Gerald Seymour - Home Run

The lorry travelled through. The seals of the containers had been legally broken. He had his manifest list signed, stamped.

The driver was free to drop off at an assembly of addresses the contents of his containers. He had brought into Turkey, quite illicitly and quite easily, four LAW 80 armour-piercing missiles, and he carried in his wallet a passport-sized photograph of the man to whom he would deliver four wooden crates, and he'd get a holiday with the wife and the kids in Majorca on the bonus he was promised for the successful shipment of the particular cargo that was stowed at the bulkhead of the container that was immediately behind the driver's cab.

A piece of cake, the Customs point at Aziziye.

The lorry headed for Istanbul.

The envelope contained a dog-eared and well-scuffed Shenass-Nameh Recognition Paper, and a Certificate of Military Discharge following injury, and a Driver's Licence for a commercial vehicle. Included also in the envelope was a letter of authentication from a factory in Yazd that produced precision ballbearings and would therefore be classified as important to the war effort. And there were bank notes, rials.

As he took each item out of the envelope, Charlie held it against the light that hung down from the ceiling of the room at the back of the barber's shop. He looked for the signs of overwriting and overstamping. It was right that he should check carefully. His life depended on them. He paid cash, he paid in sterling,?20 notes. He thought that the forger could have bought a half of the Aksaray district with what he made in documentation provided for the refugee exiles. He thought that he was a case of interest to the forger, because the forger had told him, not the time before, but the time before that, had confided in Charlie, that he was the only customer who looked for documentation to go back inside Iran. The barber's shop was in the centre of the Aksaray district that was the Little Iran of Istanbul. To the room at the back of the shop there came, by appointment, a stream of men and women seeking the precious papers which were required for them if a new life were to be born out of exile. And he charged…

He charged what he thought he could get, and those from whom he could get nothing received nothing from him. For a Turkish passport he charged $500, and this was the bottom of his range and full of risk to the bearer because the number would not tally with any of the records maintained on the Interior Ministry computer. For a British or a Federal German passport, with entry visa, he would expect to relieve his customer of $10,000. Most expensive, top of his range, was the American passport, with multiple entry visa, and there were very few customers who had managed to secrete that sort of cash, $25,000 in used notes. Sometimes, but only occasionally, the forger took diamonds in lieu of cash, but he was loth to do that because he had no knowledge of precious stones and then he must go and put himself at the mercy of the young Jew in the Covered Bazaar that was a thousand metres away down Yeniceriler Caddesi – and he might be cheated. With fast and busy fingers he counted the cash.

When they shook hands, when Charlie had pocketed the brown envelope, when the forger had locked away the money, then Charlie noticed the tic flicker on the right upper eyelid of the forger. Charlie did not consider that the tic flicker might have been caused by fear, apprehension; he thought the twitching came from an over indulgence in close and painstaking work.

Charlie Eshraq walked out into the sunshine.

He looked up the street for his shadow. He saw Park. He was at least 150 yards up the street. Charlie was about to wave a curt acknowledgement when he saw the shadow turn away from him.

He had first seen the tail in the Aksaray district, where the walls were covered with posters that rubbished Khomeini, where the kids gathered to plot crimes that would bring them the money to get out of Turkey and onwards into Europe. He had first seen the tail when Eshraq had come out of the doorway of the barber's shop and started to walk towards him.

He wasn't sure whether there were two cars, but he was certain that there was one car. There were three men, on the hoof. There was the man in the forecourt of the cafe who stood and then came after Eshraq as soon as he emerged into the sunshine; he was a tail because he left three quarters of a glass of cola undrunk. There was a man who had been leaning against a telephone pole and who had been busy cleaning his nails, and his nails didn't seem to matter once Eshraq was out. There was a third man, and when the car had pulled level with him then he had spoken quickly into the lowered front passenger window.

He knew a tail when it was in front of him.

He'd thought that the tail was good in Istanbul. He'd thought the tail was better in Ankara. He didn't doubt that the tail had been in place from the time they had walked out of the terminal of the Esenboga airport, but he hadn't picked it up until Eshraq had gone park walking with the young man who called himself Terence. In the park, the Genclik Park, with the lakes and the artificial islands and the cafes, he had kept himself back and he had watched Eshraq and his contact from more than a quarter of a mile. Three men again, but different from those who had done the footslog in Istanbul.

He could have rung Bill Parrish, and he didn't. He could have called up the ACIO, and he didn't. They had passed him on from the Lane. They would be into the priority of Harlech's case, and sifting everything else that had taken back seat to the Eshraq investigation. They wouldn't have wanted to have known that there was a tail on Eshraq.

He acknowledged that the tails were in place. He allowed them to stay in place.

A man who wore a new black leather jacket, and who had a trimmed goat's beard, he saw him in the Genclik Park and he saw him at the airport when he and Eshraq boarded for Van.

There was no communication between them. There was no bond in formation. Eshraq was moving to the frontier and Park was his shadow. They hardly spoke. When they spoke it was commonplace and factual. They spoke about where Eshraq was going, how long he would be there, where he would be going afterwards. That didn't bother Park, and it seemed to him that it didn't concern Eshraq. No need for it to have concerned either of them. They were the subjects of a deal.

And if Eshraq had a tail on him, had had a tail ever since he had walked clear of the barber's shop in the Aksaray district of Istanbul then that was his worry, not Park's.

49841/TL/7 6 87.

To: TURKDESK, CENTURY CC IRANDESK, DDG.

From: ANKARA STATION

MESSAGE: CE Vanwards, in company of Park. Transhipment from UK complete, no hitch, and now in transit Vanwards. Have fully briefed up, beefed up, CE on communications procedures, and agreed that most epistles will be hand carried out by courier. CE in good humour, good morale.

Eye stressed need for detail in material rather than frequency.

My opinion, eye think they have major handful tripping over their frontier. Eye didn't meet Park. CE ignores him, says he is harmless. In answer your query – TURKDESK CENTURY 6 6

87 – CE says Park is no problem, but frightened of being away from home without him Mum, exclaimer… CE will cross 9

6 87, using Dogubeyezit checkpoint. CE has necessary papers to drive commercial vehicle inside, will be carrying hardware via commercial van, and supply of electrical flex as per your suggestion. Upsummer: No problems, looks good, more follows.

MESSAGE ENDS.

"You off then, Henry? That'll be a break."

"I'll be in London, Mattie, reporting back."

"I won't be sorry, Henry, if they slap your wrist."

"Probably will, won't be for the first time… What I was saying, it's not quite a matter of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone. There's still one horse in the stable. Eshraq is in the stable, not for much longer, but he's there right now.