Plain clothes police were there, and peeping from behind a stone wall in the dawn gloom was a bright lens catching what light was there. The cemetery area, beyond the precincts of the crematorium, emptied.
A favour was asked of a detective constable, huddled in her overcoat, dying for the first fag of the day. The request was from behind her. She turned.
A single scarlet rose was given her, the petals close and tight. She was asked to take it and place it, and the question was on her tongue: who was he? She saw the gravedigger with his long-handled tool put the first load of earth back into the cavity, and swung on her heel, but he was already walking away and his stride had a purpose, an authority, and she thought his bearing made him one of their own. She did not call out after him, nor did he look back. She shrugged, then went forward.
At the grave, eyed by the workman, she placed the single bloom on the grass surround to the grave, and she wondered how it was that a jihadi gunrunner, dangerous and committed and shot dead, should be remembered in such a tender way by a man she thought could be a police officer.
February 2019
A technician said, ‘I’ve never seen one as old as this, surprised it’s not going to a museum. Look at it, Pierre, see the age of it. More than sixty years old, and still in working order – what a goddam history it would have to tell. How do I know that? The history? Look at the stock, those marks. I think it had many owners . . . but just a machine and due to be disposed of – and no tears wept . . . but if the story could have been told then its place in a museum case would be assured. Load it up.’
The machine was new, purchased from the United States, and the system was novel in the annexe to the Ballistics and Armoury division of the Marseille police. In the past it would have been done with an acetylene flame cutter, and before that the task of immobilising a firearm would have been consigned to Claude, a giant with muscles to match his bulk, and he would batter the body of a pistol or rifle to bent pulp with a sledgehammer. But the machine had been purchased and should be used. They put on their protective clothing and faceguards.
‘What I just noticed, it’s last run out was in close quarter fighting, short range. Look at the setting, that’s Battle Sight Zero . . . It’s an icon, know what I mean?’
There was a procedure almost as formal as that employed when the executioner came with his apparatus to the Baumettes gaol. A photograph was taken of the AK-47, and another of the serial number. The pulveriser was started up. It ground the remnants of its previous job between the blades, and spat them into a bin, and the cutting edges turned. It was to be treated with care and respect.
The machine’s teeth snapped on it. The noise was a rasping wail. It had never ceased to astonish the technician and his assistant that a weapon in the process of being torn apart, its life expiring, always seemed to cry out as if in defiance, a last protest. And the pieces that had been manufactured many years before, and had been on many journeys, dropped as scrap into the bin. The parts would be photographed and what was left of the serial number – 260 16751 – for a bureaucratic record. No lingering, and more to follow and its lethal power destroyed.
And a year later . . . it was scheduled as an important meeting, but few in the building knew of it. Coffee and biscuits would be available. The room had been electronically swept before the small group, half a dozen men and women, had gathered there. The base used by that unit was inside the police station dealing with the district of Kirkby, out on the east side of the city of Liverpool. It had a busy car park because it shared with the fire brigade, and ambulance teams often parked up there; a quality location for a covert meeting and visitors came and went and the parking lot was secluded and hidden from the main road.
There was high anticipation.
The team were customers. They had needed to make a case, prove that their need was greater than other teams throughout the country. What the customers looked to achieve did not come cheap, was sought after, and they’d had to show a potential result that would affect the material good of the population at large if the prize was awarded to them. They had never met him. In fact knew little of him, except his name . . .
Their guest was a few minutes late, which annoyed.
They were all senior people and unused to being kept hanging around, expected subordinates to be punctual. All were key personnel in a team that had come together to target a local godfather whose empire prospered from coke, smack, hash and ’phets, and the efforts of east European girls who performed for fierce shifts. To infiltrate such an organisation was regarded as next to impossible for any officer with a background in the city and an accent to match, and offering a legend of childhood in Liverpool. The principals operated from inside a mosaic of links within extended blood and marriage lines. Efforts to recruit from the family, working off the periphery, had bounced back from an inevitable brick wall, a thick one topped with razor wire, even those who were compromised and faced long gaol terms. Truth was, the inner members of the clan exerted more fear and provided greater rewards than the team did, or could. So, they had gone with a begging bowl to London and been hosted by a woman called Prunella, who had given them scant respect, but had – a couple of months back – indicated a possible option.
Not for them to like or dislike.
Not for them to regard the guy as suitable or unsuitable.
And, not in their bailiwick, to suggest how proximity, and trust, from the target family, might be gained.
They did not know where he had been before, what his speciality was – knew fuck all, as the senior man, eyeing his watch, had said four times. But it was agreed there was a pattern with that style of work, and coming off a plot: say ‘never again’, say it was ‘quit time’, walk out and not get a medal, nor a gold clock, nor much in the way of thanks, and head off for ‘nowhere’, somewhere remote and over the horizon, where the big stresses were supposedly absent – and die of boredom, fail to adapt, and come back. What they all did – silly beggars. Safe to assume he’d be no novice. Safe also to assume that he knew of the inherent violence as practised by a typical crime syndicate, made into an art form by this crowd. Nor did they have a file on his previous deployments, successes or failures, nor had they been shown any of the psychologists’ reports.
A knock on the door. Conversations died.
An assistant to the boss stood in the open door, pulled a face, let slip a little grin, then stepped aside.
The man was in overalls, with nearly fresh paint stains on them, and patches at the knees where he might have knelt in engine oil. His hair was reasonably neat, short but not clipped. He had shaved, but the day before. His work boots were scuffed. His eyes were clear, decisive, and did not spare any of them . . . It was as if tables were turned and roles reversed, and he checked them to see if they suited him. He had a quiet voice and they needed to strain to hear him. He started with an apology which none of them believed genuine.
‘Hello, sorry to be late, traffic was a nightmare, and then parking here was difficult for what I’m driving . . .’
Several of them, a reflex and because they were supposed to react, were at the window and raising the blinds and would have seen a small delivery lorry, what a self-employed builder – ‘no job too small’ – might have used. A good-looking guy, and with a straightforwardness about him, and an apparent honesty.
‘. . . Not that names are important to any of us. Good to be with you . . . for what it’s worth, I’m Sam Peters – I think that’s who I am. Anyway, learning to be Sam Peters.’
He was smiling. It took them a moment to respond, then all of them were laughing, but hollow, and wondering – puzzled – if there was an ignorance about him, and an innocence, as if he might not have appreciated the risk of going against a crime baron and his tribe. Or perhaps not, perhaps just lived a lie and did it well.
Discover more thrillers from ‘Britain’s finest thriller writer’ (Telegraph)
Buy now
Buy now
Buy now
/>
Table of Contents
About the Author
Also by Gerald Seymour
Title Page
Imprint Page
Dedication
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Discover more Thrillers
Battle Sight Zero Page 49
