Killing Ground

by Gerald Seymour

  God, she was just so bloody tired.

  'Yes? You wanted to see me. I am Charlotte Parsons.'

  The one with the ring in his right nostril seemed to flick his fist open and in the palm of his hand was a police warrant card, and he said his name was Brent and muttered about 'Task Force', and the one with the tattoo showed his card and said his name was Ken and the quiet words were 'Drug Squad'.

  A frail voice. 'What do you want?'

  Brent said, 'It's what you want, Miss Parsons. We were told you were looking for the grand tour.'

  Ken said, 'We were told you needed a run round our patch, so you'd understand better the end of the importation road, that your particular interest was skag and rock.'

  Brent said, 'But, Ken, we shouldn't go too fast for Miss Parsons, 'cos a nice girl like her wouldn't know that skag is heroin, now would she?'

  Ken said, 'Too right, Brent, and she wouldn't know that rock is crack cocaine. If you'd like to get in the back, Miss Parsons . . . Oh, don't go worrying, we squared it with the caretaker that he'll look after your scooter.'

  'Who sent you?'

  Brent said, 'Our inspector sent us.'

  Ken said, 'The American gentleman . . .'

  She shook. The trembling was in her arms, her fingers. The heaviness was in her legs, her feet. 'And if I say that it's bugger-all to do with me?'

  Brent said, 'We were told that you might bluster a bit at first. ..'

  Ken said, '. . . but after the bluster you'd be good as gold. Miss I'arsons, I've been on Drug Squad a bit over four years. Brent's been on Task Force, drug-importation team, for six years. All we get near is the creatures at the bottom of the pyramid. What we were told, sort of vague, you've the chance to hurt them right at the sharp end, nothing specific, but hurt the top of the pyramid. Now, if the bluster time's over, could you get in, please?'

  She did as she was told. She was good as gold, as Axel Moen had said she would be.

  She took the big step, and ducked down into the back of the old Sierra. Bloody man .. .

  The car was a fraud, dapped out exterior but a high-performance tuned engine. Brent drove, and Ken was twisted round in the front seat so that he could la Ik to her. She thought she was tired, but as the car hammered on the lanes and then the fast road, she came to know the crow's-feet lines and the sack bulges at Ken's eyes. Something of a joke at first, about the tattoo only being a transfer that he could wash off each night, about a limit to the cause of duty, but old Brent had gone the whole hog and had his nostril pierced for the goddam job. They were not in the style of any policemen that she had met before. She l bought a part of the smell came from the discarded polystyrene last-food plates that were dumped on the floor in the back, under her feet, and the rest of the smell came from the clothes they wore. They smoked hard, and didn't ask whether she minded them smoking. Ken said they weren't interested in cannabis, nor in solvents, nor in amphetamines, nor in the benzodiazepines like Temazepam and the barbiturates like sodium amytal. They worked the world of heroin that was skag, horse, smack, stuff, junk, and the world of crack cocaine that was rock, wash. She listened . . .

  They came into the city of Plymouth, where Charley went for best shopping, for a dress for a friend's wedding, for Christmas presents and birthday gifts for her mother and father, and they talked her through the street cost of skag and rock. She listened . ..

  They turned out of the city centre and went north, climbing the long drag into the big housing estate. The name of the estate was familiar, from the local television, but she had never been there. Nothing urgent in the information they gave her, no passion, but the figures were beyond her comprehension. A worldwide trade in narcotics with a profit margin of 100 billion American dollars. Seizures and disruption of trafficking into UK the last year of £1.45 billion, and what was seized and disrupted, on a good day, was one in five shipments and, on a bad day, was one in ten.

  Ken said, 'But they're the super-glory figures, we don't operate at that level. We work down here in the gutter, where the skag and the rock ends up. Down here a kilo of heroin, skag, goes for thirty grand, street price. Crack cocaine, rock, means £7,500

  sterling, cheaper because of saturation. Out there in the big world they're talking thousands of kilos, tonnes - we're little people, we're talking kilos and grammes.' She listened . . .

  Brent said, 'You being a teacher, Miss Parsons, you'd be good at arithmetic. Ten grammes doesn't give a big long high, ten minutes' worth for an habitual, but it costs, my sums, seventy-five quid, and it's addictive, so you get to need a lot of grammes, and that means you need a lot of cash, and you steal, fight, burgle, maybe kill, for the cash.'

  She saw tower blocks of homes, and terraces of homes, and she saw the children, like the ones that she taught, running in dog packs. She thought she saw a poverty and a despair . . . She saw an old man hurrying, limping, heavy on a stick, and his face was frightened and she wondered whether he had £75 sterling in his wallet. She saw an old woman scuttling with a shopping bag towards the dark entrance of a tower block, and she wondered whether the old woman had £75 sterling in her purse, or in the tin under her bed, or folded into her pension book and hidden, and she wondered how many old men and old women needed to be robbed to make a crack cocaine high that lasted ten minutes. She felt sick.

  The light was going. Where the street lights were broken, where the shadows clung, she saw ghost figures gathered. Brent cruised the car. Ken said, 'See over there, Miss Parsons? See the tall kid? Most days he's there, he'll do about a hundred grammes a week in rocks.' Brent said, 'He can do you skag as well, maybe some ecstasy. He's not special. He's one in a hundred, going on more. It's got hold of the place. Lift him, there's another ninety-nine.' She saw the boy. He wore good Reeboks and Nike leisure wear and the cap on his head was the wrong way round. The contact she saw was short and sweet. Hands moved, money given over by the customer, goods given over to the customer. Brent said, 'We're not even holding the line. The price is going down. It goes down when we're awash with it. The job of our young friend is to keep moving the rocks, getting new customers, creating demand. He's good in his market place.' She listened . . .

  Brent said, 'I hope you're getting the picture, Miss Parsons. But I wouldn't want you to get the impression that this is C2 or C3 trade only. We could run you down to Plymstock or Roborough, up to Southway and round Goosewell. We can show you it anywhere.'

  'I want to go home, please.'

  Ken said, 'No can do, sorry. The American gentleman said you should have the grand tour.'

  The unmarked police car slipped out of the estate. Charley looked i last time for the old people hurrying with their wallets and purses and their fear, for the kid with his Reebok shoes and Nike leisure suit, for the customers.

  'Hi, Dwight, how was the vacation by the sea? How'd it go?'

  I'd rate him as cold shit.'

  His coat was flipped onto the hook of the stand, alongside the i oat of the Country Chief.

  You'd better come in, you'd better talk.'

  He look a plastic cup and filled it with water from the dispenser. He walked across the deserted outer office and through the open

  door and into the Country Chief's office. It was a lowering, dark evening outside, and there was rain in the heavy cloud that settled over the square. He was waved to a seat.

  Dwight Smythe shrugged. 'I reckon, Ray, I can cope with most sort of men. I failed with that bastard. Is he some sort of zealot? I thought Quantico was supposed to weed that sort. Right, he's rude, I can live with that. Right, he's aggressive, I can handle it.

  Where we part company, he elbows into a small and unsuspecting life, a young woman's life, and puts together a web to trap her, and does it cold. Me, I'm surplus to requirements, the chauffeur that's no longer needed.'

  'Did you read his file?'

  'No.'

  'Do you know about him?'

  'Not before I picked him up yesterday.'

  'Happy to make a judgement?'
<
br />   'My assessment of him, yes, I feel comfortable with it.'

  'My opinion, Dwight, you're a lucky guy.'

  'How come, Ray, I'm a lucky guy?'

  'A lucky guy, Dwight, because you have personnel and accounts and running this station to keep busy with.' The eyes needled on Dwight Smythe. 'You have fuck-all of nothing to worry about.'

  'That is not fair.'

  'And true as hell. You, Dwight, are promotion material. You keep the leave charts regular, you keep wiping your ass, you keep the budget and expenses in blue, you keep your butt clean, you keep us all in surplus paper-clips, and you don't have to worry because that is promotion material. It's the road, Dwight, to the big office back home and the pile carpet, but it's not that joker's road.'

  'That is not fair, Ray, because without administration—'

  'I have heard it before, I have practised it. You are talking with the converted. When did you last carry a sidearm?'

  'The way to fight organized crime is through the intellectual deployment of resources, not—'

  'I've made that speech, Dwight. You think if I'd preached on body confrontation, nose-to-nose, I'd have climbed the goddam ladder? Grow up.'

  'I didn't expect to hear you, Ray, give out that sort of crap.'

  'Your consolation, what should make you feel good, the likes of Axel Moen don't get to climb the goddam ladder. The ladder's for you and for me. It's you and me that like to collect the plaques for the wall, the photographs of the Director's handshake, the commendations and the bullshit.'

  'Sorry, I spoke.' Dwight Smythe pushed himself up, drank the last of the water. He looked around him. The plaques recorded successful operations, the photographs witnessed the warmth of the Director meeting with a coming man, the commendations were polished print engraved on bronze. 'And I don't recognize bullshit, Ray.'

  'You taking Melanie out tonight, something to eat?'

  'Yes, why?'

  'My advice, meant kind, call her, tell her to hold an hour so you can get your face into the computer, take a look at Axel Moen's file.'

  'For what?'

  'Did he tell you his target?'

  'He did not.'

  'Read his file so you get to know what sort of man gets put up .against a way big target.'

  'Maybe in the morning . . .'

  'Tonight, Dwight, read it.'

  It was an instruction. They prided themselves, the Country Chief and the four special agents and the clerical staff working on the fifth floor of the embassy, that they were a close team, that harsh words were rare, instructions came rarer. He walked out of the office. He went to his desk. He called Melanie and he told her he wwas held up and put her back an hour and asked her to call the curry house on the Edgware Road to hold the reservation for an hour. He checked with the file that was kept locked in the drawer of his desk for the entry code and the password key. He went into the NADDIS computer for the file on the man he called cold shit.

  'We've just got the one at the moment. There was another one last month but it died.

  The other one died about three days before this one came in here,' the nurse said. She was a big woman but with a gentle Irish voice. She spoke flatly as if she did not care to feel emotional involvement. 'I couldn't tell you how long this one's going to hold on.

  Myself, I hope it's not too long. You see, she's damaged. She was damaged in the womb, pretty close to conception, she was damaged all the time through the pregnancy, she's damaged now. It's what happens when the mother is an addict. Her mother's nineteen years old, she's into mainlining with heroin, lovely girl, was and still is. The little one is seventeen days old and it's as if she's on heroin, same as Mum, same as if she was using Mum's syringe, Mum's tourniquet. This one's too far gone to be weaned off it, the damage is in the little one's system. That's why I say that I hope it's not too long . . .'

  Charley stood by the door. She looked into the room, Children's Unit (Intensive Care). The baby seemed to shiver inside the glass case and the tubes hooked to its nose and mouth waved slowly with the movements. The nurse spoke as if they were alone, as if the mother, the 'lovely girl', was not there. The mother sat beside the glass box. She wore a dressing gown, hospital issue. She stared blankly at the quivering baby. When Charley turned away, the nurse smiled at her, and said that it was decent of her to have bothered to come. That was an empty remark because the nurse did not know why Charley had come, did not know of the arrangement made by Brent and a hospital administrator. Charley hurried out. She thought she hated Axel Moen.

  Brent and Ken were in the corridor. They led, she followed.

  Out into the night air. Across a car park. There was a light over a door.

  Brent knocked at the door. Ken rang the bell. They entered the hospital mortuary.

  'This one's heroin but it could just as well have been cocaine. On average we get three a year. His father's a retired major in Tavistock, not that it matters who his father was, is,' the pathology technician said. He was a young man with an angled nose on which were balanced heavy spectacles. He spoke as if the corpse, the retired major's son, was an item of no particular interest. 'When they get started on it, heroin, that is, they find the total relaxation from stress, from anxiety, must seem the way out of the problem, but . . . they step up the dosage, the withdrawal symptoms each time are harsher, more frequent. The dependency grows. This one,

  'I heard, he broke into his parents' house and cleaned out his mother's jewellery case, all the heirloom stuff was worth one big fix. He would have been subject to tremors, muscle spasms, sweats. He would have loaded up in panic, but got the dose wrong. He would have been unconscious, then gone into coma. He ended up in here after a breathing failure. Of course, this is just a small city, we don't get that many.'

  Charley looked down at the corpse. She had never seen a dead body before. It was as if the skin had been waxed pale, and the body hair on the chest and in the arm pits and round the penis of I he body seemed, to her, like a weed that had been poisoned. There was colour in the bruised right arm, but the needle holes were dulled. She thought the body was of a young man of about her age .ind there seemed to be a peace about his expression. She didn't know, and she didn't ask, whether the people in the mortuary could have given his face the mask of peace, or whether the act of dying made the peace.

  In the corridor outside the area where cadavers were stored in refrigerated bays, Ken was smoking a cigarette that was tucked into the palm of his hand, and Brent was unwrapping a boiled sweet.

  They drove her back to the school.

  They rang the doorbell for the caretaker, who opened up for them.

  Charley gunned the engine of her scooter. She sat astride the saddle. She arched her back, pinched her shoulder blades.

  Are you always as subtle as that? Squeezing my emotions. Winding me up, like a damn puppet.'

  Brent said, 'Sorry, love, but it's what we were asked to do.'

  Ken said, 'I don't know, of course, what it was for, sunshine, but it was what the American gentleman wanted.'

  She pulled the helmet down over her hair. Charley had seen reality, what she read in newspapers and what she watched on television, and she had not cared to know that it was reality in her

  •

  own bloody back yard. She rode away into the night, and she cursed him and the tears ran on her face and were caught by the wind. On the road, in the lane, a car followed her and lit her back and never closed on her. In her mind was a jumble of images, unproven,

  •

  of the island of Sicily and the city of Palermo. The lights of the car stayed in her mirror. Palermo . . .

  No wind, no rain, no cloud. The island baked in spring sunshine. By early morning, the first warmth of the year suffocated the city. Over that city, which was pressed into a narrow seaboard between the Mediterranean and the mountains, had settled a chemical mist of yellow-hazed pollution from the vehicles jockeying on the Via della Liberta and the Via Marqueda and the Via Francesco Crispi and the Vi
a Vittorio Emanuele and the Via Tukory. Invisible under that mist were the symbols of Low-intensity Warfare, the electronic signals, the micro-wave boosters, the pulses sent by telephone and radio transmissions, the pictures carried by covert surveillance cameras, the voices distorted by audio-intercept bugs. Among the clutter of a modern society's legitimate communications, small fish in the big sea, were the messages, coded and masked, of a contemporary battlefield. Signals, pulses, tones, images, voices of men at war meandered under the foul-tasting mist that clung above the roofs of Palermo.

  When she came out of the common room, with the taste of instant coffee in her mouth, to bring in the children from mid-morning break, she saw him sitting in the parked car outside the gate. She thought of the housing estate and the despair and the poverty.

  He did not trust the safety of any form of telephone communication.

  Mario Ruggerio sat alone in the small room of the apartment on the first floor. The sounds, raucous, of the Capo district came to him through the opened window, through the closed shutters that filtered segments of sunlight into the room. The sunlight lay in shards across the table at which he worked and were reflected from a mirror and onto a side wall, so that the brightness and the shadow latticed the picture of the Agony of Christ. The crying of the hawkers, the shouting of people in anger and in mirth, the roar of the engines of Vespas and Lambrettas competed with the quiet of Radio Uno.

  Neither the noise from the alleyway below nor the voice and music close to him disturbed his concentration. Both the outside noise and the radio's voice and music were a necessary part of his security. In the Capo district of hardship and crime and wariness, a surveillance car and a surveillance team would be noticed and a quiet would fall over the alleyway. And if there was the arrest of a super-latitanti, a big man on the run, or if there was a swoop and round-up of suspects, then it would be carried on the radio and he would know. The outside noise and the radio's voice and music did not disturb him as he wrote the brief and cryptic messages with a fine-point pen on the sheets of paper used for rolling cigarettes.