Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

Tooth snarled after him, ‘You brought a cop. My eyes smell a cop, my nose sees a cop. You did not see it, smell it? Imbecile. He is watching, observing. His eyes track – that’s a cop. He sits in the sun, is alert, sees everything. It is surveillance. You bring this down on me – idiot.’

Tooth ran as best he could, and Crab hobbled after him and tears wet his face.

She had heard what was shouted, and heard the curse from the boy, Karym. She had seen the pointing arm and had swivelled on her heel, had looked where the arm and the finger directed, had seen Andy straighten, stand, agape… Karym had hold of her arm. She clung to the package. She wanted to shout out, ‘No, no, that is not a policeman, it’s Andy. He’s a driver. He drives a lorry. He is nobody. He does what I say. He…’ Wanted to and could not, and was dragged. She saw the man who had brought the package carrying the belt away, the straps streaming behind him, and he was running as if his life depended on the speed his legs could take him. And she saw the couple from the street, from La Canebière, who had had trouble reading their map and finding the place in their guidebook, and who Andy had helped. Shouted nothing back, allowed herself to be pulled away from the centre of the space.

A chance to stop? Pause a moment? Consider? What actually is best for me? How should I react? Am I supposed to believe the guy who I have known for months, who I fucked last night – who glories in me, who is nothing but a truck driver – is a policeman? Have I been duped? Betrayed? Who says so? Who…? Did not have time to scratch her head, frown, think. Her stride slackened and his fist, clamped on her wrist, tightened and then jerked her away. She saw him, Andy Knight – lover or defender or traitor? – and he stood and he watched, and his posture had changed. No longer round-shouldered, nor slouched, as if a role had altered his shape. No linger, nor loiter. She was tugged. The boy was shorter than her and might have been a clear stone lighter. The money had gone. The man who had shouted had disappeared. The couple she had seen at the top of La Canebière – where Andy had made her laugh and had showed her the painted street sculptures of the giraffes – had now come forward from a café, and were with two men, and one of them carried a drooping bag.

Karym did not exhort her to come with him, said nothing, dragged her. She was not asked. They were at the scooter. He wrenched her. What alternative? None that she knew of. She hitched her leg over the Peugeot’s pillion seat. The engine coughed. Dark fumes spilled from the exhaust behind her and the wind took them into her nose. They careered out into the traffic, and she had her arms around his waist, and the package wedged on her lap.

He had not said where he was taking her, nor asked what was best for her.

He followed, felt calm.

Tucked in behind two cars, each loaded with families and going steadily, it was not hard for Andy to slip into a good position to tail. He could not be obvious nor was it likely that he would lose the scooter. He had slept with her that night – as if it were from both of them a final calling card – and he saw already that he was history in her mind. She held tight to the boy’s waist, was close to his back and her head was against the boy’s shoulder. To what purpose he followed her, he was uncertain. To have evaluated his situation he would have needed perhaps a half-minute of quiet, an opportunity to reflect. Did not have that luxury: never did in his work… he was tasked to be up close to her, so he went after her.

The scooter could weave but Andy relied on the cars ahead to push through gaps, and the distance between them stayed constant. He saw signs on a main road that headed towards Avignon, but the boy rode past them and took a diversion on to narrow streets and they now were filling because it was the middle of the day and the traffic was increasing, and following them was becoming harder, and he’d have less help from those in front. Then he was alone. No vehicle was between them. She did not look back, and the boy had no mirror.

He would follow to the end, expected to and wanted to.

Not knowing where they led him, he went after them, could see the billow of her hair and the closeness of their bodies, and when the kid took a corner sharply, and banked, he had a brief sight of the package clamped against her stomach… and already it had all failed.

The plan had been to allow the single weapon, product of a test run, to enter British territory and to be bugged and tailed, then for a wide-scale arrest swoop, and a network rounded up. To achieve that, Zed should have done the swap and walked away with that lofty haughtiness that he had helped establish as hers by right, should have given the boy a light kiss on the cheek, the big thrill of his day, and should have settled into the Polo and put the package on the floor, and he’d have pulled away from the kerb, and headed for the road out, taken the Avignon signs and the autoroute. Straight sailing from there. Except it had not happened, and now would not – all screwed up.

He was denounced.

Across the open square, he had seen the figure rise from a low chair in the shadows and gesticulate, identify him as he sat on the wall, claim him as a ‘cop’. An old man had done it. Could not have been his clothing, his hair or his cheeks, all unkempt but acceptable for a civilian. He could not think that anything he had done would have alerted a guy sitting a minimum of a hundred yards from him. There had been a cry in French, then English; he wore a cap and tinted glasses and had a neatly trimmed snow-white beard. The instructors always preached that old lags, veteran villains, had the knack of spotting an officer, however good the cover. And the scene in front of him had disintegrated fast… the money had gone – she might have tried to get to him, to the car, but the kid was shouting in her ear, would have been telling her that she had produced the cop, her fault, her responsibility, and had dragged her away. He wondered if she had tears in her eyes. Wondered if she could see, or if her eyes had misted over… It had failed, had shown out, and he didn’t know how. What was life afterwards? He followed her: assumed if he followed far enough and fast enough that a moment would come when they’d confront each other. She would spit, he would tell her that it was a lie, he was not a police officer. She would rant. He would claim innocence and deny deceit. But he was unarmed, and she clasped against her stomach an assault rifle. She’d not know how to use it. But the boy would. He thought, in bitterness, that the kid would know, and all his friends, and all of his brothers, how to arm an AK-47, and shoot with it, would have learned all that about a week after being weaned off his mother’s milk, and all the rest of them… but he followed.

The kid rode the scooter well. His top speed was good enough for the narrow streets, and for other traffic. The bigger problem was for Andy Knight, bogus lover and treacherous friend, and a serving police officer under the direction of SC&O10, to hold the link. Behind him was a faint rumble, like a gathering storm was closing on them. Back to that ‘life afterwards’… why had he followed them? Had no idea, except that it was his ‘duty’, big word and unsure of its meaning… What did he hope to achieve by following them? Not in Andy Knight’s lowly pay grade to make such decisions, had been told to stay close, and would… and what came ‘afterwards’? An internal inquiry, evidence given, and a reference to the Official Secrets Act, closed sessions, and he’d be walking out of the door, and a flunkey would demand his ID and would slot it into the shredder. Found wanting, surplus to requirements… nobody wanted to jostle shoulders with failure. He kept on following. Could have taken the next sign for the autoroute, going north, maybe overtaking her first and giving her a cheery wave, then stamping his foot, and getting the hell out and leaving it to others to sort out the debacle.