The Untouchable

by Gerald Seymour

  . . . Ismet Mujic reached his apartment in the city's old quarter. He had left the Turk, the Russian a nd the Italian at the airport with a private pilot who would fly them out. He was disgraced, humiliated, and he shouted in fury up the stairs, 'Have you found him?'

  He was told by a craven man that his friend had not been found, and his world fell further into ruin.

  . . . a body that had been snagged among sunken tree branches in the Miljacka river broke free and came to the surface, was carried on by the current past Hrasno and the apartment blocks of Cengic Vila, under bridges, and tumbled over the weirs.

  . . . her day and evening in the Unis Building, Tower A, finished, on her way home to Novo Sarajevo, Monika Holberg pushed open the glass swing doors of the Holiday Inn. She went to the reception desk. She saw her letter in the pigeon-hole, untouched, unread, tightened her lips and went back out into the city's quiet.

  . . . in the room occupied by the Sierra Quebec Golf team in the Custom House, a secure facsimile message was received from Endicott, room 709. Vauxhall Bridge Cross. It was given to Gough. They were all there and they watched him. Gough said, 'Packer was at his big meeting - it aborted when Cann showed out

  - there was no electronic evidence - Target Three, Bruce James, is in IPTF custody - Packer and Arbuthnot have gone across country, and Cann is in pursuit. It doesn't matter, though, local authorization for intrusive surveillance has been withdrawn. I think he's beaten us, Packer has. I asked too much of Cann.

  I thought, and I took a chance with him, that Cann would bring him down. It was too much to ask.'

  They began to clear their desks and unhook their

  ...Endicott, in his room at VBX, rang the home of a commander from the National Crime Squad. 'Don't interrupt me, please, and don't ask who tasked me.

  You have an information leak from your building to Albert Packer. A call to Sarajevo was made the day before yesterday, in the morning, from the pavement outside your Pimlico office. We can be that specific.

  The call was made at ten nineteen and was terminated at ten twenty-one. If you were to check your exterior video cameras you will see who made the call, who went out of the building either side of that window.

  Act on it, please.' Endicott rang off. Traitors, turncoats, betrayers were a part of the history of his organization; He understood the cancerous contamination of their presence.

  .. . the minister came into his wife's bedroom at their grace and favour home to switch off her light and kiss her cheek. He sat beside her. 'You remember, when we were in opposition, what you used to do, your good works. You tramped east Yorkshire to raise money for refugee relief in Bosnia. You were fearsome to the stitch-pockets, you bullied till you had your cheques.

  I'm late because I've been reading about the place. You needn't have bothered. The dream's gone. It's a corrupt haven for criminality, and sinking, and it'll be worse.

  The end of a dream is always sad, the light going out and leaving a dark, grubby corner.' He held her hand and hoped she slept and had not heard him.

  'Are you there, Mister?'

  ' I'm here, Eagle.'

  'What time is it?'

  ' If it matters, it's a minute past midnight.'

  ' I know where I am.'

  'Good on you, Eagle.'

  Yes, he knew where he was and he knew what had happened. There had been a moment, bliss, a happy moment, when he hadn't known where he was or what had happened to him. It couldn't have been sleep, but he might have fainted. There hadn't been delirium, or anything that was a dream, only blank insensible darkness in his mind. He had come through that darkness and he remembered opening his eyes, and he'd tried to swing his body but the pain had stopped him. He felt weak and wanted to vomit. He hadn't the strength. His hands groped over his body, as best he could lying on his side. Each place he touched made the pain hurt worse, and there was sticky warmth on his fingers. The liquid smeared them when he touched his stomach and his thighs.

  Only when he lay quite still was the pain numbed. He had his back to Mister, couldn't see him and wouldn't risk the pain of trying to twist and look at him. Where his head lay, on his lower arm, there were no lights for him to look at, but the moon's glow showed the stretch of the field and then the black line of the trees.

  'Does anyone know we're here?'

  'Cann knows. He's in the trees. He's close. He knows.'

  'Has he sent for help?'

  ' It's dark, Eagle, and we're in a minefield. No one's going to come and help.'

  ' I don't have much time, Mister, if I'm not helped

  . . . Can't you come close to me, Mister?'

  'Don't you listen, what I told you? It's a minefield.'

  'Won't you come nearer to me, Mister?'

  'There are mines - it's what Cann said - all around me. I can't move. I'm thinking . . . '

  The Eagle thought he was free. It was as if a chain had snapped. He could not see Mister's eyes, which cut into men and made them shiver. His back was to Mister. He had no fear, now, of Mister, and he had no need any more of the rewards with which Mister bought him. The freedom was the cool breeze that played across his face, that stilled the pain. He was safe from the fear.

  'Mister? Are you listening to me, Mister? I've been with you more than twenty-five years. I know you, Mister, like I know my hand. I want to tell you what I have learned about you.'

  It was a struggle to raise his voice. Spit bubbled in his throat. The pain was worse when he tried to speak.

  The Eagle did not have the strength to shout, and he did not think he had much time. He wished he could have turned so that he could see into Mister's eyes. He gloried in his freedom, and knew it could not be taken from him. He hoped that Mister heard him.

  'You are evil, Albert William Packer. You are the most evil man I have met. As God's my witness I am ashamed to have been a part of you. I hope, as those I love say prayers over my body, that I am purged of the sins of my association with you.'

  He could not lift his head, which lay on his fallen arm. He spoke into a wall of grass stems and he smelt the fresh-turned earth and the tang, acrid, of the chemicals.

  'You are the bully. You inflict pain, misery. After you are dead - whenever, wherever - you will be hated, despised. Don't think a great column of people will follow your coffin, they won't. The coffin will go by and people will slam shut their doors and draw their curtains, because you are vile, a mutation of a human being. But I thank you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing me to this place.

  Here, I've learned freedom from you. Thank you, Mister.'

  He wished that Mister could have seen his face and seen the truth, the honesty, he felt. His voice fell and he didn't know whether he was heard. He cared no longer about the pain, but tried to throw his voice.

  'And thank you for giving me a last sight of you.

  You're scared, aren't you, Mister? I don't have any fear, not any longer. You're scared, I smell it. How do I know you are scared? Because you haven't run. You can't buy a mine, Mister, can you? Can't corrupt it. A mine doesn't get defused because a bent bastard like me preaches on your behalf in some bloody Crown Court. It's not a jury, you can't intimidate it - it's a mine.'

  He heard behind him a slight, very small shifting movement.

  'Can you see my leg, is that why you're scared to run?'

  The movement was a metal scrape, an oiled lever under a thumb's pressure.

  'Show me you're not scared. Run. Run twenty yards, or fifty, then tell me you're not scared.'

  For a last time he hurled his voice high.

  'Did Cann bring you down?'

  The first three shots missed him. They were a thunder around the Eagle and the ground spat over him. The fourth shot hit his raised shoulder and flattened him, pinned him down to the grass, as if a hammer drove a nail into him. He gulped.

  'Did Cann—?'

  He pulled the trigger again and again and again . . .

  pulled it until the clicking replaced th
e blast, and the magazine was emptied.

  The voice was away across the fields, from the tree-line.

  'The Eagle was your last best man. That was another mistake. Who's going to protect you now, Mister? Are you going to run?'

  He let the Luger slip from his fingers and tightened his arms closer around him to make smaller the space of wet grass on which his weight was set. There were six more hours of darkness. He had six more hours in which to make his decision. Are you going to run, Mister? If he turned his body, he could see the dark line of the river a hundred yards away, could hear it.

  Beyond the river were the village lights, and there would be a car. It would take a hundred running strides to get to the river, a hundred times his feet would stamp down on the grass and the earth, one hundred chances of risk . . . He closed his eyes against the night.

  The explosion had roused him, but it was the screaming that had pulled Husein Bekir from his bed. He sat on the big ash log outside his home. He was wrapped in his overcoat but that was little proof against the frost chill. The explosion had woken him and then he had nearly slipped back to sleep against his wife's warm back. Then, the screaming had started, liven with his damaged hearing, the sound of it had gouged into him. He could not ignore it: it had dragged him up, tugged him out through the door. He knew the sounds that animals made when in great pain. The screaming was not an animal's. It was a noise that went to his heart - and then it had died, had faded. A long time after the screaming had finished and the quiet had returned to the valley, there had been gunfire. The shots had been faint to his ears, but he had heard them.

  Others came. They came in coats such as his, or with wool blankets over their shoulders, and they stood beside him and behind him. Because of his position as patriarch of Vraca none stood in front of him.

  His view of the black emptiness of the fields over the river was not obstructed, but he could not make out any movement and though he strained his ears he picked up nothing. Some of the men who gathered around him carried double-barrelled hunting guns, but if he had brought his own it would not have protected him against the screaming. It was past three in the morning when Lila brought coffee. He cradled the cup in his hands and felt its heat on his skin.

  He held a vigil and waited for the dawn.

  When the screaming had started, Dragan Kovac had tossed himself out of his bed, had taken down from the hook the greatcoat from his days as a police sergeant, and his cap. He had gone outside to the shed at the side of the house where wood for the stove was stored, and had groped until he found his axe.

  He had leaned against the doorpost, listened to the screams and held tight to the axe handle. They were the most fearsome screams he had ever heard. He thought he was a hard man, conditioned to the suffering of pain. Long after silence had replaced the screams he had stayed on his porch with the axe readied in his hands. There were the lights across the valley, and the lights of his own village behind him, and vehicle lights were at the top of the hill where the track crested the brow before falling down to Ljut, but he had not been able to see into the darkness. Then Dragan Kovac had heard the shots. He had counted the number of discharges and had known that the full magazine was used. The shots had driven him back inside his home.

  He bolted the door then turned the heavy key in the lock and wedged a chair of stout wood under the handle. He sat on the bed, did not take off his boots, and his greatcoat and his cap, could not shake from his mind the sounds of the screaming. He held the axe, and waited for first light.

  They offered him the flask but he refused it. He could not speak to them, nor they to him, but when Ante held the flask in front of him, he shook his head.

  He could smell the brandy. He wondered if brandy had kept them on their feet and fighting when they had come out of Srebrenica, or faith, or desperation

  .. . and he wondered how it went with Mister and if he had faith to fall back on, or if the desperation grew.

  He did not know how it would finish, but he thought he had come near to the end of the road, as he'd pledged. When they had finished with the flask, he reached back, tapped on Ante's arm, pointed to the rifle, and it was given him. He looked through the 'scope sight.

  He saw Mister, hunched, still, and then at the extreme edge of the tunnelled vision was a gliding movement that came closer to Mister.

  It was a grey-dark shadow on the grey-white field.

  The shadow flitted in the moonlight.

  It came from behind Mister and skirted him warily.

  Not for two years, perhaps more, had there been a fox scavenging in the garden of his home near the North Circular Road. By tripping the beams, the fox set off the security lights and bleeped the consoles in the hall and in the bedroom. Several times Mister and the Princess had been alerted by the bleeps and had stood at the window to watch the mature vixen. A cautious creature, which Mister liked - and without fear, which Mister liked more. Alec Penberthy had said she had a breeding den just inside the fence of the school's playing-fields. At night in the garden she had looked magnificent. He recognized the shadow.

  It came by him in a wide half-circle.

  It gave him space but did not seem intimidated.

  Past three o ' c l o c k . . . The fox was an escape for him.

  He had told himself that at three o'clock, when his wristwatch gave him that time, he would make the decision, commit himself, move. Of course, he would move. He was Mister. He did not know fear. He would splay out his hands, sink them down into the grass, use them to push himself up, and then he would walk, with firm strides, towards the river. He had set himself the deadline - three o'clock - and now the minutes ticked past and the watch hands sidled further from the hour. He watched the fox and that was his excuse not to move. It watched him.

  Having come past him, so light-footed and so safe against the danger, it settled in front of him, sat. He could see the silhouette of its shadow. When it moved on he would push himself up. That was Mister's promise to himself. When he made a promise it was always kept; his word was his bond. When the fox shifted, he would go. He told himself, repeated it in his mind, that a few minutes did not matter. The fox seemed to study him, as if he intruded into its space. Then it ignored him and scratched. It lashed, with the claws of its back foot, against its neck then under its front leg. Abruptly, it shook itself, then its neck rose and its nostrils pointed up. It sniffed. To have reached where the fox sat on its haunches, he would have had to push himself up, offer his weight to the ground, then take ten strides. He heard its coarse snorting, then it was up. It trotted away. He thought the ground and the grass under its feet would barely have been pressured. It stopped, sniffed again, and then its back sank low, and it went forward.

  The fox had located the Eagle, carrion.

  It started to circle him. The shadow glided over the grass, and each circle was smaller. He had shot the Eagle, silenced him. And the voice had boomed at him in the night from the tree-line, and he had squirmed. If it had not been for the voice, taunting him - Arc you going to run, Mister? - he would already have gone, started out on the hundred stride paces to the river. It was what Cann wanted, that he should run. Cann wanted his feet, shoes, his weight, pounding down on the earth and grass of the field. Cann wanted the flash and the thunderclap, wanted to hear the scream. Cann was in the trees, waiting on him, a reminder of the consequences of moving: a footfall landing on the antenna of a mine. The fox was close to the Eagle's body.

  He could not drag away his eyes.

  The Eagle's body was barely visible to Mister. The fox, he thought, investigated the body. He heard the rending of fabric. The fox had found the wound. It pulled on the torn trouser, then began to worry at the leg. He had no more use for the Luger pistol, no further magazine to fill it. He had the PPK Walther pistol in his belt. He saw the shadow of the fox tug at the Eagle's leg. Mister hurled the Luger at the fox. It might have caught the fox's back leg, or its lower stomach, and it yelped shrilly but did not back off. It gazed at Mister.
They stared at each other. If the fox had moved away then, Mister would have planted his hands down in the grass, pushed himself up, and started to run or walk towards the river. It did not back off: instead the shadow darted forward. It was a blur against the grass. Mister saw something thrown up into the night air. The fox caught what it had thrown up, then went skittish and ran in tight squares with something in its mouth.

  The fox played with the lower length of the Eagle's leg.

  It bounced towards the leg and barked over it, tossed it and jumped back from it. Then it settled.

  Mister heard the gnawing and the splintering of the bone. He could not fire the PPK Walther at the fox. He would need all the rounds in the pistol when he ran, when he went to the village where the lights burned to look for a car to take him out, away. A stone . . . he looked for a stone. He heard every sound from the fox's jaws. He dropped his hand to the grass beside his buttocks. He tore up the g r a s s and scattered it in front of him. He cleared the grass from a patch the size of the handkerchief in his pocket, scratching into the earth with his fingers. He broke his nails and scrabbled deeper. It was soft earth, finely ground. He did not know that soft earth, milled and worked, had been carried by rain streams from the edge of the field.

  He burrowed with his hand, moled his way into the earth to find a stone. He was ever more frantic. He would run when the fox had gone, when he had found a stone and driven the fox off the Eagle's leg.

  He felt the hard smoothness. The little hole he had excavated was dark, too deep for the moon's light to reach into. He started to scrape at the side of what he'd uncovered, and he felt the symmetry of the shape. He thought that what he touched was the same size as the Bakelite top of the two-hundred-gram jars of coffee powder that the Princess bought. His fingers eased from the side of the shape to its top and he cleared away more of the cloying earth until he felt the first of the six points that made the little star. The mine was nine inches from his buttock, buried under six inches of soil and root. It was where his hand would have gone, where the pressure would have been concentrated as he pushed himself up and readied himself to run.