Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

Pegs had her head forward, as if her hearing was playing up, and Gough stayed inscrutable.

The Chief Superintendent said, ‘We expect a considerable level of success, a large trawl and a network emasculated before getting clear of puberty. I believe them to have been a particularly focused and dangerous group, not least the woman at the heart of the smuggling concept. We add our congratulations to both of you, and for your control, in trying circumstances, minimum resources, of your Undercover. First class – and to be added to the list is the excellent cooperation you received from our French colleagues – pretty rare – and that is down to your winning ways. It was a damned good effort.’

The woman said, ‘You don’t need to know where he is – anything, in fact, about him. The French took him down to Toulon, he spent the night at the airport, had a flight in this morning. I saw him briefly, thought he looked rough. Don’t know yet whether he’ll call it a day. Plenty try to, few succeed. What I am pleased about is that a ring of dangerous young people, carrying huge burdens of hate will be negated… The thought of a flow of automatic assault rifles coming into the UK is too frightful to contemplate… It leaves our people scarred, damaged at the end, but that’s the price that has to be paid, by them – by that boy – not by us.’

Did they want coffee – did not. Did they want to share anecdotes – again, did not.

Back in the office, within ten minutes, they’d their gear together and would go their separate ways, take a good furlough, might bump into each other again after Human Resources had done their worst with new postings, but might not.

A week later… Coordinated arrests were done efficiently and allowed for the two time zones.

At 04.00 Zulu, the sledge cracked open the door of Crab’s mansion in the bacon belt area of Altrincham, while a line of unmarked cars and police vans, all with blue lights rotating, ostentatiously filled the tree-lined avenue. A good show put on for the neighbours and an effort to humiliate him, and he was taken out, handcuffed… Across the range of the Pennine moors a car was stopped and a man who went by the codename of Krait was spread-eagled on the road under cover of automatic weapons and then dragged away, and another – known as Scorpion – was intercepted on his way to a poste restante address… and in the capital city, two men were taken into custody – identified because of the tickets that had not been destroyed as the traveller had been instructed, and they indicated where the documents had been purchased, and by whom, for a journey between UK and Marseille.

And, at 05.00 European time, when a middle-ranking officer, a Major, led a team of specifically chosen detectives, up to the gates of a coastal villa, and used an armoured car to break them down, and an old man – who had once been a legend in the undercurrent life of organised crime in Marseille – was snatched from his bed. One photographer only, from La Provence , was present to record the arrest… Also visited that morning, in the apartments that seemed to belie the meagre pensions paid to former investigators, were men who had done well from association with Tooth, and it was a safe bet that they would soon be in an orderly queue to denounce everyone’s actions, not their own, in the hope of leniency… And Hamid was taken, in bed with a girl, and no crowd had gathered to impede the police, and a brother due to be buried that day when he would be in the interview room, pleading surprise that a deal had not been honoured.

A terse message would be sent within an hour from the Major at L’Évêché to a senior officer working from an address in Wyvill Road, London, SW8: Colleagues, A good day for us (and ‘Samson’ not needed and left in bed), and my appreciation of a fine association. Valery . All considered satisfactory.

And a month later… The mourners were leaving. Not just family but the whole population of the road in which she had lived, and many who had been her contemporaries at school, and a few had journeyed from Manchester Metropolitan to attend. It was unfortunate but inevitable that the procedures for a funeral embodying that faith had been delayed. She should have been buried within a few hours of her death, but there had been many obstacles placed in the way of her parents’ wishes. A French magistrate had not hurried, and details had remained vague as to the exact circumstances of death, and the British authorities had been slow to reveal what information they were in possession of… but arrests, and charges and initial appearances before magistrates, and trial dates set, had brought matters into the public domain. Bluntly, everyone in that street, in the community of Savile Town, had either seen with their own eyes, or knew of, the repeated visits by detectives of the North West Counter Terrorist Unit to the home address, and it was claimed her bedroom had been systematically ripped to pieces. Her father had said, repeatedly, that he refused to believe the allegations made against her, her mother had said that their only daughter was a ‘dutiful and obedient girl, perfect in all ways’. When the body of Zeinab was prepared for burial, having been washed and then bound in white sheets, a shroud, they would have seen the single bullet entry wound, and the exit, in her chest and adjacent to her spine.

Plain clothes police were there, and peeping from behind a stone wall in the dawn gloom was a bright lens catching what light was there. The cemetery area, beyond the precincts of the crematorium, emptied.

A favour was asked of a detective constable, huddled in her overcoat, dying for the first fag of the day. The request was from behind her. She turned.

A single scarlet rose was given her, the petals close and tight. She was asked to take it and place it, and the question was on her tongue: who was he? She saw the gravedigger with his long-handled tool put the first load of earth back into the cavity, and swung on her heel, but he was already walking away and his stride had a purpose, an authority, and she thought his bearing made him one of their own. She did not call out after him, nor did he look back. She shrugged, then went forward.

At the grave, eyed by the workman, she placed the single bloom on the grass surround to the grave, and she wondered how it was that a jihadi gunrunner, dangerous and committed and shot dead, should be remembered in such a tender way by a man she thought could be a police officer.

February 2019

A technician said, ‘I’ve never seen one as old as this, surprised it’s not going to a museum. Look at it, Pierre, see the age of it. More than sixty years old, and still in working order – what a goddam history it would have to tell. How do I know that? The history? Look at the stock, those marks. I think it had many owners… but just a machine and due to be disposed of – and no tears wept… but if the story could have been told then its place in a museum case would be assured. Load it up.’

The machine was new, purchased from the United States, and the system was novel in the annexe to the Ballistics and Armoury division of the Marseille police. In the past it would have been done with an acetylene flame cutter, and before that the task of immobilising a firearm would have been consigned to Claude, a giant with muscles to match his bulk, and he would batter the body of a pistol or rifle to bent pulp with a sledgehammer. But the machine had been purchased and should be used. They put on their protective clothing and faceguards.

‘What I just noticed, it’s last run out was in close quarter fighting, short range. Look at the setting, that’s Battle Sight Zero… It’s an icon, know what I mean?’

There was a procedure almost as formal as that employed when the executioner came with his apparatus to the Baumettes gaol. A photograph was taken of the AK-47, and another of the serial number. The pulveriser was started up. It ground the remnants of its previous job between the blades, and spat them into a bin, and the cutting edges turned. It was to be treated with care and respect.