Gerald Seymour - Home Run

His chest heaved. The breath flooded into his body.

"You killed his sister."

"Did I, Mr Furniss?"

"You tortured her, you killed her."

"Who did I torture, who did I kill?"

"His sister… he's going to get you for his sister."

"Where is he going to come from, to get to me?"

"Coming from U K, coming through Turkey, coming through the Dogubeyezit frontier post."

"How is he going to get to me, for what I did to his sister?"

"Armour-piercing missile, for you and the Mullah who sentenced his sister."

"Who is the Mullah who sentenced his sister?"

"I don't know."

"How will he come here, to get to me?"

"Papers, papers of the pasdaran."

"Where do the papers come from?"

"Istanbul."

"Where in Istanbul?"

"From a hairdressing shop, in the Aksaray district, it is just to the right of the Mirelaon church. It is the only hairdresser there."

"When is he coming, with his papers from the hairdressing shop?"

"Very soon."

"Would he be known to me, my hopeful assassin?"

"You knew his sister, you tortured her. There were two Guards that took her to the execution, he shot them in Tehran.

The executioner of Tabriz, he blew him up, bomb on a car roof. You'll know him."

"Mr Furniss, what is his name?"

He knelt at the feet of the investigator. His head was bowed down to his knees. From his clothes there was the smell of vomit, in his nose was the smell.

"God forgive me…"

"What is his name?"

"Harriet… Please, Harriet, forgive me."

"His name, Mr Furniss?"

"Charlie, you can't know what they've done to me… the pain, Charlie… "

"The name?"

"He's coming to get to you, for what you did to his sister.

He's Charlie. His name is Charlie Eshraq."

"We'll get the doctor to you… Thank you, Mr Furniss."

It was morning. There was enough of a knife line of light at the edge of the plywood over the window to tell Mattie that it was morning, another day. He rolled a little on the bed and his knees were hunched against his stomach as if he still needed to protect himself from the boots and the fists. He could feel the tightness of the bandages around his feet, and there was the irritation of the stitch that the doctor had put into his lower lip. At first he was too frightened to move, because he believed that any movement, any slight movement, would hurt him. With the movements of his muscles and his limbs he was like a man walking in a darkened room, hesitating and testing. He went from his side to his back, and he lay on his back and looked at the ceiling light. The ceiling light was always brilliant, bright enough for him to have to sleep with the blanket pulled over his head. From his back he manoeuvred himself across to his other side. All of his concentration, his determination, had gone into those movements. He had managed the movements… He rolled back until his spine was against the mattress. He gazed at the light bulb that was recessed into the ceiling, and that threw a trellis of faint shadows through the mesh that protected it. He closed his eyes. Not bloody much to show for it, a couple of bandages and a single stitch and aches all over his body… not bloody much for cracking, for talking. His eyes were squeezed shut.

He tried to shut out all that was around him.

Pretty damn easily he'd talked.

More easily than he'd have believed.

Less hurt than he'd have thought possible.

He could move from his side to his back and to his other side and on to his stomach. The pain was… to have cracked and not been hurt, that was agony. What had he said? A hazed memory. The memory was of the face of the investigator, and with the eyes of the investigator seeming to plead with him for the telling of it. The memory was of the hair-covered hands of one guard, and the nicotine stains of another guard's fingers, and of the stale sweat smell of their fatigues, and of the rough dirt of their bootcaps. What had he said? There were sounds in his mind. The sounds were of his own voice speaking names. Good names, the names of old friends…

God, the shame of i t… God, the bloody disgrace of it…

It was faint, he could not be sure that he heard the voice. The voice seemed to say the name of Charlie Eshraq. Couldn't be certain, but the voice amongst the confusion seemed to be the voice of Mattie Furniss.

"His name is Charlie Eshraq."

No, no, couldn't be certain, and the memory was misted.

"His name is Charlie Eshraq."

For years in the Service he had used them. They were almost friends to him, almost family, and he'd named them

… and they hadn't even hurt him so that it lasted. He had his fingernails, and a back he could straighten. He had not been hurt as the Gestapo gaolers had hurt that Lutheran pastor who had come to the Fort and talked of his faith. Shame and disgrace and failure… He rolled off the bed. Gently, as if he were frightened, he lowered his feet to the tile floor. He put the weight of his body on his feet. It was as if he wanted to feel pain, as if the pain in his feet would justify his having talked. Of course there was pain, but not enough pain. The pain was sustainable when he put his weight on to the soles of his feet. They wouldn't understand in Century. They had a routine in Century for those who came back – if he ever came back – those who'd talked under interrogation. A debrief and a goodbye. No one wanted to know about a man who had talked. All the successes forgotten. And the irony was that it had been Mattie who had contradicted the Embassy's reports in the late '70s, Mattie who had said the Peacock throne was on shifting sand and would sink. Good reporting, and all for nothing. A debrief for damage limitation and then a goodbye that was cold and without emotion.

He heard an engine revving outside. He struggled to get up from the bed and he pressed his ear against the plywood at the window. The engine dulled the voices, but he recognised the voice of the investigator. There was a place in hell for that man. Mattie Furniss would never forget the voice of the investigator. Then the scrape of the tyres on chip stones and the squealing of a gate. Mattie understood. The investigator would be setting up the surveillance on the field agents. He would return. Mattie tried to calculate how long it would have taken to abort the field agents. He knew the system because he had drawn it up himself. He couldn't keep track of the days any more, should have done, should have scratched a marking for each day on the wall beside his bed. He didn't know whether he'd given them enough time. What he'd been through, that would be a suite at the Ritz compared with what the field agents would suffer in the interrogation rooms at Evin.

Mattie would have whetted the appetite of the investigator, he knew that. He'd be back. They would strip him and gut him of all he knew, and then they would kill him. Stood to reason, they would take their fill of him, and they would dispose of him. They would take him through the kitchen and across the yard, and they would put him against the concrete block wall where the other poor bastards had been put.

In his life he had never known such agony of failure.

If he didn't make it b a c k… in time, they'd hear at Century that their man had cracked. Just as the Agency had heard that Hill Buckley, good guy and brave guy, had cracked. The bastards had tortured Buckley and then they sent the tapes of Buckley screaming to Langley. The shit pigs had made sport with Bill Buckley's pain.

He went to the wash basin and he ran the tap, and when the water came it did not matter to Mattie that it was foul-tasting and ditchwater brown.

While the water still dripped from his beard growth he sat on his bed. He waited for them to bring him his breakfast.