Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

The IO, a good-looking man of Palestinian origin, in his late twenties, and wearing a scruffy uniform that showed he had little interest in military theatre, lit a cigarette. He felt calm, had reason to. The post, by rights, should have been for him. Should have been his arms bound behind it, and the blindfold lying at its base should have been going round his head, masking his eyes. He had deflected attention, and had used what opportunities were presented to shift evidence away from himself and on to the girl. He felt no guilt. He was an asset. Those who controlled him believed that his importance was such that his survival was paramount. He would be protected. He smoked the cigarette casually, while the crowd gathered behind him, and other young men, all armed, held back the spectators. He had believed he had begun to attract attention, and the Internal Security were efficient, and his position as intelligence officer was of value to those who controlled him, and two of the young fedayeen had been about to cut the wire and head into the northern territory of Israel when the flares had been fired and they had frozen in the lights, had been cut down by gunfire. If they had been allowed to go farther, the matter could have been explained as an accidental contact with a patrol, but this was obvious betrayal. He had known he would have been the first on whom suspicion fell, except that the girl had, in the hours before the infiltration, been to the city of Tyre, west from Tebnine where the camp was, and it had been easy to insert US dollar notes in her clothing. She had gone by bus, was unwilling to give a reason, then under fierce interrogation had spoken of a boy. Perhaps there was, perhaps not. She was condemned, and the intelligence officer attracted no more attention.

She was brought out, men hemmed around her. She would find no kindness in the last moments of her life. A spy was hated, a traitor was loathed, betrayal was the ultimate crime. He thought she walked well.

She faced the squad. One among them caught the intelligence officer’s attention. A boy, sixteen or seventeen years old, trying to stand to attention and with the poorest combination of make-do uniform, a camouflage tunic in sand colours and olive-green trousers that would have looked well in dense vegetation. He carried an old weapon, held it rigidly as if it were the most important possession in his life: no doubt it was. The sun played on the boy’s face and accentuated his youth; his cheeks gleamed and the officer realised that he was weeping.

They brought the girl forward. Some of the men had hold of her. Her wrists were tied loosely with cord and her arms hung down by her sides. She was dressed in black, a generous robe that showed none of the lines of her body. Some of her face was visible, but a scarf was tight across her head. She did not blink but looked ahead and around her… and gazed straight at him. He offered nothing. He looked through her – should, probably, have been grateful to her for stepping forward, however unwillingly, and taking a place he might have filled, deservedly. She walked past him and his eyes followed her and she would have seen the teenage boy who shed tears, who carried the old rifle with the damaged stock. Any other make of weapon, of that obvious age, was likely to jam. Except… that the rifle was the AK-47, an old version but of that pedigree. The intelligence officer wondered if the boy would miss the target.

She was taken to the post.

Her hands were freed, then pulled behind her, the same cord used to tie her wrists to the post. A man bent and picked up the cloth but she shook her head violently and seemed to try to pull away. It was the first moment that he had noted genuine agitation. They did not know what to do. There was talking, shouting, and she yelled that she would not wear the blindfold. The intelligence officer believed that none of them had ever executed a woman, certainly not one so pretty with a blazing anger in her eyes. Had reason to be angry, was innocent, her life was considered less important than his, an asset of importance to the Israeli Defence Force beyond the frontier to the south. They did not want to touch her, handle her, and seemed ashamed and stepped back. She regained composure. A white cloth was roughly fastened with a safety pin to her chest, where they estimated her heart to be. The squad, in line, was twenty paces from her.

The moment of importance and prestige had arrived for the old guy, the one with the moustache, and he yelled a command. There was a scrape as the weapons were armed. Aim was taken. He held out his handkerchief and the squad waited for his signal. A good girl, and pretty, with the bravery of a lioness, and without guilt and giving them – the rabble around her – no satisfaction. The handkerchief was raised.

She was dead. The kid who wept had fired. He broke the drill. He cried and heaved back his trigger. As the handkerchief landed on the dirt there was a ripple from the other rifles but she was already sagging and some might have missed. Not the first shot. The cloth on her chest had a drilled hole in its centre and blood seeped.

The intelligence officer walked away. He assumed another notch would soon be scratched on the wooden stocks. It was predictable that an AK-47, old and without maintenance and likely rarely cleaned, had performed at the top of its power. No surprise to him… he lived a dangerous life, on the edge, alone and without support – and another had died in his place – and he was vulnerable, every hour of every day.

The car braked. She was jolted forward, went as far as the seatbelt allowed. They were in the suburbs of a town, residential but with warehouses. Zeinab looked at her watch, saw they were still deep in the night.

‘Were we followed?’

Krait said, ‘Not now, maybe earlier. If we were, we broke it. It was a good trick we did, and if they were behind us, two cars, they would have noted our professionalism, then backed off. They would have had to.’

Scorpion said, ‘I believe we have their respect, they are professional and trained. We have to be. It is important to be good enough to earn respect.’

Krait said, ‘Believe nothing, believe nobody, or you will not see Savile Town again… The boy who died, he tried too hard, was not believed. They are all around us, watching. They look for weakness: the boy pushed too often. You believe no one who comes with an offer of friendship. Believe no one.’

‘We have been deservedly promoted to this dizzy height, where our incompetence is easy to see.’

Pegs had typed it, printed it, stuck it with adhesive to the front of their office door. It might raise a laugh, and any degree of humour would be welcome that day, not that the night cared to go fast. They had carried out an inquest, which wasted time, and irritated. He was alone. She had gone for supplies, for the fortification of morale.

In the inquest, taking the advocate of the devil’s role, Gough had remarked that they were guilty of underestimating the qualities of the adversary. Did not understand them, gave too little credit for their tradecraft skills: their opponents were not enrolled in a bloody kindergarten. He thought he might suggest to her that there was space enough on the frosted glass of their door for another slogan to be added under the one explaining Peter’s Principle: ‘Parkinson’s Law is practised inside, is compulsory in an area of bureaucratic free-range thinking.’ Or, and they would discuss it, they might follow with the Dunning-Kruger Effect: ‘Those with low ability rarely recognise their ineptitude.’ The others, who sat at an octagonal table, each with their own computer screen and only low partitions for privacy, might sense that the levity came out of crisis. The target was lost, the Undercover was adrift, and Gough had acknowledged that the skills of adversaries were rarely underestimated and the outcome happy. Too old? Perhaps. Past it, and should be put to grass? Maybe… He sat, the responsibility burdening him, and… she came back.