Holding the Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  In his aching tiredness, in the pain, he was aware of a remote but occasional piercing whistling, as if a hawk hunted behind him and called its mate. It was like the cry of the kestrels he had watched with Billings, the poacher. He did not look to see if a bird of prey worked the ground behind and below him. His attention was on the escarpment ahead and the little ribboned ravines set in it. After they had cleared the escarpment they would be on the high ground of the hills, and each nearer and higher hill they climbed would bring them closer to safety, and further from her. He wondered if the bird, the hunter, watched him as he struggled to keep the boy’s pace.

  It was theatrical but always effective.

  A prisoner was in pain, and the resolve was slipping. The commander had never known it to fail. At the far end of the cell block’s corridor, the cord was pulled and the two-stroke motor of the chainsaw coughed to life. The motor was revved viciously as it was carried towards the open door of the cell. The roar of the motor filled the corridor and hammered into the cell as the saw’s teeth raced on the sprockets.

  A prisoner would not know whether they would start at the toes or the fingers, then move to the ankles or the wrists, then lop off – as if a prisoner were no more important than an overstretching pear or mulberry tree – the knees or the elbows.

  The kicking was over, and no question had yet been put.

  Two men held the brigadier with his back to the wall that faced the door and held his head so that he would see the arrival of the chainsaw.

  The commander had never interrogated a prisoner who could shut his eyes as the chainsaw was brought down to the corridor and into view through the open cell door. He stood against the furthest wall from the brigadier – as if that, too, were a part of the theatre – so that the blood spurts would not soil his uniform.

  It was in the door.

  Now, he asked the question. ‘With whom did you plot? With which snakes did you collaborate?’

  The arm was held out and the brigadier tried to make his hand into a fist, but the men prised open his grip and exposed his fingers. The chainsaw was carried closer.

  The name of a general – but the commander shrugged, dissatisfied, because he knew the general was already in Amman. And closer … The name of a brigadier and the names of two colonels. They were posted as missing and were hunted. The teeth were an inch from the hand. The prisoner was screaming. The name of a colonel, but that was inadequate because the colonel had gassed himself in his car.

  Held very delicately, as if it were a scalpel in an operating theatre, and not a chainsaw with a half-metre blade, the teeth brushed the skin of the brigadier’s knuckle and the blood careered up.

  ‘Please, please … the sniper …’

  Two fingers had fallen away. The shriek was drowned by the noise of the saw’s motor, but the commander did not raise his voice.

  ‘Which sniper?’

  ‘The best sniper … He is …’

  It was always the risk, when the chainsaw was brought to an older man, that the heart would fail. The commander never heard the name of the sniper, the best sniper. As the third of his fingers dropped away, the brigadier convulsed and his head sagged back.

  ‘Cut him into pieces, send him home. Charge them, his family, two thousand dinars for the fuel.’

  His soft footfall slithered away down the corridor.

  Major Karim Aziz tracked relentlessly after the dog, whistling every few minutes for it to wait for him. He thought that the man, this stranger who had come into his country and given him this ecstatic opportunity of triumph, sweated because the dog had a strong scent to follow.

  And the man was tiring, and limping.

  The sun was scorching hot above him, but was starting its slide. His own shadow was no longer at his feet but lay behind him. The escarpment, towards which the dog led him, would give the opportunity for him to shoot. Far behind him, in their wide line, the soldiers followed. Each time he whistled the dog sat and waited for him to reach it. Then he fondled the fur at the nape of its neck, whispered sweet things to it, and let it bound away on the trail.

  When he stepped over slight seeping springs that would have been small torrents in winter and dried out in full summer, he saw the bootprints of the man, and the slighter prints of the child guide, who did not concern him. A man not near to exhaustion would still have been on the balls of his feet, but the prints were heavy, and one was favoured.

  He had not seen them yet, but he would have the chance to shoot when, riddled with the heat and tiredness, they scaled the crevice gullies of the escarpment. The man and his guide would be at the foot of the escarpment an hour before the fall of day, and then the chance would be given him. Before dusk, he would have the man in his sights.

  The message was transmitted to Baghdad, to the al-Rashid barracks.

  Commander Yusuf knew only of key personnel in the armed forces when their files were handed to him and he started to probe their lives.

  Who among the best marksmen serving in the army was considered supreme? Who had the ambition to crawl into the nest of snakes? Who could, with devious cunning, live a double life?

  There was a profile in his mind of this marksman rated as the best. He did not yet have the paunch of middle age, he was vainly conceited and would boast of his shooting skill.

  He sought out the company of high-ranking officers and enjoyed the privilege their company brought him. He was married into a powerful tribal group that provided access to the élite … From his long experience of smelling out traitors, the commander always believed that he could paint their portraits.

  He settled in his chair and closed his eyes, and thought of the love of small children, and did not notice that outside the window, in the compound, the shadows lengthened and that the room around him darkened, and he waited comfortably for the answers to be sent back to him.

  The sun’s orb – bloody and red – teetered on the ridge of the escarpment.

  When they reached the base of it, where the rock faces rose up from the rough slope of trees and bushes, Gus pleaded, ‘Can’t we stop? Can’t we rest?’

  The boy peered past him, then snatched at his smock and pulled him into the deep shadow of a crevice.

  ‘Can’t we stop – if not to rest, just for water?’

  ‘We have to climb, Mr Gus, we cannot climb in darkness – no, I can, you cannot.’

  ‘I have to rest. My heel …’

  ‘Climb.’

  ‘Omar, I am not a bloody goat. I don’t spend my bloody life on bloody hills. I need rest and water.’

  Gus looked into Omar’s face. The eyes gazed away over his shoulder. He heard the faint whistle, the distant kestrel, and he saw the savagely cut frown on the boy’s forehead.

  He turned, took the line of the boy’s sight down through the rocks and trees and bushes, and saw the small glimmer of white. He raised the rifle and peered into the telescopic sight, but his shoulders shook with exhaustion and it was hard for him to focus on it and recognize it. The reticule lines in the sight were blurred. For a moment, before the shudder in his body jerked the aim away, he saw a sitting spaniel. It was a dog like Billings had had, always at his heel; a dog like the gentry used for picking up shot pheasants in the fields around the vicarage. Far below the dog, at three times the range of his rifle, was a slow-moving line of soldiers. The soldiers did not threaten him. He tried again to aim the rifle and find the dog but could not hold the stock steady – and he failed again even when he leaned against a warm stone face for support.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘The dog has followed us since we left the tunnel, near to the road.’

  ‘All bloody day, then.’

  ‘It has followed us and behind it is a hunter. He whistles for it to stop, so that it does not come close to us.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bloody well say?’

  ‘What would you have done, Mr Gus?’

  ‘I’d have shot it.’

  ‘You could not shoot the sky,’ Omar sn
apped at him. ‘Get on, climb. Climb fast.’

  The boy had led them to a point where a fissure split open the escarpment wall, and the angle of the sun above the ridge created a darkness in the cranny. Gus understood the boy’s skill in spotting the fissure from a great distance and leading them to it without detour and a search. There was a hundred feet to climb and the angle of it allowed him to crawl up. Stunted tree roots and heathers in the fissure made good holds and good boot-

  rests … He remembered what the Israeli had said, a long time ago, a lifetime. The hunter was a sniper, the sniper was Major Karim Aziz, who travelled with a reputation. He remembered how he had waited in the roof at the town and watched for him. He had forgotten the man until he had seen the dog. It was a lifetime back to when the Israeli had warned him of the sniper, as far back as his home and his work and the friendly firing on Stickledown Range. The past, the sniper, surged back into Gus Peake’s life. His mind was rambling. The past was before he had killed Meda, and before he had kissed her. The voice of the boy drilled into him.

  ‘You have to go over open rock. I cover you with shooting.’

  At the top of the fissure was a smooth stone with lichen patches. He would be silhouetted, without the protection of the recess when he went over it, before he reached the safety of the ridge.

  He heard the whistle. He did not know how he had been so stupid as to think it was a kestrel.

  ‘Hurry. Be quick, Mr Gus.’

  There was a blast of firing, on rapid, below him. He reached up, caught at the top of the stone, the lichen making his grip slip, and he sagged, then grabbed again, heaved himself up and over and into the light of the low sun. The boy was firing to distract the man who travelled with a reputation. His boot scrabbled to find a fresh foothold, his rucksack snagged – and he was over. He lay for a moment on smooth wind-scorched grass, and the panic caught him. The boy had exposed himself to draw the attention of the hunter. He wriggled round, lay on his stomach with the weight of the rucksack and the rifle pinioning his shoulders and reached out, over the rim, to catch the boy’s hand.

  Far back in the rocks, trees and bushes, caught by the last of the sun, he saw the flash of the glass of a ’scope. The boy had his hand. At that moment, the sniper would have a clear view of his head and Omar’s back. He pulled the boy towards safety.

  The boy shook. The weight of the boy was in his hand. The crack rang in his ears. He dragged at the boy’s wrist. He heard the thump.

  Gus pulled Omar over the ridge, the boy screamed, and then the quiet fell around them.

  AUGUSTUS HENDERSON PEAKE

  8. (Conclusions after interview with Dr Rupert Helps, consultant psychiatrist at Centre for War Studies, RMA Sandhurst, conducted by self and Ms Manning – transcripts attached.)

  IRAQI ARMED FORCES: (From briefing given to AHP by Dr Frederick Williams, Senior Lecturer, as recalled by Helps.) Because of centralized command & control systems, the Iraqis will be slow to respond to initial attacks. Once initial surprise has been lost, the Kurdish irregular forces will face a tough experienced enemy that will quickly roll up their advance. A fighting retreat will put AHP in maximum danger of death or – worse – capture. It would provide grave embarrassment to Her Majesty’s Government should AHP be taken alive and subjected to a show trial.

  AFTERMATH: In the predictable ‘roll up’, there would be inevitable harsh reprisals against Kurdish civilians. This was pointed out to AHP; he may not fully comprehend the scale of such reprisals before he sees them, in retreat, at first hand. They will shock him and weaken his resolve to escape.

  HELPS’ ANALYSIS OF AHP: A romantic, decent and immature

  individual, and quite unsuited to the rigours of mercenary warfare …

  He should have stayed at home. He will have achieved nothing of value.

  SUMMARY: A sane man would have rejected the emotional nonsense drip-fed to him by his grandfather. It is to be regretted that others – the rifle manufacturer, Royal Marines instructors, the freelancing

  ‘Survival’ expert, the lecturers at RMA – co-operated with this lunatic idea … They have all contributed to AHP’s likely death or possible capture. Isn’t any man better off when he’s chasing after job promotion, searching for a more satisfying sexual relationship, pursuing hobbies, increasing his mortgage, and offering himself for good works? Isn’t he?

  He had never been adept at the use of sarcasm. Rather desperately, Ken Willet wanted to shrug off the envy he felt. He wondered if, ever, he would walk up to this man, take his hand and wring it, hold it, shake it – but he didn’t think he would have the chance.

  By the time Dean returned from the travel agent’s office to confirm their flight out the next morning, Mike had the drinks on the table. There was a beer for Mike, a bourbon on the rocks for Dean, and a brandy sour for Gretchen when she came down. They were both showered and shaved, and wore the faded safari jackets with all the pocket pouches for pens and film canisters that were their uniform. Upstairs their bags were packed. Because it was unlikely that they would meet again, here or anywhere – because the world moved on, Mike was retiring from the combat field, Dean’s editors no longer cared about little wars in remote corners of the world where nothing happened, Gretchen’s magazine wanted glamour without misery – it would be a nostalgic evening. There would be a good session, long in the bar and late into the dining room, and each would tell the familiar cobwebbed anecdotes, josh each other, laugh on the same cues, and be a little thankful that it was over.

  Gretchen came into the bar. She was still in her drab, dust-coated trousers and sweat-stained shirt, her face and hair unwashed since the trip into Iraq, but her eyes were red and her cheeks smeared as if she’d wiped away tears.

  ‘What the hell …?’

  She said faintly, ‘Just tuning the radio, when I was running the bath, caught the Baghdad station, didn’t mean to … They hanged her in Kirkūk this morning … They did it in public … They called her a traitor. The radio said they hanged her …’

  ‘You mean she was real?’

  ‘Real enough to be hanged in public, in front of a crowd outside Fifth Army’s gates,’

  Gretchen stammered. ‘She actually existed, and we didn’t believe it.’

  ‘That is some fucking story.’

  ‘She led an attack into the city. She was captured, and tried by a military court. She was hanged – we doubted her – she is dead.’

  ‘OK, OK, it’s not fucking personal.’ Mike had his notebook on the table. ‘I can get radio on this.’

  ‘You’re going to get radio, I’m going for the front page.’

  ‘Let’s go, let’s fucking hack it,’ Mike murmured. ‘“The Kurdish people have lost today the brightest symbol of their heroic fight to rid themselves of the yoke of Saddam Hussein’s terror. The symbol was a Maid from the Mountains, whose brief life was ended by public execution on a gallows in the centre of the Kurdish city of Kirkūk.” How are we doing?’

  ‘Going great …’ Dean took it up, scribbling on his own pad. ‘Para two … “Known only by her given name of Meda, this illiterate peasant girl had led a small force of courageous guerrilla fighters in a desperate attack against the might of Saddam’s military machine. She was hanged in front of a huge weeping crowd, rushed to the gallows to forestall a rescue attempt.” End para.’

  ‘Para three … “Kurdish warlord, the veteran fighter agha Ibrahim, said this evening, quote, I feel that I have lost a daughter. Not only me, but the whole Kurdish nation is in mourning. She was a wonderful example of the supreme bravery of our people. She will not be forgotten. She has, today, lit a flame that will never be extinguished, end quote.” I think that’s reasonable licence – they’ll never know.’

  ‘It’s bullshit, but reasonable bullshit. Last para, “Your correspondent had the privilege of meeting this remarkable young woman, deep inside Iraqi-held territory, a few hours before she launched her last attack against overwhelming odds. She told me, quote, I want only the fre
edom of my people. I appeal for American – and British – help, end quote. Slightly built, stunningly beautiful, wearing a red rose pinned to her tunic, she slipped away to fight and to die.” That’s it.’

  They drained their drinks, asked Gretchen to get the next round in and went to their rooms to telephone. They were each in time, and grateful for it, to instruct their editors to bin the earlier pieces of shit they had sent before descending to the bar. It would be seventy-seven seconds for the radio and four paragraphs for the paper. It might get transmission and into print, and it might not – who cared?

  It had been a fine shot, into the sunlight and with the elevation making the distance hard to judge, but he knew that he had missed his target.

  He had waited until the darkness fell, then had sent the dog up the fissure, scrambling and dislodging stones, and had climbed himself. He had only had half of the head of the man, at an estimated distance of 520 metres, to aim at and he had hit the child.

  He had heard the scream and, at the top of the escarpment, his fingers felt the clammy wet pool of blood, which he could not see.

  He set the dog on the trail. There would be more spots of blood and a good scent for the dog.

  As the night thickened around him, carrying the boy on his shoulder, Gus plodded forward towards the darkest line that was the mountains.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was no emotional bond between Major Karim Aziz and the dog, Scout. He recognized the animal as a tool of his trade, less important than the old Dragunov, more important than his own eyes and ears. As the years had passed since he had picked up the abandoned, hungry puppy in Kuwait City, his sight had lost its edge and his hearing become more cluttered. Just as it was important to him to maintain the rifle to the highest possible state of perfection, he kept up an ever more rigorous training schedule for the dog. The affection he gave it was merely to guarantee its efficiency.