Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

'Where do you think, Joey Cann, we are going?'

'Wherever he leads us to.'

'He'll turn Queen's, won't he? He'll sing, testify.'

' I'll fix him. Eagle, you worry too much.'

'Right now, I'm worrying overtime.'

'Just drive.'

'You're the better driver, Mister.'

' If I'm driving I can't shoot. Think, Eagle, switch on.'

The Eagle knew Mister when in structured situations. He knew him in conference and in meetings, and when there was an agenda on the table in front of him in the office over the launderette. This, though, was new. He did not know Mister in crisis. He was not a part of the other meetings where the maps were studied and the guns loaded; he had been safe from them. The two guns were now out of the glove box.

One rested between Mister's thighs, the other was in his right hand, both were cocked. From what he could see of Mister's face, and from his voice, there was no panic. It was as if he had found a welcome fulfilment.

The window was down, the cold air of the evening whipping their faces. Mister checked often in the mirror, but the lights stayed behind them. In the chaos of the departure they had, both of them, tried to get into the Russian's car, and been bounced out. A pistol had pointed at their stomachs. The Turk's car had already pulled away. The Eagle had never driven a getaway vehicle. The lights behind were constant, but the lights he followed diminished,

The Eagle followed the tail-lights as best he could, but the Mitsubishi did not have the acceleration power of the Mercedes fleet ahead. Always the lights were strong behind him. He wanted to piss, and wouldn't have cared if he had messed his trousers. It was all right for Mister, he'd find another bloody lawyer. Suddenly, the lights ahead disappeared.

They're trying to lose us, bastards.'

' Keep looking.'

'You reckon, Mister, there are road-blocks up front?'

' I don't know – just look for their lights.'

'They'll know the way out, Serif'll know the bloody way what's that?'

The Eagle would have sworn, far up the road, just past the first sign into Godbina village, there was a flash of a brakelight, and no headlights in front of it.

He thought the Mercedes column had killed their lights so that the Mitsubishi would not be able to follow. Of course there would be road-blocks, and bloody machine-guns. His skill was in the reading of the pages of Archbold, not in evading road-blocks and bloody machine-guns. And if they evaded the road-blocks, what then? Where to then? He was slowing.

He'd have sworn – on his Bible, on Archbold, put his hand on the smooth leather of the volume and given his oath – that the brakelights had flashed again off the road to Mostar, climbing and going right. He took the decision. He saw the turn-off. There was a high moon rising. He swung the wheel and snapped off the headlights.

'What are you doing?'

'You said to follow them.'

'You sure it was them?'

'Sure, Mister.'

'Positive sure?'

'They turned off because there'll be road-blocks.

They know the form.'

The track they were on was good for the first half-mile. The Eagle started to relax. He had made the decision, and stood his corner, and his decision was accepted… His decision, not Mister's. He was starting to lose the sweat in the pit of his back. He had to go slower, change down through the gears, as the track surface deteriorated. Every minute or so he saw the wink of the brakelights in front of him, higher and climbing. His eyes were now accustomed to driving by moonlight. He leaned forward over the wheel, and by concentrating to his limits he could see most of the ruts, enough to avoid most of them… Then came the sinking despair. It came in his gut, his heart and in his mind. At first he did not dare to look up to the mirror. It had been his decision. Mister was quiet beside him, as if he'd parcelled off responsibility.

The low chassis of the Mercedes saloons would have snagged on the rutted track.

He looked up into the mirror and the twin headlights, merging there, dazzled him. The brakelights shone brightly, then were extinguished. As they drew level, the Eagle saw a tractor and two men unloading bales.

As they lurched on the rutted track past the tractor, in the moon's grey glow, the Eagle saw that its front lights were smashed. He had made a decision and it had been wrong. The humiliation and the fear settled on him. He turned to Mister. 'What are we going to do?'

An icy calm in the reply. 'Go overland, walk out of here… What are you, Eagle? What the fuck are you?'

'Not very clever, Mister.'

'I'll get you out – what'll you be then?'

'Grateful, Mister.'

The lights behind, in the mirror, glowed more fiercely, and the distance narrowed as they came ever closer. There was, the Eagle thought, an inevitability to this conflict. He'd known it since he'd seen the guns and heard the dog, and when the flashlight had found the young man sitting cross-legged on the flat stone peering at them through heavy spectacles. Mister had said the young man had been 'dealt with'. He recalled what he had said, in the road outside Mister's home, a month before, a bleat in his voice: You know what I worry about? I mean it, lose sleep about? One day you overreach – know what I mean – take a step too far. i worry…

And he could remember Mister's punch just below his heart, and the pain. He pulled over and the Mitsubishi lurched into a shallow ditch.

'You won't leave me, Mister?'

'Did I ever?'

They were at the crest of a hill. The track, ever rougher, fell away from them. Down to the left were lights and the outlines of close-set buildings. There were more lights in the far distance, and a murmur of water. Between the two groupings of lights was a black hole into which the Eagle gazed and saw nothing. He scrambled out. He subsided into the ditch, water covered his shoes and the cold gripped his feet. He came round the front of the Mitsubishi.

Mister was silhouetted against the moon. He heard the drone of the vehicles down the track behind them, and in moments their lights would trap him.

'Are you coming or not?'

'Coming, Mister.'

Ante had the rifle to his shoulder. His body-weight was against the bonnet of the blue van. He aimed. He had the whole of the upper chest of Target One in his

'scope. He dragged back the cocking lever, scraped it till it locked home. He settled. Frank swung his arm up. His wrist would have hit the underside of the barrel immediately below the end of the sight's lens, and the aim darted towards the moon. Frank lectured Ante. Joey realized the anger of Salko and Fahro.

Muhsin had the dog down from the cage and it peed against the wheel of the van.

'You did right,' Joey said.

'Thank you – but it's not for you. He was going to blow him away. I am an authorized firearms officer, sometimes I'm a team leader. That man is under my control. I am responsible for his actions, and his target is a British citizen. I'd have been before Disciplinary, a full inquiry. I know the regulations no one's life was in danger. It would have been murder, and if 1 hadn't intervened I would have been an accessory.'

' I support what you did.'

' I'm grateful for that, Joey.'

' I support what you did because Mister is mine.'

Joey marshalled them. Muhsin would lead with the dog, and Ante would be alongside them. Joey would be a dozen paces behind, with Salko and Fahro.

Joey said to Frank, 'You should watch the prisoner.

Please feel free to read him his rights, and you can offer him a solicitor. You can assure him he'll have legal-aid funding for an appeal to the European court should that be necessary, and make sure he's warm, fed and comfortable and-'

But Joey didn't finish. He hurried away into the dark, and there was the thud of the boots around him, and the baying of the dog.