Vagabond

by Seymour, Gerald

  She softened. ‘Shoot.’

  He thought Gaby Davies had a lovely throat, but he went for it. She was, he reckoned, the least of his problems. So reasonable and calm.

  ‘You weren’t there. Where were you? With that snivelling creature you brought to Ireland? You weren’t there when they switched the fucking drill on. You know what happens to bodily functions if the sphincter muscle goes slack? There was a drill in front of my face. Where were you? Did you have a “big problem”? Not as big as mine was.’

  ‘I’m right with you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She’d backed off. He’d thought she would. A nice girl, but no match for a decent shite like Ralph Exton. Nothing decent about Timofey Simonov, whose reach probably spanned continents.

  He put on his saddened look, as if she had hurt him with her disbelief. She touched his arm. He let himself slump, a man reeling under the strain.

  Gaby said, ‘We’re on the same side.’

  ‘Yes.’

  On his screen, in his study on the first floor, with his dogs beside him, Timofey Simonov could check again the house to the south-west of London. Not that the image was recent – in fact, the satellite camera had recorded the picture on a clear winter’s day when the trees had lost their foliage. But he could see the house and the gardens at the front, rear and side, and could make out the raised ground further to the west, where, he assumed, the marksman awaited an opportunity.

  It was raining. On his screen, there were lawns around the house, and paths and places where a man might sit – as Timofey did in high summer – but not in the rain. He cursed. He had taken money, given assurances, but the contract had not been fulfilled – and it was raining.

  Timofey Simonov’s marksman waited. He was now on his third day in the country. He had found a good place with a clear view of the back lawn and the patio. There had been days in the snipers’ nests overlooking Sarajevo when the autumn mist had settled in the valley below and he had struggled to find a target. Some days he had fired at anyone who moved, not calculating whether or not a target had military significance or was a grandmother struggling with a plastic bag of wood and any food she had found.

  He was close to a path used by dog-walkers, cyclists and school-kids. He was well concealed, away from the path, and protected in the cavern left by the roots of a fallen tree, but too many people were too close – and his hire car had been parked for too long in the same place. It was unsatisfactory. But he held his position, was obliged to.

  There were puddles on the patio, alive with ripples. The man would not come out in the driving rain. The marksman needed to do well. He was in a competitive market. The trade, whether it involved a sniper, a bomb-laying under a car, a knifing or a close-quarters pistol shooting, was saturated. Too many kids coming from his own Serbo-Croat background and from Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania and Moldova for too little work. And the way to further work was not to complain that a job couldn’t be done, when money had been paid up front, because it was raining. He stayed in place, waited and watched. Sometimes dogs came close but the wet must have deadened his smell. He was not aware of any crime his target had committed. The men and women on the streets of Sarajevo – with rifles or shopping bags – had been guilty of nothing that he knew of.

  The rain fell and the target did not come. He had been recommended and failure would bring recrimination – or a knife or a bullet. It was that sort of trade.

  ‘We’ll go – come on. I’m ready. Hurry yourself.’

  The dogs would now be shut in the annexe off the kitchen and the inner doors fastened. A woman would come in later to let them into the yard, but would not compromise the security of the interior. He was paranoid about security, acknowledged the weakness in himself and occasionally laughed at his obsession: it was, their mayor said, the safest town in all Europe. Few thieves would have had the boldness, or stupidity, to rob the rich and infamous of Karlovy Vary. He stood by the passenger door of the Mercedes and shouted back at the front door. ‘I want to go now.’

  The brigadier – a jack of all trades who knew where the skeletons lay – emerged, locked the door and came down the steps. Timofey slipped into his seat.

  The man ran the last strides to the car. Did Nikolai Denisov, brigadier of GRU, enjoy his position as servant to Timofey Simonov, captain of GRU, or did he simmer with resentment? It hardly mattered. The engine started and the car pulled out of the driveway. He felt good to be working again. There had been times, this year and last, when he had worked too little and been bored. He refused to accept the advance of age. Small matters stimulated him. The brigadier had advised against the action he was taking with his friend. He had ignored him. He had ignored most of the cautionary advice offered by his former senior officer.

  They came out of Karlovy Vary. Their destination was a town to the south-west, Český Krumlov, but they went north towards the German frontier, a basic precaution. He settled into his seat. He could never fault the brigadier’s driving. It would be a round trip, but worthwhile. He was comfortable. Timofey had ignored the brigadier’s advice from the day their relationship had changed when the man had been on his knees, clinging to the trousers of his junior officer. The photocopied letter advising him that his post at GRU had been suspended lay on the floor.

  There had been pandemonium in the camp. Extra trains were added to the daily one back to the USSR. Efforts were made to strip the base of everything that was of value. The cranes and haulage lorries that shifted broken tanks were used to drag down the streetlights so they could be sent home, items of value, with weapons, technology, computers and paper files of a base that had had power across the continent. Not everything, though, went onto the inventories of the transport officers.

  He had taken advantage of an opportunity when the morale of others had collapsed. Conscripts were his labour force; the brigadier was his bookkeeper.

  The first wealth came from what had gone under the wire. The perimeter fence was endless, running through woods and along roads. There were places beside the air strips where Czechs could come in their Skodas, Ladas, Wartburgs and Trabants. He sold cans of fuel at half of what a local garage asked. He had tankers backed up to the fence and the containers were pushed underneath. The cash, in dollars, went through the wire’s mesh.

  The petrol trade was the best, but there had been more. The heavy transport lorries were waiting for the long journey east, in convoy. Some, while they waited, had been diverted. Office furniture went under the larger holes in the fence, with computers and sophisticated optics from the infantry’s stores. There was food too. Wonderful times. He would go every week to the new French-owned bank that had opened in Prague and deposit the contents of a big black plastic sack in a numbered account. At the counter, he found a temporary girlfriend: she received petrol for her extended family; he had time in the big bed at her parents’ home in the Florenc quarter.

  In the last few days, before looters swarmed over the base, what was left went out through the main gate. He had said to the brigadier, ‘You are mine. You do what I tell you to do. You give me absolute loyalty and I’ll look after you and your family.’ The man had wept on his shoulder in gratitude.

  They had gone back to Mother Russia, where they had heard of men of his rank and the brigadier’s who were digging potatoes, driving taxis and guarding the new regime of gangsters. Would it last? They didn’t know, couldn’t judge, and had spent too freely. His memories were of the excitement and flush of success. He loathed the British, with one exception, and would take his hatred to the grave. He had loved the camp that had housed Central Command at Milovice.

  They went into Germany, then swung south.

  At the airport there was a display of the edgy formality Matthew Bentinick offered. He stepped out of the Freelander, opened the boot and took out the bag. He shook hands with the spook, his gratitude crisply expressed, and for Danny Curwen there was a slap on the arm. Danny thought it unchanged from Gough, a quarter of a century before, when
he and Dusty had been about to drive out on a difficult, perhaps dangerous, mission. No theatre, no schmaltz, only the briskness. He’d swung away from them, heading towards the terminal. The slap had been hard enough to sting his arm and might have been, Danny felt, the sole indication of the reliance placed on him. Near to the doors, Bentinick paused but did not turn to wave. Instead, he rooted in his pocket and Danny saw him retrieve the pipe, fill and light it. The smoke wafted behind Bentinick. It was no more than a dozen steps to the doors, where he rapped the pipe on his heel, shook the debris into a bin and was gone.

  The spook drove Danny away. Without Bentinick, there was a loosening. The spook’s name was Morrison. Danny gave his. Something about the weather, then the economy – dire. Something about the countryside, the local wildlife, then a few words about the Freelander’s engine, and the spook’s last holiday, white-water rafting with his wife and kids in the Samava National Park. The spook talked and Danny learnt a fair amount about him, but gave only his name. The Green Slimes and FRU, agent handling, the beaches and graves were off limits. Only Bentinick had that detail and could have called him back.

  The spook had been in Prague for two years, had been with Six for fourteen. And Curnow? Old caution kicked in. He didn’t trust strangers, whatever their credentials. The weather, the economy, wildlife and engine were acceptable. He’d done ‘a bit of this and a bit of that’, was a vagabond – rootless, shifting, restless – and the spook had realised it was all he’d get. They came into central Prague. Where could he be dropped?

  Pretty much anywhere. The wheel swung, the vehicle stopped. They were beside a pavement. Danny opened the door, then gave his hand to the spook.

  He was questioned: ‘You said you were a vagabond and I’m wondering what sort of life that goes with. Comfortable or tough? Right for a bit of this and a bit of that?’

  Danny said, ‘It’s what suits me. I liked the dog – clever. Thanks for the ride.’

  ‘Danny, we have a good little station here, quiet, calm and respected. Try not to embarrass us. Promise?’

  Danny was on the pavement, tourists flowing around him and the Freelander was lost in traffic. He hoped the spook wasn’t easily embarrassed, but he hadn’t promised.

  She took the call. He was in Departures.

  She ate a mid-morning biscuit. Was he OK? He was fine. Her screen twitched. Jocelyn hit a key, wrenched the mouse and read. She told him the legal advice just submitted by that pretty young man.

  ‘The eagles say it can be done. Do I ramp it up?’

  He told her to build the case, then what time his flight would land. She said she’d fix the car.

  He didn’t comment. They were in her hotel.

  Gaby Davies said, ‘You have to understand that he’s fragile right now. I’m treating him, Danny, with extreme care. What I fear most is that he’ll just cave in. I’ve kept, in my mind, a ledger of what we’ve had from him – the names of those involved in the cigarette importation to Ireland at the Costa end, most of the names of those who do the smuggling routes, and the people who raise the cash for payments. Add to that the name of the individual who propositioned him concerning the firearms purchase and who made the arrangements for the meeting with Malachy Riordan, a committed terrorist and killer, and Brendan Murphy. Murphy is what I’d describe as a godfather. He calls shots, plans strategies, identifies targets. Also, we now have the identification of a ‘clean skin’, this girl, Frankie, and more of that’ll drop into place. The ledger is very much loaded on the positive side. It’s pretty good. The idea may not sit easily with you but I admire his courage in going through with this business and agreeing to come here – and I believe in Ralph’s honesty. If he tells me, to my face, that he has no answer to a question I put to him, I believe him. I’ve worked with him for five years – I was there from the start. You’ve known him, what? four days? He’s a major and quite critical CHIS to us – a Covert Human Intelligence Source – and I have bragging rights to him that I won’t willingly surrender. I’m telling you to back off, leave Ralph and his dealer contact to me. Understood?’

  He neither commented nor said where he had been, who he had seen and why a spaniel had been borrowed and taken for a walk. He thought she was hurt that Matthew Bentinick had not sought her out to wish her well before flying back. She’d have despised Danny Curnow, freelancer, ‘increment’ and vagabond.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you. Is that understood?’

  He shrugged, rolled an eye. Understood? Yes. Shrugged again. Headed for the main door. She’d learn, and it would be a hard lesson.

  Dusty said, ‘I’ll send him back.’

  ‘I can’t be in second place.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can – if he survives where he is now.’

  ‘I’ll be first equal, but not second. I’ll tell you a story, Dusty. I once asked him who he was. He answered that he was Vagabond. Was that an army rank? No. It was a man who was rootless. ‘‘A man without commitment?’’ I asked. He said it meant he looked only at the target of the day, whatever was in front of him for those twenty-four hours. I asked if that was good for a soldier. He supposed it was. Is there a future for me with a vagabond? A good man, but damaged? A caring man? I have no one else. An honest man? I would like to believe but . . .’

  ‘If he’s worth having after he’s finished what he’s doing, I’ll send him to you.’

  She turned her back on Dusty. He’d found her along the coast to the west of Honfleur, in the dunes towards Deauville, overlooking the nature reserve and the seals.

  ‘It’s been grand to meet you, miss. The least I can do for him is send him back.’

  She had a lightweight collapsible chair and an easel, and was working in watercolour. He thought that day’s picture was hideous. He wouldn’t have given it house room. On his own wall in the house in Caen, there was only a big photograph, framed, of all the guys at Gough – except one – he had served with. Captain Bentinick was in the centre, sombre, but all the others looked like a winning Cup Final team, and Julia was there, at the side. Only one had skipped the picture. And he had a calendar that each month showed a different view of the town. Nothing else. Desperate’s room was covered with her pictures. Dusty could have loved Hanne from those islands, and thought it would be the best reward in his life if he could bring his friend back to her. He reached the bus.

  They applauded, even the historian. What did they know? They were off route, along the coast, no explanation. They had turned up at a car park, empty but for one 2CV that was decorated in narrow blue and white stripes and was mainly red. He’d assumed they were the colours of the Norwegian flag. The applause rang down the aisle of the minibus as he started the engine again.

  A voice called, ‘Well worth the diversion, Dusty. Why didn’t you introduce us all?’

  He said, through the microphone, as he reversed, ‘I was speaking to her on behalf of a friend.’

  Another voice, ‘Greater love hath no man than this: that he chats up a pretty girl for his mate.’

  They headed for the next site, which Danny Curnow always appreciated.

  A guide would have a rapt audience.

  They were on a high plain and the sea was barely visible over the tops of the trees. When they left the bus they would have seen huge, half-buried, fractured concrete constructions, great tortoise backs protruding: the casements for the 155mm guns that covered the beaches and could have thrown monstrously heavy shells onto the landing craft on that June morning in 1944. Close to the concrete shapes was a single C47 aircraft. The British paratroops were dropped from them – the military version of the civilian Dakota. The airborne soldiers had been briefed that the prospect of the invasion coming that morning was in jeopardy if the guns were not silenced. The German defenders numbered 160, behind coiled barbed wire and minefields, or were deep in their bunkers with twenty machine-gun emplacements.

  The drop was chaotic. Most of the British came down miles from the location. Eventually Lieutenant Colonel Terence Ott
way led a charge of 150 men. The wire should have been flattened by RAF bombers but their ordnance had missed the target. The attackers, in the chaos of the jump, had lost their mine detectors and the white tape that could mark the engineers’ cleared paths. So, they made the corridors by hand and touch. The battle was won before the beaches were assaulted, at a fearful cost: of the German defenders, only five survived. Of the British attackers, sixty-five died, and seventy were wounded. Fifteen were unhurt when the last shot was fired. Brigadier James Hill, 3rd Para Brigade CO, had warned, as they loaded into the aircraft at Brize Norton, ‘Gentlemen, do not be daunted if chaos reigns. It undoubtedly will.’

  And the guide would tell the visitors what Gordon Newton, a private soldier in 9th Para, said afterwards: ‘I was not afraid. My only worry was that I might look stupid, shouting out or freezing. That would have been worse than being killed. I didn’t want to let myself down and my family. Nor my regiment, nor my battalion. I wanted to do my job properly.’ Respect would have been total. The old men and women who made up the small tour party would marvel at what the paratroops did, and the odds against them, on that morning. The guide usually quoted a remark Colonel Ottway had made: ‘We were given a job and got on with it.’

  One response, ‘So different from any war of today.’

  It did not come particularly fast to the Five people in their inner fortress at Palace Barracks. A duty man took the report first and forwarded it to the boss on the shift. Then it went to those who needed to know. Sebastian was coming back from the coffee machine and had a cellophane-wrapped sandwich. He would soon be finishing his duty.

  The boss was older school, had been regular army in the Province before taking redundancy, ditching his uniform to join the Service. He was unreconstructed and had ignored the new disciplines. He called, across the open-plan office, to Sebastian: ‘Hey, Seb, an explosion in their bloody heartland. Likely to be two of them. What we called, in my Fusilier days, an own goal. With me?’