Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

One hand inside his trousers, and the bastard gasped: would have been her luck if he had seized up, had a coronary. A gasp and a groan, and that was for one hand, and feeling him, and the bastard wriggling and making strange noises like he was fitting. The most important factor in the procedure was that the Murmansk police, who thought themselves the finest in the whole of the Federation’s territory, armed their firearms when they left the police stations, went out on patrol. Had a magazine loaded, standard practice. She knew it, and Timofey knew it. She had a hold of the cop and this was the start of the bit, not for long, perhaps two minutes, where her hand should be warm, soft, and caring, and the cop snorted, a bull heading for the abattoir helpless and noisy. He made so much noise that she was fearful of waking half the street. Her eyes never left his. One hand doing the necessary, the other gently moving on him. The ‘necessary’ was to locate the pistol’s handle, and find the clip that held the holster strap in place. He was gone to the world, and Natacha found the pistol.

Her hand closed on it, let the other one squeeze, and slid it past his belly and wormed it down and into her waist, and she thought the bastard was about to spill on her, and used her two hands quickly. She worked the seat belt inside the fastening of his trouser belt, and was satisfied. A little master stroke. Both hands free, a last look into the popping eyes, and she pouted a kiss, was gone.

Natacha was fast, it was only pure shit luck that a cop had caught her the last time. Ran well, 100 metres to cover. Behind her came a belated and furious eruption of anger, like a man woken from a dream into the cool of the night with a mess on his stomach, his flies open and the holster at his belt empty. Bellowed and would have tried to spring up from his seat and fling open the door and chase the bitch, the whore… but could not until he had groped in the darkness and undone his trouser belt fast and freed the seat belt.

She was into the car. It pulled away.

Timofey asked, “You good?”

Natacha answered, “Yes, good. It’s a Makarov he’ll be getting. Yes, I’m fine.”

They went away into the night, and fast, and no sirens chased them.

He was woken by the their excited laughter outside the door, trouble getting the key in the lock. And Gaz had that moment when he did not know where he was, and why he was not in a bed. He was sitting upright, and light spilled in from the hall.

He was on the floor. The old man owned the sofa, still snored and wheezed. They came inside and the light was extinguished. He’d had a moment to see the elation on the girl’s face, and the look on the boy’s that was not triumphant but confident. Timofey had been closing the door when she was reaching into her trouser’s waist, and pulled out the pistol and her blouse rode up and must have caught on the foresight. He reached out, an automatic reaction for any military guy, and she passed it to him and her finger was too damned close to the trigger. The boy watched him: he reckoned Natacha looked for plaudits but would not get them, not yet.

Other than on the Unst ranges Gaz had not had a firearm in his hand since the day at the village… not when they had shifted him out and ‘his feet hadn’t touched the ground’ which was the hackneyed quote for the speed of their accomplishment. Colleagues, had queued to say what a star was Gaz, how competent and how level-headed. Not had one since he had been shifted on by an obliging magistrate. A few farmers had shotguns on Westray, but he had no need for one and no wish for the contamination of one. It nestled in his hand. Because of where he had been, in Helmand and in that sector of Syria, he knew it as a Makarov PM, an optimistic firing range of fifty-five yards, based on the German Walther PPK – none of which she needed to know – and an eight-round magazine… and there was one in place and he made it safe. Detached the magazine, discharged the bullet in the breech, aimed it up at the ceiling and cleared it, was satisfied. The old man behind him had woken, stared at the weapon with saucer eyes, then seemed to crumple as if a nightmare had captured him. Gaz had asked for a weapon, had given a tight timeline, and it had been delivered and the schedule was kept to. They deserved congratulation and he was now ready to give it.

“This is brilliant, really good. It is what I needed and I am grateful.”

Instructors at the Hereford place said that a Makarov PM, old as the hills, was as good as anything on the market, another fine design coming off the Izhevsk production line. She pirouetted, he smiled sardonically, as if it were good to be praised but not necessary.

Gaz said, “Not my business and you don’t need to answer me: how did you get it?”

She grinned, chuckled. “A cop gave it me.”

“What did you have to do to make him so generous?”

Timofey said, “You should not ask, don’t need to know… You have the gun.”

He had started to strip it, used a handkerchief to clean the parts, and then would empty the magazine and reload it, and he reckoned the kids were gold dust, and they’d warrant hefty remuneration, nothing niggardly. Better by far than kids with the passion of ideology…

Natacha said, “So, when do we go to kill your officer? I think a quarter of an hour, and then you will be ready, ready to shoot him?”

Gaz did not give her an answer but worked to sanitise the parts, to be certain the weapon would be effective, not jam. It felt good in his hand, and familiar, and there was no backing out.

An early morning move out, same as so many in an old life.

Timofey said that what he’d already drunk and the front door locked from the outside would keep his father quiet, collapsed on the sofa. Natacha gazed at Gaz, seemed fascinated by the weapon, had watched without blinking, as he had stripped, cleaned and reassembled the working parts, then emptied the magazine and wiped all the filth and fluff off the bullets’ casings. He doubted that he needed to know how a girl with pretty blonde hair and a smile to win hearts, and the culture of the gutter, and with unfastened buttons on her blouse, had lured a cop into handing over his service pistol. Assumed it done with the neatness of a railway station pickpocket, and with fingers on the move. How would the cop report that a bit of a kid – with that smile and the depth of those eyes – had conned, fooled him bad… almost felt sorry for him. Past five in the morning. Enough time wasted.

“How close do you have to be? To kill, how near?”

“Not exact, play things by ear. Our expression. Never box yourself into a pre-paid decision. Go with the flow.”

As poor an answer as Gaz could have offered, and he short changed her, and knew it, but it would suffice. He asked much of them, and they risked all for him – and for the cash promise – and could go to gaol for most of their natural lives. But they were not his friends, not a part of any unit he had been with. Had he been now in a Forward Operating Base, as dawn came up over the maize and poppy fields, or over the dirt expanses of central Syria, he would have been alongside Arnie and Sam and the others. All good at their jobs, knowing their mission, and each prepared to watch the others’ backs. Would have been heading off into the faintest grey light and trudging to the helicopter pad where the Chinook’s engines were warming. None of that was now in Gaz’s life, just a memory.

They left Timofey’s father on the sofa. Gaz was trained to notice little moments of interaction, was as good at that as scrutinising terrain and covert ground. What he saw was the motion of Timofey’s hand across his father’s forehead, and the alcohol had brought a type of peace to the old man’s face. Just a touch of the hand and he remembered a remark about not slitting his father’s throat even though the old guy had been prepared to denounce their enterprise – and was probably scared half out of his wits, and with cause. It was a good moment, but not sentimental. Gaz reckoned the kids were as competent as he might have hoped for, or better. The Makarov was at his waist, and her eyes never left it and they’d regained their mischief. He did not confide the plan dovetailing in his mind because to have done so would encourage debate, then counter proposals. Kept quiet: Gaz was good at that.