Killing Ground

by Gerald Seymour

  Bangkok, Moscow, Jamaica. I'm not getting an ulcer for one situation in Sicily. I want the options.'

  Again Ray paused. What they hated, the big men in Washington who'd made it to the floor with the pile carpets and the drinks cabinets and access to God, was getting bounced for a decision early on a Monday morning. It was a time when his own career could go down the drain, and his hopes of ever getting his feet on that carpet and his hands on the cabinet keys, but he reckoned there wasn't room for evasion. He plunged.

  'At high-grade level, the British have Angst. They say, and I quote, "It is intolerable that a young woman should have been pressurized by the DEA, entrapped, and then persuaded to travel to Sicily as the central part of an American-sponsored anti-mafia operation," end quote. That's, my opinion, not the core of their hand-wringing. What's right up their nose, quote, "All DEA activities inside the UK are governed by procedures of liaison and we were not informed, prior to your inveigling Miss Parsons, of your intention to recruit her," end quote. And most important, they have the shits on this one. They see her dead, they see the paparazzi crawling over her, they see an almighty inquest on what an untrained innocent was doing there in a role central to an investigation, they see the blame hammering on their door . . .'

  'I asked, what are the options?'

  'Two, Herb. You can tell them to go jump, tell them they are small guys running small shows and suggest they stick to softball in the park.'

  'We do good business with the Brits. My second option?'

  'You can withdraw your sanction, Herb, close it down, you can pull her out. You can wind it up.'

  'Ray, we've known each other a long time, too goddam long. I am not interested in the sensitivities of Bill Hammond. The plan isn't Bill's anyway. The plan belongs to that guy Axel Moen, and I do not care whether I massage his ego or whether I kick him.

  Which side of the fence are you falling? I want it straight.'

  He glanced up at the loudspeaker on the wall, beside the Green Ice operation photograph. Herb, front row, smiling, was always the bastard who turned up late and took the credit, and hacked off early to avoid the blame. Dwight Smythe, opposite him, made the quick gesture, a finger across the throat. He spoke into the microphone, he felt dirty.

  'What I want to say, Herb, 1 don't give a fuck for the susceptibilities of the British.

  They'll complain for a week, and after a week they'll be good as gold and looking for a candy hand-out. Myself, I'd ignore them.'

  'I hear you. Right, thanks, I'll call Bill Hammond and tell.'

  'Sorry, Herb, I'm not through. This kid is on a limb, this kid has no covert training.

  She's been given the glamour treatment. She should never have been asked to go. I can take newspaper flak, I can handle an inquiry if she ends up dead. But I don't think I'd want that at my door. It's a precious thing, my self-respect. But, of course, Herb, if it goes sour, then it's on your desk that it lands because you authorized it.'

  He thought he had rolled a hand-grenade across a pile carpet and the grenade might just bounce against the imitation antique of a drinks cabinet and it might just come to rest against a desk on a high floor of Headquarters. He winked, grim, at Dwight Smythe.

  The voice boomed, 'Kill it.'

  'I think that's a good decision, Herb.'

  There was rain falling on the garden of the square that the embassy faced onto. The square was a goddam morgue, and the daffodils were flattened by the rainfall, and the crocus blooms were crushed. Dwight Smythe drove, and held his peace. Ray reflected.

  He had bled his conscience over the telephone link. Maybe he was too old and too tired, too fucked-up, for the job. Maybe he had gone too soft for the work. If the work mattered, sure as Christ it mattered, then maybe it was worth hauling any kid, any innocent, off the street, then maybe pressure was justified, if the work mattered . . .

  Axel Moen had been in his office, Axel Moen had treated Dwight Smythe like he was just the hired hand, Axel Moen hadn't gone hiding behind conscience, Axel Moen was a cold bastard, Axel Moen would believe the work mattered . . . They crossed central London, and Dwight Smythe parked outside the main doors of New Scotland Yard and threw the keys in an arc to a constable . . . Maybe he should feel comfortable because his back was protected, and Herb's back was safe, and the men waiting for them upstairs in the building could feel good because their backs were covered, and maybe he'd be offered a drink because all the big guys were protected and safe and covered, and in this fucking awful world that was what mattered. If it had been for the kid, the innocent, if it had been for protecting and saving and covering the kid, then he could have felt good, but it wasn't . . . They came out of the elevator and stamped along the corridor behind the constable escorting them. It was a bad bloody Monday.

  'I talked with Washington. Washington say we abort.'

  The AC (SO) said, 'Not next week, not next month. We'll send our own man.'

  The commander (S06) said, 'The operation will be terminated immediately. For verification, you understand.'

  The detective superintendent said, 'We'd like to be certain there's a degree of urgency.

  So we know you haven't welshed.'

  He was introduced to Harry Compton, who hadn't spoken, who had the thick file. He said that since it was a DEA operation into which there was now British input, gagged on 'intrusion', he would send his administrative officer, Dwight Smythe, to accompany Compton, gagged on 'hold his hand'.

  The AC (SO) said, 'Very satisfactory, good co-operation.'

  The commander (S06) asked, 'Not too early for a drop of the hard stuff, eh, Ray, and you, Mr Smythe? Ice, water?'

  'Are you into this story, Mr Compton? Scotch, yes, stiff.'

  'I am.'

  'You've evaluated Charlotte Parsons, this innocent?'

  He had intended to sneer, never could do it well, was a poor hand at sarcasm.

  'Yes, I have. Your people chose well. I'd rate her as brilliant. Stubborn, tough. That's why I fear for her safety. What I've heard and learned, she is the type who will cling in there. And, sir, when you have a very strong personality placed in such position as she is, I would also fear for the safety of those around her.'

  'Would you now? A hell of a shame she's coming home, don't you think, gentlemen? A shame we all needed to interfere . . .'

  Chapter Fifteen

  Around him were the smells. He was blindfolded. He could see nothing, not even strips of faint light at the bottom of the cloth over his eyes, nor at the top. The cloth had been wound tight round his head at least three times, and on top of the cloth was a broad, sticky tape. He did not know how many hours, how many days and nights, he had been there.

  The smells cloyed at Benny's nose, they hung in his nostrils. They were the smells of animals and of his own body. The smells were of the excreta and the urine and the filthy hair coats of the animals, and of the shit in his trousers, and the piss that was raw-warm on his legs, and the sweat at his armpits and his groin that came from the fear.

  His arms had been wrenched behind him when they had dragged him from the vehicle and brought him to the byre. Any movement that he tried to make carried fierce pain because his arms had been looped round a post of coarse wood and his wrists had been lashed tight, and if he tried to move, the sockets of his shoulders seemed about to break. He did not know how many hours he had been there, but he believed that when he next heard men's voices they would have come to kill him. He did not want to hear them come,

  hear a car reach the barn, hear the voices, because then they would have come to kill him. But, in his fear, Benny strained for the slightest sound. There were the heavy, clumsy movements of the animals in the byre, jostling each other, and there was the grunting of their breathing, and there was the heavy chewing as they ate. Sometimes they touched him, great creatures that seemed in the blackness of his imagination to tower over him, but it was always with gentleness. Sometimes they nuzzled at his face, hot breath, and sometimes they licked the hands that wer
e lashed tight behind the post, slobbering tongues. Because he waited for the car to come, and the voices, he heard every movement of the animals around him. He did not know how many hours it was since the muscles of his stomach had broken and he had messed in his trousers, but the slime was now cold. It was more recently that the piss had burst from his bladder, and his thighs were still wet. It was because of the girl.

  The animals heard the car before Benny did. The animals bellowed, great voices booming in the byre. He heard the car. It was because of the girl, and he hated the girl for what she had made him do. The car pulled to a stop, and he heard the tyres on loose stones. He would, if it had not been for the girl, in the afternoon of tomorrow or yesterday - he had lost track of time - have driven after school to Corleone and collected the photocopier and driven it back to San Giuseppe Jato, and would have known that he was involved and caring and playing a part, but the girl had destroyed him. The girl had made him tell the story of his father, and his father had not carried a photocopier back from Corleone to San Giuseppe Jato, his father had fought them, and the girl had made him tell his father's story. He heard a padlock unfastened. It had been the fault of the girl. The hysteria rose in him and he tried to push himself further back against the post.

  It was his father who had the blame. He heard the door scrape open. He heard a coughed spit and the smack of a hand on the body of an animal and the sounds of the stampede of the feet of the beasts as if a way was cleared to him. Benny wanted to shout, to plead with them, tell them that it was the fault of the girl, that the blame was with his father.

  He had no voice.

  His hands were pulled back from the post and the pain riveted in his shoulders. He felt at his wrist the sharp nick of a knife blade, then the twine that had bound him to the post was loosened. He was pulled upright. They laughed. Three separate shouts of laughter, growled and shrill and quiet, and he stood and they would have seen the stain on the front of his trousers and the damp weight in the seat of his trousers. He was led, stumbling, over the fodder floor of the byre.

  There was sun on his face, on his cheeks, below the blindfold. He heard birdsong.

  His feet caught on the stones. Without warning, the hair of his head was caught and his skull was pushed down, but his scalp caught against a metal edge. He was forced low into the trunk of a vehicle, and there was the slam of the top closing on him. He was crushed, foetal, the way he had lain as a child in his parents' bed, between his mother and his father. The vehicle bumped away and his body was pierced by what he thought was a jack, but it might have been a heavy wrench-spanner. They were taking him away to kill him. The petrol stank in his nose, and the fumes of the exhaust. They would not hear him when he shouted that it was the fault of the girl, that his father should be blamed. He hated the girl. He rejected his father. He was so frightened. He could go into the drum of acid, he could go into the concrete, he could go into the dark depths of the gully where the crows did not feed and where Placido Rizzotto had been thrown. No one knew where to search for him. He had not told his mother that he was going to Prizzi, nor his friends in Palermo, nor the man who owned the photocopier in San Giuseppe Jato, nor the women who wrote the newsletter in Corleone. The vehicle was on tarmacadam and speeding. He wept, and the tears clogged his eyes beneath the cloth blindfold. On his side, squirming in the trunk of the car, choking on the fumes, he screamed for their mercy, but he could not be heard. He wondered if they all shouted for mercy before they went into the drum of acid or the concrete or the gully, if they all rejected their fathers and their girls. The vehicle stopped sharply, and the piss was running warm on his thighs again.

  The air was on his face. There were the sounds of other cars and of a motorcycle speeding past, and a dog barked, and radios played.

  'Please . . . forgive me . . . please . . .' He heard the croak of his own voice.

  He was pulled from the trunk of the vehicle. The piss dribbled hot on his legs. Hands gripped his arms. He was led down a slight slope and his feet were on old cobbles. He could not break free, could not run, he was broken. The arms jerked him back and stopped him. The tape was dragged from the cloth. The cloth was unwound from his face.

  ASSASSINO.

  The word was in paint on the door. The door was beside a black drainpipe. In front of the door was a plastic bucket of steaming water, and an old brush with stiff bristles floated among the suds of the water. He took the brush from the water, and he started to scrub at the word he had written in paint. The dog that had taken the spray can came and sniffed at him and snarled. Children came and shrieked laughter and held their noses because he stank. As if the house behind the door was empty, there was no sound from inside, no radio, no movement. The girl had destroyed him. He scrubbed at the painted word until his fingers ached and his arms ached and his shoulders ached, until he had removed the trace of his protest. The girl had made him tell the story of his father. He scrubbed until the door was clean, as if the word had never been written. He was broken.

  He straightened. The last of the water had been used, the bucket was empty. He placed the brush in the bucket and put the bucket on the step of the door. The road was in shadow and deserted. The children had gone, and the dog, and the men who had brought him. On the cobbles behind him was his wallet, pegged down with a stone.

  There was no trace of the word, as there was no trace of his life. He walked away. His car was where he had left it.

  Later he would return to his apartment in Palermo, and before he had stripped his clothes and washed his body he would tear the posters from the walls.

  'I should apologize, yes? I should ask you to forgive me?'

  Charley held the plastic tub of washed, wet clothes. Angela pegged the clothes methodically to the line. It was inevitable. The only surprise to Charley, it had been so long coming. Angela did not look at her and she spoke in a flattened monotone.

  'When I told Peppino that I wanted you here, I thought if you came it would be different. I thought it would be the same as it was in Rome. But this is not Rome, it is Palermo. Palermo is not our home, as was Rome. Do I make a confusion for you? You are not an idiot, Charley, you can recognize that we have changed. Why have we changed? Palermo is the true home of Peppino, Palermo is the place for the peasants, it is the place of the family. I knew nothing, in Rome, of the truth of Peppino, I lived my own life and I was happy, and you came, and you were a part of that happiness. Do you look around, Charley, and do you wonder what is now different?'

  Charley passed the children's clothes and the pegs. She stayed silent, she could offer no comfort. To offer comfort was to endanger herself.

  'We were comfortable in Rome, we had a wonderful apartment, we had the good life. You saw it and you went away. Four years later you come back - what do you find?

  We are a new generation of Sicilians, we live like the princes of the Bourbons, the caliphs of the Moors, the nobility of the Normans. An apartment that is a palace, a villa, money so that it ceases to have meaning, jewels, cars from the latest production, always the goddam presents. Do you ask, Charley, alone in your room, where it comes from?

  Do you ask how it is that Peppino, a businessman in Rome and ordinary, is now in Sicily a businessman of the superstratum? I would ask, if I were you. But you see, Charley, in Sicily there is the web of the famiglia - I have every material possession I could want, perhaps I seem ungrateful, and I have the family of Peppino . . .'

  The voice drove on, breaking off when a garment slipped from the line because a peg did not hold it. She lived the lie, she had the watch on her wrist, she had the access and she waited for the opportunity. She kept her silence.

  '. . . Do you know, Charley, that while you were in the city on Sunday, when Peppino and I and the children were at Mass, that men came into our home, my home, and they swept it with electronic devices to see that we were not listened to, to see that the police had not placed listening devices in our home, my home? Every second Sunday they come. Why? Have you heard Peppino
talk here about confidential business? Never. It is not for industrial sabotage, it is for police microphones. Peppino must be certain that conversations concerning the famiglia are not listened to. Put it together, Charley, the wealth and the family, the affluence and the family. Where does the wealth come from?

  From the family . . .'

  In front of Charley was the strong wooden gate set in the high fence. Beside Charley was the path from which the gardener had picked up the crushed tip of a cigarillo. She held Peppino's shirts and the damp ran on her arms. She played her part, the innocent home-help, played the lie.

  '. . . He is a grotesque sham. My Peppino is a creature created by his family. He fulfils a need for the family. What would he be if the need did not exist? A criminal? An extortionist? A killer? Do I upset you, Charley? There are enough of those in the family, they have no need for more. They need the sham that is rispettabilita, you understand me, Charley? They have the wealth, the family, but they need the sham of respectability. I am a part of the sham, I am from the pedigree of the Vatican, I give respectability. He is as criminal, my husband and my children's father, as his family.

  Why I am so alone, Charley, so isolated here, so devastated here, why I need you, Charley. He is controlled by his brother, has the criminal guilt of his brother Her voice died, as if in sudden submission. For a moment she looked behind Charley, then at the pegs and washing on the line. Charley thought, like she's trapped, like she has no escape. Charley turned. The gardener pushed the wheelbarrow, on the path round the villa, towards them. She passed Angela the last of Peppino's shirts.

  Back in the kitchen the baby was crying. The confessional was finished. Angela, in her kitchen, made the baby's feed, brittle and sharp movements.

  Harry Compton and Dwight Smythe met at Heathrow. Each had made his own way west out of the capital, each would have said that there was no requirement to share transport. They met at check-in. If there was mutual respect, they hid it. The detective sergeant of S06 and the office administrator from the DEA were brusque in their greetings, showed a minimum of courtesy. Harry Compton would have said that he, alone, was perfectly capable of extracting Miss Charlotte Parsons. Dwight Smythe would have said that he, alone, was perfectly capable of aborting Axel Moen. They went through Departure, showed no sign of being colleagues who travelled together, they went their separate ways in Duty-Free and the Briton bought Scotch and the American bought Jack Daniel's. They sat on the bench and read newspapers. Each was an intrusion into the world of the other. They were called for take-off.