A cell gives every advantage to the gaoler and none to the occupant. It confers absolute power on the former while its barrenness informs the latter that he, or she, is of no consequence whatsoever.
Control had spent the best part of a week in one, contemplating its drab yellow, the colour of guilt, which fulfilled its objective by draining him of the little personality he possessed. From time to time he was escorted to an interrogation whiteout where he rambled, often inconsequentially. He answered with painful honesty whatever questions were put to him, grateful for the sympathetic ear of a plump man whose long strands of hair were plastered across his pink and shiny skull.
His wristwatch had been returned after his first day in the monotone cell and he sat on the edge of a bunk bed reading a paperback novel they had given him. The door opened and he looked up expectantly but it was one of the athletic minders with a mug of tea and a bun. Control tensed when the muscular turnkey placed the tray on the bed.
“Relax,” the minder said. “The Boss is busy this morning. Won’t be able to fit you in. He sends sincere apologies,” and the cell door clicked shut. Control experienced a vague sense of disappointment.
Two floors above, Comb-over’s environment was anodyne, a double tone of cream and blue. His office was wire-glass partitioned with every piece of furniture euthanased by two overcoats of gloss. ‘Neo-Pictish’ was how Comb-over characterised the compulsion to cover every surface in paint.
“Woadish, actually,” Guthrie corrected during a visit. “ An invasive weed rather like yourself. Note the traditional blue. I understand that it is likely the word ‘Pict’ used by the Romans was a transliteration of either a tribal name or the people’s name for themselves, so nothing to do with painted warriors as you knowledgeable ignorant would have it.”
Since Comb-over’s arrival from darkest London to speak in tongues with Control, Guthrie had been in touch, pleasantly the peer, emphasising that the biker business had hidden depths known only to savants like himself, and had now sent his man, an overdressed spook who reclined with legs elegantly crossed. “We’ll take it from here,” the spook said blandly,” you need worry no further, Commander. Your biker lad needs sending to dear friends in Virginia. They have missed him awfully and seek his company. We shall be delighted to oblige.”
“This is going too far,” Comb-over said angrily to this gaudy personage. “Christ, it may be our job to turn up subversives but I cannot get people involved in extra-ordinary rendition or whatever the euphemism is that you use these days to keep sweet with your law breaking chums. These Langley louts will disappear the poor sod. What the hell has he done to them, or don’t they bother to tell you any more.”
“Do bear with me, Commander, a moment,” Pinstripe counselled suavely, examining the pointed tip of a pointed Italian shoe. “This biker chap is of some interest to our friends by the Potomac. A fingerprint match came up on their database. We take the liberty of sending them what we have as a token of our deep friendship. We do like to see ourselves as Uncle Sam’s willing little helpers these days. Our lords on high also insist upon it.”
“We can’t throw him to these assassins. He’s a Brit, for Christ’s sake.”
“Come now, we don’t know that for certain,” Pinstripe said. “We have no proof that he is one of ours. And he is not in the great game, we are quite sure of that. No embarrassing secrets to spill, a troublous person only, an anarchist…how quaint that sounds nowadays.”
Comb-over lowered his head and gave a baleful look. Black Italian shoes uncrossed and Pinstripe smiled spookily. He tapped the side of his beaky nose, as if to breathe a miasma of international influences into the small room. Comb-over eyed him angrily. “An anarchist? That is bloody weak, even for Langley. How the hell did they get his prints in the first place?”
“We share, dear boy, we share the load with our brothers across the pond. Our masters think it beneficial.”
“Really?” Comb-over said sarcastically. “Chummy hasn’t embarrassed us by upsetting the CIA in some way, has he? Anyway, he is hospitalised, an amnesiac. Not fit to be moved just yet. Under doctor‘s orders.”
“No problem, Commander. We shall pack him in ice and our colleagues will assist in transporting him to an excellent overseas facility where we feel sure he will regain his faculties in full.” Pinstripe smiled once more. “We rather thought you would welcome his passing to other hands. And what’s this I hear about a disturbed young officer shooting three people yesterday evening, one of whom, regrettably, was himself.”
“Ex-officer,” Comb-over said, eyebrows raised. “My, my, you are quick. I heard only an hour ago.”
“Sources everywhere, dear boy, everywhere. Ex-officer, but of course. He was at an incident, a blue-on-blue. Allegedly, I should add. An unmanned drone unloaded on our Afghan allies near Lashkar Gah. It seemed to have unhinged the fellow. He wrote it up in a report, but no proper evidence of course, purely circumstantial stuff of no real value. Our American friends investigated themselves and concluded that they were stainless steel. Our officer lad didn’t much care for that outcome and so became an ex-officer lad. We don’t want to remind bereaved families of blue-on-blue incidents at Lashkar Gah or anywhere else, do we? Enough that the poor chap was severely stressed. PTSD, I believe the acronym is. A forest fire brought it all back. Absolutely tragic. File closed.”
“If you say so,” Comb-over said. He spotted one of the minders go past the office carrying a steaming cup. “Care for a tea? Or a coffee perhaps? American, naturally.”
“My, you really are a card. We shall send a medical team north to pick up our anarchic chum tomorrow morning…if you could perhaps let the local plods know.” He fingered a white gold tiepin.
Comb-over regarded this demonstration of aplomb with evident distaste. “Very well,” he said. “I shall so inform the local plods.”
“Always helps business. When City bluebloods visit the United States,” Pinstripe said, “it shows that the right people are still in control. Capitol Hill is packed with billionaires and their families who believe politics is the national promotion of their businesses. They are conservative with a capital ‘C’. Name a female at the forefront of American commerce. No? They pushed one or two to the front in politics to maintain a pretence of non-sexism. Socialism is hated and homosexuality feared. Burgess, dear flamboyant Guy, shocked them; his memory has them shuddering to this day. His defection to the Soviet Union was a black eye for all of us, and Philby’s a near knockout, unless C was playing a very clever game. Who knows? These were very mysterious days. Never mind, Commander. We reassure Langley whenever we can. They are clodhoppers after all, as we all know. Chummie likely made a monkey of somebody, that’s my guess. He could be worth a decent bit in trade.”
“That’s tiptop,” Comb-over said sarcastically. “What did Chummie do to merit this cavalier treatment, I wonder?”
“Who cares? And the Virginians don’t seem keen to tell us. None of our business,” Pinstripe affected to yawn. I am becoming bored now, he was signalling. “Chummie himself doesn’t appear to know, at the minute.”
Comb-over contemplated the reclining pinstriped suit, the silvered cuff links, the ridiculous tiepin and a glossy virtuosity that accompanied this magnificence like patina paint on a faked antique.
“By the bye, old chap,” the spook continued. “If the plods have formally arrested our anarchic chum, read him his rights and so on, then do kindly order them to un-arrest him and un-read him his rights. Any excuse will suffice. We cannot send an official prisoner of the realm off to a foreign country, Commander, can we? The paperwork would be horrendous.”
Comb-over contemplated the boastful tiepin. Guthrie employed some peculiar people. “They give a certain cachet,” he once divulged, “and Whitehall loves them for it.”
“Point of information, “Comb-over said, “Chummie has not been charged with firearm possession or causing an obstruction by falling off a Ducati. The local blue did not want to gift some lawyer a dismissal on grounds of mental competence. Quite right. Hardly meaningful to read his rights to someone who does not know why you are doing it. The legal society for the protection of criminals would regard that as a dripping roast.”
Pinstripe arose and brushed distastefully at an imagined hair on his suit. He paused, head lowered in thought, and Comb-over waited for his exit performance. The head slowly raised and Pinstripe smiled cynically. An effete palm lifted in farewell.
“We trust the boys in blue have not become too attached. It’s time for us head prefects to take over.”
Comb-over’s pudgy hand rose in reply.
Immediately Pinstripe had seen himself off, Comb-over telephoned the Chief Inspector in Fort William, advising him of the activist’s imminent departure. He then called Special Branch and confirmed that things had gone covert and would be given a specially secure file. Chummie was to become the Uk’s latest export. Mysterious folk in the USA wished to lay hands upon him. Whether this was, or was not, a kidnap (euphemised as ‘extraordinary rendition’) was moot since neither Chummie’s identity nor nationality was known. Special Branch was unimpressed by a request to facilitate this illegality.
“What happened to Habeas Corpus? Was it really an American bloke who wrote The Rights of Man?” he questioned bitterly.
Thomas Paine presumably revolving underground, Comb-over remained expressively silent. Holding the phone at his ear he paraded up and down the office. The situation was as follows. Should the operation threaten to cause embarrassment, the Foreign Office would pull down blinds. Media would be muzzled in the usual way and would not pose any problem. The Press Barons enjoyed Government owing them a favour. Payback would come later by way of protection. Difficulties lay in silencing independent news organs, a large number of whom retained an irritatingly high degree of integrity. Fortunately, their readership was paltry. Organs sponsored by opposing ideologies were held to be the least tractable and vigil would be held over them.
Comb-over shook his balding head. “Extra-ordinary rendition is no secret and we have denied complicity. That’s our official position. Or is it? Who the hell knows? There’s an ongoing investigation by the Scottish Police into these illegal flights and CIA torture of people, did you know that? No published results yet. They’ve been on it for years. Anything to remind the public of these illegal rendition flights will be most unwelcome to the powers that be.”
“Christ Almighty,” Special Branch muttered, “have you spoken to the Chief Inspector up here about shipping biker boy out tomorrow?”
“It was the Chief Inspector who told me about the Scottish investigation into CIA activities. Unauthorised flights refuelled at bases, occasionally at Prestwick near Glasgow but more usually in the northeast of Scotland, their passenger en route to oblivion. They sidestepped a legal extradition process in which one had, inconveniently, to furnish evidence. American justice is managed through a hierarchy of political appointees and, once across ‘the pond’, CIA toughs would not be encumbered by any need for corroboration of their claim that the ‘Corpus’ needed incarcerating. Your Chief Inspector has guessed what’s happening. He’s warning us, copper to copper, to take care of ourselves. There is something else.”
Special Branch sighed.
“Today’s spook messenger knew all about last night’s suicide witnessing the Lashkar Gah incident.”
Special Branch sounded surprised. “Your spook mentioned Lashkar Gah? I only found out this morning what had happened there when I checked with the Army. And they were less than keen to unzip. They told me that the incident had a ‘high sensitivity rating’. That is unusually prim, even for Khaki Intelligence. I was to understand there had been blue-on-blue casualties, and hundreds, maybe thousands, of civilian deaths. America doesn’t keep count. Double the number of dead and you’ll get the total maimed, near enough. A grannie picking okra got blown to bits in one incident. Men, women, children, our military, had all been missiled by unmanned drones. Lashkar Gah was the last straw, so they buried it.”
Comb-over spoke softly,“ Americans are looking for immunity to allow them to stay on, and they are keen. Right now, they are being refused it. Without immunity from prosecution they dare not keep their military in Afghanistan. Another dose of publicity for past drone attacks is the last thing Washington wants.”
“So it’s American in origin, all this spook interest in Lochaber,” Special Branch said.
“Certainly looks that way,” Comb-over said. “Keep close to Chummie. I don’t care for what’s going on. Watch for the slightest sign of this going public. It won’t take much for me to flush this operation down the toilet, Guthrie or no Guthrie.”
Now both men were marching up and down their offices, each unwilling to end the call. Comb-over remembered Guthrie’s smooth expectation of co-operation. Special Branch remembered Noel’s final rage in the night. He saw the fatal glow in Noel’s cheeks. “Come on, Boss,” he said. “We can refuse to co-operate with this extra-ordinary rendition bullshit. The Americans are programmed to deny everything. They will immediately deny they ever tried to pull Chummie out of the UK. I’ll bet everything has been kept ‘unofficial’. It would give them Plausible Deniability. The ex-officer lad, Noel, rambled on about it before he pulled the trigger.”
“That overdressed ass was instructed to mention Lashkar Gah. He even talked about that combat stress disorder, PTSD. So that’s the line we’re supposed to take…are you getting this?” Comb-over raised his voice.
“Yes, but not liking it,” came a thin reply.
Comb-over went over to the window and picked at paint peeling from its frame. The exquisite spook had given out a casual ‘away bugger yourself, sonny’. The assumption was that the mention of ‘national security’ would have police services deferring to SIS whim; that rule of law was a naivete when ‘The National Interest’ was concerned.
“Just keep Lashkar Gah out of it,” Comb-over said. “For the present, we are co-operating. But remember to watch for signs of this going public.”
Special Branch refocused his boss on another issue. “After he committed suicide last night, I spoke to Noel’s workmates. They are finding all this hard to understand, but there’s a connection between the nightmares that Noel was having and the helicopter overflying the farmhouse. His close mate, Alex, knows more but he’s gone very quiet, clammed up entirely.”
“What about arresting the fire raiser, the sleeper at Polloch?”
“It wouldn’t be wise, Boss, not at this point. With the shootings last night and funerals starting today it could be explosive.”
“Fair comment, but why not pick him up before?”
“Control was still under interrogation. Unless we get a full confession, he remains the only witness to fire raising now that Chummie is travelling to the Land of the Free. Are you going to unveil this Control guy, or not?”
“No, not yet. I think that he’s iron pyrites and told the spooks that, but they don’t know what to do with the poor bastard. Decision is pending.”
“Then I can’t pinch the stupid sod who started the fire. Incidentally, I’ve not bought any morning papers yet. How are they playing it?”
“I haven’t seen the papers either,” Comb-over said, “but since Pinstripe took the trouble to visit this morning my bet is that spooks have already muzzled our loyal Press. Their pitch will surely be a reflection on stress disorder and failures to adequately support boys returned from zones of war. If either Lashkar Gah or Press helicopters are mentioned in today’s news reports, I’m the Dalai Lama.”
“You’re not that enlightened, Boss, not yet anyway,” Special Branch said, and ended the call. He sat at his desk and cogitated for a time. Perhaps he should pay Strontian another visit at close of play, around six p.m.
At the other end, Comb-over decided against calling Guthrie with a bitter protest and a reminder of the continuing Scottish investigation of ‘extra-ordinary rendition’. It would do no good.