The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Tell me about McFaul,’ she said instead.

  ‘Andy?’ Bennie was frowning now. ‘Funny bugger, fucking head case sometimes. Does things you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Like what? What kind of things?’

  Bennie stared at her for a moment, as if he hadn’t heard the question. Then his fingers circled the empty vodka bottle again and he picked it up, nursing it in his lap, telling her about Kuwait. He and McFaul had met there. They were both refugees from the army, out on their own after thirteen years of service, and they’d both signed up with the same commercial outfit, tackling the mess in the minefields after Desert Storm. Compared to McFaul, Bennie was a novice. He’d served in the Paras for most of his army career. Only towards the end had he managed to con a nine-month attachment to the EOD course run by the Royal Engineers.

  Molly rubbed her eyes. She wanted to go to sleep.

  ‘EOD?’

  ‘Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Blowing stuff up.’ Bennie gestured vaguely towards the window. ‘What we did today.’

  ‘That huge bang?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Molly nodded. She’d been in the cathedral when she’d heard the explosion and she remembered the flap-flap of the birds disturbed by the blast of the explosion.

  Bennie was talking about Kuwait again. He and McFaul had shared an air-conditioned hotel room in a tourist development south of Kuwait City. Every morning, the company four-wheel would turn up in the plaza outside and ferry them out to the minefields. The contract was worth a fortune but the deadlines were tight and the company was starting to cut corners. From time to time men went sick, or got themselves blown up, and the call would go back to London for reinforcements. Skilled de-miners were thin on the ground. Bullshit artists with zero experience started turning up, guys who’d talked good clearance at the interview and covered their tracks with phoney paperwork.

  Molly was listening now, aware of a new tone in Bennie’s voice. He was concentrating very hard, the bottle discarded, his eyes fixed on the puddle of wax at the foot of the candle.

  ‘So what happened?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Andy had an oppo, bloke called Tosh. He got arseholed one night and had a run-in with the thought police. The ragheads slung him in the nick and threatened to cut his hands off. After that, he didn’t want to know. When they let him out, he took the next plane home.’ Bennie looked up, brooding. ‘Bloke they replaced him with was hopeless, real dickhead. Turned out to be a thicko ex-squaddie from Luton. Knew fuck all about mines.’

  ‘And he was working with …’ Molly touched the empty camp-bed by her shoulder, ‘McFaul?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Andy knew right off, of course. He had the bloke sussed from the start. But this geezer was clever. He told Andy some story about his marriage cracking up, and having to find money for his kids, and Andy believed him, took pity on the poor bastard, said he’d teach him just enough … you know … to get by. Turned out the bloke was a liability. Just couldn’t pick it up. Completely brain-dead. No bottle, either.’

  Bennie broke off and Molly remembered the deep-blue scars that latticed the lower half of McFaul’s face. It was the first thing she’d noticed, the night he’d stepped into Christianne’s bedroom with the message from Luanda. That, and those pale, dead eyes.

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit silly? Risking his life like that?’

  ‘Yeah, but …’ Bennie shrugged, ‘Andy had been through it, too. He thought the bloke was kosher.’

  ‘Been through what?’

  ‘Marriage. Responsibility. All that stuff. His first wife went off with a male nurse when he was down south. And his second marriage was a disaster. Lasted under a year. Left him gutted.’

  Molly nodded, thinking of the eyes again, wary, defensive.

  ‘So this man you’re talking about. The one he helped—’

  ‘Blew himself up. Andy, too.’

  ‘How?’

  Bennie hesitated a moment then fumbled under his pillow and produced a tin of tobacco. He began to roll a cigarette.

  ‘They were working as a team, Andy and this other bloke. We had a foreman, an American guy, real bastard, but Andy never said a word to him about the other bloke. We had quotas, targets we had to hit every day. Either mines lifted or territory cleared, one or the other. Andy was having to do the work of two guys, just to keep up. Plus he was trying to teach this clown how to survive—’ Bennie broke off, moistening the edge of the Rizla with his tongue.

  ‘It must have been hot.’

  ‘Baking. You’re wearing this heavy Kevlar kit and the sweat just rolls off you. One hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty degrees. Half an hour of that and your concentration’s shit, believe me. Even Andy was knackered.’

  ‘But he was covering for this other man.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He was teaching this bloke how to pull a mine. That’s lifting it out, the dodgiest bit. It’s tricky but it has to be done. That’s what they’re paying you for.’

  ‘And this other man was there?’

  ‘He was doing it. You expose the mine first, then you make sure there’s nothing fancy alongside, no booby-traps, then you lift the fucker out. That’s what this guy was doing, lifting it out. Andy was beside him, down on one knee, talking him through it. He’d seen the burrow, of course. He knew it was there, a couple of feet to one side of the mine. But it was no drama. No big deal.’

  Molly looked blank.

  ‘Burrow?’

  ‘Yeah, you get these big lizard things. So long …’ He measured the space in the air. ‘Maybe eight inches, maybe a bit more. They call them kangaroo rats. Ugly bastards. Anyway, this thing comes barrelling out. The noise, I suppose. All the disruption.’

  ‘And the mine?’

  ‘He dropped it.’ Bennie nodded. ‘Dropped the fucker. Right there, right between them. Bang. End of story. Matey down, Andy down, and the lizard doing the funky chicken. Unbelievable.’

  ‘You were there? You saw it happen?’

  Bennie shook his head. The flare of the match briefly lit the planes of his face.

  ‘I was miles away, over towards the coast, different minefield. The hospital was back in Kuwait City. I saw him that night. He was choked. No leg. Face a mess. And angry, really angry.’

  ‘What about the other man?’

  ‘Died. That’s when the company wised up about his qualifications. We all carried insurance, had to, but it turned out this bloke never bothered. Andy tried to get a settlement off the company but they refused. Said it was his own fault. Should have reported the guy, not covered up for him. That fucked up Andy’s own insurance, too.’

  ‘So what did he do?’

  Bennie up-ended the top of the tobacco tin, using it as an ashtray. He was smiling now, his face softer.

  ‘They kept him in hospital nearly a month. Before they flew him back to the UK we went back to the minefields, just him and me. I had the keys to one of the four-wheels. We knew where everyone lived. We were after the foreman, the American guy. Andy blamed him for part of the accident. Said the targets were unrealistic. He’d tried to have it out with the guy but the bastard wouldn’t listen.’ Bennie sucked at the roll-up, grinning. ‘We got him out of bed, roped him up, dumped him in the desert. Andy told him he was in the middle of a live minefield. Said we’d pushed a single breach across and we were off back home now and he was welcome to try and follow us. Guy was blindfolded. Couldn’t tell the fuck where he was. Apparently he didn’t move an inch until they found him.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Next day. Late afternoon. Bastard was cooked. Not a stitch on him.’

  Molly was frowning now, trying to visualise the kidnapping.

  ‘Your friend did this? McFaul? Straight out of hospital?’

  ‘He watched mainly, helped where he could. It was his idea but he needed me to do the legwork.’ Bennie laughed. ‘We were out of there that night. Company was shit, anyway. I went
to Global after that. And Andy joined, too, when he got better.’

  He broke off, then began to talk about Global Clearance. Working for the commercial de-mining companies might earn you a fortune, he said, but losing a leg to keep the shareholders happy was a lousy proposition. Better, in Bennie’s opinion, to sign up with guys you believed in, blokes who had more in mind than a quick buck. Working in the Third World, you got to see what really mattered. The last thing you worried about was money.

  ‘And that’s what McFaul thinks?’

  ‘Word for word. More than me, really. You can take so much of this game then …’ he shrugged, peering round, ‘it just gets to you.’

  It took McFaul several seconds to recognise the music. He’d been crouched in the bottom of the dinghy for nearly half an hour, alert for the slightest movement, the dimmest light, knowing that Katilo’s camp must be close, but the darkness was as impenetrable as ever, cutting him off from everything but the nudge of the current and the heavy promise of impending rain. The music was Dvořák, the New World symphony, a favourite of McFaul’s. It seemed to be coming from somewhere up ahead, and McFaul levered himself over the side of the dinghy, rolling softly into the water, his feet finding the river bed at once. The water was barely waist-deep and he reached for one of the rope pulls on the side of the dinghy, hauling it backwards against the current, making his way towards the further bank. Katilo had an audio set-up in his cave. McFaul had seen the speakers when he and Christianne had come to negotiate. It was impossible to make a judgement in the darkness but the music sounded uncomfortably close.

  McFaul waded onwards, his body bent against the current, trying hard not to think about crocodiles. After a couple of minutes, he felt himself beginning to tire. The stump of his left leg was chafing against the socket of the prosthesis and he paused in the water, trying to keep his balance, taking the weight off his leg for a moment or two. Ahead, he could see the low swell of the further bank. The music was a little fainter now, and he could hear the sound of laughter, fainter still. Miles away, off to the left, a flicker of lightning crazed the night sky and he heard the first fat drops of rain dimpling the water around him. Rain was good. Rain kept soldiers under cover. Not that anyone appeared to be watching.

  McFaul tightened his grasp on the rope and began to haul the dinghy onwards. The water was shallower now, knee-deep, and a stretch of gravel bottom made the going easier. He trudged upstream, his head down, the rain heavier, soaking quickly through the thin denim of his shirt. He wondered about Llewelyn’s cassette, whether or not it was waterproof, and he thought about transferring it to the holdall. On reflection, though, he decided against it. Putting the cassette in the holdall might risk losing control of the dinghy. And if the dinghy floated off downstream, this journey of his would have been pointless.

  He glanced over his shoulder, trying to guess at the geography on Katilo’s side of the river. What he needed was somewhere to get his head down, a little pocket of cover where he could hide the dinghy and rest up until daybreak. He started wading again, edging closer and closer to the further bank. He could see the water’s edge now, and the shallow rise of baked mud that lay between the river and the bush. There were birds on the mud. He could hear them twittering softly as they strutted to and fro. Good sign, he thought. No crocodiles.

  He struggled on, the dinghy getting heavier by the minute. Up ahead, a spur of land reached into the river. As he got closer he could see the pale stands of grass and the stump of an old tree. There were rocks at the water’s edge and he stood amongst them, wondering whether to risk leaving the safety of the river. In the tall grass he could rest. He could haul the dinghy up across the mud and after daybreak he’d be invisible. There’d be time for a decent recce, time to use the binos, time to make a sensible plan. He thought about the proposition a little longer, listening to the dry rattle of the cicadas, then he shook his head, turning away and plodding onwards, splashing through the shallows, following the finger of land as it reached upstream into the river. Features like these were exactly where you’d put your mines. Even Katilo would know that.

  Minutes later, he knew he’d made the right decision. The little promontory became a sand-bar which curled back on itself, enfolding a wide pool of slack water, protected from the main current. McFaul explored it yard by yard, tugging the dinghy behind him, getting a feel for the shape of the place. Between the pool and Katilo’s camp lay the sand-bar. The closer it got to the river bank, the denser became the vegetation. Yards from the shoreline, though still in the water, McFaul was sure he’d be hidden from view.

  He smiled to himself in the darkness, securing the dinghy’s painter to an overhanging branch. He tested the knot twice, then tumbled aboard. There was half an inch or so of rain inside the dinghy and he sat in it, reaching for the Armalite, wiping the weapon down. In the holdall was a towel. He mopped the rain from his face, smelling Bennie’s aftershave. Then his hand was back inside the holdall, feeling for the Motorola two-way radio he’d doctored back at the schoolhouse. Using the Motorola was a trick he’d picked up in Northern Ireland. To trigger the C4, he needed a radio detonator, a hand-held device tailor-made for a job like this, but Ken Middleton distrusted them. The frequency they used was often shared with other traffic and early on he’d lost a good man in Kurdistan to a chance radio emission that had set off an explosion. Since then, he’d banned radio detonators from the Global field inventory, and so McFaul had been obliged to rig up a device of his own, wiring a detonator into the circuit of one of the spare Motorolas, and then testing it to make sure the current was sufficient to trigger the charge. The voltage was ample and the crack of the little detonator had been enough to bring Bennie running into the schoolhouse.

  Now, McFaul checked his watch and dug in the holdall again. Setting the bomb off would be simple. All it needed was a call from his own radio, another Motorola. Both of the handsets were multi-channel and he’d chosen one of the least-used frequencies for the few minutes or so when the bomb would be live. He fingered the handset in the darkness. Channel six, he thought grimly. Endgame.

  The rain had stopped now and he tipped his head back, looking up, wondering what difference the clouds would make to the coming of daylight. It was already gone four-thirty. This time last week, he’d been watching the sun rise at five. He frowned, peering across the river again, trying to guess the distance to Katilo’s camp. After he’d first heard the music, he must have retreated a couple of hundred metres. At least. Double that, and you were probably looking at the kind of range he’d have to work with tomorrow morning. In combat terms, he knew it was nothing. Aimed fire at 400 metres was supposed to be 90 per cent accurate. He reached down, touching the Armalite, wondering whether a bullet or two might be simpler. Then he put the idea out of his mind, knowing that his first plan, the one that had come to him so instinctively, was favourite. Katilo deserved a taste of the real thing. With luck, he might even survive long enough to feel what Domingos had felt. A bullet would be too clean, too swift, too kind.

  McFaul swallowed a yawn. Tomorrow, after Katilo, he’d have to make his way back upriver, back towards Muengo. Whether he’d make it or not was anyone’s guess but travelling overland was out of the question. Too many soldiers. Too many mines. He tried to imagine the journey. If everything went according to plan, there’d be no search. The soldiers would put Katilo’s death down to an accident, fate, black magic. There’d be no evidence of an enemy at work. There’d be no gunshot. No footprints. Nothing human. Just a shredded dinghy and the smoking remains of their beloved commander. Using the transmitter, triggering the bomb by radio, was the nearest McFaul could get to the kind of death Katilo had inflicted on so many of his countrymen. It also, in theory, gave McFaul a chance of getting away.

  He looked across the water again, sensing the darkness beginning to thin. There was the pipe of birdsong now, rising above the steady chatter of the surrounding bush, and downriver, towards Katilo’s camp, the Dvořák had come to an abrupt e
nd. For a moment, nothing happened. Then came the bellow of an animal, something big, something goaded beyond endurance. It sounded, McFaul thought, like a cow. The bellowing went on for a full minute. Then it stopped and McFaul heard the soldiers again, laughing and clapping, and the swirl of a different kind of music, something infinitely more modern than Dvořák, drums and maracas and guitars, hot Brazilian rhythms rolling across the inky water.

  McFaul listened, slapping at the first of the day’s mosquitoes, thinking again about Domingos. Alive, he’d disapprove of this. Violence, he’d argue, was never justified. McFaul smiled, hearing his voice, picturing the way he’d put it, remembering the expression on his face when he fought to make a point. Then he reached for the holdall, unzipping it, wondering whether there was enough light to check the bomb.

  When Molly awoke, it was daylight. She blinked, getting up on one elbow, looking across the shadowed room. Bennie was sprawled on the other bed, his mouth wide open, still fully dressed. He was snoring noisily, his chest rising and falling, one hand dangling limply over the side of the bed. Molly watched him for a moment or two, wondering how she’d come to spend the night at the schoolhouse. She remembered the drone of Bennie’s voice, more stories about the minefields, and she remembered abandoning the floor for the comfort of McFaul’s bed. After that though, there was nothing. Just an air of faint surprise that she should have shared this room with a stranger and woken up feeling totally shameless.

  She slipped off the bed as quietly as she could and went to the window. Something had disturbed her and she didn’t know quite what. Outside, the road was empty. Molly crossed the room, glancing at her watch. 05.47. Still early. She opened the door to the schoolroom, remembering the water Bennie kept in the row of chipped old fire-buckets. He’d shown them to her the previous evening as she’d helped him back from the Red Cross bunker. She’d suggested then that he drank a glass or two but he’d shaken his head, preferring to finish the bottle of Smirnoff he carried in the pocket of his threadbare combat jacket.