Battle Sight Zero

Chapter 15

A dangerous, white-knuckle drive. Before signing up for SC&O10, he had been on speed courses, up to 130mph, sometimes faster. It had been intended that a man ‘behind the lines’ would be able to wriggle from trouble when it seemed about to surround him, break an umbilical. Harder to follow a stuttering scooter that weaved through three lanes of traffic. He could stay back, or risk losing the kid and Zed. He’d sensed she revelled in this new atmosphere of a heady freedom, and he, himself, was responsible. Had loved her, flattered her, and she seemed to him to walk taller, high on the water, more confident than he’d ever seen her. Like an action film, a chase, what the squaddies watched on daytime TV, and he lost them twice and regained them twice. He drove well – needed to tell himself that he drove well because no one else was around to speak up for him. They came to a tunnel entrance and he was boxed on the inside, and three lanes had become two, and he was blocked from moving into the outside and passing the dawdlers. If he lost her, then… Traffic soared past him on the faster lane. They spilled out from the tunnel.

He burst from the darkness, blinking in the sudden power of the sunshine, and could see each speck on the windscreen, then the traffic filtered. He’d chosen the wrong lane and had to barge back into the slow flow. The Peugeot was parked across the pavement, with other bikes and small scooters. He went on past it, had no option because a tanker was up close behind him. She had untangled herself from holding the kid round the waist, and he saw her laugh and the smile came and for a moment the kid had hold of her arm. She took it away from him, not snatched it, but as a gentle rebuke, like she was telling him there was business in hand.

The mirror was his friend. There was one parking space and he realised another car was behind him and was laying claims for the bay… and a finger was up and the bellowing was directed at him, first muffled and through the glass, then louder when the window was lowered. If he needed it he should not back off. The usual trick, one of the first they had been taught. He fished his wallet out of his hip pocket, held it up, like it contained ID. It did not. Exhaustion came over him now, hit him in waves. Not her, she seemed fit, well flushed, rather lovely. She looked round for him, and the kid seemed starstruck. It was Andy Knight’s work: he had transformed her personality, given it room to breathe. The guy in the car gave up, must have thought he faced an investigator, casual clothing not washed or ironed, unshaven and a beaten-up car: the appearance of a cop, plain clothes.

Always the crisis came on quick. He was trapped now and would sweat it out, no choice. Could not be closer to her… to the right was a cathedral. In the Marines, in the UK police, and in the SC&O10 gang, he had had no requirement for any form of church architecture, ancient or modern. He did not know the age or the style of this one. It was huge, but one side of it had problems, scaffolding scrambling up the stonework. Further round the bay was a dock area where a warship was tied up, then a stretch of sea that led away from the old harbour. There were islands out in the bay beyond an esplanade and a plaza which was scattered with concrete benches. Next along was an historic castle and he didn’t know its name or its date, or care. Then a café and restaurant doors and a big gym. He assumed it was where she had directed him. He locked the car, walked to a low wall and sat astride it, the car behind him but close enough.

It was his intention they’d get the hell out. Hoped she’d shift herself, be on the road, have taken the fast run for the autoroute and north… and wondered how big the package would be, what she was buying. He didn’t think he stood out, reckoned he blended well.

She turned, scanned for him, saw him – was learning, did not wave at him.

Pegs was dragging him. Gough slowed her. She said he was a fucking disgrace. He said that it was one of the finest cathedrals he had ever had the pleasure to be in, awesome carving, space and beauty that were humbling.

‘You could have screwed the whole thing, messing about in there.’

‘You see one of those places, dear lady, once in a bloody lifetime, and four minutes and free entry are worth confronting your impatience. If you did not know, it is near Gothic, that’s the design, parts of it are nine centuries old, and the cupola is…’

She snapped across him, ‘And we were bloody nearly late this morning because of your insistence – don’t think I’ll protect you if the inquest heats up. And another thing…’

‘Socks smelling again, are they? What else in this litany of recrimination?’

‘We came from our hotel. He’d told us when to be there, but you insisted we were late.’

‘For a damn good reason. What did I want, half a minute to be there, to soak it, have that experience. For God’s sake it was Napoleon Bonaparte’s lodging house we were in front of. Is that not reputable history, where he lived, a colonel in artillery, the great man, here and standing in that window which was above us? Am I not allowed that? God’s truth, Pegs, you can be a Grade A nagger… I doubt I’ll ever be back here. He could have been there, looking out, pondering the changes he’d inflict on Europe… and the cathedral is astonishing, a triumph of architecture. Can you not see…?’

‘Someone has to look after you, just that I drew the chopped-off straw.’

He looked at her. He frowned and the pseudo load of anger slipped from his face. ‘Thank you, appreciated. Move on.’

They sat in front of a café, and the wind was full on them, and she might start soon to shiver. They’d a poor view of the sea and the island out in the bay with the big castle on it, and more history and more romance he told her, where Dumas incarcerated the Count of Monte Cristo, but had a seriously good view of the open space in front of them.

‘Do you have her?’

‘I have.’

They were in deep shadow from an awning above the café table, would be hard to see, harder to identify. He wondered where those bloody laconic local police were. She did a snapshot photo of her and Gough on her mobile, sent it to them. Sat low in their seats, just another elderly couple. Looked left and saw their man, sitting on a wall and trailing his feet, a picture of bored innocence, and looked across the square and had a fine view of the girl, and the Arab kid with her. He thought it was slotting well, dropping into place.

He asked, ‘If you had to choose, Pegs, either to walk the nave in the cathedral or look up the wall where Napoleon was, and at his window, which would you take?’

She said, fondness writ large, ‘For fuck’s sake, Gough, shut up. It’s where we either break open the fizzy stuff, or a year’s work and resources go under. And soon.’

They were both locked on the girl, Zeinab something, the Tango, the Rag and Bone target, were in a good place, the best seats.

Zeinab stepped out and Karym loped beside her.

Cafés and bars and shopping outlets were on two sides of the plaza, and it was dominated by the cathedral – what Krait would have called a Crusader place, what Scorpion would have called a Khaffur place. On a third side was the sea, on the fourth was the great fortress, and it would have been a defence against the jihadis of that day, centuries before… It was about commitment, why she walked tall, with a good stride, enough for the boy to need to hurry to keep alongside her.

He said, ‘What I learn of you, you have interest in the Klash. I can tell you everything you need to know.’

More than she needed to know, left unsaid. Had done nothing in her short life to warrant fame, to have her name spoken on the radio, to have her home identified and neighbours and strangers gathering outside it because she had lived there. Perhaps had reached the stage, and recognised it, where she craved attention, wanted the soft-focus pictures of herself with the weapon in silhouette. Not in love with the Book, had never been a good student, was not one of the kids in classrooms whose heads moved in metronomic rhythm as they recited. Wanted fame as the skinny models had; with the weapon she would have found a catwalk, and flashbulbs. And fighters in the shrinking defended areas of Syria, where her cousins had been, in the last ghetto, the last block of broken buildings, would hear on texts, news bulletins on their phones as the batteries faded, of what she had done. Would know they were not alone… And the kid talked.

‘And can tell you that US troops loathed their M-16 rifle in their Vietnam War. Too many times, in wet heat and in mud and with heavy rain, it jammed, could not fire and was useless but the AK of the North Vietnamese was superior. Senior officers were told but ignored it. It was a scandal. It is good that you are interested.’

The boy touched her hand when he spoke, for emphasis, and perhaps as a small show of nervous admiration – or attraction.

‘And the Americans fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah preferred to take a dead jihadi’s AK, his Klash, rather than have their own more complicated rifle. They want to go ‘‘spray and pray’’ which is ideal with the Russian rifle but that is not what the M-16 is made for. Very interesting, yes? The AK has killed more soldiers, more civilians, than any weapon in the history of small arms. I am pleased so much that you are interested.’

They were in the centre of the square. He had stopped to sit on a concrete bench. The wind blistered her. They would have seemed another boy, another girl. She hitched up her coat and her hands were under it, and then she loosened her belt and let her jeans drop two, three, inches at the waist, and wriggled and manoeuvred her hands. She pulled the money belt clear. Then dragged up her jeans and fastened the belt, pushed down the hem of her coat, and sat beside him. She did not know from where, but assumed she was now watched, every motion and movement.

The boy said cheerfully, ‘When you go to war and have a Kalash then you are invincible. You understand? You believe you are supreme. You cannot be defeated, it is the citizen’s rifle…’

She opened the belt’s pouch and stared down at the close-packed bank notes. To her, the girl from Savile Town, living on a meagre allowance from a state grant, it was the greatest sum of money she had ever seen. When she went to a cash machine it was exceptional for her to take out more than twenty pounds. She put her hand on his, as if to silence him, and smiled sweetly.

Karym thought her eyes quite beautiful. He had been about to begin telling her of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s life, how it was that the man credited with the rifle’s design had achieved such prominence, and… he stared at her. When she had lifted her clothing he had seen her skin. To win that smile there was nothing he would refuse, and his chin shook, and he waited to be told what was wanted of him.

‘I need your experience.’

‘Of course.’

‘Your knowledge.’

‘If I can answer.’

‘You have Kalashnikov rifles in that estate, where you took me?’

‘In that project, in all the projects, there are Kalash rifles.’

‘Old ones and new ones?’

‘Quite old, quite new – from Russia and from Libya and from Serbia, from Iraq, from China – nearly they are the same. Yes?’

‘You could buy one here, “quite old, quite new”, you could?’

He shivered. Even in the bright sunshine the wind was keen, off the sea, and cut the thin clothing he wore. He snivelled, had no handkerchief. Sniffled again, and shivered, but had no handkerchief to clean his nose.

‘I could, if my brother agreed.’

‘If your brother refused such permission?’

‘I would not have it – you have to understand that my brother is a noted man. We have a discipline. If my brother agrees, then anything is possible.’

‘I understand. What would be the price of a rifle, not old and not new?’

‘It could be to make an alliance and then very cheap. It could be a quick deal, or a weapon with a history which an owner needs to get clear from. Could have come from Serbia which is more expensive, could have come with cocaine from the Spanish ports and driven here.’

‘What is the price?’

‘An average…’

He looked at the clouds hurrying across the sky, and the white crests on the waves around the islands, and the spray on the rocks, and he shrugged and his hands gestured the difficulty of answering a question with so many parts of it uncertain.

‘…Your estimate?’

‘Three hundred euro. That would be top, without ammunition. For the settling of a debt, my brother would accept three hundred.’

‘Only three hundred, not more?’

He remembered the denomination of the notes in the belt. They would buy the delivery of a small parcel in order to test the security of the route and for a down payment on a second, larger, delivery, what his brother had told him, and had chuckled. Her breath caught in her throat, and her fingers clenched as if anger started to burn… She would have thought… All crooks. Thieves and liars. Deceivers and dishonourable… She and her people were ripped off, conned, asked to hand over double or treble what the merchandise was worth, and took no risk, but cheated. But, nothing she could do. The deal had been agreed far away, by Tooth and other men of importance. Her cheeks had flushed. Which made her prettier, and she snorted.

Karym snivelled again. She took a paper handkerchief from her bag, passed it to him. He filled it noisily, and stood and went to the next bench where there was a rubbish bin where a wasp was circling, and looked around. Karym saw Tooth and another man, also old, and a hundred metres away and out of the wind and pretending to read newspapers, and saw his brother and gave no sign of recognition, and saw the boy who drove her, who sat on a wall and gazed at the sea and had the wind full on his face, and he waited for a signal. It was business. If she did not understand ‘business’ then she was an innocent. Any man or woman who was an innocent in ‘business’, would fail: in the project, to be an ‘innocent’ was to be at risk. Quiet had fallen. Some kids were listlessly riding skateboards, and others played football, tried to manage the back hammer kick, but without enthusiasm. He saw his brother go between two café parasols and was lit by the sun.

Hamid sweated.

Must keep his coat buttoned, must keep the package hidden.

The procedure demanded by the old man, with the villa on the headland and still clinging to power, was against all Hamid’s instincts. Himself… a café with the blinds drawn and a back room, and the customer at the same disadvantage as any purchaser of hashish who came to La Castellane. And deployed around the café would have been a score of his kids, some armed and all wary, with their mobiles cocked, or women with whistles; and the investigators easily spotted because they would only come to the project with huge fire-power in reserve. How he would have done it, but not his decision.

He was a small player, a facilitator. Like a tart who yearned to be in a big man’s bed. He grinned – the ‘tart’ who shared his home was Latvian, pale-skinned, natural blonde, said little, cooked decently, was well built enough to be a symbol of his success, and might even ride with him if he soared in stature, or might be dropped for something better, more attractive… one step at a time. He circled the wide paved area, and looked around him. He saw locals with their children, cyclists and the skateboard kids, and a tourist group following a raised parasol and heading for the cathedral, and saw an old couple, foreign, who had a guidebook and an opened map… He saw his brother, and saw the girl, and his gaze lingered on her, and she sat upright, looked straight ahead, and the kid was babbling in her ear – would be the usual shit about the Russian-made rifle or its imitators, and he needed to get the business done and then be back in La Castellane before the evening because he had new stock in, and regular bulk customers were forewarned, and he wanted time to prepare for successful trading. The girl said nothing, seemed to look far out to sea, where the wind whipped the waves. He hated the fucking sea. He would never get into a small boat again. Had not managed to choke out the taste of the fucking sea. Nothing that he saw disturbed him. He came to that darkened corner where a big, tossing, bending umbrella denied light to the table beneath. He sat with them. He opened his coat, took out a Swiss knife, slashed the strapping, freed the package, still wrapped as it had been when lobbed from the hatch in the freighter’s hull towards the fishing boat and his outstretched hands.

‘You are satisfied, my young friend?’

The man beside Tooth, same age but heavier built, without the extreme menace but seeming by his shifting eyes to be more devious, ignored Hamid. Like he did not want to be there, would prefer to be anywhere than here.

‘I am. It is clean.’

‘On your head be it…’ And the remark was repeated, after translation, in English, and both were laughing, grimly… And when might he expect to be paid for what he had done, near drowned, when might that happen? It did not seem the best moment, the right moment, for the questions to be asked. ‘… on your head. So, do it.’

He had the package in his hand, and started, slowly, and not wishing to hurry, be noticed, to walk.

Tooth said, ‘I like an open space, I like the unpredictable, I like to be where they could not have anticipated and there is no chance of a bug.’

‘Me too,’ said Crab.

But, in Crab’s case, it would be an ‘open place’ somewhere else. He had initiated the question of the deal, had made the proposition. Wished, fervently, that he had not. It had a bad taste, had a smell like the rotting seaweed close to the quay where they had parked the car and spent half the night waiting for the bloody package; brought from the fishing boat by a near-drowned rat who had then wanted to tell his horror story, get his hero-fucking-gram, and he had been cut off as if he’d had a chainsaw at his knees, not acknowledged. Wanted to be back in his home, smart leafy Cheshire, where nothing stank, and maybe taking flowers to Rosie’s grave, and maybe discussing what Gary would cook him for supper… a bad taste and a bad smell, and the value of an old friendship, and the resurrection of old stories often told seemed to have done its time, become surplus. But he smiled weakly, and thought about the flight, and a gin on the way and Gary at the airport.

Tooth said, ‘The kid, that’s the motherfucker’s brother. Looks handicapped. They’ll come together and they’ll swap. You know her?’

‘Don’t, just know her contacts. She’s nothing, does as she’s told.’

‘Good-looking girl. Holds herself well. She came with the kid and…’

‘Rode on the scooter with him.’

‘Don’t fucking interrupt me, Crab, don’t…’

Done coldly, like Crab was just a junior associate, never like that before. Not spoken to as if he were an equal. And momentarily bit his lip, to stop himself from snapping back. No one in Cheshire, nor the stretch of Manchester where he was known, would have silenced him that abruptly.

‘…and just after she came, the VW parked up, the Polo, and the driver is now perched on the wall. Looks spare – what’s he there for?’

‘It’s her boyfriend. He’s taking her home.’

‘You know him, Crab?’

‘Only know he’s a lorry driver. What I hear, she has him wrapped around her finger. Do anything for her. Just a lorry driver.’

‘But you don’t know him.’

‘There’s others that have checked him – not me. They get the rifle, we get our stuff. They go. No, I don’t know him. Fuck sake, Tooth, what’s eating you?’

No reply. He thought Tooth’s head was very still. It did not move as if he followed the progress of the girl and the Arab kid, nor of the ‘rat’ who had the package – bubble-wrap and masking tape – held loose by in his hand. Tooth’s gaze was locked, watching the guy who sat on the wall, swinging his feet. Crab reckoned he’d a pain in his stomach, and felt the cold damp at the back of his neck, and decided he should never have involved himself in the smuggling of a weapon, and it seemed that time stood motionless, and heard a rifle fire, and screaming, like the dream… Had seemed ‘a nice little earner’, shifting a weapon and more to come.

September 2018

Two men were deep in conversation at a café hidden away in a side street near to the principal entry gates for the Port of Piraeus. Seedy, needing paint on the walls and new vinyl on the floor, team photos of the perennial Greek champions, Olympiakos, in frames that had lost their lustre after years of nicotine had floated up from tables and enveloped the glass, a place of casual service, where strangers would not feel welcome. They worked to establish a price for the item on offer. On one side of the table, a plastic cloth covering its surface, was the vendor: a former civil servant from the Agriculture Ministry who had lost his job, and most of his income, when he had been fired under the imposed austerity programme. Opposite him was a merchant seaman, a navigating officer, whose regular route in a Greek-flagged fertiliser carrier was between Piraeus and the Somalian port of Mogadishu, beyond the Red Sea, into the western edge of the Indian Ocean – pirate seas.

‘They are hard times for me.’

‘Hard times for all of us.’

‘The bank will not lend me money any longer. I have no opportunity to work.’

‘But it is old.’

‘The family now live on hand-outs, food-banks, charities.’

‘I sympathise, sincerely. But it is an ancient weapon.’

‘It is indeed old, but it functions. With it are two filled magazines. I think two or three rounds were discharged. One was inside the bank, one killed an off-duty policeman, who was in the middle of a transaction and intervened. He fired one shot… God forbid that circumstances make it necessary for you to use it… Not much ammunition, but dealers do bullets for twenty cents each: was on the internet. I have to sell it, but at a sensible price.’

The rifle was inside a canvas bag wedged between the one-time public employee’s shoes. Cracked and scuffed and without polish, they were evidence of the poverty consuming his family. He had shown this solitary customer the state it was in, and had explained, truthfully.

‘It was my son. He had it for a year. He is supposed to clean his own bedroom. It was under his bed, against a wall. My wife never saw it, nor my sisters, nor me. He picked it up when the gunman fell, and ran with it, hid it…’

‘Three fifty American dollars. The best price.’

‘He was frightened, my boy, and did not know how to dispose of it, anxiety festered in him. Imagine, a boy who is eleven years old and sleeping above a killing machine, with blood soaked into it. It was when we had, three days, only bread to eat, only tap water, and he took me and showed it to me.’

‘Three fifty, my bottom.’

‘God forbid those bastards come after you, but they are down below and getting a grappling hook on the rails, and you will have more than a pressure hose. You can shoot…’

‘Three fifty, all I am prepared to pay.’

The seaman had started to scrape his chair back, and he finished his coffee ostentatiously, made a theatrical show of it. The ‘take it or leave it’ moment.

‘Four hundred – help me…’

‘But it is from another age. It looks uncared for, unwanted, at the end of usefulness. But it has history and the cuts on the wood would be the victims of it, and done in different styles which tells me it has been to many places, had a multitude of owners. I am a man of the sea, been through many ports, sailed many vessels and some were luxury and more had first-class quarters for crew, and some were freighters and trampers and carried filth, rubbish, bottom of the heap… Listen to me. Each time we docked we would go ashore and seek out the cat-houses, girls. Always now I imagine such a history given a whore. Fresh, firm flesh when the girl starts out, with a prettiness and an eagerness to learn her trade, and might be in London or in Marseille or hoping to get to Berlin and do the main avenues and have her own roof, and she begins to sag and the lines appear and she is not worth the great capitals’ business and might have reached Naples, or Vienna. More lines and more kilos at the waist and it will be Belgrade, or our city here, even Beirut, and her value is tumbling but still she knows how to please but the men are rougher, less concerned about anything other than a fast performance, then getting drunk. Now she is at the end of the line. The whore has come to Baghdad or to Damascus, even to Karachi, and she wears more make-up, puts it on with a shovel, and keeps her mouth closed so her teeth cannot be seen. Her teats drop far down her chest, and she cannot get enough hair dye. I tell you, friend, I will meet the whore in Mogadishu. I will, out of sentiment, pay her what she asks, and hope she does not leave me with a complaint and embarrassment. A man with her should close his eyes, not be concerned when the undersheet was last changed, do it and be hardly undressed, and go back to the hotel and scrub well. It is a sad tale of decline… I don’t think that the whore, when she can no longer find business in Mogadishu, has anywhere else to go. It is the end. How does it happen, the end, I do not know, but that is the whore’s progress. You offer me an old whore.’

‘How much will you pay?’

‘What you ask, four hundred American dollars – more than it is worth. I tell you the price in Europe is four hundred, and in Somalia it is also that figure, and if I travel to parts of Sudan it could be as little as eighty-five dollars, for the whore whose legs are almost emaciated with mosquito bites but can still work.’

‘Thank you, bless you.’

‘Four hundred dollars, and the bag to take it away in.’

They shook hands across the table.

The new owner carried it out into the sunshine, held the bag easily, showed his pass at the guarded gate, and hurried to where his ship was berthed, and it was enveloped in a haze of dust as the fertiliser was tipped into the holds. In the morning it would start a fresh journey, through the Canal and out into open seas, heading for the Somali port.

Samson carried the bag, canvas and unmarked, by the strap, let it swing by his knees, not obvious. The boss was behind him. There were others from the GIPN but shut away in a van and round a corner, out of sight. He took a seat at a table next to the English couple, and Major Valery was alongside. He’d have felt naked without the rifle that banged against his leg. The bag was heavy, had his vest in it, and his balaclava, and the rifle with the telescopic sight fitted – set at Battle Sight Zero, the usual killing distance – and some smoke grenades and flash-and-bang… The meeting had been dull enough to send him to sleep, or musing and far away with images of cheetahs and jaguars in his mind. He was alert now, in good shape. A sharp glance from the Major towards the English police officials, a bare flick of an eyebrow for recognition… He recognised the kid who walked with the girl, strolling and her with a money belt in her hand, the ties trailing. Approaching them was a slightly older man, north African, who carried a package, long and hard and heavy. Samson had enough experience to recognise the shape of a Kalashnikov assault rifle… He was wondering if the kid had burned all the clothing that was bloodstained from the single shot and the head of his target breaking apart, or if the kid had no replacements and had put his gear through three washings. He might have a useless arm but had shown enough guts to get up and go, fire his scooter’s engine, and there’d have been something tasty in the bag the kid would not give up. The Major murmured in his ear that the older guy was a dealer in La Castellane, small-time punk. Two targets of interest to watch, and coming closer, and no orders given him, and no understanding yet of what was required of him.

Andy Knight, living with his current name, not Phil and not Norm, and not what he had once been, watched it play out. Thought it had a certain staged quality, but only recognised by him and the very few others privy to the entertainment… would not have been noted by the kids who played football, or the skateboarders, or the lovers on benches or the tourists drinking expensive coffees. He saw it, understood.

The girl, his Zed, moved well, and seemed to show confidence, ought to walk well because she was heading in the direction of a life-changing outcome. Something haughty in her stride, and he wondered how close she was to landing on an island of arrogance. Watching her in his role as an undercover, he had not sensed her control waver after she had been spread-eagled on a pavement and him half over her, protecting her and she had been for a few brief seconds helpless and vulnerable. Had not lasted beyond the riposte. Up on her feet and belting one of the boys from the police station who acted out the extras’ roles. Vicious reaction… And she had dangled the confidence in the face of the lorry driver, had chosen him, patronised him, then had permitted the short experience in their bed before hammering off on the pillion in the night… and her life was now at a crossroads. It was predictable which choice she would make: the one that changed her life. Without hesitation she walked ahead.

As he saw it, the man approaching her was streetwise, wary, and glanced around him as he carried the roughly wrapped package. But would only have attracted the notice of a trained officer. They came steadily together… the kid sometimes skipped to stay alongside her.

It could have been one of those Cold War scenarios. The spy swap choreography. Their man coming one way across the ‘kill zone’, or our man on the centre line of a road bridge and heading towards a welcome committee, and seeming all so desperately normal. She had the money belt, and that would go one way and the package would go the other – and unwrapped, maybe smeared with gun oil, its contents would then be destined for a shopping mall or one of those clusters of streets where the bars were close together and the restaurants and the pubs, and mayhem, and then more to follow… Except, of course, that the trafficking of the package was monitored and would be managed, and the weapon made harmless in transit, and all would go well and there would be a silver lining to the thundercloud, and a happy ending which left good guys and good girls whooping in happiness. The Undercover knew about cluster-fucks, and cock-ups and failures of coordination, and the right hand and the left hand not acknowledging each other and the law in police covert operations which stated ‘If something can go wrong, it will go wrong…’ which was why what she did was life-changing.

They were close. Normally, in the spy swaps, the pawns in the game came level and did not pause but kept on going. No nod no raised eyebrow, no ‘Sorry mate, but I have to tell you the food is bloody awful over there, I wouldn’t go where you are heading, not for love and not for money.’ He watched a deviance in the laws of quality swaps. He stopped and she did. A quick movement of her fingers and it was more than 100 metres away, but he reckoned she flicked back the zipper on the pouch, and he would have seen the bank notes, and the kid was earnest and close in talk – and the package went to the kid first. He held it, then took out a short-bladed knife and slashed the tape and the bubble-wrap and was pulling away the covering. Had made a small hole, enough for an inspection. He thought that Zed knew nothing about the difference between a deactivated Kalashnikov and one that was all-singing, all-dancing, ready to go… an ethnic Pakistani girl and two north African boys gathering for conversation in multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Marseille, nothing more natural. He looked around him and could see the shapes of two men sitting in heavy shadow near to the spot where he had first noticed the guy who brought the package, and saw the people from Wyvill Road, and… the hand grasped the money belt. She held the package. The kid tried to take it off her, might have thought it too heavy for her to carry. No bloody way, she pushed him clear and turned, and…

He heard the shout. A gruff voice of protest, and of anger. A shout that echoed across the open space of the plaza, and a few heads turned. He saw a man standing at the far extremity of the space, small and bearded, wearing tinted glasses.

‘He’s a cop.’

Tooth shouted in his own language. Was on his feet. Shouted it again, in Crab’s language.

‘A cop. He’s a cop.’

But his voice would not have reached the cathedral’s doors and would not have been beaten back from the walls of the Fort Saint-Jean. He was pointing. To be engaged in business, to be dealing, and to be under police surveillance, was about as great a crime, in the life of Tooth, the legend in organised crime in the arrondissements of the northern sector of Marseille. A capital crime, good enough to wheel out the disused cobwebbed guillotine last used in the yard of the Baumettes gaol, was to be so careless as to bring a cop to the party. He was gesticulating, in a fury, and he pointed across the plaza and towards the wall on which a man sat, swinging his legs loosely, and behind him was a small car parked in limited space, then the road tunnel that linked the two sides of the vieux port. And the man stopped swinging his legs and froze on the wall, then stood. Tooth did not stay to see the end of it. Scurrying for an exit point, heading for his car, and his long-time friend, Crab, came after him.

Tooth snarled after him, ‘You brought a cop. My eyes smell a cop, my nose sees a cop. You did not see it, smell it? Imbecile. He is watching, observing. His eyes track – that’s a cop. He sits in the sun, is alert, sees everything. It is surveillance. You bring this down on me – idiot.’

Tooth ran as best he could, and Crab hobbled after him and tears wet his face.

She had heard what was shouted, and heard the curse from the boy, Karym. She had seen the pointing arm and had swivelled on her heel, had looked where the arm and the finger directed, had seen Andy straighten, stand, agape… Karym had hold of her arm. She clung to the package. She wanted to shout out, ‘No, no, that is not a policeman, it’s Andy. He’s a driver. He drives a lorry. He is nobody. He does what I say. He…’ Wanted to and could not, and was dragged. She saw the man who had brought the package carrying the belt away, the straps streaming behind him, and he was running as if his life depended on the speed his legs could take him. And she saw the couple from the street, from La Canebière, who had had trouble reading their map and finding the place in their guidebook, and who Andy had helped. Shouted nothing back, allowed herself to be pulled away from the centre of the space.

A chance to stop? Pause a moment? Consider? What actually is best for me? How should I react? Am I supposed to believe the guy who I have known for months, who I fucked last night – who glories in me, who is nothing but a truck driver – is a policeman? Have I been duped? Betrayed? Who says so? Who…? Did not have time to scratch her head, frown, think. Her stride slackened and his fist, clamped on her wrist, tightened and then jerked her away. She saw him, Andy Knight – lover or defender or traitor? – and he stood and he watched, and his posture had changed. No longer round-shouldered, nor slouched, as if a role had altered his shape. No linger, nor loiter. She was tugged. The boy was shorter than her and might have been a clear stone lighter. The money had gone. The man who had shouted had disappeared. The couple she had seen at the top of La Canebière – where Andy had made her laugh and had showed her the painted street sculptures of the giraffes – had now come forward from a café, and were with two men, and one of them carried a drooping bag.

Karym did not exhort her to come with him, said nothing, dragged her. She was not asked. They were at the scooter. He wrenched her. What alternative? None that she knew of. She hitched her leg over the Peugeot’s pillion seat. The engine coughed. Dark fumes spilled from the exhaust behind her and the wind took them into her nose. They careered out into the traffic, and she had her arms around his waist, and the package wedged on her lap.

He had not said where he was taking her, nor asked what was best for her.

He followed, felt calm.

Tucked in behind two cars, each loaded with families and going steadily, it was not hard for Andy to slip into a good position to tail. He could not be obvious nor was it likely that he would lose the scooter. He had slept with her that night – as if it were from both of them a final calling card – and he saw already that he was history in her mind. She held tight to the boy’s waist, was close to his back and her head was against the boy’s shoulder. To what purpose he followed her, he was uncertain. To have evaluated his situation he would have needed perhaps a half-minute of quiet, an opportunity to reflect. Did not have that luxury: never did in his work… he was tasked to be up close to her, so he went after her.

The scooter could weave but Andy relied on the cars ahead to push through gaps, and the distance between them stayed constant. He saw signs on a main road that headed towards Avignon, but the boy rode past them and took a diversion on to narrow streets and they now were filling because it was the middle of the day and the traffic was increasing, and following them was becoming harder, and he’d have less help from those in front. Then he was alone. No vehicle was between them. She did not look back, and the boy had no mirror.

He would follow to the end, expected to and wanted to.