. Light died.

The Immigration Officer gazed from the young man standing in front of his desk back down to the Travel Document.

"Stateless Person…?"

"The government of Iran does not recognize my old passport. I hope soon to have British citizenship, and a British passport."

The Immigration Officer squinted down at the writing.

"And you are…?"

"Charles Eshraq."

The eyeline, at measured speed, moved again from the Travel Document to the young man who wore a smart navy blazer with a travel company's logo over the breast pocket.

"Sorry… "

"I am Charles E..S..H..R..A..Q."

When he worked fast at the desk top that was out of sight of the man standing in front of him, the Immigration Officer could still maintain an air of impenetrable boredom. His fingers were flicking at the pages of the book with the print-out of entries. It was sharp in his mind. He and the rest of his shift had had the briefing when they had come on duty in the late afternoon. The queue was stretching out behind the man.

That was alright, too, they could all wait. He had the Iranian, he had Charles/Charlie, born August 5, 1965, and he had a Customs ID call. The name in the Suspects' Index was Charlie Persia, probably a nickname, followed by the reference letter

"o". " o " was Customs referral. The Immigration Officer pressed the hidden button on his desk top.

The Supervisor hovered behind him. The Immigration Officer pointed to the travel document, Charles Eshraq. Place of Birth: Tehran. His finger slid across to the Suspects' Index, Charlie Persia, assumed Iranian. Date of Birth: early, middle 1960s.

"Would you mind stepping this way, sir?" The Supervisor asked, and his hand rested easily on Charlie's sleeve.

"Is there a problem?"

"Shouldn't think so, sir. Just routine. This way, please, sir."

"We put the dog onto his bag – hung on like it was marrow-bone."

The room was crowded.

There were men from the Immigration Control, and from the uniformed Customs strength, and Park stood dead centre.

Parrish and Harlech were hanging back by the door. Park listened carefully. He had learned long before that the initial brief was the important one, and he would make his Case Officer decisions from that first information.

"We've him sat in a room now. He thinks there's something wrong with his documentation. I tell you what, he doesn't look fussed, not like I'd be if I had the sort of quantity in my case to make the dog go clean off its whistle. OK, your airport dog will get a good sniff every so often, so they're not as you might say blase, but, Jesus, I've seen nothing like it."

Parrish had not yet recovered his sanity from the style of the journey down from the Lane to Heathrow. He still looked like a man clutching a spar in a high sea. Harlech was pale from sitting in the passenger seat where he could not escape from the swerving and the overtaking and the raw speed; Harlech would tell the rest of them later that Keeper's drive down was the worst experience in his life. Harlech had been the late duty, Parrish had been clearing his desk and checking the overtime sheets, and Keeper had just been using up time, polishing his shoes for the third time that day, when the telephone call had come through from the airport.