Say A Little Prayer (A James Palatine Novel Book 2)

by Giles O'Bryen

  PRAISE FOR LITTLE SISTER

  ‘Former publisher Giles O’Bryen clearly knows which buttons to press in this his first thriller. The unusual main location – the Western Sahara – is described in all its terrible beauty and political complexity, thus adding depth to a standard twisty tale of duplicitous spooks and greedy crooks. More please.’

  —London Evening Standard

  ‘Featuring spies, black humour and suspense, it’s a novel that is almost impossible to put down... It’s dark, tense, and the politics of the Western Sahara are fascinating.’

  —Pure M magazine

  ALSO BY GILES O’BRYEN

  Little Sister

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Giles O’Bryen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503937123

  ISBN-10: 1503937127

  Cover design by Mark Swan

  To Nell

  Contents

  Start Reading

  Prologue

  James

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Anna

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  James

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  Anna

  42

  43

  James

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  Epilogue

  A Note on the War in Kosovo

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  ‘Because there’s everything and nothing to be said’

  —Craig Raine, ‘The Onion, Memory’

  Prologue

  From: Dr Eleni Asllani [eleni_a@uni-pr.edu]

  Sent: 09 April 2002 21:41

  To: james.palatine@hotmail.com

  Subject: K

  Dear James,

  I have to tell you something terrible. Katarina has been arrested. A man tried to grope her at a bus stop so she struck him and he fell backwards into the street. His head was hit by the wing mirror of a van which was rushing past, and now he is in a coma. They say he is not in immediate danger, but anyway he may still die, or suffer brain damage, which could be worse. She stood at the bus stop until the police came to arrest her.

  When Anna and I arrived at the police station, we were told that Katarina had hit the man with a knuckleduster. That knuckleduster, yes. Anna thought she had thrown it away, or that you had taken it. But no, Katarina has been carrying it round with her all this time.

  Of course, Katarina refused to answer any questions or even give her name. The police thought she was being obstructive, so then we explained what happened to her three years ago and how she has not said a word to anyone since. Poor Anna, she hates having to admit that her own daughter will not speak to her.

  We thought things were getting better, but this is a truly frightening setback. James, we here in Pristina are feeling so sad that we can hardly get through the day.

  Love,

  Eleni

  James

  (Kosovo, January 1999)

  1

  We reached the crest of the hill and a break in the trees gave us an uninterrupted view down the icy, rutted track that led to the farm. TJ gestured for us to take cover and we moved to the periphery of the clearing. Frost-curled leaves crunched beneath our boots, our exhalations boiled briefly in the air. We settled down to wait. If in doubt, wait. It was one of TJ’s maxims. A cow coughed from a shed. A thread of smoke slanted from the chimney of the farmhouse and frayed against the hard blue sky. The stillness had a peculiar quality, as if the village had been temporarily switched off. TJ was always very intent at such moments: displays of caution on his part were not to be taken lightly.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ he said eventually. ‘You sure it’s here?’

  The question was for me, and I’d already checked half a dozen times. This was the spot where the satellite had lost track of the Serbian anti-aircraft unit. Looking at the steep-sided valley and the huge oak trees that overhung the road beyond the village, it was easy to see why.

  The pristine silence was abruptly torn open by a long, high-pitched wail. I flinched, then looked over at Azza for reassurance that it wasn’t just me who’d been unnerved by the sudden cry. My appeal was met only by an expanse of shorn, gingery scalp: he was leaning over to inspect at close quarters a large mole on his calf, which – as he told us several times a day – was almost certainly on the point of turning cancerous. He sensed me watching him and looked up. The wailing sound came scything through the air again, shockingly loud. Pretty much anything could inspire a witticism in Azza, but he was silent. We all knew that what we’d heard was the sound of a woman in mortal distress.

  ‘Fuck it,’ said TJ. ‘In we go.’

  We moved down parallel with the track in relays: two on the move; two covering them; two protecting our flanks. And me staying close to whoever was covering the advancing men and trying not to make the inane mistake they expected of me. In the gaps of silence between the woman’s cries, I found myself in a state of unbearable apprehensiveness, like a man who has glimpsed a tray of instruments he believes will be used to torture him.

  We followed a worn trail that led to the pasture lower down the valley, then crossed a stream and circled round to the rear of the farmstead, peering into the sheds and coops and yards at its fringes. Nobody had done much farming here for a while: there were bales of rotting straw and bits of machinery scattered about like discarded bones. The woman’s keening flayed the air, ever louder, ever more insistent. TJ would report that we were searching for evidence that might help us work out which way the Serbian AA unit had gone, but really we entered the farmhouse because we were compelled to by the siren call of her suffering.

  TJ cupped his hands downwards, then pulled them apart – his sign for a booby trap. It was the custom for Serb militia to ensure that returning to a Kosovar village they had emptied would be a hazardous business, and traps were expected: tripwires set across gates; doors that exploded when you turned the latch; and, I’d heard, plastic mineral water bottles filled with a solution of caustic soda, then sealed to make them look like new. But this place was different: no burnt-out buildings, no belongings abandoned in flight, no stubborn old men shaking with rage and humiliation. TJ pointed to Big Phil and Ollie in turn, beckoned them to join him. T
hey ran along the wall of a ramshackle cowshed and entered the yard by a gate alongside the farmhouse. Azza, Peanut, Zeb and I formed a protective cordon around them. We watched them search for traps, like blind men feeling their way across unfamiliar ground. After a few minutes, TJ waved us forward.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ he repeated. ‘Slime, hide in that.’

  That was me. Green slime – the Regimental term of endearment for officers of the Army Intelligence Corps. TJ was indicating a galvanised rubbish hopper by the entrance to the yard. I declined to climb inside, but crouched behind it obediently enough, only to be startled by a clunk behind me. I slipped in a patch of ice and ended up on hands and knees looking at a bony cow that had stuck its head through the door of its shed. TJ waited pointedly until I was settled, then gestured to Ollie to enter the farmhouse through an open window to the left of the door.

  Ollie was half way through the window when a door banged open on the other side of the house. Suddenly the men around me were on full alert, absolutely still, weapons raised. TJ signalled: stay hidden, do not fire. Two rough-looking men ran out from the corner of the farmhouse, splashed across the stream and started to scramble up through the steep woodland on the far side. They climbed fast, reaching for handholds in the undergrowth, lumps of dislodged earth cascading beneath their feet. A moment later, they reached the top and disappeared.

  We waited. The keening stopped and the woman spoke, a piteous, babbling grief that tumbled around the yard like a wounded bird. TJ nodded at Ollie and gave him the thumbs-up, then followed him through the window. I heard them moving around inside, kicking doors and shouting ‘Clear!’ as they checked each room in turn. After three minutes, Ollie stuck his head round the edge of the bin and told me to come inside. I went, a feeling of dread churning in my stomach.

  I couldn’t help but meet her eyes. She was sitting in a low chair beside a TV set that was flickering and murmuring into the gloom. Her slippered feet stood in a puddle of pink fluid. Her dress had been ripped open and her breasts hung sad and ungainly in a beige-coloured bra. Nor could I prevent my eyes from glancing over the mess below, or snatch them away quickly enough afterwards. The woman had been eviscerated.

  ‘Priest.’

  She was holding up a cellphone in one hand. Amid the reek of slaughter was another smell I couldn’t identify. I retreated to the doorway, gulping at the column of vomit in my throat.

  ‘Priest,’ she said again.

  ‘Not there, for fuck’s sake,’ said TJ. ‘Outside.’

  I wish I could have expelled the horror from my head as easily as I did the food from my stomach. I went back inside. The floor was strewn with broken glass and dozens of small peeled onions. That was the other smell: vinegar.

  Someone had used the dying woman’s blood to daub a cross on the wall opposite the door, along with the legend ЈΕБΕΜΟ УЦК. We fuck KLA.

  ‘Priest,’ the woman moaned. She swallowed and spoke again, louder: ‘Priest. Kill me.’

  She’d dropped the phone while I was vomiting in the yard, and now it lay in the pool of blood below her dangling hand. I was aware of the others moving around behind me. Why was no one tending to her? The ashy shadow of a Road Runner cartoon cavorted across the TV screen beside her head. I avoided looking into the woman’s eyes and answering her plea. She was begging for a priest to help her die in peace. Could I not even manage that?

  I walked quickly to her side and picked up the phone. There was a number on the screen. I pressed call and held it to my ear. I heard the connection, then the familiar droning Morse of a handset demanding to be answered. The woman was nodding. ‘Priest, priest. . .’ she said, over and over again. The priest did not answer. The connection went dead but I could not bring myself to take the phone from my ear and admit that I had failed her. Perhaps she saw the vacillation in my eyes, or heard the hum of the disconnected line, because she started to wail again.

  ‘Priest. Kill me.’

  I placed my hand on her shoulder and held it there – a poor gesture but it was all I could manage.

  ‘She wants us to kill her,’ I said.

  ‘Your call,’ said TJ without turning round.

  Azza was climbing a rickety ladder that led to a hatch in the ceiling.

  ‘Where’s Ollie?’ said TJ.

  He never lost track of his men – especially not Ollie, his second-in-command. The brazen savagery of the scene had disrupted the rhythm of a group of fighting men who were considered elite even within the SAS; now, for a moment, they were just six people trying to cocoon themselves from the contagion of the woman’s suffering, even as she moaned and bled in their midst.

  Azza pushed the hatch-cover aside.

  ‘No no no. . .’

  Her voice found a new pitch, wild and swooping. She was shivering, so hard the chair clattered beneath her. I realised I still had the phone pressed to my ear and put it hurriedly in my pocket. Azza was pushing his head up through the hatch. No soldier of his experience would normally do such a thing, and no leader of TJ’s calibre would normally let him. We were in thrall to circumstance, going through the motions, like men climbing to the gallows.

  ‘No,’ the woman said. She tried to speak again but her voice failed and she could only mouth the words and stare at me, a look of desperate entreaty in her eyes.

  I felt dizzy. I was drowning in the sick-smelling air. A square of sunlight fell on the brick-tiled floor, the shadow of Azza’s body swayed across it. I started up the ladder after him. An automatic rifle blurted out and a body thumped against the joists above my head.

  ‘Stop!’

  TJ, yelling at me. Azza was slumped in the eaves, his upper body shielded by a large wooden crate. One leg was stretched out awkwardly in front of him, illuminated by a lattice of sunlight slanting in between the roof tiles. Another three-bullet burst. Shredded canvas flapping from his shin, a spatter of blood gleaming on the toecap of his boot. His hands reached out to drag the limb to safety and a splinter of light fell across his shorn scalp.

  An unearthly rage consumed me and I drove myself up over the lip of the hatch and into the loft. I saw him then, the gunman, crouched by the end wall, rods of white sunlight sliding over the barrel of his rifle as it arced up towards my stomach. I did not even break stride, but launched myself at the gunman. Bullets slammed into the planked floor. My forearm effortlessly rolled the muzzle aside. My head impacted his solar plexus and the air guffed from his lungs. He crashed to the floor and I had him pinned, disarmed, breathless, his slight body motionless and his heart palpitating in my ear.

  Then I did something I can’t explain. Something I wish I had not done. I seized a handful of his shirt and levered him upright. I swung him round till his head lolled back and exposed his neck, white skin drawn tight over his voice box. I sank down on my haunches, pivoted at the waist and drew my shoulder back, then hurled my fist into that angular, undefended throat. I felt the cartilage crumple. He croaked once, a harsh, mechanical noise. His legs sagged and I let him drop to the floor.

  I turned and saw TJ kneeling beside Azza.

  ‘Medi-pack?’

  ‘Downstairs.’

  ‘Get it. And press something to that ear or your fucking brains’ll fall out.’

  I reached up and found my neck was slick with blood. I stared down at the victim of my assault and saw that he was barely more than a boy. His eyes still showed the shock and loneliness he had felt at the point of death.

  Ollie had come up to help with Azza.

  ‘See what Slime did,’ he said to TJ, nodding at the corpse. ‘Reckon he’s one of us.’

  2

  We manoeuvred Azza back down through the hatchway and out into the yard. The woman had bled out. TJ was all over us, dispensing orders in his flat-vowelled but oddly tuneful West Midlands accent, and the men were grateful to be told what to do. Our position was serious. Azza had a bullet lodged in his shoulder and his breathing was thick and spluttery, which meant he was probably bleeding into his lung.
The wound in his calf was flecked with splinters of bone – the kind of injury that ends in amputation. We were twenty-three kilometres from the border and no chance of an evac – we weren’t even supposed to be in Kosovo.

  Ollie cut Azza’s shirt away and cleaned up the shoulder, while Big Phil worked on his leg. Then they lashed him to a makeshift stretcher, most of which was hidden by his pillar-box of a torso and cruiserweight thighs.

  ‘Good news,’ said Phil. ‘The lead’s taken out that mole you’re so arsed about.’

  Azza smiled. He had enough morphine in his veins to smile without the good news.

  ‘Bad news is, Slime saved your friggin’ life.’

  TJ glanced up from the GPS on which he was plotting our route to the border and saw that I was still holding a handkerchief to my head.

  ‘Peanut, patch him up,’ he said. ‘Phil, Zeb, back up the track and recce. We move out in two minutes.’

  Peanut was a lugubrious, knobbly jointed Scot, the oldest of the six and the one who seemed to derive most enjoyment from taunting me. He picked a gauze from the pile by Azza’s stretcher, then yanked my hand away from my ear.

  ‘Earlobe’s gone,’ he said. ‘Bleeding like my nan’s piles after a night on the ginger wine.’

  He slapped on the gauze and I held it in place while he bound my head in an unnecessarily long swathe of bandage. He meant this as a kind of insult, but I hardly noticed. I was in shock. My mind was flashing up images of the bleeding woman, the exposed throat of the boy I’d killed. Who were they? What happened?

  ‘Out we go,’ said TJ.

  We made our way up the hill to the clearing, then doubled back along a track that followed the ridge where we had seen the two men fleeing the farmhouse. With Azza to bear to safety, we didn’t have time to work our way along stream-beds or weave through the undergrowth as we normally would, and as soon as the track levelled out, TJ ordered us to up the pace.

  After a few hundred yards we came to a path which led up past a copse of birch trees to a gloomy church, improbably grand for its remote locality, with a pair of squat, octagonal towers either side of an arched doorway. A little further on we found a Mitsubishi camper van parked in a lay-by; the track led on to a single-storey building of painted breeze blocks with a pitched roof of tarred felt. The metal window frames had leaked trickles of rust down the walls, and several broken panes had been replaced with squares of warped plywood. The front door was served by a short set of steel steps and a railed platform. A green wheelie bin stood at one corner, surrounded by sodden cardboard boxes and black plastic bags. Leaning against the bin was a child’s bicycle, its chain drooping in the dirt.