Battle Sight Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  On that grey afternoon with low cloud hovering above the jerry-built roofing and the air dirtied by the smoke from internal fires and cooking oil, little was clear, except . . . anyone who watched the rifle’s gentle twisting flight would have seen that the stock was scarred with a dark gouge where a wood splinter had long been detached, and there were scratches near to it. The eldest grandson had used the rifle to kill a handful of goats, the feral ones that the herdsman could not control. He had added more notches.

  A boy reached up, another teenager grabbed the rifle, tucked it against his chest, and sprinted clear.

  The weapon with the serial number’s last digits of 16751, now in its fifteenth year, had found a new owner, a new home. A child was dead. The camp was a place of misery but life would soon move on, and a burial would close down a small window of grief.

  Beth packed for him.

  ‘How long you going for? If you can’t tell me, God’s name, how do I know what to put in?’

  She had a fair point, gave her that with good grace. It irked Crab to have to tell her that he did not know when he would be leaving for Marseille because he had not yet received the necessary from his good friend, Tooth. Nor did he know how many nights he’d need to be there, not yet told. But he felt, whichever day of the next week he was flying, rare pleasure. Would be with his confidant, his equal . . . That mattered. There were old men in the Manchester area who had fallen on hard times after their last stretch in Strangeways, and they hung around pubs and cheap coffee and breakfast bars, and if they’d seen him, well turned out and looking after himself, he’d either get a beggar’s fist on his coat, or a foul rant of jealousy. Hardly any had made it to old age and still had good banks looking after their cash, and intelligent accountants who kept down the tax bill. So few people that he could talk to . . . he’d be on a lounger in the sunshine, a weak gin in his hand, watching ships sail towards the container port – half of them carrying Moroccan or Tunisian or Algerian skunk, and it would be good talk, without envy or acrimony. A simple little deal was in place, and he and his friend were far enough removed from the action to be clean. The money was peanuts, but a deal was a deal, business was business. He’d feel good there, like when he was young and a big player.

  ‘Just enough for three or four days. Quiet stuff, what doesn’t stand out. Some of the class stuff, where I’m going.’

  ‘I simply don’t think that will be possible.’

  ‘Well, it has to be, that’s the way we see it.’

  Down the motorway, across the city, into the Vauxhall building but not going upstairs where the offices were. Carrying his grip and the sack, he’d been escorted to an interview room where there were hard chairs, a formica-covered table, a water dispenser, and a fluorescent ceiling light. Andy had stood, now paced. The woman, Pegs, was by the door, leaning against the jamb, but the man, Gough, sat on a chair and nursed a plastic cup.

  Andy said, ‘Of course it’s the best option, but things don’t work that way.’

  Gough said evenly, ‘Not saying it will be piece of cake, but it is what’s required.’

  ‘It’s the easiest way to foul up.’

  ‘Clever boy like you, always able to find a way.’

  Generally the raw edge for running an undercover involved reporting back. It had already been agreed that Andy Knight would not be wired. They were saying that he would be required to call in, use a mobile, each day, each evening, make a schedule and stick to it: he was saying that was a straitjacket and sucked. He was tired and the drive had been hard. Supposed to be a professional lorry driver but it was different squashed down low in a VW Polo, hemmed in by big trucks, the light in his eyes, and unfamiliar with London streets. The atmosphere was bad from the start.

  ‘I call when I can call, how it has to be.’

  ‘We’re sliding off the wavelength, Andy. I’m saying what will happen.’

  ‘I am about what is practical and what is wishful. I call when I can . . . is there something else? Can we move on?’

  ‘It is all about contact. The whole thing. We cannot watch you, but there has to be a steady link . . . Can I put it more bluntly?’

  ‘Put what?’

  He was tired and hungry had not been offered as much as a sandwich. None of the usual talk about what a hero he was and how well he’d done, and how pleased they were, going well. Not said . . . It was small, should not have been a point of issue. They wanted him tied to a schedule, he declined. They wanted control; he wanted a degree of freedom, to be his own boss, make his own decisions: call when it was possible and not manufacture a moment of opportunity. What could be put bluntly?

  ‘Where we’re looking from, Andy, we have this perspective. She’s floated off, you’ve lost her. Separate travel. An arrangement to meet at a car park in the town of Avignon, very pleasant place and with a shortened bridge, and a Pope’s palace, but a flimsy rendezvous. Not going well, is it, Andy? Needs tightening up.’

  ‘It’s the way things play out, nothing I can do.’

  ‘And it’s all vague and all loose. I’m not suggesting, Andy, that you’re a cannon broken free and careering around the gun-deck, but she needs reining in. Thought you would have done. You don’t just swan off into the sunset. You report and report often, and we act on your reports. What problem do you have with that?’

  He hardly knew them. Not a case of them picking him, or him accepting the invitation. They were top of the acquisition list, and he was the guy who was available, and Prunella did the operational transfers for them, those on Level One at Specialist Crime and Operations 10. Was not supposed to like them or dislike them. There had been a stilted conversation and he’d gone off to create his own legend and that had taken months because this was a business not done at Grand Prix speed, and then there had been the ‘set-up’ on the street, and then four months since he had brought her, Zed, the flowers in her Hall of Residence. Slow and meticulous and careful, as it should be if mistakes were not to creep up on his back. And he was here and walking the width of the room and his temper was rising: he wondered if they had yet done a Risk Assessment . . . the dispute was about something so simple. He had to say, ‘Look, guys, I’m hearing you and I guarantee that I will call through – any time day or night – when I can. Top of my priority list. Will call. Each time I go for a leak I will call you.’ Could have said it, had not, had blustered and all the body language was resentment, as if something unreasonable were asked of him. The man, Gough, could have smiled, reached out and grabbed his passing sleeve, could have said, ‘Your best shot, Andy, is way good enough for me.’ Had not, and the woman by the door wore a sour face and twice had glanced at her watch, just one of those sessions that hadn’t worked out.

  Andy Knight said, voice quiet, ‘Always difficult, I’m sure you’ll agree, for those who have never done something to put themselves in the place of the guys who eat it, live it, sleep it. If you had done it, you would know that it’s the equivalent of running up a Jolly Roger flag, skull and crossbones, signals immediate danger, they say something important and the outsider – not quite trusted, not yet on the real inside track, straightaway needs to go and piss, and if anyone follows him to the lavatory they’ll hear his voice whispering, or hear the bloody keys going on his phone . . . my life on the line – not yours – and I call in when I am good, when I am ready, not on a schedule.’

  A smile from Gough, probably not intended but patronising. ‘Not the time for this. Leave it for when the psychologist does the de-pressurising, get it out of your system then. Don’t think we are blind to the strain you exist under. It was an observation that you have lost your target, that we have felt the need to put a surveillance detail on her, the full works, costs a bomb, and done it because she waved you goodbye. Where are we? We are at you meeting her in a bloody car park in Avignon. Except, she calls the shots and that was not in the game plan.’

  ‘It’s where we are.’

  ‘Not a good place.’

  ‘It’s about Kalashniko
vs?’

  ‘Our estimate, what they want most. You to drive one, two, three, what we assume. Different issue if they have Kalashnikovs on the street . . . Another thing for the blunt bit, we have major resources invested in this, have emptied out the piggy bank and gambled on the lady and you up close with her, and being taken into a whole network, and learning of people way up the chain. When we move we cauterise an entire set-up, take them off the street. Not just her, and low-level dross. She takes you there . . . Except, you are not with her, are not close . . . And, I run this shit shower – please, do not forget that. Please, do not.’

  The voice had not risen but the speech had slowed as if for emphasis, and Andy saw that the woman grimaced momentarily as if that had been an unexpected speech from Gough, pithy and to the point. All for nothing . . . tired, hungry, nervous, and led inexorably into a spat. Trouble was, clocks were never turned back. Could not start again.

  Andy shrugged, nothing else to say. He picked up his grip, left the sack in the corner, might catch up with it sometime, and might not. She gave him a slip of paper, an address. Gough did not look up, did not wish him luck. They did not know his name, where he was from, who had been important in his life: was not sure he knew. He left them.

  Gough said, ‘He’s gone native.’

  Pegs said, ‘He needed a good kicking, you gave him a soft one, should have been harder. Suppose it happens to them all, going native.’

  He’d gone, and they’d heard the security guard wish him a good evening, and the outer door had swung shut, and there had been a few footsteps, then quiet.

  Gough still sat at the table. ‘God, and I sympathise, but there has to be a command structure, and he has to understand it. We employ him, we direct him, we task him. The whole business falls apart if we let him just slide away, outside our direction.’

  ‘I think you gave it him, but only one barrel. Could have been two, should have been.’

  Gough remembered what a psychologist had told him, about Undercovers. ‘Has to have a high motivation for law enforcement, but that’s not enough on its own. More vital is an obsessive personality and a need to win. Must be a winner.’ They had missed the last schedule where Andy Knight was supposed to see the psychologist, a routine visit, for an assessment, how he was standing up to the stress levels induced by continuous deceit. Such meetings were supposed to be regular but were often casualties, and no one seemed that concerned when the date had slipped. The psychologist had talked to them about the signs that raised a red flag: pulse rate up, fast and staccato speech, a bit of breathlessness, normally punctual and ordered but running late, anxieties about personal safety, short and uncontrolled temper. Standard stuff. He’d thought the psychologist to be a sensible woman, and she’d talked them through what the Undercover should be. The ability to blend, go unnoticed in a crowd. Not be easy to know, keep a reserve. Won’t be noisy in a pub, not an extrovert. Suspicion of those he meets will dominate his character. It had seemed a game, not any longer. Might have been, the sea change in attitude for Gough, when they’d been shown the body in the water and a rather second-rate, or third-level, source had been submerged, marks on the face, still the signs of terror frozen in the eyes. Not a game any longer.

  ‘What’s to be done?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Pegs answered. ‘Nothing to be done.’

  A career detective, more than 30 years served and able to claim full pension rights, Gough stayed on for want of making the ultimate decision on his domestic life. He shared a small home of pale London brick with his wife, Clare: polite, separate, parallel lives and no children to complicate, and they did not embarrass each other. He spoke with the remnants of the Scots accent coming from the west, along the winding road from Inverary to Loch Awe. Once he was a renowned thief taker, then had been in the Branch, now was a tracker of jihadis, but anonymous, never appeared in open court or stood in the witness box. Pegs was a decade younger, and her former husband was on the road and sold printer inks, and the one daughter lived in the east of the country with a guy who hadn’t fathered her two children. Both daughter and current partner she described as ‘a waste of space’. What was her fault? Nothing. She’d never accept blame. She was the product of an expensive school in south Oxfordshire, came from money, but had turned her back on it and swore and cursed and drank, and the focus of her life was working alongside Gough. They were both comfortably certain that their physical relationship, stretching beyond work matters, was unknown in the building off Wyvill Road. In fact, it was an open secret, and their efforts at discretion caused amusement. The unremitting burden of anxiety, afflicting both – and many hundreds of others working for the Security Service and the Counter-Terrorist Units – was the hackneyed old adage of needing to be lucky every time, and the opposition needing to be lucky just the once. They worked desperate hours, were afraid to relax their guard because luck might then evade them. He would wear, day in and day out, except in the two months of high summer, heavy corduroy trousers, a lightly checked shirt, with a tie, and a sports jacket, and she would be in a white blouse and a black trouser suit and the minimum of jewellery. His hair had thinned, was grey, and hers was highlighted and worn short. They disagreed on nothing of importance, but he bounced at her and usually she’d claim the final word.

  ‘Should I have said that, him gone “native”, was that out of order?’

  ‘He picked a fight, a fight about nothing.’

  ‘Should he be there, Pegs? Or should he be pulled?’

  ‘Can’t do that. No . . . no . . . can’t.’

  ‘All laid down. Duty of care, pages of it in the manual. Down to us.’

  ‘That is bollocks, Gough. Pull him out, just ridiculous.’

  ‘What I said, duty of care . . . what is my responsibility?’

  ‘That is a heap of shite. Can’t go now. He has to see it through. Marseille is a crap place. He has to be there . . . Imagine it. About tea-time, Gough, on a Sunday, leading up to a holiday, and big crowds out, and they start interrupting programmes, and your mobile’s gone crazy and mine. Someone will have a snapshot on a phone: in black, carrying a Kalash, lifting it up, calm as you like, and dropping another poor whimpering bastard. They hit lucky and we didn’t, and the numbers start stacking up and he’d hardly be into the second magazine, and armed response is stuck in traffic . . . You’d tell them at the inquiry that you had a guy inside them, a Level One, but you pulled him because he seemed to be carrying the pressure poorly, and you reckoned that was your duty of care, seemed a bit flat and grumpy: tell that to them. You’d swing in the fucking wind, Gough. You’d hang and swing, and deserve to.’

  ‘Yes, heard. For the greater good of the greater number. That is where we are?’

  ‘He’ll be fine. Have to be – yes? – fine. And have to hang on to the girl. Must.’

  Back from Dewsbury, Zeinab was in her Hall of Residence room.

  She had seen a boy from her floor in the reception area, and two of the girls in the corridor, and had walked past all three, had spoken to none of them. Inside her room, untidy but bare of personality, she had seen that her desk remained, of course, covered with the notes for the essay she was supposed to be busy with. They played no part in her life . . . nor did her parents, or anything and anyone else in Savile Town across the Calder from Dewsbury – except that it had been the home of her cousins – nor did her tutors. She belonged to none of the student societies, played no sports, and her work suffered which was, to her, irrelevant. Important to Zeinab were the shopping mall in central Manchester, or one of those on the outskirts of Leeds, or in Sheffield. Important, more so, were the two guys who had again met her at the train station and had driven her close to the Residence, then dropped her. She had been told when she would be travelling, and by what route. One had smelled of fast food, and the other of old sweat dried on his body, and she felt no affection for either, but they facilitated her though did not seem to give her respect. Most important to her, Zed, was Andy. The first boy, the only boy, w
ho had sought her out, been a protector, then had come back to her. One bunch of flowers only, and she had treasured them and been to a florist to get a ‘potion’ to put in the water of the vase that she had been loaned by the housekeeper and had only thrown them out when they had drooped. She could picture in detail, like a film slowed, his rush to help her, and the strength of the blows that he had landed against the three thugs who were after her bag. The violence of the response lived with her . . . and he had gone after the one who had wrested away her bag, had retrieved it. Could recall also the joy she had felt when she had kicked the one against the wall, had hurt her foot but a small price.

  Other than what they called themselves, she had no names for the guys who had met her, driven her – who had shown her the body of the potential informer in the boot of the car – and handled her. One was Krait. In the Quetta region, where her family originated from before the migration to Dewsbury, a Krait was a common and highly venomous snake, with a diet of other smaller snakes and mice. The second was Scorpion. Around Quetta there was a trade in the reptile which made it a valued creature – a good and healthy scorpion was worth $50,000 because its venom could be regularly squeezed from its stinger, bottled and sent to European pharmaceutical laboratories, highly prized . . . Her guy, Krait, she thought well capable of devouring his own, and the proof had been in the trunk of the car . . . Her guy, Scorpion, seemed overtly deadly, a killer, but had the greater value through care and skill and an ability to read their mutual enemy. She had been told when they would leave. A text would be sent that night to her tutor, saying she needed more time for her essay; she would not be chased because of fear of ethnic harassment. The bag would be packed, and the sales tag taken off the new nightdress.