Battle Sight Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  They used layers of bubble-wrap plastic sheeting. In many places the weapon, and the magazines which were of the same vintage, had been dropped and chipped, were scraped with coarse scars, almost obliterating the stamped serial number of which only a part was visible – 16751 – but the men would do as they had been told because the alternative was unwelcome. They were dependent on the patronage of a warlord. Because the warlord smiled on them, they could put food on the table where the wives and children fed. If the warlord had thought his instructions were ignored then they might well be shot, and their wives would either starve or perhaps go to prostitution down by the docks. They wrapped it well. Last to slip from their sight was the battered wooden stock. That it had lasted so long, their estimate was 60 years, was extraordinary, and there were notches cut in a line, and one deep groove where grime and rot had set in and weakened it. Around the bubble-wrap went adhesive tape, metres of it. In English, because they had been told that their native Arabic was not accepted, the younger and better educated of them wrote a single word: ‘Tooth’. He knew that a tooth was in the jaw, was used to chew with, but why the package containing a vintage weapon such as the AK-47 should have that written on it he had no idea.

  Outside, two pick-ups waited. Neither of the men had actually fired the rifle. It had to be assumed that it would function satisfactorily. Its value might well have been as low as $50. A newer weapon, and the warehouse was heavy with them, might sell in Europe for $350, maybe as much as $500. This one was Russian, almost an original off the production line, almost a piece for a museum – except that in the circumstances of Libya that day there were no functioning museums, and everything of value that had been lodged in them during the times of the fallen dictator, Gadaffi, the dead tyrant, had been stolen. The worst weapons, imitations, were the Chinese copies, but they could be provided in better condition than this old specimen. They did not argue or debate, were thankful to have food on their plates each evening.

  The two men, happy with their work, drove the pick-ups down to the dockside area. Going the length of Tripoli Street they navigated the heaps of rubble from destroyed buildings, and the rusting tank carcases, and burned-out cars, and went faster along the stretches where bullet-pocked walls seemed about to topple. An old freighter was tied up, but pungent smoke surged from a stubbed funnel. In the pick-ups were antiquities, also well wrapped, which had come from museums or been chipped from sites farther north. They were loaded by trolley. Last on board was the package containing the weapon, just the one, old and with a history. The Roman and Greek artefacts would stay on deck during the voyage to the west, but the rifle was taken below and stowed under the captain’s bunk. It would be gone in an hour.

  Neither of the men had an idea of why they had been ordered to choose a worthless relic from the store, nor where it would go, nor why it had importance.

  ‘I suppose this means it’s just about kicking off,’ Gough said.

  Pegs answered him, ‘Usually plays around a bit, nothing much happening, then starts being serious.’

  ‘All seemed rather routine.’

  ‘I doubt you believed that – but certainly beginning to stampede.’

  He took a last look at the boy’s face. Not pretty. A pathologist would have said to within an hour or two how long little Tommy the Tout had been in the water, but the deterioration was always fast. The eyes had no life and the lips no colour and the arms seemed awkward and barely attached. The main weight of the corpse was in a bed of drooping reeds at the side of the canal. They’d walked past it, Pegs leading and him following and not passing any comment that could have been overheard. The identification came through the North West Counter Terrorist people at their Manchester office, and he’d have been flagged up because of missing two scheduled meetings. Neither Gough nor Pegs would have wanted it broadcast off the rooftops that this guy. Tommy the Tout, was important enough to have brought big players up from London. The operation was at an indeterminate stage, budget not fixed, aims not cemented in, targets vague, and both the visitors thought the least put about was best. It was good of them to have left him in the water for this length of time, and there were crime scene tapes blocking off most of the towpath to the position on the canal, outside of Manchester, now used only by narrow boats and tourists. He nodded, a tiny gesture but one of the detectives picked it up, and it gave permission for them to fish him out.

  Gough said, ‘You get into a comfort zone. You think you know what you’re at, and what’s the prospect for the next day and the next week. Start to relax. You don’t really know who you’re dealing with and what the stakes are, and where it’s taking you. Never been any different, but still gives you a jolt.’

  ‘Quite a big jolt, Gough, and one that sends a message.’

  ‘I think I am aware of that, the staying safe bit.’

  ‘This is just a fucking horrible place, Gough.’

  Which it was. Farther down from where the people in the frogmen gear were going into the water, was an island of snagged plastic bin bags, and around them were supermarket trolleys. He thought it would have taken some expert navigation from the canal cruiser people to have come through the blockages. Gough had only met little Tommy the Tout the once, no names and no introductions, and in the hour before he’d watched through a one-way mirror as the kid was given his marching orders by the Counter Terrorist detectives. Eager, anxious to please, not what Gough liked to see. He had felt little confidence but had not the clout to get the kid pulled back. They were seldom straightforward . . .

  Investigations tended to have various masters, and most times he just hoped they’d not snag each other like crossed over fishing lines – not that there would be much in this polluted waterway for anglers. A heron flew past, languid and ignoring them and moving away from them with a silent wing beat.

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  She answered him, ‘I reckon we get the fuck out, and the word is it’s all narcotics and vendettas.’

  He’d leave that to her . . . It might have been wind in the branches above the towpath, and it might have been a glob of water that fell from a dead leaf and landed on his shoulder. Gough was an old stager, had been around too long in the company of sudden death. He flicked irritably at his coat. One good memory, when he had been raw and on the steep learning curve, and the threat was from the Irish and not these home-grown jihadis. His first attachment to the Branch in Belfast, and there had been an ‘own goal’ call out for a bit of old oak woodland near to Dungannon in the Tyrone rolling country. The device had exploded as the courier carried it from the hide among the trees, down a path and towards his vehicle on the Armagh road. Something had landed on Gough’s shoulder and he had flicked at it, and seen it fall to the ground and it still showed a bright pinkish colour. A piece of gristle, or might have been ligament. He’d looked up. Caught among the branches were small body parts. A couple of the local Branch boys had watched him, looked for a reaction to prove that a newcomer from ‘over the water’ was soft. He’d ignored it, the bit of meat that landed on him, had given them no satisfaction: it was a long time, a big part of Gough’s life, that he had been checking out premature killings. He had not been ‘soft’ then, but years had rolled, and now he cared more about the people who worked for him, not those they tracked. He was an old warrior, and roughened by the times, and had seen pretty much everything and had all the T-shirts folded away in a wardrobe drawer, had been everywhere that the kids regarded as a battlefield. But he cared more now about his own, owed it to them.

  She had no authority. Pegs was a bottle-washer in his office. She had no rank, but instead of status had a personality that was difficult to deny. She was lecturing. ‘As you know, offered himself up, but we rated him as a fantasist. Not on our payroll. Best to let it be known, if anything needs shoving into the local news-sheet, he was caught up in a little bit of turf war between druggie groups. Why are we here if he was of no value to us – just happened to be in the area, other business . . . what I’
ve given you would be a good line to follow. Nice to have met you boys.’

  He thought she’d bought time. Did not need much of it, more than a week, less than a fortnight, and the pace had picked up. They had come up fast, leaving London before dawn, and some of the way they’d had a bike out in front of them and clearing the way. She’d drive back, and slower. They settled in their seats.

  Gough said, ‘A death makes it a serious business. He was lucky to have died before they did the heavy work on him. I think we’d have had the alarms by now if he’d known anything, if he talked. I’d put it down to him pushing too fast, gone careless. We’re not just talking about pissing off for a weekend and leaving the tomatoes in the greenhouse with no water. If they’ll kill then they’re close enough to kicking off . . . What do they want, Pegs, want most?’

  She’d left the canal behind her. ‘Same as what they always want – what makes a big noise, big shout, a big bang. What else?’

  October 1956

  Upper windows were open and milk bottles cascaded down from them.

  They smashed on the upper armour of a tank and on the cobbles of the street. The bottles held no milk but had been filled with clear liquid – petrol fuel – and in the bottles’ necks were stuffed rags, already lit. The conscript, holding his rifle across his chest, and petrified, was 30 or 40 metres behind the tank, but his sergeant – leading them – was close. The fuel made spears of orange fire as it scattered with the flying glass shards, and came too fast for a man to avoid. The sergeant was engulfed. The conscript watched, rooted. The NCO, hated by the conscript and many others of this platoon, screamed in pain. None of the young soldiers hurried forward to help him. They would have seen his face and the agony of it, and he would have sucked air down into his lungs and drawn the flames into his throat, deep into his chest tissue, and skin from his face would soon start to peel, and his uniform caught and made him a torch before his legs gave under him. Soon, the spasms became rarer, and in moments the body was still. Another man was on fire in the hatch of the tank and then he was ejected from the turret, chucked out because he blocked the escape of the crew, the gunner and the driver.

  An officer, pistol drawn, tried to rally them. They had been told the day before, by women in the crowds, that the bottles filled with petrol and with a lit fuse were known among the Budapest people as ‘Molotov Cocktails’, named after their own foreign minister in Moscow. The conscript did not understand: yesterday they had fought against the townspeople of a friendly Socialist ally, who should have garlanded them with flowers; instead they had tried to kill them, and brutally. Much that he did not understand: a week before they had set out by train from their barracks in eastern Ukraine and then the commissars had lectured them that there had been an act of aggression from the Fascists of the North Atlantic Treaty nations, and that they would be coming to the help of comrades and friends. He had not yet fired his rifle, the weapon that had the thin chip in the stock, and that carried as its last five digits the serial number of 16751. Nothing had prepared the conscript for the reality of combat. They had formed up at the far end of a long street, and advanced behind three tanks, and had been told that their target was the headquarters of the ‘criminal gangs’ who had taken refuge close to a cinema. The street had become narrower and the first tank had been disabled, and there was firing from side streets . . . The first tank had most likely suffered engine failure, the second was attacked by a swarming mass of men. The crowd that clambered up on the superstructure had then tipped gasoline through every opening or vent, they could locate. Even against the noise of explosions and the revving of the engine, the conscript could hear the screams of these condemned men. They had practised infantry manoeuvre in support of armour and had been praised for their dedication, and had imagined themselves a formidable army, and had known nothing. It was a harsh lesson confronting them, and they were far from home.

  Near to the conscript, a soldier broke ranks and started to run, and was shot by his officer. No warning, no cry for him to stop and retake his place. A raised and aimed pistol, a single shot, and a figure going down and then prone. The conscript had known this boy since their basic training. Had messed together, survived the sergeant together, and joked and drank and been punished together, and the boy was dead, shot by their own officer. A roar of voices broke from a side street on the right of the main boulevard . . . Not élite enemy troops from America or Great Britain, and not from the Nazis in Germany, but men and women in casual clothes, and some were too old to run fast, and the women had their skirts hitched high on their thighs so they could sprint quicker. Their faces were contorted with hatred. They carried firearms, more bottles, and some had butchers’ knives, and they came and screamed for blood.

  The conscript wavered. To go back he would have to step over or jump across the body of his friend. Going forward, he’d be under the smoke pall from the burning tank. Already the mob was climbing over them. To stay still would be to put himself in the way of the crowd surging towards him. He would go back.

  The pistol was aimed at him.

  He fired.

  It was 248 days since that weapon had moved down a production line, had fallen from the belt and suffered a chipped stock, had been stamped with a serial number, had been shipped out. It had fired 7.62 × 39 grain bullets on target ranges and on exercise, but never been aimed at a man to maim or kill. There would have been a moment when the officer’s face flared with astonishment as he realised the intention of the conscript a few metres in front of him. The rifle was at the shoulder of the young man, tight against his shoulder and collar-bone. The sights were set for close range, best for street fighting at 100 metres, the instructor had said, and had called the setting Battle Sight Zero. Beyond the V and the needle was the dun-coloured mass of the officer’s tunic, and the pistol aim wobbled then settled, and it was beaten to the punch. The conscript had fired first, and the officer’s look of astonishment changed to one of bewilderment, and the body slid as if hit across the upper chest with a pickaxe handle. Bright in the sunlight of that autumn morning, the cartridge case was ejected and it flew in a little arc and then bounced, and rolled among the cobbles. The rifle, the newest version of the AK-47, dropped from the conscript’s limp fingers and fell on to the street. The gesture of the conscript who had shot dead his own officer was not recognised by the crowd descending on him. He was to be shot, and stabbed and beaten with clubs and his body would be stripped bare of every item of possible value, and when the army retreated in poor order his body would be left in full view. The rifle, of course, was scooped up, a prize of value.

  A small issue. When the rifle landed on the cobble-stones, the stock’s weight came down on to the hardened rim of the ejected cartridge case. No rhyme, no reason, just chance. The impact, close to where the splinter had detached, dug out a slight chip in the wooden stock: it might have looked like a gouged tick where the rifle’s owner had marked the first kill that the weapon had achieved. A youth had it now.

  The youth was an apprentice in a tractor-building factory on the northern outskirts of the Hungarian capital. He fired half a dozen shots at the retreating military, was pleased with himself for taking the necessary moment to go though the trooper’s backpack. He’d found three more filled magazines, which he pocketed. He felt glowing pride.

  Farther back along the street, near to the Corvin cinema, the youth, with his new trophy of war and a swagger in his step, came across a furious shoving and heaving knot of men and women, and was drawn to it. Intelligent? Perhaps not. Understandable? Definitely. Some in the crowd had old Sten guns, and others had target rifles, and a few more were equipped with shotguns suitable for killing vermin on the farms ringing Buda-Pest. Because he carried a new weapon of war, the youth was pushed to the front. When the crowd closed around him, behind him, the youth saw hard up against a wall the cowering figure of a man who wore the uniform of the AVH, the security police. The man cringed. The man expected no mercy. The mob ruled. The man uttered no words
as if he had realised that to speak was pointless, wasted breath. The youth knew the basics of weapons; everyone who had been to Pioneer camps as a teenager had seen rifles stripped down and reassembled and had been told of the need for vigilance in defence of a Socialist society. The youth was edged forward by the press of the crowd. He could see a notch cut on the stock of the rifle, as if a killing had already been claimed. He shot the security policeman. The crowd around him cheered, and the man was looted before the last shake of his body and the last cough of his breath.

  He was photographed. Holding a small Leica camera was a bearded middle-aged man, and on his jacket was a ‘Press’ sticker and an accreditation for one of the prestigious New York magazines. The youth was not intelligent and struck a pose; behind him, propped against the wall, was the body of the security policeman, violated. And the photographer slipped away. The youth walked proudly towards the cinema, the makeshift command point, anxious to show what he had acquired, and borrowed a pocket knife and made another gouge in the stock, a second tick. And he was confident and held his enemy’s weapon as a symbol of his power, and thought himself invincible.

  Zeinab toyed with the research needed for an essay, took notes, was far away, and barely noticed the quiet of the library. She had no friends there, none of the other girls slipped alongside her for a quick conversation, or to share a problem.

  She was involved at a depth where the sun no longer shone but did not regard herself as ensnared. The two boys had been cousins. Not close cousins, but the blood link had existed. She was a teenager, sixteen years old, and thought herself too tall, too long-legged and awkward, and pained with shyness when she had first met them. They had come with their family from Batley, had moved into Savile Town across the Calder river, and she had been hurrying back from school, lugging her bag full of books, and the car had pulled up alongside her. That was the first time . . . They must have known who she was, or come looking for her, and they had laughed and joked with her, had put her at ease: it had seemed a liberty with the disciplines of life that she had lingered on a pavement and talked with two boys. They had driven away. That was the first time . . . The blood link for her family and theirs came from the Pakistan city of Quetta.