Gerald Seymour

by Traitor's Kiss (b) (epub)

  The young man knelt, the older man stood. Their shadows fell across the machine-gun. Though the sun was behind him, the older man had his hand over his eyes, and the younger man pointed over the dunes and the beach towards the sea.

  The younger man laughed. 'What do they think they are doing?'

  The older man said, 'They are too far out for the cordon to hit them. The shots fall short.'

  'Don't they know about me—about the quality of my shooting? When they are close I can sink them.'

  'Yes, because you are the best…'

  A line of troops idled behind them. Locke, squashed down in the sand, watched. He had sufficient Russian to understand the words, but the older man's words confused him. The gaze of all the troops in the line had followed the young man's pointing gesture. He thought he was a little more than a hundred metres from them, from the machine-gun. He would go closer. The flies were around his face, crawled on his skin.

  The young man laughed louder, and pointed again, but the older man looked away. He squirmed deeper into the sand. Very deliberately, Locke turned his head. The grass tufts were in his face. He laid the launcher down, careful that the barrel was clear, then used both his freed hands to part the grass. He looked where the younger man had pointed. He saw the boat, out past the point where the fence ran down into the sea. It threw a crisp spray from its bow, coming along the coastline but keeping its distance from the beach. He freed the grass strands, slid his hands over the sand and moved more grass. Locke saw the fair-capped head and a hint of the white shirt. He had the chance. It would be better than revenge, it would be fulfilment. He thought he was blessed.

  He heard the young man ask, 'What will be my reward?'

  'A parade, a band, a medal, and fame—if that is what you want.'

  'I will wait until they stop to lift him out, then I will shoot.'

  He turned his head. The place he lay in had become a nest. He would wait there. He would only move when there was no chance of failure. The troops lounged behind the two men, and held their rifles casually, but he thought their attention would quicken when the machine-gun was readied to shoot.

  Chelbia said, 'I identify you, Miss North, as an intelligence officer, a lady of importance. Myself, I am only an insignificant businessman, and I make a small living from the trade of import and export. Now I and my friends do something that is a madness, the play of lunatics. I do not look, Miss North, for financial reward, but for cooperation. I look for doors to be opened and for eyes to look away. My colleague, Jerzy Kwasniewski, he is an old man, in the twilight of his years. He has no pension after a lifetime of service. He should have a pension. We are all in the hands of God, also in the hands of Roman, who is an excellent and honest man, and he has the need of a faster boat. Miss North, do we get a fast boat, a pension and cooperation? They are trifling requests. I think it is important, Miss North, as we go to save your agent, that we have your word they will be given us. Your word would be a satisfactory guarantee. Do we have your word?'

  'Whatever you want, Mr Chelbia, you shall have.'

  The young man flexed his hands, wiped his eyes, then arched his back. He dropped down, took the machine-gun's butt and worked it against his shoulder for the final time. He was grinning. The older man, as if his knees had stiffened, came down heavily beside him and lifted up the belt in his hands, his elbows taking his weight. The troops were alert now and little nervous whispers passed among them.

  'You are ready?'

  'When they slow to pick him up…then I am ready. Do I have your friendship, Colonel?'

  'You have my friendship, as Captain Archenko had yours. To betray your friend, Igor, is worse than betraying your country. Shoot and enjoy it.'

  He saw the mouth of the young man pucker, and the hand that meandered close to the trigger guard came up and wiped fast at an eye. The face of the older man was impassive.

  'What should I do?'

  'You must do what you believe is your duty.'

  The hand cocked the weapon, the finger was back on the trigger guard. The breath was drawn in. The eye that had been wiped was now at the sight.

  Locke clutched the launcher and drew up his knees. He launched himself, and life passed before him—not the past, but the future.

  Locke saw hands reach down to catch the collar of the white shirt and the body was lifted up and fell hard into the boat's bottom.

  He ran. The head tilted away from the sight, but the finger stayed on the trigger, and the tracer round streamed out, but high. First, confusion on the face, then irritation, and anger. The older man gaped.

  Locke saw elation crease Rupert Mowbray's face, and he punched the air, then snapped down the radio's switch for transmission.

  He charged. He felt a great calm. Tiredness had gone from his legs. Behind them, behind the tripod and the machine-gun, the troops were rooted, and two big lads by a mortar were statue still.

  Locke saw the cork career from the bottle's neck, thwacking into the ceiling of an office, and the champagne spilled into the glasses held high by Bertie and Peter.

  He rushed them. The sand no longer skidded from under his shoes. He was at peace. The older man turned away and his hands were lifted and covered his face, and the belt was dropped. Officers shouted, troops lifted their rifles.

  Locke saw the palms of the hands beat on the conference-room table as Americans, Canadians, Israelis, French and Germans of the intelligence community applauded the conclusion of the Director General's briefing on Operation Havoc.

  The barrel of the machine-gun waved towards him. It was as he wanted, and all fear was gone. He barely heard the first rifle shots fired at him, and the tracer of the machine-gun spitting wild and wide of him.

  Locke saw them walked hand in hand, among trees, where spring flowers bloomed.

  The barrel of the launcher was aimed at the young man and the tripod and the machine-gun. The first blow, a hammer's, was against his arm. The second, a pickaxe's, was at his hip. He staggered twice, but held the aim. He was a dozen paces from them. He was falling. He looked into the little pit hole of the machine-gun's flash suppressor. He pulled the trigger. The grenade squirmed out, hit the right tripod leg, ricocheted to the side, rolled, and lay. Another blow battered him. He went down. He was on his knees. He stared at the barrel. There was the burst of the cloud of phosphorus, and the blast of the firing of tracer and ball and armour-piercing bullets.

  Locke saw…

  The technician's magazine on the floor beside his chair, discarded. The signal decoded. He pulled the paper from the printer and went to the glass door.

  The annexe off the central communications unit was empty. Two beds not slept in, two chairs not used, a table cleared and the screen empty.

  In the unit, without natural light and with recycled air, the technicians were permitted to dress down. His trainer shoes flopped quietly over the annexe carpet as he circled the table. Where were they? He called back to colleagues that he intended to deliver the signal personally, by hand. He wanted to be the messenger who lightened tired faces, made the smiles crack exhausted mouths. He padded out, and took the lift up. He knocked on the Director General's outer door respectfully. A sharp voice called for him to enter. A young man was hitching his coat on the stand, and an older woman was switching on the computer console. A younger woman was busy at the coffee-machine. Was the Director General in? He was not, he would not be in the building till the afternoon. He walked away.

  Back down the corridor, back down two floors in the lift. Another door.

  Had Peter Giles arrived yet? Another languid and disinterested answer. No, he'd had a late night, but would be back in tomorrow. He was asked, as an afterthought: Something urgent or can it wait? He clung to the single sheet of paper, as though it were his personal property and he alone was charged to deliver it, and closed the door after him.

  The technician descended another floor, traversed another corridor, rapped another door. Had they seen Mr Ponsford? No, he'd left a voicemail
, had stayed late and had now gone home, was not to be disturbed—could someone else help? They could not.

  He left them, at Russia Desk, to their coffee and their computers, and to the gutting of yesterday's Moscow newspapers, to the transcripts of yesterday's radio news broadcasts. Irritation itched at the technician.

  He had been on duty through the night. Through the signals, he had lived their night. He knew them as the Delta team, with their call sign numbers, and they were all down, bloody down, gone, history—and the high and the mighty who knew them and who had sent them had left and not yet returned. He was only a lowly technician, and he lived in a Hackney bedsit. He would try to sleep away the day behind thin curtains that could not suppress the daylight. Try to sleep, but it would come difficult because he had read each of the signals. He had been with them.

  He did not know of a hut above the beach of a Scottish loch, where a man had painted in the shadow of Beinn Odhar Mhor, but he knew Delta 1 was down. Nor did he know of a file marked 'Not To Be Continued With' in a locked cabinet in a south-coast police station but he knew Delta 2 was down. He did not know that early morning winds blew leaves against lines of gravestones at a well-known cemetery, but he knew Delta 3 was down. S-trolleys were hurried down the corridors of a West Midlands hospital, carrying the victims of the morning's first traffic accident and of the first coronary attack, but he knew Delta 4 was down. He had been with them through their last hours.

  The technician came into the atrium. He stood among the storming flow of the Service's staff coming to work. He had thought he was proud to work there. The technician could not believe he would not see one of them—the Director General with his bodyguard, Peter Giles who had the limp from his hip problem, Bertie Ponsford with the pinched face of a hunter—but the sea of movement swam round him and he did not see them. He had read the first line of the signal, and could have punched the air.

  He did not know who Ferret was, what was Ferret's importance, why men's lives had been lost that Ferret should be brought out, or what were the prospects of an alien, in exile. He had been with Ferret during the long dark hours, had run with him, gone into the water with him, and could have cheered out loud at his rescue. Nor did he know that Alice North would leave the Service, would live with Ferret and help him earn a meagre living as a translator of Russian documents after his brief usefulness had been leached from him.

  He saw Clarence. Clarence had his raincoat over his uniform tunic, would be going home after his night shift—Clarence was the eyes and ears of the great and monstrous building. Had Clarence seen the Director General? Had not set eyes on him. Had Clarence seen Mr Giles? Gone home, definitely not come back. Had Clarence seen Mr Ponsford? Not since he left, looking for a taxi.

  The technician did not know about firebreaks. Nor did he know that within two years awards for Other Buggers' Efforts would be discreetly listed in a New Year Honours List, and that Giles and Ponsford would go in the company of their wives to the Palace.

  Clarence winked, then whispered, 'Was it a big show? You know what I mean—an "old times" show. Did it work out?'

  'At a cost.'

  'Well, it's the show that matters, isn't it? I'm glad to hear it worked out.'

  He saw Clarence strut away, like a goal had been scored, like his team had won something, as though at a cost did not matter. The technician took the lift back to the lower basement. He knew who Havoc 1 was. He could put a name—Oh, and Locke has shown up—to the call-sign, but not a face. He did not know of a farm in west Wales where the morning's milking was finishing, or of a body that had floated under a marina's pontoon, or of a dead drop that had failed at a castle in eastern Poland, or of a kiss, or of the moment when a machine-gun had fired and a grenade of white phosphorus had exploded.

  The technician settled at his desk and punched through the numbers for internal mail.

  He did not know of a colonel in casualty with severe arm burns who, on discharge from a military hospital, would resign his commission and go far to the east for a job in a lumber factory, never talking of the cause of his scars—or of a conscript in intensive care because the phosphorus had spattered his face and hands and fire had licked through his uniform, who would go home and would drive his father's taxi in the night on the streets of Volgograd when his disfigurement could not be seen—or of the funeral with full military honours of the admiral who had commanded the Baltic Fleet, at which successive senior officers queued to praise his memory.

  He sent the signal away.

  He did not know of letters, bloodstained, that would be retrieved from a scorched body, holed by a hundred rifle shots, which would be returned after an interval that was decent, along with the bodies. Or know that Rupert Mowbray, under the arc-lights at the border crossing at Braniewo, would say, side of mouth, 'Just like the Glienicker bridge. It's comforting to know that little changes,' and Libby Weedon would nod agreement as Russian soldiers used the dark small hours of the morning to carry forward the five unmarked coffins to the waiting hearses, then hurry away because Mowbray had a plane to catch and a lecture to give in Bologna to the Italian Service that afternoon.

  The technician cleared his desk, briefed his replacement, put on his coat.

  He did not know that after that decent interval the intelligence men of old enemies, new friends, would drink together, chuckle, and forget together.

  The technician left the building for his bus, and his home with the thin curtains and his bed. What he did know—he no longer heard the machine-gun, as he had through the night, but he saw a beach where the sea had not yet wiped away the footprints of men who had run for the water, and the sun caught the bloodstains and nestled on discarded cartridge cases, and the gulls wheeled, and the silence had fallen.

  The technician felt the anger hurt him.

  It had been a big show—but at a cost.