Gerald Seymour - Home Run

Another name. "… he works in the Harbourmaster's office at Bandar Abbas."

When he was Station Officer in Tehran he had once made the long road journey south, and he had been sure that he had thrown off the tail of the S A V A K agents that was supposed to be with him, and he had gone to the home of the official from the Harbourmaster's office. The man had been recruited by a previous Station Officer, and until the Revolution had been of minimal importance, and maintained only because he did not want money. He was pure gold now, a field agent in the office which observed the comings and goings of merchant shipping in and out of the country's chief port. He had gone to the man's small brick house, he had sweated and sat on a floor rug and wondered why the ventilation chimney seemed so inadequate in the blasting Gulf heat. On that occasion, after the wife had scurried in with a tray and glasses holding diluted lime juice and scurried out, the official had told Mattie that he was a democrat, and therefore opposed to the regime of the Shah of Shahs. The Revolution had come, the official had found no democracy from the clerics, he had stayed on the list of active agents and he had begun to grow in importance.

A small, frightened man, who believed that the work he carried out for Mattie was a short step in the long road to bring parliamentary rule to his country. A sandwich with sweet cheese was brought for the prisoner.

Another name given. "… he runs a repair workshop in Tabriz for lorries, and he also has contracts to keep the Revolutionary Guards' vehicles on the road."

A basic and human individual, a man who might have been in Mattie's eyes almost a European. The engineer was the sort of fellow who was always popular, perpetually in demand, and he worked all the hours that his God gave him. The engineer had been recruited in Turkey. A good and active Station Officer, long before this academic boy in the job now, had sought him out in a cafe and talked to him when he was over for the collection of a broken-down lorry that would need a new gear box. That Station Officer had been lucky. The son of the engineer's close friend had been shot in the old gaol in Tabriz after a cursory trial by the Komiteh. The engineer had been ready for recruitment. The engineer's pay went into an account at the Etibank in Van, and it was Mattie's business to know that the credit mounted and was never reduced.

Perhaps there was a day on some far horizon in his mind when the engineer would drive out his truck, with his family hidden amongst a cargo. It was useful, the information provided by the engineer. In any time that approached normality it would have been second grade, but they were not normal times, and Iran Desk were pretty damn thankful to have anything coming out of Iran. Mattie had been given a glass of water and a damp towel again soothed the soles of his feet.

It was a good hotel. Charlie could sleep on the pavements with the dossers when he had to, not for the sake of it. The room was?66.50 a night and the best that Leeds could provide. He locked the door behind him. He went along the landing, he was carrying his rucksack by the straps, the two straps twisted around his wrist. He wore his cleanest slacks, a clean shirt and a navy blazer.

There was a man at the end of the corridor, in jeans and a sweatshirt, polishing hard at the muzzle of a fire hose. He didn't look at Charlie and went on with his polishing. Pretty damn obvious. .. Charlie understood… What could be so compelling about getting a shine on to a fire hose nozzle?

A lift was waiting for him.

He came out into the hotel lobby. Too crowded for him to spot the watchers, and he wasn't hanging around to search them out. He knew what he was at. He strode across the lobby, not looking right and not looking left, went as though he belonged and hadn't a care in the world. He pushed his way through the revolving doors, then hesitated. It was colder up in the north than in London. There were taxis waiting in line, engines off. He paused on the pavement.

He moved sharply. He ducked back through the swing doors and across the lobby to the staircase.

He went up the stairs three at a time. Six flights to climb.

He went up the stairs like there was no tomorrow, and took the last flight that was to the roof, and he put his shoulder against the stiffness of the fire escape door.

He stepped out on to the flat roof. He skirted the air conditioning machinery. He had no interest in a fine view over factories or the brick terraces or the munificence of the Victorian civic buildings and churches.

He went to the edge of the roof. He looked down on to the street below. He could see the line of parked taxis. His eyes roved. He saw a green saloon that was behind the taxis.

He could see that there were two people in the front seats, and there was the exhaust showing that the engine was idling. He saw that the man who had been polishing the nozzle of the fire hose was now across the street, and his lips were moving and there was no one close enough to hear him.

In his bath, Charlie had remembered that he was a friend of Mr Furniss.

He was going to piss on them.

•**

"Where the hell is he?"

"Went back up the fire stairs."

"I know he went up the bloody stairs – where did he go?"

"He was coming out and he just turned round."

"I've got eyes myself – where is he now?"

Harlech was across the road from the front of the hotel.

Corinthian was stranded in the hotel lobby.

Token was round the back. "Not a whistle of him here."

There was the local joker in the Sierra, to drive. Keeper thought he was going to be a disaster because he was V A T, and V A T investigators were the pits. When the Head Office came up from the big city they had to put up with whatever they could get, and they needed a local man for the driving.

The V A T man said, "Not a bad start to the day."

The repartee insult was rising in Keeper. The interruption, the insult never spoken.

Corinthian into Keeper's earpiece: "April Eleven to April Five, our Tango One is in the lobby, heading for the front door… going through the front door, you should be picking him up… "

"Your lucky day," the VAT man said.

Keeper saw Charlie come through the swing doors. He felt the relief jar through him. He saw the target walk towards the first taxi on the rank holding the rucksack. It had been Keeper's opinion that Tango One was a rank amateur, but he didn't know why the target had gone back into the hotel, and he didn't know what he had done there, and he didn't know whether they had all shown out, and he was no longer sure how amateur the target was.

They followed the taxi out of the rank. He told the V A T man that he didn't need a running commentary on the splendours of Leeds, thank you, and he had to shout at the joker to let Token through with the back-up car, and neither Token nor Harlech acknowledged them as they went by and took up prime station behind the taxi. They had the message too.

Perhaps the target was not such a rank amateur after all.

Herbert Stone was used to dealing with middle trade businessmen and government representatives. The boy fitted no pattern that he was used to. Middle trade businessmen came to him from Hamburg or Rotterdam or Barcelona because he had earned a reputation for discretion and efficiency, for putting paperwork into place with speed. Government representatives arrived at his office, once a vicarage, because they depended on his discretion in placing hardware in the hands of people they could not acknowledge.

He dealt with corporations and institutions, not with bearded young men who wore yellow socks, and who saun-tered in with rucksacks, for heaven's sake. And the kid seemed relaxed, as if it were the most normal thing in life to take an InterCity north and then come and chat about taking delivery of armour-piercing hardware.