A Damned Serious Business

by Gerald Seymour

  Both of them would have heard old stories of the sick and the infirm being pronounced gone, being buried alive . . . They carried him and barely talked of anything, saved breath and did not squander strength. Their grandfathers would not have abandoned one of their own. They had been three men, trapped in middle age, hope abandoned, and – who would admit it – when the girl had come with the offer of cash, the improbable chance had been snatched. They went due south, slowly, and skirted the eastern side of the straggling town of Ivangorod, and the aim was to hit the river upstream from the town and take an angler’s boat, and do the fast run across its width and reach the Narva’s far shore. Martin did not ask Kristjan whether he had ever been on a boat on that stretch of water and if he knew how it was guarded, and Kristjan did not ask Martin if he could start an outboard, or use oars. The Irishman was forgotten, and the girl, and the mission and the money, but they would try to take their friend home.

  Pyotr had said, ‘You must be careful, especially vigilant. I am on duty, I cannot refuse it. I would be here if I could. They are dangerous men. Tomorrow there will be a big hunt for them, with a helicopter. Tonight you must be careful, and have the weapon close to you, Igor. You do not open the door, Marika, and keep the dogs with you. I will be back in the morning when I have finished the duty.’

  Marika presumed it an act of treason. She had assured Pyotr that the dogs had been free in daylight to roam the ground close to the house and the barn. His parents, both of them, and her father, had been killed as traitors, seven decades earlier, accused of sheltering Red Army deserters. She knew of the weasel officials who’d come to their farm to collectivise them, and they would have been accused – if found – of betrayal of the Motherland. She had told her man what they could do, had not asked an opinion of him. Pyotr had gone into shrieks of laughter because the couple had driven to Ivangorod, and Igor had bought new trousers and she had seen them, dismissed them as ‘inappropriate, too tight for working’, and had sent him indoors again to change out of them, and had said she would cut them up for cleaning cloths . . . and Pyotr had said, ‘In this house, Igor wears the trousers – but you tell him which trousers he should wear.’ The Soviet troops had come through their farms, then the Wehrmacht, then the Soviets again, and bureaucrats had come with police to enforce orders, and there were smugglers who had trails in the forests and who brought to the river bank vodka and cigarettes and cocaine and pills and liquid heroin. She had decided, and did not care that it could be regarded as an act of treason. She had not seen him but had handled his clothing and had recognised that it had been manufactured outside her country, and he had come in secrecy across the river . . . He was, to this old lady in the twilight of her life, something of a ‘hero’. She would have kicked Igor hard if he had started to talk of the clothing she had brought into the farmhouse and the time she had spent washing and pressing it, kicked him so that he could not have been able to walk if he had blurted anything about the food she had left in the barn. Would have slapped his face hard enough for the glass eye to be dislodged.

  The house was quiet, the dogs slept, she had washed the dishes, and he snored close to the fire where the embers dulled. Around them, in old frames and old cases, were photographs and carcasses from the past. Pictures of their home and stuffed relics of fish he had taken out of the river and the antlers of deer he had shot and a mounted head of boar. Everything was of the past, and the future was minimal, and the damp and the years of rough work outside had aggravated his arthritis, and the cough on her chest hurt her more. She feared nothing but wanted to nurture a hero.

  Pyotr had said, ‘I give them little chance. I hope soon that they are dead. They would have killed me. I give them little chance because of the river. They will be trapped against it, or drown in it. They will be desperate. On no account must you open the door, and you must keep the dogs close.’

  She heard nothing but the hiss of the fire and the wind against the roof and the call of an owl and the creaking of the beams of the wooden building.

  ‘In God’s name, where is Kingisepp?’

  A clatter of the lieutenant’s thin fingers on a keyboard. ‘Major, it is twenty kilometres east of Ivangorod, on the main route from here to the border, the Narva River.’

  ‘And Kingisepp is what distance from here?’

  More clatter, a pause, then, ‘Major that is one hundred and thirty kilometres. Direct on the E-Twenty route.’

  He swore, shut his eyes, opened them, tried to focus. He said it quietly, not a bark, and seemed to accept where blame lay.

  ‘What is at Kingisepp?’

  ‘You do not want the industry, the size of population. Of significance to you, Major, is a river, and a main highway, and a road-block placed on the bridge, as you instructed there should be on all routes from St Petersburg.’

  ‘How long has this been with us?’

  The young woman looked away, acute embarrassment. The sergeant would answer for her. ‘It has been with us five hours, Major. It was shown to you, you acknowledged it, it was laid on your desk. It was assumed you had read it, discarded it as not important.’

  He nodded, no more to be said . . . They had reached the middle of a long night and the message from Kingisepp, relayed by the barracks in that town and passed on to him by militia in his own city, had been with him since just past the hour of dusk, delayed by more than twenty-four hours. The same message had probably passed across screens and desks in St Petersburg before being diverted to FSB and some outpost inside the Big House, then at a painful snail’s pace it had meandered from office to office, been delayed by the breakfast breaks and lunch breaks and dinner breaks. It would have been known in the building, common knowledge, that two colonels had fought and one had accused the other of murder . . . Too much for many to think of. The matter of a shooting on the main road that would have been a mafiya route was poor substitute for their domestic drama.

  ‘It is a big river at Narva?’

  The young woman answered him. ‘Much wider than at Kingisepp and faster at this time of year, more powerful . . . One road bridge and one rail bridge, but the rail is for freight and for gas wagons. It is a security zone on our side of the frontier, going back as far as Kingisepp so entry is controlled. There are watch-towers, there can be patrol craft. Anglers must be vetted if they use small boats and are obliged to remove engines and oars, keep them under lock. It is, Major, a formidable barrier.’

  He had been told, his memory squealed at him, of fireworks being fired on the far bank of that river, under low cloud, in driving rain, and no one had been visible who watched the display, and no music played for a party. Militia on the border had been captivated by the display and watched, had reported on it.

  The sergeant said, ‘It is better than formidable. Unless a fugitive has a boat, the Narva cannot be crossed when the river’s high, impossible.’

  Nearly asleep, both of them, and nearly awake. In the barn, the movement and grunting, clucking and snorting, of animals and fowls made for calm. Not for warmth. Warmth, body heat, they had to provide for themselves.

  She could have told him that it was probably the coldest night of the year as winter chased towards the Christmas holiday. He could have told her that they had frosts where he had travelled from, and snow in the high mountains towards the Iran border, but not the bite of the wind, not even on the convoy routes across the Afghan plains. They lay together, his lower arm under her head and his hand lodged against the small of her back, and her arms were tucked loosely below his armpits and clasped together against his spine. The moon was high and small beams of weak light came through a window-frame that had no glass, only rusted bars, and pinpricks of it were funnelled down through the gaps in the roof. Some animals seemed to Merc to sleep standing, others were on their sides and a few – shadowy shapes, not identifiable – were lying neatly on their stomachs with heads tucked down between their front legs.

  They were not asleep, and, not awake.

  Merc had not remo
ved any clothing. He still wore the heavy anorak he had travelled with, and the sweater and the shirt and the thick T-shirt and the trousers that were supposed to have an insulated lining, and his socks and his boots were still on his feet, and the woollen bobble hat was tucked down over his forehead and covered his ears and was almost at his eyebrows. He craved sleep and could not and, because he did not sleep, he felt the warmth close to him. She had not loosened anything or freed a buckle or opened a zip or unfastened a button, and her coat was round her and everything underneath was pulled down, and the trousers were rounded at the hips and shaped her waist, and her gloves – wet and mud-covered – smeared against him. All that was missing from her clothing was the one shoe, left in the mud. She did not sleep and her breathing quickened and her mouth was against his neck.

  Merc entertained a kaleidoscope of thoughts. A few were memories: swerving between petrol drums at speed, the drabness of the emergency area and the familiar exhaustion of the surgical team, and of the bulk of the big man trying to get through the razor wire and into their trench. Brief memories and jolted movement between them. Nothing of the present, and the rest of the thoughts were the future: the width of a river, the prominence of the watch-towers, the flow of the current and the power of militia launches on full throttle and the distance to the centre point where, technically, jurisdiction changed, and the narrowness of the board and the weight that would be put on it, and going under . . . the worst of the thoughts. Drowning was the thing that frightened Merc more than capture. Sinking down and the clarity of a sky, day or night, disappearing into a vagueness, and grappling for any of those damn straws that might have been floating on the surface, whipped along and heading for the Baltic seas, feeling a soggy softness and trying to snatch for more of them, and sinking slowly – and her. Her pulling him down but him unable to loose her . . . Might stand a chance if he did, tear her hands off him, but could not. He would hold her closer and tighter, because a promise was given . . . and she shivered, was closer to him. Could not have answered the big question. Did he need her more than she needed him? Could barely see her face in his mind. Had almost forgotten her features. Could not picture the thrust of her nose, jut of the chin, whether the lips were thin, or full, whether they were hard or soft. He held her and would have near squeezed the breath out of her lungs and the warmth grew on his throat where her mouth rested, and he seemed to sink again and the water might have closed over him, and the board had slipped and was lost and would have been careering downstream and was beyond retrieval and there was no straw in his hand, only her. Asleep? He did not know, there, in the barn, how to sleep, nor did she.

  Hands edging deeper.

  His with a gentleness, hers with an urgency. Merc’s softly as if not wanting to hurt. Kat’s roughly as though not caring whether she did. Her gloves rested at his waist, then dragged up the sweater and the shirt and the T-shirt and her fingers searched out the scar where the skin had been folded over crudely, and rubbed along it, and tugged it, made patterns on it . . . A Czech field hospital, and a bored surgeon cleaning a wound, checking that it had an exit, after avoiding anything valuable, sewing him up, and two days of rest, and back in the truck cab. No big deal, not worth a Purple Heart, forgotten until she had found it.

  Her hands now going down, and his. Movement growing and sounds as they shifted, and some animals had eased out of their sleep, and others who had maintained a watch on them were alerted. They came closer and nudged against her back and his, and the first slobbering tongues were on their heads and one would have had her hair caught in its mouth and she let slip a squeal and pulled her head clear and returned it to his throat, and kissed him there.

  He pushed her jeans and pants down only as far as was needed, did not bare an inch of her, open it to the cold, that was not necessary. His fingers, in the crudeness of gloves, tangled in her hair, and she had a hold of him. She guided him, and he had a pig’s nostrils in his ear and a heifer’s mouth hissing hot breath at his forehead. He felt the heat of her, and she clung hard and if they had been going under, in the river depths, they would have floundered together. He called out. Did not know what he shouted. Broke near every rule taught him by the old guys, the veterans, and all the stuff that Rob or Brad would have lectured on . . . Some of the animals were startled and others more interested, and several of the fowls took flight.

  ‘What?’ Igor hissed in her ear.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She spat back at him.

  ‘What did he shout?’

  ‘Not anything I know – could have been Cinya or Cinar. Don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll catch my death.’

  ‘You go in,’ Marika told him. ‘I am staying.’

  They were at the barn door. The moon shone bright on them. Marika had prime position and a place on the plank doors where once a knot of wood had been, and it gave her a good peep-hole. He looked between planks but his sight was poor and he would see little. She did not have a fine vantage-point because of the press of the animals around that place on the spread of the straw five paces from her and Igor, but she could see movement in the barn, and the growing urgency and noises from both of them and from the beasts.

  The old fool had tucked his hand under her arm, as if old instincts stirred.

  A pause. Her freeing her hands from his back, then groping in an inner pocket of her anorak; having difficulty pulling back a zip fastener with her gloved fingers, then getting the sachet into her mouth and ripping the top from it. Then taking the contents and shaking the thing free, and spitting its wrapping clear, then sliding it on him, and a little giggle from her. Then burying him.

  It could have been the cold, or the tiredness, or just that it was, Merc thought, so good. It lasted well. And he was slower, and thought the loving brilliant, and both worked hard and the animals around them pressed ever closer and seemed to share. There were no more shouts from him, but at the end of it he let loose a grunt, and she released at about the same moment a small squeal, and he held her as best he could: the moon had drifted, came down on to them.

  Not about love, he thought, but about need. She rolled off him, and he helped to get her clothing back in place and he sensed the goose-pimples would have been forming on her skin as soon as he had shifted, and he took the thing off and buried it far down in the animals’ bedding, and fastened his trousers and his zip and his belt, and he held her close to him. She was asleep before him.

  The moon’s light came down and through the roofing and it rested on her face and he saw her at peace. The giggle gone, and the fight, and the indifference at what her brother had done, and her head was on his chest, hair tucked under his chin, Merc thought she had no comprehension as to how it would be when they reached the river, retrieved the board, went into the water.

  He’d try to sleep. What to assume? The same as any Gun for Hire would have. Opportunities came fast and went quickly, and with each hour the possibility of surprise and confusion ebbed. He had to rest, but with every hour gone, the chance of escape over the river diminished . . . which made sleep harder to find.

  Where did it lead?

  It would lead towards a summons, as dawn broke over the river and the street, and the first light fell on the Big House, to attend a suite of offices two floors above his box-room – where the three of them were crammed together – and he would be congratulated on the order he had brought to an investigation, praised for his diligence. It would lead to his removal from the inquiry, to his return to former duties. Also it would lead to a new team taking control of the conference room at the end of his corridor, and a security cordon would be placed round it, and the men and women staffing that inquiry would require his witness statements, his forensic results, then would close the door in his face. He might have been grateful . . . had already detected that few medals would be on offer if he followed his nose, went where it took him, drifted into places where he’d have to hold that nose because of the stench of corruption around him. He understood, now, what was the key, wh
o it was. He could, with justification, have clapped his hands, marked an end point, stood at his desk and reached for his jacket, thanked both of them for their endeavour, called for a driver from the pool, gone home . . . Might have had four hours’ sleep in his own bed before the order came for him to attend on General Onishenko, then pass over the file. He put her on the screen, full facial frontal, and tried to read the mind of Yekaterina . . . who would lead him, and who he would follow . . . It would not be disobedience, merely the conscientious following of a previous line of inquiry in an older investigation.

  He asked for more coffee, thanked both of them for their loyalty. He said quietly that nothing more should be committed to paper, and nothing more saved to an electronic file, said it casually and smiled at the raised eyebrows, and then repeated it with steel in his voice . . . and asked if a sandwich could be made.

  Once the moon had shifted, and no longer threw light into the recesses of the barn, they slipped away. Hardened by the events of their lives, Marika and Igor left their vantage-point. Almost at their own door, the cough that had tickled in her throat had the better of her, and she doubled up in a coughing fit, and he croaked and spat phlegm.

  He was disturbed and he thought she was. They reached the door, then began to bicker.