Dave Dec 2010

a novel by David Scott-Morgan
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Bute One

‘If I don’t make it, you know that Harry will.’
Heamas looked around. There he was. Down on the grassy knoll with a peanut butter sandwich in his fist. Grinning as always, the stubble on his chin glistening in the stage lighting of the low afternoon sun. Harry was unconcerned with the approaching night and what it was bringing. He had long since made up his mind: The worst that can happen has already happened.
’If you lose the thread, think of the Mullah’ he whispered to Lister.
‘Shuttup and check your settings,’
The box at his waistband was chafing like a pestering child, ‘Check my numbers. Look at me!’

Now is the season of recovering what is lost, of restoring what belongs.

The command when it came was just a gasp of air, so subtle Heamas could have missed it if he hadn’t been so trained to listen for just that word.

Blue marble. Bits, just bits. ‘How could there be so many bits?’ Then that haze. And that second that was missing, never more to be recovered. A second shredded to a fog of tiny microseconds that floated in a dust before him. The flash had torn a gasp from his closed lips and left him staring wide-eyed and shivering slightly, like a tuning fork oscillating next to a bass drum. He was wiping a bead of sweat from his brow when Minnie looked up at him, half-smiling:
‘Cor, that was a four on a scale of three, ay?’
‘Yes,’ he proffered, not sure what scale he was measuring this particular slice of reality on. Not inclined to care about it. More inclined to light up a fag or down a whole jug of Harry’s floose-bucket juice. Or drag Minnie by the hair and do something original with her - well original for him anyway.

What is there but duty and the deep sleep of wisdom?
 

’Oh,’ I said, trying to sound like a dispassionate spectator.
‘Yes, it’s dad’s money,’ she continued. ‘He always said he was saving it up for our gold watch one day. And that’s what this is, our gold watch.’ She was so brim full of joy and delight to tell me about it and I realise now, it was because she thought I was part of the confidence, which of course I wasn’t. She was bubbling and unstoppable, the carrots could wait: ‘He told us we’ll all be rich by Christmas, isn’t it exciting? - “You and Mr.M will never want for anything again” - That’s what he said.’
’Yes’, I nodded in helpless agreement, adding in some contrived sycophancy, how wonderful it was indeed that Johnny had given them the chance now, so they were able to get in before the rush.
And all the time, I was chastening myself for my cowardice.

Blind men stand like plastic statues along the verge, waiting for the one who claims he can see.

Mitzi, I thought it was the power of his love that was pulling the sledge along, but then I discovered through dear Mrs. Musgrove of all people, that love was really being pulled along by the incandescent power of money. For it transpired that our beloved Johnny had ingratiated everyone to some level or other, in the business investments of Jade Technologies Limited. It was money, filthy lucre that lashed them together pulling against the halter. It was a sweet dish of promise that kept them bright and breezy while they followed in line astern, stomaching the backlash of circumstance and JD’s displeasure whenever things didn’t quite happen in the manner scheduled.
Yes Mitzi, it was another cord altogether from the one I had them bound with, a cord made of hardy stuff, the substance that makes the world go round. And as I canvassed the others I slowly found out they were all proud investors in JD’s South Sea Company, the great Jade Technologies, limited by largesse only, but not for long.

Your dreams are pure never ending sweetness but your lust for action is the slipway to thankless chasms.

Garrett looked up, scanning the gathered faces with a beam so purposefully pompous that Lister thought he must have taken a masters in Airs and Graces instead of cold war Balkan politics. Then, grimacing in the manner befitting the gravity of his office, he consulted the sheet of A4 lying before him.
After several silent seconds he began devouring its contents afresh at an energetic canter. After all, most of the people around the table knew the details already:

‘Anyway, point is,’ Garrett continued, ‘after much testing, it was apparently discovered that if the banger could keep moving at right angles to the beam, it is just possible that he or she could outwit the otherwise terminal sentence that this thing imposes upon anyone carrying B O.’ (He spelled out the ‘B’ and the ‘O’ deliberately, eyeing his audience with a knowing smile). ‘To survive the beam, the banger would need to have a bead on what direction it was coming from, and then he or she would need to keep moving laterally by something like a stride’s width every nine tenths of a second. Now… ‘
A deep intake of breath.
‘Now it is, I am told, entirely feasible for someone to do this, with knowledge of the aiming point and some training – but the thing is, all of this implies the bangers are wise to the technology in the first place.’
Nellis’s hand rose up uncertainly as he sat slouched low in his chair. It reached the gesture of limp salute and then quickly fell down again.
’Yes.’ Said Garrett, looking straight at him.
‘Er sir, - I just wanted to ask, What is B.O?’
Nellis slouched lower in his seat. The room hushed and Garrett’s gaze rolled from him to the blonde sitting next to him. As if it had been rehearsed this way, she turned and fastened her eyes upon Nellis, a perfect smirk of bland triumph etched into her mouth.
‘Body ordnance,’ she said looking straight at him. Her voice sang across the room, clear and commanding. Nellis felt the sensation of an abseil line slipping through his hands.
‘Specifically, tetra or nitryl,’ added Garrett. ‘Worn in packs or wallets, strapped on belts. Usually carried around chest and back but can also be in strips attached to legs and arms. Increases payload I’m told. Anything else?’
‘Yes,’ said Nellis looking at blonde, ‘is your name Phoebe?’
‘No, I’m Minnie.’ She said, looking around at the others and a chuckle rippled around the table like a murmur at court.
‘Well now that’s settled,’ said Garrett.

He abandoned the script and, consulting middle distance, resumed talking to no one in particular: ‘If you ask me, technical have gone up their own backsides on this. Who on this brown earth is going to figure out all these variables, without some grade one intel?’
'Anyway,' he sighed.' That is the point of today's brief: Security with a big S and two 'I's' following close behind - I'm talking about Ignorance and Intel. Because in this market, make no mistake, THEIR ignorance must be equal to OUR intel. That is our business today.

‘So, this is the drill. Alongside whatever your section is doing, you are instructed immediately to implement a black programme directed toward two domains: First, HM has slapped restrictions at the highest level on all material regarding this device. The shutters are down. Tight. Especially regarding the technology of remote excitation. Everyone and everything associated with it is now black. This means rummaging in bins and ashtrays, re-checking scribbles and doodles. It might mean another interview with liaison about anyone you may have spoken to on the ferry to Bute. The works. Is that understood?’
Garrett did not bother to wait for any grunts of approval. He was not inviting a vote but announcing a dictat.

’And so, for the time being, any publication of scientific literature pertaining to this technology will be suppressed. Hasworth, you will handle that via the British Library and the University press boys. The second domain will come alive as and when the first has fallen, and here we believe we can still play in advantage for some time. At such a point in time when, due to various field operations, the cover of the device gets blown, and the Mohairs begin to realise that we have the means to effectively waste their assets at no cost to ourselves, then we will be ready to turn on the drip and begin feeding misinformation – really overstating its potential and underplaying its limitations – for example regarding it’s range, ‘spotlight’ time, etcetera. Nellis you will compose some press releases ahead of time. Just surface stuff, catchy, you know the kind the tabloids go for, okay?
Nellis nodded.
‘I don’t need to point out that the real hard data on this thing is seriously sensitive. The official rating is ‘National’ which, I don’t need to remind, means Brits, Americans and cobbers are okay but Europeans are not to get a sniff!

‘Comments?’ said Garrett.
’Oh come on, don’t be bashful. Any questions?’
Silence.
‘Okay then. Well, it falls to me to bring to the notice of those present a formal caution, which, in a nutshell, reads like so: You are in weapons grade trouble if any syllable of the matter we have discussed ever seeps outside of this room. The Minister has asked me to re-affirm that any breach of the code will guarantee swift and terrible incarceration, with various experiments of an electrical nature thrown in, followed by the most painful strangulation of all historical, financial and personal assets that we can lay our hands upon. Is that absolutely crystal?’
The meeting broke up and Garrett’s experts filed out. Nellis followed Minnie.

The bedroom door clicked shut. Malik went to the drawer in the bureau, opened it and drew out the envelope. Eyes ablaze he sat on the small plastic chair at the desk and slid the form out of the envelope. Subscribe in confidence it said. He checked off the box marked ‘no referrals’ and wrote the name and address on the dotted lines of the form… ‘Bud Wiser, 34 The Rising, Tempesford, NW2 4EE.’ The joke name won’t matter, they must get that all the while he thought.
The internet site became active and for seconds, maybe half a minute, a strange text appeared on the screen:

There is a school of idea that would have us linger in the leaves, waiting for the sunrise like a robin in autumn. But we have to get out of the nest, fly as high as we can and drop. Drop! The Infidel is moribund and putred, incapable of seeing the sword’s edge. He is adrift on a sea of his shame and will not notice even the mountain falling upon him. Only the fat of his larder is between us and success. Golden ones, do not let your gaze tarry on the storehouse of your oppressor. For the smell of it will be as death your nostrils and acid in your cistern. He runs, chase him! He falls, finish him! He dies, forget him!

And the more he thought about it the more it crystallised, like a giant leprosy spreading to form a black scab on the landscape of England. He had the sensation of something coming to whisper the secret to him: They plan to unload a bucket of sunshine right here. They are building it right here. So no one gets the blame but dear ol’ blighty.

The little snug was alive with expectancy and pregnant with passions. Johnny was in full flow, preaching his word of faith mixed as it was with the sweet tingle of conspiracy. In the pews were Carlos, Maney and Paula, Rick and JDs faithful lieutenant Percy, all plugged in to the word.
In case you were losing interest in the plot, he would weave in the fact that distribution lists never occurred by chance but were ordained from on high. And so there you were, part of the audience, the Circle of Need.

The laughter sang high in the snug of the little cottage.
‘JD. Tell Percy about that chase along the railway lines into Box tunnel’ Carlos said, and Johnny looked puzzled for the briefest of moments, then broke into that enormous balloon of a smile: ‘Ah yes, the search for the magic lantern’ he said, (and you wondered what that meant!). A moments silence and then half-turning to Carlos, he said smiling ‘Carly old chap, I think you’re in need of another refill’, and in doing so he deflected the subject matter into the most blatant dead-end, yet with such commanding grace that the space around him filled with affection and his sure exoneration.
It was okay. If Carlos knew it then it was public domain. And no one had ever heard Johnny Need tell quite the same story twice.

But the invitation to hold centre stage would never slip away completely. Johnny would catch it effortlessly, in free-fall, and redirect it seamlessly in a new direction like he was re-programming a cruise missile. Soon the gathered antenna would be lost in the trammels of another adventure, equally as beguiling and exciting as the subterranean vaults of Box; - a tale turning upon the survival of some august enterprise; - a battle fought in the defence of some honour, be it the honour of love, of family, or the realm. Always a fight under some recognisable flag: the pin-stripe of a department, a company logo, a crest of royalty. And beneath the flag, souls caught up together by a given purpose, or privations, or both. And sometimes, stories of those caught up by the strongest bond of all, the comradeship forged under fire from a common foe.

And when Mumsy implied, be it ever so nicely, that they ‘were getting a bit rowdy’, he would immediately adjourn the session to the Fezz, with lavish coos of ‘don’t be silly darling, you need your privacy. Of course, I understand that’ as they were all shuffling past her in the hallway. There, after the briefest of marches under the sober Sussex moon, they would continue as before, basking in the reflected glow before their master of ceremonies, provider of dreams and sweet acceptance. And in the never ending flow of beer, Pimms, Clouzette Rouge for Percy, and Houston Flameouts for Rick, the chronicles of Johnny chimed ever higher and farther.

And later, when the hangers-on, those fellow travellers who didn’t yet have the back-stage pass issued and counter-signed with a nod and wink from Johnny, when they had eventually wearied of trying to figure out the coded banter, or else they had one drink too many after being encouraged - dared more likely - by Johnny, to try the ‘triple-B’, the Bognor Beach Bomb for themselves, when they had all finally departed, the party could really begin.

When privacy was assured and the bartender had delivered his knowing thumbs-up, they would all decamp from barstools to inhabit the cove of the hearth-closet built into the stone wall, with the plaque hanging above it, prophetically labelling it the ‘Honey-Pot’. There in ‘the pot’ with the core of his empire assembled, Johnny would recount more implicit exploits, each painted against a minutia of facts:
The missiles on the Foxbats with their precious serial numbers scribbled down by his cold, slightly wet hand, in the dim frost of a Byelorussian dawn. The radar plot (the ‘scan’ he called it) that was so important he had to drop everything and charter a plane to fly him, and it, to Maryland on Christmas Eve. And how he came by the scan, another adventure rich in the banality of happenstance. He never did explain what he was doing in Cyprus with Maney in the first place. Just that he was seconded to the ‘other Directorate’ whatever that meant, and sent ‘up-country’ to gather fuel for the fire they were building. Sent to the woods he called it, to find the forbidden tree, and to bring its fruit back to Grand Central.

The pot was the inner sanctum of the Need fellowship and the stories, rich as they were, were but a preamble to the main business at hand. For it was in the pot that projects would be proffered and possibilities floated like luxury yachts: A government needs a Boeing 767 configured for freight, but has no liquidity or credit right now. If Percy could, under Johnny’s guiding hand, buy it and register it in the UK in the name of a certain organisation, the bowl of recompense would be heavy with gratitude in the form of uncut diamonds worth a cool quarter-mil in dollars. Of course, Johnny would have put up the wherewithal himself without a second thought, but he needed to maintain a due diplomatic distance. The words confidentiality, discretion, were mentioned. Yes, as much as he would have liked, he could not compromise ‘ongoing sensitive operations’, not to mention the identity of a certain African Princess in charge of the wad of diamonds. (‘Yes,’ Johnny assured Percy, ‘she really is a Princess!’)

’Oh it’s all perfectly legal,’ he said firmly, and you just knew he meant legal in the context of the rules pertaining to a Turkish bazaar and perfect in the sense it was perfect if you didn’t get caught. And for that you needed Johnny to grease cogs and mislay forms and cross palms with gifts.

They all would smile and nod knowingly with him as he signalled the barmen with his pigeon signing for ‘R-A-R’ – which decoded meant: ‘refills all round’ – always on Johnny’s tab of course, a tab that no one had ever seen settled, not in coin of the realm anyway.

’JD’ as he liked to be referred to amongst friends (‘J.D, a man of letters, the first and the last’ he quipped), was a man in search of nothing and in need of no one as far as anyone could see. It was a sham as gigantic as it was successful. For Johnny Need was a person who was totally defined by negatives: By who he had no connection with, who he did not work for, what he had not seen, what he did not know about. He was not accountable, not attributable, not available; ex-directory in every way.

Night after night it went on. For as long as JD was ‘in town’ – and that might be two hours, two days, maybe even two months – a duration punctuated only at the date stencilled on the airline ticket lodged somewhere at the bottom of his briefcase. For however long, the pot would be summoned by his impending arrival, the first call always coming through Rick, who relayed it to the others with Las Vegas chicanery as puerile as it was secret from JD:
‘Elvis is on the way’ - meant JD was flying in;
‘Elvis is in the building’ – he had landed at Heathrow;
‘Elvis is coming up the stairs’ decoded to imminent arrival, more often rendered fully as ‘the cab to mumsy’s should be on the M3 exit ramp now. ETA is ten, I say again, ten – one zero – minutes.’

The military precision was something that had been imbibed from Johnny – indoctrinated more like, for JD could detect in the smallest of detail if his absence had made the heart grow fonder, or not. And like a jilted suitor, if you were a minute late, or if your shoes were covered in mud, he could react in a most scolding, and it has to be said, quite uncharacteristic way, his face erupting into a frown as hard as the sharp edge suddenly trading his once-soft voice.

Johnny was a man who understood that love came and went on the smallest of signals and he had been specially gifted by nature to receive signals at a higher volume than the rest of us. Johnny’s sensory antenna could tell, for example, if you were really enjoying his company or just ‘bigging it up,’ like those hacks back in policy were always doing, towing the line and preaching a gospel they didn’t really believe in. You couldn’t hide it from him. He knew, he needed to know.

For the one over-riding and cardinal requirement to be a member of ‘the pot’ was that you were in thrall to JD. All other credentials, even the ability to keep the secrets of state, were secondary. The pot, sometimes referred to as the ‘church’, always began at Mumsy's: The one thing they teach you is to stay close to the familiar, for as long as you can. And have another familiar close by in case you are forced into the open. A bolt hole. ‘The Gray Pheasant’ – gray with an ‘a’ – was the closest and indeed, the most congenial bolt hole around. Even if you couldn’t stand, you could crawl there in five minutes from the cottage. And so when the going got too rich for Mumsy they would all regroup at the ‘Fezz’. There it would continue into the early hours – four or five of them, the select membership of the pot.

Who holds the better sceptre: the one who looks down and marvels or the one who looks up and desires?

It was one of those flights that the company manuals held up as a prize: Completely normal. There was not one ounce of originality about it. Even the patter between Gerry and Shainan and the occasional visiting stewardesses, was limp and inane. It was, in aviation jargon, simply routine. Although he knew times that that word could hide a multitude of mini dramas and adrenalin spiking events. This flight was not one of them. It was so boring that Gerry spent half an hour or the seven playing his own sort of oxo on the flight management system. Then he reached around into the big black flight bag on the floor behind his seat and pulled out his log book and began filling in details of recent flights, including this one as far as he could. He stared at the notes column vacuously. The only distinguishing feature that Gerry could think of was the rip in the coaming, so he wrote that and laughed to himself as he did so. So this is what becomes of dreams. I should have stayed sleeping!

They landed at five thirty in the morning local time. As they turned toward finals on the easterly runway at Dubai the sun was almost directly ahead of them and Jerry was squinting behind his Raybans as he lined up on the localiser.
‘Further descent with the glide. Call tower now on one one eight daycimal three’ the controller said.
‘one one eight three, roger’ Gerry repeated automatically and as an aside for Shainan’s benefit he whispered ‘BBHN,’ thankful to be nearly there. ‘Yep, blessed be..’ Shainan responded as he reached forward for the flap lever, ‘Flaps twenty five coming down.’
Five seconds later the glideslope needle became active and Gerry throttled back to commence descent. ‘Cabin Crew to landing’ Shainan said over the cabin PA system.
As the big sleepy ship began sliding down the three degree approach slope, the orb of the sun gradually dipped lower back in to twilight, bowing out like a waiter at the kings table retreating to the kitchen. ‘Guess we must be the last before they swap runways’ Gerry said and Shainan agreed. Soon Air Traffic would have to change runways so that landing aircraft weren’t blinded by flying toward the rising sun. They had just squeaked in below the twilight. Below them in the morning mist the waterfront slid by and then awakening suburbs of Al Baraha and then the warm, rubber-stained concrete of Dubai International, ‘DXB’ to it’s friends.

As soon as they had taxied in and shut down Gerry switched on his phone and picked up the message: ‘Angels have wings – Central says they need them too. Call H if you fancy driving the bus!’
Like a pavlovian reaction, almost as he read it, he felt his heartbeat quicken and a strange joy invade his spirit, causing a smile to break out on his face. Suddenly he was aware of things that had been screaming at him for so long – Now he could put a name to it. He knew it! How very tired and fed up he had become with flying the big jets. The thing he had craved for so long, left hand seat of a big jet, and now it had become something of duty and penance. Somewhere along the line he had become caught up in maintaining the status quo because his world view had once held it in such veneration.

Gerry was excited. Yes he would call Heamas and yes, he would drive the bus for central and yes, Blessed be his name! Wow.

*********************************************************

‘Are you a spy?’ Carlos said and the beat of the Fezz was suddenly suspended like it was a video freeze-frame, hushed for a slow, silent intake of a breath. Percy immediately woke up and was no longer looking out of the window …
‘Good heavens, no’ responded Johnny with a half-laugh, ‘I am just a delivery man, that’s all.’ He turned with a smiling countenance to Percy, as if to implicate him in Carlos’s suspicions before turning back to pick up again, his face drawing closer to Carlos as he spoke: ’You’ve got to understand that some do the leg work – and others just help out. I help out. I make sure the sparklers get there on time for bonfire night. Or maybe if the coastline springs a leak, then I am the finger in the dyke.’ Johnny’s eyes were locked in silent combat with Carlos’s stare. The two men were drawing energy out of each other and out of the beer-drenched air as they parried for closure on an issue that was as far from spying as goulash is from corn flakes.
‘Us duffers have got to stick together, what?’ Carlos addressed Percy, standing up from his bar seat as if announcing his intention to leave. Percy had not the faintest idea what he was on about but still he smiled and nodded as this seemed to be the response most likely to grant him respite from further harassments.
The door to the Fezz opened suddenly, with a rush of wind and noise: Percy looked around, his head nodding slightly, betraying the volume of alcoholic corpuscles now flooding his arteries.
‘Ah, Harry. Just the man! Come in.’
‘Hello Percy, how are you’ Harry said, sliding a glove off one hand so he could shake Percy’s extended grasp.
‘Come and join us. They were just talking about delivery men, and there you are. - Somebody who can deliver’ said Percy with a chuckle, and a half turn toward Johnny.
For a second Harry looked embarrassed and Johnny immediately sensed it: In a beat, he had slid off his bar stool and arched his body around Percy and, bowing slightly as he did, held out a hand to Harry accompanied by his enormous all pervading smile.
‘Johnny Need. JD to any friends of Percy, drunk or sober,’ he said shaking Harry’s hand warmly.
‘Pleased to meet you. Harry Saunders, yes - friend of Percy’s. Anything else he’s said, I deny it!’
The group laughed and Harry turned to the third man:
‘Hello – I’m Carlos’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry but I really have to go. What is the road like – did you see any flooding when you came in?’
‘No, it’s clear. How far do you have to go?’
‘Only to Swinburn. About three mile.’ Said Carlos.

Carlos made his exit, drawing his coat collar high and his head low as he opened the door.
‘Harry, it’s good to finally meet up with you. I understand that you are in the recommendations business?’
‘Yes I suppose I am. What do you need commending?’
‘Oh not me but I do have friends in need.’
‘Hmmm. Well as a matter of fact, I have something you might be able to help me with too.’
‘Oh?’
‘You are into buying and selling aren’t you?’
‘Yes, - Import and Export it’s called these days.’
‘Right. Well it’s a delicate matter, in fact it’s frosted china. Have you got a card?’
Harry thought about it for a second and said ‘No card. But you can make a note of my email if you want.’

**************************************************************

Yes Mitzi, Harry played a good game. I never tweaked it and obviously, neither did JD. He thought Harry was on side but all the time Harry was just up front doing his duty. He was Lister’s point man, gathering intel for the push. Nobody could figure it out. And we had to know just who JD was working for. Carlos just stonewalled the questions and Percy was cute and genteel behind the smiles so nobody could tell if he actually knew anything or not. ‘Bring back rendition’ the Yank had bemoaned and for sure without Harry becoming your friendly neighbourhood safe cracker, we would never have been able to get JD in the frame. History controls the future because its seeds are planted in the past. And nobody can go back to dig it up. What you have to do is find out what sort of seed has been planted. An acorn only grows into an Oak, it can’t grow into a Eucalyptus. So you can be sure, if the seed of hatred has been planted, or the seed of love, whatever the seed - good or bad, it will grow into that sort of tree. You have to find out what seeds were planted to know what sort of tree you are looking at. Trees can be sneaky, they can pretend to be something else you know!

**************************************************************

‘Come and see me’ Lister had said.
‘Okay I will.’ Gerry replied.
‘You mean that?’
‘Yes’ said Gerry with a half laugh.
Either he’s desperate or else he thinks I am flaky.
‘When are you due back?’
‘Wednesday, 1430 local.’
‘At?’
‘Heathrow.’
‘Can we say Central at 1630?’
‘Yes that’ll work.’
‘You sure?’
Gerry liked Lister’s directness. There was no pussy footing around with the team like there was with the airline office squad.
‘If there’s any delay. I’ll call. Otherwise get the coffee going.’
‘Roger that. See you on Wednesday.’ Said Lister before hanging up.

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