‘Yes, he rings me every couple of hours. At least I can tell him that Geordie is still alive, though captive. I need to know when he gets a ransom demand.’
‘Will he give them what they want?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel slowly. ‘He might. I think he might. He really wants Geordie back and he may not care what he has to do, or how far he has to go. The whole campaign was one long nightmare, and Geordie is all he has to remember it by with any pleasure. I’m meeting a mate of a mate tonight. Another engineer. He might be able to explain Alasdair’s service to me, what he’s likely to know. He was with him in Helmand Province.’
‘A pesthole?’ I guessed.
‘And that’s throwing roses at it,’ agreed Daniel. ‘It’s easier for me. I’m an Israeli: I defend Israel from her enemies, which encompass her just like in biblical days. It can all get questionable and political, but that’s the basis of being an Israeli soldier. Self-defence. I’m in front, and behind me are the people. It’s my duty to defend them, even with my life, because Jewry must survive. Clear?’
‘Crystal,’ I agreed.
‘But we – that is to say, the Western Alliance, of which Israel is possibly a member – got into Afghanistan, a war that no one since Alexander the Great has ever won, a war that cannot be won, and we are in the same position as the Russians, who thought they could beat up a bunch of ragged tribesmen and got horribly beaten up themselves. Bad guys, bad guys, and slightly less bad guys. Add to that a lot of Western capitalists screwing everyone over, and it gets murky. Like Vietnam. The fight is not against soldiers in uniform, but against the people, and every road might hide an IED, and the people you gave medical care to this morning will cheer when you are blown up this afternoon.’
‘Horrible,’ I commented.
‘Never get involved in wars in the Middle East unless you are already there,’ Daniel said. ‘Some more salad?’
‘Thank you.’ I crunched a leaf. ‘Where are you meeting this mate of a mate?’
‘His name’s Russell,’ said Daniel, ‘and I thought I’d take him up to the roof garden.’
‘Good idea,’ I approved. ‘I’ll sit quietly in the Temple of Ceres and listen.’
‘And you’ll hear everything I miss,’ he said, and kissed me at last.
CHAPTER FOUR
Said dog I stay and hear
And none shall know my fear
While lord and lady sleep whom I hold dear
DAVID GREAGG, ‘CAT AND DOG’
A couple of hours later I took another shower, re-donned my blue butterflies, and watched Daniel sleep. He lay flat on his back, spread-eagled. Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. He breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling. I noticed with a certain vicious pleasure that the mark of my very own teeth were outlined in purple on his columnar throat. That mark said, as unequivocally as a cat’s foot on a stolen piece of smoked salmon, Mine. Though, of course, once it has been under a paw, there is usually not any serious attempt made to repossess the smoked salmon. I was getting foolish with staring at Daniel, so I picked up my novel. I was rereading Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer’s War. Engrossing. And utterly brutal.
Daniel was still sleeping. I picked up another book which had been defying me to read it. It looked more than a little bit weird, but hey: who knew? It was called The Spear of Destiny, and it purported to tell the tale of Longinus’s spear, which had pierced the side of Jesus on the cross and was some sort of holy relic for everybody who was anybody. Including Hitler. I had delayed reading it on two grounds. The first was that I didn’t want to think about crucifixion. But the fact that poor Alasdair had endured something very like that at the hands of the merciless Pathans was quietly digging at me. Come on, Corinna! I told myself. If Alasdair can have it done to him, you can at least read about it.
My other reason for avoiding the book was my aversion to the Führer. Surely the world had dragged over the inglorious career of Adolf Hitler sufficiently by now. On the History Channel, I knew, they spoke of little else. But as I got into the book I found myself enthralled, despite the excessive mysticism of the author, who was obviously a True Believer in psychic powers. I wasn’t, but I could suspend disbelief. Who knew that a fair whack of Hitler’s entire career had been devoted to finding the spear of Longinus? I speed-read to the end, and realised with a small shock that, assuming the spear in Vienna was the real thing, Hitler had achieved his quest.
I dragged myself out of my cogitations in time to ascend to the roof garden. I would cache myself in the Temple of Ceres and Daniel would bring his engineer to sit in the jasmine bower. Thus I could hear, and the engineer would not be constrained by a female listener.
In due course, the lift doors opened to disgorge Daniel, a tallish, muscular man, an esky and a middle-sized dog. Daniel settled his visitor – the aforementioned Russell, presumably – with a beer in hand. The dog looked up at Russell. ‘Yair, all right, Bill – go for a walk,’ said the man to his companion. The dog, possibly a blue heeler/greyhound cross, pottered off into the undergrowth. I knew where Horatio was, but hoped that Trudi was not still up here gardening. Lucifer would leap on that poor dog’s face and ride him like a bronco. But I heard no squeaks of feline excitement, which might be interpreted as ‘Ride ’em, cowboy!’, nor any shrieks of displeasure. Good. No cats. And, as a bonus, this dog looked perfectly capable of eating Mrs Pemberthy’s rotten little doggie, Traddles, should he be infesting the garden. Though that would not do Bill’s digestion any favours.
‘You wanted to ask me about Scottie,’ said Russell warily.
‘Geordie has been kidnapped,’ said Daniel, coming straight to the point.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Russell.
‘My thoughts precisely.’
Russell put a hand on his arm. ‘No, look, mate – this is serious. Chris said you’d been a soldier?’
Daniel nodded. ‘Israel Defense Forces.’
‘Right. Then you’ll know. What it does to you, I mean.’
‘I know,’ said Daniel.
‘Afghanistan’s a running fight against enemies you can’t see because, given the right situation, they’re everyone.’ Russell paused to take a sip of beer, then resumed. ‘And we’re fighting and dying and getting blown up, and for what? Fuck all. You know Kipling?’
‘I do,’ said Daniel.
‘“The Young British Soldier”?’
In reply, Daniel began to recite: ‘If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white …’
‘Remember it’s ruin to run from a fight …’
‘So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, and wait for supports like a soldier.’
‘When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains …’ Russell’s voice was slow and quiet.
‘Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains …’ Daniel finished, ‘An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.’
‘All true. Today we’d call in Arty – air support or artillery. But it’s the same. The same war, too.’
‘That bad?’ said Daniel sombrely.
Russell popped the lid off another beer, leant back and sighed. ‘Yes. It’s that bad.’ Then, in a more animated tone, he said, ‘Look. I brought you a little present from the Battle of Maiwand.’
Daniel bent to peer at something small in the palm of Russell’s hand but I could not see what it was.
‘A homemade bullet?’ he guessed.
‘From 1880. A Jezail bullet. Made of all the bits of iron lying around and covered with lead. Acted like a fragmentation round. That’s what got Sherlock Holmes’s Dr Watson. Poor bugger must have been crippled.’
‘You’re a historian,’ said Daniel.
‘And this,’ said Russell, and Daniel bent forward once more.
‘It looks ancient,’ he observed. ‘The hinge from scale armour, perhaps? We have found such things in Israel. They usually come from … no, not Alexander?’
Russell thumped the beer bottle
down for emphasis. ‘He was the last general to win at Maiwand, and he wasn’t conquering – he just wanted to get through. Everyone else who’s tried it over the centuries has been fucked. And so are we. Jeez, I’m glad we’re bringing the boys home! And the girls, of course. All of us.’
‘So the campaign has failed?’ asked Daniel gently.
‘It was always going to fail. Politics.’ Russell spat neatly into a bed of irises and I did not blame him. ‘Americans. Specifically, presidents. Not the poor grunts’ fault. But their money men have fucked the war over, and still are. Only thing we can hope for is to make all sides hate us so much that they unite to drive us out. Then we put a big wall around the Pashtun, and they’ll kill each other. Their longest period without feuds is twenty-six years – their golden age. You know the Pashtun word for “cousin” is also the word for “enemy”?’
‘That is an interesting language,’ said Daniel.
‘The only people who understand what Afghanistan’s like are people like your mob – the IDF – and the Vietnam vets. Same sort of war, really: an invisible, hostile enemy united only by their hatred of us. In Vietnam our lot were sappers, just like in Kipling. That’s what I do, or did. We build things, we blow things up. We were the tunnel rats in Vietnam. They always give the impossible jobs to the engineers.’
‘And the impossible just takes you a little longer.’ Daniel smiled and quoted Kipling again. ‘“It’s all one,” says the Sapper.’
‘But IEDs can break anyone’s nerve,’ said Russell. ‘Could be anything: a string, a wire, a rock, a cowpat. You can’t sit down, you can’t travel, you can’t relax, ever. Like you blokes and suicide bombers.’
Daniel nodded.
‘But we’ve got the dogs and we’ve got good mates, so we manage.’
‘I understand,’ said Daniel.
‘I’m all right,’ stated Russell, stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘Bill?’ A faint woof came back from the other side of the garden, where Bill had found something to engage his interest.
‘Good,’ said Daniel.
‘I mean, I’m all right, I’ve got mates, I’ve got a wife and a baby, I’ve got something to come home to – I’ve even got Bill. He’s a hero, got a medal to prove it. Found fifteen IEDs. Saved hundreds of lives. I’ve got the nightmares, of course; we’ve all got the nightmares. But I’m okay. Alasdair, though …’
‘Hasn’t got anyone else?’
‘That’s right. Oh, he was famous for a little while, for all the good it did him.’
‘What do you mean he was famous?’ Daniel sounded as surprised to hear this as I was.
Now Russell sounded surprised. ‘You didn’t know? I guess you don’t spend a lot of time looking at social media.’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket, played with it for a bit then handed it over.
Daniel peered at the screen. ‘How long ago was this?’ he asked.
‘Two years. The army’s generally not over keen on letting out any information about what goes on in theatres of war, but this was such a good propaganda piece that they let it through.’ I was dying to know what they were talking about, but it looked as though I would have to wait. Russell seemed like a good bloke, but he’d fallen into the All Blokes Together habit of leaving the womenfolk to catch up as best we could.
‘Perhaps,’ Daniel suggested, ‘the government was in a spot of bother back then and welcomed the distraction.’ He frowned. ‘Though this is an English journal, isn’t it?’
‘Yep. He was still serving with the British Army then. But we got to know each other in Helmand and he decided he’d rather be an Aussie. After he was demobbed he applied for citizenship and it was granted overnight. Ministerial prerogative. I guess the minister is more into social media than you.’ Russell brought his beer to his lips and tipped his head back to drink. ‘So maybe Alasdair has some information that the kidnappers – dognappers – want? There’s a lot of drugs in Afghanistan. Maybe this is connected to the drug trade.’
‘That’s a promising idea, Russell. I’ll keep it in mind. Tell me more about him.’
‘Poor old Scottie. Not interested in girls. Or boys. Just him and his dog. He used to spy for the English. He had a serious talent for passing himself off as a local, and he found out lots of intel they’d never have found otherwise. I knew he was going to drive down from Townsville to spare Geordie the journey in the plane’s hold. Well, I did that, too. Bill and I went on the train. It was fun. Picked up my family in Sydney and came down together. The kid loves Bill and Bill thinks Tommy’s his puppy. But what Scottie will do without Geordie …’ He shook his head. ‘He was caught in a bad ambush; jeep ran over an IED. Everyone else was killed, but Scottie was captured. They had him for three days. Three days before anyone noticed that he wasn’t among the dead. ’Course, it can be hard to put together all the pieces. That’s why a lot of us put one of our dog tags on the laces of our boots.’
‘They tortured him?’
‘Bastards,’ Russell spat again. ‘Only one who knew he was gone was Geordie. Whined, dragged, tried to pull people by the sleeve, did everything short of actually running off the base, because he knew he needed help. Finally some fuckwitted squaddie worked out what Geordie was about and got a patrol on to it. The bastards had had a lot of fun with Scottie. The medics didn’t think he’d live, but he did. Still, I reckon he’s got no reason to trust anyone in the world except his dog. His mates didn’t come looking for him. It took one of our patrols to find him.’
‘What do you think will happen to Alasdair if we don’t find Geordie alive?’ asked Daniel.
‘I dunno, mate,’ said Russell heavily.
A head was reposing on my knee. I patted. It was Bill. He grabbed my sleeve in his teeth and pulled me to my feet. I valued my caftan so I rose and came into view.
‘Who you got there, Bill?’ asked Russell. His hand dropped to where the stock of his gun would have been; on a sling, I suspected. In the same manner as Daniel, he looked suddenly extremely dangerous. I held up both hands.
‘Friend,’ I told him.
He relaxed back into the chair.
‘All right, Bill, loose,’ he told the dog. Bill, wagging his tail, un-fanged my dress and went to sit by his master’s side.
‘You see, these dogs are like brothers,’ said Russell, making room for me on the bench. ‘Sorry about that, he’s a bit protective.’
‘A very good thing to be,’ I agreed.
‘This is Corinna,’ said Daniel. ‘She’s helping me to find Geordie.’
‘Your partner, eh? Okay.’
‘How do you find the dogs in the first place?’ I asked.
Russell scratched Bill’s ears absently. ‘In refuges, lost dogs’ homes. We look for a smallish dog with a real good nose.’
‘Why small?’ I asked.
He grinned at me. ‘Because sometimes we have to carry the dog, along with the pack and the gear and the rifle – and you do not want a St Bernard strapped to your chest when you’re leaping out of a copter.’
This struck me as eminently sensible.
‘We go through all the training together. We devise our own orders, so no one can mislead the dog. Dogs have got amazing noses. Haven’t you, Bill, eh? Amazing. They can sniff out a microgram of explosive in air. And Geordie was a drug dog, too. Whereas if you want a bloodhound, you can’t go past my Bill here.’
Bill wagged his tail again. I could practically see the halo around his ragged ears. He was a shabby, ill-favoured dog, but clearly very happy. His master was rubbing those ears and Bill was slavering happily onto his thigh.
‘Anyway, will you let me know if I can help in any way?’ Russell asked. ‘I feel bad about Scottie. Someone should have come for him. And they didn’t.’
‘I’ll call you,’ promised Daniel, and he rose to escort Russell and Bill out.
I stayed on the bench, looking out on the flowery, fragrant garden. Alasdair had probably known that he would not be rescued, that no one would notice him missing f
rom that heap of body parts and destroyed machinery. He was captive, in the hands of his enemies, to be killed in the cruellest way possible, at their sadistic leisure. He must have despaired.
And who delivered him from his enemies and the pains of hell? Not his mates. His dog. His only friend in the world.
We absolutely had to get Geordie back.
But how?
CHAPTER FIVE
Flout ’em and scout ’em; and scout ’em and flout ’em
Thought is free
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST, ACT 3, SCENE 2
‘So tell me about this article,’ I prompted. Daniel took out his phone, rummaged in the depths of cyberland for a moment then handed the phone to me.
On the screen was a photo of Alasdair holding a smallish black-and-white dog in his arms and grinning. My heart turned over to see the change in him. Back then, he looked absurdly young and filled with ebullience. Now, the face was the same, but haunted and filled with terror. The banner headline read HERO GEORDIE SAVES PATROL.
The accompanying text was somewhat overwritten, but the gist was clear enough as I flicked downwards. A patrol had been driving along the highway in an armoured car, when Geordie had begun barking furiously. Rather than telling the dog to shut up, the driver had braked hard and stopped. The patrol had disembarked and fanned out on both sides of the road. They found an IED almost immediately, not ten metres from where they had stopped, right in the middle of the road. The bomb squad disarmed the IED and great had been the rejoicing of everyone, and presumably there’d been extra rations for Geordie. I handed the phone back and we exchanged one of those Significant Looks.
‘All right. So maybe we have a motive after all?’ I suggested.
Daniel glanced skywards as he thought this through. ‘I see what you mean. Alasdair, it transpires, is no longer an anonymous squaddie with a dog. He’s a social media hero from two years ago, and maybe he knows something, and they’re using the dog to put pressure on him? Look, I know that’s tenuous logic at best. It’s verging on cargo-cult thinking. But kidnappers don’t usually specialise in Clear Thinking 101.’
The Spotted Dog Page 4
