They were outside his door, and the voices were in his ears, and a guy who sounded like an old schoolmaster cooed, ‘A woman for business, a goat for choice, a boy for pleasure’, and another who shouted, ‘The old song is appropriate, “There is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach – but alas I cannot swim”, but I’ll fucking try, it’d be worth drowning for.’ Cackles of laughter, then gradually it went quiet and he was in the corner, hunched on the bunk bed, tears on his face. He had not undressed and was too afraid to sleep.
In the morning the doors were unlocked and ‘friends’ were gathered there. Four of them. They had light-coloured skin, and they spoke with South Shields accents. They were there, they said, to protect him. Nothing was asked of him, not then. He had cringed with gratitude. The four had formed up around him and they had gone together to get breakfast. There was a small and defined Yemeni clan in Holme House Prison, and all were from South Shields. A warder had later said to him that he should find protection where he could get it. ‘Play along with it, young ’un, because that’s your best chance.’ All done seamlessly. He was moved at the end of that first day, to another cell in a different wing, and he shared with a new ‘friend’, and he did not know why. He stayed in that group, always close to them; some carried small knives they had made from razor blades and attached to toothbrush handles. He had settled, had survived the first week, and without them would have been ravaged. Nothing had been asked of him. It was the start of the road that had brought him to this village.
A man drove a pick-up at the pole and nudged the vehicle’s weight against it, uprooted its base, let it topple. Belcher thought it would be left there until the next time it was needed, and by its mere presence it would be good for maintaining discipline.
He could only wait. Could clean his weapon, and eat some food as the darkness fell, and wash his clothes, and look to see if the cloud cover broke, could watch and could listen. He was a favoured man. Before any attack of significance he would be called out and a task given him. A meeting of principals was rumoured, spoken of in hushed tones. He would be there. When he knew the detail, then he could identify the vehicle, he hoped, then learn the location, then get to the archaeologist. He would have won his freedom. He thought about her. He had never known a woman like her. He thought about her often, about her face and her hair tucked away modestly under a scarf, and her clear eyes. Thinking of her tamed the fear.
The sun had gone.
In the distance, further up the road and under a plateau of raised ground, was the tent camp, where the flag of the military hung limply, but he could not see that any longer, only the flicker of stunted lights. A boy came into the village and drove his goats ahead of him; the boy’s dog growled at him. Belcher thought what he wanted most was to touch the girl’s arm, let his fingers feel the skin above the wrist and the big watch she wore. He wanted that more than he longed to sit on the rocks under the sea wall and see the ships that carried chemicals up the coast. He wanted to touch her. He knew it would come to a climax, everything in his life, but had no dream of a future, and did not know how to look for it.
‘Good luck, Boss,’ Slime whispered. Nothing from Rat.
The guide led. Corrie had not bonded with Jamil; he knew little of him beyond the brief history provided by Jericho. Rat would track them because he had the infra-red optics. Corrie had nothing. In his first few steps Jamil had shown he could move quickly and quietly over the ground and down the slope.
Corrie cursed himself. There was no sound from in front of him and he was barely able to make out the shadow figure, but a half dozen steps over the rim and Corrie had triggered a small but noisy avalanche of grit and stone. He was hissed at, deserved to be.
A part of the legend was that he, Corrie, had gone for ten days across what they called ‘enemy-infested territory’, as a fugitive, hunted and with his life on the line, and with a severe injury to a leg. He had come through. George, he knew, had heard of the odds piled against him when he was not a hundred yards clear of the compound, and had heard a résumé of what had followed, and had gone to the senior staff toilet and thrown up. Lizzie, and he’d seen it, had dabbed an eye – she had a reputation for being as hard and cold as pig iron. His matter-of-fact rendition at Tidworth had flattened the audience, left them clasping fingers, clearing throats. Irrelevant now. Corrie Rankin, desk man for two years plus and with one brave episode in his knapsack, pushed on. It was a scramble to get to the bottom. More earth and more stones were dislodged and at the base he cannoned into Jamil, who held his arm as he groped to steady himself. His fist found the rifle stock.
He sensed Jamil’s anger. He must be quieter, move with more care. He knew it, but did not know whether he could help himself. They went on.
Crows, they might have found carrion, squawked and took off in front of them; the noise seemed deafening, though might not have been. He was two paces behind Jamil. He realised that he had not worn the boots often enough, and he felt the discomfort under his toes, the start of a blister: in Syria he’d had blisters on his feet and on the palms of his hands and on his knees. He ignored it. He thought about the old boy who grew geraniums in front of his ground-floor flat, which he walked past when he went to work, wondered how he was, and whether Clarice was up yet, doing her kids’ lunch boxes before going to clean the corridors of his work area, where the chair would stay empty throughout that day and the next few. Sometimes he could see Jamil, spare and thin, directly ahead of him, but sometimes he was too far in front. Corrie reached out for him but blundered – clumsy from the old injury – and again he heard the hissed reproach. The guide collected three sticks; dried out by the sun, they would be useful for a desert fire. Then he saw the first light. He manoeuvred himself a half-pace to the right, keeping Jamil’s body against the light as a marker point.
How was he to get in? What was the sentry pattern? He had seen it in daylight, could not judge it in darkness. There was no moon and the cloud was constant. What was the wire like? How many strands? He could not cut it because that left a calling card. He was glad that Rat hadn’t volunteered himself; he’d be better on his own, with his guide who would stay outside the perimeter. He had memorised the layout of the tent camp. He knew where the troops had their day tent, and where they slept, and where the entrance was – and knew where her toilet and shower had been erected, and where her tent was. There was another smaller tent behind Henrietta Wilson’s and that would be where her maid lived. If the troops were disturbed, thought there had been an incursion, they would shoot. If they fired in the night then the whole damn thing was screwed. He weighed each footfall.
They reached the wire. There was no moon, but the strands were lit by a lamp that swung slowly from the entrance to the tent Corrie thought the troops used. He could hear voices there and a radio playing softly – and to the right a cigarette flared occasionally, illuminating a teenage soldier’s face. Jamil took Corrie’s hand and very gently edged it forward. His fingers touched the wire and he heard something metallic rattle. Corrie had not seen that discarded tins were hung from the wire’s strands. He imagined them now.
‘So, George, how did it all cock up, with all the inevitable fallout?’
‘Sorry and all that, director, but the boy wasn’t as good as I thought him. Fell at the first hurdle, got caught in the wire short of his first contact. Embarrassing, but I thought better of him.’
‘Probably ring-rusty’.
‘He disappointed me – I had high hopes.’
The wire might have been a gift from NATO; a master sergeant or an NCO from the Foreign Legion had probably showed them how to unroll it to maximum effect. Corrie and Jamil found and pulled up from the ground a pin holding the wire down, loosening the coil so the kid could lift it. His three pieces of wood were all put to use. The strands were pulled up, and propped up using the sticks. Corrie’s hands were smeared with blood, warm in the night. The guide pointed past what Corrie thought was her toilet and shower to a single vertical lin
e of thin light where the tent flaps had not been fully hooked.
Two guards, chatting and carrying a small of torch, walked nearby. They took an age to get past them, pausing and lighting cigarettes and waving the beam without intent, but eventually they moved on. They had automatic rifles, of course, magazines attached. There was a scrap of plastic that might have been torn from a shopper’s bag. It was trapped by a stone and the guide took it and looped it on the wire as a marker when he returned there. Corrie understood. Did he trust Jamil? He might do, but he wasn’t sure. He could go through the wire and Jamil could cough, then slip away, and take the money they’d promised him. He trusted no one. He had the pistol at his belt and grenades in his rucksack. He went forward on his stomach, using his hands to drag himself. His stomach and knees scraped on sharp stones, and he fell into a pit – all he could feel were the vertical sides and his fingers scrabbled against them. He pulled himself up so that his head was above the edge. He waited for the sounds of shouting, and the stamp of boots and clattering as weapons were armed. He heard the wind on the flag and the rustle of the tents’ sides, and music, and gentle laughter.
He faced the entrance to the big tent, hers. He saw movement inside and heard the woman grunt. Corrie lifted the canvas where he found space between the ground sheet and the wall, and he went in fast and saw a folding table on which stood a metal bowl. There were two towels on a chair and a heap of clothes on top of them. And then he saw the hammer that she held, and saw that she wore only her sandals and her jeans and had already started to wash. The water dripped from her hair, from her armpits and from her breasts. He had only a moment in which to make a decision. What Corrie decided was that she would use the hammer, would beat his head to pulp if it seemed necessary. She did not cover herself but took a step towards him. He thought fast: she’d hit, disable him, then drag on a T-shirt, then shout. She moved towards him, and he noticed the single line where the flatness of her stomach was broken by an appendix scar. The hammer went up.
‘Well that, George, forgive my French, was a pretty fair fuck-up.’
‘A reasonable description, director, not disputed.’
Corrie saw the determined set of her mouth and said, quiet as a zephyr, ‘I’m Corrie. I’m the Sixer. Don’t hit me and don’t shout . . . don’t.’
Chapter 7
Henry Wilson’s arm dropped, and with it the hammer. She stood tall, did not cover herself. He had absolutely no doubt that if he had not spoken calmly, and if his hands had not stayed open where she could see that he carried no weapon, she would have battered him.
Corrie said, a whisper, ‘You can put down that weapon. I’m not a threat.’
She looked warily at him. There was a furrow in her forehead and freckles around the lines. The skin was sun-blotched there, and on her cheeks, and drips still ran from her fair hair.
‘You went to see Jericho, and I’m the contact, the result of what you passed him.’
She let the hammer drop on to the table, then flicked her head backwards. The last drops of water flew from her hair and were caught in the light from the hurricane lamp. She lifted up the towel that was hooked on the back of a chair, dried herself briskly, then pulled on her T-shirt.
‘If you have a radio you should turn it on, quite loudly.’
He thought her upper lip quivered as he issued an order rather than a request. He packed authority into his voice. She turned on a battery radio; there was something from the BBC’s World Service, a dialogue on the state of the Russian foreign currency reserves. She might be regretting playing the subordinate.
‘You’re the link, either a “dead drop” or “dead letter box”. Trade names, and you’re part of the trade. Did you know his name? I suppose he gave you it. He’s Belcher. I called him that. Shakespeare character, Toby Belch, and it went from there. We have kit – it’s a bogus rock with some electronics inside and the asset comes past and transmits to it, and we follow later and retrieve the data. Complicated and awkward. You’re the best system, as long as he can get to you, as long as I can trek here. Both those names, include the word “dead”. Not messing you, Miss, but you are less than useless to me if you are dead, and it needn’t happen. Stay careful, stay clean and you’ll stay safe. Quite lucky for us, finding you here. Do you know yet when Belcher is back, when he’s next here?’
The radio now talked about the plight of North African migrants and people-smugglers, and the hazardous journey across the Mediterranean, sailing north. She shook her head, again flicking her hair.
‘I have colleagues with me; we’re well distant of you but can see the camp. You should hang out that headscarf, the one on the chair, yes. Night or day, doesn’t matter, we’ll come down and get what you have for us. That’s about it.’
Corrie Rankin did not have the vocabulary that could adequately do justice to the shape of her nose, the outline of her mouth, the depth of her eyes, the colours in her hair where the lamp’s flicker caught the strands. He pointed again to the scarf, as if a reminder was needed. He turned to leave, could not justify staying longer.
‘When am I going to be left in peace?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Seems a simple question. How long till you’re gone, and Belcher? My work is valuable and important.’
‘But you were signed up, Miss. It’s what Jericho is good at – exceptional. Late in the day to look for an exit line. You’ll come out with us, and if it works we’ll be running, and if it doesn’t work then we’ll be running faster. Isn’t the Faraday Fracture good enough for you?’
She snarled, voice raised, like she didn’t care who heard her, and Corrie winced and she spat out, ‘I don’t know what the hell it is, or the “troughs” and “basins”. You want to know? I was going to Marib. I intended to check on the internet there what the fucking fracture is, but a guy was crucified beside the road, so it wasn’t a great idea to go into town and look it up. I don’t know. What is the fracture?’
‘It’s a trench, Miss. It’s a depression in the Atlantic Ocean’s floor. I come from a pleasant enough village in south Oxfordshire. There’s a well-tended churchyard there, with songbirds in summer and clean snow in winter and daffodils in the spring. The fracture, and the trough and the basin are not places where you’d want a disintegrating airliner to end up, and with it the people who had boarded that flight. Didn’t Jericho tell you that?’
The bombast had gone. Corrie saw he had killed the spirit in her, but he disliked what he had made her feel, even though her anger had intensified her prettiness.
Corrie said, ‘I’m sorry, Miss, to disabuse you, but we’ll be running however it ends. Running hard: it’s always the way with these things.’
The people at the Fort, the instructors who did counter-interrogation techniques with officers of the Service, preached the need to stay cool, calm and collected and saying nothing. It sounded good to some, easy to most of the young people who were new to the Service, and few would have taken it too seriously. Corrie had followed what he’d been told; he had said nothing and had play-acted dumb fear . . . Don’t get into conversations, they’d said, and, Don’t ever play silly bastards and reckon you can tell them a bit, but not what matters. He had taken the bad beatings. The instructors had rabbited about the psychology of severe questioning, what verged on torture – sleep deprivation, screams in the night, that stuff – but it had not been appropriate for where Corrie Rankin was. Beaten. Kicked. Punched. Burned with cigarettes, and his leg done with the iron bar. He had taken all they threw at him because he had wanted to live, and a girl in his mind had strengthened him. Staying quiet had been, Corrie thought, his sole chance of survival. If he had crumbled, the guard on him would have trebled, the price on his life would have tripled, and he’d have been fast-tracked towards the orange jumpsuit and the big kitchen knife. He doubted this girl would have stood up long to what he had faced. She’d have talked of Jericho, and it would have whetted their appetites, and they’d have wanted more. So, when he ran, sh
e would be running, if it fitted the schedule.
It would be good for her to think he cared for the safety of an agent. Did he? Possibly.
He crept out from under the side of the tent and made a fast-track to the wire, and the marked place where the wire was lifted and, after he’d gone under it, he retrieved the sticks and tried to scuff the ground over which he had crawled. Already her radio was off, and he wondered if she went back to her washing.
He saw the guide, Jamil, in front of him. They hurried towards the escarpment. Sometimes he saw the shadow of the guide, and sometimes it was the deeper darkness of the ridges, and heard the wind – heard her voice and saw her face, and reckoned she’d be useful.
Henry Wilson scrubbed her hands. She felt dirty. The radio signal for the World Service was good close to Marib; the programme carried clear and reassuring voices from studios in London. She cared nothing for the state of the Russian economy or where the migrants were landing or drowning. She cared about herself. There were great buildings in London where scholars and adventurers gathered, and she had dreamed of the time when she would be applauded by them; they would have come to hear her because she had risked so much for her work. It had been snatched from her. She could no longer talk about the next stage of her dig, nearer the Arsh Bilquis, where five exquisite columns still stood – the work of ancient masons – near to where the Spanish tourists had been massacred. If she ran in the night she would never return. If she did not run, she would end on a cross, as a man had that day. Judgements had to be made.
She thought the Sixer must have known extreme hardship: the obvious signs of discoloured facial scars, and the limp. He had been tested and would not have been used again if he had not come through fire successfully. He had not tried to sugar-coat the situation, had told it like it was. Had not explained his mission, its aim, or how they would quit; had seemed indifferent to her work. A leader, bored with carrying along passengers. And lonely, as she was. She thought he seemed to carry the weight of the world and did not intend to share the load. Truth was, Henry Wilson had never met a man set in that mould before. He had looked at her and through her and her nakedness had not fazed him. He could have looked away, blushed a bit, but he’d hardly seemed to notice. He had said he would get her out and she believed him – she had to. An alternative was the cross in the village on the road to Marib. Henry could not read and could not sleep, and padded aimlessly around her tent. Her whole life was here; all she owned. She saw the footmarks, the print of a man’s walking boot. Could have been that she had splashed water on the canvas groundsheet while washing, or might have been when she’d flicked her head back and water had rained on the floor. Two bootprints. She might not have seen them, but Lamya would – did she trust the maid? Did she trust anyone? Yes, she thought she did trust him – but his bootprint could put her on a cross. She shivered. Too many people lecturing her, and the Sixer was added to the list of Jericho and the police major; he had been nice. God, she yearned for a man, wanted – needed – to be held. She was frightened and had no comforter. In the morning they would all work together and start to dig a new trench, just a shallow one that would go up to their knees – not as deep as the fracture.
Jericho's War Page 18