In the Evil Day

by Peter Temple

He looked at Anselm, shaking his head. ‘My life is moving beyond intolerable. Into a new phase.’

  ‘You can’t go beyond intolerable.’

  ‘You can. You’re not German enough to understand that. What?’

  ‘O’Malley’s interested in dealings connected with Werner Kael.

  Carla’s on it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘She thinks you could help. She’s embarrassed.’

  Baader’s head went to one side. He ran a finger back and forth over his upper lip, over the day’s regrowth. Anselm could hear the faint sawing sound.

  ‘I had dealings with Kael,’ said Baader eventually.

  ‘Dealings?’

  ‘I knew him.’

  ‘I thought you were an analyst?’

  ‘I did other things first. You earn the right to become an analyst.’

  ‘I’ll file that. Carla’s idea?’

  ‘It’s not a favour I want to ask.’

  ‘O.K.’ Anselm got up.

  ‘Kael’s file is sanitised. I told you, he’s got friends.’

  ‘Well, O’Malley’s worth a lot to us. But…’ ‘Find another direction. What have you got? Have you got banks?

  So-called banks?’

  ‘One, I think. Luxembourg.’

  Baader slid his chair back, pushed off the desk, spun around, feet off the ground, like a child on a roundabout. ‘Give me the bank,’ he said. He kept spinning. ‘I’m more at ease approaching from that side.’

  Anselm watched him going around. ‘Stefan,’ he said, ‘if you ever feel the need to talk to someone, you know where to find me.’

  ‘Damaged,’ said Baader. ‘Both of us, we’re damaged goods. Return to sender.’

  ‘Address unknown, no such number, no such phone.’

  Baader smiled, a happier fox now. ‘A man who knows his Elvis cannot be damaged beyond repair.’

  Anselm went back to Carla. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what we can do with the bank. Give me the details. And have a try at Bruynzeel.’

  She nodded and left. Anselm rang O’Malley.

  ‘This is not proving easy.’

  ‘I was rather hoping your distinguished head of chambers might weave his magic.’

  ‘He may yet.’

  ‘Carry on, Hardy. Ring me tomorrow. In the p.m. With luck, I’ll be celebrating with my learned friend.’

  ‘Eating your smoked ham with your pickles, beetroot, drinking your Krakow pils. And making use of your…’

  ‘Not another word.’

  43

  …LONDON…

  She had been gone for a while, perhaps half an hour, when the phone in the kitchen rang.

  Niemand was watching television, the news, a dark-haired woman and a man with glasses taking turns reading it. The woman was finishing an item about illegal Kurdish immigrants found in Dagenham.

  He let it ring. Her answering machine came on. Her calm voice saying, ‘Thank you for calling Jess Thomas Architectural Models…’

  On television, the man was talking about calls for new crowd-control measures at football grounds, a teenager had died in Belgium, crushed.

  Niemand pressed the mute button on the remote.

  ‘…and leave a message,’ said Jess’s voice on the machine.

  The tone.

  ‘Get out now,’ said Jess, quick urgent. ‘Just go. I don’t know how long you’ve got.’

  He was up, took his valuables holster, his jacket, stuffed them into the bag, went for the fire-escape door. He was there when he remembered and he went back and tore the page off the pad, her cellphone number.

  The steel door’s bar resisted, not opened for a long time, rusted, painted over, many times, he couldn’t get it to move. He dropped the bag, put both hands to the lever, pushed down.

  It wouldn’t move. Did not give at all. Solid.

  Take your time said the inner voice. The voice of his first instructor, in time his own voice. The careless, languid voice: Take your time, chicken brain.

  Jolt it free.

  Hit it.

  With what?

  He looked around and he looked across the kitchen, across the big space of the sitting room and workroom to the far wall.

  Three shadows.

  He saw three shadows flit along the bottom of the big industrial window. Gone in an instant, just bits of grey behind the wire-impregnated security glass.

  Tops of heads.

  Three heads, quickly, stooping but not stooping low enough, the lights from outside throwing shadows upwards.

  Niemand hit the lever with his clenched hands, brought them down, used them like a flesh hammer, the pain was instant. In his hands, his back, his shoulder.

  The big lever jerked free, upwards. He grabbed the bag, swung the steel door inwards, went out into the cold, drizzling night. Closed the door. He looked for a way to bolt it from the outside. No bolt. Stupid. It was a fire escape.

  They would know where he had gone.

  Of course they would know. Where else could he go?

  Third floor. He looked down. An alley, bins, wet cobblestones, a streetlight at one end, a long way away. Straight lines of drizzle, a nimbus around each light. Where would they wait? At each end. That was what he would do. Someone at each end. Wait for him to come down, choose a direction.

  He couldn’t see the alley’s end to the right. Dead end?

  Suicide to go down.

  What the hell. He went up. Treading lightly, wet metal stairs, keeping against the wall, looking down at the alley. The night was loud, sirens, music from somewhere nearby, two sources of music, vehicle noises.

  The roof was flat. He could make out a tank and a square structure, probably the lift housing, three chimney-like things, ventilation intakes, vents, something like that.

  Light from the alley below. Niemand went to the parapet, looked down with one eye.

  Headlights at each end of the alley.

  They didn’t care. They knew they had him.

  Six metres below him, a black figure was on the fire-escape landing, Jess’s landing, a weapon upright in one hand-machine-pistol. He could see the fat silencer tube.

  A gun. He should have bought a gun. You never needed one until you didn’t have one.

  He walked over the wet roof to the tank. It was on four legs. He ran a hand over it. Wet. Old. Rusty. He tapped the bottom, tapped the top. Full of something.

  The legs were bolted to the concrete. A long time ago. One was bent under its burden. He kicked it and it gave without hesitation, the tank tilted.

  He went around, stood clear, kicked another front leg. It didn’t move. Just hurt his toes. He looked around, eyes adjusted now, he saw a piece of pipe: thick, not long, it lay in a pool of rainwater. Left when the building was converted, a shoddy conversion, the pipe sawn off from some old plumbing.

  The burst of gunfire hit the tank, above him, well above his head.

  He heard only the percussion, an ear-jangling thwang, saw sparks like fireworks in his brain.

  He fell. And as he fell he reached for the length of pipe, got it- wet, slimy, hard to hold. Heavy. He lay, looking back, pain from his shoulder.

  A penis-head above from the stairs. All black, head in a black balaclava, tight like a stocking mask, the man’s eye sockets and eyelids blackened.

  In the middle of London. Full fucking nightfighting shit.

  ‘Don’t move,’ said the man, voice clear. ‘You won’t get hurt. We don’t want to hurt you.’

  This was better. They wanted him alive this time. For a while. Until they’d watched the film, made sure it wasn’t Chevy Chase again, the holiday in Europe one.

  Niemand rose to his knees. He held up his left hand in surrender, weakly, and he kept the pipe behind him. By its weight, it was cast-iron.

  The man rose, he was on the roof, the weapon pointed at 193 Niemand.

  ‘Hands in the air, please,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t point that fucking thing at me,’ said Niemand.

  The man
bent his forearm, held the machine-pistol upright, pointed it at the heavens. He was confident. He knew that Niemand had nowhere to go, back-ups on the stairs.

  Niemand threw the pipe.

  Stood and threw in one movement.

  He threw it with his arm below shoulder level, threw it as he would a grenade, he didn’t want the weight to snap his elbow, he expected pain. And it came, from his chest, his neck, it seemed to come from his whole upper body.

  The man saw what was happening, brought the barrel down.

  But he didn’t want to fire.

  The pipe changed its angle, side-on it hit him in the head. He went down, axed, the weapon in his hands slid away, across the wet concrete.

  Niemand found the machine-pistol, picked up the cast-iron pipe, went over and struck the other front tank leg. At the third blow, it gave.

  The tank fell gracefully, hit the roof with a dull sound, and released a thick liquid. Lots of liquid, and it flowed, flowed past the still man in black, the roof tilted towards the fire escape, and the liquid ran and spilled over the edge.

  Niemand sniffed the fluid, found the matches in his holster.

  The first match didn’t strike.

  The second one did, flared. He touched the fluid, the flame died.

  A sound from the stairs, scratch on metal.

  The back-up boys.

  The third match wouldn’t strike.

  He would have to go now.

  Go where?

  He scraped another match. It flared, held, burnt bright.

  He applied it to the liquid.

  Nothing. He blew gently.

  ‘HANDS IN THE AIR!’

  Fire under his hand, jumping at him, burning the hairs in his nose.

  Heating oil.

  He saw the dark head at the fire escape, the weapon, saw the fire whipping down the stream, a blue-red flame reached the fire escape, went over the edge.

  Liquid fire. A waterfall of fire.

  One long agonised scream. Then screams, screaming.

  The other back-ups on the stairs.

  Niemand walked to the other side of the roof, he wasn’t in a hurry now, looked down at the lane below. There was a car in it, blocking it, doors open, inside light on.

  A big pipe ran down the side of the building, beginning three metres below. All the plumbing shared a pipe. He did not wait, put the machine-pistol in the bag, slung the bag around his neck so that it hung on his back.

  He went over the side, face to the building, didn’t hang, dropped blind to the pipe’s first joint, hit it with his right knee, kept falling, caught the tight-angle bend with both hands, took his full weight with his hands and shoulders. The pain almost caused him to let go, it blotted out his sight for an instant. Then he went down the pipe without his feet seeking purchase, just hands holding, a controlled fall, hands slowing him, like going down a rope.

  He hit the concrete hard, legs not ready for it, knees not bent, sat on his backside, jarred the bones. He got up, ran around the right side of the car, looked.

  Keys in it.

  Bag off, into the car, reach to close passenger door, a manual thank Christ, turned the key.

  A tortured sound. The motor was already on, running, they’d left it running, so quiet he hadn’t heard it.

  Reverse where it should be?

  Shit no, forward. He hit the brakes, tried again.

  Backwards down the lane, twenty metres, engine screaming. Into the street. Braked, looked, nothing coming, a tight left turn.

  First gear. Missed it, got into second, pushed the pedal flat, it didn’t bother the engine, the motor could handle second-gear take-offs. An old man in a raincoat looking at him. Down the rainslicked street, right at the first corner. Going anywhere, going away.

  Slow down, chicken brain, said the inner voice. Take your time. Being picked up by the cops now would be silly. Stolen car.

  Alive.

  Jesus, alive.

  Third-time lucky.

  You didn’t get more than three.

  44

  …LONDON…

  The fax was there when she got back: three stories. Two were short, just a few paragraphs. The third spread over three pages. It was called:

  ‘And Unquiet Lie the Civil Dead’.

  The date was February 1993. The byline was Richard Monk.

  She read quickly and she drew a line beside a section:

  As for Namibia, the white South African regime regarded it as a fief. Soldiers killed with impunity. It was sport. One regiment was on horseback. They rode down running humans, teenagers many of them, just ill-nourished boys. The soldiers galloped alongside them and they shot them between the shoulderblades with automatic shotguns. And the riders laughed at what they saw. There were no consequences. Later, Mozambique was the same, a place to corral starving two-legged animals: blow them up with grenades, sizzle them with flame-throwers. But this had limited training value; it was too easy.

  And then came Angola, sad, ravaged Angola, cursed with oil. At least 300,000 people-many of them civilians-have died in the civil war since Holden Roberto of the FNLA first took the CIA’s coin in 1962. Together, Holden and the agency held a small war and the whole world came: the US, South Africa, China, the Soviet Union, Cuba. South Africa was invited in by the US and it came with alacrity. In August 1981, given the nod by a Reagan Administration foaming at the mouth over the Cuban presence in the country, it invaded southern Angola. The South African force of 11,000 men, supported by tanks and aircraft, laid waste to Cunene province. Some 80,000 Angolans fled their homes. How many died is unknown. The South African army settled down for a long and murderous stay.

  From 1981, the US used both military power-South African troops (and their proxies) and Savimbi’s UNITA forces-and economic pressure as it set out to destabilise countries in the region. As a result, some estimates put deaths by starvation at more than 100,000 in 1983 alone. Along the bloody way, there have been many chances to end the Angolan conflict. But, until last month, the US turned its face against any settlement that did not fully replace Soviet with American influence. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency will miss Angola and the nearby countries. They like the region a lot. It has been good to them, a wonderful place to train staff, hundreds of them (even black officers, although the South Africans didn’t approve). It has also been a chance to provide extravagantly paid work for the agencies’ loyal friends-the little ‘civilian’ airlines and the freelance specialists of all deadly and corrupt kinds.

  As for the warm and loving community who live by selling arms, the misery of Angola has been a bonanza. Millions of dollars of US weapons have gone to the South Africans and their ally, Savimbi’s UNITA.

  And hasn’t Angola been fun for America’s so-called mercenaries, the live-action fringe of the gun-crazies. Almost every bar they infest has some thickneck who can tell you stories about high old times killing black people in Angola (with the odd rape thrown in). In Tucson recently, a man called Red showed me his photographs. In one, he was squatting, M16 in hand, butt on the ground.

  Behind him was an obscene pile of black bodies, one headless.

  ‘Soldiers?’ I asked.

  ‘Niggers,’ he said. ‘Commie niggers.’

  Some of these men even claim to have fought Cubans, but that is highly unlikely. In Angola, the Cubans fired back.

  Sick American porn-killers are bad enough but there is the possibility of much worse.

  In early 1988, CIA and DIA propagandists began feeding the media stories about Cuban troops using nerve gas in Angola. (Angola was always ‘Marxist Angola’, the Cubans were always ‘Soviet-sponsored’, and Savimbi was always ‘the US-backed freedom fighter’.) Highly dubious ‘experts’ were always cited. Of course, their South African and other connections were never mentioned.

  Fragments of evidence now suggest that this campaign was in response to rumours in South Africa of a village in northern Angola being wiped out.

  Wiped out by which side? H
ow? We don’t know. But should the rumours have spread outside South Africa and been investigated and confirmed, the CIA-DIA misinformation artists had done the groundwork for blaming the Cubans.

  Richard Monk. Who was Richard Monk?

  Caroline found the contents page. The Notes on Contributors said: ‘Richard Monk is a freelance journalist who is no stranger to the world’s trouble spots.’ That wasn’t going to help. She typed richard monk into the search engine.

  An hour later she had nothing.

  She circled the editor’s name: Robert Blumenthal. Where would he be decades later?

  Another search. Hundreds of Robert Blumenthal references came up. She went back and added editor behind enemy lines.

  Half a dozen. The first one said:

  …veteran radical editor Robert Blumenthal, 69, collapsed and died Saturday while giving the William J. Cummings Memorial Lecture at the University of Montana’s School of Journalism…Behind Enemy Lines…

  She went to the source, The Missoulian, daily paper of Missoula, Montana. Robert Blumenthal was long gone. The Saturday he died at the podium was a Saturday in 1996. The story mentioned Behind Enemy Lines among seven or eight publications Blumenthal had edited. They had names like The Social Fabric, To Bear Witness, Records of Capitalism. It said he had lived in Missoula for ten years with his partner of twenty-two years, the photographer Paul Salinas.

  Go home, lie in a bath with a big whisky, eat scrambled eggs for supper. Watch television.

  Colley. The bastard. He’d treated her with contempt, casually used her. She didn’t know why or how. But he had betrayed Mackie to someone who wanted to kill him, tried to kill him.

  Mackie might be dead.

  She might have killed him by going to Colley instead of going to Halligan.

  Get on with it.

  It took another hour to find a phone number for the right Paul Salinas. When she had the number, it rang but no one answered, No machine.

  She waited. Tried again. Again. The fifth or sixth time, she was going to go home, it was after 8 p.m., the receiver was picked up.

  ‘Salinas.’

  ‘Mr Salinas, my name is Carol Short. I’m ringing from Sydney, Australia. I’m a publisher’s permissions person and I’m hoping you can help me.’