Read HOME RUN for Free Online

favours . . . Two, the German engineer on his way to Hamadan, and at Hamadan is a missile development factory. Good stuff, stuff we can confront our friends in Bonn with, make them quite uncomfortable
    . . .I've marked up all of what I consider to be relevant, five points in all. The training camp at Saleh-Abad north of Qom, that's useful. Fine stuff."
    The Director General had carefully placed his pencil on the table. He upturned a glass and filled it with water from a crystal jug.
    "And who is going to emerge as the power among the clerics, and how long the war is going on, and what is the state of disaffection amongst the population, am I to presume that is unimportant?"
    "No, Mattie. Not unimportant, simply outside your brief.
    Analysis is for diplomatic missions, and they're good at it. I trust there will be more of this."
    "Yes."
    "Who is the source?"
    "I think I've got your drift, Director General."
    "1 asked you, who is the source?"
    "I will make sure that a greater flow of similar material reaches you."
    The Director General smiled. The first time that Mattie had seen the flicker of the lines at the side of his mouth.
    "Please yourself, Mattie, and have a good trip."
    Charlie Eshraq was personal to Mattie, and would not be shared with anyone. He stood, turned and left the room.
    Going down in the lift he wondered what the boy was making of his present. It was personal and private to Mattie that on his last journey inside Charlie had killed two men, and equally personal and private that on this journey he would kill another.
    They had been colleagues since University, since the youth section of the Party, since sharing an office in the Research Division headquarters in Smith Square. They had entered Parliament at the same election, and the Cabinet in the same reshuffle. When their leader finally determined on retirement they would probably compete in the same dogfight for the top job. That time had not yet come, they were close friends.
    "I'm dreadfully sorry, George."
    Once the Home Secretary's assistant had brought in the coffee, placed it on the desk and left, they were alone. It was rare for two such men to meet without a phalanx of notetakers and agenda minders and appointment keepers. The Secretary of State sat exhausted in an easy chair, the plaster dust and the cobwebs still on his overcoat. "I want something done about this stinking trade."
    "Of course you do, George."
    The Secretary of State looked hard into the Home Secretary's face. "I know what you are up against, but I want them found and tried and I shall pray you get them convicted and sentenced to very long terms, every last one of the bastards that killed Lucy."
    "Very understandable."
    "My detective told me that we are stopping one kilo out of ten that comes in . . ."
    "We have stepped up recruitment of both police drugs officers and Customs. We've put a huge resource at the disposal . . . "
    The Secretary of State shook his head. "Please, not a Party Political, not between us. I've got to go back to Libby tonight, I've to tell her where her - our - daughter died, and then I shall have to leave her and put on a cheerful face for dinner, ironically enough with some bigwigs from Pakistan, from the heart of what I expect you know is the Golden Crescent. I don't think, and I mean this, I don't think Libby will survive lonight if I cannot give her your solemn promise that Lucy's killers will be found and brought to book."
    "I'll do what I can, George."
    "She was a lovely girl, Lucy, before all this . . . "
    "Everything we can do, that is a promise. You'll give my love to Libby. I'm so very sorry."
    "Oh, you'd by God be sorry if you had seen how Lucy died, how she was - dead - and where she died. Libby will need the strengh of twenty to survive this. In my heart of hearts I have known, for almost a year, how it might end but I couldn't imagine the depths of it. You must see it day in and day out, but this time the minuscule statistic on your desk is my