Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

‘Get it deployed,’ he was told.

And he did.

The Englishman said quietly, almost diffidently, ‘We’d like her taken. She’ll be a treasure trove.’

The Englishwoman snapped at him, ‘For heaven’s sake, Gough, she’s on the loose with a lethal weapon, and has to be stopped – just leave it.’

It was called up, would be in place, and there were squad cars coming from the east and west, and another from the north, and all would carry the necessary gear.

The Major asked, not looking back, ‘The Volkswagen, the Polo, that is your man?’

‘Afraid it is,’ he was answered.

They drove at the speed of the scooter, but were out in the middle of the road and nothing could pass them. The Major had created a gap in the traffic. The scooter was isolated and weighed down by its passenger and cargo, was alone in its space; perfect for what they intended… except for the one car that had stayed at constant speed and at a constant distance behind the fugitives.

It was flicked out.

The road ahead was empty. On the pavements crowds gathered, mostly immigrants from the Maghreb but some from central Africa; very few in this district had parents born in France. They would hear the sirens and there was a good feeling that soon another performance would be laid before them, perhaps as exciting as when the executioner, Samson, had come and shot a man, one bullet and taking out the skull.

It slithered snake-like across the road. A second was ready for use on the far side. The police called them ‘stingers’. The Tyre Deflation Devices covered half the road’s width with close-set spikes, and officers reckoned from experience they could stop any vehicle, shred the tyres and bring it to a halt. Armed police crouched in doorways on either side and could hear the sirens but not yet the erratic engine of the small Peugeot scooter. The intention was that the snakes – one already in the road and the other held back until the target was close – would halt the pair well short of their La Castellane refuge. The instructions called for the arrest of the couple, particularly the female. They had with them, it was said, an automatic rifle but were without experience of using such a powerful weapon… And a car followed them, a male driver, and that person should be kept out of the arrest area, should be prevented from entering the cordon sanitaire . Many eyes watched, and many ears listened for the approach of the prey, and guns were cocked. In that arrondissement a spectacle was always eagerly welcomed.

‘What the bloody hell do I do now?’ Crab hissed.

‘Use your feet, and walk,’ was his answer.

They were at a set of lights. The sign by the church said this was the Rue Beauvau. It was near the quayside for the vieux port , near McDonald’s and an Irish pub, near the marina where the yachts and launches were moored, but nowhere near the airport. And a further answer… Tooth had reached across him, unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open, flicked the hold on the seat belt, and propelled Crab out, and he had stumbled on the pavement, scattering pedestrians… And another answer, as Tooth twisted round to the back seat, picked up his one-time friend’s bag, and threw it out. It careered into Crab’s legs.

‘How was I to know?’

‘You come to me, you fat old fool, with your little idea, and want to play a big man again, and you are now senile and incompetent, and you have brought a cop with you. A cop travels along with you… “How was I to know?”… You come here, you feed off my hospitality, you threaten my way of life. How, why? Because you have not taken care. You can walk to the airport.’

‘Nobody speaks to me, not that way, no one does.’

‘Go back where you came from, use your feet to get there. I am not your chauffeur.’

Long years of joshing, laughing, doing deals, telling stories, sharing bad times, were erased, like a sheet of paper held over a flame. About as great a crime as existed in the world of either Tooth or of Crab was to have such slack security that a stranger, an Undercover, could infiltrate a group and threaten both livelihood and liberty. A damning accusation and one never before levelled at Crab… Of course, never apologise, keep contrition off the table. Fight back, only way to maintain respect – respect for himself.

He had a fist on the bag’s strap, and swung it. There were metal studs on its base, roughened through wear. The bag scraped the bodywork of the Mercedes car, polished and pristine, and he had the pleasure in seeing Tooth’s rage, control almost lost… but not enough for him.

He dropped the bag and plunged back into the car. Sought to get his hands on Tooth’s throat, but had no hold, and came away only with a clutch of hair from the chin of Tooth’s beard. Then he stepped back, kicked the door hard enough for it to slam, and watched the car pull away.

What he had done was unforgivable… he had seen the young man sitting on the wall, kicking his heels, and had noted the guy’s roving eyes, their scanning, apparently relaxed but alert… and all so convenient. The little girl with a ‘stupid’ boyfriend, obsessed with her, and happy to drive her halfway across Europe and be ignorant of the conspiracy… The guys his sons had met on their wing at Strangeways, who’d used the old warehouse, had failed to do the checks. He was in hock to people he did not know, who had aims he did not understand, and his premises had been given over to a session of pain, interrogation, agony, all the way to death… He might be subject to investigation by the crime squad at Manchester, and might be of interest to the North West Counter Terrorist crowd: a bad outlook, and he could not see it improving. Down to him… but he had stood his corner well, and the accusation of being a bloody idiot had come late, after a stonily silent drive.

And his leg hurt, usually did when he was stressed. He went towards the main drag, and hoped to find a taxi, and hoped to get on a plane… and had not been fucking paid, not been handed his share of commission on the deal. All for one bloody gun.

October 2018

‘I have no need of it…’ the navigation officer said.

His friend was an Alexandrian and worked in the harbourmaster’s office of that Egyptian port on the Mediterranean coast. ‘What need of it could I have?’

‘They are uncertain times, times of revolution and of instability and…’

‘And times when the possession of such an item is sufficient for a military court to order the hanging of a man. You want me to take it off your hands, yes?’

The navigation officer grimaced because that was the truth. ‘We are heading for the Canal, we are due to sail the length of the Red Sea, and then into waters where there is a threat of piracy.’

‘I know that.’

‘We are approaching Alexandria and the captain is informed that the owners have declared insolvency, and we should return to our home port. If we are lucky, there we may be paid off. But we are Greeks, and used to the imposition of disappointment, and more possible is that we go down the gangway to be abandoned without pension rights, anything. I cannot take it back to Greek territory. I could throw it overboard. Or could make it available to a friend.’

‘It is functional?’

‘I assume so. I was told it was. I believe that the Kalashnikov has a longer life than me, than you, otherwise why would they have manufactured a hundred million of them… If you were a fish, my friend, I would say you are nibbling.’

Both laughed, but without humour. The navigation officer had made the offer of a gift to this official from the harbourmaster’s office because the man was of the Christian faith. Many were in Alexandria… they lived, as he knew well, in a state of siege, their churches were bombed by zealots, and their children were abused and their wives friendless outside their own small community, and the police seldom answered emergency calls when they were threatened. Not quite a time of lynch mobs seeking out those worshippers, but it would come. He had thought this individual would welcome the chance to have the weapon, hidden away, only to be considered if the mob were on the stairs or had brought flaming torches and gasoline to the front door. A last stand when his family and himself faced death by fire or by stabbing and chopping with butchers’ axes, might be an attractive alternative.