Battle Sight Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  He sat among the huge quarried rocks that blocked the main entrance to the La Castellane project, making it impossible for cars to get inside and spill out their passengers. Who might have wanted to? The police . . . rivals from other projects. His damaged left arm was the victim of childhood polio. Karym was the younger brother of Hamid, which mattered in the jungle life of the project. His elder brother treated Karym with contempt, insulted and abused him but looked after him. Not to have had such protection, in a place like La Castellane, and to be crippled by a useless arm and unable to fight back would have been fatal. Not to be able to fight, to wield a knife, was weakness, exploitable: Karym had heard stories of the fights between rats, a pair placed in a high-sided galvanised tub, and sticks used to annoy, then goad them into fighting – to the death. Only one rat could survive the combat in front of a raucous crowd of youths in La Castellane, but in its moment of victory it would be clubbed to death, or have a cross-terrier set on it. Karym was protected because his elder brother had power, and exercised it. Karym had no power, no influence, was an impediment and a burden, and his intelligence was seldom asked for.

  What hung in the air, like smoke from the oil drums where rubbish was burned when there was no wind, was the knowledge that a dire punishment was about to be visited on a wretch who had allowed arrogance or pills or stupidity to mess with an assault rifle. The rifle was part of the armoury owned by Karym’s elder brother. The weapons were not stored in one place, but were kept in various safe houses, watched over by the nourrices, the ‘nannies’, women with no criminal record. A boy who was a braggart, pumped up with the sensation of carrying a loaded Kalashnikov taken from his mother’s store, had walked through the project, firing off shots. Hamid had retrieved the rifle. The ‘nanny’ had led away her son . . . there would be retribution and the imposition of discipline. It was what happened, it was normal. The mother would already have tried to open channels to Karym’s brother, perhaps through a schoolmaster, or with an imam, or any figure who had age and status.

  With a population of nearly 7000, La Castellane was the work of a celebrated community architect. Once, half a century before, it had been a source of pride, admiration; now, it was known for unemployment, drugs, prostitution, arms trafficking, anything to do with the black economy. Turf wars were fought with the intensity the rats would have used. Newspapers in the Marseille area described it as a ‘supermarket’ for all things criminal. Three networks controlled the various trades: the ‘place de Merou’, the ‘Tour K’, and ‘La Jougardelle’, but below those feral power bases were individuals who had obtained franchises and paid tithes for the privilege of operating . . . It was the same in all the projects, and one of those, operating out of a stairwell, was under the power of Hamid, brother of Karym. His world was one of gaunt towers peppered with narrow windows and disfigured by satellite dishes, narrow walkways and dense heaps of concrete buildings that strangers would find impossible to navigate. There, his power base, Hamid could turn over some 50,000 euros each day and customers would come from across the region, and some would buy small for their own consumption, and some would buy big and then sell on in German cities, or to the Dutch market, or take the arrangement across the Channel and market it to the British.

  Karym, his antennae twitching, watched, waited, as the tension built. Growing in strength, the wind funnelled between the buildings and chivvied rubbish into corners, and the sunlight made stark shadows from the few trees surviving in the open spaces, and the washing flapped on its lines and seemed to cry.

  The boy who had taken the Kalashnikov and who had ambled around in the project had not been seen. But his mother had been noticed as she flitted between those whom she believed might influence what would happen to her son. Where was he? Hiding in his room, perhaps smoking as if that were a release from the fear, and unable to flee because there was no world for him outside the project. His family was in La Castellane, every person he knew was there. He could not pitch up in Saint-Barthélemy, or La Paternelle or La Bricarde, and knock on a door and ask for refuge. Could not go to a gendarmerie down the road and towards the airport or up by the big school and request food and lodging and protection and offer to name names and . . . The boy would have to hope that his mother came up with something, and would be sitting on his bed and looking from a high window and might see the sea, and the blue between the white caps of the waves, and might see the cleanness of the sky, and might think everything was beyond his reach.

  On earphones, Karym listened to music. It was still early in the day. Night was the time that the customers came, parked in the main road, left vehicles with the engines ticking over and hurried through the checks and were directed to the rabbatteurs and be sold the goods and hand over the money. The police were not there often. The chances of infiltration were slim – this was an area skilled in the recognition of the ‘pigs’. There were informers, occasionally, who had taken the police money – never much – and who lived short and dangerous days. Recently, the police had dressed up two of their men in full-length Arab clothing and had sent them into La Castellane to arrest a ravitailleur, a supplier, and their suspect had run, and the crowd had gathered and the police had legged it, scampered for their lives, their robes billowing behind them. The music Karym listened to was from across the sea, from Tunisia where his father lived: never seen, did not write or telephone, never sent money. The music beat in his head. He was one of many who watched the entrance to the project. Later, when darkness came, he would be busy, alert. He had a grievance with the boy who had taken the Kalashnikov rifle stored by his mother. A sharp grievance.

  He had never fired one. Had never peered with his right eye down the barrel, locking on the V and the needle, with the setting at Battle Sight Zero. Had never slid his finger inside the guard and wrapped it on the trigger and squeezed until there was the clap of the explosion and the thud of the recoil in his shoulder. Had never done it. Hamid said that his weak arm would not be strong enough to hold and aim and fire . . . But he was an expert on the weapon. Of the one hundred million that were believed to have been manufactured, Karym could name the principal factories where the Russians had produced them and all the other copies had been made: Russia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, old East Germany, Finland, Serbia . . . knew them all, those and many others. Knew the calibre of the ammunition and the weight of grain that propelled the bullets. Knew the weapon’s effective range. Knew the art of stripping one, and reassembling it, could do it blindfolded. But had never fired one in practice or in anger . . . It was a grievance and it festered . . . He could tell the Chinese one from the Egyptian one, and both from the Iraqi one. Knew everything, except how it felt when the impact careered into the shoulder joint. The kid, an idiot, knew more of the Kalashnikov, the AK-47, than Karym did and had fired it – and would face a terrible retribution for taking it from his mother’s safekeeping. There was little forgiveness in the project, clemency came rarely to La Castellane, and the boy was a walking dead. Karym heard his music and absorbed the atmosphere around him. His brother had gone to Marseille to meet a man: had not shared the details. He had never seen rats fight but imagined it to be dramatic, but had seen a walking dead, had watched, and knew the smell of it.

  The wind blew more fiercely, but could not remove the atmosphere of spectacle and anticipation, and a clock ticked.

  He was in his bedsit with a grip bag on the bed, and a plastic sack.

  Andy cleared drawers.

  Most of his clothes went into the sack, and a few – what he’d need for a week – were laid more carefully in the grip. Shoes, trousers and overalls, underwear and socks, sweaters and his second anorak, and his sponge bag, and the little bedside clock with the built-in alarm went in to the plastic bag because he would have no need of them down in the south of France. He was meticulous. Each cupboard and drawer was checked, double-checked, and he’d been down on his hands and knees to look under the bed. When he chose to, he could close the door after him and hear the loc
k in the catch and go down into the hallway and know that nothing of Andy Knight was left behind for a stranger to find . . . They’d come looking, too right. Would look, maybe in a fortnight or a month, and curse and swear and damn him, would find nothing. He’d see her tomorrow, after the car had been tuned up, would talk with her and get the schedule: where they were going and when.

  Rather basic, how it had started, him and her. Manchester, out to the east of the city centre. He was there.

  Three boys. They would have seen a young woman, heading for the Deansgate area where the bright lights were and the big shops and the crowds. Head held high, and no scarf and no robe covering the jeans and the anorak that the guys she’s been meeting had wanted her to wear. They’d have expected her to take a bus, but there must have been trouble on the route that night: a coincidence. No bus, so she had walked, and three boys had spotted her. She would have had a handbag held close to her body as protection against a mugger, and she would have had her rucksack strap across a shoulder and she might have been hurrying and nervous or might have been sauntering and digesting what had come from her meeting . . . Could have seen the three boys, or not. The road went past a couple of old warehouses, converted in to smart office space but most of the employees would have shut down their screens and gone to the bars in town.

  Andy ambling along, a lorry driver, doing deliveries for a company providing materials from a wholesaler to building sites . . . Did not have to be specified what he was doing in that side street, where he had been, where he was going, not a necessary part of the story. But he was there, and saw it unfold.

  One in front of her, one alongside and one behind her, hands reaching out for her. She was jostled first, then pushed, and someone would have grabbed the strap of the rucksack and another would have gone for the handle of her bag, and she would have stumbled. Pretty classic mugging technique, and that part of the city had high marks for street crime. A little squeal, then a shout that was strangled down in her throat, as the boy wrestling with the rucksack hit her. Something between a slap and a punch, catching her across the mouth and cutting off the squeal. No one to hear her except for Andy, who happened to be around a hundred yards away up a side street. She went down, but was spirited. A bit less naivete and she would have let go of her rucksack, and with plenty less obduracy, she’d have given up her bag. What was in the bag? Student stuff, some cosmetics, and a purse which would have been near empty because she hadn’t been to the bank for weekend spending money. She was clinging to her rucksack and had the bag in front of her and went down on to the dirt and the weeds of the pavement. A boot went in hard, into her ribs, and most of its force was probably deflected by an arm; one of them had bent down and hit her in the face and might have worn a ring because she was cut below the nose and above her top lip. Not much blood but enough to make a mess. Andy was running.

  Andy – way back, before he was Andy Knight and before he was Norm Clarke, before Phil Williams, before the intervention of the rabbit – had been a recruit at the Commando Training Centre, down on the south Devon coast and close to the wide mud-flats of the Exe estuary. He knew, long time ago but lessons not forgotten, about intervention. Move in fast, achieve surprise, use maximum and sudden force. All three were bent over her and she was fighting with true bottle, real guts, to protect her possessions, seemed keener on defending them than herself, and their frustration grew, and their violence increased. He was close when he heard the wheeze as air was sucked from her lungs after a knee had been forced down on her chest and he thought her kicking and writhing were losing strength. He reached her: as if the cavalry had turned up, and not much time to play with. He had chucked himself at them. Three against one. Fists, knees, a choice head-butt, and the guys would not have known what had intervened, who had joined the fight, and the surprise was total. No quarter asked, they’d not the wit, and none given because his response was murderous. One rolled away on his side and was facing a wall, and his hands were across his privates and he’d cried like a pony that had hurt a fetlock, and another was stunned and might be concussed and had given up on the struggle. One had her bag, had wrested it off her. She kicked the stunned one, didn’t connect with the back of his head but not for want of trying. The handbag was gone, and the guy limped off down the pavement. He’d gone after that guy, had jumped on his back and pressured him down, and there might have been a little cry, ‘Easy, mate, easy’ or ‘Steady down, mate, that enough, that’s . . .’ He didn’t hear it if there was. He had the guy by his hair, then banged his face down, hard enough to split his forehead, maybe loosen some teeth. The guy took off, abandoned the bag.

  Andy had carried the bag back. The clasp was still fastened.

  She was crying, not self-pitying, but from shock. A couple of cars went by and it was that part of the city where a wise driver would not have stopped to be a Good Samaritan but would instead have checked that his lock button was depressed. She was shivering. Andy held her tight. He knelt beside her and cradled her upper body and head against his chest, might have murmured something comforting.

  The one who perhaps had concussion spat clear a tooth, coughed out, ‘Fuck you, mate’ and went on his way. The one who was against the wall still cried, and still held himself but scrabbled with his fingers against the wall and was able to stand, and looked at Andy – pure malevolence – and shambled away and was sick as he walked, half doubled up, and shouted back, ‘See if I don’t fucking get you, see if I don’t.’ He bent to lift her, was prepared to take her weight. She might then have realised that a man, a stranger, had an arm around her waist, and that her head was close to his chin. She’d have felt the warmth of his body. He picked up the tooth, eased a handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it, put it in her hand and said something quiet about a ‘souvenir’. He told her she had done well, that the guys – all three of them – were in worse health than her. She clung to him, went weepy, and might have realised that she was now safe, that he’d not allow anything else to come close, frighten her, or hurt her.

  That was how it had been, how they had met.

  They had gone for a coffee. He’d been at the counter and she’d been in the toilets, and had come back, looking almost normal. The battering had been washed off with warm water, but there were dirt stains on her jeans and anorak, and there would be a worsening graze across her nose by the morning, and big discoloration above and below her left eye and the cuts would take a while to heal. He had reached out, across the table, and she’d taken his hand and held it. She had told him a little of herself and where she was lodging, had clung to his hand and he had found it difficult to halt her trembling, and he was her saviour. A week later, he had gone to her Hall of Residence and a porter had called up to her room, and he had handed over a cheap but decent bunch of flowers, and it was likely that no one had ever done that for her before . . . All a few months back.

  Chapter 4

  He left an envelope on the bedside table. On the mattress were the sheets and duvet, all neatly folded. In the envelope was a month’s rent, and an unsigned note of thanks. He’d be long gone when a phone call was made to the landlord announcing that the room could now be treated as vacant. It was the way Andy Knight, who he was that day, operated. No more checks to be done, and dawn was coming up, and he closed the door quietly behind him. There had been sex in the night on the floor above, discreet and quiet. Later, he’d heard footsteps on the stairs, and no doubt the guy who had that room had seen her to the street door, and she might have had to walk to look for a taxi rank.

  Zed had never been in his room. Celibacy, of a sort, went with his job. He could have a girlfriend who was not under investigation, quite separated from the targets, and could do something with her, but it was frowned on and would load him with complications . . . and no queries about what was possible for a guy who was inside the small élite group of Level One Undercovers. Level One was the pick of the bunch and was hedged around with regulation. To have brought Zed here, turned the light low, mayb
e lit a candle, and started with kissing and slipping the buttons, was just about the most heinous crime he might commit . . . The professional standards body stipulated – no ‘perhaps’ and no ‘maybe’ – that it was never acceptable to bed anyone who was targeted. An unequivocal statement, a ban. The journey now was for the two of them: hotels, maybe narrow beds and a warm belly against his flat stomach. He went down the stairs carrying the grip and the plastic sack, and closed the front door quietly, and would have disturbed nobody. He had been through Foundation level, had passed those hurdles as Phil Williams, had been moved on to Advanced stage and had survived as Norm Clarke. He was one of the best, and psychologists queued up to meet him, evaluate him. Analysis said that he was the model product, what they all should strive to be. He was thought to have the personality that inspired trust, seemed incapable of deceit, and had in the past infiltrated a group working to sabotage medical experiments involving animals, had seemed a genuine and committed activist. Had also become integral to a gang bringing in Class A through the ferry port of Plymouth and then flogging the stuff along the M4 motorway corridor, and had been trusted. The ones who found him ‘genuine’ were still banged up with plenty time to serve, and the ones who had ‘trusted’ him would not walk freely before their kids were adults. Done, dusted, and behind him.

  He went to his car. He drove a VW Polo. The registration said it was eight years old, had about a hundred thousand on the clock, and he’d bought it at auction for close to £3000, and the boys in the depot might fix him some better tyres, do retreads for him. He could not be seen to splash money, and the Polo would get to Marseille and he wouldn’t be on a French autoroute hard shoulder with fumes seeping out.