Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

Gaz supposed it always played out in this way. A frenzy of killing and destruction and then – before the eagles and vultures came to feast – an attempt to hide what had been done. Not that there was, in Syria, any court before which those responsible for the atrocity might be brought… no panel of judges who would look down into the dock and face the Iranian commander of the IRGC unit, or his Russian colleague who had killed and now helped organise the burial of the evidence. Nor would any tribunal in western Europe or in the United Nations ever get to determine the guilt of those men. But they would have needed to conceal what they had done, and their anger at being fired on by reckless teenagers many hours before would have slid into the mud, and they would have been cold, and sodden and hungry, wanting to be gone from the place. But the dead – the evidence – could not be left to lie in the slackening rain, the dying wind ruffling their garments. The scavenger birds would come in the morning, but the rats would probably have already crept close and sniffed, coming as near as they dared. The pit grew in length and in depth. Some of the bodies were dragged by their hair, some by their clothing, some by a leg. The dead had no dignity, which would not have mattered to them, but he thought the girl would feel an agony. She would have known every one of them, and her sister was among them.

Somewhere behind him, to the north-east, two vehicles protected with steel plate and heavily armed would have stopped. They would have been miles back from the village and from the pick-up. It would have started as ‘You got Gaz?’ and ‘No, we got Arnie and we got Sam.’ ‘Did you not see Gaz?’ ‘Reckoned you had him.’ ‘Didn’t.’ ‘Nor us, we don’t have him.’ Then there would be a volley of oaths that would be spirited away on the wind, and short seconds of contemplation and a coming together of the relief party and of Gaz’s muckers, Arnie and Sam, and a realisation that they had pulled out and left behind one of their number, alone in that fuck-awful place. Arnie and Sam had had different viewpoints and had covered the road leading up from the south and would have heard shooting and would have seen the glow of fires but would only have known the extent of the atrocity from the texts that Gaz had sent. Would have realised he was grandstanding, could not exit a covert location in daylight, but it was night now, no sight of a star or anything of the moon, and it was safe to assume he’d have bugged out… knew they were coming, knew the rendezvous point, but had not reached it. What to do? It would have exercised them, and the messages were going back to the FOB and a spate of questioning that had no answers. Why was Gaz not with them? Who the fuck knew why?

He held the girl. Ant-like activity wriggled below him.

Gaz’s error. His mistake. Was not supposed to make a mistake. Mistakes ended with someone killed. One militiaman had been on the slope, sixty or seventy paces below them, and Gaz had lost sight of and interest in him. The last flare of flames in a building must have ignited a gas cylinder, used for heating a bread oven or making hot water… it exploded. A sheet of flame flew high towards the cloud base, brighter than the sheets of the earlier lightning. It lit the village and the pit being filled with cadavers, and the men who dug, and the strut of the officer, and illuminated the young militiaman on the slope who was hunched down and would have hoped his own commander and his NCOs had not noted his absence from the work fatigue. The country boy who was unwilling to dig a mass grave, and who was now shown up as a part of the tableau as if it were midday. With the thunderclap of the detonation and the brightness of the light, the goats’ final inhibition died. They broke and fled. Scattered to all points, bleating and screaming, and the dogs went after them.

Gaz watched the trooper on the slope. He was alert, half-kneeling. If he had been a country boy then he would have wondered where the animals had come from, who had charge of them – a herd of quality would not have been without a minder, and he listened and he stared around and above him. The cold ran on Gaz’s neck, had the chill of winter ice. The officer looked up and would have seen the chaotic flight of the goats and the one militiaman on the slope.

Gaz held hard on the girl.

He started to speak to the kids, quietly, in Russian.

“Perhaps it is mistaken identity. Perhaps you have the wrong individual. I am Lavrenti Volkov. I am FSB. I do not know who you are but can guarantee that our lives have not crossed. This other man, I have no idea who he is. You have no argument with me, and I have none with you.”

He controlled his voice. Tried to capture a calmness. Held his breathing steady, did not pant or stammer. Spoke slowly as if the matter was simple, just a misunderstanding.

“You can choose one or two directions. One and you will be involved in the murder of a member of state security. From such involvement there is no escape. If you were fortunate you would be ‘shot while escaping’ but that would only be after the most rigorous interrogation but there is also the certainty of going to a penal camp high in the Circle, a harsh regime camp. You are young and would probably endure your middle years and if you have no fortune you might enter your old age. You would never leave, and from the moment your trial process ends you would see each other never again. Don’t go that way.”

Most of the time he spoke, his gaze was towards the kids, simple scumbags. The filth of the gutters. But he also spoke towards the sofa and the old man, where the stench was. The pathetic creature nodded his head fervently at what Lavrenti said, and would join them in the gaol for criminal collaboration. Only rarely did he face the window and the outline of the man’s back, his shoulders and his head, and the pistol now held loosely in the man’s right fist, and the lever was in place for safety but it was armed. He did not understand why he was there, why he had been chosen, and was confused, but had to exercise control, and had to divide.

“The alternative is good for you. I walk from here. I take this foreign adventurer into custody. You are fifteen-minute heroes. Both of you have shown true loyalty towards the state. You can be named and applauded, you can stay anonymous, but you will be granted the extreme generosity of FSB. I imagine a large sum of money will be pushed into your laps. I promise that such action will be well rewarded. Enough for a new car, enough for a new apartment. I cannot imagine you would take the wrong turn.”

Their feet would not touch the cell block floor. Beaten and already bloodied, they would be dragged to the top of the stairwell, pitched down and caught, then pushed into the cells and the doors slammed. Would shout, if they had any energy left, of promises made, and would hear only retreating feet and fading laughter.

“Why a foreign agency has come after me, I do not know. I am employed to protect the Federation from its enemies, but work inside the territory of the state. I have done nothing to hurt you, you have no justification in hurting me. I am a major in FSB, I do not beg. You should free me. Immediately. I offer you the guarantee of the state’s gratitude and in return you free me, you help me take this man to an appropriate location, I suggest the one on Lenin Prospekt, and you will receive the congratulations of my superiors. What do you say?”

He thought he had done well. Reckoned the force of his argument would bend the resolution of an idiot. The man at the window never shifted, stared out, took no part in it.

The girl said, “He’s going to kill you. Going to shoot you. Don’t know why he has not already done it.”

“Why? What have I done?” He could see that the boy slouched, shrugged, seemed indifferent, and that the girl had a tight waist and a flat chest and pretty hair and a sweet smile. Faced the foreigner and made no more pretence that the blindfold still obscured his view. In English, as it had been taught him. “And you, what have I done? I am a junior officer in FSB. How are you affected by me? I have done nothing.”