RED FOX

by Gerald Seymour

  'What about her?'

  'She was killed in a car crash, late last night.'

  'Where was she?' Puzzlement rang through Carboni's preoccupation with the procedures of the coming hours.

  'Out on what's called the Raccordo.'

  'It is many kilometres from where she lives.'

  'She was driving home, she was alone.' Carpenter spewing it out.

  'No one with her, no friends with her . . . ? '

  'So, if we get the man out, that is what we have to confront him with.' A light, chilled laugh from Vellosi. 'Incredible, Carboni, when a man's cup is overfilled '

  ' It is criminal that at this time a woman should be alone.' A distaste hung in Carboni's words.

  ' I suppose no one thought about it,' said Carpenter dully.

  At the junction to the lake road they saw the stationary rows of lorries and vans parked on the grass verge. They passed queues of walking men in uniform, the headlights glinted on the metal of firearms, and there were glimpses of cordons forming in the fields.

  The car winged on down the steep hillside before turning hard to the right along a weeded driveway with a military barrier and a concentration of elderly brick buildings awaiting them. Carpenter tried to loose the load of self-pity and stared about him as the car stopped.

  The doors snapped open, Carboni was out quickly, and mopped himself and turned to Carpenter. 'It used to be a flying-boat station, long before the war, with its lake frontage. It is a place now just for dumping the conscripts. They maintain a museum, but nothing flies. But we are close to the wood here and we have communications.' He took Carpenter's arm. 'Stay near to me, now is the time for you to wish me well.'

  They were swept through the ill lit door of the administration block, Carpenter elbowing to keep contact with the bustling Carboni, and on into a briefing room. Hands out to greet Carboni, hugging and rubbed cheeks, a clutch of bodies around him, and Carpenter relegated to a chair at the back while the policeman found sufficient yet reluctant silence to make a short address on his plan. Another surge of the men in suits and uniforms and battledress, and Carboni, the emperor of the moment, was speeding for the doorway. They won't stop for you, Archie.

  They won't hang about for that bloody Englishman. Carpenter shoved and pushed, winced as a Beretta holster dug at his stomach and won his way to Carboni's side. In the wedge at the door Carboni smiled at him, looking up, perspiring.

  ' I have made a great decision. The anti-terrorist unit demanded the right to lead, so did the carabinieri. Both thought they were best fitted. I have satisfied everybody. The carabinieri will come from the north, Vellosi's men from the south. I am an Italian Solomon. I have sliced Battestini in two.'

  Carpenter stared coldly at him.

  'Allow me one levity, I have nothing else to laugh at. At any moment Battestini may kill your man, he may already have done so. We are going forward in the dark, we are going to stumble in the dark through the wood.'

  'You're not waiting for daylight?'

  To wait is to take too great a risk. If you pray, Carpenter, now is the moment.'

  They were out of the building.

  Muffled, subdued orders. Men in the grey half light hitching over their heads the heavy, protective clothing that would halt all rounds other than high velocity. The cocking and arming of weapons. Ripples of laughter. Tramping feet away into the last remnants of the night. Should have a bloody stirrup cup, Archie, and a red coat, and a man to shout Tally Ho'.

  The group with Carboni at its heart set off towards the road, and walking beside him was a short, firm-bodied man who wore torn trousers and boots and a thick sweater and carried an old shotgun broken and crooked, farmer's style, across his inner elbow.

  From the hard bare mattress of her cell bed, Franca Tantardini heard the soft-soled footsteps in the outside corridor. A bolt was drawn back, a key inserted and turned, and the man who had been her interrogator let himself in.

  He smiled at the woman as she lay with her head propped on her clasped hands, with the golden hair spilling on the one pillow.

  ' I have some news for you, Franca. Something that you would wish to know.'

  Her eyes lit at first, then dulled, as if her interest betrayed her before the discipline triumphed.

  ' I should not be telling you, Franca, but I thought that you would wish to hear of our success.'

  Involuntarily she half rose on the bed, her hands forsaking her neck, propping her up now.

  'We know where he is. Your little fox, Franca. We know where he hides, in what wood, close to which village. They are surrounding the place now. At first light they will move in on your little fox.'

  The light from the single bulb behind its casing of close-mesh wire bit down at the age lines of her face. The muscles at her mouth flickered.

  'He'll kill the pig first.'

  The interrogator laughed softly. 'If he has the courage, when the guns are around him.'

  'He'll kill him.'

  'Because Franca told him to. Because Franca from the safety of her cell ordered it. His pants will be wetted, his hand shaking, guns round him, aimed on him, and he is dead if he does what his Franca has told him.'

  'He will do as he was ordered.'

  'You are certain you can make a soldier from a bed-wetter, that was what you called him, Franca.'

  'Get out.' She spat her hatred.

  The interrogator smiled again. 'Let the dream be of the failure, Franca. Good night, and when you are alone think of the boy, and think of how you have destroyed him . . . '

  She reached down beside her bed for the canvas shoes, snatched at one and hurled it at the man in the open doorway. Wide and high, and bouncing back from the wall. He chuckled to her and grinned.

  She heard the key in place, the bolt thrust across.

  The noise of Giancarlo twisting from his side to his back was the agent that roused Geoffrey Harrison from sleep. As soon as he woke the bite of the wire at his wrists and ankles was sharp. The first, instinctive stretch of his limbs tautened the flex, dug the knots into the underflesh of his wrists and ankles. A man who awakens in hell, who has purchased a great vengeance. Nothing but the bloody pain, first sensation, first thought, first recollection.

  God, the morning that I die.

  The mental process that became a physical happening, and his body cowed to a foetal position of fear. No protection, nothing to hide behind, nothing to squirm to. The morning that I die. He felt the tremble and the shudder take him, and the awareness was overwhelming. God, the morning that I die.

  The first precious beginnings of the day were seeping into the wood. Not the sunlight, but its outriders in the grey pastel that permitted him to detect the lines of the nearest tree-trunks. This morning, with the birds singing, at nine o'clock. Another shape, suffused and vague and hard to alert himself to, as Giancarlo rose and stood above him and looked down. Giancarlo, called by Harrison's movements and inspecting the fatted goose of the feast.

  'What time is it, Giancarlo?' He could hear the watch ticking on his wrist, could not see it

  'A little past four . . . '

  The little bastard had learned the role of gaoler, thought Harrison, had taken on the courtesy of the death cell attendant.

  The hushed tone, and 'Don't you worry, lad, it doesn't hurt and it's quick'. The warm eyes of sympathy. Well, that never helped a poor lad who was going to swing at nine. What do you know about that, Geoffrey? I read it. That was other people, Geoffrey, and half the fucking population saying 'And a damn good thing too'. That's for a criminal. 'No sympathy' and 'Deserves all he's getting'. That's for men who've shot policemen and raped kids.

  That's not for bloody Geoffrey Harrison.

  'Did you sleep?'

  'Only a little.' Giancarlo spoke simply. ' It was very cold on the ground.'

  ' I slept very well. I didn't dream.'

  Giancarlo peered down at him, the definition of his face growing with the slow coming light.

  T h a t is good.'


  'Are you going to get some food?' He could have kicked himself when he'd said it, could have spat on himself.

  ' I am not going for any f o o d . . . not n o w . . . later, later I will eat.'

  Cheaper to feed one. More economic to sustain the single person family. Silly man, Geoffrey. Should have your calculator there, the one beside the desk in the office, the one you use for all the arithmetic of ICH, then you'd know the boy would be only shopping for one, and how many lire he would save that way. Only for one, because there will only be one mouth. Not on the bloody bread list, Geoffrey, because you'll be past food, past caring about the ache in your guts.

  Geoffrey Harrison's voice rose in crescendo, down the paths of the wood, high with the branches, fluttered the thrushes and blackbirds.

  'Don't hurt me, Giancarlo. Please, please, don't hurt me ..

  He was answered far back, from the shadows among the trees, distant and beyond sight, by the rampage of a dog's bark.

  And in the wake of the bark was the drumming of running feet and the crash of branches swept aside.

  An avalanche, circling and nearing.

  Giancarlo had crouched, bent double, at the sound of the dog.

  At the noise of the approach of men he surged towards Harrison, pulled him to the limit of the wire and flung himself into the gap between his prisoner and the earth roof where the roots had taken the ground high out of the pit. He panted for breath, wriggled to get lower, held the gun at the lower hairs of Harrison's head.

  ' If you shout now you are dead.'

  The gun squirming against his neck, Harrison played his part, the one he was familiar with. 'Run, you little fool. Run now.'

  He could sense the boy's shock of terror imparted through their clothes, body to body, flesh warmth, through the quivering and pulsing of the blood veins. He didn't know why he called, only that this is what he would have done. This was his way.

  Avoid contact, avoid impact, stall the moment, the lifestyle of Geoffrey Harrison.

  'If you go now you have a chance.'

  He felt the boy drive deeper into the pit, and then the voice, small and reeded.

  ' I need you, 'Arrison.'

  'Now, you have to go now.' Father and mother, didn't the little bugger understand? Time for running, time for ducking, time for weaving.

  ' If I go now, they will kill me.'

  What was he supposed to do? Feel sorry for the little pig?

  Wipe his bottom for him, clean his pants out?

  'We stay together, 'Arrison. That is what Franca would have done.'

  The man and the boy, ears up, lying in the shallow hole and listening.

  Around them, unseen, among the trees an army advanced, clumsy and intimidating in its approach, breaking aside the wood that impeded its progress. Closing on them, sealing them, the net tightening. Fractured and splintered branches in front and behind them, stamped leaves and curses of discomfort to right and left. And the baying of dogs.

  Harrison turned his body from his side, a ponderous movement, then twisted his neck further until he could see the face of the boy. 'It is too late, Giancarlo.' He spoke with a kind of wonderment, astonished because the table was turned and the fear exchanged. 'You had to go when I said.'

  'Shut up,' the boy spat back at him, but there was a shiver in his voice. And then more slowly as if the control were won with great effort, 'That is not our way.'

  Carboni with his pistol drawn, Vellosi trailing in one hand a submachine-gun, Carpenter keeping with them, all were running in their own fashion down the narrow path, spurred on by the shouts of the advance, and the roars, fierce and aggressive, full and deep-throated, of the police attack dogs. They sprinted on the shadowed surface, buried in the surrealism of the dawn mist that ebbed between the tree towers.

  Carpenter saw the shape of the polizia vice brigadiere materialize from the foliage at the pathside, rising to block Carboni and Vellosi. The stampede stopped, men crouched about them and struggled to control the heaving of their lungs that they might be quieter. The trees were infested, the undergrowth alive. Static from the portable radios, whispered voices, distorted replies. A council of war. Grown and elderly men on their knees, huddled to hear, the weapons in their hands.

  'Carpenter, come close,' Carboni called, his voice blanket-shrouded. 'The dogs heard voices and barked. They are about a hundred metres from us. We are all around them but I do not wish to move further till there is light. We wait here for the sun.'

  'Battestini, will he pack it in, will he give himself up ?'

  The big sad eyes rolled at Carpenter, the shoulders heaved their gesture. 'We have to try. If the spell of Tantardini is still on h i m . . . '

  Left unsaid because Carpenter mouthed his obscenity and understood.

  'But he can kill him now, while we are here.'

  'We wait for the sun.' Carboni turned away, resumed the hush of conference.

  This was where it all ended. In a damp wood with mud on your shoes and dirt on the knees of your trousers. Right, Archie.

  Where the family picnickers might have been, or boys with tents, or a kid with his condom and his girl. Only the method and the style to be decided. To be determined only whether it was champagne or a mahogany box. You're within rock-throwing distance of him, Archie. You could stand up and shout and he'd hear you. A few seconds running, you're that close. God, the bastard can't shoot him now. Not now, not after all this. Not after Violet.

  The dawn came steadily, imperceptibly, winnowing behind the trees and across the leaves, cloaking the men who peered forward and fingered the mechanisms of their firearms. Drawn-out, lethargic, mocking their impatience, the light filtered into the wood.

  CHAPTER T W E N T Y

  Horizontal and thrusting with its brilliance, the dart of a lance, the first sunray pierced the wall of trees. The shaft picked at the ground in front of the fallen trunk, faded in the eddy of the branches, then returned. The sharpness held sway over the grey shadowed light.

  It was the moment of ultimate decision for Giancarlo Battes-

  tini. Move now or be damned and finished, vulnerable to the sniper's aim, naked to the gas and nausea cartridges, open to the bone-splintering bullets of the marksmen. His hands furtive, he reached for the flex at Geoffrey Harrison's ankles, swore at the skill of his own knot, and with difficulty loosened it. By the collar of the shirt he pulled his prisoner close to him and back down into the pit, so that the wire tied to the wrists and the roots would have more play. That was easier to unfasten, the work of a few seconds.

  'What are we doing, Giancarlo?'

  A grim, set smile. 'We go on another journey, 'Arrison,'

  'Where are we going?'

  Busy with his work, scraping together the strands of wire, Giancarlo muttered, 'You will know.'

  The boy bound together the length of wire that he had used on Harrison's legs to the piece now trailing from his wrists.

  'Kneel upright.'

  Harrison stretched himself to the extent of the pit, wriggled and turned his ankles to restore the circulation and slowly raised his head above the rim. He lifted his shoulders, tautened his spine, and grimaced at the stiffness carried by his trapped night's sleep.

  Giancarlo looped the wire around the front of his chest, then snuggled it behind his own back, drew it beneath his armpits and then again to Harrison's wrists. Pressed hard against his man, the boy entwined the knot that closed them together, linked them as one. With a hand he pulled Harrison's shirt from the waist of his trousers and the metal pistol barrel was formidable against the skin in the small of Harrison's back. The front gun-sight carved a scratch line in the flesh as Giancarlo armed the weapon.

  ' It is a light trigger, 'Arrison. When we start you should not talk, you should not slip. My finger will barely have to move, you understand?'

  Harrison nodded, the questions stifled in his throat, choked on his tongue. No more compulsion to ask questions. Just a new horror, and what use explanation ? Just a new abys
s, and he was plunging.

  'We stand up, and carefully.'

  They straightened as one, the vibrations mingled, and Giancarlo pressed his head against Harrison's collar-bone.

  But your legs don't work, Geoffrey, been tied too long. You'll slip, you'll bloody s t u m b l e . . . and then the bloody trigger goes.

  How far does the finger move, how far . .. quarter of an inch, eighth of an inch ? Concentrate, you bloody fool. One leg forward, put it down slowly, ease the weight on to it, stop, put the other foot forward, test the balance, stop again, put the next foot f o r w a r d . . .

  Harrison looked around him, blinked in the air, drank in its freshness, felt the erosion of Giancarlo's stale breath. It was a certain sort of freedom, a certain sort of release. Breathing something other than the odour of the earth. Nothing moved at the front, but there would be an army there, concealed, close and waiting. The voice bellowed behind his ear.

  'Is Carboni there?'

  Ahead of them was the path that they had walked down the previous morning, long ago, separated by infinite time. The route that Giancarlo had used to get his food and to drift away down when he went to the telephone in the darkness, and it was the way the child had come.

  The stream of the sun caught the three men square as thev came forward on the path. They wore their badges of nationality, their flags for recognition. A short, rolling man at the front, balding, sallow. One behind him who held a submachine-gun diagonally across his waist, hair combed, the trace of a clipped moustache at his upper lip, his tie sombre and silk. The last was a stranger, clothes of a different cut, hair of a different trim, rounded shoulders and a pallor denied the Mediterranean. Two Italians and an Englishman. Harrison felt the weakness at his knees, the shake at his thighs and shins that was irresistible. The bastards had come. Long enough about it.

  Harrison and Giancarlo were fused as one, responsive to each other's tremors, pliant to each other's movements. Three men facing them.

  ' I am Carboni.*

  The words echoed in the trees, bounced from the moss-coated trunks.