Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

She walked a few strides down the track that was hemmed in by yellow tape. She found a vantage-point. She wondered if she would be different when she returned to C'eausescu Towers, whether the people she worked with would recognize it. 'You know what, 1 think that tease bitch finally opened her legs… I reckon she had it, at last.' She set up the tripod then searched for stones inside the tape cordon and wedged them against the tripod's feet. It would have been better, on all three times, if she'd thought of Joey Cann. She screwed the video camera onto the tripod's head. She had never reached Joey Cann. She held the mobile in her hand, stood back to let the wind snag the tripod and the camera, and she was satisfied that the picture would be steady. He wore no uniform, but she could not have discarded hers.. . She would never reach him. On the track, Frank was in animated conversation with the de-mining team, men made grotesque by their plated waistcoats and visored helmets.

The wind brought her the flat tone of the shouted voice.

' I'm thinking the fear's worse, Mister. Each minute that you put it off, the running, will make it harder, Mister. I want to see you run, Mister, and I want to hear you scream.'

She looked over the sunlit valley… Beyond an abandoned vineyard, half-way between the tree-line and the river and far from the yellow tape, in the middle of an expanse of field, Target One stood. The crows circled above him. Near to him was the body of Target Two, and close to it was a blob of colour she could not identify. It was all, to her eyes, so pretty…

Joey had brought her there… so pretty and so cruel.

She would never reach him.

She aimed the camera and dialled the number.

Five men lumbered along the slight gap between the tree-line and the yellow tape. Frank was ahead of them, unencumbered. At the back of the line was a German shepherd dog on a rope leash, bigger than Nasir and older.

When they came close, Joey looked into their eyes.

There was a weariness, a dullness, that matched the slow speed of their approach. They wore overalls of dreary grey and heavy boots, thick shapeless waistcoats with a flap that hung down over their privates, and bulbous helmets with raised visors of unwashed Perspex. They carried thin metal probes and garden shears, and one had a small handsaw. Another had a metal-detector hoisted on his shoulder, and the one who held the dog's rope had a roll of yellow tape under his arm.

Nasir, growling, was taken hy Muhsin back into the trees.

Frank made the introductions.

Joey was asked by the foreman – good English – for his assessment.

Joey scowled. 'Two men, both British citizens, went into the field just before ten o'clock last night. At one minute past ten, a mine was detonated by the fugitive nearest to us Target Two, we call him. He bawled a bit, then he went quiet Alter midnight Target Two started to talk, but target One shot him. Target One is alone. He nearly moved at dawn. He stood and readied himself lo move, but then changed his mind.

He's not moved since he stood.'

He hated saying each word to the foreman. The man came into his space, the others with him, and their dog.

'So,' the foreman said, without enthusiasm, 'we have one cadaver and one uninjured person – that is correct?'

'Correct. What is the density of the mines?'

'We do not know. Mines were laid in the valley over a period ol nearly four years, but it was not a disputed front line. There is not a barrier minefield. Once there would have been a purpose to where they were buried but time and principally rain – will have changed that.

They can be anywhere. There may be ten, a hundred, or five hundred. We have to assume, always, that we must work through a concentration of mines.'

'Do you use the dog?'

' I think not. The dog is too valuable. If the casualty were still alive then there is great pressure on us to go faster. I think we do not use the dog.'

'What do you do?'

'We make a corridor, a metre and a half wide,' the foreman said. 'It is very slow. It is, my estimate, a hundred and thirty metres to him, that is the work of a whole day… The man is a criminal? He shot the man with him, you said that?'

Frank said softly, 'He carries at least one weapon with a full magazine. We have a prisoner. The prisoner said there were two firearms in their vehicle. I have searched the vehicle and there are no firearms in it. However many shots he used for the killing, he has the second firearm, a PPK Walther, with a fully loaded magazine.'

Joey said, 'The man who is dead is a lawyer, wouldn't touch a weapon. Whatever plan you make you should assume that Target One is armed.'

'Do you know about mine clearance?' the foreman asked.

Joey said that he did not.

' It is necessary to be very careful. We concentrate only on the work. We go on our hands and knees and we probe. All our attention is on the ground a few centimetres in front of our bodies. We wear personal protection equipment, but that is of little use to the man who sets off the mine. The second man, or the third, if he is a few metres away, will take the benefit from the clothing. There is a full bomb suit, from Canada, but it weighs thirty kilos, and you cannot work in it, not on your knees. You have in the field a criminal, an armed fugitive… Do you think I should ask my men to crawl towards him – and forget that he is a criminal, armed, a fugitive – and probe for mines and never look at him? I cannot.'

' I'm not criticizing you,' Joey said.

' If he were not armed, if thai were proved, if he gave clear signs that he wished to surrender, then I would reconsider.' The foreman shrugged.

'Should he run, what would be his chance of setting off a mine?' Joey asked.

' It would be in God's hands.'

'He's not broken, not yet,' Joey said. 'He will be.'

They walked away, taking with them their shears, their probes, the metal detector, the roll of yellow tape and their dog. The sun was rising and bathed the valley's fields. They trudged off alongside the tree-line, and Frank was close to the foreman. Joey thought it was how he wanted it to be. He smiled at the four men who were withj him but none caught his gaze.

He sat down The dog, Nasir, came to him. It lay against his leg and his raised knee threw some shade for it. The Sreb Four made a little huddle and sat apart from him. In front of him, caught in the sun's strength, Mister stood and Joey did not see a muscle of his body moving. He would weaken, Joey knew it. Exhaustion, hunger, thirst and the creeping fear of the mines around him would sap Mister. And then Mister would run… He cupped his hands.

'Men were here, Mister, who had the skill to reach you and bring you out, but I told them you were armed and had killed, and who you are. They've decided you're not worth the risk. All that's left to you, Mister, is to run and to hope.'

Midday…

… Judge Delic, having recessed his court till the late afternoon, wheeled Jasmina from the Mercedes to the doorway of a boutique on Ferhadija, tilted the chair over the street step and pushed her inside. They were no longer window-shoppers. She knew the trouser-suit she wanted, black, professional and styled from Milan.

The car was left on the kerb, a no-parking zone, but a black Mercedes would not be interfered with by the police. And up on the hill, over the river, workmen scrambled over and through their home.

… the firemen took the strain on their rope, relied on the grappling hook to hold, and pulled the body on to the steep stone-clad bank of the Miljacka. The water dripped from it as it was beached. Around the ice-white throat of the body was a gold chain. A fireman fingered it and read the inscription on the bar: 'To dearest Enver, with love, Serif'. He wiped his hands on his overalls, and activated his radio.