Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

The machine’s teeth snapped on it. The noise was a rasping wail. It had never ceased to astonish the technician and his assistant that a weapon in the process of being torn apart, its life expiring, always seemed to cry out as if in defiance, a last protest. And the pieces that had been manufactured many years before, and had been on many journeys, dropped as scrap into the bin. The parts would be photographed and what was left of the serial number – 260 16751 – for a bureaucratic record. No lingering, and more to follow and its lethal power destroyed.

And a year later… it was scheduled as an important meeting, but few in the building knew of it. Coffee and biscuits would be available. The room had been electronically swept before the small group, half a dozen men and women, had gathered there. The base used by that unit was inside the police station dealing with the district of Kirkby, out on the east side of the city of Liverpool. It had a busy car park because it shared with the fire brigade, and ambulance teams often parked up there; a quality location for a covert meeting and visitors came and went and the parking lot was secluded and hidden from the main road.

There was high anticipation.

The team were customers. They had needed to make a case, prove that their need was greater than other teams throughout the country. What the customers looked to achieve did not come cheap, was sought after, and they’d had to show a potential result that would affect the material good of the population at large if the prize was awarded to them. They had never met him. In fact knew little of him, except his name…

Their guest was a few minutes late, which annoyed.

They were all senior people and unused to being kept hanging around, expected subordinates to be punctual. All were key personnel in a team that had come together to target a local godfather whose empire prospered from coke, smack, hash and ’phets, and the efforts of east European girls who performed for fierce shifts. To infiltrate such an organisation was regarded as next to impossible for any officer with a background in the city and an accent to match, and offering a legend of childhood in Liverpool. The principals operated from inside a mosaic of links within extended blood and marriage lines. Efforts to recruit from the family, working off the periphery, had bounced back from an inevitable brick wall, a thick one topped with razor wire, even those who were compromised and faced long gaol terms. Truth was, the inner members of the clan exerted more fear and provided greater rewards than the team did, or could. So, they had gone with a begging bowl to London and been hosted by a woman called Prunella, who had given them scant respect, but had – a couple of months back – indicated a possible option.

Not for them to like or dislike.

Not for them to regard the guy as suitable or unsuitable.

And, not in their bailiwick, to suggest how proximity, and trust, from the target family, might be gained.

They did not know where he had been before, what his speciality was – knew fuck all, as the senior man, eyeing his watch, had said four times. But it was agreed there was a pattern with that style of work, and coming off a plot: say ‘never again’, say it was ‘quit time’, walk out and not get a medal, nor a gold clock, nor much in the way of thanks, and head off for ‘nowhere’, somewhere remote and over the horizon, where the big stresses were supposedly absent – and die of boredom, fail to adapt, and come back. What they all did – silly beggars. Safe to assume he’d be no novice. Safe also to assume that he knew of the inherent violence as practised by a typical crime syndicate, made into an art form by this crowd. Nor did they have a file on his previous deployments, successes or failures, nor had they been shown any of the psychologists’ reports.

A knock on the door. Conversations died.

An assistant to the boss stood in the open door, pulled a face, let slip a little grin, then stepped aside.

The man was in overalls, with nearly fresh paint stains on them, and patches at the knees where he might have knelt in engine oil. His hair was reasonably neat, short but not clipped. He had shaved, but the day before. His work boots were scuffed. His eyes were clear, decisive, and did not spare any of them… It was as if tables were turned and roles reversed, and he checked them to see if they suited him. He had a quiet voice and they needed to strain to hear him. He started with an apology which none of them believed genuine.

‘Hello, sorry to be late, traffic was a nightmare, and then parking here was difficult for what I’m driving…’

Several of them, a reflex and because they were supposed to react, were at the window and raising the blinds and would have seen a small delivery lorry, what a self-employed builder – ‘no job too small’ – might have used. A good-looking guy, and with a straightforwardness about him, and an apparent honesty.

‘…Not that names are important to any of us. Good to be with you… for what it’s worth, I’m Sam Peters – I think that’s who I am. Anyway, learning to be Sam Peters.’

He was smiling. It took them a moment to respond, then all of them were laughing, but hollow, and wondering – puzzled – if there was an ignorance about him, and an innocence, as if he might not have appreciated the risk of going against a crime baron and his tribe. Or perhaps not, perhaps just lived a lie and did it well.

Gerald Seymour spent fifteen years as an international television news reporter with ITN, covering Vietnam and the Middle East, and specialising in the subject of terrorism across the world. Seymour was on the streets of Londonderry on the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, and was a witness to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

Gerald Seymour exploded onto the literary scene with the massive bestseller Harry’s Game . He has been a full-time writer since 1975, and six of his novels have been filmed for television in the UK and US. Battle Sight Zero is his thirty-fifth novel.

Harry’s Game

The Glory Boys

Kingfisher

Red Fox

The Contract

Archangel

In Honour Bound

Field of Blood

A Song in the Morning

At Close Quarters

Home Run

Condition Black

The Journeyman Tailor

The Fighting Man

The Heart of Danger

Killing Ground

The Waiting Time

A Line in the Sand

Holding the Zero

The Untouchable

Traitor’s Kiss

The Unknown Soldier

Rat Run

The Walking Dead

Timebomb

The Collaborator

The Dealer and the Dead

A Deniable Death

The Outsiders

The Corporal’s Wife

Vagabond

No Mortal Thing

Jericho’s War

A Damned Serious Business

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Hodder & Stoughton