A Damned Serious Business

by Gerald Seymour

  Together, they loaded the body board, and the folded compact bicycle that weighed, he estimated, a little under fifteen kilos, and a couple of wrapped packs of inflatable arm supports. What he had requested was easier to collect here than have her chase after them in London as the clocks ran down. Reality blossomed. Could not step back, not mutter something about it all being a big mistake . . . He would be going across the frontier the next evening. Daff had her hand on his arm and he did not remove it, and the gear was loaded in the back of the Toyota and Daff drove. They went out into the night and followed the tail of the four-wheel drive, and went fast. She said it would be two hours.

  ‘Anything you need, anything, to talk over?’

  ‘I don’t think so, not before we’re down the road.’

  The fingers were on her lower thigh, kneading her jeans.

  They’d seemed surprised when she had pitched up. Kat had made a declaration: wanted to be involved, believed in the cult of protest, demanded the right to shock authority. Had stood in front of the gang, and they had smoked and eyed her as housewives would examine a slab of meat. She had heaved back her chest and jutted her chin, had denounced non-violence, had spat vitriol at the criminality of the siloviki who ran government with nothing more altruistic in mind than the lining of their pockets and new villas in the woods and the rip-off from state industries. Had pleaded to be a part of them and allowed to contribute, was a convert to their anarchy, wanted to attack . . . Slight sneers played at the sides of their mouths, like she was fun and made a show. She recognised, too soon, that they regarded her as mild amusement and that might have been fuel on the fire. She was driven further with her commitment to assault the power of the state, and she rattled through the case histories of the nailed down scrotum, and the naked man wrapped in wire, and the show at the museum and the painting on the bridge. By now the piano teacher would have binned the music sheets Kat had left behind, and would have cursed her for the pain in the joints of her fat fingers, already multicolour bright with bruising. No way back . . . a career on self-destruct . . . And as she spat out her dedication, she could recall the first heady days with the group, and the excitement and sense of glorification at having broken away from the conventional. Could recall the arrest and the night in the cells, the cold sweat when she had opened the envelope confirming that the Conservatory no longer had a place for her, the simpering loyalty of her brother, who was a criminal. There were whispers and sniggers, and she was invited to go with them. Two buses, a darkened street in the Grazhdanka sector in the north of the city. Up the outside fire escape staircase and through an outer door into the sixth-floor apartment of a leader: a tall man, stubble on his face, strong fingers, a silk shirt, a knotted kerchief and fierce eyes.

  They sat in a circle of hard chairs and easy ones and a sofa, and there were big cushions on the floor. He had gravely shaken her hand as if formality was necessary, had gazed at her, seemed to look behind her eyes, and it had seemed inevitable that she would sit beside him on the sofa. It was a show, his hand on her thigh, and she had stiffened, and pushed it away, but was ignored. They had talked – without her contributing – of a poster to be plastered on walls in the bus station, the train station, the principal Post Office, metro tunnels. The motif for the posters, drawn and coloured by a serious-faced woman, big glasses, big bosom, big mouth, showed a line of cheerful fleshy piglets feeding from a trough. They had discussed the slogan that would go with it: ‘greed’ and ‘gluttony’. The others watched her, and the advance of his hand. It was ordained. She was without a friend, without a family – other than a brother who was a thief – and without a purpose. And had no passport. The leader, unidentified might have flicked his eyebrows at the others, made a gesture with them; if he had she had not seen it. She was rigid. Wanted sex? Did not want sex? Would be a trophy? They stood, papers gathered, the poster designs returned to a bag, and a woman collected the glasses, bottles, and the plastic plates they had eaten off and headed for the kitchen. Kat heard them being dumped in the sink. Kat tried to stand and watched them leaving, but the leader’s grip was tight on her, and the sofa low, and she would have had to fight to get herself clear.

  The door closed. They were alone.

  He had a remote in his hand. Flicked it. Music exploded. Jazz from America, played by Negroes. If she did not want him, did not feel honoured to be served up as a sacrifice to assuage the lust of gods, what was her alternative? One hand on her upper thigh and the other roaming, undoing the buttons at the waist of her jeans and pushing up her sweater, finding more buttons on her blouse . . . They would be tittering as they made their way to the bus stop and the first leg of the return to their own quarter. She assumed that when she was no longer fresh and new, she would be dumped and then given to one of the others, and maybe handed down, and maybe . . . Her zip was undone and his hand was groping her; the other took her fingers and guided them on to him. The taste in his mouth was of beer and the smell of his armpit was of old sweat, and she rested her hand on him and he groaned, and . . . The door opened, flew off its hinges, came halfway across the room, bounced on the cushions and was blocked by the chairs.

  The bastard . . . he did not snatch his hand away but let it lie there, long enough for them to see what was happening. They were laughing. Men and women of the police, or militia, or FSB – who the fuck cared – were laughing. She pulled her sweater down and her zip up and fastened her belt and her body shook. He was handcuffed. Kat was manacled, wrists behind her back and the pressure of the setting hard on the skin. They began to search the apartment.

  She did not see what, if anything, they found. The woman had taken away the poster design and the notes for the slogan to go with it, and one of the men had folded away the map of the city on which the transport hubs were marked in highlighter. The leader ignored her now, but disputed the validity of the search warrant, the justification for his arrest. The uniformed men and women did not address her; it was as if she were a toy, of little interest to them. She was taken down the main interior staircase, past the graffiti scrawls and the wet marks in the corners where kids and derelicts pissed, and out into the evening air, and the cold clawed at her face. She might then, as she was heaved after him into the ‘trash truck’, have realised the depths to which her life had plunged. Kat stumbled into the police wagon and was driven away.

  The BMW pulled in for a fuel stop.

  One of the Estonians climbed in beside Daff and she gestured with her thumb that he should ride in the big vehicle. She’d pushed a sandwich into Merc’s hand. Good English from the new driver. Said he was from Kaitsepolitseiamet, KaPo, that he was from the town of Narva on the border, and knew the ground on the far side of the river. The suggestion was that he was familiar with the ground over there because he’d gone over it, and not once. Said that he dealt with smuggling of cigarettes and Russian vodka. Merc ate his sandwich. The sleet had cleared, the road was clear and straight, and there were roadside lights that flashed a warning of accumulated ice. Merc listened.

  ‘I am not permitted to learn anything of your operation, what colleagues you collaborate with, what is your target, and what is your intention when you reach it. We have a high regard for the Six Service in the UK. We regard the Six Service as a valuable friend but we do not perform joint operations. I am tasked to tell you what I know of the terrain, and the security, on the far side of the river. We have a reputation for success in our operations against the Russians and that is because we have an understanding of their culture, their methods. The dislike between them, with a population exceeding one hundred million and ourselves, less than two million, is mutual. They like to hurt us, we do what is in our power to irritate or wrong-foot them – so, within limitations, we help you. You will go in darkness across the Narva river. It is high and it is fast flowing, dangerous. On the far side are reed beds and then thick forest, too dense for daylight to penetrate. Along the river are high watch-towers: sometimes occupied and sometimes not, depending on what state o
f alert is considered appropriate. Something will happen, a diversion. Accept, please, that if you are taken you will be disowned. We will deny any knowledge of you and they will talk of provocation, and you will have a difficult time, difficult, believe me. Running due east from Narva, through their border town of Ivangorod, is the E-Twenty highway to St Petersburg, two hours by car. But you are not going through the border checkpoints. You are crossing into their territory further north, and there the first ten kilometres is extremely difficult ground. It is forest, bog, small streams, rain-water lakes, very few paths and those are for timber extraction. In the bog you could go down to your knees very easily, to your waist, almost you could go to your shoulders, and you might never be found. It is a closed area, and inhabitants, very few, must have special permission for residence, and visitors are not permitted. The security zone is patrolled by the militia, the armed force directed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Such patrolling is haphazard and we recognise few patterns. You may be fortunate and they are all in bed; you may be unfortunate and a commander has put his entire force on the ground. On this frontier, the Cold War is warm, and they take very seriously their border: not for smugglers or criminals, but for our people going the other way. They are armed, would shoot to kill, and they will defend their Motherland with courage. Travel that ten kilometres and you reach a road heading north that leads to the Baltic coast and there you must, no option, go south until meeting the junction with the E-Twenty. On that main route, you must rendezvous with those people who will drive you further towards St Petersburg – safe to assume the city is your destination? Don’t worry, my friend, an answer is not expected from you. Another ten kilometres towards St Petersburg the road uses a bridge to cross another wide river, the Luga, at the town of Kingisepp. It is a chokepoint for you. On your little cycle at night you would attract attention, if you had not already been flattened by a lorry, and at the bridge will be suspicious security. The barracks is beside the bridge, far end, on Prospekt Karla Marksa. That is the start of the restricted zone which reaches into Ivangorod and to the Narva river. There is no other bridge that you can use unless you cut far to the south, but that is a different journey. I do not know, of course, by what route you hope to return, but I hope to hear you are safe and your mission a success. Good fortune, and may your God travel with you.’

  A firm hand clasped his wrist, and then he was freed. Ahead were the lights, a drive-in fast-food outlet. He was returned to Daff.

  They set off again, and waves of tiredness caught him. His eyes closed, a sort of peace came. More of his childhood reared, what had shaped him. His teacher, Mr Dyer, fierce and fair, had said, ‘What you need, Hawkins, is structure. The ordinariness that comes from living inside the rules. Skiving off wherever the whim takes you, just not good enough. Get a job, one that needs a discipline, with a trade. What I’m saying, Hawkins, is that you should think seriously – if they’ll have you – of going for the regular army . . .’ Mr Dyer, decent old boy, could still be there, or could have taken refuge in his allotment; had cared about the kids – had not known that Merc’s father had been made up from the ranks, was the Hold The Line legend, was a Pioneer, and gone too damn young. He slept, seemed to feel the comfort of a pillow, and it was a smooth run, at a steady speed.

  Nikki was at home, alone. Not often that she was not with him; she’d be sitting with the radio playing good music, and she’d have made his supper. Kat cared for him, looked after him, shopped for him and drove him, and probably despised him. He worked in the industrial estate in the Kupchino district, made money for a GangMaster. Had made big money for himself which was lodged in the now blocked Swedish-based account. He was a thief. He stole, for himself and for the gang that employed him and for FSB to whom he was often sub-contracted. She knew nothing.

  He turned on the television to break the quiet in the apartment. The President was big on the screen, inspecting troops on manoeuvre close to the Ukraine border, down by Rostov-on-Don, oozing confidence and power. Nikki had raided the fridge, heated soup, then eaten bread, some cheese. He did not know how to cook, how to wash his clothes, how to pay the utilities bills. The President spoke to the crews of an armoured regiment. Nikki had exemption from military service – the FSB officer who was the roof for the GangMaster would have steered through the paperwork. He fidgeted. Sometimes Kat did fried pork for him, with potatoes in the oil and dark cabbage. The note on the table said that she would be out for the evening, not when she might return. She was like a crutch to him but he kept much of his life a secret from her. If he had told her of the account in Stockholm she would have snarled contempt; if he had told her of the Englishman, from one of the British special agencies, who he had met in the hotel room, she would have said he was a fool; if he had told her of a rendezvous in a supermarket car-park, she would have denounced him as a lunatic and might have thrown crockery at him. He had to tell her, needed to.

  The preparation involved the first moves to insert malware into a defence contractor based in Britain, but one with sister companies in the west of the United States, and in the ‘silicon wadi’ north of Tel Aviv. The initial brief before Thursday’s meeting on detail spoke of back-door entry, and then insertion of malware, then use of a ‘rootkit’ that would hide the virus, then the extraction of material . . . Nikki had thought the GangMaster had read out the target areas from a sheet of paper, had not understood a syllable of it, was ignorant – but took the money.

  The President was now in a viewing stand and used binoculars to watch the tanks cross the open ground far in front of him, firing continuously. The tanks, and the jets diving above them, and the barrage of short-range missiles were useless, a simpleton’s weapons. He – and the bastards who were the Roofer and Hooknose and Gorilla, and all the others – could have done greater damage than all the hardware that the President inspected – halted then toppled it. There was nothing more in the fridge to eat, all the biscuits gone: this was the evening, a Tuesday, when she shopped, took a purse full of money from him. He might have told her that evening.

  Had to tell his sister. Had to tell her about an account at a bank on the quayside in the Swedish capital, that close to half a million American dollars was lodged there, blocked. Had to tell her about a mild-seeming man, with spectacles, thinning hair, like the old schoolmaster on English monochrome films, who had him tight in his fist and squeezed, twisted. Had to tell her about a stranger who would come to the supermarket’s car-park, off the A-118, after the E-20 from the west, and close to the perimeter of the Pulkovo airport, tell her that he would bring with him a device, a small one. The pretence would be a flare in tensions between their GangMaster and neighbouring rivals who controlled the airport trade but also had their own script kids looking with jealousy for sponsorship from the state. Had to tell her that he’d be in flight, but hoped to get her passport restored and bring her out soon. From the viewing platform, the President applauded the distant tanks, and the demonstration of strength. The cost of it all was displayed on the screen – huge, crippling.

  Nikki doubted that the President would have understood the world the hacker inhabited. Had to tell Kat that he was a traitor, had been bought . . . The picture had changed to the fighting in eastern Ukraine and the devastation done by the fascist army of Kiev, and the misery brought to good Russian citizens . . . Perhaps, he would also tell her of the violence shown, the bullying, at his work place. Much to tell her. Nikki had no one else to confide in other than his sister. He changed the channel. A film on the fate of ‘national traitors’ was showing, those who had betrayed their Motherland, had spied or defected, taken foreign money. Switched away from that channel . . . Football, in a rain storm, from Moscow. Nikki hated football, hated exercise, but hated the silence more.

  He looked around him. There was mould on the wall, up in the angle near to the ceiling and close to the window, dark and cold. The linoleum was frayed under his feet. The floor under the sink, where the unit was askew, was stained by water from a p
ipe’s leak. They had no pictures other than a view – romantic – of the river and skaters, no book case because neither read . . . It was a ‘fucking tip’ – he shouted it, and could have been better but she had no proper employment and a bucket of what came his way was spent on the piano teacher. He shouted at the top of his voice and the curses reverberated back at him from the walls and the sealed window.

  The Major watched through the glass as she was brought into the interview room.

  He’d have acknowledged that she had been of use. Good use. All the others, dumped into the wagons when they had emerged from the back entrance of the block, were in the holding cells, and were without value. She – Yekaterina – was important to him.

  The Major understood the culture of the dissidents, could read the anarchists. Those inclined to lead protest, increase the chance of instability, might as well have worn a label on their foreheads. He could identify those who merely played at the culture, the group members who decided nothing, distributed leaflets, daubed walls, made up the numbers at clandestine meetings. There were those in the Big House who had seen him drafted from Minsk, had been suspicious of him, had doubted his commitment to the work of FSB. Then there were those who had noted the Major’s blunt and unqualified refusal to accommodate the well-established mafiya clans of the city, to visit the dacha properties of more senior officers, to accept the best seats at the opera and the ballet, holiday villas by the Black Sea. Proven wrong in their fears. They had told him, to his face. He was not one of them, but had their trust. Deserved it because his pursuit of troublemakers and agitators was marked by a keen discipline, and a keen intelligence. She would be useful, little Yekaterina, sitting at the table, head in hands, trying not to weep but her shoulders shaking. So ignorant.