The Outsiders by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online

afternoon, the temperature in the low seventies – when his employer had called him into the office. A folded wad of American dollars had lain on the desk and he realised he had been sold on. He had turned to face those who had purchased him, his new employers, and had thought them to be army people. All three lacked an index finger on the right hand.
    The previous evening, in the Trabzon hotel’s coffee shop, he had eaten a light dinner – alone. He had gone to his room and had sent the encrypted messages, exactly as he had been instructed. He had heard them, late in the evening, come back down the corridor to their own rooms and the suite. He had burned at the outrage he had suffered. They had thought a slap on his shoulder and the pretence of a hug sufficient to erase it.
    They had been wrong.
    Sometimes they were wary of him, as if he were a stranger, and sometimes they simply ignored him. He accepted the suspicion, but he had fashioned computer systems that meant they were blind without him. On the flight between Trabzon and Haydar Aliyev or Baku, he had decrypted the returning answers to the messages he had sent the previous evening and passed them, in clear, to the Major. He had kept out of earshot as they were discussed, which was expected of him: the future itinerary was in place. He had been given back the laptop – state-of-the-art – and cleaned it of the exchanges. Then he had murmured something about toothache and the need to find a chemist in Baku. They would have heard him, but only the master sergeant responded with a little flap of the hand. He was not asked how bad his toothache was. They had been met at the airport by the people they would negotiate with. He was given a schedule and told what time they expected to arrive at the hotel into which they were booked.
    Natan went through the door into a lobby. At the far end he saw a heavy glass door that he assumed to be blast-proof, a shielded reception desk with a microphone to speak into, and a small air-lock through which documents could be passed. If he had gone to the American embassy he would have been stuck in a booth outside a security perimeter and they would have had small interest in him. It was the British he needed to make contact with. He had information to trade, and would do so with no backward glance. A wave of fear enveloped him. They would flay the skin off his back if they knew, or rip out his nails and teeth. They would wire him to the electricity and slice off his genitalia. He saw a portrait of the British Queen, a poster of rolling fields, a notice inviting submissions for an essay competition and another about the visit of a theatre group. He went to the counter. He tried to find his voice. He felt hands grasping him from behind and dragging him away. On each hand a finger was missing. They would hurt him – and then they would kill him. He had betrayed them.
    He stammered, ‘I want to see a security officer on a matter of intelligence.’
     
    ‘Course I am. Really looking forward to it.’
    ‘That’s brilliant.’
    Jonno hadn’t been able to reach her until late last evening – she’d said she’d been out with a girlfriend. He’d blurted out the invitation – there had been times in the last month or two when he’d almost convinced himself that Posie was cooling on him. There had been a pause when he’d made the offer. He’d sensed a sucking-in of breath, a big decision being weighed. And then she’d said she’d come. It was the morning after, and she’d slipped out from work, having pleaded her own sob story with her line manager. The coffee-house was about halfway between their desks.
    ‘It’s going to be good.’
    ‘I hope so.’
    She was rueful: ‘I’ve never been there. The rest of the world’s been to the Costa, but not me.’
    ‘I haven’t either. I don’t really know what to expect.’
    ‘Sun, sangria and . . .’ There was a diamond touch in her eyes.
    Jonno said quickly, ‘We’ll set the