Gerald Seymour - A Deniable Death

The Friend said, ‘Anyone you see here is Russian. There are no German Jews in Lubeck, only Russians. Yeltsin sold the Jews to the German government. They are here and few speak German. They have made another ghetto, where we are. The few who know you are coming believe you are a political activist of the Jewish faith, hunted by extremists and needing refuge. A man will arrive from Berlin later tonight and bring… well, he will bring what you need. I will collect you in the morning. What you do and how is for you to decide. Then we get the fuck out. I shall be here at seven. Sleep well.’

The caretaker, an old man, had directed them to an office where a camp bed had been left, with two folded blankets and a pillow. The Friend touched the young man’s shoulder. It might have been a gesture of encouragement, of support, but that was so obviously unnecessary. He had met – in his life with the unit – many men and women who killed for the state: some talked incessantly, others were silent, as if their tongues had been torn out; some were restless and fidgeting, others coldly still. All were touched by what they did, altered. Not this young man. There was a nod, a murmur of thanks, Hebrew spoken, then the back was turned, as if an audience was completed.

The Friend let himself out, walked away down the street towards Konigstrasse and the pension where he would sleep, if it were possible. He did not doubt the killer would sleep well on the collapsible bed with the wire frame and the wafer mattress.

Harding said, ‘They’re back again, ma’am, and the numbers are building.’

She answered with irritation: ‘I’ve eyes, I can see.’

In truth, Abigail Jones could see little beyond the broken gate. Shadows flitted forward. There was thin moonlight, which gave the shadows a wash of pale colour. The American had the best eyesight of them all and probably knew how many were armed with rifles or shotguns and how many had come back with clubs or the spears they used for fishing where the lagoons weren’t drained. She should have apologised for her tone, did not. He did not seem to take offence. Maybe he understood how the tension swarmed in her head.

‘We could be getting into problems when the time comes to get out of here, ma’am.’

Obvious. At that time, past midnight and well into another day, she alone carried responsibility in this little corner of the world – her sphere of influence. She had responsibility for herself and the four men paid to protect her, and for the situation further forward – a black hole of information, cut off from contact. She had helicopters on stand-by that could be utilised once only. She couldn’t call up the Station in Baghdad and request guidance: Sorry, Abigail, don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s nothing that’s flown across my desk. What to do? The best you can. And neither could she make a sat link with London and the Towers. Call her home desk: I’m just the lowly minion, the night duty officer, and I’m not permitted to contact your HDO before 06.00 local… Anything I can help with, or will it keep for the next seven hours? And she could hardly raise Len Gibbons, likely in Germany and leading the charge on a target: No way I can contribute, Abigail, because you’re there and I’m not, which means your judgement will be the one that counts. I’m sure whatever decision you take will be the right one and will stand up to scrutiny. If she asked for the advice of Corky or Shagger, or went to Hamfist and dropped the matter in his lap, if she looked up into Harding’s face and asked what she should do, she would lose authority.

‘If they’re in the way when we need to get out, we’ll go over or through them – whichever.’

He shrugged, acceptance. These men were happiest when told what to do and when. They would drive hard and shoot straight, and it would be for her – Abigail Jones – to face the wrath of the aftermath. Fuck it. The problem was that the money had been handed over and had bought a few hours but not enough. The radio stayed silent and she had no word from forward, the other side of the border. She could rail, stamp, blaspheme and swear, but the radio stayed quiet. The number of men from the marshes now outside the gate had increased through the night, and by the morning they would again be boxed in, and the dollar bills were exhausted. It had been a short window and they hadn’t used it. Fuck it was about the best answer she could muster.

‘If that’s what you want to do, ma’am, that’s what we’ll do.’

She smiled, grim. ‘Settled, then. Harding, one of your Rangers told me when I first came here that his father had been with a paratroop unit of the South Vietnamese army and had done time as an adviser in the Central Highlands. The old guy had told his son that what made the early days there ‘comfortable’ was the certain guarantee that if he had been wounded or killed, heaven and earth would be moved to lift him out, on a stretcher or in a bag. Might take the services of a platoon that needed reinforcing with a company that then had to call on a battalion to be moved, and a flight of helicopters with a wing of air support. Whatever it took, it was available, and the guys on the ground knew it, so they were ‘comfortable’. I can’t go and get Foxy, and can’t go as far as Badger likely is, but I’ll sit on the extraction point for him – and we’ll move before dawn whether I’ve heard from him or not. Like I said, ‘‘over or through them’’. A coffee would go down well.’

It was fraying, might already be unravelling.

‘I’ll get you a coffee, ma’am.’

‘And we can-’

He interrupted her, almost kindly, like he tried to share – but could not. ‘Packed and ready to burn some rubber. We’ll go when you say, ma’am.’

‘Hang him up, like a pig, hang him high.’

The officer gave his order. He thought his men barely recognised him. Not long before, he had led the killing of the Arabs who had crossed the frontier in search of abandoned military material, and his men – from the ranks of the Basij – had shown no hesitation or emotion in shooting, then digging the pits. They were frightened of him now. He was down on his haunches and his back was against the wall. The prisoner was on the far side of the table and chair. He realised that so much would have confused them. Why were senior men from Ahvaz not here? Why had they not been given custody of the man? Why had the man been beaten so savagely that he lay prone, unmoving? Why was the top sheet on the notepad clean, and the pencil laid neatly beside it? Why did they not know who they had captured and why had they not been praised for the success of their efforts? Why did their officer hug the floor and the wall, his head bowed? He was panting in spurts, and he clasped his hands together but could not stop them trembling. Why? The enormity of what he had done engulfed the officer, Mansoor. He did not turn towards the men who crowded in the doorway.

‘Get him out. Hang him up.’

They hesitated. All of them, not merely those who had guarded the doorway, would have heard the prisoner’s screams, and his own shouted questions, the thudded blows with the wood, and the water splashed from the bucket. The Basij were the arm of the regime: they broke up demonstrations against the authority of the state; they made the cordons on arrest operations; they kept back the crowds at executions; they enforced the edicts on dress and music. They hesitated to go close to the man. Mansoor did not know who he was. The man wore no chains, no rings; his one boot had no label and the one in his underpants had been cut out. Only at the end had he spoken and then with such insults that… His head was on his knees and he recognised the enormity of disaster brought on him by his loss of temper. The man, prone, terrified them.