Ian Rankin - Westwind

‘Hot in here,’ said the nurse, a teenager who certainly looked more like a nurse than Carraway had.

‘Yes, it is,’ Dreyfuss answered, sitting up with his back against the mound of pillows. She placed the tray on a trolley and wheeled the trolley over until it was positioned in front of him.

‘Ham and eggs,’ she said, removing the cover from the plate. Dreyfuss nodded hungrily and started to tuck in. Three or four chews later, he remembered about Parfit, and the hunger left him. He sipped at the coffee, still chewing the food in his mouth, desperate to swallow it but somehow unable to. Eventually he spat it back into his paper serviette.

The nurse returned after twenty minutes and took the tray away. She didn’t say anything about the untouched food.

‘How are we this morning?’ the doctor asked brightly, pushing open the door.

‘We’re fine,’ said Dreyfuss glumly. ‘When can we get up?’

‘I did hear,’ the doctor said mock-conspiratorially, checking Dreyfuss’ pulse at the same time, ‘that we had been getting up. Pacing the floor at all hours of the night.’ He stared at Dreyfuss with soulful eyes. ‘Hmm?’

‘I’d like to leave today.’

‘Fine.’ The doctor had stopped checking the pulse. He now peered into Dreyfuss’ eyes. ‘Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know; a bit of sightseeing, maybe. Book into a hotel, see a few shows...’

‘In Sacramento?’ The doctor laughed. ‘No, I think you’d be better staying just here, Major Dreyfuss.’

And that was what he did. Though he willed himself to move, to just open the door, walk down the corridor and leave by the hospital’s front door, he had no idea what he might be stepping out into. A demonstration, perhaps; an angry mob; some lone gunman looking to make the news?

He sat tight, his gut quivering whenever someone walked noisily past the door of his room. But Parfit didn’t come. Someone else came instead.

Frank Stewart.

‘Can I speak to you for a minute?’

‘Can I stop you?’ Dreyfuss’ voice had bite, but he waved for Stewart to sit down. Secretly he was glad of some company.

‘How do you feel?’

How did he feel? He felt strange, staring into Spencer Tracy’s eyes like this.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Stewart continued.

Dreyfuss doubted it. ‘Go on,’ he prompted.

‘You’re thinking that somehow you’re to blame for what happened to Argos . Forget it; you couldn’t have done anything.’

‘I couldn’t?’

‘Well, could you?’

Dreyfuss thought about this. What was Stewart trying to get him to say? ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last.

Stewart seemed pleased with this reply and drew his chair closer to the bed.

‘I know there’s something wrong,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper. ‘I know there’s something cooking.’

‘Are you CIA or NSA?’

Stewart seemed surprised by the question. ‘I’m State Department,’ he said.

‘Right,’ Dreyfuss said, sounding as unconvinced as he felt.

‘Okay, okay. I’m on secondment to the NSA.’

Dreyfuss nodded. ‘And what,’ he said, ‘makes you so sure something’s “cooking”, as you put it?’

‘Just a feeling. When you reach my age, you get a nose for these sorts of things.’

Now if that wasn’t a line from a Spencer Tracy film, what was? ‘What sorts of things?’ Dreyfuss asked, enjoying throwing Stewart’s statements back at him as questions. This way, he gave himself a little room for manoeuvre.

Stewart’s voice grew quieter yet. ‘When General Esterhazy was in Europe, another of our staff generals, William Colt, very high up at the Pentagon, sent him a message. It said, and I quote, “Sorry you couldn’t make it to the burial.” That message was sent at almost exactly the time your shuttle was crashing.’

The burial! Hes Adams’ face swam into view amidst the smoke and sparks and heat.

Stewart could see his words having an effect. ‘What is it?’ he hissed. ‘That means something to you, doesn’t it? Has it jogged your memory, Major? Not that I believe for one moment that you really have got partial amnesia. I’ve got to hand it to you, though. You’ve got the doctors fooled.’

‘Nurse Carraway wasn’t a real nurse.’

Stewart nodded. ‘So I understand. Ben Esterhazy had her planted here. I didn’t know anything about it.’ His voice fell again. ‘It’s him you’ve got to be careful of, not me.’ Dreyfuss stared at him stonily. Stewart shrugged his shoulders. Then he changed tack. ‘I hear tell,’ he said, ‘that when you landed, the ground crew had to prise Major Adams’ fingers from off your throat. Adams was one of Esterhazy’s men too. He was his golden boy at one time, but then he screwed up on a mission. Got himself compromised. Then suddenly he ends up on Argos . That made me a little curious. What was going on up there?’

Dreyfuss was thinking. Yes, it was true: Esterhazy and Adams had the same words at their disposal — “coffin’s got to be buried”; “sorry you couldn’t make it to the burial” — and it meant something to both of them, something worth dying for, worth killing for. He had to tell someone. His brain was feverish. He felt he would burst if he didn’t speak. Where was Parfit? Parfit should be here, not this American secret serviceman. The confessor was wrong, but still the need to confess was strong. Too strong.

He cleared his throat as a prelude. ‘We were up there to launch a communications satellite,’ he said. ‘That’s what I thought. But it was like some joke was being played on me, like I wasn’t being let in on something. They were grinning... I think the rest of the crew knew. Hes Adams definitely knew what was going on. We launched the satellite okay. Then I saw some figures on the screen, co-ordinates I thought at the time. And a series of numbers. There was one sequence that kept repeating itself. I tried to memorise it, but it was way too long. I remember how it started, though: Ze/446. I wondered about that, but nobody seemed too bothered. Then I asked Hes — Major Adams — about it, and he laughed.’ Stewart’s face was so intent at this point that Dreyfuss felt nothing would tear the older man’s eyes off him. ‘I knew then that something was wrong. And I felt that I wasn’t intended to get off the shuttle alive, because I’d been stupid enough to tell what I’d seen to the one man aboard who knew what it all meant. Then later,’ he continued, swallowing, ‘when we were dying and everything went haywire, Adams started choking me. He was mad, screaming at me, “Coffin’s got to be buried!”’

Stewart looked startled at this, then sat back in his chair, as though he were thinking hard. He folded his arms and seemed to require no more from Dreyfuss for the moment. Dreyfuss was thinking too, thinking how hungry he suddenly felt.

‘Now hold on,’ Stewart said at last. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight...’

‘Got what straight, Mr Stewart?’ asked Parfit, stepping into the room.

Stewart looked embarrassed, but recovered quickly. ‘Just asking the major here some questions about the flight.’

Parfit looked towards Dreyfuss. ‘And does the major want to be questioned?’ he asked.

‘The major wants to be told he can get out of here,’ Dreyfuss said, remembering now that he was angry with Parfit, who had left him here for so long.

Parfit made a sweeping gesture with his arm. ‘Your carriage awaits,’ he said.

Stewart was rising to his feet. ‘Wait a minute. Major Dreyfuss can’t just walk out of here. He’s under medical care.’

‘Nonsense,’ Parfit replied. He went back to the doorway, leaned out into the corridor and picked up a large paper carrier bag. ‘I hope these fit,’ he said, bringing the bag to the bed.