Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

The boy touched her hand when he spoke, for emphasis, and perhaps as a small show of nervous admiration – or attraction.

‘And the Americans fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah preferred to take a dead jihadi’s AK, his Klash, rather than have their own more complicated rifle. They want to go ‘‘spray and pray’’ which is ideal with the Russian rifle but that is not what the M-16 is made for. Very interesting, yes? The AK has killed more soldiers, more civilians, than any weapon in the history of small arms. I am pleased so much that you are interested.’

They were in the centre of the square. He had stopped to sit on a concrete bench. The wind blistered her. They would have seemed another boy, another girl. She hitched up her coat and her hands were under it, and then she loosened her belt and let her jeans drop two, three, inches at the waist, and wriggled and manoeuvred her hands. She pulled the money belt clear. Then dragged up her jeans and fastened the belt, pushed down the hem of her coat, and sat beside him. She did not know from where, but assumed she was now watched, every motion and movement.

The boy said cheerfully, ‘When you go to war and have a Kalash then you are invincible. You understand? You believe you are supreme. You cannot be defeated, it is the citizen’s rifle…’

She opened the belt’s pouch and stared down at the close-packed bank notes. To her, the girl from Savile Town, living on a meagre allowance from a state grant, it was the greatest sum of money she had ever seen. When she went to a cash machine it was exceptional for her to take out more than twenty pounds. She put her hand on his, as if to silence him, and smiled sweetly.

Karym thought her eyes quite beautiful. He had been about to begin telling her of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s life, how it was that the man credited with the rifle’s design had achieved such prominence, and… he stared at her. When she had lifted her clothing he had seen her skin. To win that smile there was nothing he would refuse, and his chin shook, and he waited to be told what was wanted of him.

‘I need your experience.’

‘Of course.’

‘Your knowledge.’

‘If I can answer.’

‘You have Kalashnikov rifles in that estate, where you took me?’

‘In that project, in all the projects, there are Kalash rifles.’

‘Old ones and new ones?’

‘Quite old, quite new – from Russia and from Libya and from Serbia, from Iraq, from China – nearly they are the same. Yes?’

‘You could buy one here, “quite old, quite new”, you could?’

He shivered. Even in the bright sunshine the wind was keen, off the sea, and cut the thin clothing he wore. He snivelled, had no handkerchief. Sniffled again, and shivered, but had no handkerchief to clean his nose.

‘I could, if my brother agreed.’

‘If your brother refused such permission?’

‘I would not have it – you have to understand that my brother is a noted man. We have a discipline. If my brother agrees, then anything is possible.’

‘I understand. What would be the price of a rifle, not old and not new?’

‘It could be to make an alliance and then very cheap. It could be a quick deal, or a weapon with a history which an owner needs to get clear from. Could have come from Serbia which is more expensive, could have come with cocaine from the Spanish ports and driven here.’

‘What is the price?’

‘An average…’

He looked at the clouds hurrying across the sky, and the white crests on the waves around the islands, and the spray on the rocks, and he shrugged and his hands gestured the difficulty of answering a question with so many parts of it uncertain.

‘…Your estimate?’

‘Three hundred euro. That would be top, without ammunition. For the settling of a debt, my brother would accept three hundred.’

‘Only three hundred, not more?’

He remembered the denomination of the notes in the belt. They would buy the delivery of a small parcel in order to test the security of the route and for a down payment on a second, larger, delivery, what his brother had told him, and had chuckled. Her breath caught in her throat, and her fingers clenched as if anger started to burn… She would have thought… All crooks. Thieves and liars. Deceivers and dishonourable… She and her people were ripped off, conned, asked to hand over double or treble what the merchandise was worth, and took no risk, but cheated. But, nothing she could do. The deal had been agreed far away, by Tooth and other men of importance. Her cheeks had flushed. Which made her prettier, and she snorted.

Karym snivelled again. She took a paper handkerchief from her bag, passed it to him. He filled it noisily, and stood and went to the next bench where there was a rubbish bin where a wasp was circling, and looked around. Karym saw Tooth and another man, also old, and a hundred metres away and out of the wind and pretending to read newspapers, and saw his brother and gave no sign of recognition, and saw the boy who drove her, who sat on a wall and gazed at the sea and had the wind full on his face, and he waited for a signal. It was business. If she did not understand ‘business’ then she was an innocent. Any man or woman who was an innocent in ‘business’, would fail: in the project, to be an ‘innocent’ was to be at risk. Quiet had fallen. Some kids were listlessly riding skateboards, and others played football, tried to manage the back hammer kick, but without enthusiasm. He saw his brother go between two café parasols and was lit by the sun.

Hamid sweated.

Must keep his coat buttoned, must keep the package hidden.

The procedure demanded by the old man, with the villa on the headland and still clinging to power, was against all Hamid’s instincts. Himself… a café with the blinds drawn and a back room, and the customer at the same disadvantage as any purchaser of hashish who came to La Castellane. And deployed around the café would have been a score of his kids, some armed and all wary, with their mobiles cocked, or women with whistles; and the investigators easily spotted because they would only come to the project with huge fire-power in reserve. How he would have done it, but not his decision.

He was a small player, a facilitator. Like a tart who yearned to be in a big man’s bed. He grinned – the ‘tart’ who shared his home was Latvian, pale-skinned, natural blonde, said little, cooked decently, was well built enough to be a symbol of his success, and might even ride with him if he soared in stature, or might be dropped for something better, more attractive… one step at a time. He circled the wide paved area, and looked around him. He saw locals with their children, cyclists and the skateboard kids, and a tourist group following a raised parasol and heading for the cathedral, and saw an old couple, foreign, who had a guidebook and an opened map… He saw his brother, and saw the girl, and his gaze lingered on her, and she sat upright, looked straight ahead, and the kid was babbling in her ear – would be the usual shit about the Russian-made rifle or its imitators, and he needed to get the business done and then be back in La Castellane before the evening because he had new stock in, and regular bulk customers were forewarned, and he wanted time to prepare for successful trading. The girl said nothing, seemed to look far out to sea, where the wind whipped the waves. He hated the fucking sea. He would never get into a small boat again. Had not managed to choke out the taste of the fucking sea. Nothing that he saw disturbed him. He came to that darkened corner where a big, tossing, bending umbrella denied light to the table beneath. He sat with them. He opened his coat, took out a Swiss knife, slashed the strapping, freed the package, still wrapped as it had been when lobbed from the hatch in the freighter’s hull towards the fishing boat and his outstretched hands.