Ian Rankin - Westwind

Fagin began to laugh. ‘I see what he’s done now!’ he roared hysterically. ‘I see!’

‘What?’ screeched Villiers. ‘What?’

‘Look,’ said Fagin, pointing to the screen. The wildlife programme had vanished, to be replaced by sharply focused pictures of Buchan, the camera homing in on the building work, the underground silos, the tips of the missiles themselves. Villiers opened his mouth in horror.

There was a deferential cough at the open door.

‘Good evening, Villiers,’ said Parfit, his gun extremely steady in his hand.

The screens began to jump around 8.15. Hepton’s intention was always to wreck the interface, not merely snip the connection. The estimated viewing figures of seven and a half million, however, came as a bonus. For in linking up the satellites, he had projected the shots of what was really happening in Buchan to a Europe-wide audience. While two video tapes, one master, one backup, ran, capturing the moment for posterity, satellite receiver dishes across most of Europe started to pick up a new station. Early-evening quiz shows, old movies and wildlife programmes crackled and faded and were replaced by pictures of nobody quite knew what. Some pirate station, people assumed, and many of them settled back, waiting to see if there would be any pornography on display, as the tabloid newspapers had been warning and promising. But all they got until nightfall was pictures of a building site. At least, they mostly assumed it was a building site. Except that one repeated shot showed what looked to be a large and ugly missile, resting nose up in its near-finished silo...

The plug had been well and truly pulled on COFFIN.

Villiers and Fagin were easily subdued, and Jilly was released. But Dreyfuss was in a bad way. Parfit felt an uncomfortable moment of sentiment: one second the pleasure of terminating Harry; the next the grief of seeing the blood-soaked shirt and feeling the fading pulse. How many lives could a man have? Dreyfuss had used up a fair quota already, but Parfit was grimly determined that he deserved yet another. He staunched the wound as best he could and waited for the ambulance.

Jilly buried her face in Hepton’s shoulder and let the tears come. They were tears of frustration rather than relief. Hepton, his work finished, didn’t know what his own tears were. But he let them fall all the same.

General Colin Mathieson-Briggs was sitting in his office when the men from Special Branch arrived. He knew why they had come, and had prepared himself for the moment, his tie knotted tightly so that his head remained erect.

General Jack Holliday was not, however, to be found in his office. Like Mathieson-Briggs, he had been on site at Binbrook the day they had infiltrated Zephyr . He had timed the whole process. From initial interference to complete locking-on had taken just under four minutes. Not long enough for anyone to notice any mischief, surely? There had been risks, of course, but they were not so great as the risk of leaving Britain defenceless and dependent on unreliable European allies for future safety...

His wife found him dead in the woods near their country estate. Holliday had gone shooting with his dog, a young Weimaraner. She discovered him slumped against a tree, his head taken clean off, the dog anxiously licking and cajoling the corpse’s hands and neck, its whiskers shiny crimson.

In France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Finland, arrests were happening. And in the United States, too. Parfit had called Frank Stewart and given him the go-ahead to move in on General Ben Esterhazy and others, including, at the Pentagon, General William Colt. But without any apparent fuss or urgency: it had been decreed that the whole COFFIN affair was to be kept hidden from the world at large. In London, an anxious Home Secretary signed more D-notices in the space of an evening than in the rest of his term of office put together. It was all for the best.

Though Parfit had the devil of a job convincing Hepton, Dreyfuss and Jilly Watson of this. They were gathered around Dreyfuss’ bed, a good old-fashioned English hospital bed in a good old-fashioned (albeit private) English hospital. Dreyfuss was recovering slowly, but convincingly, though it seemed to him he’d been through all this one time too many.

‘So what did we accomplish?’ he asked.

Parfit shrugged. ‘What we set out to achieve,’ he answered.

‘So it just gets hushed up?’ yelled Jilly.

Parfit knew of her fiery reputation and was at pains not to test it too far.

‘The guilty will be punished,’ he said.

‘But not publicly!’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, I think it does.’ She was out of her chair now, stalking towards the window.

‘I could remind you...’ Parfit began.

‘... That we’ve signed the Official Secrets Act,’ Jilly finished for him. ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘But it’s so bloody unfair, after what we’ve been through.’

‘Jilly.’ The voice of reason was Dreyfuss’. ‘As Parfit says, does it matter? We’ve won.’

Jilly’s arm snapped out towards Parfit. ‘ They’ve won,’ she said. ‘ He’s won. Not us, Mickey. Not any of us.’ Her eyes went to Hepton, silent still in his chair, thoughtful, looking tired and numbed. ‘Martin?’ she coaxed.

He seemed to come awake. ‘What?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think satellite TV’ll never be the same again.’ Then he laughed, the others joining in. ‘And I think I need a holiday.’

‘That shouldn’t present a problem,’ said Parfit, checking his watch. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve really got to go now. I have an appointment in London.’

‘Getting your back slapped?’ Jilly couldn’t resist asking.

‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘Can I offer anyone a lift?’

‘Yes please,’ said Hepton. He looked over towards Jilly, who paused, but finally shook her head.

‘I think I’ll stick around here for a little while,’ she said. She gave a hint of a smile in Dreyfuss’ direction, and he returned it.

‘Fine,’ said Hepton, meaning it. Parfit glanced at him.

‘Shall we go?’

‘Yes,’ said Hepton, ‘let’s go.’

As the car — yet another black Ford Sierra — sped towards London, Parfit revealed the nature of his appointment.

‘I’m seeing our friend Vitalis,’ he said. ‘Having dinner with him, actually, just to let him know what happened. He did the same for me after the Polish thing.’

‘Will you tell him everything?’ Hepton asked, staring at the passing scenery.

Parfit thought this over. ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘Almost certainly not. It doesn’t matter, so long as he’s told a little of it and doesn’t have to find out for himself.’

‘The special relationship,’ Hepton said quietly to himself, musing. Then he asked the question that had been bothering him for days. ‘How come COFFIN always knew where to find us?’

The question seemed to surprise Parfit. He raised his eyebrows and puckered his mouth. Then he shook his head with slow deliberation.

‘It could have just been Villiers, I suppose,’ he said casually.

‘Or it could have been someone in your organisation. It could even have been you, Parfit, couldn’t it?’

Parfit’s eyes were on the road ahead.

‘It could have been you,’ Hepton repeated, enjoying this deliberate train of thought, ‘because you wanted to get Harry. And because you wanted Harry, you were only too willing to set us up as bait. Catchable bait.’

Now Parfit barked out a laugh, though with a slight, noticeable edge to the sound.

‘It’s an intriguing thought,’ he said. He was on the point of adding something, but he had already given away enough confidences. It would reflect badly on the Service if people found out that Blake Farquharson was in COFFIN up to his mottled neck. There had to be a quiet demise for Farquharson. An accident, perhaps, or heart failure. These things could be arranged. Parfit was, after all, an expert in damage limitation. He couldn’t tell Hepton and he couldn’t tell Vitalis. He couldn’t even tell Frank Stewart, who was so looking forward to being there when Ben Esterhazy was arrested. No, it had to be the Department’s secret... for the moment. The Department’s secret that Blake Farquharson, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, had been a traitor at the highest level; a traitor not to his country so much as, in Parfit’s mind, to his calling. He hadn’t visited the PM that day; he had called from a public telephone kiosk and made his apologies. And he had been ever ready to slip information to George Villiers — his protégé of sorts — and to Harry; as much information as was necessary. God might know why he’d done it; Parfit didn’t.