Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

After the single shot came the scream.

It was a hideous sound, that of an old woman pierced by sudden anguish. The sound split apart the sacking rags at the entrance of the building. Neighbours gathered. Those walking either side of the ditch that ran in the centre of the path, that carried raw waste and stank, hesitated and ducked down or scurried for cover. First out was a kid, a boy, five or six years old, thin and emaciated as were so many children in the camp. He was screaming that he did not know it was loaded, was only showing it… and already he had been kicked hard in the back and belted across his face. He ran, bent double in pain, tears on his face. Next came a mother, clutching her youngest daughter, three years old perhaps. The blood already stained her clothing. The small girl’s face was unmarked and a sort of peace had settled there, but her chest was ripped open, and her back was punctured. Her only movement came from the mother’s violent shaking as if to force back to life some movement of the heart or lungs. Next out, thrusting aside the sacking, was the grandmother. The keening scream came from deep in her throat and she carried the AK-47 rifle by the tip of the barrel, her fist clamped on it just below the fore-sight. She threw it, in a high looping arc. She damned it, in full voice.

On that grey afternoon with low cloud hovering above the jerry-built roofing and the air dirtied by the smoke from internal fires and cooking oil, little was clear, except… anyone who watched the rifle’s gentle twisting flight would have seen that the stock was scarred with a dark gouge where a wood splinter had long been detached, and there were scratches near to it. The eldest grandson had used the rifle to kill a handful of goats, the feral ones that the herdsman could not control. He had added more notches.

A boy reached up, another teenager grabbed the rifle, tucked it against his chest, and sprinted clear.

The weapon with the serial number’s last digits of 16751, now in its fifteenth year, had found a new owner, a new home. A child was dead. The camp was a place of misery but life would soon move on, and a burial would close down a small window of grief.

Beth packed for him.

‘How long you going for? If you can’t tell me, God’s name, how do I know what to put in?’

She had a fair point, gave her that with good grace. It irked Crab to have to tell her that he did not know when he would be leaving for Marseille because he had not yet received the necessary from his good friend, Tooth. Nor did he know how many nights he’d need to be there, not yet told. But he felt, whichever day of the next week he was flying, rare pleasure. Would be with his confidant, his equal… That mattered. There were old men in the Manchester area who had fallen on hard times after their last stretch in Strangeways, and they hung around pubs and cheap coffee and breakfast bars, and if they’d seen him, well turned out and looking after himself, he’d either get a beggar’s fist on his coat, or a foul rant of jealousy. Hardly any had made it to old age and still had good banks looking after their cash, and intelligent accountants who kept down the tax bill. So few people that he could talk to… he’d be on a lounger in the sunshine, a weak gin in his hand, watching ships sail towards the container port – half of them carrying Moroccan or Tunisian or Algerian skunk, and it would be good talk, without envy or acrimony. A simple little deal was in place, and he and his friend were far enough removed from the action to be clean. The money was peanuts, but a deal was a deal, business was business. He’d feel good there, like when he was young and a big player.

‘Just enough for three or four days. Quiet stuff, what doesn’t stand out. Some of the class stuff, where I’m going.’

‘I simply don’t think that will be possible.’

‘Well, it has to be, that’s the way we see it.’

Down the motorway, across the city, into the Vauxhall building but not going upstairs where the offices were. Carrying his grip and the sack, he’d been escorted to an interview room where there were hard chairs, a formica-covered table, a water dispenser, and a fluorescent ceiling light. Andy had stood, now paced. The woman, Pegs, was by the door, leaning against the jamb, but the man, Gough, sat on a chair and nursed a plastic cup.

Andy said, ‘Of course it’s the best option, but things don’t work that way.’

Gough said evenly, ‘Not saying it will be piece of cake, but it is what’s required.’

‘It’s the easiest way to foul up.’

‘Clever boy like you, always able to find a way.’

Generally the raw edge for running an undercover involved reporting back. It had already been agreed that Andy Knight would not be wired. They were saying that he would be required to call in, use a mobile, each day, each evening, make a schedule and stick to it: he was saying that was a straitjacket and sucked. He was tired and the drive had been hard. Supposed to be a professional lorry driver but it was different squashed down low in a VW Polo, hemmed in by big trucks, the light in his eyes, and unfamiliar with London streets. The atmosphere was bad from the start.

‘I call when I can call, how it has to be.’

‘We’re sliding off the wavelength, Andy. I’m saying what will happen.’

‘I am about what is practical and what is wishful. I call when I can… is there something else? Can we move on?’

‘It is all about contact. The whole thing. We cannot watch you, but there has to be a steady link… Can I put it more bluntly?’

‘Put what?’

He was tired and hungry had not been offered as much as a sandwich. None of the usual talk about what a hero he was and how well he’d done, and how pleased they were, going well. Not said… It was small, should not have been a point of issue. They wanted him tied to a schedule, he declined. They wanted control; he wanted a degree of freedom, to be his own boss, make his own decisions: call when it was possible and not manufacture a moment of opportunity. What could be put bluntly?

‘Where we’re looking from, Andy, we have this perspective. She’s floated off, you’ve lost her. Separate travel. An arrangement to meet at a car park in the town of Avignon, very pleasant place and with a shortened bridge, and a Pope’s palace, but a flimsy rendezvous. Not going well, is it, Andy? Needs tightening up.’

‘It’s the way things play out, nothing I can do.’

‘And it’s all vague and all loose. I’m not suggesting, Andy, that you’re a cannon broken free and careering around the gun-deck, but she needs reining in. Thought you would have done. You don’t just swan off into the sunset. You report and report often, and we act on your reports. What problem do you have with that?’

He hardly knew them. Not a case of them picking him, or him accepting the invitation. They were top of the acquisition list, and he was the guy who was available, and Prunella did the operational transfers for them, those on Level One at Specialist Crime and Operations 10. Was not supposed to like them or dislike them. There had been a stilted conversation and he’d gone off to create his own legend and that had taken months because this was a business not done at Grand Prix speed, and then there had been the ‘set-up’ on the street, and then four months since he had brought her, Zed, the flowers in her Hall of Residence. Slow and meticulous and careful, as it should be if mistakes were not to creep up on his back. And he was here and walking the width of the room and his temper was rising: he wondered if they had yet done a Risk Assessment… the dispute was about something so simple. He had to say, ‘Look, guys, I’m hearing you and I guarantee that I will call through – any time day or night – when I can. Top of my priority list. Will call. Each time I go for a leak I will call you.’ Could have said it, had not, had blustered and all the body language was resentment, as if something unreasonable were asked of him. The man, Gough, could have smiled, reached out and grabbed his passing sleeve, could have said, ‘Your best shot, Andy, is way good enough for me.’ Had not, and the woman by the door wore a sour face and twice had glanced at her watch, just one of those sessions that hadn’t worked out.