Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

‘You good?’

‘Fine – very good.’

‘You deserved the break.’

‘Did I, how did I?’

‘Getting your essay done, didn’t you say you had…?’

She flustered. ‘I did…’

‘Go well?’

‘Went good, a decent mark, and…’

He knew she lied. But then if her mind was on couriering Kalashnikovs, imagining them blasting in a concert arena or at a bus station, then an essay on whatever turgid aspect of her study discipline a lecturer had chosen was unlikely to be top of the heap. But a lie was a lie, and she’d looked away quickly.

And she wondered…

… wondered about his future.

Should not have done. Not her concern. Just a lorry driver. Pliable and easy to manipulate. Devoted and simple, and without intelligence – and a possibility that he could provide what she might most want.

Her security concerned her. She did not intend to die, not as her cousins had met death, on a battlefield. Had no intention of being locked inside an airless prison cell while her life moved from youth and on towards a middle-aged barren void. There was one girl on the corridor of the Hall of Residence who had a picture in her room of a cottage with white-washed walls and a vista beyond of the sea and of mountains. Zeinab knew little of the sea, could not swim, had only ever walked on a beach with Andy – had never climbed a mountain anywhere, had only recently walked with him on the moor between Leeds and Manchester. The place was remote, reached by a stone track that had grass growing thick in its centre, and the clouds low on the skyline. The girl was an independent school product, dripped private means and would leave university with her loan repaid. Zeinab had been returning a cup of milk loaned her the previous weekend. ‘You didn’t have to,’ she’d been told. She’d stared at the picture: there had been an off-hand remark about going there for a couple of weeks in the summer, ‘pretty boring, nothing happens, and it rains most of the time’. A place such as that would be a bolt-hole. She wondered if he would come there. Probably she’d only have to tweak his emotions… did not know how they would live, feed themselves, have the cash to survive, but they would be hidden… after tonight, he would do as she wanted, was sure of it. She had no interest in the history of a bridge left for hundreds of years without being repaired, little more for an abandoned palace – but could imagine the cottage by the seashore, and a log fire, and them together on a rug. She imagined that she might involve herself in an armed struggle just once – once only – then retreat to safety. Hidden in remoteness with the lorry driver to protect her, and lead a new life and be far from the hunting pack. Possible? Perhaps, perhaps not… not possible for the boys from Savile Town who had gone away to war and were buried in the sand, what was left of their bodies. Not worth thinking of… whether she could break away at a time and place of her own choosing, or could not.

Wondered whether he would make that his future: the cottage, the fire burning, the refuge, could not answer. Held tight to his hand.

‘Don’t quote me… they make rather a pleasing couple.’

‘You reckon he nobbed her last night?’

Gough did his pained face. Little shocked him, but they had between them a regular act that she would ramp up her language and he would play the offended individual. Almost music hall, something of a variety show that they played out. His expression seemed to say that her tongue gave him personal pain… They had done it themselves the previous night. Him ‘nobbing’ his assistant, though Pegs had done most of the work, what she’d called the ‘heavy lifting’. Then sharing a quiet cigarette, and hanging their heads out of the window. Then a few hours of solid sleep. They had woken, refreshed, were showered and breakfasted, were outside the hotel in the street off the Rue de la République in time to see the couple emerge.

‘That is disgusting, quite vulgar.’

‘Just asking – remember what you said about him, not that long back?’

Their man, the Undercover, had a rucksack slung on a shoulder and carried her bag. She had a hand tucked in the crook of his arm, like they were an item. They had walked to a car park and the rucksack and the bag had gone into the boot of an old VW saloon. She had given him a kiss on the cheek, and had swung her hips and they had set off at a brisk march… They would have seemed the stereotypical couple – far from home and crossing a racial divide – and finding each other and exploring a relationship, and she had manufactured a guise of cheerfulness and he seemed smitten… They were in the Rocher des Doms gardens. Had circled a spouting ornamental fountain and walked paths bordered by shrubbery. They filtered between a party of schoolchildren and their minders, and a bus load of Chinese tourists, and nothing showed of the truths guiding them: she was testing the security of a potential arms importation route – and he was an agent of the Crown and committed to blocking her ambition, and now they held hands and were young and looked like lovers.

Gough grimaced. ‘Never enjoy being quoted back.’

‘I’ll remind you… put your tin helmet back on because it will hurt. Quote, ‘‘He’s gone native’’, end quote. I suggested he needed a ‘‘good kicking’’, but you waffled, Gough, did not stand up to him.’

‘Did not have a great many options as I remember.’

‘Once his hand is in her knickers, then you’ve lost him.’

‘Quite disgusting and not worthy of you, Pegs.’

‘You reckon, Gough, he’s going to get her in the shrubs, do it there? Horny enough for al fresco ? I’d say that he’s moving offline, and I’d say she’s wanting it bad. You were squeamish on reading a riot to him… That’s where we are. Like it or not, it’s where.’

The couple had moved on and were now at a railing, looking down through bare trees, watching the river far below, swollen with winter rain, and the wind sang in the branches. The main flow of the river was at the end of the broken historic bridge. How it had been broken, why it had not been fixed in many centuries, might have confused Gough had he permitted that irrelevance room to breathe. He and Pegs stood back from them. He – their man – continued to hold her hand and she laughed, and he used his free hand to tap decisively at his backside. Gough understood. Their man’s palm was across the back pocket of his jeans, and the gesture was clear enough. Pegs, too, had caught it, the signal… First bloody indication they had been given that he expected them to be traipsing after him, having him under ‘eyeball’, and he had not phoned them in the night.

‘We drill it into them, not that most of them are listening, but we are bloody emphatic: it is poor tradecraft to shag female targets. The way to erode objectivity… Of course he’ll shag her. Just hope they both enjoy it.’

‘I know what they’re told.’

‘They are not friends, they are targets.’

‘I merely said that they make a pleasing couple. I don’t need a damn lecture.’

‘Pleasing?’

‘It’s what I said.’

‘They would, wouldn’t they? I mean, they come out of the same locker.’

‘Meaning – meaning what?’

‘So much in common. Made for each other. If it were a dating agency then it would be a brilliant match. In their veins, compatibility… it’s so obvious, Gough, it’s biting your bum. They both lie to survive, both carry a knapsack of deceit. Both trust nobody, both hide themselves away, and are friendless and incapable of affection, trust, to anyone outside their own security bubble. I echo you, ‘‘a pleasing couple’’, and so they bloody should be, but sorry for the speech. You all right? Look a touch peaky.’