Battle Sight Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘How do you go? I don’t understand.’

  ‘What is the problem? I fly. You drive.’

  ‘If you can fly, for family business, why involve me?’

  ‘We have a holiday.’

  ‘It’s a great holiday, Zed, you and me. Pity we’re not together. What do we do, send texts to each other? Nice where I am. How is the weather with you? Love and kisses – sorry, but imagine them. That’s how it’ll be.’

  She was flushed, unhappy. It could have been the first time that he had been sharp with her. Proper domestic stuff. A spat. They always said, the instructors that groomed the Undercovers, that a situation should not be entered when the outcome was uncertain. He pushed her . . . He was the guy who had been invited for a naughty week, some nookie was on the cards – a different problem and one to be faced later – and he was supposed to be the obsessed boy who had fallen under her spell, and . . . he heaved her into a corner because that was the reaction expected of him. Could not go docile. He thought her tough, no panic showing, and she might have frowned and her lips might have narrowed, and her eyes blazed. She reckoned she controlled him.

  ‘I cannot get away now when I intended. You drive, I meet you, and we retain our schedule. Accept it. Live with it. You want to argue?’

  ‘Just surprised, just upset.’

  She trumped him. Gave credit to her, it was bold. Threw his whine back in his face. ‘You don’t approve, then you walk away. That’s it, Andy, goodbye, good luck, been nice?’

  He crumpled, had to. ‘It’s what you want, Zed. That’s good enough.’

  Andy had let her know he had worked hard to get the time off, not easy, and let her know that going away with her was important to him because of his feelings for her – admiration, respect, affection, or something more – and he could not fight her, could not take the risk of her marching away, dumping him. He thought it said much of her that she did not apologise, did not excuse herself. She had arrogance, self-belief. More than the animal people and certainly more than the druggies. And her mood apparently changed. Some might have bought it. Not Andy. She kissed him. That was supposed to buy him. She must have thought he came cheap, as a lorry driver would, and a warm kiss was his reward. It was a good kiss and he wondered if it were all play-acting. And the way he responded? Was that also play-acting? A long kiss. Light flashed: her anorak was open, her sweater pulled wide, her T-shirt had slipped down, and the skin on her chest was exposed, and the beam caught the stone on the chain that he had bought for her . . . not exactly, but she’d told him what she’d seen, and how much it was, and he’d given her cash. He did not often see it, and she never flaunted it, didn’t use it as an actor’s prop. First time in weeks she’d worn it, far as he knew. He saw it, supposed it meant something – something to her, perhaps something to him . . . And she broke, said quietly that work had to be done, an essay, murmured about the risk of being chucked out: first time that excuse had surfaced. She said when she would see him, where.

  She was gone. Not a backward glance, not a wave.

  He called after her, ‘You’re looking great, Zed, fantastic.’

  She would have heard him but didn’t stop, did not turn, went beyond a pool of light, and he lost her. Andy sat on the bench, let the rain patter on him. He needed time to consider and absorb, reflect. He had seen the flash of anger when he had – mildly – challenged her and he remembered when she had had the chance to lash out at the guy on the pavement, unable to defend himself. Vicious . . . how it would be if she learned the truth of an Undercover squirming inside her life. . . .

  He had no more business in the city; and the pace had quickened, and the stakes had risen.

  Chapter 5

  Out of the suburbs and on to the motorway, Andy Knight drove south.

  Not how it was supposed to be. Zed should have been beside him. The radio on quietly, and her dozing and him driving with speed and care, and maybe her head drifting on to his shoulder. As a Level One he was not used to delegating the decision making; circumstances rarely permitted it. There had been control officers when he was down in the west country on the animal business who he had liked and thought conscientious, less so those handling him during the Swindon time, with the druggies, but could not be accused of shirking responsibility. Not then, not now, no one to toss the problem at.

  He was separated from her. Object of the exercise was to keep close and keep her sweet, and listen and be trusted – look stupid, absorb. She had broken clear of him. He had needed to decide, straight up, how to respond. No opportunity to talk it over, get a second opinion from the old guy, Gough, and the younger woman, Pegs. Shared decision taking didn’t go with the job. She was apart from him, and he had not thought it possible to lambast her for messing with him. He’d tell them all in good time, in London, what had gone wrong with the mission, codename Rag and Bone. But expect no help. He drove, alone, and his morale sagged, and he was supposed to be able to kick ‘doubt’ out of his path, but she was not with him, which represented failure.

  Alongside failure, in his opinion, went error and close behind error was the one that mattered; mistake. Errors could usually be sorted, not so with mistakes which carried a higher level of hazard, usually – in his trade – lethal.

  The difficulty with a mistake, which was what they went over again and again to the point of making him want to scream, was the instructors’ insistence that most times the Undercover did not recognise it. A slip of the tongue, a confusion over the detail of the legend, something dropped that might refer to a parent, an experience in prison or in school, or where a family holiday had been, or seeing a guy last year – ‘good guy, good old boy’ – except that he had coughed it two years back, and not realising and no one reacting. Always, the Undercover was the intruder in the group, the last one to join and having to run fast with enthusiasm to catch up, be accepted, and being too helpful and too eager, and nothing too much trouble: they were, of course, the animal people or the druggies or the jihadis, dosed to the eyebrows with stories of infiltration. Hard if the mistake was not known, and the Undercover would try to be getting on with life while unaware that the rug could be ripped from under him, any damn moment, that he was watched and listened to, that the way in which he was cut out of sensitive talk was done with skill. If he did not know then there would be no trip to a car park or a motorway hotel or any of the rendezvous points where he could meet his command, the control, and demand out. How would it be . . . They’d ask . . . Was he sure? Certain? Could it not be put off, quitting, for a few more days? So near to pulling off the big haul, such a shame to abort now, don’t you think? Big strain, could be wrong in the assessment? They’d say ‘Have another drink, Andy – Have a refill there, Norm – Can we top that up, Phil – Wouldn’t it be best to sleep on it, not do anything precipitous?’ They did not let them walk away without a fight, might even get round to suggesting the Undercover ponder on the resources that had been swallowed by Rag and Bone, and might play the big card about lives on the line, people walking the streets, the great law-abiding unwashed going about their business and deserving, expecting, protection. But there was always a mistake . . . He realised that he had started to meander, had twice changed lanes, twice failed to use the indicator, and there were blue lights behind him. He was in the central lane, and they were coming fast track. That would be the fuck-up, then foul-up, pulled over and a boot-faced policewoman, one of the hard brigade and no ID card to conveniently pull out and wave so that he was sent on his way, was sir, a hero from the front line of some bloody war. The car came at speed, and the noise of the siren filled the VW Polo, it would get in front and then do the indicator bit and push him to the slow lane, then to the hard shoulder, and all so bloody inconvenient . . . The mistake he had made was to think vulnerability and so be careless on the road and lane hopping, and concentration down and a civic-minded driver would have been on his mobile and reporting him, and . . . the police, keeping up the pace went past him. He saw the flash of the indicat
ors and ahead was a new Jaguar. It could have been that the cop car with the feldwebel in it had a bad thing with Jaguars . . . End of panic, but all about a mistake and what came from a mistake.

  He used his mobile, called her. Heard it ring out, needed to speak. Her answer, sharp, querying what he wanted. He did the play-acting, the deception.

  ‘Just wanted to talk.’

  ‘We did, didn’t we, a bit ago? We talked.’

  ‘Needed to hear you.’

  ‘What are you saying, Andy?’

  ‘Wanted to hear your voice, just that.’

  ‘Hear my voice, and what should it be saying?’

  ‘Something about our holiday . . . would be good.’

  ‘Telling it to you, Andy, our holiday – together – will be fantastic. I hand in my essay, and we’re clear. Our holiday, and it’ll be brilliant, and . . .’

  ‘Just good to hear you, where are you?’

  ‘Just coming out of the library.’

  ‘You finished it?’

  ‘You know what they say, Andy – well, perhaps, you don’t – they say that an essay is never finished, only abandoned. It’s what the tutors say. Not finished, but nearly.’

  ‘It’s going to be good when we’re there, really good.’

  ‘Course it is, Andy.’

  ‘I’m halfway down.’

  ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’

  ‘I am halfway down the M6, the motorway, the car’s going great . . . Zed, you know what, know how it is?’

  ‘What should I know?’

  ‘I am missing you, Zed. Missing you big time.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Missing you and the feel of you, and hearing you, and us together, and I am on this goddamn motorway, and going away from you. Zed, missing you bad.’

  A small voice, and he had to strain to hear it. ‘And missing you, Andy, promise.’

  ‘Where are you? Going to have something to eat?’

  Zed said, ‘Just out of the library. Might grab something at the Kentucky.’

  She lied easily. The library at the university was on the other side of the Pennine moorlands. She was in Savile Town, across the Calder river from the main part of Dewsbury. It had been a visit home, and she wore the clothing that her parents imagined she wore each day, every day at Manchester Metropolitan.

  A facile question. ‘Are you going to stop, have something?’

  ‘Might do, might not.’

  ‘I miss you, Andy.’

  And heard his laugh, tinny on the phone speaker. ‘God, didn’t know if you were going to get round to saying it, Zed.’

  ‘You’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘It matters to me, you being fine.’

  ‘Look after yourself.’

  ‘I will, and don’t work all night.’

  ‘Won’t – we’ll speak later.’

  ‘Will do – love, Zed, love.’

  The call went dead on her. The four-letter word. He had used it. Hadn’t before, as if he were too shy of it, or maybe had felt her beyond his reach – race, intellect, education, She hadn’t spoken the word, love, not to Andy Knight, not to any boy at the university, certainly not to anybody in the Savile Town area. He’d meant it, the call had dripped sincerity. She did not regard it as a complication, more a register of her success in recruiting his emotions: they gave her a car ride out of Marseille with a secreted package and a run through Customs on the way home, and she might have gone for a blouse rather than a T-shirt and left some buttons undone, and the pendant would be on show and nestling in the cleft, and she might have a hand on his shoulder, and the relationship would be on display, open to all-comers to see it and there would be a lift of eyebrows and they’d be waved into a green channel. How far would she go with him . . .? She was walking briskly. Didn’t know, could not say. She thought him so easy to deceive, she could almost pity him. Almost . . . She had come to Dewsbury to see her parents. Not necessary to see them, not inside the routine she kept, but because she was going away. Would be with him, close to him, perhaps needing to feed off his ignorance and take strength from him – would sleep with him? Might, might just . . . well, expected to.

  What could go wrong? Anything could go wrong. Foreign country, foreign crime group, foreign deceit, foreign police. Could happen, arrested, handcuffs and face down on a pavement, could happen. Or a shout, or running, or a lump hammer blow on her back and the pavement rushing up and weakness spilling, and never heard the sound of the shot. Not that it would but . . . it could. Had been to see her parents. How was it at the university? How was her work? How were her marks? How were her job prospects? Talk, of course, of marriages arranged by parents in their wisdom; nice, dutiful girls married to Pakistani boys in that country of donkey shit and smells and poverty, and a life shut away behind a screen. All that was usual, and she had done her time with them, and had hurried away. She would meet the guys later and they would drive her from the station in Manchester to her Hall of Residence, and alone in her room she would pack. Clean clothes, wash bag, a nightdress – what a bride might have bought for a wedding night.

  She could not have said why she had agreed to buy it, his money and his insistence, did not own anything else like it, but felt the slight weight of the pendant on her skin as she marched fiercely along the pavement and towards the main road that led to the bridge and then the train station. She had nothing else like that, had never been given a present of that sort from outside her immediate family. Her confusions seemed to tug tighter. Traffic passed her and her back would have been lit, and she would have seemed the dutiful and obedient daughter of her mother and father . . . If she were taken, handcuffed, and led out through a front door smashed by a ram, her parents would be left to a life of confusion and disgrace. Neighbours would gather and gossip. Her mother would weep and her father curse, and the street would arrive at the front door, what remained of it, to console. It did not matter to her . . . what was important, signally so, was the cheerfulness and the smiles and the laughter, and the determination, of the cousins who had left to fight – as she would, in her way. She crossed the bridge. The super stores were still open, and she turned past the bus station. Then she would walk up the hill, to the station, then take the train to her university city, but after she had been in the lavatories to change her clothing.

  Confused, but not frightened. There was no essay to finish. When she was back she would pack her bag, and the new silky nightdress bought on impulse.

  The only narcotic known to Tooth was his addiction to varied forms of criminality.

  He sat on his terrace, a rug over his legs, and sipped at a fruit juice and looked across at the Ile d’If, the Count of Monte Cristo’s gaol, and the gaunt outline of battlements and defensive walls above the fabled dungeons . . . Fruit juice because he no longer drank alcohol: no drugs, no liquor.

  Two schedules concerned him. When the Margarethe would arrive close enough to the coastline east of Marseille, out at sea but off the Calanques park where the narrow inlets were. A fishing boat would be in place and would take delivery of a package. One at first, but a trade that would grow with success . . . When his friend from the north of England would fly in, when they would be together to laugh and joke and decry the passing of the ‘old days’, the ‘good old days’. He felt rippling pleasure as he lounged on an upholstered bench and the wind off the water tickled in his beard, tilted his inevitable cap . . . Tooth had not retired. Many dreamed of that end to a successful career, but would be disappointed. Those who no longer worked at business, at deals, at trading, however much down in the market place, were dead. They demonstrated weakness, no longer enjoyed protection. It could have been the burden of his age, now in his 72nd year, had he allowed it: he did not, and the proof was the slow limping journey of an old freighter out in the Mediterranean sea, and the imminent flight to Marseille of his friend.

  He was a careful man . . . methodical, and with the ability to examine propositions put to h
im, dissect the risk area, and reject or accept. It was why he did not drink alcohol, certainly why he would never addle his mind with the hashish so readily available in the city. Careful since his youth. Tooth had been the tearaway kid, looked after by his sisters after the early death of his father and while his mother took in laundry, went out to clean, slaved to feed them. He had had no fear, no hesitation in striking back if challenged.

  A bright dawn, the first sunlight, the start of a September day, had changed him. An execution before five o’clock. A use for the guillotine in the yard of the Baumettes gaol, not far from where Tooth now lived. A rapist and murderer of a former girlfriend, Hamida Djanboudi, had been taken out of his cell, had been walked across a blanket-covered path, minimising the sound of his footfall, had been taken to the machine after a final Gitane and a final half glass of brandy. But every one of the thousand plus prisoners had listened, strained to hear, had noted the dulled impact of the falling blade. Forty-two years before but decisions taken: Tooth would never go back to prison, would never have a brain too confused to weigh options, would always protect his back, move with a snake’s caution. Others would run risks, not him, and he had survived, and he smiled to himself in the frail warmth of the sunlight . . . There were many investigators living in good homes in the 8th district who would discreetly duck a cap to him if they passed on the pavement, because he had nurtured their retirement with bribery, had successfully corrupted. It was about trust. He thought he lived in a replica of paradise.