The staircase led us out to a strip of concrete – we had been underground. The soles of my feet were already sore from the short run and my chest was still tight with tension. The light was bluish-grey and eerie, and I shivered as I breathed in the cool air. I could smell the sea close by. To our right, about a hundred yards away, were several Nissen huts and a line of low dark buildings, many with radio masts jutting from their roofs.
I turned to Sarah. ‘Any idea where we are?’
‘Sardinia, I think. Charles mentioned it once. A special base for political prisoners.’
Sardinia – I had spent a long weekend here with a girlfriend in the spring of ’64, a lifetime ago. Zimotti had told me Arte come Terrore were based on the island. A strange sort of a bluff, but perhaps they’d intended to lure me out here all along. Perhaps torture had always been on the cards. Precisely how long had they known I was a double – and who knew, precisely?
To our left was a gate, surrounded on both sides by a fence, the top of which gleamed in the dim light: barbed wire. There was a small hut, no doubt for guards, but they would be more prepared for people trying to come into the base than trying to leave it – if we were fast enough. I reckoned we had a couple of minutes at most before Severn recovered and started coming after us. And, in a place like this, there was no telling how many he might bring with him.
There were several small military vehicles parked on the concrete: Volkswagens. We jumped into the nearest one and I reached under the dashboard, pushing against the panel to free it and quickly locating the two wires. I bridged them and the engine stuttered into life.
‘That’s a clever trick,’ said Sarah, as I grabbed the wheel and headed for the main gate.
‘It can come in useful,’ I agreed. The engine was behind the vehicle’s rear wheels and it felt very lightweight, almost like driving a dune buggy. I told Sarah to duck and then pushed my foot down and steered to the right of the gate, straight for the barbed wire fence, the engine squealing from the strain I was putting it under. There was a screech and crunching of metal and glass as the wheels trampled over the fence and crashed through to the other side, and then the shots started coming from behind us. They went wide, but they had reacted faster than I’d expected, and they wouldn’t go wide for long.
I made to steer onto the main road leading out of the camp, but decided against it at the last moment. That would give them the advantage, as they would know where we were heading and could plan accordingly. So instead I yanked the wheel to the left. I glanced across at Sarah, and saw she had her fists curled up in her lap from the suddenness of the manoeuvre. ‘Sorry!’ I shouted, as we bumped across the ground and through a string of low shrubbery.
Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I saw that there were now several vehicles in pursuit: at least three, but there was a shroud of early morning mist so there might have been more behind them. There was a rough path through the brush straight ahead, but looking to my right I glimpsed a tiny segment of pale blue in the darkness and suddenly realized we were on a bluff overlooking water. There was our chance.
I started slowing the engine and shouted out to Sarah to jump out. She didn’t hear me, so I told her again, screaming it out. She looked at me in terror, but nodded, and on the count of three I opened my door and leapt to the earth, hoping she was doing the same.
I landed badly, a stream of stones and grit cutting into my hands and face, but I was going very fast and managed to tumble my body for several yards, lessening the impact. Sarah had already got up and was scurrying over to join me: she must have had a better landing. The Volkswagen was already beginning to veer off course, but I reckoned our pursuers wouldn’t realize we had bundled out for another second or two. We needed to get out of their line of fire in that time, and down into the rocks where they couldn’t follow us on wheels.
The surfaces of the stones were ice-cold against the soles of my feet. I started clambering down the slope, taking care not to go too fast. My body was still aching from the beating Barnes had given me, and if I slipped and fell now I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to get up again. This was Maquis-type country, with the rocks interrupted by stiff brush, gorse and myrtle bushes. I picked out some scrub to step on, but it was spiky and I rapidly switched back to searching for stone surfaces. Sarah was just behind me and I could hear her panting with the effort.
We clawed our way down the bluff, conscious that we might be spotted at any moment. My hands were getting scratched and we were kicking up a lot of dust, which kept getting in my eyes. Above us the noise of engines died away and was replaced by the voices of men. I strained my ears to try to make out whether Severn was among them, but couldn’t hear and didn’t have time to linger. The further down we got before they realized which way we had gone, the harder it would be for them to find us. But they wouldn’t give up easily, I knew. We had to get off the island entirely.
As we approached the bottom of the slope, the water stretched out before us in a small bay, and my heart lifted a little. I couldn’t yet see any boats, but we should be able to swim far enough away to find one, or some other form of transport. But then I turned and saw Sarah staggering behind me, her chest shivering beneath the thin dress, and the panic rose in me again.
‘You go!’ she called out in a hoarse whisper. I shook my head and looked around desperately. The voices were still above us, but they didn’t seem to have figured out which way we had gone yet. A large structure, a circular stone tower, suddenly loomed out of the mist on a plateau not more than a dozen feet away from us. My first thought was that it was another hallucination, but it looked far too real and it triggered something at the back of my mind. Yes, I had seen several of these on my previous trip. I couldn’t remember what they were called, but they had been used by the island’s prehistoric inhabitants, I seemed to recall, for shelter against potential invaders.
Well, we needed shelter now. If they hadn’t seen which way we had come down the slope, we might just be in luck, as they would no longer have the chance to spot us and we’d also be able to catch our breath and perhaps get some strength back. There was, hopefully, simply too much ground for them to cover, and they would have to conclude eventually that we had got away from them. Then again, if they had already seen which way we’d gone, we might be making a fatal mistake by stopping, as they could simply come in and scoop us up.
I couldn’t hear the voices any more, so decided to risk it. I took Sarah by the arm and we headed towards the narrow entrance of the shelter, and into a very dimly lit passageway. I remembered that these places were built from stones simply piled up on top of each other, and suddenly wondered how solid they were.
At the end of the passageway we came to a staircase, which we started to climb. The place was dank and cold, and the only light filtered through a few tiny windows. About halfway up I heard a faint buzzing in the background, which grew to a drone.
A helicopter was coming our way.
I looked through one of the windows. It was a camouflaged Sea King, or an Italian version of it. I turned to Sarah, who had started shaking, her breaths coming out in sobs.
‘It’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘We’ll be all right.’
But the obvious lie made her even more nervous and she started making more noise. I looked through a slat again – the helicopter had started to descend, and was now hovering a hundred feet or so away, like a giant and sinister wasp.
I took Sarah in my arms, letting her bury her head in my chest, stifling her sounds. ‘You must be quiet,’ I said, and held her as firmly as I could, willing her to stop shaking. The sweat was pouring off me now, and I prayed that the helicopter would leave. We stayed in that position for what seemed like an eternity, but then Sarah suddenly looked up from my chest. There had been a noise downstairs.
Someone had come in.
*
We sat, huddled, hardly daring to breathe, and listened to the footsteps below us. I realized we were on a level circling the exterior of the structure. It might take them a little while to figure that out, too, so perhaps once they started climbing we could cross to the other side, take the stairs back down and slip out. Only . . . I glanced through the slat again: the helicopter was still there, and would no doubt be equipped with machine-guns. Our only hope, then, was that they wouldn’t realize we were in here, and would leave to check somewhere else. But the footsteps sounded very sure, and were moving closer to us by the moment.
I gestured at Sarah and we started moving away from the sound, to the other side of the floor. But we must have dislodged something as we ran, either a stone or some dust, because there was suddenly a shout from below, and when I next looked up, Barnes was standing in front of me with a machine-pistol in his hands and a murderous look in his eyes.
We raised our hands, and he gestured to the staircase with the weapon.
‘Down.’
*
The helicopter was hovering several feet above the ground, flattening the surrounding shrubbery and kicking up eddies of dust. In the cockpit, headphones over his ears, sat the beak-nosed guard, while standing a few feet in front of it was Severn, his fair hair swept back by the wind from the blades and his eyes locked on us as Barnes marched us towards him. He wiped his hand against the gash on his cheek, and as it came away I saw it was dark with blood.
I looked across at Sarah: she was still shaking, and her back was hunched over. Behind us, I could sense Barnes’ fingers twitching on the trigger of his machine-pistol, and realized that we were probably seconds away from death. But there was no way out. My chest tightened, and I could hear my heart drumming in my head.
‘Here, sir?’ Barnes called out to Severn. He was itching to kill me, to avenge Templeton.
Severn shook his head. ‘Inside.’
A few seconds’ reprieve, then. Probably because he didn’t want the trouble of carrying our corpses aboard.
We were level with Severn now. The spinning of the rotors was deafening, and it was proving difficult to walk. Barnes yelled at us to enter the helicopter, and Sarah started trying to lift herself over the ledge. She fell on the first attempt, and Barnes roughly dragged her up and pushed her up and over with one hand, the other still clutching the machine-pistol. Now? The moment I had the thought the chance was gone: he swivelled back to face me, and gestured I should follow suit.
I didn’t react. I knew he would shoot us as soon as we were both on board. Once the chopper was safely over the water, they would throw our bodies out. Barnes took me by the collar of my shirt and shoved me up and in, using the machine-pistol as a prod. As I collapsed at Sarah’s feet, Barnes leapt aboard, and Severn after him, and I soaked in the smell and atmosphere of the cramped space, taking in the beak-nosed guard up front, the bank of equipment he was operating, and the fact that we had already started to take off. I glanced up and saw Barnes looking over at Severn, who nodded.
‘Dark first,’ he shouted, pointing at me, and Barnes grabbed me by the collar again and hauled me around until I was kneeling by the door, facing out and looking down at the ground as we rose up from it and away, now already above water, my heart in my lungs and vomit rising in my throat.
This was it. This was the end. I could hear Sarah sobbing behind me, begging Severn not to kill us. She was interrupted by a loud burst of noise, static from a transmitter, and for a fraction of a second Barnes moved to register it and without even thinking I reached back and grabbed Sarah by the wrist, then pitched forward, diving blindly into the sky. The wind yanked me down, and I lost contact with Sarah and went spinning through the air, my guts in my eyeballs and my brain in my toes and a choir of gunshots ringing in my ears, and then there was a smack and a deep boom, and the water was cold, freezing, salty, and I was plummeting further and further into it . . .
It took a few moments to catch up with what had happened: my head was dizzy from the fall, my chest burning from the impact, and every injury on my body was suddenly seared by the salt in the water. But my mind was singing, because I knew I was alive.
I clawed my way up to the surface for air, but the moment I broke through machine-gun fire split the water around me, bursts of green and orange flame kicking up through the waves. I grabbed a breath before submerging again, and saw that Sarah was just a few feet away, and seemingly in trouble, her limbs flailing about. My mind stopped singing. There was a helicopter with machine guns right above us, and we were sitting ducks. I squinted through the bluey-green world and saw a formation of jagged grey rocks in front of me: the coastline.
About halfway down the wall of rocks was a large hole: it looked like some sort of passage. I swam frantically towards Sarah and managed to twist her round so that she was lying atop my back, and then kicked as hard as I could towards the cavern. It was large, and I swam through, feeling ripples from fish and sea-creatures around me as I did.
I came up for air a few seconds later and deposited Sarah next to me on a large cold slab of stone. She spluttered out water and wheezed, her body racked from the experience. I looked up – had they seen us? Apparently not. Directly above our heads was a large overhanging rock formation, and just a few feet away its twin. Between the two overhangs stretched a patch of pale pink sky. The hole was much larger than I would have liked: if the helicopter happened to fly over it, we were fish in a barrel. But if we had come up anywhere else, they would have already shot us.
The vital thing now was not to move and attract their attention. I explained the situation to Sarah, and we sat there, listening to the shuddering roar of the helicopter as it hovered over the area, circling back and forth, looking for us. With every increase in volume, my heart clenched, then subsided as the sound receded, only to clench again moments later. After a few minutes, the effort of staying still was starting to cramp my muscles, and I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer. If I fainted now, it could be fatal. Sarah was in the same position as I was, her muscles tensed and her stomach heaving. I suddenly noticed a line of small dark dots in the corner of the window of sky. Had they spotted us? But the dots weren’t moving. My brain rearranged the perspective and I realized with a start that there was another overhanging rock between the sky and us, and that the dots clinging to it were, in fact, the heads of birds: vultures.
I squinted, and managed to make out a few of the individual heads. They were staring intently at us, and I knew why. We weren’t moving: they were starting to wonder if we might be carrion.
Keep calm.
I looked beyond them at the patch of sky. No helicopter in it, but the noise was still there, so they hadn’t given up yet, and were no doubt using binoculars to examine every possible hiding place we could have disappeared into. If we made any movement at all, they might catch it and then we would be finished. But if we didn’t move, the vultures might decide we were worth investigating further.
I switched back to the line of dots. They weren’t there any more! I caught a frantic flap of black feathers in my peripheral vision, and then saw them gliding down, seemingly not moving their wings, until they were circling directly above the nearest ledge. Any closer, and they might give away our position. But we were still exposed by the window, and any movement I made might alert Severn and the others.
The vultures were swooping nearer and nearer, a sinister sound emanating from their throats. An image flashed into my mind of their red eyes glaring glassily as their beaks pecked at our flesh, and I realized I had to risk it. The noise of the chopper momentarily fell away and I threw up a hand and retracted it almost as quickly, praying that the sudden movement would be enough to tell the birds we were alive but not enough to be seen by anyone in the chopper. There was a flickering of wings from the vulture at the head of the pack, and within a few moments they had disappeared from the window, no doubt moving on to the next outcrop. I looked up for any sign of the helicopter. Had they seen either the vultures’ interest or my hands? It didn’t seem so. The sound of the blades was fading into the distance.
Several minutes later, I realized they weren’t coming back – at least not for the time being. I suddenly felt very tired. My eyes stung, my arms ached, my legs were in seizure – my whole body was racked with pain, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep and let oblivion do the rest. But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. We couldn’t stay here – they’d have the police of the whole island awake to our presence within a few hours, which would mean we wouldn’t be able to rent a boat or catch a ferry or do anything. We had to get back to the mainland, where we’d be able to slip through the cracks, and we had to do it now. I pushed myself up to a standing position and gripped the corner of a nearby rock. There was a narrow opening between two stones that led to more rocks. I helped Sarah to her feet, and we began crawling through.
It took us about an hour by my estimation, but we finally clambered through the rocks and found ourselves on a small strip of beach. The sun had come up now, and the heat was starting to beat down on us. Hidden high above the beach I could see the outline of a large white building: a hotel, perhaps, or one of the older villas.
We walked across the sand until we came to a tiny wooden jetty. Tethered to it was a boat. It was small, but it could get us off the island. I climbed up and threw off the ropes. There didn’t seem to be a key anywhere, and I decided the best option would be to jump-start it. I hadn’t done it since the war, but this didn’t look all that different from a motor-torpedo. I was about to climb in when something stopped me dead. It was the click of a hammer. I looked up. Standing directly above us was a man wearing a striped shirt and canvas trousers. And he was pointing a shotgun at our heads.
*
‘Che state facendo qui?’ he snarled. ‘E’ proprieta’ privata.’
He was young, in his early twenties I thought, and of much the same stamp as the sniper from St Paul’s: long dark hair swept down over his forehead and the beginnings of a beard covering his deeply tanned face.
We raised our hands and walked towards him. He looked Sarah over in a way that made me feel queasy – her clothes hadn’t completely dried and were still clinging to her in places – and then levelled the gun at my chest.
‘Abbiamo solo fatto una nuotata,’ I said. ‘Non e’ quello che pensa—’
His eyes widened. ‘E cosa penso?’
‘Ascolti, mi dispiace molto di averla disturbata,’ Sarah broke in, surprising me. ‘Avremmo bisogno di affittare la sua barca. In questo momento non abbiamo denaro con noi, ma lavoriamo per il governo britannico e mi accertero’ personalmente che l’ambasciata la rimborsi—’
‘My God,’ he said, lowering the gun. ‘You’re British! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
Sarah and I looked at him with shock. The voice was pure Old Etonian.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘You look a complete mess.’
‘Help us up and we’ll explain,’ said Sarah, and gave her most winning smile. ‘We come in peace, honestly.’
He hesitated for a moment, but a beautiful girl with an English accent can never be dangerous. He stuck out his hand, and helped her up, then offered it to me.
‘Ralph Balfour-Laing,’ he said. ‘Pleasure to meet you. And yes, of the Balfour-Laings, before you ask!’
I’d never heard of any Balfour-Laings, and hadn’t been planning on asking about them either. My first instinct was distrust, and it even went through my head that he might be a plant of Severn’s, some sort of casual watchman for the base. But I dismissed it at once – he was just a rich young layabout, and Sardinia was one of their natural habitats. Gesturing at the villa, he explained that he was a painter and that the place was a private retreat where he sometimes came to discover his muse and, it seemed, host the occasional wild party with the island’s jet set. He eyed Sarah up again and asked her if she had ever been painted nude. Before things got too out of hand I told him we were on urgent government business and needed to get back to the mainland immediately. Could he help?
‘I can do more than that,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’ll take you there myself. That’s not my only boat, you know.’
The face in front of me was covered in the beginnings of a beard, the bloodshot eyes staring out wildly. I looked like hell, and felt worse. There was a razor next to the basin, but I decided it wasn’t a good idea: partly hidden under the beard, a long gash ran down the length of my right cheek, with grit visible inside it, and there were abrasions on my chin and throat. If I shaved, I might look even worse.
I picked up a monogrammed hand towel from a pile above the mirror and soaked a corner of it in the basin, then cleaned out as many of the wounds as I could, wincing with the pain, trying to remove as many of the surface problems as possible. Once I was satisfied, I picked up a glass from a mahogany sideboard, filled it with water from the tap, and drank down several glugs.
I walked over to one of the portholes and looked out at the island rapidly receding behind us. We’d made it. We were alive. But I couldn’t help feeling it was just a temporary reprieve. The boat was going at a healthy rate of knots – but would it be fast enough? Severn would comb every inch of the bay looking for our bodies. When he didn’t find us he would eventually come to the conclusion that we had escaped, and then his thoughts would turn to what Sarah might know, what she might have told me and what we might do next. Everything depended on how long he would keep up the search. He might start sending men into the nearby villages to look for us and ask around – or he might decide not to take any chances and immediately fly the helicopter straight to Rome. In which case, this would all have been for nothing, as he’d be waiting for us when we arrived.
I looked across at Sarah, obliviously asleep on a bank of padded orange seats in the corner of the cabin, beneath one of our host’s works of art, a blotchy oil painting that I thought might be a Sardinian sunset gone askew. On the floor, the end of a cigarette smouldered in a terracotta ashtray.
Balfour-Laing hadn’t had any food on board apart from some beans he’d found in a cupboard, which we had devoured straight from the tin, but the cigarettes had perhaps been more welcome. He had also offered us wine and beer, but neither of us was in any shape or mood for alcohol and had been more than grateful for water, and Sarah had soon fallen asleep. Some colour had finally returned to her face, and while the welts were still faintly visible on her neck, she otherwise looked in much better shape. Balfour-Laing had dug up a T-shirt and a pair of old overalls and, hunched over in them inelegantly, she looked like a child in hand-me-downs. I was wearing a pair of his trousers and a paint-flecked shirt – he hadn’t had any spare underwear, but I wasn’t about to complain. Both our outfits were completed by rather natty white plimsolls, part of a supply he kept on board for when the heat of the sun became too much for his guests to walk around barefoot on deck. Today was Sunday, he had told us: we had been imprisoned for nearly two days.
Perhaps feeling the force of my gaze on her, Sarah opened her eyes. She sat up and stared at me inquisitively.
‘Are we nearly there?’
‘Another hour or so.’
She nodded, and leaned over to pick up the pack of cigarettes from the floor. She slid one out and lit it. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘You got us aboard.’
She took a draught of the cigarette and looked at me intently. ‘That was nothing. You got me out of there.’
I changed the subject. ‘We need to prepare. What more can you tell me about those documents you read in Charles’ safe?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I told you all I know. I could only risk staying in his office for a few minutes. I saw the Service seal and “Stay Behind”, but there were hundreds of pieces of paper in the dossier and I didn’t have the time—’
‘I understand. Look, I have to stop whatever it is they are planning, so I’ll need to get back into that safe and find those documents.’
‘I know. I’ll help you.’
‘Good. I think it’s best if you tell me the combination now, and that we part ways once we reach the mainland. They won’t have put a stop on the airports yet and you’ll be able to get a flight to London soon enough. As soon as you land, go straight to Whitehall and ask to see the Home Secretary, urgently. Tell him what you know—’
‘But I don’t really know anything!’
‘You know enough. Tell Haggard everything you told me, and make sure to mention “Stay Behind”. He’ll understand. He’ll ask you for proof, of course: tell him it’s coming. Don’t mention me.’ It wasn’t ideal, by any means, but I had to get her out of the country – and out of the reach of Severn.
She leaned down and crushed the remains of her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Paul, but I want to stop this, too, and running away won’t help. The Home Secretary isn’t going to do anything without any evidence, and you know it. You need me to show you where the documents are – there were hundreds of them.’
‘Describe them to me. I’ve a good memory.’
Her jaw was set. ‘You’re not getting rid of me.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘this isn’t a time for heroics or impulse decisions. If this is what I think it might be, we’re dealing with a conspiracy that a lot of very powerful men will do anything to protect. And I mean anything.’
‘Don’t you dare lecture me,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘I was already committed to stopping them, remember – I was prepared to show you the documents the other night, and I haven’t found any reason to change my mind since. Quite the contrary.’
‘Tell me how to get into the safe, Sarah. This isn’t a game.’
She cut me off with a bitter laugh. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she spat out. She pulled the collar of her blouse down sharply, exposing one of the larger welts. ‘Do you think I don’t know who we’re dealing with here?’ Her gaze narrowed. ‘I want to stop whatever it is he is planning, even it means I die running from him.’
Her voice had started to crack and she put a hand up to her face. I made to lean over, but she shook her head and stood up. She walked over to the other side of the cabin, next to a lifebuoy pinned to the wall with the name of the boat emblazoned on it: PARADISO. I could see her shoulders moving a little, and knew she was crying in both shame and fury.
I walked over and placed my hand on her shoulder, and eventually said something I didn’t want to: ‘All right, then. We’ll do it together.’
She turned to face me, her face streaked with tears. ‘Really?’ She burst into unintended laughter, and I had a dreadful hollow feeling inside. But I had no choice – I had to get into that safe. For a moment, I wondered about abandoning the whole idea and just flying to London with her and going to Haggard. But I knew she was right, and that that wouldn’t stop anything. I thought again of Colin Templeton and my vow to do some good finally, and my will hardened. I needed to get to the documents, and if she were prepared to take the risks I’d have to live with that, too. I didn’t want her death on my conscience, but she had her own will and I couldn’t force it – or I’d be as bad as her husband.
I nodded. ‘Let’s go upstairs and see Ralph. He might have some more of those beans.’ I did my best to smile convincingly, and passed her a towel to wipe away her tears.
‘Can’t we stay down here for a bit?’ she asked.
‘I told you, it’s perfectly safe. The deck area is completely sheltered and—’
‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘I just don’t feel I’ve thanked you properly.’
I looked at her sharply. Something in her tone – was she toying with me?
‘I don’t need a reward,’ I said. ‘You’ve thanked me more than enough.’
She stood up. ‘At least let me return that kiss you gave me.’
She turned and needlessly drew together the curtains behind her, affording me a glimpse of the outline of her backside through the thin cotton of the overalls.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘we’re not out of the woods yet. Not by a long chalk. And you’ve been through a hell of a lot and I think—’
She placed a finger to my lips, and then leaned her face over so her mouth was by my left ear.
‘I liked the way you kissed me,’ she whispered. ‘Do it again.’
She moved my chin across to her lips. I opened my mouth and the hot wetness of her tongue jolted through me. I pressed against her. She abruptly took her mouth away from mine and started kissing my neck, then raised my arms and lifted off my shirt. We stumbled across to the padded seats and she kissed my chest, rubbing her chin against my hair there, and then flickering her tongue against my stomach.
‘Sarah . . .’
She shushed me, then placed her fingers at the waistband of my trousers, and slowly slipped them down. She smiled softly at the lack of underwear.
I couldn’t resist any longer. I caught hold of her by the hips and struggled to unclasp the overalls, cursing as I did. She laughed at my ineptitude but finally the clasp was undone, and she removed her T-shirt and bra while I ran my fingers down her body to her panties. I eased them down over her thighs and she gasped, clamping her eyes shut.
We stood there naked, gazing at each other, and then she pushed me down onto the seats. She leaned over me for a moment, breathing hard, and tipped her head back. Her neck and breasts glistened with sweat, and I pulled her closer to me, until we were locked tightly together. I clasped her shoulder to slow her rhythm and she cried out, then moved with me, rocking back and forth. She stared down at me, her hair covering her eyes, and I thought for a moment I could feel what she was feeling, her flesh parted by me, the shiver through her body. She began panting louder, gasping for air, and I moved more frantically, and she bit down on my hand as we rocked back and forth, faster and faster . . .
There was a fierce knocking on the door of the cabin, and we froze, our hearts thumping against each other.
‘I say,’ called a voice, ‘everything all right down there?’
I glanced at Sarah, a film of sweat covering her forehead.
‘Out in a minute!’ I called back.
There was no reply for a second, then a ‘Righty-ho!’ and the sound of receding footsteps.
Sarah leaned forward.
‘I do hope not,’ she whispered, and then slowly ran her tongue along the underside of my neck. I grabbed hold of her and took her with renewed ferocity.
Sunday, 4 May 1969, Rome, Italy
We spent the rest of the journey above deck with Ralph Balfour-Laing: Sarah and he discovered that they had a few acquaintances in common, and I learned more about the London ‘scene’ and the Cresta Ball than I needed to know. We both declined several offers of marijuana cigarettes. But, as promised, he took us all the way to the mainland, dropping us at the main harbour at Civitavecchia. It was just coming up to eight o’clock in the morning. When we told him we needed to get to Rome, he unhesitatingly thrust a sheaf of lire into our hands and brushed aside all our thanks and assurances that the embassy would be in touch to reimburse him. He chanced his hand one last time by giving Sarah a card with his details, and then he returned to the boat and to the sweet life in his island retreat, and we jumped aboard a crowded bus on its way to Rome.
As the bus sped through the dusty roads, I opened the window so the sun could warm my bones. Our driver had the radio on, and sang along to the romantic ballads emanating from it in a loud and gloriously out-of-tune baritone, but about twenty miles outside the city, relief came in the form of a news bulletin. The first headline: someone had hurled a bomb from a passing car at the headquarters of the Communist party in the city the previous night, and the party had responded by pulling down the shutters and drafting in students and activists to guard the building.
‘These damned Communists deserve what they get!’ cried the driver in Italian, throwing out an arm angrily, and rather dangerously. Several voices in the bus grunted their agreement.
Sarah looked at me questioningly, and I shook my head. This wasn’t connected, although it didn’t help the situation much. Severn and Zimotti were going to use the current climate to stage something, and I had a feeling it would be more spectacular than a bomb thrown from a car. It would also, of course, be something they would blame on the Communists, rather than targeting them. She turned away, and as she did I took the opportunity to examine her profile. She looked like a Pre-Raphaelite painting, crossed with Grace Kelly. No . . . that wasn’t quite right. She was like nobody else, of course – utterly unique. The line of her jaw, of her nose, the positioning of every feature was so simple, so fitting, that one wondered why God or whichever artist was responsible had not repeated the trick with all women, with all the world . . .
‘Easy prey for any beautiful woman.’ It was a phrase I’d read in my dossier at Pyotr’s flat – part of the preparatory document for my recruitment in ’45. But could this be different? I put it out of my mind. My attraction to Sarah was strong – frighteningly so – but it was simply being reinforced by the position we were in. We were both on the run, and we had only each other to turn to. I had to make sure I didn’t get carried away. We hadn’t talked much since our love-making on the boat, but perhaps she had simply needed a release, a way to prove she was still alive and banish the thought of Charles a little. I had simply been there, that was all – I had done the same myself many times.
*
About an hour and a half later we got off the bus at the main train station, and from there we took a taxi to the embassy – Balfour-Laing’s money was disappearing rapidly. There were no cars parked outside. It looked like Severn had not yet made it here. We knocked on the large iron door and were led into the entrance by the same butler as had let me in three evenings earlier. He didn’t seem surprised to see us, and I breathed a tiny sigh of relief. We hurried across the marble floor to the reception desk. The clerk did look a little surprised, but then it was Sunday, and we had turned up looking like a couple of clowns.
‘Good morning, Mrs Severn. Mister . . .?’
‘Dark,’ I said. ‘I was at the reception here on Thursday.’
‘Yes, sir. If I could just see your identification . . .?’
‘Don’t be so absurd, Harry,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m here every day, and this is the Deputy Chief of the Service. We’re going up.’
Harry’s face flushed but he didn’t move from his desk, and we quickly headed for the staircase and made our way up to the Station. The place was deserted, and it was odd to think I’d been here just two days earlier, about to go out to meet Barchetti.
‘Are there any weapons in here?’ I asked Sarah, but she shook her head.
‘Charles has a Browning, but he had it with him in Sardinia.’ She caught my look. ‘There may be something hidden somewhere, but I’ve no idea where.’
I nodded. It was unfortunate, but we didn’t have time to waste on it. She ran over to a drawer next to the cafetière and pulled out the key to Charles’ office, which she swiftly unlocked. The morning sunlight streamed through the window and the sound of traffic came up from the street below. She went over to the painting above the desk – a portrait of the Queen, of course – and I helped her take it down, revealing a wall safe. That was new – I’d only had a locked filing cabinet when this had been my office. She dialled the combination, and then, with a click, it opened.
She hadn’t been exaggerating on the boat: there were hundreds of dossiers, all arranged in metal shelves within the safe. Thank God I had her with me – I’d never have found the right one by myself. As the thought hit me, I noticed the look on her face.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It looks different,’ she whispered. ‘I think he’s rearranged it.’
My heart sank. I considered taking the whole lot with us for a moment, but there was simply far too much to carry. I started removing the dossiers from the left-hand side of the safe and lifting them over to Severn’s desk.
‘Anything you remember about the dossier?’ I asked. ‘About what it looked like?’
She was already bent to the task. ‘Some of the pages had a black banner across the top,’ she said. ‘And the whole thing was paper-clipped together.’
I started going through them, wanting to set aside anything that didn’t look right as fast as possible, but not so fast as to miss the crucial dossier. There were insurance papers, staff lists, files on Italian leaders . . . Some fascinating information, no doubt, but none of it threatening the imminent death of innocent civilians. I continued riffling through, looking for paper-clipped pages with black banners . . .
I had looked through and abandoned over a dozen dossiers when I froze.
‘Did you hear that?’
Sarah looked up. ‘What?’
I thought there had been a noise from outside. I leapt over to the embrasure of the window and peered down into the driveway. But there was nobody there. I hurried back to the desk.
‘Got it!’ Sarah suddenly shouted. ‘I’ve got it!’
‘Are you sure?’ If we took the wrong documents, we’d be back where we started.
She nodded furiously. ‘This is it.’
‘Let me see,’ I said, and she reacted to my tone and handed it across. I suppose part of me had refused to believe it possible, and I needed to see it for myself. By the look of it this was Severn’s own copy, and I guessed it had come through the diplomatic bag to avoid being deciphered by Sarah. The whole thing was held together with a large and slightly rusty paper clip, and a black banner across the top read ‘STAY BEHIND: STRATEGY AND EXECUTION’. Beneath that was the date: 18 June 1968. I read it almost in a haze:
In previous papers, we outlined the proposed new aims for STAY BEHIND in the current political climate. In this paper, we will explore how those aims might practically be executed across Western Europe. We estimate that these plans would be put into practice starting in early 1969 . . .
I flicked through the rest – it was in sections, but I wanted to check that the whole thing was here. I needed to be sure that it contained the details of the operation, and that they hadn’t been saved for another paper. The next section of the dossier was titled ‘Targeting’, and I turned to it anxiously.
Targets should be as iconic as possible. Historic monuments are desirable, especially as many are poorly guarded. Smaller targets with significance to the local population are ideal, as one can cause less damage and thus not lose too much sympathy, but have a much greater effect on public morale . . .
That didn’t help much. The country was littered with historic monuments. I hurried on:
Whatever the target, we must consider whether to blame the attacks on Moscow or on local groups with particular grudges to bear, whom we can then associate with Moscow via falsified documentation, communiqués, press contacts and other means. In our view, the latter is the preferable option, as newspapers and others will piece together a conspiracy of attacks across Europe of their own accord, without seeming to have been fed the information. We wish to give the impression that Moscow is supporting several disparate groups, to the same end . . .
Damning stuff, but there were still no specifics: there was no indication of which targets they had chosen or on what dates they planned to attack them. I flicked to the end of the document, to the final page:
Large-scale public events also provide opportunities for attacks. The Olympic Games, soccer tournaments and similar sporting events attract thousands of spectators, and the impact of an attack at such an event would be enormous.
‘Soccer’, I noted, rather than football. The Americans were definitely involved, then.
Cultural events, such as concerts or other performances, should also be considered. Transport to such events – such as train journeys – could be easier targets. However, security is usually extremely tight at larger events, so it is worth looking for smaller ones appropriate to the message we want to convey. An attack during a performance of a play critical of Communism would clearly point to Communist perpetrators. Taking a step further into the symbolic, a sabotaged play about high finance could also be plausibly portrayed as a Communist attack. Going further still, an attack during a ballet could be seen as an indirect comment on Nureyev’s defection, even if Nureyev were not in the production. This would require a more delicate touch, but planning an attack for a ballet in which Nureyev would usually be expected to perform but did not for some reason on that day could be particularly effective. In the next part of the paper, we will discuss operational plans in greater detail.
Apart from the reference to soccer, it had all the hallmarks of one of Osborne’s Section reports. I had misread him all along, seeing him as a little Englander, a rabid Mosleyite who thought ‘the wogs start at Calais’. But even Mosley was a European these days, and it seemed Osborne’s hatred of Communism was rather stronger than his distaste for foreigners. He evidently had some powerful friends, and together they had taken over the original stay-behind networks and planned to use them to forge a hard-right agenda for the Continent.
And it was as well I had checked: the report seemed to end here, followed by a sheaf of documents in completely different typefaces. So either this was merely the first in a series of reports about the operation or someone had removed whatever came next in it – either way, it seemed to be missing the details of what they were planning. I turned back to Sarah. ‘Do you remember if this was the exact dossier you saw, or could it have been one of the others?’
She looked at me in despair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘We need to find the next part of this dossier,’ I said. ‘We need to know the operational—’ I stopped. A car had just driven past the window, followed by the sound of tyres screeching on gravel. Severn? I ran over and looked down.
Yes. He was parking the Alfa Romeo, and coming through the gates behind it were two black Lancias.
I glanced at Sarah, and nodded affirmation. A clanging of iron echoed up the stairs.
They were in.
I calculated we had less than two minutes. I scooped up as many dossiers as I could, about half a dozen of them, stuffed them under my shirt, and gestured to Sarah to do the same. We would just have to hope that the operational plans were among them.
We stepped out of the office, and Sarah pointed to a door at the end of the corridor. Behind it was a much narrower staircase, with no carpet and no paintings on the walls: the staff staircase.
‘This way!’ she said.
As we reached the foot of the staircase, we met the man with the beak coming into the main hallway. He froze at the sight of us, then reached for the pistol in his waistband. I leapt towards him and aimed a kick at the lower half of his legs – several of the dossiers that had been in my shirt fell to the floor, scattering in a spread at his feet. He stumbled on one of them, but then managed to throw out his hands and catch hold of Sarah by the waist as she made to run past him. She screamed and lashed out with her feet, catching him in the jaw. He was knocked to the ground, but she had also lost a few dossiers in the meantime, and started to lean down to pick them up.
‘Leave them!’ I shouted at her, and she nodded and started running for the open doorway. I kicked the man in the stomach to make sure he stayed down, then started to follow her. But the commotion had already alerted the others, and as I approached the door I saw Severn coming down the main staircase, with Barnes and Zimotti directly behind him.
I leapt through the doorway as the shot scraped the nearest wall. They would be with me in a second or two. I saw Sarah running down the driveway, heading for the Alfa Romeo. Good idea. I raced over to join her. The key was still in the ignition.
‘I’ll drive!’ I shouted, pressing the button to unlock the doors. They opened on their hinges and we jumped in. The machine growled as I started her up, and we tore through the gates. A shot fired behind us, wild. But they would come in the Lancias soon enough.
As I turned onto the street, Sarah cried out and I glanced across at her.
‘Drive on the right!’ she screamed.
Shit. I looked back at the road and pulled us onto the other side just as a heavy goods lorry came rumbling towards us.
Close call.
Sarah started looking frantically through the dossiers, throwing each one onto the car’s floor as soon as she had discarded it. I hoped to God we hadn’t left the crucial one behind.
My plan was to head straight for the centre of town, as fast as possible: the more people there were around, the harder it would be for them to shoot at us. I squeezed the throttle and the needle shot up, and kept climbing. We passed the Fontana delle Api, and then I turned sharply down Via Druso. The car took the corner beautifully, and part of my brain was involuntarily awed by the machine under my command. The other part was desperately trying to see the street ahead, control this beast and get away from our pursuers. One of the Lancias was already in my rear-view mirror, taking the turn. A bullet ricocheted off the bodywork, and I swerved into the centre of the road for a moment. I swerved back, and reached over to open the glove compartment. Perhaps Severn had left a gun in there, or a map – but there was nothing. I looked up just as a Fiat with an enormous exhaust swerved in front of me, and I jabbed at the horn manically until it got out of the way.
I took another hard turn, into Via dei Cerchi. The traffic was starting to thicken now – evidently not everyone had taken the long weekend off. The streets were packed with pedestrians milling about aimlessly: tourists and nuns and children slobbering ice cream. I realized it had been a tactical error to head this way, because even if it made our pursuers a little gun-shy, which I was now rather less sure of, it was slowing us down terribly.
We had to get out of the centre – but where to? By now Severn would have made sure that all the country’s ports, airports and customs posts had been given detailed descriptions of the two of us, and even if we travelled separately I didn’t fancy our chances. Ergo, we had to find a way of avoiding Italian customs. If we reached, say, Switzerland, we would then be able to fly to London with little trouble: even Severn’s powers didn’t stretch that far. Travel between Italy and Switzerland didn’t require visas, so if we ditched the car, split up and took the train we might be able to get through the checkpoints.
Switzerland it was, then straight to Haggard in London. But we needed proof first.
‘Any luck yet?’ I called out to Sarah.
‘Not yet!’
I saw a space in the traffic and turned down Via della Greca, taking us around the bank of the Tiber. The main train station was only a mile or so away, but I had to find a way through this bloody maze of a city to get back to it. A thought hit me: the conspirators might not have dared to commit the operational details of this to paper. The strategic document could be all we had, and we would have to figure it out from there. ‘Check the document we read in the embassy again,’ I told Sarah. ‘See if it mentions any other targets, or dates.’
She leaned down and started rummaging in the files at her feet. We came into a boulevard shaded with trees: Lungotevere dei Pierleoni, but that would take us into town, not away from it, so I took the next turn and pushed the pedal down again.
Sarah had now found the original document and was reading through it hurriedly. ‘How about this?’ she said. ‘“In some Western European countries, especially in the south, religious events should be considered for attacks, as they provide a large crowd, easily understood and revered symbolism, shock value and, in many cases, low security. As Communism is an atheist ideology, Moscow’s involvement would immediately be suspected . . .”’
A religious event – yes, that might make sense. Could that be it, rather than a ballet or a football match? I thought back to my meeting with Barchetti. ‘They know,’ he had whispered. And then, when I had asked him if his cover had blown, he had shaken his head: ‘About the attack in the dome.’ I had presumed he meant that Arte come Terrore knew they were the prime suspects for Farraday’s murder. But perhaps I’d been wrong. The sniper had stored his climbing ropes on the gallery at the base of St Paul’s dome, and used that as an escape route, but the attack itself had taken place down in the cathedral, not inside the cupola. A slip? Barchetti’s English hadn’t been perfect, but I didn’t think so. I bit my lip and cursed myself. I’d missed his real message – he hadn’t been talking about what had happened in London at all. He had wanted to tell Severn that Arte come Terrore already knew of the next attack, which was going to take place in another church entirely.
Sarah had gone quiet, still engrossed in the document.
‘What is it?’
‘Charles has written in the margins on this page,’ she said. ‘He’s circled the part where it talks about religious events and written . . .’ She squinted. ‘“4 May.”’
I looked across at her. ‘That’s today.’
Forget Switzerland. Forget Haggard. I swerved to the right, taking the turning back into the centre of town.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ shouted Sarah.
‘It’s going to happen here,’ I said. ‘In Rome. The Pope’s noon address in St Peter’s Square. They’ve placed a bomb in the dome. They’re going to kill the Pope.’
She went quiet, and the papers slipped from her grasp and onto the floor.