Wings of the Morning (8 page)

DAVID HEAVEN —1965

The following evening, David was returning to his poky flat but turned into the local pub for a drink. There in the bar, he found a welcome surprise as the familiar face of
King Offenbach beamed at him over a pint of bitter.

‘Where the hell did you spring from?’ said David, ‘and anyway, how did you find me? Or is this all by chance? Whatever, King, how good to see you!’

‘Do I have to answer all the questions at once,’ drawled the black man ‘or how about I go ahead and buy you a drink so we can start talking from there?’

They took their drinks to a side table and sat facing each other. David was trying to remember when they had last met and thinking that it must have been here in London at one or other of the
post graduation bashes.

King anticipated the question.

‘The last time I saw you, David, you were very much the worse for wear in that club off Covent Garden, trying to remove from one of the dancers what little she was wearing. With your teeth
as I recall.’

David didn’t even have the grace to blush.

‘I just hope she enjoyed it as much as I’m sure I did, but honestly I don’t remember too much about some of those wild evenings. I’ve come down to earth since.’

‘Sure thing,’ King smiled ruefully, ‘well, I guess I got home about mid-September and pretty much straight back to work. But the good news is that my chief has lined me up for
a job in Europe, and as of a couple of days ago, I’m based in London out of our Embassy. I’ll be here for six months or more, so it looks like I get to spend Christmas and most of next
year in my favourite city. And since you’re wondering, I’ll tell you right off how I came to find you.’

But David had already worked this one out and answered in one word.

‘Pente’.

‘Right on’, said King, pointing an elegant finger, ‘that’s how I tracked you down. Plus I’ve got to tell you straight off that Pente reckoned you might be able to
put me up. Just for a night or so while I’m waiting for the Embassy to allocate me an apartment.’

‘Sure. It’ll be a real pleasure. But I’ve got to warn you that my place is small and scruffy. I’m hoping to move in the New Year, but I’ve had a few things to sort
out. That’s mostly because my father died suddenly a couple of months ago.’

‘Oh gee, David, I surely am sorry to hear that. You were close?’

‘No, not so much, except for during what has turned out to be the last year of his life.’

‘Yup. Family matters can surely be quite a challenge,’ King replied and then to change the subject he enquired, ‘Tell me other news, David. I know you’re pretty tight
with Conrad. How are things for him?’

And so they went on to talk — people, places and events. After an hour or so they left the pub and went for a meal at a friendly Italian restaurant just round the corner. They ate in a
peaceful corner, fussed over by Sergio who insisted on choosing a menu for them and telling them to take their time. It was an excellent ambience to encourage two normally reticent characters to
bare a little soul. King Offenbach started it.

‘David,’ he said, ‘ I guess you know I keep pretty close contact with Pente and the first thing I want to say to you about that is thanks!: it was you who introduced us shortly
after I arrived in Oxford.’

This was true. David remembered the occasion of getting a group together in the pub one evening to meet ‘the King’, and Pente had certainly been amongst them. But it was hardly a big
deal, and he said so.

‘Sure, I appreciate that,’ King went on, ‘but it’s become a bigger deal since, definitely for me and I think for Pente also. No, it’s nothing like that,’ he
chuckled as he saw David’s eyes start to widen. ‘Jeez, but you Brits drag sex into everything,’ and he waved away David’s protests, ‘let me concentrate on expressing
this.’ He paused to take a pull at his drink.

‘I guess you could say that Pente has become my spiritual adviser as well as close friend and confidant. So that’s the big thing you started. You see, religion is pretty damn
important for me — after all, I’m a boy from the wild wastelands of Carolina. I guess it’s both bred and beaten into me by way of a difficult family background and also it
troubles me that what I do for a living seems a fair way towards being at odds with the scriptures. I’ve got to say that good ole Pente has a way with his words and his analysis both, so now
I’ve gotten the habit of touching base with him on a regular schedule, just to chew the fat a bit and to run a few ideas past him. Plus there’s a reciprocal too. The only doubt which
troubles Pente about his calling is that he’s not exactly a natural for turning the other cheek. As you know, David, he can get awful steamed up about things and then his notion of Christian
justice gets to come a bit under the heading of brimstone.’

David kept his silence as King picked up his glass and drank again. Then he continued.

‘David, I do need to be quite straight with you now about something which Pente guessed the first time we talked and which I know he mentioned to you. It’s true. I do work for the US
Government, specifically the CIA and yes, those guys picked me from school and bankrolled my education including my time at Oxford. Telling you this is no indiscretion. It’s not going to get
either of us shot though it’s not something I advertise. But I figure it’s important you know.’

There was a silence between them before David took up the conversation.

‘Well. There’s a bit to think about here, King. First thanks for saying your piece. I’m pleased to hear how you and Pente work for each other, plus I endorse all you say about
Pente’s character and intellect. I’m sure you have a calming influence on him when needs must, but frankly, I’m amazed how Pente can keep himself quiet when he feels he must. He
may have guessed your profession, but I told him he was talking rubbish and he didn’t put me straight. That’s loyalty for you and I admire him for it.’

David paused to light up before he continued. ‘But look, King, it’s great news that you’re stationed over here for a while. Will you be in London throughout?’

‘No, not the whole time. I’ll be making some trips into Africa from time to time. The project is joint with your guys, and I can say that it involves finding out more about drug
cartels operating into both Europe and the States. I’m part of our Africa team as I speak some of the languages well enough, and because it’s a little easier for me to blend into the
background there.’

King gave his charming, languid smile and David laughed with him.

‘Is it dangerous?’ he asked, ‘a pretty stupid question I suppose.’

‘Well actually, David, there’s mostly danger when you stop believing that it might be there, if you follow me. Research rather than confrontation is the phase we’re on right
now, and anyway, it’s not all wasting and women in the Service.’

David sensed the reticence and was not surprised to find himself politely dismissed. They went on to talk of other things and to reminisce happily together over their days at Oxford. Then King
asked him about his plans and David tried to explain his vaguely formed conviction that Sol and Martin Kirchoff represented the future which he wanted to pursue.

‘Makes sense to me. I can see that this sort of outfit and the international aspect would be a real good outlet for your energy. A few centuries back, I reckon you’d have given Sir
Francis Drake a run for his money.’

Over coffee and a second bottle, David said that he was going to the Avelings at Barrington Park over Christmas and invited King to stay in the flat as long as he wanted.

‘Of course’, he added, ‘I can always ring Connie and get you along too. I’m sure he’d be delighted and God knows, they’ve got enough space.’

‘Thanks and I’d like to, but I’m arranged already. I’m off to Amersham or near to. My contact at the Embassy, Mark Leary, has fixed for me to be with him and his family.
He’s a buddy from way back and we work together. I’ll give you his details and he can always reach me when I’m overseas. Pente’s got the arrangement too.’

‘What about your apartment?’

‘They say I can move in before the New Year, so if you’re around, come over and see the glories of the US of A in Grosvenor Square.’

David was happy to do just that and he rang King as soon as he returned from the Avelings, offering to go round to help shift some boxes. But before he left his flat, he had a call from Martin
Kirchoff.

‘Are you still OK for New Year’s Eve, David?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Great. It’s just the timing. Sol and I wondered if you could come over earlier in the day. We’ll have lunch together and you get off after that. I’m afraid Sol has had
another contact from that Riley guy, and he’s insisting on coming in early afternoon to talk about arrangements for the New Year. I don’t want our time together to be spoilt by that
visit and there’s no need for you to be involved.’

David was quiet for a few seconds. He was minded to say a lot in reply but he told Martin that he would be happy to arrive at lunch time.

‘We can take it from there’, he said and they hung up with a note of relief in Martin’s voice. David had no intention of leaving early. If he was going to join this little
business and its owners, he was going to earn his keep from the first. Whilst resting between packing cases, he laid out the situation to King Offenbach and asked if he would be willing to come
along with him.

‘I’m afraid it’s New Year’s Eve’, he said, ‘and I’ll quite understand if you can’t make it.’

‘No problem for me. I won’t get put to work for a couple of days yet and I’d be happy to help sort things out for your friends. You know, we get a whole lot of this protection
racket business in the States, and you’d be amazed at the number of Mom and Pop stores as we call them, which will put up with any amount of abuse. I understand why, it just makes me mad as
hell at these sleazebags.’

‘I’m relieved, King, and grateful already. But I suppose we need some sort of plan how to handle things.’

‘Hell, no’, King chuckled, ‘my advice is to play things off the bat and you’ll find the right way’. It will come to you soon as you get started talking to these
guys. I’ll keep a back seat, but remember you‘ll have all the backup you need.’

So it was that when David turned up again in Bayswater at around noon on New Year’s Eve, he was accompanied by a tall, lithe black American whom he introduced as a friend from Oxford days,
just over in London on a business trip. Martin received this news with equanimity. Sol, in full character, turned on his most boisterous welcome and was as genially dominating as before, but David
wondered how much he was dreading the arrival of his next visitors.

They had lunch together as a foursome in a nearby pub, exchanging small talk, returning promptly to the office. As the afternoon wore on, Martin responded to a request from King to show him
something of the firm’s export financing systems and David was surprised to see King absorb himself in the detail with evident relish. He himself was then rescued by Sol, who beamed at him
and announced that this was their opportunity to have a little talk in private. He led the way up the spiral staircase and they entered the upstairs meeting area which seemed larger than David
remembered. They sat facing each other across the table which centred in the room. Sol became suddenly earnest and produced from under his arm a well used folder which he announced as being the
source of all necessary information on Kirchoff and Son.

‘Davy’, he said, ‘the guiding principles of any business, be it ICI or a market stall, is that you must have a product which people want to buy, and secondly, you must cherish
your customers. Everything else flows from these two commandments. Now in our case, you might think that the product is to be found within these pages’, and he riffled through a kaleidoscope
of ploughs, tractors and trailers interspersed with endless obscure widgets. ‘But it’s not. All these products are important for sure but for us, Davy, our business is the total service
which we provide to bring these things to our customers all over the world.’

David felt patronised. ‘Sol,’ he replied, ‘I already know that your business is in export trading. You don’t have to make a mystery out of it.’

‘Fair enough and I stand rebuked,’ he shot back with a disarming grin, ‘and yet that’s my very point. I don’t seek to make a mystery. I just want you to understand
my philosophy, which is that if you look after the customer, he will in turn look after us.’ He laid emphasis on that final word, ‘us’, and then he sat back in his chair to look
David in the eye. Both of them knew what was coming next.

‘Davy’, he said, ‘I’m going to suggest that it’s time for both of us to take a little gamble. You need a job. You don’t really know what. You have been
imagining that you will go to work one day for some big shot colossus where you’ll wear sharp suits and eat one day in the senior staff canteen. You’ve never dreamt of throwing in your
lot with some little Jewish outfit. What will the family say?’

‘I don’t have a family.’

‘Sure. I know that. And I didn’t say it to offend. But you know what I mean, Davy. You come to work for Kirchoff and Son, and tongues will wag. No?’