Unofficial and Deniable. John Davis Gordon

story is written exactly as outlined. It’ll be publishable on schedule.’

      ‘Good.’

      Harker poured himself another drink. Yes it was good, for Christ’s sake, good that five bastards plotting murder were going to be taken out, that innocent civilian lives in South Africa were going to be spared … But he had been secretly hoping that Clements might report that the mission had proved impossible – then the CIA would have had to do their own dirty work.

      That wouldn’t bother you one bit, so why the hell are you bothered now? The result would be the same!

      The next morning he was about to call Josephine Valentine to postpone their Saturday lunch date when she telephoned him.

      ‘Well, Major,’ she said cheerfully, ‘it’s all systems go. I’ve polished up those first ten chapters and they’re fit to be read. This is to confirm tomorrow’s date.’

      Harker closed his eyes. All systems go. That she had used the same words as Clements made him flinch. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Josie, but I was about to phone you to ask if we can postpone, something very important has come up.’

      ‘Oh.’ She sounded very disappointed. ‘Of course. Till when?’

      He wanted to give himself a week to lie low, to settle down, to get the debriefing over, reports sent, to get over the whole incident. He could almost feel her disappointment – authors want their praise immediately. ‘How about the following Saturday?’

      ‘Fine!’ Her relief that the postponement was not longer was palpable. ‘I know – let me take you to lunch at the yacht club. It’s my favourite day there – a superb buffet.’

      ‘Yacht club it is,’ Harker said. ‘We’ll fight about the bill.’

      ‘I’m paying,’ she said. ‘You’re giving up part of your weekend for me!’

      Saturday was tense. Harvest House was deserted, echoing. His instructions were to stay in his command post in the basement to be in secure contact with both the faceless CIA and the ugly face of Dupont in Washington until H-hour, the time for action. It was a long day. He tried to do some publishing work but could not concentrate. He turned to some CCB preparation, reviewing his salesmen’s latest information in readiness for his routine monthly report to Dupont, but he could not settle to it. He tried to catch up on the wads of South African newspapers that arrived twice a week, a task he usually enjoyed, but he could not even keep his mind on the reports about the Angolan war. Most of the news was bullshit anyway – the journalists usually only knew what the army chose to tell them to boost morale, to keep the public supportive. In reality the war was going to be South Africa’s Vietnam if a deal wasn’t made soon – he just wished to God the politicians could learn from America’s mistakes, pull out all the stops, hit the Cubans with everything the army had, drive them into the sea once and for all, get the war over, then settle South Africa’s internal problems – dismantle goddam apartheid and bring moderate blacks into government. But South Africa dared not do that because there would be an international outcry – the West also wanted Russia and Cuba out of the continent but South Africa, which was capable of achieving that, was its own worst enemy with its goddam apartheid, a pariah. So the battles raged on, people dying, taxpayers’ money haemorrhaging into the hot sands of Angola along with the blood.

      Harker shoved the newspapers aside in frustration. He held his face. And what he was doing today was part of that process. Another nail in the coffin of communism.

      He had to get up and start pacing up and down the basement to ease his nerves.

      It was always like this before an action, he reminded himself. Once you knew you were going in at H-hour you were a bundle of tension. You try to rest, to eat, to read, to pray, you know you can’t change anything, the plan is laid, the orders given so all you can do is hope – hope that you come out alive. That’s for an overt action, where it’s more or less each man for himself when the bullets start flying – it was much worse for a covert action where you were sent behind enemy lines and the main hope you had was that they didn’t capture you alive and torture you to death. So what’s new about this fucking tension?

      What’s new is that you’ve gone soft in two years in New York – your heart’s not in soldiering any more …

      God, he wanted a drink. To ease his nerves, to help his hangover – that was certainly part of his problem, he’d been drinking too much. But he dared not.

      To kill the time he pulled out Josephine’s file, and he sat down behind his desk and tried to read again the stories she had written. But he could not concentrate on that either; he flipped through the file, looking for photographs of her.

      Oh, she was beautiful. Just then the telephone rang. He snatched up the receiver. ‘Hullo?’

      ‘Is that Buttons and Bows Night Club?’ Dupont said.

      Harker closed his eyes, his heart knocking. ‘Sorry, wrong number.’ He hung up.

      Harker slumped, then picked up his cellphone, his hand shaking. He dialled.

      ‘Buttons and Bows,’ Clements said.

      ‘I want to speak to Mr Buttons, please.’

      ‘He’ll call you back in about twenty minutes, sir.’

      It was a long twenty minutes waiting for Clements’ next call. ‘Awaiting your pleasure, sir,’ he said.

      Harker picked up his holdall and clambered up the narrow staircase into his upper office. He opened the big front door of Harvest House and stepped out into the spring night. The car was parked fifty yards down the road: the driver flashed his headlights once. Harker climbed into the front passenger seat. A man called Parker, one of Clements’ salesmen, was at the wheel. ‘Good evening, sir,’ they all said.

      ‘Good evening,’ Harker said tensely. ‘Let’s go.’

      At nine o’clock that Saturday night they were creeping through the forest, approaching the farmhouse. Now they were all in black tracksuits, wearing balaclavas, carrying the machine-pistols Harker had distributed.

      The clapboard house was about fifty years old, the paint peeling off the wood, the yard around it sprinkled with weeds and shrubs. The house was in darkness. The listening gear was in position. Harker gave his instructions and Clements moved to take cover facing the front door, Spicer went off to cover the kitchen door, Trengrove disappeared around the other side of the house to the living room window. Harker remained with the listening device, covering the dining-room French window. They settled down to wait.

      It was a very long hour before the headlights came flicking through the forest. The car came up the winding track into the yard, its headlights now blinding. Harker lay beside the listening gear, his heart pounding; the vehicle’s doors opened and one by one five dark figures clambered out. They were hardly talking, only a mutter here and there as they stretched and reached for luggage. Then, while the headlights illuminated the kitchen door, they trooped towards it, carrying their briefcases and baggage. For the first time Harker could distinguish the blacks from the Cubans, but he could not identify anybody. They clustered around while one of the Cubans selected and inserted a key.

      Harker snorted to himself. It would have been an ideal moment to hit the whole damn lot of them: no fuss, no risk. But no – goddam Dupont wanted to record what they talked about first. The Cuban unlocked the door and they filed inside. Lights went on. Harker glimpsed them filing through the kitchen into the dining room. They clustered around the table, and one of the Cubans produced a bottle from his briefcase.

      Harker put on the headphones of the listening device. He could hear mumbled speech. He turned the tuning knob and the volume. Suddenly he heard a Cuban say, ‘Close the curtains. Sit down, please …’ He heard the scraping of chair legs on the floor. More mumbles. The tinkle of liquor being poured. Then the meeting began.

      Harker listened intently, his tape-recorder turning; then he closed his eyes in relief. Thank God … Thank God this murder was not