Condition black

by Gerald Seymour

  From Warminster they had little call to come to the village. The village was a backwater. The convoy of police cars, four of them, and nine policemen had been delayed in the yard at the back of the Warminster police station for more than 35 minutes while the numbers were made up, and while the Duty Inspector fumed at the failure of Communications to raise the local man. They came into the village. Their orders were to seal the one road running through the village at each end, and to maintain a discreet watch on the Manor House, and to do nothing if they saw the bastard because he had had a handgun at Heathrow and because the firearms unit was being helicoptered from London. They saw the police car parked beside the goalposts of the football pitch.

  The lead car stopped. The Sergeant was still examining the car when there was the thud of the footfall of the two running youths.

  "Heh, you, stop there. You seen Desmond?"

  Kev stammered, " B e in the pub… in there… "

  Oh, was he, by Christ… The Sergeant grimaced… A bloody earful coming young Master Desmond's way, using his work transport to get out on the piss, with his wile saying over the telephone that he was gone on patrol. In the pub, by Christ.

  "Thank you, son."

  Zap stuttered, "Don't be going in there… he's a gonner in there… Get in there he'll bloody kill you, like him… "

  "All right, young 'un, who's been killed?"

  " Y o u r copper," Kev said.

  " W h o b y? "

  " B y Colt," Zap said.

  The Sergeant, middle-aged and heavy, ran for his car and his radio.

  He stood above the police constable.

  Again the slither of feet on the flags of the back bar and the heave of the door of the back bar. Billy and Zack gone.

  He wanted to go to his father. He wanted to sit beside the bed in which he had last seen his mother. He wanted to flop on the bed in the room that had been his. The room was the shrine to his youth. His father had told him that, after the raid by the Regional Crime Squad, after the room had been searched by armed detectives, his mother had gone into the room and restored it just as it had been when they had first sent him away to the boarding school at the coast near Seaton in Dorset…

  "Please, Colt, hurry…"

  Bissett coming across the back bar towards him.

  "… We have to go."

  "Shut u p. "

  " T o the ferry…"

  "Shut up, damn you."

  "I was just trying to say…"

  Bissett's hand pulling at his arm. Colt dragged the fingers off his sleeve.

  "Don't touch me, don't ever cling to m e. "

  Old Brennie was on his feet, and nodding gravely towards old Vic behind the bar counter, the way he always nodded when he had supped up his beer and it was time to walk home, and he'd stop halfway down the road, like he always did, and empty his bladder into the privet hedge at the front of the comprehensive schoolteacher's garden.

  There was the bleat of Bissett's voice in his ear. "Why don't we go…? "

  Because going was for ever. Going now was never to return.

  All the months in Oz, all the weeks on the big laden tanker, all the long days of the training in Baghdad and the long nights in the Haifa Street Housing Project were bearable only because there was the certainty that one month, one week, one day and one night he would return to the village and the love of his father and his mother. When he went this time, he was gone for ever, he was never to return.

  " OK., O.K., " Colt said.

  He saw that Fran squatted now on the floor and that she stared into the half-obscured face of the police constable. He would finish his drink. They would remember him in the back bar of the village pub for ever and a day because he had finished his drink and then he had gone out into the night, never to return.

  He lifted the glass. Three gulps and he would finish the glass, just as he would have finished the glass in three gulps if the police constable had not walked in to warn of Zack's car and Johnny's car with the lights left on in the car park.

  Colt grinned, "Cheers, Dr Bissett."

  The Duty Inspector at Warminster gave his order. The pub was to be surrounded. All possible light was to be thrown from headlights and flash lamps at the front and rear and sides of the pub. The blue lamps on the roofs of the police vehicles were to be switched on.

  Over the radio link, he told his Sergeant, "Just keep them bottled up there, George. The heavy crowd's close to you now.

  Just keep them bottled, pray God they don't do a runner."

  There was the racing of vehicle wheels across the loose gravel of the car park, the crunch of the brakes, the beam of light cutting through the thin curtains of the back bar. And the white light was mixed with the flash of the blue, penetrating.

  Colt choked on the last swill of his glass.

  The light was over Bissett's face, white and blue, dappled like sunshine and cloud.

  His glass slammed down onto the table. He drew the Ruger from his belt and the foresight caught at the waist of his trousers and there was the rip of the material… He would never be taken… and Bissett cowered away from him.

  Fran said, " Y o u shouldn't have done it, you didn't need to hurt him… "

  She had her hand, rough and callused and worn and the hand that he loved, cupped under the head of the policeman. She had turned his body over as if she believed that were the way to help him to breathe.

  He felt the clammy damp of a prison cell.

  One more, one more for the road, and when he looked to the bar counter he saw that old Vic had gone. He had the gun in his hand and he advanced across the bar towards Bissett, and bissett shrank from him.

  He saw it go. Erlich saw the first flutter beats of the ghost flight.

  It was gone without sound. There was a scudding moment of moonlight, enough to catch at the wide wingspan ol the owl.

  There was the silence of the flight, then the sharp warning cry of the bird, and it was gone.

  He heard the movement of the cars down at the other end of the road through the village, and when he stood to his full height he could see, slashed by the winter trees, the lights that were white and blue.

  He came from his hiding place. He walked across the Manor House's lawn and onto the drive to the road.

  Ahead of him was the facade of the pub, bathed in warm lights.

  He walked forward. This was his war. Colt was his He saw policemen crouched down behind the opened doors of their cars, and far away in the night he heaid the clatter of a helicopter.

  He walked to the Sergeant.

  "My name's Erlich, Federal Bureau ol Investigation

  "Oh yes. Heard about you from young Desmond Young lad just told me …"

  "You have him in there? Colt?"

  "Right now I do. If he doesn't do a runner…''

  "You got firearms?"

  "On the way."

  "What you got to stop him running?"

  "There's nine of us."

  "Where is he?"

  "Back bar, through the side entrance, it's where he was last Erlich pulled the Smith and Wesson from the holster at his belt. The Sergeant didn't seem to want to argue. Erlich thought the Sergeant was bright, wasn't going to fuss that a Fed was on his territory, and armed. Round the corner of the building, into the glare of the light came the girl and a youth with a shaven head and tattoo work over his arms and they carried the slumped weight of a policeman. Erlich remembered him, and he remembered his cup of tea on the best china and homemade cakes. And he remembered the girl and the way that she had stared her hatred into the torch beam when she had come to take away her dead dog.

  He walked forward and the headlights threw his shadow huge against the front stonework of the pub. He could hear, mingled with the wind, the closing thump of the helicopter's rotors.

  Colt was his.

  The military policeman locked the door behind him.

  The Station Officer carried the tray into his office.

  The Swede was crouched on the low
camp bed that had been made up for him, and there was a second bed against the far wall from the door. The Station Officer put the tray down on his desk.

  He took out from his pocket, where it was awkward, his P. P. K. pistol and laid it on the desk alongside the tray of sandwiches with the bottle of champagne.

  "Will you surrender me?"

  "Give you up? Good God, no."

  " D i d Bissett get onto the flight?"

  " H e was blocked."

  "Thank God. "

  "It's what you risked your life for… The champagne comes with warm wishes from your friends in Tel Aviv. "

  The Swede started to eat, and when he drank he coughed and then giggled his appreciation.

  He watched.

  With fast and controlled movements, Colt had the pistol cleared and the magazine out and there was the dead metal rattle of the mechanism firing, and then Colt had checked each round before feeding it into the stick magazine.

  Bissett watched.

  They were going to break out. He did not have to be told.

  They were going to run at the cordon of white and blue light, they were going to sprint for the dark shadow line beyond the brilliance of the perimeter that was strung around the pub. He heard, muffled by the thickness of the old stone walls of the building, a distant pulse of growing sound.

  All the time he was watching the sharp and more confident hand movements of Colt.

  He thought of his father and mother, of the small terraced home in the small streets of Leeds. He thought of their letters, abandoned in his suitcase at the airport. They would not have understood. He had told them so little from the time that he had first taken his appointment at the Establishment. His father and his mother were against the Bomb, they all were in that street. He had won for them no pride for working as a government scientist.

  He might as well have been a deputy manager at an amusement arcade, or running a local Radio Rentals… Yes, he thought they would despise him now, his mother and his father. He would never go home to greet his father on the day that his mother died. They would not have understood. It was not his fault.. He had outgrown them. They were no longer a part of his life…

  He watched.

  Colt had finished with the pistol, and now he crouched and undid the knots at both his trainer shoes, and he had retied the laces.

  It was not possible that Colt could not hear the coming thunder sound breaking through the windows of the back bar, permeating the stone walls.

  "It'll be all right, Colt…?"

  "Why not?"

  "We're going together?"

  " O f course."

  " D o you think we can do it?"

  " N o problem."

  There was sick fear in Bissett's stomach. They would run at the lights. He would let Colt hold him by the wrist and he would cling to Colt's sleeve, and they would run.

  "What's that noise?"

  Colt said, like it didn't matter, " I ' m just going upstairs. I want a better view of the ground. You shouldn't worry, Dr Bissett.

  It's a helicopter, they'll be bringing in their heavy mob, I expect

  … nothing to worry on, Dr Bissett."

  " I ' m sorry about your mother, Colt, really sorry."

  "I'll be a minute, then it's running time."

  He heard the shuffle ripple of Colt's feet, and he was gone onto the narrow and twisted staircase that led out from behind the bar counter.

  And the silence in Bissett's ears was broken by the drum beat of the helicopter banking on its flight path over the village.

  He heard the helicopter put down.

  Erlich thought it sounded, from its power, a big transporter.

  They would be getting their act together at last. Armed men, and the big guys from London. He thought that they would not have room in their plan for Bill Erlich, number three from Rome, wanted for questioning in connection with the death of James Rutherford. He was in the porchway to the back bar. He had the Smith and Wesson in his hand. Held beside his ear.

  The helicopter had cut its rotors.

  He strained to hear the sound of voices, Colt's voice. He listened for the sound of movement.

  Bill Erlich readied himself for the charge through the closed heavy door.

  He was the law-enforcement man. He was small-town America's hero. He was the Mid-West glamour kid. He was the Special Agent, the hero, the good kid, and he had come to get the scum face, the dirt bag, who had dared to stand against Old fucking Uncle fucking Sam. Ride on, Bill Erlich, Special Agent, hero, good kid. He was the guy who rode off into the setting sun, he was the joker that they loved to patronise in their rocking chairs on the verandah behind the white picket fencing. Heh, Bill, how's it going…? Going okay, don't you know. Going good, just have to get into this goddam museum pile, move around a bit, find the mother. Got to shoot, kill, bury the mother.

  Got to line up then for the thanks of the great fat smug ranks of the bastards, so that they can say 'thank you', and light up the barbecue, and unpack the camper trailer, and turn their backs on what their taxes pay for. And who cared…? Did any bastard care on the east side, getting their cocktails in before the Beltway home? Any bastard on the west coast, just back from lunch, care?

  Did they hell… He was FBI, he was armed, he was going to shoot a guy who had killed an American government servant.

  It was what a good government and a grateful people paid Bill Erlich to do, to get on with. Did they care? Did they, hell…

  He was breathing hard, like he had been taught to, like through the heavy stained door to the back bar was Condition Black…

  Holy God…

  The wind and the first shower of rain funnelled up the road through the village, caught at the legs and backs of those who watched.

  The group grew. The solicitor stood with his eldest son under a titled golf club umbrella. The bank manager was there, with his pyjama trouser bottoms peeping from underneath the waterproof leggings The Home Farm tenant was there, rubicund and overweight and chewing a cube of cheese and with his dog, Rocco's sire, at his heel. Old Vic and his wife were there, and he had a quarter bottle of rum in his hip pocket .

  In the centre of the road, as far forward as they were allowed to stand, were Billy and Zap, Kev, Zack, Charlie, and Johnny with his arm hard round Fran's shoulder.

  In their clusters they waited.

  The solicitor said that if ever there was a boy born to be hanged it was Colin Tuck, God rest his mother, and his son who was Colt's exact contemporary, who had secretly admired him and who had yearned for Fran for years, said nothing. The District Nurse, who had just joined them, said that il was the blessing of God that Louise Tuck had not lived to witness this final humiliation. And she thought that when it was over she would go to the Manor House and break the news to him, and make him one last pot of tea. The bank manager said that he had heard at Rotary that Colt was wanted for terrorism now and that prison would be too good for him. The Home Farm tenant said that he had always known the kid to be a wrong 'un, stood out a mile since he had got himself involved with those Animal Liberation bastards. Old Vic said he'd miss him, didn't mind who knew it, and his wife said that she had never known anything but politeness from Colt.

  Zack said, and he laughed but sure as hell it wasn't funny to him, that he'd be kissing goodbye, and the rest of them, to what they had raised in the pub. Kev said, bright-eyed in excitement, that Colt had the gun, and that Colt would take them with him. Fran cried and buried her cheek in Johnny's chest.

  All of them, waiting for the action, waiting for it to end, stood among the puddles and the tractor mud. They watched what Colt had brought to their village, his village.

  In a blur of movement the shrouded figures ran to take their positions round the building and the outhouses and garages at the back. Heavy movements because they were weighed down with their bulletproof vests and ammunition pouches and radios and the battery-driven power lamps and the image intensifies on the barrels of their rifles.


  Hobbes tried to scrape the helicopter sound from his ears. He hadn't got a bloody coat, and he had walked across the football pitch from the helicopter and already his London shoes squelched. He was told that an American, an F. B. I. agent, had been allowed forward because he was the only one on site with a handgun.

  "Where forward, Sergeant? The back door?" In a sickening instant Hobbes could see how this nightmare would end.

  "Commander," he yelled.

  "Right beside you, Mr Hobbes," said a calm voice. "We've seen him, and we know where he is. Do you want him out of there?"

  "What's he doing, for Christ's sake?"

  " H e looks as though he's counting to a hundred before he goes through the back door."

  "Well… My God Almighty would certainly say that he's earned the privilege, going in first. Your cat's paw, eh, Commander? Just don't have him shot by one of ours. Or the boffin, for heaven's sake. Got that?"

  " Y e s, Mr Hobbes."

  He thought that Colt should have been back.

  All the time he watched the staircase. It must have been three, four minutes since he had last heard Colt's step from the ceiling above the back bar.

  He did what Colt had done. He untied the laces of his shoes and he retied them tight, strained the cord and then tied a double knot. They would be running across fields, couldn't have his shoes sucked off in the mud, not if he were running and needing to keep up with Colt.

  It was the third time that he had undone his laces and retied them, reknotted them.

  They should have been, if they had taken off from the airport when he had been told they would take off, somewhere over the Eastern Mediterranean, somewhere over Greece, or over Cyprus.

  They should have been beyond recall, sharing a drink and a meal with Colt in the safety of the aeroplane. He was tired, so tired…

  The dragging on of the day that had started with breakfast in Lilac Gardens, and with the drive up Mount Pleasant and Mulfords Hill, and with the check at the Falcon Gate, and with the examination of his I/D at the H3 barrier. So tired… He thought of the hours he had spent in front of his screen, working, concentrating. So tired… and he heard again Basil's muttered and embarrassed praise of his paper, and the cheerfulness of Boll's departure. So tired… and there was a meeting in the morning of Senior Principal Scientific Officers and Senior Principal Engineering Officers at which he was expected. It was all madness, and sharp through the exhaustion of his mind was the shouting of his name in the airport, the clatter of gunfire, the collapse of a man in pursuit.