Devil’s Harvest by Andrew Brown Page A

still hovering outside, and dived into the men’s bathroom. There was no knowing what might have transpired had the two cubicles been occupied. As fortune would have it, they were both free and Bartholomew tore at his belt and trouser buttons even as he slammed the cubicle door closed.
    What followed was an alarming explosion of pent-up excretory failures. ‘Faecal loading’ Maurice called it, but that didn’t capture the ferocity of the moment and what it produced. Bartholomew had longed for an expulsion like this for weeks, but now he felt dazed and a bit depleted.
    ‘Are you all right, Air Marshal?’ the secretary asked him when he emerged looking wan. He nodded, holding himself with as much dignity as he could muster, his thin hair stuck to his dome. He re-entered the small room. Richards had apparently not moved at all and said nothing about his sudden disappearance.
    ‘We’ve been fucked by the British obsession with paperwork,’ Bartholomew raged, ‘and a soldier in Saudi who doesn’t know a spanner from his arsehole. Why I thought the British army could conduct a sensitive mission and not fuck it up I’ll never know. Why the hell didn’t we just paint the thing in red, white and blue and fly the St George’s cross behind it?’
    Richards nodded solemnly, as if to emphasise his lack of culpability for the disaster.
    ‘But if that piece of metal can be traced back to a British Hellfire missile, Richards, then we have to retrieve it. Simple as that.’
    ‘I agree, Air Marshal. But before we risk an intervention like
that
’ – Bartholomew had thought they were back on firmer ground, but Richards’s accentuation of the word ‘that’ suggested otherwise – ‘we need to know whether it’s needed. We have to work out – on the likelihoods at least – what that piece of metal is. The UAV footage won’t give us a clearer image. What you have in front of you is the best close-up of the rogue piece that we can produce. We may have to base our assessment on theoretical trajectory modelling. God help us.’
    Bartholomew thought for a moment, and then said: ‘I may have just the person. Wait here.’
    He walked out for a second time, this time with as much purpose but without clutching at his backside. He headed with some satisfaction past the toilets, the jittery secretary watching, and went through the open doorway into the committee room. The room was now deserted, save for the BAE civilian packing up her laptop near the screen. She glared at him as he came up to her.
    ‘My apologies, Ms Easter.’
    She returned his sincerity with frigidity.
    ‘My premature exit from your presentation was necessitated by a serious problem.’
    The glimmer of a smile lightened her face considerably, but Bartholomew immediately felt disconcerted. Had he said something inopportune, using the word ‘premature’? Had he not said ‘exit’, could he have used another word? She cocked her head slightly – perhaps she wasn’t quite so icy after all, he thought. Old devil like me.
    ‘Prematurity aside, I wonder if you’d accompany me to meet a colleague. We have a small … but rather important query we’d like you to answer.’
    Ms Easter’s tight smile relaxed into a little laugh. She was too flattered by the request to maintain her standoffishness. And by his charm, he imagined. Obediently, she headed for the door, Bartholomew making a drama of ushering her before him.
    His delight with his impact on the woman soon dissipated, however. As they entered the small office, his younger counterpart immediately rose and flashed perhaps the first smile that Bartholomew had seen grace his visage. Ms Easter appeared to physically soften, her lips no longer pursed, her demeanour less Maggie Thatcher and rather more Joanna Lumley. Bartholomew felt vaguely jilted.
    The presence of a civilian on the fringes of a covert operation made Bartholomew anxious and he outlined the issue to her in the vaguest of terms. Could she provide