Gerald Seymour - A Deniable Death

Never before had he been spoken to by a foreign-agency officer as if he were of similar importance to a drinks waiter. His shoulder was smacked, water spilled from the glass, and the Israeli smiled coldly. He must have flinched, and he thought Badger would have seen him take that step back. They were led again into the briefing room. He believed the Friend. He didn’t want to, but he believed that the time for quitting was long past, and that fear would be justified.

To Foxy, it was choreographed: nothing was here by chance. It was as if they had both – himself and Badger – been manoeuvred towards the proposition. And it had been done quickly, like he supposed a good hanging was, with a pretence of casualness.

‘Times have changed. Things are different,’ the Cousin said.

‘Who can be trusted? Never many, but now the number has shrunk,’ the Friend said.

‘What I’ve learned, you want a job done well, you get your own people to do it. Then you know you’re in the best hands,’ the Boss, Gibbons, said.

They had been together in the afternoon, and the Cousin had talked – an accent that was distant tyres on gravel, pronounced but not harsh – and had shifted awkwardly on the chair. He seemed to come alive when he spoke of the marshlands east and west of al-Qurnah, and north and south of the town, the drought there, the dried, cracked mud and stagnant pools where water no longer flowed because of the great dams built far to the north in Turkey, Syria and Iran. He spoke of a cradle of civilisation and the location of the Garden of Eden – did it well – of cultures that stretched back several millennia and a people who had been bombed, gassed, hit with napalm jelly and driven from their homes. Then on to ‘rat-runs’ and the smugglers’ trails along which the padded crates brought the bombs into Iraq. Through doors left ajar, and along corridors with stone floors, came the wail of a kettle boiling. That would have been the signal to the triumvirate – Boss, Friend, Cousin – that business should have been done.

Praise from the Boss: ‘You’re both the best in your field, excellent and professional.’

Admiration from the Friend: ‘Your files tell us you’re of high quality. This is not work for men at the second level.’

The proposition from the Cousin: ‘We can identify, gentlemen, the target’s location. He’s about two kilometres inside Iran. He’s protected – but he’s about to travel away from his guards. We don’t know where or when he’s going. We think – are pretty sure – that you are the guys who’ll give us the answers. That’s what we’re asking of you. Be there, watch, listen, and tell us what you see and hear.’

He was the older man. Predictable that their eyes should bead on him first. He could see, had adequate eyesight and wore glasses only for close work or with binoculars; he could listen because Six and the Agency, and whatever gang the Israeli was signed up to, would have top-of-the-range audio equipment; and he was almost fluent in Farsi, not interpreter standard but the level down from that. It would have been the language that had ticked boxes when they had trawled the files. He had also, rusty but never forgotten, the skills of a man trained in the techniques of covert rural surveillance. He had served a few days less than four months on attachment to the Joint Forces Intelligence Team at the Shaibah Logistics Base, where the questioning had been ‘robust’ or, in more legal phrasing, had involved ‘coercive interrogation techniques’. His breath came harder and almost, he realised, whistled through his teeth. Did he want to go? Did he hell. Where did he want to be? The map was fastened with drawing pins to the board, then propped against the back of the chair. A dull ceiling light, economy bulbs, fell on it. Nowhere near east or west of Highway 6, or near the Hawr al Hammar marshes, or within spitting distance of those turgid, stinking cess-pool rivers, and the towns that smelt more of human excrement than of donkey shit.

He wriggled on the hard seat of the chair. He was given no help. Would have gone down on his knees in gratitude if he’d heard, ‘Of course, Foxy, this is just a fishing exercise and if you don’t want to bite we’ll forget you were ever here.’ In the Cousin, the Friend and the Boss, he saw no mercy. If he had been given further explanations, perhaps on the physicality of the operation, he might have been able to peddle excuses about the state of his hips, his ankles or the cramps he was subject to at night – but his file would have stated that his condition was first class, the product of gym work and, once a week, an hour’s cross-country. He would have liked to be at home, with a malt in a crystal glass and Ellie in the kitchen, maybe humming to herself… He would have liked to be at a seminar, in a mess or at a conference, maybe, in Wiesbaden, or Madison, Wisconsin, with a spotlight on him and his words heard respectfully.

He wondered how long they would let him writhe before coming to his aid – ‘Look, Foxy, if you’re not up for crawling in the shit across the Iraq and Iran border with a directional microphone, your language skills, and that little creep alongside to carry the gear, you only have to say so, and there’ll be no criticism of you.’

The room was at the corner of the building and the wind caught against the stone and howled. The branches of an overgrown shrub lashed the windowpanes. The wind came through and lifted the curtains, and there was the sound of waves on shingle. Two small truths gnawed at him. First, Ellie, his wife of six years, was less often in the kitchen now and his dinner was more likely to come from the microwave; also, the chance of sex had become remote. The second truth was that the invitations to talk and lecture and address were fewer and now he never had to concern himself with two clashing on one date. Allowing a pall of silence to hover was a tactic used at the Logistics Base by the interrogators of the Joint Forward Intelligence Team. Foxy, as the interpreter, had played the game. Silence disturbed men. He didn’t know how to break clear.

Beside him, the quiet was broken.

The voice of the young man fucked Foxy: ‘I’m assuming I’m next to be asked. So’s we don’t mess around till Christmas, I’m on. That’s it.’

Smiles broke their faces and there was light in their eyes as they reached to shake Badger’s hand – the Cousin and the Boss had to stretch across Foxy. If the bastard had asked about the positioning of back-up, what fee would be paid and how much up-front, what the insurance aspect would be, Foxy might have been able to keep the wriggle going and find a sticking point. Too late.

‘Sounds important, sounds necessary.’ He thought himself truly skewered, managed a thin smile. ‘I’m taking it that the ground work’s been done. I’m on board, of course.’

His hand was shaken: the heavy fist of the Cousin, the light, lingering touch of the Friend, and the cursory grip of the Boss. None of the bastards thanked him. It was like he’d jumped a river and there was no going back. He assumed they were unable to put a drone over a house and a barracks inside Iran, and that they didn’t trust locally employed assets, or didn’t have them. The three sat back, and Badger’s arms were folded across his chest. He seemed relaxed.

Gibbons said, ‘I think we might take a break now. Tea and, hopefully, cake. Plenty after that to push on with-’

‘I said I was accepting your offer, but there are matters outstanding.’

‘What matters?’

He hesitated – could have done with Badger’s support, but was denied it. No damned response. Felt the loneliness. ‘For a start, what’s the back-up?’

‘Very adequate, and you’ll be well briefed on it before you’re inserted.’