Gus staggered towards the dawn and the last ridge, the rain and wind lashing at him.
Beyond the ridge would be the valley with steep-set sides, and beyond the valley would be another climb, then safety. He was lurching drunkenly towards the ridge and the dawn.
‘According to Major Hesketh-Prichard, the American – Burnham – was the greatest scout of that time. His finest achievement was to go through the entire Matabele army to shoot their leader, M’limo …’
‘Can I say something personal, Caspar?’
‘Be my guest. Shoot.’
In the darkness, under a buffeted umbrella, Caspar Reinholtz walked the shiny-faced man back to the shuttle for the flight to Ankara.
‘There are people at Langley – this is not easy for me – who doubt you, Caspar.’
‘That’s their privilege.’
‘Don’t interrupt, please, because this is, was, a problem for me. They say that Caspar Reinholtz went native, had gotten himself emotionally involved.’
‘Is that what they say?’
‘Had gotten more Kurdish than the Kurds, had lost sight of our aims.’
‘Do they say that?’
‘They told me that you, Caspar, would dump shit on the new plan. I want you to know that I am going to kick ass when I get back, and tell everybody, whether or not they want to listen, that you are on board and could not have been warmer and more supportive of the new concept.’
They were at the steps of the plane, shaking hands, while the rain spattered up from the apron. At least the bastard would have a turbulent roller-coaster ride, with his balls in his mouth, hanging on, thinking of Mother. He had not mentioned her, dead, or the sniper, missing, or the fuck-up that was RECOIL. With any luck, the bastard would be tossed from one side of the plane to the other.
Caspar smiled. ‘Do you know what Will Rogers said?’
‘What did Will Rogers say?’
‘He said, “We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the kerb and clap as they go by.”’
‘I like that – good for a seminar. I appreciate the hospitality and I appreciate that you’re not wallowing in what’s gone, that you’re right behind our plan. You’re a good and valued warrior, Caspar, a true Langley man.’
The man ran up the steps of the plane.
‘Have a good flight,’ Caspar shouted after him.
In those last hours, he could have said that the plan was a piece of crap, that it was a coward’s no-risk plan, and he, too, would have been on the shuttle out to Ankara. He had whitewashed it, said it was a fine plan. If he had been on the flight there would have been denied him the small chance to meet the sniper, go with him to a quiet corner, and hear how she had died – maybe put some flowers somewhere. He knew he owed it to her. The same rain, the same storm, over those goddam mountains, would be driving on the man who had seen her die. He wanted that chance.
Trudging and stumbling, falling, dragging himself to his feet, kicking his stride forward, following the dog, Major Karim Aziz did not consider that he might have turned back …
To have turned back was to face the past and the future. His concern, going forward, was to keep the rifle under his smock so that the working parts stayed dry. To stay awake, to be aware, to keep going forward, he recited the specifications of the Dragunov.
Cartridge: 7.62×54R, including 7N14 AP. Operation: gas, short-stroke piston, self-loading. Weight: with PSO-1, 4.3kg. Length: 1.225m, with bayonet-knife, 1.37m. Barrel: 622mm. Rifling: 4 grooves, rh, 1 turn in 254mm. The statistics helped him as he moved towards the ridge where the dog sat and waited for him. They were slow, grinding steps.
The raincloud scudded over him. Far behind him, a Very light was fired, and he knew that he, too, was tracked, that the line of soldiers had kept pace with him, that they had not halted for the night. The soldiers were his past and his future and, to blot them out of his mind, he dipped back into the comfort of the specifications. Muzzle Velocity: 830m/s.
Max Effective Range: 800m–1000m. PSO–1 Telescope: 4×24, 68mm eye relief, 6deg field of view. The cloud lay on the ridge in front of him, grey on black, and the rain ran on his face, the thunder clapping at his ears.
He heard, ahead, a great bellowed scream, an anguished cry of impotence, before the gale carried it beyond his hearing.
‘Does it go badly for you, my friend?’ Aziz muttered. ‘It goes badly for me. I respect you for what you have done, it is sincere respect, because it is harder for you than for me.’
Gus had known it since he had reached the ridge over the valley.
He had paused, gulped for air, wiped the rain from his face, tried to stand against the force of the wind, and known the boy was dead. He had laid him down, smaller – as if life was weight – and he had rocked and howled into the last of the night. The rain spat on the boy’s face and ran rivers into his staring eyes. He could have left him there for the dog to find, and the man; he could have left Omar and won himself precious time, because the man would stop and circle the corpse, then go close and examine it. He picked up the boy and heaved him again over his shoulder. Omar had said that the pit of the valley, under the ridge, was the ceasefire line beyond which the man would not follow.
It might have been a shepherd’s trail he found, or a track used by wild hill goats. The rain sheened its surface. He went down the path heavily, slipped clumsily because he had the boy on his shoulder and the rifle to keep dry. Other than the occasional rumble of thunder and the spatter of rain on him there was a great silence that not even his boots or the tumble of small stones broke.
There had been a moment when he had felt grief, but it had gone. He moved more easily with each descending step as if, again, the freedom were given back to him. The boy was dead, and she was dead: the burdens were lifted. If he survived, he might have time to mourn.
In the pit of the valley he had the rush of the swollen stream to guide him.
Gus found a big flat rock, hewn smooth by a millennium’s torrents, and laid the boy’s body on it.
He paddled in the water around the rock and arranged the body so that it lay on its back. It no longer had a meaning to him. The arms hung loose. He did not think that the rain would cause the river to rise enough to dislodge the body.
On the far side of the stream, as he started to climb, he heard the distant whistle.
There was no pain in his body, no aching, no hunger or thirst.
An hour of darkness was left him. Gus scrambled up from rock to rock, stone to stone, catching at stumpy bushes that took his weight.
He could have gone on, he had the strength. He could have reached the ridge on the far side of the valley, could have left the man and the dog far behind him.
Halfway up the slope, he crabbed off the path. He moved slowly on his side and carefully, without the awkwardness of his descent, worked to lodge himself between the stems of the bushes so that he would not crush them.
When he settled he took the rucksack from his shoulders, wrapped his one towel from it around the length of the rifle, and then, with his penknife, he started to cut short sprigs of bilberry and dead bracken from around the place he had chosen. When he thought he had sufficient he began to hook them into the straps of hessian that the women, an age ago, had sewn to the suit.
All the while, the rain relentlessly beat down on him.
‘I’m George. Very good to meet you, Carol. It’s not often enough that we have the chance to share snippets with our sister service. And you’re Ken, right? Ministry of Defence? Very pleasant to meet you.’
He stood and shook their hands. There was a gushing charm to the greeting that Willet thought worse than insincere. The Security Service would be lesser beings, and Ministry personnel would be primitives. The security staff at the building’s main entrance had directed them to the bench on the embankment. Willet had been rather looking forward to gaining admittance to the secure sanctum of the Secret Intelligence Service, something to gossip about when he was back at the Ministr
y. But no conference room was offered them, no opportunity for rubbernecking the interior. They had been told they were expected at the fourth bench, going east towards the Festival Hall on the river’s south-side embankment. George had been waiting for them, and was lighting a cigarette as they approached.
‘I hope I don’t have to apologize for meeting you out here, but it is a nice morning and I always say the view of the river is delightful. It’s not that I’m a fresh-air freak but we have a Fascist correctness inside. Can’t have a little puff indoors. I was once on night duty, dying for a gasp, and I crawled underneath my desk and lit up. I was right under the desk but the bells still went, and the gauleiters came charging in … Now, how’s the young man doing? Is that what you want to know? I don’t mean to be rude, far from it, but is Augustus Peake any concern of yours?’
‘We think so,’ Ms Manning said.
Willet challenged. ‘If a British passport holder, with a bloody great rifle, is tramping around northern Iraq – with the consequences that entails – yes, it is a legitimate concern.’
George was fifty-something. He wore a loose cardigan that had been knitted for him, Willet thought, by a woman who had overestimated his size. He had a blotched face and thinning hair, and he coughed on his cigarette. It was early in the morning, bright and cold, and the wind came up off the river. Office workers, hurrying to be in before nine, strode meaningfully past them, and were interspersed with joggers pounding along the embankment. Willet hadn’t thought to bring a coat and shivered. He thought making them use a public bench was the height of rudeness, and calculated.
‘I come out here about three times a day and the river’s sights never fail to fascinate me … It’s all over. I’ll backtrack – and what I tell you is American material because we don’t have the resources to be on the ground there – and start with the march. It lasted a little more than a week and, like most of the Kurd expeditions down from the mountains, it ended in tears. The serious fighting involved some initial successes, then a suicidal raid into the city of Kirkūk – that period spanned five days. He’s a transport manager, you know, with a small haulage company and I would say it is fair to assume that they’ve been a long five days.’
‘But he survived?’
The moment after the cigarette’s ash had fallen on his tie, George threw away the butt and lit another. Willet waited for his question to be answered, stared out at a small tugboat going downriver towards Parliament, dragging a line of barges. He thought it was a rotten damn place to be discussing the nothing chances of Gus Peake’s survival.
‘No news, in this case, may be good news. What I can say, we do not know either way.
Most of the force that retreated from Kirkūk with their wounded made a successful return to the ceasefire line. He was not among that group. On the other hand, had he been taken by the Iraqis, if he was in their custody, we would probably have heard by now. I have to assume that Augustus Peake is currently in a no man’s land and legging it back, like a hare with a thorn up its bum, towards safety. That’s what I’d be doing, but I’m not him.’
‘There’s a woman.’
He gazed at her, then sniggered, ‘ Cherchez la femme … When was there not a woman?
Excuse me, please, my dear, I don’t mean offence. Yes, there was a woman. It’s all in the bailiwick of the Americans, you understand, and tied to their obsession with removing that man who’s been in their faces for so long. Quite a simple plan really – triple-pronged. The President is assassinated … an armoured unit in the north mutinies and drives south … A woman is a useful symbol of equality, modernism and leads a tribal force into Kirkūk. It was a grand idea, but it didn’t work. The President is alive, the unit didn’t mutiny, she’s dead. Dispiriting, really.’
The cigarette was gone, thrown after the previous one. There were pigeons gathering near them, as if they expected a feast of bread, not smoking butts. A destitute woman, carrying a cider bottle, swayed optimistically towards them but was waved imperiously away. Willet thought they were like the trustees after the death of a childless widow winding up her estate without the charity of respect.
‘How did she die?’ Ms Manning asked.
‘Quite a pretty woman by all accounts, and charismatic … It’s confusing. What is clear, a sniper was sent from Baghdad to counter Augustus Peake. That sniper disabled the woman’s transport during the fighting in Kirkūk and she was taken prisoner. The death is what’s confusing. The Iraqi news agency is saying she was hanged in public, but rumour in the city has it that she was shot at very long range moments before the rope was put round her neck. She’s dead, that’s what’s relevant, she’s out of the picture …’
‘“Long range” – did Gus Peake shoot her?’ Willet asked.
‘I really wouldn’t know, I wasn’t there. Who would you trust for accuracy? The rumour mill in Kirkūk or the INA? It’s not much of a choice if you’re looking for reliability … Eight years ago, in the uprising after the Gulf War, Kirkūk was held by the Kurds for a few days, then the army pushed them out and the citizenry fled to the mountains. Many died there, starvation, cold. They’re back in Kirkūk, those people, older and wiser, chastened. They turned out in big numbers to see the execution. Look, city people rarely fight, they leave it to the peasants in the hills, they watch to see who is going to win. The word is, and it’s probably sentimental twaddle, that the crowd did not jeer and abuse her as the Party hacks would have wanted; they watched her die in complete silence. That’s promising, for the future. Mythology comes from death, and mythology – martyrdom – is something we can work on.’
‘What exactly does that mean?’ There was threat in Ms Manning’s voice but the man chose not to recognize it and puffed at his newest cigarette.
‘Obvious. You can’t stand still in this business. Mythology, out of martyrdom, can sire insurrection. Policy, as laid down by our revered masters …’ He waved, a gesture of contempt, towards the towers and façade of Parliament across the river. ‘… dictates that we seek insurrection in that awful little corner of the world. The word of the hour is
“proxy”. Other people do the dirty work, get the shit on their boots, follow the myth of a martyr, and we achieve – at minimum cost – the aims of our policy. Please, my dear, don’t look so squeamish.’
Willet interjected. ‘Are you telling us that there were two snipers in Kirkūk – and one of them was Gus Peake?’
‘That is a fair assumption.’
‘How long ago?’ A hoarse question.
‘Twenty-four hours. Probably while I was sitting here yesterday and poisoning myself
… Do you know about snipers?’
‘I failed the course.’
‘Bad luck. My father was a sniper in Normandy, 1944, but not a very good one. I rang him last night, to get a viewpoint. What he said, about the best of them that he’d met, they’re proud, solitary and élitist, and they never did understand when it was time to wander graciously home. I go as often as I can to see friends in Scotland. Sometimes it’s the time of year when the big stags are rutting and fighting off the young pretenders –basic machismo sexual stuff. I’ve that image in my mind of locked antlers. Up there you find the skeletons of massive beasts, antlers entwined, who fought too long, went on with a dispute ages after the combat should have ended, were mortally weakened, could not disengage, starved to death together. It is glorious and pointless. The Iraqi is a Major Karim Aziz who instructs on sniping at the Baghdad Military College. He wouldn’t know when to quit. Augustus Peake, in my opinion, has the temperament of a hunter. A gambler never walks away from a final throw of the dice, a hunter never turns his back on a target. More than courage, it is about obsession. Just before I came down to meet you, I spoke with my esteemed American colleagues at Incerlik for an update. There’s no word of Peake having crossed the ceasefire line … Let’s mix the metaphors. The gamblers have probably locked antlers.’
‘Did you like Peake?’ Willet asked softly.
‘Did I say I knew him? I didn’t hear myself say that.’
‘You knew him because you had met him, and you must have encouraged him.’
A cigarette end was discarded. The packet was retrieved from the pocket, another cigarette was lit. The packet was pitched expertly into a rubbish bin beside the bench.
George stood.
‘My advice, young man, learn to walk before you try to run.’
‘You encouraged him, and you may have helped to kill him.’
‘So nice to have met you, Carol. Something for you to remember, Ken. Policy is our god. If little people, silly people, stray off a safe path and into the territory of policy, they will be exploited. Policy is a long game. This game has only recently started – but if we already have a martyr and a myth, it has started promisingly. Good morning.’
When the dawn came, both men – too tired to dream – slept. Between them was the river and the wide stone on which the carcass of the boy lay.
Chapter Nineteen
Abruptly, suddenly, the dreamless sleep was finished.
Gus woke. He jerked up, blinked, and did not understand. He was wrapped in a grey-white shroud.
For a moment, no thought, he flailed at the sheet, beat at it because it seemed to suffocate him, and could not move it. His fists punched the sheet, were absorbed, and it pressed down on him.
He sagged back.
He wiped hard at his eyes. The sheet was pegged just below his feet and just beyond his head, and the memory of where he was, what he had done, filtered back to him.
The rain had stopped. There was a stillness. The cloud nestled over him, but the thunder had rolled on. The sleep had not rested him. Together with the understanding that the cloud over the valley covered him came the tiredness and the slow, aching pains and the hunger.
At that moment, because he had lost hold of the emotion, he could have gathered together his kit and the rifle, and used the cloud as protection to crawl away up the slope towards the hidden ridge. He could put it all behind him and start out on the journey to the frontier, to an airport or to a lorry park.
Holding the Zero Page 40
