The Unknown Soldier

by Gerald Seymour

  The crater had a raised lip. Five hundred years before, or five thousand, or five million, a mass of rock had hurtled down from the heavens. Having burst the atmosphere it had detonated on impact.

  The entry heat would have melted the external parts of the rock, leaving them as blackened slag, fusing the iron ore that was its signature, and creating intense heat sufficient to turn sand to glass.

  There would have been, in that part of the Sands years before, the equivalent of an explosion by five kilotonnes of TNT. Perhaps there had been people close by, perhaps the desert had been as empty as now, but anything living within hundreds of metres of the ejecta field would have been killed. Her mind, mechanically, made calculations and estimates of the size of the meteorite, while her thoughts were on the young man who had saved her, who had told her, with steel authority, 'You never met me, I was never here . . . You never saw my face.'

  Beth had been eight times to the Wabar site, the ninth largest in the world, with a principal crater four hundred metres across where an iron core mass of three thousand tonnes had impacted. The largest known was in Arizona, fourteen hundred metres in diameter, but to Beth that was a tourist site, boring, and she had not visited it. Nor had she gone to the site at Chicxulub, on Mexico's Yucatan coast, which dated back sixty-five million years: there, a rock said to have been the size of Everest had hit the earth's surface at perhaps six thousand miles an hour and had caused such seismic shocks as to destroy the dinosaur population and shift fractionally the earth's orbit - coachloads went there, utterly boring.

  His fingers had been at her throat, and she had felt no fear. Over the years men had tried to impress her, had put on peacock feathers

  . . . He had not. The men she had known, at university and in her social life in London, and on the field trips, had sought to create an indebtedness, had bought her dinner, taken her to the theatre, carried her bags ostentatiously, tried to insinuate themselves .. . He had not.

  There were men who had made her laugh, and men who had demonstrated their cleverness with intense and earnest talk . . . He had refused to answer her questions. Men told her their life stories

  . . . She knew nothing of him.

  There was not one person in the world, no one she knew, to whom she would have talked about the encounter in the dunes, not even her mother. He had wanted nothing of her. There had been a serenity about him, a strength, and a gentleness when he had moved her arms to stand and slip away while she pretended to sleep.

  What confused her most - at Shaybah she met Arabs from every country in the Middle East, Yemenis, Egyptians, Kuwaitis and Jordanians, and there were labourers from Pakistan, but she could not place or match his accent.

  Every aspect of her life was based on certainty, except him. No name, no start point and no destination. She cursed out loud.

  Her voice, yelling the obscenity, rolled back at her from the sand wall. Angry, as if he watched her, she flounced back to the Land Rover, snatched up her camera, her samples bag and clipboard. She started to work where no other human had stood before, but she could not escape him.

  For the first time, Caleb rode. He would not have done but Ghaffur insisted. Ghaffur made him ride, shouted at him in his high-pitched voice, and showed him. Ghaffur said that if they were to catch the caravan then Caleb must learn, and that if he fell off he should mount again. He had to ride because they must rejoin the caravan by nightfall.

  The boy called the camel the Beautiful One.

  Caleb rolled, rocked on the hump. The Beautiful One went her own way at her own speed. Caleb had no control over her. He sat on a saddle of sacking and clung to the reins or to her neck and clamped his thighs to her flanks, but he survived, did not fall . . . Again he crossed the chasm. The memory was from far back, rain on his face, darkness and bright lights around him, and the quiet of the Sands was replaced with raucous noise: it was a fairground and he rode a roller-coaster. Boys screamed and girls shrieked . . . but the desert was around him, and the quiet. It had been something from the past, breaking into his memory, and he rode the hump and obliterated it.

  The Beautiful One crossed the sand with long, weary strides. He had seen the way Rashid treated his camels; foul-tempered to the men he escorted, but sweet with the animals - almost love. The boy turned often, as if expecting to see that he had been pitched off, but there was not the usual mischief on the young face. They made time. Caleb realized that the boy had caught from his father a new suspicion of his resolve, and had caught it, too, from Hosni and Fahd and Tommy: all of them - without his intervention - would have killed Beth Jenkins and would have left her body for the wind and sand to strip, for the sun to rot.

  Twice they found the tracks of the caravan, each time close to a gully between the dunes where the sand was sheltered from a brisk wind. Each time they had gone through the gully, the tracks were lost. The surface of the sand seemed to float and it filled the hoofprints. Caleb marvelled that the boy could go with certainty after the caravan when he, himself, saw no tracks.

  They did not stop to rest, eat or drink. He perched on the hump, bounced on it, would not fall. He had forgotten her, she was no part of him, the long night was behind him, and the wind blew the smell of her from his robe.

  'I've got a target.' Gonsalves was flushed with excitement at the Ground Control's door. They needed the excitement he peddled: the door hadn't been more than half open, and he'd only had a glimpse of the back of the pilot's head and the profile of the sensor operator's, but the shoulders and back postures told him excitement was in short supply. 'I've got a real target for you.'

  He had been strapped into the Cessna for the flight down, had never loosened his belt. Now he paced the tiny space behind their workbench. He thought that the pilot desperately wanted to believe him, that the sensor operator was suspicious of gifts that might be snatched away.

  'What I'm telling you is for real. Doesn't come often, but this is HumInt, it is eyewitness. What I told you stands. They are hunted, they are regrouping, they are trying so damned hard to get their shape again. What we have is a camel caravan, and it has crossed the Oman-Saudi border and it has gone into the Rub' al Khali . By going the hard way, they tell us they have with them at least one man of exceptional value, but they are also carrying sophisticated weapons that we consider to be of lesser but still considerable importance.'

  He took from his briefcase a photocopied sheet. He reached forward and slapped it on to the bench between the console the sensor operator used and the joystick that the pilot's fingers were on.

  'That is a Stinger box. As it's reported to me, second hand, it is at least similar to the ones the HumInt saw loaded on the camels.

  Stinger is a shoulder-launched ground-to-air missile, it—'

  The woman said, 'I think we know what a Stinger is, Mr Gonsalves.'

  Deflated, Gonsalves said, 'There are six of them, loaded in pairs on three camels.'

  On the workbench, covered for protection with Cellophane sheeting, was a large-scale map of the Rub' al Khali. Over the sheeting were the squares they had drawn, and a pitiful few had crosses on them with dates and times.

  The woman did the talking for herself and the pilot. 'Where did the caravan cross the border?'

  Gonsalves checked his own map, then stabbed with his pencil at theirs. The point rested on the broken line of the international frontier.

  'Very good,' she said quietly. 'And when does the Humlnt say the caravan crossed?'

  'These people are vague. They don't do days of the month like we do.'

  'When?' Her question was icy calm.

  'More than a week, could be ten days, up to two weeks. We were lucky to get this much.'

  Disappointment clouded the pilot's face, his eyes losing hope.

  Gonsalves could see them through the thick lenses of the spectacles.

  She talked for him.

  'We would have to estimate, Mr Gonsalves, that a camel train can move at twenty-five land miles on a bad day, thirty-five miles o
n a good day - something between there on an average day.'

  She used a black Chinagraph and drew three half-circles on the Cellophane, each covering more of the box squares than the last. He understood. A great segment of the desert was enclosed by the outer half-circle, and its radius from the pencil mark on the border was just short of five hundred land miles.

  He said emptily, 'It's the best HumInt I've got. What are you trying to tell me?'

  'About needles and haystacks. Take a look, Mr Gonsalves.'

  She pointed up to the bank of monitors. He saw the sand, miles of it. Sand that was without an horizon. Flat sand, humped sand, ridged sand and dune sand. He saw true emptiness. Then her finger was on the map, inside the widest of the half-circles.

  'We are flying Carnival Girl today. Out behind you there's a piss-bucket. We don't leave here when a bird is flying. Marty and I, we're like a fist and glove, we are together. He wants to piss, he stands over the bucket. I want to piss, I squat over the bucket. Why? Because if one of us went out to piss and the other's head was rocking we would miss, on the wide angle, any sort of caravan, let alone a few camels. We get brought sandwiches and we get brought water. We are here as long as the bird is up. We should have at least one more relief shift, but we don't. We should have a stand-by sensor operator, but we don't. Why am I telling you this, Mr Gonsalves? So you appreciate this is a big haystack, and the needle you're giving us -

  the "best Humlnt I've got" - is tiny. Don't take offence. You are trying and we are trying. You are giving it your best shot, and so are we.

  I hope you have a good flight back.'

  He stared at the sand on the screens, stared till the picture distorted his vision. He thought that the pilot and the sensor operator should have relief every two hours if their concentration was to hold, and he thought they were prisoners in the Ground Control for twelve or fifteen hours at a time. The nightmare gathering in his mind: they would fly the UAV, Carnival Girl, right over a camel caravan that carried six boxes of importance and at least one man of significance, and they would not see either a trail of beasts or that man.

  'Do what you can,' Gonsalves said weakly. For a moment, on his arrival, he had lifted them. Now their shoulders had flopped again.

  He went out.

  The heat hit him, seemed to stifle his breath.

  He walked towards the jeep that would drive him back to the Cessna. It was the life he knew . . . A counter-intelligence officer encountered rare highs and frequent troughs. He fought in what was now dubbed in the smart current-affairs magazines back home the War without End. The customers expected goddamn miracles. He remembered what had been said after the Riyadh attacks last year:

  'They're saying, "We can get you any time, anywhere."' It had been good information, but quietly trashed as they had shown him the desert pictures and the half-circles on the map, and all the time his enemy was regrouping . . . Savagely, he kicked a stone from his path to the jeep.

  His name was called. He turned, went back, climbed the steps into the Ground Control.

  She pointed to a screen.

  He saw two tiny shapes. A vehicle roof was at the screen's side and a minuscule figure was in the centre. She played her tricks, the zoom started. He identified the Land Rover, then a woman. The zoom lost the Land Rover as it closed on the woman. She was bending. He could see a clipboard on the sand beside her and bright stones reflected up, then she crouched. Her hair was fair - damn it, he could see the colour of her hair, and of her blouse.

  'I just wanted you to know, Mr Gonsalves, what the gear did, if we can find a target.'

  'Who the hell do you think she is?'

  The sensor operator grinned as she took the picture fractionally closer. 'She's two people. She's a meteorite expert, a scholar. She is also my supplier of tampons. And she's also the only living person, thing, we've seen all day.'

  'Won't she wave?'

  The pilot said, 'She doesn't know we're up above. We're on loiter at twenty-four thousand feet altitude, that's four point five four five miles. She can't hear us, and if she looked up she couldn't see us.

  Why we wanted to show her to you, Mr Gonsalves, if there's camels with military crates we can identify them.'

  'You got Hellfire on?'

  She said they had not.

  'Don't ever fly another day without Hellfire on, don't ever.'

  'It's riot control they're doing, Mr Wroughton. Five days a week of riot-control training and preparation to counter a breakdown of law and order, that's the truth.'

  Wroughton never took a note in the presence of an informer. To have taken a shorthand precis would have made the informer believe his information was interesting, important. His face was a study of disinterest. They were in the lobby of a small hotel that was rarely used by expatriates, and the chairs they used and the table with their juice were shielded by potted plants from the swing door and the reception desk. In any case, his cufflink was a microphone, and the recorder was under his jacket in the small of his back. God, the wretch came cheap.

  'Every man and officer in the National Guard who is not on essential priority duties is now being sent on riot-control training.

  They are crapping in their pants - if you'll excuse me - Mr Wroughton. It's gas and plastic bullets at the moment, but SANG

  units now have access to live ammunition. I know it's only a little detail, but all the armoured personnel carriers in the National Guard barracks must have full fuel tanks at all times. It's like they know the place is crumbling.'

  Some handlers became fond of informants, treated them like way-ward children, pretended they were almost a valued part of the intelligence-gathering process. Eddie Wroughton would never make that mistake. Samuel Bartholomew was a creature he despised. Kind words, encouragement, unless laced with a tone of sarcasm, had no place in the relationship.

  ' I gather it's coming out of the mosques. Not the big ones, the party line rules there, but the small ones whose customers are hard hit by the new austerity. The Americans are gone, their troops have left, but my patient says the poison out of the lesser mosques is now directed at the royals. It's the fall in the standard of living that's doing it, my patient says - oh, yes, the armoured personnel carriers are full-time loaded up with gas and plastics, but they also have heavy machine-guns mounted. They're running scared. I hope this is valuable to you, Mr Wroughton. I've been very dedicated for you, Mr Wroughton, haven't I?'

  Wroughton's lip curled. He thought he knew what was coming and he pushed away his near-empty glass with fruit in the bottom.

  He smiled limply, then stood.

  'Please, please, just hear me out.' Then the blurt. 'What I'm thinking, Mr Wroughton, your people can get access to buildings, can't they? And files, can't they?'

  They did. 'I'm not following you, Bart.'

  'There's files on me. I—'

  'Files on all of us, Bart,' Wroughton teased.

  'My files at the Devon and Cornwall police and at the BMA, I'm wondering. . .'

  Wroughton played the idiot. 'What are you wondering?'

  'After all I've done, you know, all the help - well, couldn't they just get lost?'

  'Lost,' Wroughton mimicked. 'Lost? Are you suggesting that we might burgle police premises, and the offices of the British Medical Association, and remove files concerning criminal investigations? Is that what you're suggesting?'

  The wretch cringed. 'I think I've done my time. I want out. I want a new start without those bloody files blocking me. That's reasonable, surely that's—'

  Always dominate an informant, keep him under a steel-shod shoe. Wroughton said, 'You leave when I say so. Files go walkabout when I decide it - and that's not now. You are going, Bart, nowhere.'

  A little dribble of spittle appeared at Bart's mouth.

  Anger, Wroughton could have respected. Fight, he could have warmed to.

  The doctor caved in. 'Yes, Mr Wroughton.'

  There was no spine in the man. He waved him away, watched him cross t
he lobby and go through the doors. Then he saw her. If he hadn't watched Bartholomew going out of the hotel he would not have seen the woman. Quite elegant - a little plump - well dressed.

  Silk blouse and skirt. Not young but well cared-for. She turned the pages of a magazine, but her attention was not on the pages. He caught her eye . . . Eddie Wroughton was expert at reading the boredom factor in middle-aged women. She had a wedding ring on her finger. Married women were always the better targets - they were always more bored. She'd caught his eye, and had held it. He thought she matched his own interest. He stood, paused for a decent moment, then eased across the lobby towards her.

  A quarter of an hour later, when he had learned she was Belgian, that her husband worked up-country, and her home telephone number, he left her with her magazine.

  *

  Jed staggered like a drunk. He came off the ferry that linked the accommodation area with Marine Corps administration from the Delta Camp and thought he might fall. He knew that the eyes of every civilian, officer and enlisted man who had sailed on the ferry were locked on him.

  A headcold had gone feverish and forced him to his bed. Two whole days, two nights, and part of a third day he had been tossing under the sweat-damp sheet, dosed with pills, twisting, cursing.

  Then frustration had forced him up and into his work clothes. He was unshaven, unsure whether he could manage a razor with his shaking hand. A lumbering shadow of himself, Jed made his way off the ferry and towards the shuttle bus.

  The mission he had set out 011 hooked him. He had gulped down more pills, dressed haphazardly; the stubble on his face and the unbrushed hair gave him the appearance of a vagrant. He heard titters of laughter. He said nothing, but hauled himself heavily up the bus steps, then flopped on to the nearest seat.

  He was dropped off at Camp Delta. He showed his card at the gate. 'You all right, sir?'