Alpha worked round her, not gently or with compassion. He did his job. He wrapped a strip of plaster over Timofey Simonov’s face, then trussed his legs. He took off the handcuffs and taped the man’s wrists. The handcuffs went into a deep pouch pocket in his trousers. She recognised that the symbols of evidence were being removed. The man was supine and might have thought himself already dead: he had received, as yet, no explanation, and Gaby Davies felt no need to supply one. They came into the town.
It was quiet. There were high apartment blocks. Some had lights on and open curtains, but the majority were dark. The village of Milovice, which had been a closed community, boasted no night life. They faced deserted streets, a closed-down railway station and a small parked car.
They spilled out. Alpha and Bravo took the arms of the prisoner, then dragged him, boots scraping along the ground, towards the car. It was well away from light, well placed. Karol Pilar had the keys and opened the back hatch. A bigger man would not have fitted into the boot but Timofey Simonov went in, his knees pressed to his stomach. That was how it was done, she reflected. She was not in any police service. He had not been informed of the charges laid against him, or of any rights. He was a turkey travelling to a Christmas table. She was hugged – the boys took it in turns. Alpha and Charlie were enthusiastic, and Bravo was apologetic – he couldn’t squeeze her tightly because of the flesh wound in his arm near where the bullet had ricocheted, but he kissed her cheeks. Then they were gone in the van, job done.
The satnav was plugged in.
Karol Pilar drove.
She said to him that he should do it. Premature? She didn’t think so. He kept his feet on the pedals and she took the wheel, leaning across him, while he tapped out the message that would go to the secure offices of the station chief in Prague.
He showed her. Pick-up. On schedule for delivery. She nodded. It was sent. She heard a muffled groan. The route would be the D8 highway, then the E55 and on to Teplice, then the border.
Tiredness came over her in waves. She let her head drop and her eyes close. She declined to confront the questionable legality of taking the prisoner, and had a suspicion of a smile on her face. She was imagining the response back in London, a building beside the river, the pleasure and satisfaction. But there was a border to negotiate before she could expect praise. It didn’t cross her mind that she should wonder where Danny Curnow was, what move Ralph Exton had made to extricate himself and the Irishman. It was a matter of priorities.
They walked arm in arm. She might have stayed, done battle with another bottle, but Matthew Bentinick had helped her up and led her from the bar. It had been a shaky passage out – elbows had been bruised and drinks slopped, but they’d absorbed the protests. The cool outside was sobering.
He was taller than her and she needed to skip from time to time to match his pace. They came to a stop at a small building site off Horseferry, where a wall had been exposed and there was a tap. It hadn’t been disconnected. She went first. Jocelyn, keeper of secrets for the Security Service, known to her peers as a resolutely private woman, crouched beside the tap and turned it on. When water gushed to the pavement she cupped her hands, splashed her face, rinsed her mouth and spat. Matthew Bentinick was dressed for the formality he practised in Thames House – as if a degree of dandyish eccentricity enhanced his standing. She held his jacket and he pulled up his cufflinked shirt sleeves. His tie was safe inside his waistcoat. Water dribbled from his hands, cheeks and chin. When he had turned off the tap, he produced a large handkerchief from his trouser pocket and offered it to her for her face and hands. He was easing into his jacket when the phone warbled. He took it out.
He read. He passed it.
She said quietly, close to his ear, ‘Well done.’
They were again the servants of the state. Their arms were no longer linked and their stride was brisk because work needed to be done from offices on the fourth floor. There was no celebration that any man or woman on the pavement would have noticed. Each in their own way had focused on the priority of the hour: a small man with a protruding stomach, thinning dark hair and bright but suspicious eyes, as seen in the surveillance photographs. Neither Matthew Bentinick nor Jocelyn allowed any other person entry to that space.
‘Nobody tells you about the burden when you start out. Your people wouldn’t, and mine didn’t.’
Danny Curnow talked as if to himself but had an audience.
‘It’s not accepted by your godfathers or mine that we’ll carry the weight of it through our lives. Accept it and they have to take the guilt, so they don’t. Big people reckon they’re above guilt or blame. They’ll tell you to get a grip and move on. They don’t care. They use you, bleed you and walk away. Same for you and me.’
There had been movement in the darkness, a lapping of water against a lower step and, once, a stifled cough. He believed that the fighter would have been experienced enough to protect his ears and eyes when the grenade was thrown. It would be cold down in the bunker. His purpose was to break the man, and he thought he was on course for success. Nothing personal, but Danny Curnow intended to walk away a winner.
‘It’s no secret, Malachy, that you weren’t the principal Tango – sorry, I’m using our old jargon. I was Vagabond then and came out of Gough, and “Tango” was our shorthand for a man like your father, Padraig Riordan. No one would ever have said we should kill your father – we didn’t use language like that. We’d have said something like “How far do we go to remove this man from our area of responsibility?” Simple enough question, and there was a simple enough answer. “As far as is necessary.” It was a no-brainer. You with me, Malachy?’
He paused to let it sink in. Danny Curnow had always been well practised in allowing silence to hang.
‘You aren’t seen as the equal of your father so, today, you weren’t the main Tango. The Russian was, and you were just a way of getting to him. We wanted him, and you don’t need to know why. You got us where we wanted to go. This wasn’t about arresting you. What they did in Lithuania was different – take down the buyer and bang him up in a shit gaol in Vilnius. It’s not what they’ve got in mind for you . . . You want to come up out of there or are you happy?’
It was the turning of a screw. Always good to be patient. The business of destroying a man should be done slowly: blurt out the big lines too fast and the man can shrug them off. He felt confident. He had nothing left to contribute to the mission but was manacled to the job – Matthew Bentinick had called him back because he did it well. He’d done it so well that it had nearly broken him.
‘You can come out of there, walk into the village and get a train into town, then the bus out to the airport. I won’t be on the same flight, because I don’t go to the UK or the Republic. You won’t be stopped at the desk but will be allowed to board. It’s all arranged, Malachy. You have free passage and can use whatever passport suits you. You’ll not face arrest for conspiracy to purchase weapons, or for previous attacks on security-force personnel, or for killing that girl. You’ll get to Ireland and you’ll have the number for the driver who’ll take you back up to the mountain, and you’ll say where you want dropping – maybe near the place where you threatened the dealer, the chancer you trusted, with the drill. Tomorrow afternoon, if you shift yourself, you’ll be safely back with your wife and son. From the moment you go through the back door, though, you’ll have the weight of the burden. It’ll be heavy on your back . . . For God’s sake, come up out of the cold and all that shit down there, dry out and have a fag while I tell you about the weight you’ll be carrying.’
He was wrapped in a cloak of his own making, and his sense of reality had drifted away. It was a challenge Danny Curnow faced, and challenges were for health and exertion, and satisfaction . . . at home, in Caen, no challenges existed, and nothing awaited him.
‘You’ll be allowed to go back to your own ground, but the burden will crush you. You went on a journey with the hopes of your organisation ringing in your ears,
but you’ll return with nothing. No assault rifles, no machine-guns, no sniper gear or mortars, no military explosive. You’ll have nothing to show for the trip – and nothing to show for the money. They cleaned out the coffers so you could buy the hardware you claimed you needed. A star kid went with you, a looker, and now she’s dead. Last, you gave men’s work to two kids who died while you were far away and safe. I’m getting there.’
He heard the coughing and the sloshing of water. He knew that, very soon, the man would emerge, close to breaking.
‘Every move you made was failure, Malachy, and that will be the rumour spread on the mountain. We can do that effectively, past masters at it. Slip the gossip in, stir the dirt. Who was the tout who gave the tip? Why was a high-profile fighter, hands-on with the weapons, allowed back, and what deal had he done? Where was the money? Why was it paid over before the weapons had been delivered and who has the numbered account where it’s banked? What happened to a girl, with an education, who’s found in a flea pit in a red-light district of Prague? How did Riordan, the strong family man, get the scratches on his face – and what split his lip? It comes down to this, Malachy. Who’s going to believe you? Why were you not arrested? Where’s the money? What’s the situation with the girl? Tongues flapping. Cold-shouldered, backs turned, earth still high on the graves of the kids who died when you weren’t there. Who will believe you? I’m telling you. No one. Were you yourself the tout? We can feed that into the community. You’ll be ignored, discredited, then investigated, and when you’re isolated they’ll kill you – sentence of death for betrayal. Talk your way back to trust? I don’t think so. The burden’s already there, but we’ll hike it. If it helps, this wasn’t on our original game plan, but I was stuck with my boss at a bus stop, after a bit of history tourism, and it seemed a good way to screw you. Nothing personal.’
He played the big card. That was his way, proven in old times. The weapon would not have protected him, and he would not have used it. He had never taken a life and only fired on a range. He had seen Riordan with the rifle in the moment after Simonov had snatched at it and expected him still to have it. He would make his gesture, it would be answered, and the battle would be won. He had no doubt of it. He savoured, for a moment, the feel of the pistol in his hand. Squat and compact, comfortable, offering reassurance . . . He was Danny Curnow, who had been Vagabond, and did not need reassurance. He threw it forward. The pistol cannoned into the sloping roof of the steps going down into the bunker, then splashed into the water. The sound echoed up at him.
He used a voice that was casual and confident: ‘I’ve no quarrel with you, Malachy, and the proof is that I’ve thrown down to you the personal weapon I was issued with. I don’t have another. You’re safe to come out, and the circus has moved on, just you and me left. Come on up, Malachy.’
Danny Curnow wanted him snapped like a brittle twig. Not gunned down in an ambush and facing the tributes of martyrdom – the part of the graveyard reserved for heroes, where the fresh flowers were. He wanted him isolated, fearful, held in a meld of contempt and mistrust. It was the way it would end. Even the men on the mountain, the faithful followers and the kids, would find the war impossible to prosecute further.
‘I’m waiting, Malachy. We’re two of a kind, both fucked and no future. Let’s talk.’
There was a surge of movement below. Vindicated. He had shown, he reckoned, all of the skills that the man who had the Vagabond call-sign would have known, and it would be appreciated: terse praise from Matthew Bentinick, and a glass down at the Dickens Bar when he got home. He heard the squelching approach from the bottom steps and the heavy splash of water. Then he was hit.
It was a blow to his chest.
A shape pushed past him, a shadow. It stopped over him. There was the swing of a weapon and his chin was hit, gratuitous, and the shadow was gone. Still numb. In shock. Not in the plan. Not suggested by him or agreed by Bentinick . . . A great weakness enveloped Danny Curnow and was across his body. He tried to feel where the blow had struck but couldn’t find it, only the wet. The blunder of running boots became quieter and peace settled on him.
Ralph Exton heard the shot. He knew the sound of a rifle. In the fields, at winter, round the ‘royal’ village, they used shotguns to bring down pheasants that were barely old enough to get airborne. In the woodlands, surrounded by the Private and Keep Out signs, men culled deer at dawn with rifles. He cringed, and the cold clawed at him. He had no light and his arms were tight around him. Fuck me . . . Just another day in the office . . . Fuck me. He might have been near to moving. He had gained enough courage to think about getting up, groping round him, heading anywhere that might get him clear, but there had been the shot.
He hugged himself, hoped for comfort but failed to find it. He didn’t dare to move.
They slept well. Many had drunk a good quantity of the house red, and the bags were packed. The world of shock and horror, courage under fire and of ‘doing the job right’ seemed of small relevance. A return to normality awaited them.
The house below Dusty was quiet. If Christine were to visit him it would be later. Lisette was already asleep, and snoring gently. He was sitting on Desperate’s bed. He wouldn’t have been there in the old days at Gough when each of the senior NCOs had had a cubbyhole to call their own where privacy was fiercely preserved. If he had, he would have been out on his ear. There were no photographs of her on the bedside table, but she was all around. Barely a space on the wall for the new picture to hang. Which almost settled the matter. He thought it was the end of the road for their friendship: he would wave his man off, wishing him well, and might see the flash of blonde hair streaming from her ponytail. He’d wave as they drove away, the pictures to be delivered to them at a later date – miles away, if either of them had a pinch of common sense. He should phone, shouldn’t he? He should ring Desperate. Well, he would but not yet. For the moment, in the room with the paintings, he sat on the bed and remembered their times together, deaths, and hardships, stretched nerves and peace of a sort: fine times, but harsh. His mobile was in his hand. He’d talk about the new work coming early in the morning and how Desperate should get himself to Honfleur and . . .
He should have lain still.
When his radio call-sign was Vagabond, and when he was Desperate with Dusty behind him, the drills were fixed in his mind. The darkness clawed round him and the numbness had given way to pain. The weakness was more easily reckoned, and old rules were forgotten. About the only thing he remembered from the clinical courses run by the medics was the Golden Hour. And, more vaguely, the Platinum Ten. None of it, blurred and hard to hold onto, seemed relevant. There was no one behind him and the enemy was long gone. Platinum Ten was about the emergency first aid that could be provided by the battlefield medical team, who would sweep in by Black Hawk or Chinook, an Apache riding gunship above them to suppress the bad guys’ fire. The Golden Hour was the crucial time – so the lecturers said – between injury and receiving expert attention. It would not come in ten minutes or an hour. The forest around him was quiet again, except for the wind and the owl that mounted a vigil over him. The bird was close, on a low branch: he couldn’t see it but its call was persistent – he was an intruder on its territory, he thought, and it wanted him gone. He should have lain still and waited for help, but hadn’t believed it would come. He had crawled a little way from the steps, then came to a birch tree that blocked him. He had used his strength, the little he had, to bypass it, and had begun to crawl again. There was no hope of help.
He was as isolated as they would have been on the dunes, the shingle and the wide sands. No medics there. He had a better understanding of their situation than ever before. He crawled, an animal’s instinct. He moved, didn’t know where to.
Chapter 20
He had come to a halt. Hadn’t the strength to go further. He’d gone some 150 paces from the entry steps to the bunker. There was a low wall that might once have been the edge of a parking compound, and he rest
ed against it. He managed to get his back upright, then sagged.
He was far beyond Platinum Ten and probably the Golden Hour. He had done what he could. But he couldn’t stop the bleeding in his chest.
What he had achieved was a poor response to the ‘sucking’ of the chest wound. That had been the instructor’s word, and the same science would have been employed to save lives on the battle coasts seven decades before, with few medics on hand. It was an open wound that sucked in air as his lungs heaved; he carried no occlusive dressing, no steriliser and no sanitised paper smeared with petroleum jelly. He’d heard once, from the battlefield surgeon who’d talked to them, that a driving licence would do the job. There had been a hesitant chuckle from that audience of experienced military men who were doing time in the Province – they were never alone, always had back-up close.
A driving licence could be wedged across an entry wound and the sucking of the cavity might hold it in place. It was bloody hard in darkness, with exhaustion setting in. He scrabbled his wallet from a zipped-up pocket. It fell clear; so did his phone. He had to scuffle to find the wallet, then pulled out the card. He clamped it on to the wound, and had his hand over it.
More of the briefing came back to him, but it slid. He was so tired . . . Five critical features to be checked and they were the first five letters of the alphabet. A was for Airway, and it was mostly clear, but blood was coming from his mouth and coughing hurt. B was Breathing, which was ragged and there were bubbling sounds from his lungs. C was Circulation, and the bleeding was internal. D was Disability/Deformity, which would have been a broken spine but the bullet hadn’t hit bone or ligament. And E was for Exposure. A carer would have looked for the exit wound, treated it and tried to maintain a degree of cleanliness, but it was behind him, far down his back, and he couldn’t reach it. The list of letters was about all he knew and, living in Caen, he had little call to know more – but the boys on the beaches wouldn’t have known that much, and the medics wouldn’t have reached them. Some would have had sand in their wounds, and more would have drowned when the tide came in later that day.
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