Gerald Seymour - Condition black

He walked to the Sergeant.

"My name's Erlich, Federal Bureau ol Investigation

"Oh yes. Heard about you from young Desmond Young lad just told me …"

"You have him in there? Colt?"

"Right now I do. If he doesn't do a runner…''

"You got firearms?"

"On the way."

"What you got to stop him running?"

"There's nine of us."

"Where is he?"

"Back bar, through the side entrance, it's where he was last Erlich pulled the Smith and Wesson from the holster at his belt. The Sergeant didn't seem to want to argue. Erlich thought the Sergeant was bright, wasn't going to fuss that a Fed was on his territory, and armed. Round the corner of the building, into the glare of the light came the girl and a youth with a shaven head and tattoo work over his arms and they carried the slumped weight of a policeman. Erlich remembered him, and he remembered his cup of tea on the best china and homemade cakes. And he remembered the girl and the way that she had stared her hatred into the torch beam when she had come to take away her dead dog.

He walked forward and the headlights threw his shadow huge against the front stonework of the pub. He could hear, mingled with the wind, the closing thump of the helicopter's rotors.

Colt was his.

The military policeman locked the door behind him.

The Station Officer carried the tray into his office.

The Swede was crouched on the low camp bed that had been made up for him, and there was a second bed against the far wall from the door. The Station Officer put the tray down on his desk.

He took out from his pocket, where it was awkward, his P. P. K. pistol and laid it on the desk alongside the tray of sandwiches with the bottle of champagne.

"Will you surrender me?"

"Give you up? Good God, no."

" D i d Bissett get onto the flight?"

" H e was blocked."

"Thank God. "

"It's what you risked your life for… The champagne comes with warm wishes from your friends in Tel Aviv. "

The Swede started to eat, and when he drank he coughed and then giggled his appreciation.

He watched.

With fast and controlled movements, Colt had the pistol cleared and the magazine out and there was the dead metal rattle of the mechanism firing, and then Colt had checked each round before feeding it into the stick magazine.

Bissett watched.

They were going to break out. He did not have to be told.

They were going to run at the cordon of white and blue light, they were going to sprint for the dark shadow line beyond the brilliance of the perimeter that was strung around the pub. He heard, muffled by the thickness of the old stone walls of the building, a distant pulse of growing sound.

All the time he was watching the sharp and more confident hand movements of Colt.

He thought of his father and mother, of the small terraced home in the small streets of Leeds. He thought of their letters, abandoned in his suitcase at the airport. They would not have understood. He had told them so little from the time that he had first taken his appointment at the Establishment. His father and his mother were against the Bomb, they all were in that street. He had won for them no pride for working as a government scientist.

He might as well have been a deputy manager at an amusement arcade, or running a local Radio Rentals… Yes, he thought they would despise him now, his mother and his father. He would never go home to greet his father on the day that his mother died. They would not have understood. It was not his fault.. He had outgrown them. They were no longer a part of his life…

He watched.

Colt had finished with the pistol, and now he crouched and undid the knots at both his trainer shoes, and he had retied the laces.

It was not possible that Colt could not hear the coming thunder sound breaking through the windows of the back bar, permeating the stone walls.

"It'll be all right, Colt…?"

"Why not?"

"We're going together?"

" O f course."

" D o you think we can do it?"

" N o problem."

There was sick fear in Bissett's stomach. They would run at the lights. He would let Colt hold him by the wrist and he would cling to Colt's sleeve, and they would run.

"What's that noise?"

Colt said, like it didn't matter, " I ' m just going upstairs. I want a better view of the ground. You shouldn't worry, Dr Bissett.

It's a helicopter, they'll be bringing in their heavy mob, I expect

… nothing to worry on, Dr Bissett."

" I ' m sorry about your mother, Colt, really sorry."

"I'll be a minute, then it's running time."

He heard the shuffle ripple of Colt's feet, and he was gone onto the narrow and twisted staircase that led out from behind the bar counter.

And the silence in Bissett's ears was broken by the drum beat of the helicopter banking on its flight path over the village.

He heard the helicopter put down.

Erlich thought it sounded, from its power, a big transporter.

They would be getting their act together at last. Armed men, and the big guys from London. He thought that they would not have room in their plan for Bill Erlich, number three from Rome, wanted for questioning in connection with the death of James Rutherford. He was in the porchway to the back bar. He had the Smith and Wesson in his hand. Held beside his ear.

The helicopter had cut its rotors.

He strained to hear the sound of voices, Colt's voice. He listened for the sound of movement.

Bill Erlich readied himself for the charge through the closed heavy door.

He was the law-enforcement man. He was small-town America's hero. He was the Mid-West glamour kid. He was the Special Agent, the hero, the good kid, and he had come to get the scum face, the dirt bag, who had dared to stand against Old fucking Uncle fucking Sam. Ride on, Bill Erlich, Special Agent, hero, good kid. He was the guy who rode off into the setting sun, he was the joker that they loved to patronise in their rocking chairs on the verandah behind the white picket fencing. Heh, Bill, how's it going…? Going okay, don't you know. Going good, just have to get into this goddam museum pile, move around a bit, find the mother. Got to shoot, kill, bury the mother.

Got to line up then for the thanks of the great fat smug ranks of the bastards, so that they can say 'thank you', and light up the barbecue, and unpack the camper trailer, and turn their backs on what their taxes pay for. And who cared…? Did any bastard care on the east side, getting their cocktails in before the Beltway home? Any bastard on the west coast, just back from lunch, care?

Did they hell… He was FBI, he was armed, he was going to shoot a guy who had killed an American government servant.

It was what a good government and a grateful people paid Bill Erlich to do, to get on with. Did they care? Did they, hell…

He was breathing hard, like he had been taught to, like through the heavy stained door to the back bar was Condition Black…

Holy God…

The wind and the first shower of rain funnelled up the road through the village, caught at the legs and backs of those who watched.

The group grew. The solicitor stood with his eldest son under a titled golf club umbrella. The bank manager was there, with his pyjama trouser bottoms peeping from underneath the waterproof leggings The Home Farm tenant was there, rubicund and overweight and chewing a cube of cheese and with his dog, Rocco's sire, at his heel. Old Vic and his wife were there, and he had a quarter bottle of rum in his hip pocket .

In the centre of the road, as far forward as they were allowed to stand, were Billy and Zap, Kev, Zack, Charlie, and Johnny with his arm hard round Fran's shoulder.

In their clusters they waited.

The solicitor said that if ever there was a boy born to be hanged it was Colin Tuck, God rest his mother, and his son who was Colt's exact contemporary, who had secretly admired him and who had yearned for Fran for years, said nothing. The District Nurse, who had just joined them, said that il was the blessing of God that Louise Tuck had not lived to witness this final humiliation. And she thought that when it was over she would go to the Manor House and break the news to him, and make him one last pot of tea. The bank manager said that he had heard at Rotary that Colt was wanted for terrorism now and that prison would be too good for him. The Home Farm tenant said that he had always known the kid to be a wrong 'un, stood out a mile since he had got himself involved with those Animal Liberation bastards. Old Vic said he'd miss him, didn't mind who knew it, and his wife said that she had never known anything but politeness from Colt.