‘I’m trying to make this out.’
‘What do you have?’
‘It’s hard to read, but it’s for us.’
Casper and Xavier were in their seats. Bart had pressed close behind them and the big screen went monochrome. Half a world away, the Predator drone flew over the rim of the plateau. The lens showed a slight figure, head wrapped and features unseen, booted, who knelt in the ground and scratched at it with what might have been a hunting knife and, painfully slowly, gouged out a message.
‘I reckon I’ve a “B”. Roger that?’
‘It’s a “B”, confirmed. Bravo.’
‘What he’s doing now? That’s coming out like a zero.’
‘Take it as an “O”.’
‘So, we have the message of Bravo Oscar. You got a codebook, some literature for Bravo Oscar, Bart?’
‘Never came up in the briefings.’
‘We have anything back from your people, Bart?’
‘Not yet – maybe it’s a lunch-break, or maybe IS is going down Main Street in Baghdad. You just have to send it off to Hurlbert Fields, then they’ll – if they can get their hands out from under their butts – call up the fusion centres. It goes to JSOC and CIA, any customer we have. Nothing yet. Just thinking . . .’
‘What?’
‘You ever been to UK, Casper?’
‘No, nor has Xavier, best of my knowledge – what are you saying?’
‘I did a course there, Defence Intelligence. It’s what they say to an unwelcome guest – Bravo Oscar.’
‘What do they say?’
‘A Brit says – to anyone they don’t want to spend time with – Bravo Oscar, or rather Bugger Off – excuse my language.’
‘Getting the drift . . . Jeez. Thanks, Bart.’
‘For nothing. Pull her out, get clear of them.’
Casper said, ‘What I’m wanting to say, Bart, and hear me out Xavier, is that there are guys down there, hanging out. That is a hell-hole of a place. They got AQ there like sardines in a tin. Guys on the ground and we’ve not seen, nor been told about, any back-up. Sort of place, if you get taken, then it’s a catastrofuck. We’ve good seats here, sort of balcony view.’
Xavier said, ‘For the moment, only as long as the weather holds.’
Bart said, ‘I heard the weather wasn’t good. Didn’t think the Brits did this sort of shit any more.’
A wriggle of messages was on the move.
They slipped into filters and decoders and splayed out again, and looked for a hole to be pegged into. The query – whether the various agencies operating under the US flag had assets in place to the north of Marib and close to the bottom end of the Empty Quarter, harsh desert – found no quick answers. Langley came up with nothing, nor the Pentagon, but the question mark over BO was relayed to the big field station in the Saudi city of Riyadh and to the base in Djibouti from which the American military operated. There, no low-life technician was going to come up with bullion-standard information on where an attack squad was deployed, and answers were on the lines of, ‘I’ll check it out, be back soon as I can.’ So, the net widened, the trawl was extended. Had the Germans people on the ground? Had the French? Had the British? And denials logged up . . . with an exception. Up on the Third Floor of a garish building overlooking the Thames river, the trail started by an intelligence analyst in a darkened cubicle on the far side of the world came to a juddering halt.
‘Admit it, and the next thing we’re fucking well fielding is why – why we did not first share with our esteemed ally. That is a big number on the Richter Scale. They’ll be all over us. They get very tetchy when we don’t go on bended knee and report what we’re up to. And have we not yet raised that bloody man?’
Jericho answered. ‘Hello.’
It was George himself. This would be serious. Normally the donkey work of situation reports was given to Lizzie, or to Farouk, a nice man whose loyalty to the Service was not well rewarded. He listened, paused and let the silence hang in his small office above the travel agency. Always good to do that, because it unsettled people.
‘I’d love to brief you, George, sadly cannot. Not able to raise them.’
Where were they? What developments, if any, had there been? It was an intolerable situation, unprofessional. Something for which Jericho would pay, and dearly. A smidgeon of a gleam crossed his face, shone bright and alive in his eyes: mischief. He was aged fifty-three. He played God with people, with their safety and their futures. Only if his fist were found in the till would he face dismissal or if the failane-bell clanged loud; and otherwise his pension was secure.
‘They are, alas, out of contact. Maybe the system has failed, or perhaps they are in a signal-free pocket, or they might have left the comms behind and gone down into Marib, probably to the Bilquis Hotel, three stars. Of course, if you’ve a small pencil sharpener globe, George, you’ll know I’m quite close to them. Should I hail a taxi from the rank and drive over there and tell them the Third Floor needs an update? What do you think?’
George took offence, told Jericho the levity was unacceptable. The Yanks were querying a surveillance operation beneath their radar and on this location and . . . George’s voice was rising in pitch. Jericho imagined George had his acolytes alongside him and needed to perform, and the scrambler built into the phone gave the earpiece a further hiss. They were to come out. Crannog had run its course and, bloody damn sure, the future of Jericho as a pensionable staff member of the Service was to be measured in hours or days, not weeks or months. George’s bluntness was commendable. They were to be contacted immediately and they should head for whatever rendezvous had been prepared for them and their lift out. Gone, and now.
‘I’m thinking that you’ve lost your spine,’ Jericho responded. ‘Never forget, you signed this off, your footprint is across it. Have a good day, George – however bad you think it is, it’ll be better than the one they’re having.’
It surprised him that he had been heard out. He replaced the handset. Woman Friday met his eye, wobbled an eyebrow, grimaced.
He supposed he had spoken with such exhilarating rudeness because he had grown weary of the new world in London and its strictures. He no longer cared – except for those in the front line. There was Corrie, who was like a son to him, and Henrietta Wilson, whom he had grievously abused, and Tobias Darke, who was the bravest of any agent he had ever had dealings with. And two guys who had sort of volunteered and who needed the payment, shamefully not generous, and a guide who might be able – if he made it out – to buy a four-wheel-drive pick-up with a decent engine and go search in the remoter wadis for that damn leopard. Yes, he cared for them, one and all of them. Did he think they would last until nightfall before the guillotine blade dropped?
‘Of course. Given them a wonderful “get out of gaol” card. No contact. Their backs are safe, can remove their body armour. No point sitting around, better go to work.’
Jericho had a lunch to be enjoyed with a drilling engineer, who was often in Iran, and spent time on the islands west of Bandar Abbas where natural gas was extracted. He would not show anxiety, another talent.
From the door, as if as an afterthought, ‘And Jean-Luc is ready to go, of course, and fuelled. Yes, of course.’
Trowelling in the earth was her escape. Henry knelt, working in the ditch they had dug out. It ran along a line of faced stones, smoothly finished; it would have been an outer wall. The building she believed to have stood behind the stonework was new to her. It should have been a time of raw excitement: few academics at the institute would have dared to dream of uncovering a virgin site that would have been in its pomp when Sheba ruled, when the great spice caravans and their cargoes of myrrh and frankincense passed by. But she felt no pleasure. She worked, alone, with a methodical determination, dropped stone pieces and occasional pot shards into her sieve, and if she had come across a jasper ornament, she would not now hold it high in one hand, punching the air with a clenched fist and shouting for attention. The b
oys had gone. The soldiers were listless in their duty, did the minimum required, she was aware of a new sullenness. Even Lamya had been sharp with her because she had not finished her breakfast – a scrambled egg, flatbread, goat’s cheese and a mug of tea – and she almost never chided her. The sun beat down hard on her and she yearned to strip off the floppy, outsize overalls that guaranteed she gave no offence. Too much crowded in her mind and the work in the ditch was a sort of freedom from it.
Two vehicles were arriving.
She poked her head over the ditch’s spoil heap.
The pick-ups reached the barrier at the entrance to the camp and the engines were revved aggressively. The sentry there understood what was expected of him. He raised the barrier immediately, did not ask for documentation, or why two loads of heavily armed men had come to an army-defended camp. There was a swirl of dust as the brakes were applied hard outside the tent where the radio was kept and where the corporal had his bed. Henry was a witness. They wore black, all except for one, and they all had face masks or balaclavas. She knew one was Belcher. As the dust that had been chucked up became an opaque cloud, she saw two of them go into the tent Cool orders were given and the corporal came out. He was tripped, and sprawled on the ground, humiliated. The radio set followed him. It bounced close to where he lay and the back came apart and cables were strewn and one of the larger of the men stamped hard and killed the machine. The orders? They had an hour to pack their belongings. They could take their personal weapons and go.
Belcher came towards her, his mouth gaping open. He seemed to strain at his cheeks to open it wider; he didn’t speak but pointed inside. Two of the others watched him and would have realised that he was showing her the initial healing where the tooth had been, the gap she’d left.
But she had business.
She could no longer hide from the world – where she found deception and betrayal – and stay in the ditch. Her mind filled with the bloody fracture and with the distant image, blurred, of a crucifixion. She wiped her hands hard on the legs of her overalls. Sweat dribbled down her face and into her eyes. No one at her school would have understood, or at university, and they would be ignorant at the institute unless her diary survived. The men were more interested in the corporal; they did not kick him but used the toes of their boots to manoeuvre him, and he was losing all status and none of the men under his command were showing any fight. They would have known about Belcher’s tooth, might have been there when she had dragged it out and blood had spurted. She shuddered at remembering the grate of the pliers’ jaws on the tooth and how hard she had struggled to shift it, and he had not screamed.
She stood in front of him.
Two of the men were half a dozen paces behind him. She wondered what lie he had told to get himself into the party that came to give the military their orders. He pointed into his mouth. It was natural she would be close; she was up and almost against him and could smell the breath and the old sweat on his body. Her fingers were in his mouth and prised it wider. The hole where the tooth had been looked extraordinarily healthy. She held her breath, stifled any noise, to hear what came from his throat. A few words.
‘Tonight they go to the village to the west, the fortress village. All the big men, the Emir, and the Ghost. The black pick-up with the bent fender. The cover is a funeral party and a wedding procession. Difficult for the drones. Where will you be? Don’t know where I’ll be or what will be possible . . . Henry, keep safe. Do that.’
‘He’s here, close by, the man you knew. You as well, stay safe.’
She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her fingers, then smeared away the spittle at the side of his mouth and stepped back and turned from him, as if he were no longer important, and she did not want him to see her face as a tear welled. She went back to the ditch, the vehicles loaded up and left, and the troops started to topple the first tent.
The Emir never packed his spare clothes himself, and had never done domestic chores. His wife did.
He sat under a canvas awning. The wind, more powerful today, tugged hard at the ropes holding his shelter. He moved every week, often twice in a week, and others determined where he and his wife would sleep. She was all that was constant in his life, along with the imminence of death, and the hate.
Hatred governed him. Those that he hated, if they aided his capture or death, would receive $5 million: none, so far, had been known to barter their survival in the hope of earning that great reward. He hated a list of presidents and prime ministers and chancellors and generals, but had never met any of them or been in their presence. They were pictures off TV screens and photographs in old newspapers. The hatred had grown steadily stronger since his time with the Sheikh, in Sudan and Afghanistan, and he had been his gate-keeper. He had watched the screen as the planes had smacked into the towers. He had hated the office workers who had jumped from ninety floors up, and hated with growing intensity the men who flew the aircraft and armed them with the huge high-explosive bombs, and he hated those who came after him and dangled a reward for his capture in front of the noses of peasants. He lived with the hatred. It was a microbe in his bloodstream, flowed in his protruding veins, and he hoped fervently never to be free of it. Bodyguards were always close to him, but he also hated the man – unseen – who might betray him and take that money and run with it. Then, dead, buried in an unmarked grave, he would be forgotten and his usefulness exhausted.
His wife brought him tea. To those who watched them, they never showed any degree of intimacy or fondness. But in the rooms in the safe-houses, she would lie on her side and he would be against her, his stomach to her buttocks, and would hold her and the love was between them, not for display. He did not know whether she hated as he did. He sipped the tea.
He thought often of his children but could not see them. He dreamed, rarely, of sitting below a tree, perhaps one with ripe fruit bending its branches, and of being alone and without the men with guns, and of feeling dappled sunshine on his face and a breeze on his arms and of knowing a peace. He would not have heard it, but the men said that a drone was up and nearby, but not over them. Would it ever end? His war and his hatred, would they ever end? He doubted it. When he was dead, then another would be found who harboured the same hatred, When the Ghost was taken, as he would be, by a Hellfire explosion, there would be another with the same skills and same loathing of the enemy. He would be gone from men’s memories, as were all those who had died in the wreckage of a vehicle hit by a missile. It was good tea.
The meeting was important because times were difficult and Yemen was a fractured state, and the influences of the movements in Syria and Iraq and Libya dragged at the allegiances of young fighters. He tried to hold together the men who followed him, but was fearful they would splinter if he were no longer there.
They would move him that evening. He did not know whether he would survive the day or the night, or the week or the month – hard for him, and for his wife – and there was no end to it. He was a good young boy, the convert they would send on the aircraft over a sea that he had never seen or smelt. The Emir would tell him that evening that he had been chosen, see the bright light in his eyes, and the fervour of martyrdom, and it would cheer his mood.
Belcher was called. He didn’t query it; it would have been wrong for him to ask for explanations. He had pressed to be taken to see the woman, had complained of an ache where the tooth had been, had been allowed to see her. He had noticed that men hung around him all day. Not obtrusive but watching. Armed men and their eyes on him. He knew he had been chosen, did not know for what, just had a suspicion. He heard his name and a man gestured. He couldn’t tell whether the face was friendly or threatening because it was masked.
Two goats were tethered in the back of the pick-up. He was put with them, his weapon lifted off his shoulder and laid under sacking. The escort were in the cab. The route was not to the fortress village on its high ground, but in the other direction, towards Marib. A short drive. He had known that a
drone was overhead, but couldn’t hear it any longer against the pick-up engine’s noise. He had called it, the timing and location of the meeting, to Henry. It was what a traitor did: look into the faces around him and smile and live a lie, and it had started on the floor of a garage. It had been obvious, from Belcher’s first sight of him in Syria, that this was an important man who was playing a game of deceit. Belcher had recognised it but the local men had not. He could, at the end of their first encounter, have gone to a cell phone or written a message, or travelled himself, and told those who had sent him that this was an individual of worth. But he had not. He had crept away, had nurtured the secret, and gone to his cold, lonely bed. He had often thought of it afterwards; he was captivated by the shackled prisoner with the crudely broken leg and the refusal to complain. All the others did, but not this man. The eyes had captured him – he was a lad from Colenso Road, far from home and the familiar, and the urge to be a convert had faded, and it was easy for him to be captured by the eyes that betrayed no fear. No word was spoken between them on that first meeting, there didn’t have to be. Admiration had bloomed. No plea had been made that first day, but control had been established. Belcher could not have fought it.
They reached the village. He was taken to a house built of mud bricks. He was led inside. At a far door was a teenage girl, with sallow skin and covered hair and big eyes that were questioning. She wore a bright dress of good cloth and held plastic flowers in a bouquet. A tall man hovered behind her in the shadows of the next room, not close enough to touch the girl, but able to see past her and into the room.
A woman came forward. Could he speak German? He shook his head, so, broken and accented English was used. The woman said she was born Palestinian, but her childhood had been in Sweden. Did our dear friend, Towfik, understand her little English? He did. Would he please show the skin below his shirt, his stomach? He pushed aside his gilet with the ammunition pouches, and the jacket, and parted the buttons of his shirt, then lifted the vest underneath. The woman looked at his navel. A thin finger poked into the skin and the movement was strong enough for the skin and the flesh below it almost to close around the finger. He realised he was being tested for fat, for surplus body weight. He saw that the tall man who stood behind the girl peered hard at him, as if he was short-sighted but unwilling to wear spectacles, and strained to see better. A marker pen was uncapped, and a capital C drawn on his stomach, like a half moon, between three and four inches in length. He was told he could replace his clothes. He was driven away, the security men staying close to him.
Jericho's War Page 32