Battle Sight Zero

by Gerald Seymour

  They had gathered the next morning, taken their places. Little to see, but had heard that the bodies of the fallen were to be shipped back to Tripoli, the Libyan capital. They watched the TV and felt glowing pride in the sacrifice of the martyrs. The pictures now came from Libya, where dense crowds filled streets and squares. The hurdles on which the bodies lay, decorated by the host country’s flag, or the Palestinian one, were carried above the heads of the teeming mourners. The cameras were high up in buildings and looked down on to the fervour of the masses. They saw devotion, saw the worship that was accorded only to the bravest. At moments, when the camera zoomed on to a particular hurdle and showed the shallow shape of a fighter hidden by a flag, they would dive outside the building and fire off shots into the air. They would drown out the commentary of the Lebanese broadcaster with their own slogans and yells to denounce the Zionist state, the deceit of the Germans, the treachery of the United States. Their voices would rise to a hoarse frenzy, then they’d return indoors and swelter again in the heat that burned the hillsides round the camp. The transmission closed. All in the room were converts to the message of war and sacrifice. They started to disperse, and one and all would have sworn they would perform in training with more enthusiasm than ever before.

  A man waited outside, seemed not to notice the heat. He picked out the boy with the old weapon, beckoned him.

  He was asked, curtly, if he were prepared to volunteer for special duties. Immaterial whether he could have refused. He had stammered acceptance. The man who had waited wore old and dirt-stained clothing, fatigues, and his eyes seemed keen but tired and he squinted as if the sunlight of years’ exposure on the hillsides had damaged them. No surplus weight ringed his stomach. What was most noticeable about him was the scar that ran from his ear almost to the side of his mouth, bisecting his cheek; the wound had been inexpertly sealed and ran like a ploughed furrow. The boy would have recognised him as a fighting man, and his assessment was well placed. An experienced fighting man . . . Did the boy, when he came for ‘special duties’, wish for a new weapon, a replacement, one recently off a production line?

  The boy grasped his rifle. His knuckles whitened. He held it tightly, proudly. The boy assumed that good words of him had been said or he would not have been approached. A hand reached towards him. The boy loosened his grip. The rifle was examined and a slow smile spread on the older man’s face. He looked for its identification. He spoke the last of the numbers, 16751, then laughed, deep and growling from his throat.

  Did he know when this weapon was manufactured? The boy did not. He was told. The factory was at the industrial complex of Izhevsk which was in central USSR, a friend of the Palestinian people, and the manufacture was in the year of 1956, and there were more modern versions of the same, better built, milled and not pressed steel, but the boy was adamant. A shrug, a little sadness in the eyes of the older man, but the boy would not have noticed that, nor considered the consequences of ‘special duties’, and where he would be taken, and what task given him.

  He held the weapon proudly and his shoulder was cuffed, and he was told what time in the morning transport would collect him and that he – and his rifle – would be gone from the camp a long time, many months, and he would not be home soon to see his mother . . . The pride bloomed in him, and he was pleased that he had not given up his rifle, which was a part of him, treasured.

  Sleeping, dreaming, crystal-sharp recall and unable to wake.

  ‘My nose can see a copper, and hear a copper, and smell a copper. My nose can.’

  That was Bazzer who had now taken over from the father and son. Bazzer had thick lenses held in tortoiseshell frames, and one of the side arms was held in place with Elastoplast. His eyesight was grimly impaired but they all accepted that his suspicions were as good as any dog’s. When they dealt in skunk, any of the hashish family, he could tell the quality of what was on offer. Also credited to him was an ability to identify chancers and tossers, liars and frauds. They would not have moved against Norm Clarke if Bazzer had not called it.

  ‘I’m saying he’s a copper: what my nose tells me.’

  He was on the floor. They had dragged him off the chair, pushed it away, and he was down on the plastic sheeting. They had torn off his clothes, had done some slapping and used their toes to nudge him, and questions had been thrown, and they’d tried to catch him on the detail of his legend – what school, how long there, what class, what name his best mate had – where he had lived then, what his dad did, what his mum did . . . Norm Clarke had gone through the background as worked out with his Control who operated out of the headquarters of Avon and Somerset police. Why had he never been picked up, done time? That would have been the killer, where he had been – what landing, what cell block. Easiest thing they could check out. He was the newest member of the group who was not a blood relative or a marriage relative, had come to them off the street and worked, insinuated, wormed and wriggled his way towards a position of trust. High-risk stuff. He thought they were not sure. Bollock naked, supposed to further humiliate, weaken him. Had had to speed up the process of acceptance, and might have pushed too hard. Always there, always ready, nothing too much trouble. Had to be like that, but was the sure route to the mistake . . . always was going to be a mistake. Could not place it . . . They had a chain-saw revving up, and he’d also heard the whine that a power drill made, the sort that DIY people used when screwing up home improvements, and the plastic was cold under his buttocks, and control of his bowels and bladder was difficult.

  ‘I’m saying he is. Take it or leave it, my reckoning. What I’m telling you, what my nose sees, he’s a cop.’

  The instructors always said that the copper-bottom guarantee was that backup was in position, ready to go. Through twenty-four hours and through seven days a week, the backup was armed, alert, had the fix on his location, would get the call, would come. But he was stark naked and had no wire to record the threats and denunciations, and no wristwatch that could do a code-alarm if the button for the hands was shifted to a certain degree and then . . . didn’t matter, didn’t have it. The time they were looking at, scratching for evidence of guilt, was a stop he had done on the run back from Plymouth, on the M5 motorway, services near to Taunton, a chat with his Control, a half-hour break, and he had not made the call to say that he was good, had the shipment, was making decent time. They had done their mathematics, and had reckoned he’d be through the Bridgwater junction at a particular time, but he had not checked in. They’d have put a vehicle and a spotter on the bridge and would have looked and waited for him to sail through, middle lane, and not going fast, and would have checked out that he had no tail, and likely would have done the same procedure at the Chippenham exit for the M4 motorway. He had in the bag a consignment worth, street prices, a million and a quarter. His mistake was not to realise the extent of the precautions and therefore the importance of the schedule. Norm Clarke, country and western music loud on the speakers, had come through both checks around a half-hour after he was expected . . . enough to set off the juices of the miserable little bastard who was half-blind, Bazzer.

  ‘I’m saying he is. Get to work on him, he’ll tell you.’

  Bound at the ankles and at the wrists, but no blindfold and no gag. They had trouble keeping the chain-saw engine going. Started it up, and it should have ticked over, given up a sound as menacing as any in the limited experience of Norm Clarke, but it had coughed each time and then died, and one guy was heaving, grunting, and yanking the cord. The drill was steady enough, no trouble with the power, and the whine getting shriller. No one would stand his corner. None of them would sing his praises . . . the boys supposed to be – ‘copper-bottomed’ and a guarantee – alert and ready to go, and firearms loaded, were likely in the canteen and queuing for more tea, more cake, more overtime, and were in ignorance. How well would he last? Not difficult. If the goddamn chain-saw came close to his groin, if they brought the drill near to his eyes, either, then it was curtains. Bega
n to see it different – only a few kilos of good-grade hashish, and when one shipment was lifted and one gang taken off the street then the importation chain would be disrupted for a week and fresh faces would be on the plot: the customers would hardly know that there had been an interruption in supply. He was thinking about the sanctity of his testicles and the integrity of his eyesight, and starting to weigh an equation, and his buttocks moved on the plastic and crunched it and the noise of the drill pounded in his ears.

  ‘He’s a cop. I’m telling you. Ask him who he met on the route, where he stopped. Ask him . . . I’m Bazzer, I’m never wrong.’

  The sounds rang in his ears, and the shouts buffeted him. The chain-saw was up and running, coughing and then going sweet . . . and, with the power drill, was being carried closer . . . Remembered the guy who had been Phil Williams. Bad times then but not as bad as now. He was yelling, screaming, and no one would have heard him in the back annexe of the club. Shouted and hoped, and Bazzer’s voice was the drumbeat in his head. Always because of a mistake. The hood was off his head, like they wanted him to see the saw and the drill.

  A cacophony in his mind, but not enough to wake him.

  ‘That shite . . .’ Pegs looked away from her screen, glowered towards the door.

  Gough grimaced. ‘Enough of them, which?’

  ‘Three zero eight, which else? Banker for top of the league in the “shite” stakes.’ In Room 308, down the corridor, was the officer – senior rank – who controlled them. He would have thought himself careful, and unkind towards cowboys, and always eager that matters stayed on ‘an even keel’. Rarely dished out praise but had a goading, wounding touch in his fingers when on a keyboard. Room 308’s occupant was seldom seen, kept himself behind a closed door, dealt in electronic communication. It was not considered sporting to criticise his lack of personal appearance as a third of his face had been removed by a flying length of four-inch builder’s nail enclosed in an Improvised Explosive Device detonated in County Tyrone: the operation to patch up the damage had been cursory and the end result not pretty.

  ‘And suggesting what?’

  ‘Suggesting, beauty and value of hindsight, that we have lost little Miss Zeinab, do not have identities and addresses for her boys, that our own asset is out of touch with her, that we have a considered but unproven assessment of what they are looking for in the south of France, and we are under-resourced . . . Our fault, implied, that we did not stand and shout, stamp our fucking feet and demand more. Throw toys out of the pram, scream for another sack of dosh. Should have upgraded the fuss.’

  Still not dawn. The heating not yet on. He was at his desk, still wrapped in his winter anorak; she was at her place and cocooned in her overcoat. Nothing eaten, the coffee machine doing only black because she had not bought milk on the way.

  Gough said, ‘We are a minor investigation, probably down below a figure of one hundred in terms of priority. Lucky to have the boy, Andy or whatever he calls himself, amazing that we were able to lay hands on him. Had I gone in with a request for a three-shift surveillance of her, of her boys, probably fifty in all, that number of bodies on the ground, I’d have been laughed out. A ludicrous suggestion.’

  ‘And there’s a sting.’

  ‘Is he already in?’

  ‘Was in ten minutes before us, or stayed the night. The sting in the tail – the one that is impossible to bloody answer. Should you, Gough, have argued for pulling them in?’

  ‘I have nothing to go to court with.’

  Pegs said, ‘It’s a cheap blow, a low one, it’s a kick in the privates, but Three Zero Eight has that talent. Only a query. Would we have been better off if they were lifted, maybe a ‘‘conspiracy’’ charge cobbled together? The usual – some lies and some innuendo, and some nods and some winks. We have our backs to the wall.’

  Gough’s teeth ground together, always did that when stress scratched him. What to say? It was fouled up. The surveillance had been inadequate. The computers would be scrambling to get a match for the registration recognition. Any arrest swoop would have been laughed out of the magistrate’s court, if it had reached that far down the line . . . It was what he lived with, the stress of the work and the shortage of trained men and women, and the skill of the damn adversary, and it was never-ending and would last another decade as a minimum, and his ID would have been long shredded before any tide bloody turned. The ray of light in his life, often thought but never spoken of, was that Pegs – hard, brutal, pragmatic and moderately attractive – shared the workload with him.

  ‘We could not have pulled them in.’

  ‘And it is not a time for a blame game . . .’ She was hitting the keys. Pegs was the only woman Gough knew who typed with two fingers, fast and with the delicacy of stamped feet. She was responding to Three Zero Eight, and her message would be signed off as Three One Nine. ‘And the attendant shortages of support are what we endure every day, week, month . . . which is so boring. We remain confident of the quality of our boy in the field – are not yet ready to run up a white flag . . .’

  She grinned at him. The neon on the ceiling caught the mischief. She might have typed that, might just have been teasing him, was capable of typing it into the reply.

  ‘. . . we hope for better than the apprehension of a few foot soldiers, look for strategists and controllers and leaders, and remain hopeful. France tomorrow, contact already established and cooperation guaranteed, or the day after at the latest. Gough . . . How does that seem?’

  Where was she? The girl who appeared so innocent, who believed she had entrapped a boy with whom she could play marionette games, an experienced Undercover, a Level One. Had lost her. Pegs said something about going for milk, and hit her send key. Bad to lose a key player.

  The train pulled away from Luton.

  Passengers crushed, body to body, against her. Still dark outside. Around Zeinab were phone calls, ring tones and messages from the self-important as to what they wanted done in the office before they arrived. And eating, even a bulging burger, oozing stuff out, and others on sandwiches and some on flaky croissants. Sound in her ears and spilled food on her shoulder, and the warmth of the bodies pressed hard on her hips or her backside. She went to war. She caught the eye of a young man, perhaps her age. Seemed to have a new suit and a new shirt and a new tie that was not secured at the collar and his laptop bag was wedged against her stomach, and he smiled at her, apologetic because it must have seemed obvious that she was unfamiliar with the daily grind into central London. A nice smile, but she did not return it, but stared hard and through him, and saw darkness and street-lights flit past the window. And debated.

  The weakest link, or the strongest, in the chain?

  She had said he was the strongest. Pictured him. The grin, that seemed impossible to hide or suppress, the laughter that cracked open his mouth, the arms that were strong and muscled and that she sometimes wrapped round her waist, and the hands that were often dirtied from engine oil and calloused and that she allowed to rest on her cheeks, squeeze them, and the tongue that groped hesitantly into her mouth, and the eyes that stared into hers and were strong, uncomplicated, and did not blink. The strongest in the chain, of course. She imagined how it would be for him, coming off the ferry and slotting into the designated lane and approaching the customs check, and he would be in ignorance and would have no fear and would smile at the world around him, and would have an arm around her shoulder, and she’d have put her head under his chin. And she felt now, on the rolling rocking train with the body smells seeping at her, so alone.

  The strongest link in the chain, and she had chosen him. Her tongue smeared over her lips. Some of the women around her were pale, with scrubbed cheeks and clean eyelids and had not yet bothered to apply cosmetics, and some were already painted and scented. She wore no makeup, not even a slick of lipstick. She remembered the taste of his mouth . . . She took her phone from her bag. Pay As You Go. Untraceable calls, Krait said. Did not register location nor recipient
of a call, Scorpion said. She had to wriggle to manoeuvre the laptop away from her arms, and the young man smiled at her again. It would have been a train like this, same time of day, on which the boys had come with their rucksacks, and she wondered if they had stayed as a group, exchanged words, or were already walking dead.