A Deniable Death

by Gerald Seymour

  It was eaten, swallowed whole and alive. Digestion would take time, and the water level around the place where she settled was good for her wading.

  She squatted, preened herself, pecked at insects real and imagined. She gazed around her and felt comfortable.

  Badger watched. He had had the glasses on the bird as it circled the landing place twice, each time lower on the circuit. He wondered what species it was, but thought it pretty – and effective in the art of killing.

  The bird, hunched down, lancing its body feather with its beak, was welcome – a relief to Badger from the options, from breaking disciplines and scratching bites. The mosquitoes had gone now, the flies were gathering, and the wind coming from Foxy was foul. Twice he’d elbowed the man’s ribcage to stop the snoring, but then the options had been uppermost.

  A man of ethics? A police officer bred on morality? Badger didn’t know if he was or not. He believed in getting a job done and not much more. He had never fabricated evidence, had never claimed not to have seen another constable strike a man with a baton, and had never fiddled expenses. He had never done anything he would be ashamed of, had never risked his career with a criminal action. The rip-off culture at the police station in Bristol where he had started out had passed him by. Almost, in fact, he had been bollocked for insufficient arrests, relying on cautions and verbal warnings rather than hoicking the arrest statistics for the division. He had a moral code, not flaunted when he was in uniform or out of it, not based on any religious teaching and not worn on his sleeve. The code gave him – he recognised it now – a sort of naïveté. Maybe the naïveté had come on heavier since he had gone into rural surveillance and after he’d nagged Human Resources for the chance to go on the CROP course. Options? They had nagged at him through the night, while Foxy slept, and the one factor making the matter bearable was that nothing had materialised for him to report. He was watching the bird scrabble with its big feet for better grip on the reed fronds he had put there. More serious than ‘options’, it was kicking at the camouflage he’d made.

  The bird hacked hard, thrust dried stuff back and seemed anxious to work down to a hard surface. The glasses showed him the slim, long body of the microphone and, once, the drive of the right foot lifted the cable . . . If the bird kept going, the microphone would be pushed into the water. Down to options that mattered. Out of his mind went I was, sir, only following orders that I believed to be legitimate. No more baggage about I’m not prepared to be involved, Foxy, in extra-judicial murder. I’m not some fucking Israeli. I will not allow any message that contributes to the target’s killing to be transmitted. Pushed down the agenda was I’m walking out now and having no further part in this, and at the bottom of the heap was I’m a moron and ignorant, and I didn’t understand. More important, top of the pile, was how to stop a pretty bird – a bloody nuisance bird – kicking out the microphone and drowning it. Couldn’t stand up and shout, couldn’t go walkabout to look for a stone and lob it. Once more it scratched. The shape of the microphone was clear now and the cable was well visible and . . . It stopped, seemed to compress itself down.

  The door opened – the front door.

  The goon was walking from the barracks towards the house. Lights had been switched on inside and, faintly, a radio played. The door was wide open and the kids spilled through it. Then the case was lifted out. Maybe it was the Engineer who brought it, maybe the older woman.

  The case didn’t bulge. It had a green ribbon tied to its handle. Badger saw that the small girl was crying and the boy went to the water’s edge, threw in a pebble from the track, watched it bounce. The bird was hunkered low on what was left of the foliage. Maybe it thought this was a place to stay, where frogs were available on order. Maybe it was not about to shift out. He jabbed Foxy.

  Him and Foxy? Between them now a sort of tolerance existed, like a ceasefire. Not peace and not war. When the car came, the suitcase was loaded and they drove away, the mission was done, whether they had anything to radio or not. He doubted he and Foxy would speak much on the way back to extraction, or while they were driven to the base, and not at all when they were helicoptered to Kuwait City. Likely they’d be in different rows on the flight, which Foxy might demand and he himself might insist on. There might be a handshake at the terminal but it would be transitory and neither would go on the other’s Christmas-card list. They’d never meet again.

  One jab was enough. He passed him the headset. When the bird had kicked, noise, explosions, had been in his ears, but the bird’s chest – small mercy – did not cover the microphone tip and he could hear the little girl crying.

  There was more wind, then a murmur about needing to piss, then the question: how much water was left? None. Then the statement: without water they were screwed. The headset went on Foxy’s ears and Badger whispered about the bird. ‘. . . and can’t do much about it. The goon has it in his glasses, looks excited enough to do a jerk-off. What is it? Not anything I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘It’s called an African Sacred Ibis. Pretty rare. Big in Egyptian mythology. Do me a favour, just shut up.’

  Foxy looked wan, weak, about played out. A day wouldn’t have gone by in the last ten years without him shaving and examining his moustache in a mirror, without him putting on a clean shirt and polished shoes. He looked sad and a frown cut his forehead. Then he grappled in his pocket for the notepad and flicked the switch to light the screen.

  The wife came, and the children ran to her. The Engineer peered up the track and past the barracks, then looked down, savage, at his wristwatch. The goon gazed at the bird. She had the children against her knees and bent awkwardly, held them tight and tried to comfort them. What comfort, Badger wondered, could she offer?

  The car would come and the bird would fly. The noise of the car and the crying of the boy would be too much for it. Many weeks, several months, Mansoor had dreamed of seeing the bird, Threskiornis aethiopicus, merely fly low over the reeds and be in the lenses for a few seconds, half a minute, but it was down and he had a fine view of it, and could not believe that the moment would last, but she comforted the child.

  He heard her. He had no children. He did not know if it was his fault that his wife was barren or hers. She said, in their bedroom at the back of the house that was owned by his father, in a low voice, so she should not be overheard, that he was responsible for her inability to become pregnant. He could not believe that. He refused, of course, to go to a doctor and have tests done on his wife, Safar, and himself. So, with no child to look after, she went each morning on a shuttle bus from their home in Ahvaz to the Crate Camp Garrison on the road to Mahshar, came back each evening and helped his mother to prepare a meal, then did cleaning and went to bed. They had sex every weekend, quietly so as not to disturb his parents, but her period never missed. He saw how Naghmeh, wife of the Engineer, comforted the children. He had looked away from the bird that was on what seemed to be flood debris that had snagged at the end of a mud spit.

  ‘You should not be frightened.’ She held tight to the children. ‘There is nothing for you to be frightened of.’

  He thought she did not cry because it would have frightened the children.

  ‘We go to see a very clever doctor, and he will make me better.’ He looked up but the bird had not moved.

  He did not know if he would ever see her again.

  ‘We will bring you back sweets, because you will be very good when your grandmother cares for you . . .’ If she died in Germany, the children would go to her mother, and their father would be found an austere room in the Crate Camp Garrison. He would visit them only at the end of the week and on public holidays, and would bury himself in the papers and circuit boards on his workbench. ‘The reward for being good and brave is very special sweets.’

  Then Mansoor would be recalled to the ranks of the al-Quds Brigade and most likely a desk would be found for him, papers to process and a keyboard to hit. He might be in Tehran or Tabriz or in the mountains on the Afghanistan b
order . . . if she did not come back. She had quietened and calmed them. The car was late. It reflected on him. It should by now have been at the house.

  ‘We are going to a far-away country, to Germany. There is a town in Germany where they make wonderful marzipan . . .’ The sun edged higher and he saw that Naghmeh no longer shivered. Its first warmth fell on him – and on the bird. It was a clear two hundred metres from him, but he could sneak the binoculars to his eyes and see its markings. It had been venerated in ancient Egypt, had been thought so valuable that it was sacrificed to appease gods, and in one archaeological site the mummified remains of a million and a half ibises had been uncovered. He believed himself blessed, and turned away from it. The weapon hanging from his neck clattered against the magazines in the pouches of his tunic. ‘. . . which is made from almonds and sugar.’

  She looked up at him sharply. He had not seen it before. She seemed to despise him. It might have been the weapon that caught her attention, or the magazines into which the bullets were pressed, or the two grenades at the webbing on his waist, or the flash of the al-Quds shield sewn on his olive sleeves. It might have been because she knew his father helped to hang men, or because his wound crippled him – or because he had produced no children. He wanted them gone, but the car had not come.

  ‘The best marzipan is made in the town we go to, Lübeck, and there we will go to the shops and buy marzipan sweets for you, because you will be good and you will look after your grandmother. Your father says Lübeck is a very pretty town, and is famous for the marzipan we are going to bring home. You will be very good.’

  He walked away from her and the children, and went to the Engineer. He shrugged and said that the car was not late for its departure time, but should by now have arrived. If a few minutes more passed without it coming he would get on the radio and demand an answer. The Engineer looked at him as if he was dog’s mess on a shoe heel. The sun rose, carrying the day’s warmth with it, and the bird was still on the mess of leaves. He thought he heard a car, far away.

  It was repeated by Foxy, the third time. ‘I heard it. I don’t doubt what I heard. “The best marzipan is made in the town we go to, Lübeck.” She said that. Also she said, “Your father says Lübeck is a very pretty town, and is famous for the marzipan we are going to bring home.” About as clear as it could be.’

  ‘You going to send it?’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking well going to send it.’

  It was like a new man had materialised beside Badger. A bloody kid had scored a goal. Foxy had learned where a targeted man could be killed, and Badger wondered if that counted for more than scoring the goal.

  ‘Illegality, deniability, extra-judicial killing.’

  Dismissively: ‘Do me a favour, young ’un, and pass the kit.’

  His hands burrowed into the bergen beside him and Foxy was flicking his fingers in front of his face, as if time was not to be wasted. Badger felt dazed. A moment of truth had come, missile speed, from the clear blue skies above the scrim net. There were the seconds when a crisis developed – armed police had told him – when anticipation and training were overtaken by actuality. One thing to think about it, talk about it or practise it, another when it happened. It had been Badger’s job to look after the communications: the comms should have been ready, kept in place for immediate transmission, only needing the battery to be activated. They were not. Foxy’s snapped fingers and the irritation said they were there, flying high, and his voice had been quiet but he had made no effort to hide his elation: I heard it. I don’t doubt what I heard . . . Of course I’m fucking well going to send it. Badger had the comms gear in his hand and was levering it out of the bergen.

  ‘What’s the matter, young ’un? Just shift it.’

  He had to push aside a bottle half filled with urine, and two sheets of the tinfoil that was there in case the Imodium wore off. He brought the kit up under his stomach and then his chest.

  Badger could have done it himself – could have thrown the button, let it warm, made the link, sent the stuff, like passing down a death sentence. The kit would have been snatched from his hands. Foxy would not give up the glory moment. He could see the man: another cigarette, another glance at his watch, another spin on his heel to show anger that the car hadn’t come. The goon was on a radio or a mobile, had it clamped to his face, his weapon and binoculars bumping on his chest as he bent some poor bastard’s ear about the car being late. She stood with her mother and the kids were calm. The bird was still in place.

  Emotion melded with the professionalism dinned into him.

  His eyes flitted from the distance view of the woman and her husband to the near ground where the bird squatted, part covering the microphone. The length of cable that was exposed before it went into the water snaked out from under its tail feathers.

  There was a soft whine in his ear as the comms kit gathered power. A red light glowed, and he sensed Foxy’s exhilaration. He felt a sort of flatness.

  They had the link. Foxy murmured his call sign, Foxtrot and something Badger didn’t catch. A query on Alpha Juliet, a pause. Badger sensed that Foxy was at bursting point, and it flushed out of him.

  The town was named. It was spelt out. Lima – Uniform – Bravo – Echo – Charlie – Kilo. They were ‘leaving any time now, route unknown’. Badger turned his head away from the house, the family, its guards and the bird, and stole a look at Foxy’s face. Something almost manic, something of achievement not reached in a lifetime before, and he could see a clenched fist, the knuckles whitened. Then, an afterthought, Foxy said something brief about recovery of kit, a further transmission about extraction, and cut it.

  The car came. It was the Mercedes. The goon bawled at the driver, who pointed to a tyre and bawled back. The case was carried to the car and the boot was sprung open. The kids had started to cry again. The bird was sitting on the microphone. He could imagine that pandemonium had broken out on receipt of their report, and he had done nothing about agendas, had failed to scour the options.

  He and Foxy had done something huge and the response would be awesome. He knew it. Foxy might have forgotten himself: an arm had snaked out and was around Badger’s shoulders. ‘We did it. Against everything, every count of the odds, we did it. We scored.’

  There was a photograph. The frame was expensive enough to have a hallmark stamped in it, which guaranteed its pedigree. It was on a table beside the bed.

  The photograph had a message handwritten in heavy black ink: Ellie, With love to my darling girl, Foxy. The picture in the frame was of Joe ‘Foxy’ Foulkes with camouflage cream daubed on his face and wearing a gillie suit, but not headgear. He was grinning. It was a portrait of a man of action.

  Neither of them, in the bed, were embarrassed or distracted by its presence. It was face down.

  ‘I’m not having him giving me a cold eye, the old bugger,’ Piers had said.

  ‘About all he’s capable of, these days, is watching,’ Ellie had said.

  He’d arrived late at night, and his car was parked down the side of the garage, well inside the gate. It was pretty much hidden from a casual glance. She’d thought that a bottle of wine, on the carpet in front of the fire in the sitting room – Foxy’s chair pushed back to make more room – would ease them into what was a momentous time in the relationship. It was the first time he had been there. They’d been at his place and in the pubs there, where she was anonymous, on the far side of the motorway beyond Bassett.

  It hadn’t worked out as she’d planned. Time had not been wasted on Foxy’s rug in front of a fire blazing with logs that Foxy had cut, and none of the wine had been drunk from the bottle that Foxy prized. Straight up the stairs, past the collection of cartoons, police stuff, that Foxy had collected, into the bedroom and onto Foxy’s bed. They’d stripped, and the light had been on, and he had crawled over her and looked up into Foxy’s face. His hand had come from between Ellie’s legs, reached for the frame and flipped it. Her hand had come off the small of his ba
ck and given it a shove. Now it was mostly hidden by the clock radio that had woken Foxy when he was at home. It had been Ellie’s decision that Piers come to the house.

  Where was he? She didn’t know. What was he doing? She’d only had a text. What had she been told? Pretty much nothing, and the guys who’d brought the car back had just been peasants. Would he just turn up? Always rang first, something about getting the wine to room temperature or decently chilled.

  They’d slept, knackered, and the dawn had come and she’d woken him.

  Rain beat on the mullions. It was a grey dawn, a miserable one.

  ‘Not to worry,’ Ellie said. ‘You’re back here tonight.’

  ‘Am I? You sure?’

  ‘Too bloody right.’

  It was eleventh-hour stuff, and she had jack-knifed up when the chimes had gone. She’d had to rummage in the robe to get the receiver, would have shown a mass of leg and didn’t care. The haggling, pure bazaar, had gone on through the night and into the small hours.

  She had nothing in her hand except money. Probably they could have ignored the bartering and come and taken the money by force, and would have lost a few, or several in the fight. She and her guys, if still upright, would have been unable to prevent it. So, money had been on the table and the sheep had gone quiet – they might have thought, as the night wore on, that their throats were safe. And had been wrong.

  There had been a bare apology, first light and a grey mist over the desert dirt, and she had been listening to the fucking thing, and then had run to the front Pajero, and her laptop.

  The sheep had been skinned, then skewered and cooked over the fire. Bowls of rice were passed round, and bread brought from a village. The sheep had been slaughtered when the deal had been closed. Not an easy one for her: no chance of getting on a satphone and calling up her station chief in the Baghdad compound and asking him what ceiling she could reach to: he was outside the loop and would want to stay there. It was her decision alone, and she had pledged the lot. Her bundle of dosh, each last dollar, would go into the sheikh’s pocket. It carried no guarantee of honesty – he could trouser what she gave him, then drive away, call his friend, who would be a full colonel, and pass on information about Jones and her Boys to another colonel on the far side of the frontier. No guarantees, except – she had the laptop out and it was powering up – she had dropped in an aside. Ground troops of the coalition no longer did grunt work in the field, but the firepower of the air force was still available. She might be able to call out an F-16 Fighting Falcon with a load of missiles and maybe a pair of CBU-87 bombs.