Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

“I want him to go home. I want to see his home.”

“Only that?”

“Yes.”

“And he is?”

“He is Major Lavrenti Volkov. He is FSB. Before he worked here he was in Syria. I have to see him, locate him. Because of what happened in Syria.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t have to know. It is another story.”

Timofey persisted. “My father, who did he speak with?”

Gaz said, “He tried to speak with the guard at the gate. He tried also to speak with men who came from the building. Many people came but none wanted to hear what an alcoholic said. Nobody stopped, nobody listened. He had drunk too much, was not heard. If he wanted to betray you, then he failed. That is your problem, and I am not a part of it.”

He had said it easily, was practised at shedding responsibility. It was the way of a reconnaissance trooper. He carried no burden of ‘consequences’, would be far gone from Murmansk when it was decided how to use the information he provided. What happened to the drunk, Timofey’s father, was separate from him. By the following day he would be travelling back towards the island of Westray, and hooking up again with a mobile, calling customers, telling them that he would make up the time on their lawn cutting and the repairs he had promised for them, and maybe heading for the hotel and a beer, and might wonder if the mission had cleansed him of the attentions of the black dog days, and would meet again with Aggie…

He could see the saloon’s roof and remembered everything of the officer: what he had seen at Delta Alpha Sierra and the image of the man this afternoon, smart in his uniform, but wearing the scar of where he had been. Was near to the finish line.

Through the traffic, an old, scraped and unremarkable Fiat 500, rust showing at the bottom of the doors, tailed a glossy black BMW 5 series saloon that was the vehicle of a man of substance and his protection went with him. The car climbed, and there was a bend where the road swept to the left. In the back, Gaz imagined the old man had passed out, or worse, or merely slept, but every few minutes there was a muttered curse from the girl who was astride him and Gaz did not doubt her venom, and still the stink… The road swung, and Timofey followed the bend and the BMW was fifty yards, three vehicles, in front.

Gaz looked down and out across the Murmansk harbour, and saw the hulk of the aircraft carrier that had been mostly towed on its voyage to the Syrian theatre, and mostly towed back and now had cranes alongside, and could see an ice-breaker tied up at a quay, and small trampers, small tankers and beyond them was open water except for one small craft, ploughing through the water. The rain still fell but the wind had dropped and the water surface barely rippled. She threw out a good wake. Amongst the port facilities’ decay and the broken ships berthed there, she seemed clean, cared for, like there was a pride about her, and Gaz remembered… Passing hot cocoa around in the cabin while the trawler shook in the storm, and rolled fearfully, and listening to the boys talking of grandparents in accented English, and realising what their past meant. Hearing stories of men who had battled storms and enemy aircraft, and some were at the bottom of the North Sea. Realising that long-held loyalties still carried weight: only cynics and those who valued their actions that day, not heritage, would have dismissed them. He thought each member of the four-man crew regarded themselves as fortunate to have been lifted from obscurity and asked to carry out a mission where danger was inherent… Each of them at some future date might sit on a headland, spray dampening their clothes, wind in their hair, and shout into the skies what they had done that day, that night and that tomorrow. Would believe that the men of the Shetland Bus route would note what they did, would be satisfied. He had liked them, had thought them simple men. And the road straightened; and they climbed some more, and he lost sight of the trawler.

Daft, but he felt emotion. Could no longer see the trawler, and could barely make out the roof of the black saloon. It did not matter whether the plan for the mission was excellent, indifferent or crap poor. What mattered was whether they were lucky . Could have had a big team working on it for a month, with a sub-committee overseeing, and a consultancy pulled in for background, and some head-hunting done… could have been thrown together on the hoof. If they were to stay lucky then they would need to obliterate the chance of a ‘mistake’. Everyone agonised about a mistake, and hardest was to recognise it – and the moment it had happened. Gaz dared to think that all of them in the cramped interior of the Fiat were without a mistake, were therefore lucky . Had already scratched his head, chipped into his memory, looked for an error but not found it.

The boy drove well. As a career criminal, drug-pusher and with a girlfriend, fresh out of gaol, Timofey was careful not to get too close to the target vehicle. Had once, on the way to the bend where Gaz had seen the fishing boat, seemed to lose the black saloon and another man might have panicked and accelerated too fast or hesitated at the next junction but the boy had stayed calm. Nothing more than a nibble at his lower lip and they had pulled out to pass a slow-moving bus and the BMW was in front of them. He liked men who were cool, calm… It was a given for the guys, and the occasional girls, in the unit that histrionics were unacceptable. He’d been dependent on the Hereford teams and the Chinook people when there were engine malfunctions and weather calamities, and nobody made a big deal out of it. The boy checked his mirror often, stayed in touch, was an excellent tail… In the scenario used by the instructors teaching vehicle surveillance, there would be two vehicles or three, and linked radio, and a commander sitting on top of the operation and guiding them. If it were pedestrian surveillance then there might be as many as eight of them… He had Timofey who sold ’phets and marijuana, and Natacha who sat on an old drunk’s torso and might strangle him if he complained, and himself. The fishing boat was in place, and where the BMW stopped to drop off the officer was journey’s end for Gaz.

Not for the first time he touched his upper thigh and felt the outline of the doctored papers, and the passport. Reassured. He had memorised where the boat crew would meet him, and they’d stroll together through security, to the quay, board – and sail.

“Do you not talk?”

“Not unless I’ve something to say.”

“Your target, who you go after…”

“Not my concern.”

“You come here, go after one man – that is an FSB officer. What is FSB? FSB is bastards, big-time bastards. They control this place, take what they want, they are the law and the execution of the law. You go after one man, and he wears a major’s uniform but has a German top-range car and a driver, and another. What did he do?”

“Better you do not know.”

“But you know what he did, you are needed to identify him. Then others come… what do they do?”

“I make the identification, I advise the location, and I leave. Simple.”

“And we get paid?”

“Money into your account, generous.”

“The people who come, do I help them?”

“I don’t know. I know very little. That is the way it is done.”

“What did he do?”

“I try not to lie, Timofey. It is good to know little.”

Timofey took a hand off the wheel and punched Gaz’s arm. Not gentle, not playful. A sharp-edged fist, hard, and Gaz flinched. The road had narrowed and a heavy lorry dragging a trailer was in front of the BMW and slowed it. He felt the motion behind him – the old man had woken, belched, probably wanted to piss, and Gaz wondered what would happen to him – but he did not need to know, did he? And that was his creed and adhered to. He did his own job and went no further.