Gerald Seymour - Home Run

Harriet would have known what he should do. And equally certainly Henry would turn down any request that he call her.

Oh yes, he'd do it politely, but he'd do it. Carter had a calculator out, and must have been adding up the damage because just after he had made the final punch a frown ploughed his high forehead. Mattie saw that Henry did nothing by accident. He also realized that for all his seniority at Century, here he was subordinate. Old Henry Carter, Century's vacuum cleaner for gathering up the odds and sods of administration, was running the show, and had determined that Mattie Furniss would be left through that evening to sweat.

Henry smiled. Melting butter. A wrinkled choirboy's smile, such innocence.

"Too damned expensive for me. It'll be the Fens again."

Mattie blurted, "Eshraq, Charlie Eshraq… he was due to go back inside. Did he go?"

Henry's eyebrow lifted. Deliberately he put down the calcu- lator and closed the brochure. "Any day now, going in the next few days… I must say, it sounds as if he's taken on more than he can possibly chew."

Mattie thought a knife could have been sharpened on Henry's voice.

"He's a fine young man."

"They're all fine young men, Mattie, our field agents. But that'll keep till the morning."

The Director of the Revolutionary Centre for Volunteers for Martyrdom was still in his office because on many evenings the office doubled as his bedroom. He was in an easy chair and reading a manual of the US Marine Corps on base security procedures, and he was happy in the discovery that they had learned nothing, the authors of this study.

They took coffee, thick and bitter, and with it was served orange juice. They were two men of cultures that were chasms apart. The Director had spent six years in the Qezel-Hesar gaol in the times of the Shah of Shahs, and he had spent six years in exile in Iraq and France. If a young Mullah who was a rising star had not offered the investigator his protection, then, in great probability, the Director would have used the pistol, holstered and hanging from a hook behind his door, on the back of the neck of the one time S A V A K man.

The investigator spoke of a watch that was now maintained on a barber's shop in the Aksaray district of Istanbul. He told of a man who would come to the shop. At the back of the shop, Charlie Eshraq, the son of the late Colonel Hassan Eshraq, would collect forged papers that he would use when he came back into Iran. He asked a great favour of the Director. He said that he would have this Eshraq under surveillance from the moment that he left the shop. His request was for a small force of men who would be in position on the frontier to intercept Eshraq at whatever crossing point he used. Would he come over at a crossing point? Of course

– and the investigator had researched the matter – because of the weight of the armour-piercing missiles he was known to be bringing and their packaging he would have to come by road. He asked for the service as if he were a humble creature at the feet of a great man.

He asked for nothing. The Director would be most pleased to make such a squad available, in the name of the Imam.

The Director said, "Consider the words of the martyred Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali: 'Those who are against killing have no place in Islam. Faith requires the shedding of blood, we are there to perform our duty…' He was a great man."

And a great butcher, and a hanging judge without equal.

His patron, the Mullah that he served, was but a boy in comparison with Khalkhali, the unlamented protector of the Revolution.

"A great man, who spoke words of great wisdom," the investigator said. And he asked the second favour. He asked that after Charlie Eshraq had collected his papers from the barber's shop, that the shop be destroyed by explosives.

Profusely, he thanked the Director for his cooperation.

It was necessary for him, business completed, to stay another hour in the company of the Director. The Director was pleased to report the details of the killing in London of Jamil Shabro, traitor to the Imam, traitor to his faith, and guilty of waging war against Allah.

When they parted, in the quiet of the dark, on the steps outside the old University, their cheeks brushed each other's lips.

If the restaurant had been half empty, and not full, then Park would have sat at a separate table. There was only their reserved table, so he had to sit with Eshraq if he wanted to eat. And he did want to eat.

Eshraq made conversation, as if they were strangers who had crossed paths in a strange city and needed company. And he ate like he was starting a hunger strike in the morning. He ate fettucine for starters, main course bowl, and he followed with the fegato, and took the lion's share of the vegetables they should have shared, and he finished with strawberries and then coffee and a large Armagnac to rinse down the valpolicella of which he had drunk two thirds of the bottle.

Park hadn't talked much, and the first real exchange was when he had insisted on halving the bill when it came. He took his time, Eshraq, but he pocketed the money, and he paid the whole bill with an American Express card.

Park said, "But you won't be here, not when they bill you."

"Present from America."

"That's dishonest."

"Why don't you call the head waiter?" The mocking in the eyes.

"And you eat like a pig."

Eshraq leaned forward and he looked into Park's face. "Do you think where I am going that I will be eating a meal like this, do you think so? And you know what is the penalty for drinking wine and for drinking brandy, do you know?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

"I could be flogged."

"Best thing for you."

"You are a generous member of the human race."

There was a hesitation, and Park asked, "When you get there, what do you do?"

"I build a life for myself."

"Where do you live?"

"Sometimes rough and sometimes in safe houses, at first."

"How long does it last?"

"How long is a piece of string, April Five?"

"I don't care, it's nothing to me, but it's suicide."

"What did your man offer you, many years ago? He offered you blood and sweat and tears, and he offered you victory."

He couldn't find the words. The words seemed to mean nothing. The face loomed ahead of him, and there was the chatter and the life of the restaurant around them, and the flapping of the kitchen doors, and laughter. "And you're not coming back. There's no coming back, is there? It's all one way, isn't it? You're going back, and you're staying there. Is that right?"

"You said that you didn't care, that it was nothing to you, but I have no intention of dying."

The bill came back, with his plastic. He put his tip on the table, between his coffee cup and the brandy glass, everything that Park had given him.

At the door, Eshraq kissed the waitress on the mouth, and he bowed to the applause of the other customers. Park followed him out. Eshraq was on the pavement and flexing himself, as if he was breathing in the London street air, as if he was trying to keep a part of it for himself, for always.

Park walked alongside him, back towards Eshraq's place.

He followed the big bounding strides. There was an excitement about the man. Everything before was wind-up, tomorrow was real. They reached the entrance to the flats.

"Eshraq, I just want to tell you something."

"What?" Charlie turned. "What do you want to tell me, April Five?"

It had been going through Park's mind most of the time at the restaurant. He waited while an old lady walked her dog between them, waited until the dog had cocked its leg against a railing and was then dragged away.

"I just want you to know that we will follow you anywhere you go, except Iran. If you come out of Iran then we'll know, and that goes for the rest of your life. We'll circulate you, Eshraq, they'll hear about you in Paris, Bonn, Rome, Washington, they'll know you're a trafficker in drugs. If you come out of Iran, if you pitch up at any airport, then I'll hear, I'll get the call. You want to play games with us, just try us.