Peter Temple - In the Evil Day

Hair of the dog.

He went through the door, saw the legs first.

A figure in black, absolutely dull black, no head. No, a hood on his head, face down, his black hands around a black weapon, a machine-pistol. In the middle of the room, a shotgun tied to a chair was pointing at him. Anselm was too shocked to move.

Caroline made a noise, a deep, sobbing intake of breath.

On the other side of the room lay another figure in dark clothing, a man lying on his side, blood run from him over the stone floor to the edge of the carpet, soaked up by the carpet, blotted, blackish blood.

The man made a sound like a hiccup. Again.

Anselm did not think, he went to the man, pulled his poloneck down, put an index finger against his throat, in the collarbone cavity. The faintest pulse.

‘He’s alive,’ he said. ‘We’d better do something.’

For want of anything better to do, he took off the man’s rolled up balaclava.

‘It’s him,’ said Caroline in a voice without timbre. ‘It’s Mackie. Niemand.’

‘And a terrible fucking nuisance the man is too,’ said O’Malley from the doorway.

…WALES…

He came into the dim room, bent over and picked up the machine-pistol lying near Niemand’s head.

Anselm stood up. ‘Jesus, Michael,’ he said. ‘What the fuck is this? What exactly the fuck is this?’

O’Malley had the magazine out, looking into it. He dropped it on the floor and took another one out of his coat pocket. It made a precise snick as it locked in.

‘What the fuck is this, John?’ echoed O’Malley, looking around the room like a real estate agent being asked to sell something nasty. ‘Why do rich people crave this sort of thing? A croft in the Welsh wilderness, wind never stops howling, natives slathered in sheepshit and woad, incomprehensible tongue, nasty secessionist tendencies.’

O’Malley walked over to the shotgun tied to the chair, ran a hand over the trigger guard, pulled at something. It caught the lamplight and Anselm saw that it was nylon fishing line that ran to the leg of an armchair.

‘A booby trap so cheap, so primitive, so old. And here lies dead of it a killer with the most expensive and sophisticated training the modern world can provide.’

He tested the triggers with a black-gloved finger. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Knew how to make this work, did your Mr Niemand. Breathe hard on the buggers and Bang.’

‘Michael, what?’ said Anselm. ‘Tell me. It’s late, I’m tired and sober and I’ve got a knife wound nine inches long. What?’

O’Malley had the Heckler amp; Koch in his left hand. He transferred it to his right.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Sorry about this too.’ He ran a hand over his curly head. ‘Truly, I wish it were another way.’

It came to Anselm, as it had come to him in Beirut, that something had ended, something was over and gone. A still moment, the highest point of the pendulum’s swing, the end of momentum, the dead point.

‘Kaskis,’ he said.

O’Malley was looking at Caroline. She was frozen, hands at her sides, holding herself like a Guardsman on parade, waiting for the Queen.

‘I saved you, John,’ said O’Malley. ‘You and Riccardi. They wanted to kill all three of you, I talked them out of it. I said it wasn’t necessary, you knew nothing, the idiot Riccardi less. I’ve given you eight good years. Well, eight years. Think of it that way. And I told you you weren’t a journalist anymore. I tried to warn you off.’

Anselm thought that he had never seen this look on O’Malley’s face. His handsome poet’s face was sad. He was going to kill both of them and he was sad that he had to do it.

O’Malley raised the weapon, held it on its side, weighed it in his hand, bounced it.

‘This is awkward,’ he said. ‘I would really rather not. But. Necessitas non habet legum . Know the expression, boyo?’

Anselm nodded. He felt nothing. No panic this time.

‘Yes, well…’ O’Malley raised the weapon and pointed it at Caroline.

‘Sorry, darling’ he said. ‘But think what you did to that poor old bugger Brechan on behalf of MI5.’

Grunts, not loud, several quick grunts.

O’Malley’s face below the high cheekbone blew apart, his face seemed to break in two, divide, an aerosol spray of red in the air around his head, a piece of scarlet veil floating.

They stood.

The woman came in, went to Niemand, put her head down to his head, seemed to kiss him.

She jerked her head up.

‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘For fuck’s sake do something.’

Anselm looked at Caroline. She was grey-white, the colour of cemetery gravel. She shook her head and put her hand in a coat pocket and took out a cellphone.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Right.’

And then Caroline, holding the tiny device towards the light to see the keys, she moved her head, her long hair moved, she looked up and said to Jess in her upper-class voice:

‘I don’t suppose, I don’t suppose you know where the film is?’

…HAMBURG…

In the blue underwater gloom of the work room, Anselm and Baader and Inskip and Carla watched the big monitor.

The television anchor was too old to pull her hair back like a twelve-year-old Russian gymnast. She tested her lips swiftly. They worked. Collagen and cocaine did terrible things to lips.

All front teeth showing, she went through the preamble. Then she said:

We warn that the film contains images of violence that will shock. Please ensure that children are not watching.

The aerial view of wooded sub-tropical country, late in the day.

Angola, 1983. The oil-rich African country is in the grip of a long-running civil war in which the United States has intervened, spending millions of dollars in an attempt to counter Russian influence. This film was taken from a helicopter.

Analysts say from the co-pilot’s seat. They believe the film was unauthorised and the person filming took care not to be seen.

A village burning, thatched huts burning, several dozen huts, cultivated fields around them marked by sticks.

This nameless village is in northern Angola. There is no evidence of military activity.

On the ground now, another helicopter in view, no markings visible.

The filming is through the open door of the helicopter. Notice the dark edge to the right. The other helicopter is a Puma of a type used by the South African Defence Force.

Now a long panning shot, bodies everywhere, dozens and dozens of bodies. An enlarged still of a group of bodies.

These people have been overcome by something. There are signs of vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea.

Another enlarged still. At least a dozen people lying near a crude water trough. Black people in ragged clothes, mostly women and children, a baby. Some have their hands held to their faces, some are face down on the packed dirt.

Medical experts say the signs of poisoning are even more apparent here. They are consistent with those produced by the biological poison ricin, which is made from a toxic protein found in castor oil seed.

Motion again, white men in combat gear carrying automatic weapons, standing around, six of them, relaxed, weapons cradled.

The frame held still, enlarged.

These men are American soldiers, part of a super-secret unit called Special Deployment, also known as Sudden Death. They were drawn from Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta Airborne stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.Although they wear no insignia, they are armed with the Heckler amp; Koch MP5K, first issued in 1977. The man on the left carries a Mossberg Cruiser 500 shotgun, and Beretta 9mm handguns are visible on three of them. Their boots are Special Forces tropical issue.