Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

Today, on the fence to the north-west of Murmansk there would be a static line of border guards, and a closed strip with entry forbidden behind it, and military patrols, and also a small army of agents and assets, not easily identified, who watched and reported. The Romans, to counter the threat of infiltration or attack, used the exploratores who roamed on horseback, heavily armed, over the Wall and beyond the horizon. Had also the speculators who did the covert stuff and might pose as deserters, refugees, merchants… and would face a bad death if identified. Merchants were the best in Knacker’s opinion for that work. Brought grain, fetched precious cloth for the wives of the barbarians’ top men. It interested Knacker that from time far back men had practised those same arts of warfare, had realised their value, had wanted to put a man beyond reach of help. That day, and preparing to be launched, he had Gaz to play the part of one of the men that his predecessor, out beyond the mist and the vague edge where cloud and ground met, would have waved off.

Had that man, nineteen centuries before, set off with a light heart and a smile and a cheerful step? Unlikely. More likely barely coherent, his gut twisted in fear, his bowels loose, and death might be by beheading and it might be by the form of crucifixion popular at the time for setting an example. He turned the coin in his pocket. Then, and now, men could be bought and relied upon for the heavy lifting, and the one pushed off and sent towards the Wall would have been given, or promised, a tiny purse of these coins, the one that was in his trouser pocket. In this age Gaz was shown a link with a Guernsey bank set among narrow cobbled streets and with hanging baskets of petunias, and a man giving the spiel who seemed as trustworthy as any country church deacon. Money had bought them in the Province and Knacker could have listed the others from new Russia who had taken his shilling, his coinage. He had no duty of care. None of them at the Round Table believed in that baggage.

He sat on the stone and stared, and waited. There would be a blast on a horn and the sound would be carried to him on the light wind, and no rain was forecast for that day, and brightness was expected. Maude would be able to dig and scratch in peace. The driver from a Hexham taxi service would take him to the airport and the pilot would ferry him to the front line. He thought himself refreshed, at peace, and a few sheep stampeded away from him as he stood, stretched, coughed. It was not right that men such as himself, from the Round Table, should be burdened with matters of conscience; they should be allowed to get on with their work. He’d give their man a little encouragement talk, always thought it went down well… Always the Russians in Knacker’s life. Their borders and their defences and their exploratores and their speculators , and, in comparison with their resources, he was just an innocent abroad, a painted man. He did not know whether they knew of him, had a file for him.

He gazed out a last time, then glanced at his watch and reckoned the taxi was either there or near, and slowly trudged away from the wall and the ruin of Mile Castle 35. It would be good to be up to speed, running, starting out on the mission – not, of course that Knacker would be setting foot into barbarian territory.

The kids did business.

Natacha accosted. Timofey carried the stock in a shoulder-bag and took the money. Both reckoned themselves good at personal security, and both would have said they had learned lessons from the last time, when she was caught and he’d legged it into the pitch darkness. There was supposed to be, this time, a fast bug-out route to take them away from the selling pitch and up a steep slope, through a jungle of bushes and small trees, across a road and then into the warren of lanes inside the housing complex. This was not where they had been busted, at the railway station, and where the buses and coaches parked.

Each of them had a good view of the steps leading to the monument. The walkway was wide and open and it would have been hard for the police to approach them unseen, difficult even for the FSB people who sometimes took over from the police. It had been the FSB who had arrested Natacha: he had evaded them and she was close to it but had slipped and gone over on an ankle and that had given the bastards the chance to dive on her.

At the edge of a wide space of concrete, backing on to the undergrowth and the high apartments, was a peculiar black shape, curved in a half-circle, five or six metres high and seeming to have small covered windows that were similar to those in a pilot’s cockpit. On the front of it was a gold-coloured eagle mounted on a pristine scarlet base. The monument was important to Natacha because of the plaque set into brickwork at the back which carried the names of more than 100 men lost in a submarine disaster. Natacha’s father’s name should have been there but was not… should have been, because of the loss of that vessel, the monstrous Kursk – sunk with no survivors in August 2000 out in the icy Barents Sea. Her father’s name was not there, should have been, and he was as dead as any of the men, who had sailed in her. Natacha liked to work close to the conning tower of the submarine, recovered from the bottom of the Barents, along with the bodies, and the rust scraped off it, and new paint applied, and a permanent memorial to those sailors of the Northern Fleet, as her father had been.

It was bold of them to trade in daytime, but it was a part of Murmansk – poor housing, poor pay for those in work, poor expectations – where money could be taken. Customers did not expect to hang around. Service on the nail was wanted. They had their regulars, men and women and boys and girls. In fine rain, buyers shuffled close to them. The city had a name for hard drugs, and Murmansk had as high a number of HIV addicts as any town in the Russian Federation. A new customer sidled close. The Italian.

“I have a flight in an hour.”

“We will get our money? The extra money they will pay us?”

Timofey reckoned the Italian despised him. Had no reason to believe this, but he seemed to look across the open concrete and towards the section of the conning tower and to linger on Natacha’s legs. He gazed at the Italian. Was told with a disinterested shrug that ‘money’ was the affair of others but he assumed obligations and promises would be kept. A slip of paper was passed to him, pocketed.

The Italian said, “Where you have to be, and at what time. You meet this man and you do what is asked, and you will find his employers grateful. I came here after visiting your father. Your father was drunk. Your father told me you would be here… I would like to warn, dear friend, that these people for whom you work, who have woken you, are most trustworthy. Rewards for completing the task they give you. Quite unpleasant vengeance if they are betrayed. Easy to understand. Be there, do as you are asked.”

He was gone. Striding quickly, and he would have had to work hard to have thrown off the inevitable tail that local FSB would have placed on a known diplomat travelling to Murmansk from the capital, and slipping away from whatever legitimate business had brought him so far north. They went on selling and the rain had come on heavier and the mist settled low above the apartments and customers came and went and the slip of paper was crumpled in Timofey’s pocket… He would do what was asked of him but only for the promised money.

He could not see Zhukov but knew he was close. He could not hear Zhukov but believed he was watched.

He was at the back of his cabin where he had dug and hoed the scant soil to plant summer vegetables. He had potatoes and carrots and cabbages growing. Near the cabin were dense dwarf birches and he should have been able to see a creature as large as the bear. And there were sufficient fallen twigs and dried leaves to mark where it moved.