Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

‘The old man, he is a grand figure. He is a legend in the city. He said you were a cop. I did not know, but he did. Why does a cop come here, into our life?’

The evening had come down and outside the cloud had thickened, and the power of the wind had slipped. No lights shone in the bedroom. The man was two feet from him, and his breath stank of chillis, and he still had patience, but it would not last. The boy with the wrecked arm stood in the doorway and had a knife in his hand but seemed more interested in looking across the hallway and into the living area and catching some of the game show. Zed sat on the bed. He thought by now she would have realised she had entered a cul-de-sac, and did not know how to retrace her steps, and the rifle was across her lap… Long ago, with an identity now shelved, he had apparently idolised a worn and frayed bear and had carried it through the day, and to nursery, and only released it when he was in the bath, then carried it to bed. She had the rifle, held it that way… There would have been weapons instructors at Lympstone who could talk about the way in which a Kalashnikov empowered those whose voices had never been heard before. She might not have known how to break out of the tower block, but she would not have doubted that the rifle was her salvation, a protector.

‘I do hashish. I do well with hashish. A cop from abroad does not care about hashish in the north of Marseille. Why?’

He could barely see the dealer’s face. But enough light came up from the street lamps for some to fall on her cheeks and nestle over her nose and into the small lines at the side of her mouth, and the caverns in which her eyes were set… places where a young man and a young woman could lose themselves, be strangers in a community and not hunted down. Not everyone had to belong and have roots, have a granny in the cemetery, to be accepted on certain terms – live and let live… he thought her beautiful, stubborn, but beautiful.

‘What can satisfy you?

There were no more sirens outside, but sometimes a vehicle moved and then the blue lights climbed the walls of the block and filtered into the bedroom and shone on the ceiling or slid over the walls, once covering the poster of the rifle; the only other light was the flicker of the technicolour from the TV.

‘I understand. You do not have to speak… You came for the girl. Yes?’

He did not think he was about to die, but had no complacency. Tiredness would build, and with it would come impatience, exasperation, anger, all of them increasing the danger factor. But he said nothing, was not ready to argue his corner.

‘It is not romance, no. It is because you are a cop and she is a fugitive, yes?’

He was offered a cigarette, declined. He had noted that the man addressed only him, ignored the others, as if they had no importance, were worthless… might have been a wrong judgement because she had the rifle, was the only one of them equipped to kill, as far as he knew.

‘You know what? I understand everything… The girl is a fugitive, and the girl has a weapon, an automatic rifle, big deal. I have seven under my control. In this project alone there might be twenty-five. And now, I tell you what you are, you are a nuisance to me. You are an obstruction.’

Zed now hovered close, had not relaxed her grip on the rifle, seemed calmer and more settled as if her mind were made up. Andy watched. The man, Hamid, turned towards her as if at last acknowledging her place in the sun, perhaps her right to be consulted.

‘And you, what do you want?’

Wanted what she would not have admitted to. Not shared what she wanted. Almost frightened of what she wanted. Would like to have told Andy, snuggled in bed together, bare-skinned and warm and wet, and him loving her, told him as he slept and the rhythm of his breathing was regular, that she wanted to be known. Have her name shouted.

Nobody outside Savile Town knew the names of the boys, her cousins, who had gone from Dewsbury on the bus, or by train, to go and fight in Syria, or in Iraq. And to die there. Only a few could recall their faces: ‘a quiet boy, and very serious… always polite, always helpful… do anything for anybody’. Forgotten now. It shamed her. She had had to struggle to recall the names of the suicide people, and more often now the faces of her two cousins became blurred and merged and it was harder for her to see two individuals. She did not know if the last two had carried Kalashnikovs similar to the one she now held when they’d gone to detonate themselves, driving an armour-plated vehicle, reinforced sides and an engine covered with tempered steel sheets so that they could manoeuvre through defensive fire and stay in control right to the target area. Had felt that power, and the strength given them by the rifle, peering through a slit in the armour plate and hearing the drumming of rifle fire. She did not know whether the cousins, two names and one face, had been armed with them – or had been asleep in a makeshift barracks, or had been grunting through sex with one of the child girls who went there with the fervent adoration of converts, and a bomb or a missile had struck their building. She thought it would have been a cruel fate to have died at the hand of the enemy and without an AK to hold, as she had, in his hand. The answer to the question? She yearned for a form of recognition.

Never listened to at home. Never really shone at school, except for a minimal pass grade for the entry into the university in Manchester, and a heavy hint, a suggestion put on her lap, that she ticked enough boxes for entrance and that another candidate for the course, cleverer and with better grades, had been elbowed. Never listened to by either Scorpion or by Krait, nor by the men she had met in the park in London. Might have been listened to by Andy, or thought he had listened to her… then betrayed.

An image played in her mind. She had walked into the heart of the city where she supposedly studied. No laptop, no notepad and pencil, no textbooks in a bag. Heavy against her body as she went down the long street was the assault rifle… the first to be brought down would be the security guard at the checkpoint. One shot in the chest and she would run forward. She would hear, each time she fired, the clamour of screaming and might catch the terror in the faces of those cowering in the corridors, trying to pretend they were helpless and innocent and had no hatred of her. Wonderful to see the terror and the begging. All because she carried the gaunt shape of the weapon. Not to do with her personality, and the power of her spoken message, but because she had it in her hand. She would shoot and shoot again, keep shooting through the first magazine, and spin them over and lock in the second that was taped to the first, and would shoot with that, would keep firing, keep knocking over the dolls and the bears and the mannequins until she heard the click and the trigger no longer fired and then all around her would be quiet. She would walk forward and would step around and through the casualties. She doubted she would hear them approach from behind, their weapons already cocked. She would know nothing when they fired. Her photograph would be in the papers. Her name would be broadcast. That was what she wanted.

She shook her head sharply. ‘You have no right to ask what I want – and you would not understand if I told you.’

Nor would she tell him that she would shoot Andy before it was over. Not yet because he must suffer… it hurt badly that he did not beg her, show any weakness. No balance – his betrayal of her and her deceit in manipulating him… no guilt for her, she alone had grievances, was wronged. She did not know how long there would be until the end played out or in what form. Nor would have answered the question had it been put differently: was she getting there, towards what she wanted? The rain came fast, arrived on a wave of cold wind.