Old Enemies

by Michael Dobbs

  The church was dark, its atmosphere almost conspiratorial, rich with gilt, polished wood and incense. A service was in progress, a bell ringing, a priest’s sonorous voice raised in prayer while a scattering of penitents shuffled along behind him. Sean stumbled towards a corner pew and sat slumped, head bowed, automatically making the sign of the cross.

  ‘Thank you for that,’ he whispered hoarsely, turning from the altar to Harry.

  ‘I hope you haven’t come here to confess,’ Harry replied, ‘we haven’t got that much time.’

  ‘I’m trying to catch me sodding breath,’ Sean muttered. ‘Anyway, you feckin’ heathen, last time I took a look I was a Catholic. I think you’ll find this is Orthodox.’

  ‘I take the word of a true believer.’

  ‘Me?’ He shook his head wearily. ‘I’m not so much of a believer in anything.’

  ‘Except things Irish.’

  ‘My country right or wrong?’ Sean shook his head. ‘Never been that blind. Happy to leave that to the British.’ They were sparring again, but there seemed to be no personal malice in it, they had moved beyond that.

  ‘Do you hate everything British, Sean?’

  ‘No, just some of the things they’ve done in my country.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you, I—’

  ‘I wasn’t at Bloody Sunday, Sean.’

  ‘But you’re part of the system that was.’

  ‘I never shot an Irishman in the back.’

  ‘There must have been others.’

  ‘It was a war. People get hurt.’ And there had even been one Irishman, an informer, Harry had shot in cold blood – executed, for want of a better word, and Harry had never found one. The man had been on his way to hand over information that would have resulted in the deaths of many others. Rough justice, some would call it. Murder, according to others. ‘Looking back, it’s easy to think maybe we could have found a better way. But you’re part of a system, you don’t set the rules, don’t get to pick and choose. Perhaps that was one of the reasons I left the army and became a politician. I wanted to set some of the rules, not just follow them blindly.’

  Sean was staring at the altar again, his hands still gripped as though in prayer, with a strange light in his eye. Strangely, there were tears gathering, too. The shock, Harry thought, until Sean spoke.

  ‘You know, Mr Jones, the two of us have more in common than perhaps we’ve a liking for. You get involved, sure you do. You get sucked in, little by little, isn’t that the way? Do your bit for a cause you believe in, that seems so right. There are limits, of course, a line you’ll never cross, you’re not a criminal or one of those crazies, but then . . . Then you wake up one rainy morning and find you’ve already left that line so far behind you that you can never go back, no matter how hard you run. I’d seen that happen – to others. It was going to be so very different for me. That’s why I tried to stick to the money and the scams, claiming for the broken legs rather than breaking them myself, but those hard bastards on the Army Council, men like Adams and McGuinness, they would insist on you taking one more step, doing that little bit more, until it got to a point that you’d lost sight of where you’d come from. All the friends, all the dying. It was too much, we went too far. We ended up killing more of our own than ever you bastards did.’ He turned to stare at Harry. ‘My mother, God rest her gentle soul, used to say it wasn’t important just to see the light, you had to know whether it was a moonbeam or lightning. You had to know the difference, she said. Somewhere along the road we lost all that, lost the moonbeams. Bloody Friday, Bloody Sunday, Bloody Christmas – what was the difference in the end? I wish I believed in God, then maybe he’d sort it out for me. But I don’t.’ He laughed, drily. ‘No, don’t you go looking at me like that, Mr Jones. Sure I cross myself, it’s what we Irish do, but I was schooled by the Christian Brothers and beaten every day for the terrible sin of wanting to write with my left hand, and beaten all the more when I wouldn’t shove that same hand up their stinking cassocks. No, I lost my faith a long time ago, and now I don’t believe in anything much, except for my family. That’s why I’m here, not for God but for Ruari, and if I’m on my knees praying it’s for Ruari, not for myself, just in case there is a God.’ He sighed, as though he was worn out by many things, and he looked once more directly into Harry’s eyes. ‘What’s done is done, Mr Jones. Those people who were once terrorists have got themselves some votes and now we call them politicians. I’m a sharp bookkeeper who became a respectable businessman. And you – well, I told you once I’d never trust you. But I don’t trust most of the other bastards, either, not even myself at times. And as long as you’re here for Ruari, I guess that’s good enough for me.’

  A confession? A truce? An offering of peace? Harry wasn’t sure, but it was good enough for him. They had a job to do.

  ‘Come on, Sean, let’s be having you. There’s a war to fight out there. Time to give me some of that old rebel shit.’

  She found her husband on the patio overlooking the garden. It was a place where, over the years and in the summer, he would sit with his papers while he listened to Ruari playing on the grass below, being there for them if not entirely with them. Now the gardens were empty, frost-bare, and he sat wrapped in a thick overcoat and muffler, his face as grey as the tin sky above.

  ‘I think I’ve done it,’ J.J. said in a strained, reluctant voice, his eyes staring out into the distance, sightless. ‘I’ve got some venture-cap people to give me a loan against the newspaper shares. They buy them if the partners won’t, I pay them back if they do.’ But the lines carved like mountain fissures across his face said there was not a word of good news in the whole affair. ‘Either way we lose the newspaper for a fraction of its worth. And everything else, too.’

  Terri stood near to him. It was Christmas cold but she couldn’t feel it, could feel nothing except his pain.

  ‘Five million. He’s worth it, isn’t he?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course he is.’

  ‘But what if . . . what if we don’t get him back, Terri?’

  The thought had never left her.

  ‘And what about us?’ he added.

  It was a moment they both knew had to come. Total, brutal honesty. It was what kidnap forced upon families. There could be no hiding place from the truth. This wasn’t just about Ruari, it was about them all. Was it right to destroy everything they had, just for one? It was the question they could no longer avoid, along with many others. His eyes were on her now, fearful of many things.

  ‘Are you in love with Harry Jones?’

  ‘You know a part of me has always been in love with him, J.J., for old times’ sake. But that has never, ever got in the way of my love for you.’

  ‘And now?’

  Even at moments of total honesty it wasn’t always possible to answer. She simply didn’t know, wasn’t sure.

  ‘Are you still sleeping with that woman from the bank?’

  He flinched. How did she know? How long had she known? His mind raced, it had never been more than a little game, of no great consequence, it wasn’t the same as Harry Jones. But the more he protested to himself, the more confused he grew. He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not,’ he told her. Then he added: ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me, too, J.J.,’ she whispered. Her hand brushed gently on his sleeve as she left.

  Harry and Sean were single-minded men in pursuit of mayhem, and they had preparations to make. They checked out the car where Karim said it would be – a Renault estate with the keys smuggled up its exhaust and two new sleeping bags on the back seat. Sean had nothing but the clothes he stood in, so there were purchases to make, a couple of fresh shirts, a waterproof, underwear, toiletries. Some bottled water and chocolate. And cash for Sean in case of emergencies. ‘Never thought I’d be selling out to the Brits,’ he muttered, stuffing notes into his pocket. But first, and most important, was a new mobile phone for him, an iPhone to match Harry’s. If their mayhem was to have any c
hance of success, they needed to remain in touch.

  By the time they had finished, dusk was beginning to fall. 21st December, the longest night of the year, and the lights of the city began to ignite and multiply along the streets. A change had come over the two men since their conversation in the church; Sean had grown quiet once again, withdrawn, as if he had already said too much. Harry took the lead in making all their arrangements while Sean hung alongside, like a fish swimming into a current, marking time with a languid flick of its tail, refusing to rise to any bait or distraction. He kept looking at Harry, reassessing, both curious and cautious about what he saw.

  They rested in the Renault for an hour until darkness had taken full hold. ‘I think it’s time,’ Harry said as the bells on the city clocks began tolling seven. ‘You ready?’

  Sean didn’t reply, merely climbed awkwardly out of the car. He was stiff, aching from Harry’s body tackle and his encounter with the pavement. Harry would have preferred to walk, it wasn’t more than fifteen minutes at a stroll, a chance to clear his mind, but watching Sean hobble took the point out of it, so they hailed a taxi and directed it to the Little Balkans. There they began their bar crawl, retracing Harry’s footsteps of the night before.

  They had decided that Sean would go into the bar first, order a beer, find a corner into which he could fade. Some minutes later Harry would appear, order his own drink, making sure the barman saw the crisp £200 note in his wallet – only one, he didn’t want there to be so much on show it would encourage a mass mugging – and when the time was right he would quietly press for news. So they began. At the first bar they got nothing but a scowl of suspicion from the bartender, which grew even deeper when Harry promised to return the following evening. It was much the same story at the second, and barely different at the third, where the bartender tried to spin a story that he reckoned was worth the money but was nothing more than froth on the bar-room floor. The patter was established; Harry would leave, followed a little later by Sean, and they would head on a short walk through the crumpled streets of the Little Balkans to their next encounter.

  They stopped for a slice of pizza after the fifth, at an Anatolian takeaway that stank of old fat, but the Little Balkans wasn’t a place to be fussy. Harry wasn’t sure he’d seen a true Italian during the past hour; many of the faces were considerably darker, some distinctly Asian or African, their expressions strained, their skin sallow, telling unfinished tales of hardship.

  It happened in the sixth. Sean had tucked himself into the corner of a bar barely wider than a railway carriage, hiding beside a cooler cabinet with a cracked door that had been clumsily repaired with gaffer tape. The place wasn’t busy but was filling as the evening drew on, its three tables occupied, while the other drinkers stood and leaned, and already some were leaning farther than others. The barman had a distinctive mouth beneath his moustache, with a chipped front tooth and a gold molar, and neither his clothes nor his hair had received much attention for a couple of days. When Harry walked in he went directly to the same spot he’d occupied on his previous visit and ordered a beer; the barman poured it carefully, wiping the spillage from the bottom of the glass with a towel, his eyes alert as he pushed it across the bar. Harry paid, once again taking care to display the note in his wallet.

  ‘Is good,’ the barman muttered. ‘You wait.’

  Harry took the top off his beer then left the rest untouched. A puddle of dampness from his glass began to spread across the varnished wood in front of him, while in the reflection of the smudgy mirror he examined the other punters. He learned nothing except that a good number of them were excessive and even desperate drinkers, if their dull eyes and unsteady hands were to be believed, but did desperation make them more or less likely candidates as kidnappers? He couldn’t tell. And perhaps the barman wasn’t to be trusted, anyway. After a while Harry arched his eyebrows in impatience. ‘Is good,’ the reply came back once more.

  Then two men who were sitting at the back of the bar got up to leave, emptying their glasses and pulling on their jackets, but as they passed behind Harry they stopped, and stood either side of him at the bar. The barman exposed his chipped tooth. ‘My money,’ he demanded. Harry knew it could be a set-up, a mugging in the making, the easiest way in the world to deprive him of his money, but he had no choice. He opened his wallet, so wide that they could all see he had only a single large note in it, and slid it across the bar. The barman grabbed it in the same moment that one of the men touched Harry’s sleeve and turned towards the door.

  The newcomers were younger than Harry, dark, very Latin, as Harry knew most Romanians were, unkempt, and seemingly fit. His excitement mounted, along with his caution. He would have to be careful with these two, no matter what they intended. One led him to the door while the other followed close behind. Parked directly outside was an old white Transit van with battered bodywork, and faded lettering on its side suggesting it had once been used by a food-delivery company in Germany. The engine was already running, pouring out a stream of oily smoke as the two men opened the rear door and pushed Harry inside. They followed him, closed the door, and said not a word as they were driven off into the night.

  It was only after they had turned the first corner that one of the men drew a gun on him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Sean hobbled out into the street as the Transit van drove off leaving an acrid cloud of badly burned diesel. The street lighting in these parts was poor, and his eyesight old, and he couldn’t get the registration details, but that wasn’t so important. He fished out his new phone and switched to the tracking app that Harry had installed that afternoon, the software that linked his phone with Harry’s and recorded each other’s location by using updates from GPS and WiFi access points. A street map of Trieste flashed up on the screen; Sean was relieved to see a small avatar moving away from the point at which he was standing. It was heading south, towards the seafront. He studied it carefully as the avatar moved slowly through the grid of streets. There was no rush. If Harry’s plan worked, his phone would lead Sean straight to him.

  They searched Harry thoroughly, took away all the contents of his pockets, including his phone and wallet, then threw a blanket over him so that he could see nothing, but they didn’t harm or threaten him, apart from waving a gun in his face. And although he was travelling blind, the sounds he could hear told their own story. The traffic remained heavy, slow-moving, suggesting they were still in the city centre, and he could hear voices aplenty from the pavement. The van creaked and complained at every opportunity, its best years far behind it, and as they drove on Harry grew relieved, for clearly this was no simple mugging, they could have done that inside the van then dumped him on any backstreet. It seemed these men were interested in more than a few hundred euros. Harry estimated they hadn’t been driving more than ten minutes when the van began to slow, whining down through the gears, pulling off the main road and onto streets where the traffic was lighter. Then they were reversing along what was a narrow alleyway, judging from the sound. They stopped, someone was banging on the door, Harry was dragged out, not violently but still swathed in his blanket, across a small rubble-strewn yard then through a creaking door before being hustled up two flights of stairs. He knew from the hollow echo that the property they were in was empty, and from the glimpses of builders’ rubbish at his feet that it was under reconstruction. He wasn’t surprised to discover, when at last the blanket was pulled from his head, that he was in a room of raw plaster walls and naked pipework, strewn with builders’ gear and with nothing but a single bare bulb for light. In addition to the two who had brought him here there were two others; they were all armed, and all those arms were pointing directly at him.

  They searched him once again, this time more thoroughly, took his belt and his footwear. They bound his hands in front of him with his belt, not tightly but sufficient to ensure he could pull no surprises, and the inspection was intimate enough to leave his trousers flopping around his ankles.r />
  ‘What did the bastard have on him?’ Cosmin demanded.

  ‘Only these,’ Sandu replied, holding out a wallet, pen, loose change, wristwatch and phone.

  They spoke in rich Latin tones that Harry found easy on the ear, even if he understood no more than a few words of the language. Good morning, good evening, good night, please, thank you, more wine, cheers – a menu of words he’d picked up on a night out with a hard-drinking Romanian delegation during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels. He couldn’t follow any of this conversation but he knew what Cosmin was about. The Romanian inspected his shoes carefully before tossing them to one side, took the pen apart and threw its pieces after the shoes, grabbed the wallet, emptied out the small amount of beer money it still contained, ripped open the lining to see if anything else was hidden inside. He did the same with Harry’s coat. Then he picked up the phone. Cosmin looked at it suspiciously, turning it over in his hands; he’d had enough trouble with phones. He didn’t want to mess around with it in case it sent some sort of signal, but he knew that many phones could be tracked even when they were supposedly switched off.

  ‘What do you think, Nelu?’ he demanded.

  ‘Get rid of it,’ Nelu replied.

  Harry watched as they talked. He could tell that these were serious men, tough, not fools, and not amateurs. He sat propped against the wall, his hands tied, struggling to drag his trousers up his legs, surrounded by armed men, knowing they would be happy to kill him, and knowing in his own turn that he would have to kill every one of them.