Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

One moment there, the next she sat on the bench alone. She felt pride that she had been chosen. Felt confusion at what had been said to her about her driver, of Andy, and again could taste his tongue and the juices laid in her mouth, and a great cold because of what she had promised, and they’d not know what she had bought in the shopping mall. A spit, a stamp on that face until it was obliterated: it would not happen. Young men escorted her back to the station, formed a distant cordon round her and seemed to confirm her new status.

‘It won’t last an hour,’ Gough said.

‘It’ll be there in the morning.’ Pegs winked. ‘Twenty quid on it.’

He did not take her bet, seldom accepted a wager with her. She had her coat on, as he did. Their passports and tickets were in her bag, and their float for this next stage of Rag and Bone. They would not stop at Three Zero Eight’s door and seek a brief audience, but would slip away, shadows down a gloomy corridor. The car was waiting… She began to stick the sheet of paper on the outside of the door. Fixed it securely, approved, and the door was closed and they had their bags and the key was turned.

It was behind them, their message to the world and the third floor of the building on Wyvill Road.

Advice from this office to a Level One:

A Controller is a man who is always ready, willing and able

To lay down your life for his customer.

Not a backward glance.

Pegs told Gough that the weather forecast for the next several days in Marseille was good: little rain, a powerful mistral wind, and a pleasant temperature, and suggested it would be a good trip – forgetting that they had lost their target, were far up a creek and no paddle, and had a lively suspicion that their man was softening, going ‘native’.

Gough said, nodding to Security on the front door, ‘It had better be a good trip, or they might be mowing the grass and sweeping up the leaves in Vauxhall Park for a well-attended public hanging, you and me and turned off together. I think it’ll be that sort of trip – champagne or sackcloth.’

They were on their way, heading for the airport, and Rag and Bone had now climbed beyond serious, and too much of it was out of their hands… but nice of her to tell him that the weather forecast was good.

‘I don’t think you’ll get any rain, Crab, but you should take a coat, be prepared, just in case.’

Beth had packed Crab’s bag, some of his smarter clothes and included was a box of fancy chocolates that she had bought in a supermarket, best quality and difficult to know what to take Tooth that was appropriate. He felt alert, bouncy and was cheerful over his breakfast and would get a sandwich at the airport… not much money in the deal and some unpleasant people to be dealing with, obscure and remote from him, but business was business and always exciting. The daily costs of life were met by the little gang of geek kids who hacked for him, used an upstairs room in an internet café and were currently milking a hotel chain for credit card details and a firm of Newcastle-based solicitors that had shedloads of client money: decent trading, but not compared with what he and Tooth were currently at… enough cash in the bank to tide him over happily, and his sons when they were eventually freed. Beth fussed round him and Gary carried the bag… Beth had done a good performance the night before, and likely would be repeating it with Gary once he was gone, not that it mattered. There was a sharp wind on his face as he left his home, and rain might be following along in the afternoon. When would he be back? Not sure, three or four days and not as long as a week… he saw it as routine in his life, not as anything particular and special, not as a game changer. Crab had not, in truth, thought it through or given it too thorough an examination, but business was business.

‘You’ll be careful,’ Beth called to him.

Of course he would, always was, but nothing to be careful of. It was an easy run to the airport for a flight to Marseille.

She tried to call him. He did not pick up.

What would Zeinab have said? ‘Hi, Andy, how’s it going?’

She heard the ring tone. Might have said, if he had answered, ‘Just wanted to speak, missing you.’ Might have said, ‘So alone, want to be with you.’ Zeinab let it ring. He was usually good at picking up… but he’d not recognised this number. She had said that she would spit in his face, then stamp on it, remove all trace of him, and could hear her own voice saying it, but did not hear him.

‘A dog peed on you.’

‘Did it?’

The sergeant said, ‘Took me a bit of time, but I remembered it. Remembered it while having my lunch, and remembered your name, young ’un. Went into the adjutant’s office and checked the records. The name wasn’t there. Either my memory was banjaxed or the name was deleted. What I’m not short of is the memory of the dog peeing on you.’

‘Did it?’

Always, the instructors preached a lesson of caution concerning a conversation with an older man, a father figure, who had sussed some truths. Tempting to throw in the towel and confide, driven by the loneliness, and say things and believe in the strength of confidences and promises. Should never be done, the instructors said, whatever the temptation and whatever the trust. They were on a common, dull gorse and dead bracken. Andy Knight, or whoever he had been then, had come back to Lympstone, down the hill and against the estuary shore, for a sniper course, had done a stint with 43 Commando and was on the nuke bomb convoys going up from the Thames valley to Scotland, but it had seemed tame, and sniping would be his chosen field. Here was the place to learn it, the dark art. That day was clear enough to him. Each of them had to cross a half-mile of ground while a pair of senior NCOs sat in comfortable canvas chairs and scanned with big-lens binoculars, and the guy who was spotted failed… Not ‘nearly managed to stay concealed’, not ‘almost managed it’, but failed. Like it was life and death… to a Marine who wanted to be a sniper, be in the isolated and feared élite. He had to get within 200 yards of the spotters, and it was a hell of a way to the finish line. The common was shared between Marines and dog walkers and pony riders. The kids on the ponies stayed on well-worn tracks, but the dogs roamed free and went after rabbits. It was a big retriever, handsome chap, that had found him, had lifted a leg, had doused him, then had skipped off to get back to its mistress, and he had not been seen and had not moved. The woman might have known but they were good ladies and would never snitch on the boys in the undergrowth. He had won through, had reached the final point, had passed and would receive his badge, and the dog’s urine was in his hair and across the back of his neck, and all of them had had a good laugh.

‘God, and how you stank.’

‘Did I?’

He knew where he wanted to go. It was weakness that had brought him here, and a bigger weakness that he had allowed the sergeant to drive him to the common. It was bare, featureless, and hostile in winter to the guys on the sniper course, and the NCOs knew – over the years – every gully and every ditch where a man in a ghillie suit could advance. He did not think that Phil Williams or Norm Clarke would have felt the need to come here, but Andy Knight was a different kettle, and might be closer to burn-out, and needed comfort: would find it and something of his past… They said that most rabbits failed to survive in the wild for more than a year. The big beggars, dominant males, might do a bit better. He’d always assumed that it was one of them that had wrecked him. This one – probably a Thumper – had dug the hole wider but had also been cunning enough to get a bit of an old tree root lodged across the width of the entrance which would have given cover from a high-flying predator, a buzzard. He had been going fast, his exam already wrapped up, had been crossing ground, and crouched at the waist, and his right leg had gone into the hole and his impetus had moved forward but his boot was trapped. Wrecked ligaments and a cracked bone, a poor first operation in an A&E which had too great a pressure on it and a novice doing the work… He’d be all right, of course, would walk pretty well, would run after a fashion but not far, would be grand for normal life: would be a Marine reject. Sad stuff and all that. Life’s tough, that sort of epitaph. Told he would be missed but that life moved on, and briefly wished well. The big rabbit had done him, and he had gone to the police and been recruited and had successfully disguised the worst of the injury. Had been bored, had looked for something special, had been told about SC&O10. He found the hole. Could have been home to a fox, might have later on. It was no longer in use and was stuffed with leaves. He stood by it, gazed into it, and something of the dedication was further shed, but Andy Knight was good – as they all were – at shielding real life from the psychologists who cast a rule over them. Who wanted to quit? Nobody did. Who should have quit? Pretty much all of them… He shook his head, like he was trying to dislodge an unwelcome fly. He started to walk away.