Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

He fired again. Kept firing. Fired into the inert body of the woman. No more twitches or spasms, her life was already gone. The officer fired until the magazine in the butt of the Makarov was emptied. Then he kicked her, then, in extreme anger, kicked her again. Gaz thought he might be sick but held it back in his lower throat. The girl stared ahead, never moved, did not even shake, and the dogs were close to her but the goats were roaming, which left her more exposed than when they were thick around her. What struck Gaz was the minders had not moved. Had not taken the empty pistol from the officer, nor had deflected the kicks he aimed at the body, nor had sought to calm him.

And it would be worse, Gaz thought. Dusk was still four hours away and still witnesses lived. He watched the officer and the blood dribbled on his face.

The computer was switched off. Anything private to him was sanitised. Lavrenti rose from his seat and the chair went back hard against the wall and marked the paint: little matter. He hooked the strap of his bag over his shoulder, took his pistol from the desk’s top drawer, put it in the bag. A quick look around him and his two-year stint inside the Arctic Circle was nearly done. They were waiting outside, the new major and the captain. He acknowledged them, the briefest and shallowest duck of his head, and neither offered a hand to him as a farewell gesture. Down the corridor. No voices calling out through half-open doors… ignored, like he was a triangle of yesterday’s pizza. He went down the stairs. Usually he alerted his minders that he was on his way but it had not seemed important, not this time. He had noticed a growing impertinence from them these last days. In the big hallway on the ground floor, a colonel waited to receive a guest. The colonel bossed the headquarters building and the outer doors swung open and Lavrenti noted the arrival of an official from the regional governor’s office, and the two men hugged. The colonel would have seen the departing Lavrenti, would have known his tour of duty was completed, but did not acknowledge him. He was about to leave and was fishing the lanyard off his neck that held his local accreditation, and a security man stood and waited for it, and his face was lit in admiration.

“Goodbye, Major, and wishing you well.”

Which startled Lavrenti. Something warm and something genuine. He noticed that the security man wore, proudly, a line of medal ribbons. “Thank you, and you.”

“Because we need more like you, Major. Combat men. Those who have fought in the name of the Fatherland. Been on active service. Not these desk warriors, fuck them – excuse me, Major – but more who have been at the front line, need them. Done time there.”

He was saluted. He went outside, into the drifting spat of the rain. His minders had not seen him. He walked to the gate. The guard there was admitting men and women who were probably in the delegation of the governor’s office but had come in different cars. He was delayed but it did not seem important. He paused in his stride and saw, through the bars, that the traffic on the Prospekt was light. He did not look back at the building, had no more time for it, but was unsettled by the greeting as he had given over his lanyard, and the warmth of it. More like you, Major… combat men , and so few knew.

Gaz saw him.

The officer came out, crossed the space in front of the building but could not push past the delegation entering the gate. He paused. Was wearing his cap and his camouflage tunic and had a bag across his shoulder, and his khaki drill trousers were pressed and had a knife-sharp crease, and his shoes were polished. The same glower in the eyes and the line that had been bloodied when Gaz had last seen it and now was faint but visible. Still the goons with the car, as recognisable as the major, had not seen their man. He flicked with his fingers, cracked them, and Gaz watched the response as the goons turned and gazed through the ironwork fence and jettisoned their cigarettes, and… Gaz was running.

Out from the bus-stop, along the street and past an apartment block entrance, and to the next corner. Looked for the Fiat, found it… a good boy, his Timofey. True to his word. Brought close to the corner, the engine ticking over. The girl was sitting in the back… the most chaotic call-up that Gaz had ever done. That it worked was miraculous… a delegation had gone through the gate and then into the building via a single door, and the officer had been forced to stand and watch, and his own car had not been ready. He did a sharp, short whistle, and the Fiat was coming fast towards him.

A door opened, foul smell hitting him. A jerk at his arm and he was pitched down into the front passenger seat, cannoned down and was bruised. Had only half closed the door when the boy accelerated away… He said it was the black car. They braked hard at the main intersection. The driver scanned. Gaz had seen the officer for a full ten seconds. He had seen the goons, who had once been minders, for an hour, a little more. All put together like a jigsaw. That should have been a moment of rare pleasure for Gaz. Should, mentally, have been thrilled enough to high-five the kids and punch the air.

There had been a four-day stake-out in Helmand, and he had been the lead of a reconnaissance team, had had a full sergeant working to him, and had identified a local hitter, a man with the reputation of having filled coffins to go back to UK for a hearse journey up the High Street in Wootton Bassett: the man was supposed to be an expert in the dark art of building the IEDs that either killed outright or made living a pained misery for survivors. Easiest cliché: they all look just the same and might have been true except that Gaz was the one who had detected in previous surveillance stills that the target tied his turban loosely and with a side knot, not a central one, and it had been enough. A man convicted, sentenced, and executed with a Hellfire strike on the compound from a fast jet and all done because the tying of a knot had been picked up by binoculars half a mile away. Knacker and his crowd would not have relied, just, on Faizah’s identification, of a Russian officer in a changed location and different uniform. Needed his training, what Gaz brought to the table. Had previous, had form, history… If Gaz spotted a man, and identified him, working in the sort of theatre that was his playground, then the man was dead. Not, of course, by Gaz’s hand, but he had that level of power.

Needed more. Needed a location. Needed a quieter street and a backwater location. Needed a better place for the hitters to get to work. The BMW was starting to move away from the kerb. Timofey had pulled out into the traffic and a car almost hit them, and a collision with a motorcycle was narrowly avoided. Gaz glanced behind him and saw the girl sat on top of a drunk.

Her voice was rich in contempt. “His father. His father went to tell them. His father was too drunk to get a hearing. His father is a traitor to us. This is his father. We should put a weight on him and take him to the docks, drop him in the river.”

Which he supposed was the way of the jungle they lived in… an arrogant thought, so he bit at his tongue and said nothing… just pointed ahead and Timofey had locked on the saloon and followed it easily. It had the speed to surge away from them, but it was that time in the late afternoon when the road filled and the offices slopped out. The shops would soon be shutting, the pavement was crowded. Murmansk was on the march and it suited Gaz well. He had no indication that the saloon’s driver used tradecraft, was aware of them, nor did he seem to practise any of the procedures laid down for the evasion of a tail. Their size helped them, a compact little vehicle that could shift between lanes and be hidden by the bulk of buses and lorries. Fact was, it was turning out ordinary and simple. The boy drove well and seemed aware of the risk of showing out, but the drunk’s stink from the back was sharp and Gaz was aware of a dilemma: did not know what, in the world from which the drug-dealing kids emerged, would be the fate of a father wanting to tout on his son. Timofey had his eyes on the roof of the saloon and swinging at lights, going right and climbing a steep and narrower road, and going back often enough to his mirror. Asked, “What is it now that you want?”