‘Time to rest.’
Trying to be cocky, and not getting there. ‘Then . . .?’
‘Find what I hid on this side.’
Trying to be brave and failing. ‘Then . . .?’
‘Survive this time of maximum danger.’
Trying to cling to the boldness and falling short. ‘Then . . .?’
Merc said, ‘Then we go across.’
They were sitting on crisp grass and her shoulder nuzzled under his armpit, and the river, big and powerful, flowed clear towards the Baltic sea in front of them.
Chapter 17
He didn’t want her with him. Merc thought the board and suit were hidden away downstream but was not certain. He preferred to be alone when he looked for it, relying on scraps of memory, and would not accept quizzing. He murmured in Kat’s ear what he intended. She thought at first that his lips on her ear were affection and was reaching up to loop an arm around his shoulder and his neck, but he blocked it. Her face clouded. They had been in the barn, the animals as voyeurs, and she had clung to him and his fingernails had ground through the thickness of his gloves to grip her. She had the right.
‘I am going forward. I have to find the place where there is a board, how we cross.’
‘What sort of board?’
‘A swimmer’s board, for surfing on waves, and—’
‘I cannot swim.’
‘It will float, and I will support you.’
‘But if I lose the board, and cannot swim, and I go under and—’
Merc was brusque, not tender. ‘That is how it will be, the way it will happen.’
‘How long do I wait here?’
‘Until I am back. Stay here. I come back when I am ready to, then we go across.’
He would have had the rasp of authority in his voice. Rarely used. He could be quiet with the guys and the girls on Hill 425, and he was seldom harsh; usually conversational, better for exercising control. They were crouched where the tree line thinned and the ground was raised a metre above the narrow open strip before the final dip into the reed beds. A beaten down path ran between the tree line, dense pine and the reeds, probably made by pigs or deer. Beyond the reeds was the Narva river . . . However long he lived, a few hours, the rest of that day, a long lifetime, he would not forget the sight of it. It carried debris as if it were lightweight flotsam, had white crests from the wind that funnelled from the north. A section of a dead tree’s trunk came down the river, chased by a floating rubbish bin, then a tangle of withered, branches followed. The speed was awesome. She had full justification in feeling naked fear: she could not swim, she might believe he would save himself in the water, let her wrist slide from the grip . . . and she had loved him in the barn. Had the right to voice disappointment, puzzlement, and suspicion . . . Might disappear into the undergrowth, abandon her. But Merc did not play games of reassurance, was not gentle. He stared back into her face and her chin shook and her lips were narrow with cold, and she blinked, and she shivered.
He said, ‘You wait here. I will take you across because that was my promise – for now you wait, and you do not move, and do not show yourself. I will come back for you, and you will wait. End of story.’
She seemed to crumple. Merc accepted she was not a fighting girl. They had a stereotype within the Fire Force Unit, those who peered over the parapet of a Forward Operating Base. They were tough, hardened, walked with a swagger, rejoiced in killing an enemy who was in terror of dying in combat at the hands of a woman, gave short shrift to delicacy, were confident and did not make a drama out of a crisis, could load a DShK machine gun and could strip a Kalashnikov’s innards, could lob a grenade with accuracy . . . Could not play a piano, could not dream of an unfettered freedom, could not shed tears. Merc saw one of them in his mind and twin images clashed. The haughtiness in her eye with the blaze at her mouth when he slapped her arse and told her to duck and not make it simple for the sniper; it merged with the sight of her in the bed, and the tubes and the anaesthetised rhythm of breathing and the surgery team bending over her: he had been an unwanted intruder and unwelcome spectator. Kat, no muscle, no swing in her stride, no uniform, no weapon trailing from her hand, was not a fighting woman. He thought her a passenger, would never have categorised Cinar as a burden . . . but a promise had been given.
The light had dulled. The sun was buried in cloud, and spits of hail hit his cheeks and some rested in her hair, and the wind had not slackened. He did not know whether it would snow that day, or in the night, how soon it would come. Snow, sleet, hail, were all enemies because he would leave a trail of boot marks. He assumed that pursuit followed them . . . Wondered how the boys did, how near to the river they were, whether it went badly for them. He did not kiss her, did not squeeze her hand. He thought her exhausted, afraid, and incapable of contributing. He nodded to her. She seemed frail, small, desperate for a protector. Merc had known he must keep his promise to Nikki from the moment he had understood that the boy would stay with the bomb. He slipped away. Wondered for a moment whether he should again have emphasised the need for absolute quiet, minimum movement, what any man of experience in war would hammer at a novice recruit, a novice in survival. Did not, was gone. He went back into the trees, stayed in their cover, and went downstream and the branches closed behind him and the wind sang above him.
It was an open wound. Neither needed to speak of it, but the pain coddled them equally. Kristjan led and Martin followed.
And neither mentioned Toomas, who might as well have hovered over them, and both went quietly and strained to hear the sound of a single shot, and both would have wondered whether he still lived or whether he lay alone, or whether he had been taken and had not found strength to squeeze the trigger. Hunger took them worse, and thirst, and the cold chewed at them. Toomas was not spoken of. Nor what they would do with the wage promised them, the larger part to be paid on completion which was encouragement to get back across the river. The gap widened. Martin did not hurry to catch Kristjan. Kristjan did not slow his pace. They were no longer comrades. The bond had been broken when the Makarov pistol was placed in Toomas’s fist, and the tip of his index finger laid inside the guard. It would not be spoken of if they succeeded in crossing, if, the Narva river and reached Estonian territory. If they met again, if, there would be a handshake and a hug and a kiss on the cheek and talk of how they did and the life they led after home decorating and shelf stacking, courtesy of the new monies paid them. What had happened in a forest on the eastern side of the town of Ivangorod would be buried deep in silence. Both would have reckoned their grandfathers – forever young and captured in sepia-tinted photographs and with an impertinence, a cheekiness that had bred courage – would have denounced them from unmarked graves. Sometimes they were in the depths of the forest and had to go on hands and knees under the bigger branches, and there were places where trees had been felled by loggers, and they had a view of the top towers of Ivangorod’s fortress, and the great Russian flag that flew in the wind.
Each of them had probably made a plan of how they hoped to get back, and which of the bars in Narva would play host to them, what they would drink, eat, where they would sleep that night, but not discussed. Nor was the pain that would be inflicted on them if they were taken, if, talked of . . . and both had already, several times over, in their minds spent the money owed them. They pressed on, and the gap between them grew; one did not hurry and one did not slow, and neither spoke to the other.
Daff babbled.
‘What is so bloody awful is not being able to do anything. That’s it, isn’t it, anything. Just consigned to standing, sitting, here, drinking coffee, chewing on bloody gum. Don’t know what to do, what to say.’
He might have said that if she did not know what to say then to stay quiet could be helpful. But Boot did not, had never ditched tolerance of her. She kept going, as if it were her own therapy road.
‘Wondering where he’ll be, wondering that he thinks. Not proud of it, but I have put the three
boys at the bottom of my priority list of concern. Don’t give a shite about them. Only Merc that matters.’
And Daff was wrong not to carry in her backpack anxiety for the three men – middle-aged, paupers, snatching at the money she had offered – because any one of them could blow a hole below the waterline of the mission, of Copenhagen. Realised it now, had not before accepted how fragile were the chances of the three boys making the home run to Narva; had not comprehended how dangerous it would be to travel to St Petersburg, escort the courier, then run him and the passenger back to safety and success. Had not factored in the matter of events that turned up unannounced, unexpected, unpredicted, and that screwed the best-laid plans. They could, any one of the three of them, turn the business into headlong disaster . . . Probably why she had become a dripping tap of talk. She had recruited them, well inside budget, would be a prime target if it came to an internal inquest. They were on the bastion just downstream from the bridge and they watched the cars coming from the east, and saw the pedestrians, and waited.
‘You don’t have to answer me, Boot . . . I mean, is it always like this? I’m wondering how many poor bastards you’ve had under your wing, inspired by good words and talk of the flag and duty, and they’ve been on the wrong side of a fence, a wall, a river. Is it always so bloody hard? What I’m saying is – a cardinal law of the jungle that I’m breaking – I really like Merc, always have. Would have taken him to bed, too right, but I don’t think he ever noticed me. God, it’s cold. You good, Boot?’
She paced and would stop dead after a dozen strides and then slap her shoulders and her chest with her gloved hands, try to return circulation to her body. That high above the river there was no break on the wind. Boot wore his three-piece suit, had woollen socks under his brogues, and the tail of his coat flapped by his knees, and often he reached up to steady the trilby on his head. He was, certain of it, a damn great caricature of the old warrior deployed on Cold War duty – and revelling in the role. She would have had to carry him, kicking, back to the apartment and manacle him to a chair if she had wanted to preserve him from the chill; his face had a blue tint to it and his teeth were clamped on a small cigar.
‘I’d be hung out for the crows if I lost you, Boot. Sure you’re all right? He never saw me. I could have been in a swimsuit with the straps sagging and he would not have, could have kicked in the door to his hotel room and he’d have told me to leave . . . It’s because of the focus he carries. We see them come, Boot, don’t we? They come and they go, but this is the boy that’s remembered. I don’t know why. If anyone can get out of that place, then it will be him. I said “anyone”, Boot. Perhaps no one can. You thought of that, Boot? Something nags at me . . . I’ll try it on you.’
Boot had not turned. He might have assumed that the surveillance guy was in place, had an eye on them, assumed it and been correct. She supposed it the sort of weather when the elderly caught pneumonia or pleurisy. Where her childhood was, any man worth a groat would have settled early in front of a hissing log fire, nursed a Scotch, or three – or would have dressed in proper gear, gone out, climbed in bogs before dropping a stag that needed culling. Would not, absolutely not, have sat on a bench and stared down at a lone bridge and noted each lorry, van, car, bicycle coming from the other side, and each pedestrian. If one were captured, they were shafted. Deniability was built into the mission’s fabric.
‘How long do they keep going, men like Merc? That’s what I’m floating by you. That pressure . . . how long? What happens to those men? Do they wake up one day, and draw back the curtain, look out on the normal world, say that “There’s where I want to be”? Check in the gun, send the camouflage gear down to the charity shop on the High Street, make a feature in the garden with the combat boots and plant pansies in them? What I am asking, Boot, is whether, on that supposed morning, they just kick it into touch, the old life. No one can do this day in and month out, year in and decade out. Has to be an end point. After this one, Boot – looking at the bright side – will he want to quit, hook up again with ordinary folk? What do you say, Boot?’
Boot said, ‘When I was a child, my parents used to take me annually to the theatre in London. Same theatre, same show, and same emotions aroused . . . God, this cold is brutal . . . so, because of that play I can answer your statement, my dear. A man absorbs pressure in the military or intelligence-gathering field. He is in great danger, or directs others on to that road and must take responsibility for their fate. Huge burdens are imposed. A man begins to loathe the pressure exerted on him, and he dreams of little more – once the flush of excitement has dripped off him – than escape. The escape, in your view, will take him to some humdrum, dreary life where nothing is on the line, and the tension will only increase with a Friday night quiz in the pub. He won’t sign up for that . . . How do I know? The play I was taken to watch each Christmas holiday gave me an insight into these useful men, and women, because old truths hang around.’
Sitting on the bench, with the sleet settling on his shoulders and on the brim of his trilby, and gathering on his knees, he felt shrivelled – as if weight and strength leaked from him. Always that sensation when the matter had moved away from personal control. His spectacles seemed to droop on the bridge of his nose and his view of the bridge misted.
‘And the play . . . a good rollicking story, and captivating. A nursery full of children abandon their beds and fly off – yes, fly – away into the night and are at the beck of Peter. Lovely lad. They have all manner of adventures, pirates and crocodiles, but then the children want to go home, be back with their dog. Not Peter . . . He could have exchanged the thrills and the scrapes for a conventional upbringing. They return and offer Peter security and safety, school and a haircut, learn a bit of Latin, but he balks at the chance. He is afraid of conformity, leaves them, out through the window, heads off for the stars – is off again to a sort of Never Land. Never grows up. Never looks for the ordinary. Never abandons the excitement bred from danger and comrades. You are wrong, Daff, if you think that Merc is any different to Peter and his Never Land . . . Not many of them about, but a few, and so useful that we’ve come to depend on them.’
When he shifted on the bench, twisted to wrap his scarf tighter, he glimpsed the surveillance car and its exhaust fumes and the windows had steamed except where a crude square had been rubbed to enable the watch to be kept on them.
‘They don’t grow old. Merc and those like him. Don’t hope to prove me wrong, Daff . . . They always return to the “Never Land”. Little else matters to them . . . Enough of that. Outside your remit and mine. I don’t expect we’ll repeat this conversation, no point.’
He was so fond of Merc, and all of them like him. Was not supposed to be and hid it well.
Boot said, ‘He’ll come tonight. It’s the boys now that we’re looking for, waiting for.’
The Major settled in his seat, and the local man – called himself Pyotr – gave a casual salute, as if they were almost equals. They had met at the bridge at Kingisepp. A half-dozen local militia had queued to tell the Major of the breakthrough by two vehicles at the checkpoint. He could have called them incompetent, could have told them to their faces that they had failed in a simple task, but he had listened. The Major knew that more was learned by listening. Pyotr, in a rusted jeep because the wealth and power of the modern state had not reached the militia station at the town straddling the main road west from St Petersburg, had brought four others with him. The Major and the lieutenant, the young woman, and his sergeant followed. The sleet had intensified. Both vehicles went fast, ignored the ice on the road, and the traffic heading to and from the frontier point at Ivangorod, backed off the main highway and gave them a clear run.
He was taken, first, to see sunken tyre marks heading off the road and across the verge. He was led on a narrow track between the trees and followed the ruts. The burned-out vehicle still stank. Farther on was a second car’s shell. There had been a broad description of a man and woman in the Polo
. . . Good enough. The Major straightened, stood at his full height, and sniffed at the air. He was told that men had gone with a dog in the direction south of the outskirts of Ivangorod but the weather made it difficult for the tracker. He was asked by Pyotr why more men, of status and rank like himself, had not come from the city and why there was no serious investigation with full resources. He ignored the question. He had seen enough, turned away. He appreciated the abilities of these local men.
To his wife, the Major would have described Pyotr, as gross, bovine, appearing stupid and simple, but showing obvious cunning, blessed with a natural intelligence, good hearing, fine eyesight, a knowledge of the countryside – where FSB officers seldom saw a need to visit. Pyotr blinked and concentrated. The Major assumed that he would have known where a deer or a pig had slept. Pyotr said that a woman had been in the second car, because the seat was far forward. That vehicle was better hidden, and if the rain had come on more heavily, or if the sleet had turned earlier to snow, then it would have remained hidden until the thaw, months away. Cleverly done, but not sufficiently clever. The driver’s seat was forward. The Major pictured Yekaterina. The militiaman, Pyotr, showed him no deference. The Major was told where they would go, but received no explanation.
A Damned Serious Business Page 42
