Holding the Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  He believed now that such a moment existed. It was merely a question of identifying it.

  It was as though a stiletto had made a short but not fatal stab into the ribcage of an enemy. The knife could be turned – two hundred more men were moving forward, the radio intercepts told him – and then the hole would be larger. As the hole grew, as the stiletto was plunged deeper towards the vulnerable heart, so the risk to the enemy increased. But all that they had done was to send a master sniper from Baghdad. Why had a blocking force not been sent north? Why did the Fifth Army not respond to the threat and cauterize the wound?

  He did not understand the reason – but he believed a moment of advantage now existed.

  He sent a short message to Tel Aviv. In crisp language, he made a suggestion as to what he should do to exploit the moment.

  He was fit for his age, but he still dreaded the prospect of a long night march. When the terse response came on the radio, he was already writing a letter to his wife that would be carried out on the next resupply helicopter. Permission was granted.

  ‘Hi! You okay, Caspar?’

  ‘Not too bad, Rusty.’

  Caspar Reinholtz was a slave to punctuality. It was seven minutes to ten o’clock. He approved of the young man, who was early for his night shift. If it had been Bill or Luther, they’d have walked in with a half-minute to spare. He had just transmitted his report and the tiredness pulsed in waves across him. He doubted that he’d wander over to the mess where Bill and Luther would be socializing with the pilots and ground crew. He was not in the mood for USAF small-talk.

  ‘Long day?’

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘But was it a good day?’

  ‘At best satisfactory.’

  Caspar ran his hand through his cropped hair. The day, whatever it had been, had started at five, as the dawn sidled over the runways and bunkers of the Incerlik base where the USAF’s F-16 Falcons shared space with Turkish aircraft, and the helicopter had lifted him off with four marines for close protection duty. A small bungalow compound, inside the USAF security perimeter, was the home base for the Agency team responsible for northern Iraq. Drinking beer with flies in the froth was about as satisfactory as running American interests in northern Iraq from over the Turkish border.

  They had flown to collect the fat cat from Arbīl, then on to pick up the second fat cat from Sulaymānīyah, then had headed up and high into the mountains for the scary flight into bandit country.

  ‘You going to tell me?’

  ‘Don’t take it personal – same old problem – but it’s a Need to Know.’

  ‘That’s not a difficulty, Caspar. You want some coffee?’

  ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  Rusty was big, strapping, a young man out of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He had an openness that was rare for Agency recruits, and seemed to take it to heart when information was not shared. He’d learn. Long ago, Caspar had learned all that anyone could teach him, and what he knew best was northern Iraq. It had been taught the hard way. He’d been there, first tour of duty, in 1974 – young, like Rusty, and keen –when the Agency, with Iranian and Israeli help, had armed the Kurds to go kick Baghdad’s ass, but the diplomats had signed a treaty, the aid had stopped, and the reprisals of the Iraqi army against the Kurdish hill fighters would have made a less focused man weep and slip to his knees. Caspar had gone home to find new fields.

  The second tour, he’d been back across the Turkish border in 1988 when Operation al-Anfal had punished the tribesmen, bombed, gassed and butchered them. Caspar had been posted away. When he’d returned in ’91, he had been in time to set up the radio station that had broadcast the calls for the Kurds to rise up in armed open rebellion against Baghdad. They had, but the promised support hadn’t come: the runways at Incerlik had stayed silent, and the retribution had been repeated.

  Caspar had been called back to Langley. But the place was like a damn malarial microbe in his bloodstream. He had requested and badgered for a last time back there – a fourth tour – and he’d made it to the Agency team in Arbīl a month before the disaster when Saddam’s tanks rolled over the ceasefire line and ruthlessly drove the Kurds north.

  He never spoke – not to colleagues, not to family, of the awfulness of their own escape from Arbīl, and what they’d left behind. He’d been at Incerlik ever since, and had five more months to go before they’d call him home a final time. The coffee had been cooking all through the evening as he’d written, encoded and transmitted his report.

  ‘If you don’t mind my asking, will it work?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The plan, will it work?’

  ‘I’m tired – sorry, I don’t want to give offence here, Rusty. Look, there is a plan.

  There’s lengths of twine that need binding together to make a rope that’ll carry the plan.

  They’re not together yet.’

  They called the plan RECOIL. RECOIL, in the mind of the author of its name, Caspar Reinholtz, implied the release of a pressured spring of tempered steel with the force to drive back a seemingly immovable object. He was proud of that name. The pressured spring was rebellion, the immovable object was the regime in Baghdad. As station chief, he alone of the Agency team in Incerlik knew the importance of each of the lengths of twine that must be woven to make the rope.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘I’m not promising to answer.’

  ‘Did you see her?’

  ‘Am I going to get some coffee? Yeah, OK, I saw her.’

  The strands were a woman … an armoured formation … an action in Baghdad … a movement with momentum, pace and bluff. If one frayed, the load of the plan might not be carried. The woman was to kick-start it but each succeeding part of RECOIL was as integrally important, and it worried the shit out of him. He had never before met a young woman, the same age as his second daughter, who had made an impression of such devastating simplicity and confidence. All through the flight back, with the detours to drop off the fat cats, her face, her sweetness and her goddam arrogance had been locked in his mind. He was old, he had seen everything, he was labelled a cynical bastard by those who worked for him, and he’d wished to God, and been as sober as a baby, that he could have followed where she led. If he’d told his guards or the pilots or any of the young ones here what he thought, all of them would have called him a fucking lunatic.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘That’s pushy, Rusty … Actually, she’s remarkable. She —’

  ‘Can she get to Kirkūk?’

  It was the strand Rusty knew of. He was in total ignorance of the others.

  ‘The coffee, please. Hey, she’s a symbol. She gets men off their butts. She’s a part of a big picture, no more and no less. Can she get to Kirkūk? I don’t know. RECOIL goes further than Kirkūk. Quit the questions … What I will tell you, I saw her point man. You been to Fort Benning?’

  ‘No – you want sugar or sweetener?’

  ‘They do snipers there,’ Caspar murmured. ‘I saw her sniper. The chopper took a run over him. He was in the real camouflage gear and he’d a hell of a big shooter. She said he was important to her. They’re going south into real shit, fucking fighting, against experienced tank units, artillery formations. That’s before they get to Kirkūk, and she thinks one guy with a rifle is important. Hey, Rusty, don’t ever believe good news comes out of this place. It doesn’t, I know … Do you want to get me some coffee or do you want to get shipped home?’

  He sat in his room and he heard Rusty whistling quietly to himself in the kitchen annexe. She was in his mind … and when he lost her he seemed only to see the bleak face of the man under the helicopter’s flight path, wrapped in the camouflage smock, holding the rifle.

  ‘Major Herbert Hesketh-Prichard had friends among the British aristocracy – that’s the people with money and influence. Once he’d made the decision that the way to take on the German snipers was with snipers of our own, he pe
rsuaded those friends to help him

  … Are you asleep?’

  ‘No, Mr Gus. How did the friends help?’

  ‘Lady Graham of Arran loaned him a five-times magnification telescope to take to France, and a fund set up by Lord Roberts bought more telescopes to be used by the observers alongside the snipers. Lord Lovat sent all his gamekeepers – the men who guided Lovat’s friends into the mountains of Scotland to shoot deer – to the army because they were the best at stalking on the open slopes of the mountains.’

  ‘As good as me, Mr Gus?’

  ‘Of course not, Omar, no-one is as good as you, and no-one is as conceited as you. So shut up and listen. The best of Lord Lovat’s men was a corporal, Donald Cameron, who was described as a “very good glassman”. The observers spotted the targets for the snipers and protected them from patrols. When Major Hesketh-Prichard set up his school for snipers at Steenbecque in the Forest of Nieppe, he always trained snipers and observers alongside each other.’

  ‘Not the school any more, Mr Gus. Tell me about the killing.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Gus lay back and stared at the stars. ‘Tomorrow we’ll talk about the killing.’

  Chapter Six

  Gus, after a long time watching the night sky, had finally drifted to the sleep he needed when he was shaken awake. He started up at the touch of Haquim’s hand on his shoulder.

  He heard the voices and blinked to see better. Omar was crouched protectively beside him and was holding his assault rifle as if Gus were threatened. Haquim kicked at Omar’s ankle, drove him back, and pulled Gus to his feet.

  A torch shone into Gus’s face.

  ‘Is this him? Is this the sniper?’ The voice, deep and harsh with the Israeli–American accent, came from a shadowy, stocky man who was bent under a backpack.

  Gus coughed out phlegm in his throat and spat it on the ground. ‘Who needs to know?’

  The shadow’s breath clouded the chill air between them. The man came forward from a group, and as the men behind him followed, he waved them away dismissively. He reached Gus, poked his finger into Haquim’s chest and pointed into the reaches of the darkness. Maybe he didn’t see Omar, who was crouched down close to rocks.

  The voice dropped. ‘Are you the sniper?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘At dawn you attack the Victory City of Darbantaq, yes?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It is not often I step outside my front door. Less often I spend a night walking through these goddam hills. Put another way, it is something remarkable for me to have hiked this sort of distance when I could be tucked up in my cot. Isaac Cohen, who in the wisdom and generosity of the government of Israel is stationed in this fuck-awful place. I’m tired, I’ve twisted my ankle, I smoke too much, I have carried a load of tricks for you – can we talk?’

  Instinctively, Gus reached out his hand and took the Israeli’s. ‘I’m Gus.’

  ‘I have much to tell you, and I want to be back in my bed before dawn. Are you listening?’

  ‘We have a mustashar and a leader. Should they not be listening?’

  ‘Do you know nothing? First lesson here, trust nobody. They’ll say what they think you want to hear. Believe nothing you are told, accept nothing you see. They are terminally divided and incapable of unity, just watch. You’ll have a crowd with you going forward. If you have to go back you won’t be able to run fast enough to keep up.

  So, in answer to your question, I’m only talking to you.’

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘To tell you about Darbantaq. If you’re a sniper then you’ve reconnoitred the village

  … ’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You saw the BMP personnel carriers?’

  Gus hesitated. ‘No.’

  Cohen chuckled. ‘Then it was worth my coming. You didn’t circle the village. There are three BMPs in earth revetments behind the command post. All will be fitted with a 73mm 2A20 main armament, rate of fire at four rounds a minute. Also they will be mounted with a light machine-gun. Unless you can handle the BMPs you won’t get near the place – and one of them will be fitted with thermal imaging … ’

  The Israeli had slung his backpack off his shoulders and gasped at the release from the weight. He rooted in a side pocket, produced a folded wad of papers and gave them to Gus. ‘It’s all here. I’d have thought a combat veteran would have known about BMPs.’

  Gus said quietly, ‘It’s my first week in combat.’

  ‘That’s very funny. Your famous British sense of humour? This is perhaps not so funny – you should read it.’

  The hands burrowed into the backpack, the fingers working fast. Gus watched. The olive-green dish was expanded to full size and a stubby antenna pulled out in the centre.

  Short cables were stretched to their maximum length and plugs slid into sockets in the box. Cohen threw a switch, a red light flashed and the dial’s needle jumped, then he killed the power.

  Cohen said, ‘In the command post is an R-123M AFV radio that’ll go back to a booster, then to battalion at Tarjil, then on a relay to the brigade HQ on the Sulaymānīyah-Baghdad crossroads, and ultimately to Fifth Army HQ in Kirkūk. This box will block an R-123M’s transmissions, but it’ll only work at one hundred and fifty metres. So you have to get to one hundred and fifty metres from their command post at Darbantaq, then you can put them off-air. There’ll be no hero in a bunker giving a running commentary on the main assault, got me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s what I came to give you.’

  ‘Thank you. What do you call it?’

  ‘It’s just a box of tricks. You want a name for it? Try “Josephus”. Josephus will do nicely. He died one thousand, nine hundred years ago, and he was a big man in the last Jewish revolt against the Romans. Josephus will work well for you … That was a joke, that you’re really not a veteran?’

  Gus said simply, ‘I have never in my life done anything like this before, nor wanted to.’

  Cohen reached out and his fingers caught Gus’s cheek. He held it tight enough to hurt.

  ‘You picked a bad place to learn. Your opposition knows about you and takes you seriously, which is not healthy news for a beginner … I sit on a mountain and I hear everything. They’ve sent a man from Baghdad for you.’

  ‘Have they?’

  ‘They have sent a master sniper to track you. He is Karim Aziz, a major, and they think he’s one of their top guys.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘He’s coming to track you and to kill you.’

  Gus batted the fingers from his cheek. ‘I hope you get back safely to where you came from, and I hope your ankle’s better soon.’

  Cohen said grimly, ‘Sniper against sniper. Secure your front, secure your flank, secure your back. I’ll listen for you, I’ll hear each step he takes and you take, until he finds you or you find him … It’s like something from the intestines of history. I’ll be listening, but I hope, and you’d better hope too, that your god watches for you.’

  He heaved the backpack up onto his shoulders.

  Gus watched the wavering, diminishing light from the Israeli’s torch. When it was gone, he called Haquim forward and repeated everything he had been told about the box, Josephus, and the positioning of the BMP personnel carriers, but he said nothing of a man sent from Baghdad to track and kill him.

  The cold was around him. In an hour he would go forward with Omar. He felt a suffocating sense of loneliness.

  They sat in the cold dining room, at the table, and Ms Manning kept her outdoor coat on.

  On his pad, at the top of the blank page, Willet had written and underlined the word MINDSET.

  ‘His grandfather told us nothing of this.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’

  After another early start, after another early pickup by Ms Manning, they’d hammered at the door of the vicarage. Henry Peake had not been dressed, had told them firmly to wait. They’d sat in the car for fifteen minutes bef
ore being allowed inside. There were sounds of movement in the kitchen, but they were neither taken there, nor offered tea or coffee.

  ‘I don’t know – you tell me.’

  ‘We’re not responsible for our parentage and I am certainly not responsible for my father’s prejudices.’

  Henry Peake was a slimmer man than his father, and already more gaunt. He had little of the certainty that the old man in the bungalow behind the big house had shown. But he talked in response to the prodding questions rattled at him by Ms Manning. ‘You’ll have to explain.’

  He was lighting his third cigarette. He retched a cough, then launched. ‘Gus’s grandfather, my father, wouldn’t have talked to you about his grandson’s child-hood. He didn’t approve, you understand me? I was brought up in a service household. I made a crystal-clear decision, and Fiona was right with me on this, that Gus would not be reared as I had been. We let the child run. He was a free spirit. He wasn’t hidebound by the diktat of meaningless traditions. It was only later, when my father needed Gus, that he quite shamelessly involved him in this nonsense about northern Iraq. It’s where he is now, isn’t it?’

  They were in a sheep scrape Omar had found. The ground would have been weakened by years of rain, and then the sheep in the last summer, or the summer before, had used that weakness and with their bodies had insinuated a narrow cavity on the slope of the hill.

  The depth of the scrape was sufficient shelter from a summer squall for four or five sheep pressed close to each other, but was barely big enough for the boy and Gus. To use it and still be hidden by its lip of earth, the two were huddled close against each other.