Battle Sight Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  Long years of joshing, laughing, doing deals, telling stories, sharing bad times, were erased, like a sheet of paper held over a flame. About as great a crime as existed in the world of either Tooth or of Crab was to have such slack security that a stranger, an Undercover, could infiltrate a group and threaten both livelihood and liberty. A damning accusation and one never before levelled at Crab . . . Of course, never apologise, keep contrition off the table. Fight back, only way to maintain respect – respect for himself.

  He had a fist on the bag’s strap, and swung it. There were metal studs on its base, roughened through wear. The bag scraped the bodywork of the Mercedes car, polished and pristine, and he had the pleasure in seeing Tooth’s rage, control almost lost . . . but not enough for him.

  He dropped the bag and plunged back into the car. Sought to get his hands on Tooth’s throat, but had no hold, and came away only with a clutch of hair from the chin of Tooth’s beard. Then he stepped back, kicked the door hard enough for it to slam, and watched the car pull away.

  What he had done was unforgivable . . . he had seen the young man sitting on the wall, kicking his heels, and had noted the guy’s roving eyes, their scanning, apparently relaxed but alert . . . and all so convenient. The little girl with a ‘stupid’ boyfriend, obsessed with her, and happy to drive her halfway across Europe and be ignorant of the conspiracy . . . The guys his sons had met on their wing at Strangeways, who’d used the old warehouse, had failed to do the checks. He was in hock to people he did not know, who had aims he did not understand, and his premises had been given over to a session of pain, interrogation, agony, all the way to death . . . He might be subject to investigation by the crime squad at Manchester, and might be of interest to the North West Counter Terrorist crowd: a bad outlook, and he could not see it improving. Down to him . . . but he had stood his corner well, and the accusation of being a bloody idiot had come late, after a stonily silent drive.

  And his leg hurt, usually did when he was stressed. He went towards the main drag, and hoped to find a taxi, and hoped to get on a plane . . . and had not been fucking paid, not been handed his share of commission on the deal. All for one bloody gun.

  October 2018

  ‘I have no need of it . . .’ the navigation officer said.

  His friend was an Alexandrian and worked in the harbourmaster’s office of that Egyptian port on the Mediterranean coast. ‘What need of it could I have?’

  ‘They are uncertain times, times of revolution and of instability and . . .’

  ‘And times when the possession of such an item is sufficient for a military court to order the hanging of a man. You want me to take it off your hands, yes?’

  The navigation officer grimaced because that was the truth. ‘We are heading for the Canal, we are due to sail the length of the Red Sea, and then into waters where there is a threat of piracy.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘We are approaching Alexandria and the captain is informed that the owners have declared insolvency, and we should return to our home port. If we are lucky, there we may be paid off. But we are Greeks, and used to the imposition of disappointment, and more possible is that we go down the gangway to be abandoned without pension rights, anything. I cannot take it back to Greek territory. I could throw it overboard. Or could make it available to a friend.’

  ‘It is functional?’

  ‘I assume so. I was told it was. I believe that the Kalashnikov has a longer life than me, than you, otherwise why would they have manufactured a hundred million of them . . . If you were a fish, my friend, I would say you are nibbling.’

  Both laughed, but without humour. The navigation officer had made the offer of a gift to this official from the harbourmaster’s office because the man was of the Christian faith. Many were in Alexandria . . . they lived, as he knew well, in a state of siege, their churches were bombed by zealots, and their children were abused and their wives friendless outside their own small community, and the police seldom answered emergency calls when they were threatened. Not quite a time of lynch mobs seeking out those worshippers, but it would come. He had thought this individual would welcome the chance to have the weapon, hidden away, only to be considered if the mob were on the stairs or had brought flaming torches and gasoline to the front door. A last stand when his family and himself faced death by fire or by stabbing and chopping with butchers’ axes, might be an attractive alternative.

  First nibbled, then taken into the mouth.

  ‘It would be the noose and the gallows.’

  ‘Whatever you want. It is intended as a gesture of friendship.’

  The navigation officer, in the days since they had left their home port, and had gone into the Black Sea for a topping-up of cargo, had many times, late at night and alone in his cabin, taken the weapon out of its protective wrapping. He had held it, then had learned one piece at a time to dismantle it, then reassemble it. He had cleared the magazine, had filled it again. He had learned what he could from the internet about its history and culture, of the freedom struggle that the weapon enjoyed. Set in the metalwork was the identity of the rifle, and he knew by heart, often silently recited its last digits, 16751, and had wondered at the heritage that an individual rifle, a killing machine, carried. Had not fired it, not stood on the deck in darkness and nestled the stock against his shoulder and aimed at a fisherman’s buoy, but had held it in the firing position inside the privacy of his cabin. The scratches on the stock, which tickled the skin of his jaw when he aimed, were of particular interest. Easy to assume that different owners had made those marks and that if their code could be deciphered then the history would be clear. They were gouges, or notches, or crude marks made from a blunt blade or the tip of a screwdriver. Young men, college students, lucky enough to bed a girl, might leave a small memento on the bed post: young men, soldiers or activists, might remember a killing by marking the wooden stock. It had fascinated him. It would be, he reflected, similar to a child abandoning a prized toy, but he could not contemplate, now that the ship was recalled and the owners bust, having Customs men go over it as they docked for the last time – not a hanging offence but the probability of a lengthy gaol term.

  Enough . . . ‘Do you want it, or not want it? Will you take it or does it go in the sea?’

  He would take it. A farewell to a friend. Never used but valued. He would add nothing to the marks made on the wooden stock but hoped it might be of help, or merely comfort, to a friend. He looked for a last time at the body of it, where so little paint had survived the years. It was wrapped again, then would go into the official’s bag – where his laptop was and his waterproof clothing, and a change of shoes. They hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, and his friend – he noticed – shook, almost trembled, had gone quiet, and his breath was fast but erratic. He thought the reason was the fear that the weapon, unused, could create.

  Over the boy’s shoulder, Zeinab saw the silver line across the rough stained greyness of the road’s surface. They went towards it with all the speed that the scooter was capable of. The line she saw went only to the middle of the street, and he was steering towards the end of its bright length: the sun caught it, made it pretty.

  Two police vehicles were parked up, doors open on the street side. She saw the crowd and seemed to hear also, louder than the siren behind them, a dull timpani from spectators on the pavement behind the police vehicles, when they saw the scooter and Karym and herself breast the top of the slope and then accelerating. And noted the guns . . . registered two handguns, pistols, and a small machine-gun. The guns were held by three men and a woman, all drab blue in the uniform of the Marseille force, what she had seen when walking with Andy . . . and it hurt to remember him and recall his voice, to think of him. She had no idea where they were going, what she would do. Helpless, in the hands of the kid, somewhere she did not know – lost.

  ‘It’s a shit old world’, the kids at the Hall of Residence would have said. ‘Can’t make an omelette without breaking
eggs’, her tutor would have said. There were pictures on the TV of long-distance races through streets, full- and half-marathons, and always there were parts of the nominated course where the crowd was sparse but they were vigorous in their support for a struggling and isolated runner, and clapped and sometimes whistled to show empathy . . . like now. There was applause, there were yells, that she took as encouragement, and Karym took a hand off the steering bar and clenched a puny fist, shook it, as if he were a freedom fighter and they were his followers. It was what she thought. She had realised that the siren noise stayed constant, that the vehicles did not close on them. There was a car behind them but it was not easy for her to turn, see it clearly . . . and some on the pavements saw the rifle and yelled louder and made the gesture of aiming and firing and their laughter cascaded on her. They gave her their applause because she had the rifle, was invulnerable, strong; but she knew nothing. She liked the sound of their clapping and cheering, and held the rifle so it was better seen, and felt the power in her arms, and its weight seemed as nothing.

  He veered across the street. The police stiffened, and she thought they aimed. The swerve that Karym made would have confused them, made their target harder to follow. She understood: he rode the scooter beyond the silver line. A woman stepped out of a shop doorway, 25, 30 yards away. She wore police uniform. Karym saw the pistol lodged in a holster. She had auburn hair with highlights, and was powerful at the hips and shoulders, and she carried a thick silver coil, like a big resting eel – and threw it. Nowhere for Karym to go. The road was blocked, The unravelling coil shivered on the street surface, rocked and bobbed and was almost still when he drove over it.

  He had said nothing, gave her no warning. She sensed the sudden quiet, heard the squeal of the tyres, and the tight, small explosions as they burst, and the ripping sound where they were torn. The momentum of the scooter reeled under her.

  The scooter skidded, slewed across the road, was past the silver line, and she had seen the teeth bared as the tyres shredded. Karym struggled to hold it, and seemed to swear in a language she didn’t know. She clung to the rifle with one hand; the other was around his waist, gripping the material of his T-shirt and feeling the little knots of his muscles. They went down and she felt the heat as sparks were thrown up.

  She held the rifle. The knees and thighs of her jeans, right leg, ripped. The skin beneath was stripped. She hung on to him, clung on to the rifle. They headed for a street rubbish bin, filled to overflowing, seemed endless getting there, but reached it and the scooter took most of the impact, and Karym took some more. She felt little, until the shot was fired.

  They had hit the bin.

  Her thumb would have shifted the lever, taken it off safety and on to single shot mode, when her body careered into the bin. A finger would have gone into the space behind the trigger guard and caught the lever, not squeezed it, but yanked on it. A bullet was fired. It would have hit a lamppost, then ricocheted into the road, then struck the surface and maybe gone on, as a flat stone would if flipped on to smooth water, and flew down the street, until breaking a window.

  The effect of the shot, fired involuntarily, was as good an outcome as there might have been. Three policemen and a policewoman taking cover, either flat on the pavements and not aiming, and the policewoman who had thrown out the tyre shredder was on her haunches in the shop doorway. She could not have said whether it was she who pulled him up, whether it was Karym who tugged her arm and dragged her upright. No sports races, running for a tape, were permitted at the school she’d attended in Savile Town. Never ran in Manchester. No cause to, no reason to run. She did now, learned how, but never released her grip on the rifle.

  Karym was bent low, ducked and weaved and scampered. He took her with him. Nothing said . . . She had fired the Kalashnikov, had seen policemen, policewomen, cower, had known the strength of it when the kick came, and thought it the proudest moment in her life. She did not look behind her, just ran and tried to match Karym, did not see who followed her. She was panting, her chest heaving. There was a drumming of feet, and still the siren, then a rippling, chanting applause.

  It was not his business, beyond his remit.

  Another of those bloody instructors would have said, ‘Something to remember: you do not get caught up in events that are beyond the remit. You stay focused and remain inside the tramlines of your assignment. Anything else and you drift away, go far into the shadows. What is paramount to remember is that personal feelings have no place in the governing of your reactions. Hold on to that and you’ll be fine. Ignore that and you will finish up at the wrong end of shit-creek . . . It’s simple, and keep things that way – simple.’ He was out of the car, left the door open and the engine running, and his rucksack and her bag were in the boot.

  He wondered why the police had not fired on them. They did not run fast but would have made difficult targets because the boy had the wit to move with a low gravity centre, and to duck and to zigzag, and the girl, Zed, followed his lead and was pulled after him. She clutched the rifle, and a second magazine bulged from her hip pocket. Perhaps they had been ordered not to fire, perhaps no one in authority had told them anything and had abandoned them to ‘use your own initiative, boys, girls, and we’re all behind you’, the big cop-out anthem.

  Nobody told him what he should do, and nobody was there for him to ask. He started to jog up the street. He could recall the good times with the girl and the bad times. He went faster, lengthened his stride.

  Behind him, the sirens had been silenced. Ahead of them, astride the slope of a hill, was a housing estate, close-set windows, grey-white walls pocked with satellite dishes, blue sky and bright sunshine and a lapping wind that blew the washing suspended from balcony wires. That would be their goal, their place of safety. An old slogan was in his mind, what an officer would have lectured them at Lympstone, what they searched for among recruits – First to understand, first to adapt and respond, and first to overcome, and the officer might just have nodded approval. His advantage, to be exploited, was that the police where the stingers had been thrown, were all looking up the road. He went over the silver lines, hopped over the spikes. There was a perfunctory yell but he ignored it, ran easily. The two of them, in front of him, both limping and in obvious pain, went close to the spectators.

  He ran past the scooter, the tyres gone, the tank leaking fuel, dumped in the centre of the street, and useless; he had seen it in the square below the hotel window, and the street-light had shown him the pride with which the boy had climbed on to it and gunned the engine and waved for her to sit behind him, settle on the pillion. He was noticed. A policeman stood up from his crouching position and attempted to block him, jabbered in a language that neither Andy Knight, nor Phil nor Norm, would have been familiar with, and then he was waved aside and grabbed at the anorak and shaken clear, and squeaked something which was ignored, but he did not shoot.

  He heard far behind him a woman’s bellowing voice. ‘You fucking idiot, come back here.’

  Then a plaintive voice, her superior’s. ‘Friend, this is not a good idea. Don’t go any farther.’

  ‘She’s not your business, not now the whole thing is wrecked.’

  ‘I really do urge you to turn around.’

  The boy and Zed were gone from sight. The crowd on the pavement had engulfed them, one moment he could see them, their heads bobbing, and the next a mess of shoulders and backs made a screen around them. They were inside a clamour of noise. The mob had claimed them . . . Like a great caterpillar, the crowd seemed to wriggle up the hill. He caught a glimpse of the tip of the barrel of the assault rifle, and he imagined her thrill at being among people so loving, so admiring; she would have felt herself a fighter and cherished.

  Behind him, the couple that he knew as Gough and Pegs, a team suckled on police culture, had managed to run – or hustle – and had closed on him, had stepped over the tyre shredder, were past the scooter. The voices were faint.

  She bawled, ‘Gone n
ative, have you? You’re finished. You’re nothing, you’re history.’

  He called, ‘You are in the way of an arrest operation. Do not go any farther.’

  He looked over his shoulder. Gough had indeed run and now leaned against a lamppost and heaved as he sucked air into his lungs. Pegs, who used cheerful building site obscenities, now stood in the road with her back bent and might well be vomiting on her shoes. Walking briskly, at the head of a small phalanx of uniforms, was a plain clothes officer, suit and tie, straight-backed, and in his fist was a pistol, carried easily . . . half a pace back from him was a man with a balaclava masking his face, carrying what he recognised as a Steyr sniper’s rifle, the SSG 69, what an élite marksman would have chosen, a weapon of quality and with reputation. He started running again. He heard the name murmured, like the rustle of dead leaves hurried by a wind: Samson. The voices were from the people who had lined the pavements down the hill, where the stingers had been used.

  He followed the crowd who escorted the boy and Zed, made ground on them.

  Chaos, it seemed.

  More sirens and more vehicles arriving, and the road blocked, and in the middle of the lights and the confusion was the Volkswagen Polo with the driver’s door hanging open. Municipal police on site, and with their own command chain, and Major Valery seeking to confirm primacy. Kids gathering, bricks in their hands. A thunder of vehicle horns because a busy road was blocked and the tailbacks grew. A crowd jeering, except when one particular man passed. And a caterpillar of people, wriggling along, carried two fugitives to an entry road into the La Castellane project . . . rumour running riot, some claimed to have seen a foreign girl, ethnic Asian, carrying an aged Kalashnikov, and reports said she had already fired at the police, but there was no blood on the street or the pavement, only an abandoned scooter.

  And the street filled, and mobiles summoned more people to come, and the word was passed that the executioner himself was there . . .