A Damned Serious Business

by Gerald Seymour

  She worked for a company based in São Paolo, Brazil that dealt with internet security. They would escort an Irishman and get him to St Petersburg where he would meet a whistle blower, and then bring him back to Estonian territory. Their passenger would be collected at a lay-by on the E-20 highway, two kilometres short of the junction between the principal route and the 41K-109 minor road going north, at Pervoye Maya. A car would be hired in Narva, able to carry five people. On the far side, a set of number-plates would be taken, and would replace those on the hire car.

  Their job was to drive, to use tradecraft that would identify surveillance. They would do the necessary Russian language speaking at road checkpoints. The Irishman would be travelling with an appropriate Dublin-issued passport along with a valid visa for entry through Ivangorod, with a stamp already in place. They should use limited force necessary to break clear of a block, but could not carry firearms. They were to follow the Irishman’s instructions, no hesitation and no dispute. Did they understand? Cross the bridge tomorrow, Wednesday. Sleep in the vehicle that night, off the road. Collection on Thursday morning, drive to St Petersburg. Questions?

  From the viewpoint, Daff gazed out across the void. The river, far beneath her, ran in a gradual curve and disappeared downstream into darkness. On the far side, gaudily lit, was the casino. Side streets lined with small houses led away from the water; they had dim lighting and looked little more than tracks and no one moved on them. The Narva castle was floodlit but only a small part of the Ivangorod fortress was illuminated. The road bridge, spanning the divide, had seemed deserted until she spotted the lumbering progress of a timber lorry, heaving a trailer with stacked pit-props. In its headlights she saw straggling pedestrians using the bridge’s walkway and leaving the checkpoint at the Russian end of the bridge, noted the lowered barrier, and men in uniform. Daff thought it a collision point in two worlds, tectonic plates, where great forces either tolerated each other and stayed apart, or collided. She gave each of them a wad of money, individual shares. Then handed to Martin, who looked the safest, the float for the hire car. Each of them, she insisted, signed a docket for the cash. Questions?

  None. No questions? None. No problems? None.

  She took them on trust . . . took the whole bloody thing on trust. And Merc would take her on trust. She turned away and her forehead knitted. They – Martin and Toomas and Kristjan – were on her watch. She walked away, didn’t care if her bum waggled and her hips swayed. She understood, first time and late in the day, what Copenhagen meant, where it was going, and the risk it carried. She ducked her head and walked fast.

  Always, last thing, Igor and Marika went outside and checked the barn doors. They had already been to bed, but it was their routine to have the alarm sound, get up and wrap themselves in blankets, go through the front door and head for the barn. They did it in the height of the summer when the mosquitoes bit, and it was light that far north. Did it in the depth of winter, whether it rained or hailed or snowed, even if the temperature was many degrees below freezing. He could barely see and she could barely walk. He carried a storm lantern and she guided him, but her principal task was to bring vegetable scraps for the beasts and a fistful of grain for the fowls. If there was already snow, and more was forecast – and they had been warned by Pyotr, the woodsman – then they would bring the animals into the house and let them mill and cluck close to the fire and some would crawl over their bed. Igor went with great care because only a week before he had stumbled, landed on the lantern and burned himself, and it had been a great effort for Marika to pull him to his feet. Without the other, neither could have managed this nightly ritual, and if they had not gone then neither would have slept for worry over the beasts and the fowls. He had the padlock key on a a string necklace and opened the barn door with difficulty. A wonderful welcome that gratified both of them: the cows and the sheep and the pigs and the chickens surged around them, and the dogs had tailed them from the log fire in the house and stayed at the barn door, growling softly. At the edge of the light’s beam, the food was distributed. Now the animals would be quiet for the night, feel secure, as would Igor and Marika. The padlock was fastened, a good and solid one that Pyotr had purchased in Ivangorod. They retraced their steps, ploughing through standing water, and the damp from the flood plain snapped at their bones under the blankets, and they splashed in rain-water puddles that could not escape into the saturated ground. They went back to bed. Had shared that bed since they were teenagers, and their parents had been killed by the warring armies – German or Soviet – and at first it had been for warmth and then for a type of tenderness that neither would acknowledge. Last thing, before killing the light, he made certain his shotgun was loaded and close. Nothing was new in their lives, nor had been for many years. Soon, in the darkness and when the weather worsened, they would sleep.

  She came back through the window into the kitchen.

  He had made himself tea, one bag, and washed the mug in cold water, and left it upturned on the draining board, and she’d dislodged it. It shattered on the floor. She grunted in anger. Merc lay on his bed and had reread half a dozen times the page about the Mercedes coupé. If she wanted to say something she would say it, he felt no need to prompt.

  She shrugged, grimaced. ‘I think it went all right.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Met up with the boys. Told them what was wanted . . . hoped you’d be asleep.

  ‘Was, nearly, not quite.’

  ‘Can I say something? Not maybe what you want to hear. Can I? I was always taught to spit, not bottle. Doesn’t make me successful politically.’

  He sat up, the magazine across his knees. The blankets were piled over him and the room was cold, the damp bedding, seemed to cling to him. He knew he needed to sleep, would not again for perhaps three nights, and the worst decisions on the hoof were those taken when exhaustion kicked in . . . Standing and fighting on Hill 425 for the preservation of a Forward Operating Base on strategic ground had not been clever, not when they were perhaps fifteen minutes from going under. Merc did not answer her, did not need to, she’d tell him what he’d not have wanted to hear.

  ‘What I should say to you . . . The boys. Merc, I’m sorry. I picked them and I found them – most important, I hired them. They are what we have. They are arseholes. Polite way would be to call them “works in progress”, but we don’t have that time. One was pissed, one was trying to get his leg over, one was . . . It’s where we are.’

  ‘Thank you. I usually encourage people to front up. Thank you.’

  ‘We were never going to have Hereford or Poole, not an option.’

  ‘When, if, it screws up, I’ll address it – not before then.’

  ‘I’ll chase them in the morning, and—’

  ‘When it’s stress time, people tend to behave.’

  He turned over, lay on his side and faced a wall where old paper peeled and where a picture of a rampant lion with a castle wall in the background was brown and crinkled from condensation. She went to the door and switched off the light and he heard her pad next door, heave at her bag – must have been dragging out her night clothes. He was thinking of the river, and its width, and the forest beyond and the usefulness of the foldaway bicycle. His mind churned with the sums, and with the problem of launching the board and keeping it afloat, and directing it so that it did not take him downstream where he had no reason to be. Concerned also with what sort of diversion she could get the KaPo to make. Worried because the ground on the far side of the river was hidden under the canopy of the evergreen pines and there would be winter lakes and bog where his boots would be sucked under, and he’d have a head torch that would project a beam a couple of metres in front of him, and he’d rely on the compass, and . . . He heard her feet, bare and slithering on the floor. The blankets behind Merc were eased back, the bed bucked under her weight. She wriggled down then pulled the blanket so that both their shoulders were covered. Her arm reached over him, held him close, his back against h
er stomach. She was warm and gave him comfort.

  ‘You’ll be fine, Merc. Sure of it. All you need is some bloody sleep.’

  A long time since he had been with a woman. A UN girl – not sure whether she was from Romania or Bulgaria, or might have been Moldova, and after a party in Erbil that Brad and Rob had taken him to. A bad shout, but the Fire Force Unit was having its first night off from a spell in the front line trenches a few kilometres south of the Hill 425, and a mortar shell had exploded and there were casualties and . . . He was not supposed to care, was a Gun for Hire. The UN girl had spoken poor English but the guys there said she was a proven ride. That was the last time, and he had not stayed late with her, and had gone in the morning to the armoury and drawn his weapon and been drafted back to the line. The warmth was good . . . There would be no warmth in the river, or in the forest.

  ‘I’ve an attack of the nerves, Merc, pathetic. Are you afraid often – where you go and what you do – afraid?’

  Said nothing. Did not lie and did not boast, and tried not to give himself time to be afraid. It was not in a mercenary’s job description to freak out, back off.

  ‘My chief, Boot, he’s a Waterloo groupie. He has a Wellington quote that he likes to dish up: “The only thing I am afraid of is fear”. I suppose it’s infectious, fear is, has to be stamped on.’

  Letting her snuggle against him, Merc tried to sleep. Would never have admitted to fear. It caught him, gnawed at his gut – and he would quit ‘sometime’, but not tomorrow.

  Chapter 7

  She had gone, where she had been was cold.

  Merc padded off in search of hot water and a working shower. He washed himself but did not shave. Found the tea bags, and a bread roll that she had left in the fridge with the groaning motor.

  He looked out of the window, a dull morning that exploited many shades of grey – the ground where kids had worn down the grass with games, the football pitch that was a morass, the apartment blocks across the open space, the tall church building, and then the skies. Where Merc had come from, earning his pay, there would have been fierce sunshine and it would have peeped from behind Hill 425 and thrown forward the shadow of their flag, a dark wobbling shape among the coils of wire where the mines were . . . New men and women from the Fire Force Unit would have been in the trench with the sunlight careering down the slope to soak warmth into the bodies that were on the wire and close to where the personnel mines had been planted. Other shadows would have roamed over the field, those of the vultures that meandered overhead, and would gather in the thermals before diving to gorge.

  He saw an old man coaxing a dog to defecate so that they could both get back indoors. Saw shapeless old women wrapped in heavy coats, clutching their shopping bags and moving warily for fear of slipping, and a few kids who must have skived school. The BMW eased away from near the church, and another vehicle, same make and same colour, slotted into the position, and a little of the grey was brightened by the glow of cigarettes.

  He dressed, yesterday’s clothing, that Daff had bought for him.

  He was, wouldn’t say it, grateful to her for coming into his bed, being against his back, sharing her body’s heat. Merc had slept better that night than he could recall. Might have been days, weeks, and he had not moved, had not kissed her, nor she him. Better than a pill, a decent and natural sleep.

  The rooms were cold; the radiators squealed but threw out little heat. Not helped by her having left the kitchen window ajar, the broken arm carefully placed on the floor below the sink. He had not heard her wash . . . Merc shared a sort of life with her. There had been guys round her when she stripped down to her bikini at the pool café in the Green Zone: diplomats and UNHCR and junior officers who did liaison. More in Kabul: at the Park Palace Hotel she was stalked, propositioned, and he’d seen drunks fight for the right to sit beside her. No encouragement given. Like himself, two of a kind, living a life that did not depend on others. He had washed, dressed, and eaten and she was out and at work. He’d valued her honesty on the quality of the recruits. Did not concern Merc. He reckoned to breed purpose in failed men who had lost the will, or taken the money but then looked to back off.

  A piss awful day. The Brecons in south-east Wales were wind scoured and open, without shelter when it was needed in winter or shade when the summer sun burned on the poor bastards doing route marches with heavy Bergens. Not often that the Pioneers were involved in paratrooper levels of fitness assessment. Had been that day, a new commanding officer’s diktat for his detachment. Eight of them starting. Six of them pushing on. November and sleet cascading on to them. Merc at the back because he kept station beside little Trotter, who was overweight, short, little eyes behind big spectacles, a joke as a front line soldier. One NCO had led and another must have lost them in a brief white-out and it would have been reasonable for Merc to have turned around and helped Trotter back to the start line because the guy was incapable of going forward with the weight of the Bergen on his back. About nine miles to the end point, and only two and a half miles done, and the sleet was heavy enough to obliterate the tracks left by those ahead of them. The NCOs should have had control of the group, kept them corralled together. They came in at last light. Merc carried his own Bergen and Trotter’s, and held up the failing soldier, and there was one vehicle left at the rendezvous point, and Sergeant Arbuthnot was there with his thermos and his fags. Had they started a search? They had not. Why not? Because Sergeant Arbuthnot, in his wisdom, had decided if helpless Trotter was with Private Hawkins then he would come through and be looked after. They had driven back to the camp and the sergeant had put him in the front, Trotter bumping in the back with the Bergens, and had said, ‘Never in doubt, you bringing him back . . . I watch you and I see your language, could not give you better advice than what you know already. Friends, comrades, fellow sufferers and moaners in the unit are the most important handrail you can cling to – not officers, keep clear of them. Stay close to your mates.’ Good counsel. Trotter had gone within a week, and someone had said he’d trained as a brickie in Hartlepool. Merc had not stayed long after that either, had gone off after the better money of working for a private military contractor, and more excitement – and no one he’d ever met had heard of his dad, ‘Hold the Line’ Hawkins.

  He wasn’t anxious about the boys, whether they were considered by Daff to be useless and crap. He sat in a chair and did his kit check, down to the strength of the laces on his boots; dismembered the Glock Makarov, cleaned it and emptied out and reloaded the magazines, then reassembled the pistol, and started to check the aerial pictures they had brought. He reckoned the plan was sound, as far as that went. Achieving it was possible. Make the contact – offload the device – get it put in place – wait until the contact came back to him, running at hell’s own speed – all aboard, and the boys doing the necessary of winging through the blocks if they were already up, and going fast for the border – and dropping off near the bridge – doing his own thing of getting over the river, second time . . . all possible.

  Daff blamed herself, could turn her anger nowhere else. They were her hirelings, she had found them, recruited them.

  The Maid had found her the price of a hire car from a Narva firm – a basic Nissan estate, no frills. She knew the rental rate, and Martin had passed her the paperwork from the garage, and Toomas had challenged her with his look and Kristjan had smirked. They had taken a forty per cent rip-off. She swallowed it. They already had her money, could get out of the car, leave it in the street, keys in the ignition, and walk away. Walk fast, walk straight and never look back, and she was just the bitch who had provided the beer kitty that would keep them going for a month. She wondered how Boot would have handled a fraud – and reckoned he would have done nothing. They looked for her reaction.

  She said quietly, ‘Good shout, guys, a clever one that pockets a few euros . . . What I always tell anyone I work with is that they should remember something very simple: we have a long arm, the São Paolo end of
our company has many friends . . . and with a long arm goes a long memory. Most people I work with get the idea of that, and quick.’

  She smiled. Boot’s smile, if he’d said it, would have been wintry and would have sent a shiver to anyone it was directed at. Hers was warmer. She handed back the receipt, then they had the map out and she went over the location of the lay-by on the main road that was fringed by forest. One of the instructors at the Fort down on the coast, when she had been a recruit and before being assigned to the Green Zone, had said ‘Never lie to someone who trusts you. Never trust someone who lies to you.’ Then had laughed, had explained it was about one-way relationships. The agent could lie to an asset, but if the asset lied to the agent then he, she, would never be trusted. They had lied, had made a few euros. One was a painter-decorator, when he could find work. One wore mock mediaeval armour so tourists could take selfies with him. One was a shelf loader in the town’s principal supermarket, and the money they were paid was crap. She had trusted them enough to have charge of Merc’s safety. They could go up the E-20 highway and get to the block at the Kingispill bridge, and could pretend to go for a pee, and could ask for a light from a militia goon, whisper in his ear, could blow Merc out . . . She was in turmoil.

  He had not woken when she had slipped from the bed, had dressed silently, had gone and found the boys. The signs had said more beers had been drunk, little sleep taken. There had been a steady rhythm in Merc’s breathing, a sort of peace. Daff prided herself that she might have helped him rest. The fear now was about trust . . . She looked hard into each of their faces, and learned where the moles were and the weaker chins and the teeth yellowed from nicotine, and the furtive eyes. Saw little pride and less to trust. They could, all or one, denounce him and hope to save their own skins, or maybe hope to bring in a better pay-day.