Battle Sight Zero

Chapter 16

Not knowing where they led him, he went after them, could see the billow of her hair and the closeness of their bodies, and when the kid took a corner sharply, and banked, he had a brief sight of the package clamped against her stomach… and already it had all failed.

The plan had been to allow the single weapon, product of a test run, to enter British territory and to be bugged and tailed, then for a wide-scale arrest swoop, and a network rounded up. To achieve that, Zed should have done the swap and walked away with that lofty haughtiness that he had helped establish as hers by right, should have given the boy a light kiss on the cheek, the big thrill of his day, and should have settled into the Polo and put the package on the floor, and he’d have pulled away from the kerb, and headed for the road out, taken the Avignon signs and the autoroute. Straight sailing from there. Except it had not happened, and now would not – all screwed up.

He was denounced.

Across the open square, he had seen the figure rise from a low chair in the shadows and gesticulate, identify him as he sat on the wall, claim him as a ‘cop’. An old man had done it. Could not have been his clothing, his hair or his cheeks, all unkempt but acceptable for a civilian. He could not think that anything he had done would have alerted a guy sitting a minimum of a hundred yards from him. There had been a cry in French, then English; he wore a cap and tinted glasses and had a neatly trimmed snow-white beard. The instructors always preached that old lags, veteran villains, had the knack of spotting an officer, however good the cover. And the scene in front of him had disintegrated fast… the money had gone – she might have tried to get to him, to the car, but the kid was shouting in her ear, would have been telling her that she had produced the cop, her fault, her responsibility, and had dragged her away. He wondered if she had tears in her eyes. Wondered if she could see, or if her eyes had misted over… It had failed, had shown out, and he didn’t know how. What was life afterwards? He followed her: assumed if he followed far enough and fast enough that a moment would come when they’d confront each other. She would spit, he would tell her that it was a lie, he was not a police officer. She would rant. He would claim innocence and deny deceit. But he was unarmed, and she clasped against her stomach an assault rifle. She’d not know how to use it. But the boy would. He thought, in bitterness, that the kid would know, and all his friends, and all of his brothers, how to arm an AK-47, and shoot with it, would have learned all that about a week after being weaned off his mother’s milk, and all the rest of them… but he followed.

The kid rode the scooter well. His top speed was good enough for the narrow streets, and for other traffic. The bigger problem was for Andy Knight, bogus lover and treacherous friend, and a serving police officer under the direction of SC&O10, to hold the link. Behind him was a faint rumble, like a gathering storm was closing on them. Back to that ‘life afterwards’… why had he followed them? Had no idea, except that it was his ‘duty’, big word and unsure of its meaning… What did he hope to achieve by following them? Not in Andy Knight’s lowly pay grade to make such decisions, had been told to stay close, and would… and what came ‘afterwards’? An internal inquiry, evidence given, and a reference to the Official Secrets Act, closed sessions, and he’d be walking out of the door, and a flunkey would demand his ID and would slot it into the shredder. Found wanting, surplus to requirements… nobody wanted to jostle shoulders with failure. He kept on following. Could have taken the next sign for the autoroute, going north, maybe overtaking her first and giving her a cheery wave, then stamping his foot, and getting the hell out and leaving it to others to sort out the debacle.

The noise was louder. A big bike. There had been a time in his life, before the legend of Andy was cobbled together, and before Norm had shown up, and before Phil had been created, when he’d have gone on bent knee for a chance to ride that sort of machine. Maybe take it out on the Welsh mountains, around the National Park, do a loop that would take in Mallwyd and almost to Dolgellau and down to Corris Uchaf and with the summit of Waen-oer on one side and that of Cader Idris on the other, then to Machynlleth where his parents, the real ones, had had a caravan on a site, might still have, go east towards Cwm-Llinau and finish the circle… Because he had failed, it was possible for him to consider the old life, which otherwise was denied. Brilliant to be on that sort of bike, which had been an ambition all through the Marines days, and the uniformed police slog before his transfer into the new existence of living the lie. A Ducati came past him, hovering left and right of the white line in the middle of the road. Seemed to ooze power. He recognised the rider, the leather jacket. The Ducati, the 811 model, was cleaned and the metal parts shone and the paintwork was without blemish. He knew it as the Ducati Monster. It would be a symbol of power where the rider came from. It came level with the Peugeot scooter that was chugging up the long hill.

An arm came off the Ducati controls. Snaked out, reached across, the fist clenched. First there was a punch on the kid’s shoulder. The scooter rocked but the kid held firm and he might have heard the pillion scream and bury her head lower on the kid’s back and hold ever tighter, and the scooter skidded but the kid held it upright. One punch on the shoulder and one cuff on the back of the head. The scooter held its speed. The hand went lower, was at the package, tried to rip it clear. He saw Zed’s foot. It came out, paused, took a bearing, then kicked sharply at the back of the leg of the Ducati man. Where the muscle was. The guy needed both hands for control. Might have had the briefest hold of the package. The two riders screamed abuse at each other. Then the Ducati accelerated past. A siren sounded a long way back. Zed was tearing at her parcel’s packaging, bubble-wrap and tape, must have lifted a knife off the kid carrying her, and dropping the wrapping, ditching it as a toy for the wind to play with.

Andy saw the barrel of a rifle as the packaging was stripped off.

Zeinab slashed with the blade. More of the bubble-wrap came loose.

The boy, she knew him now as Karym, had needed both hands on the scooter’s steering. In his hesitant English, he’d told her which pocket on his coat he’d find the knife, and she’d opened the blade. If the fist that had punched Karym had groped into her lap and tried to seize the package, had come again, she’d have stabbed it.

The packaging flew away behind her. The bike in front had slowed. She had the rifle, and a magazine slotted into its guts, and another was under her T-shirt, and into the waist of her jeans. The motorbike made one more dart after them, and she saw the anger on the face of the rider; he was revving the engine and cutting his speed, and the hand snatched for the rifle. She stabbed, made a poor job of using the blade, managed only a nick on the hand but enough to draw blood. The bike swung away; one-handed control was hard, and the pain would have been big and blood ran from a small but deep wound. Words yelled between the brothers, him furious and Karym defiant, and the bike – two hands in place – sloped away, went in front, left them for dead.

Karym shouted at her, ‘It is yours, it is what you bought… I thought it would be skunk of Moroccan black. I thought it was that, not a Kalash… why go to such trouble for a Kalash? Why involve my brother and Tooth in this deal? Is that all you wanted, a Kalash? You make my brother angry, I saw his blood. He has a Ducati 821 Monster, and I have a little Peugeot, which says what he thinks of me. You have anywhere to go?’

‘If my friend is a policeman, I have nowhere to go.’

‘I can hide you.’

‘Is it possible there is a mistake?’

‘That your boy is not a policeman? The one I saw you with this morning, not a policeman? A mistake? I do not think so… the one who identified him is an old legend of Marseille, a big man with a reputation. He would know a cop… it is the face, the look in the eye, it is the style of the body, the posture. Old people, they know… old gang leaders know better than anyone. Possibly a mistake, but…’

‘What should we do?’

Karym did not know, could not answer.

The rifle was hidden between them, and the magazine gouged into his back. She had closed the knife, had dropped it back in his pocket. He could hide her, a possibility. Hide her until darkness then take her out of La Castellane, and bring her to… where? Could take her to the ferry port and put her on a boat to – to anywhere. Could take her to Saint Charles railway station and buy a ticket for her to – to anywhere. Or go to the airport, or one of the little fishing harbours along the coast and towards the Spanish frontier and see if there were people who would take her to – to anywhere. The siren came closer, screaming. If they were followed, then it was clear to him, that police had been at the plaza, had watched the exchange – confirmed what old Tooth had claimed, that her boy, her driver, was a cop.

What to do? He did not know.

Who to ask? Karym knew no one who could make a decision fast other than his brother, who would now feel the pain of the cut in his hand, and have to get the wound bandaged, and would feel vicious anger towards her. Did not know what to do, did not know who to ask. He felt the tremors in her body, and the weapon seemed to shiver in her grip which made the pain where it trapped his flesh more acute. They went on up the hill. He understood that the previous buried tensions with his brother were now in the open air and clear to view, and rejoiced in it – like he had crawled from the cover of deep shadow. He could not twist sufficiently to see behind him, gauge how far away the source of the siren was. He would not have admitted his fear, certainly not to her, but imagined himself as one of the myriad of small puppy dogs that roamed the project, and when a stone was thrown at them, they’d slink away, look for the safety of a home – under a bush or behind a building, or the corner of a stairwell. In the distance was the large flat landscape of buildings that formed the commercial shopping centre. On the far side of the road was La Castellane. If he could get there before the sirens caught up with him, he would feel a certain safety.

‘I will protect you, Zeinab.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I admire you and I respect you.’ Her arms were around his waist. She was different from every other young woman in the project, and so brave – so innocent. No woman of her age in La Castellane retained even a pinch of innocence.

‘Thank you again.’

‘I will hide you.’

‘Yes, I thank you.’

‘If you are seen, Zeinab, with the rifle, they will kill you. Samson will.’

‘I do not need to know, Karym, what will happen to me.’

‘They shoot to kill, Zeinab, it does not matter to them if they kill us.’

‘What the fuck do we do?’ she shouted in his ear.

‘Did you think it would be easy?’ he yelled back. ‘Here, for us, it is never easy.’

‘Who is Samson…?’

‘Hope, Zeinab, that you do not learn who is Samson.’

The Major drove. Samson, beside him, used a monocular with a steady hand. The English pair were sitting behind them in the vehicle with four uniforms.

Samson said, ‘She has a rifle, I can see it. She has a Kalashnikov. It was in the wrapping. We should block them before they get into the rat-house.’

‘Get it deployed,’ he was told.

And he did.

The Englishman said quietly, almost diffidently, ‘We’d like her taken. She’ll be a treasure trove.’

The Englishwoman snapped at him, ‘For heaven’s sake, Gough, she’s on the loose with a lethal weapon, and has to be stopped – just leave it.’

It was called up, would be in place, and there were squad cars coming from the east and west, and another from the north, and all would carry the necessary gear.

The Major asked, not looking back, ‘The Volkswagen, the Polo, that is your man?’

‘Afraid it is,’ he was answered.

They drove at the speed of the scooter, but were out in the middle of the road and nothing could pass them. The Major had created a gap in the traffic. The scooter was isolated and weighed down by its passenger and cargo, was alone in its space; perfect for what they intended… except for the one car that had stayed at constant speed and at a constant distance behind the fugitives.

It was flicked out.

The road ahead was empty. On the pavements crowds gathered, mostly immigrants from the Maghreb but some from central Africa; very few in this district had parents born in France. They would hear the sirens and there was a good feeling that soon another performance would be laid before them, perhaps as exciting as when the executioner, Samson, had come and shot a man, one bullet and taking out the skull.

It slithered snake-like across the road. A second was ready for use on the far side. The police called them ‘stingers’. The Tyre Deflation Devices covered half the road’s width with close-set spikes, and officers reckoned from experience they could stop any vehicle, shred the tyres and bring it to a halt. Armed police crouched in doorways on either side and could hear the sirens but not yet the erratic engine of the small Peugeot scooter. The intention was that the snakes – one already in the road and the other held back until the target was close – would halt the pair well short of their La Castellane refuge. The instructions called for the arrest of the couple, particularly the female. They had with them, it was said, an automatic rifle but were without experience of using such a powerful weapon… And a car followed them, a male driver, and that person should be kept out of the arrest area, should be prevented from entering the cordon sanitaire. Many eyes watched, and many ears listened for the approach of the prey, and guns were cocked. In that arrondissement a spectacle was always eagerly welcomed.

‘What the bloody hell do I do now?’ Crab hissed.

‘Use your feet, and walk,’ was his answer.

They were at a set of lights. The sign by the church said this was the Rue Beauvau. It was near the quayside for the vieux port, near McDonald’s and an Irish pub, near the marina where the yachts and launches were moored, but nowhere near the airport. And a further answer… Tooth had reached across him, unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open, flicked the hold on the seat belt, and propelled Crab out, and he had stumbled on the pavement, scattering pedestrians… And another answer, as Tooth twisted round to the back seat, picked up his one-time friend’s bag, and threw it out. It careered into Crab’s legs.

‘How was I to know?’

‘You come to me, you fat old fool, with your little idea, and want to play a big man again, and you are now senile and incompetent, and you have brought a cop with you. A cop travels along with you… “How was I to know?”… You come here, you feed off my hospitality, you threaten my way of life. How, why? Because you have not taken care. You can walk to the airport.’

‘Nobody speaks to me, not that way, no one does.’

‘Go back where you came from, use your feet to get there. I am not your chauffeur.’

Long years of joshing, laughing, doing deals, telling stories, sharing bad times, were erased, like a sheet of paper held over a flame. About as great a crime as existed in the world of either Tooth or of Crab was to have such slack security that a stranger, an Undercover, could infiltrate a group and threaten both livelihood and liberty. A damning accusation and one never before levelled at Crab… Of course, never apologise, keep contrition off the table. Fight back, only way to maintain respect – respect for himself.

He had a fist on the bag’s strap, and swung it. There were metal studs on its base, roughened through wear. The bag scraped the bodywork of the Mercedes car, polished and pristine, and he had the pleasure in seeing Tooth’s rage, control almost lost… but not enough for him.

He dropped the bag and plunged back into the car. Sought to get his hands on Tooth’s throat, but had no hold, and came away only with a clutch of hair from the chin of Tooth’s beard. Then he stepped back, kicked the door hard enough for it to slam, and watched the car pull away.

What he had done was unforgivable… he had seen the young man sitting on the wall, kicking his heels, and had noted the guy’s roving eyes, their scanning, apparently relaxed but alert… and all so convenient. The little girl with a ‘stupid’ boyfriend, obsessed with her, and happy to drive her halfway across Europe and be ignorant of the conspiracy… The guys his sons had met on their wing at Strangeways, who’d used the old warehouse, had failed to do the checks. He was in hock to people he did not know, who had aims he did not understand, and his premises had been given over to a session of pain, interrogation, agony, all the way to death… He might be subject to investigation by the crime squad at Manchester, and might be of interest to the North West Counter Terrorist crowd: a bad outlook, and he could not see it improving. Down to him… but he had stood his corner well, and the accusation of being a bloody idiot had come late, after a stonily silent drive.

And his leg hurt, usually did when he was stressed. He went towards the main drag, and hoped to find a taxi, and hoped to get on a plane… and had not been fucking paid, not been handed his share of commission on the deal. All for one bloody gun.

October 2018

‘I have no need of it…’ the navigation officer said.

His friend was an Alexandrian and worked in the harbourmaster’s office of that Egyptian port on the Mediterranean coast. ‘What need of it could I have?’

‘They are uncertain times, times of revolution and of instability and…’

‘And times when the possession of such an item is sufficient for a military court to order the hanging of a man. You want me to take it off your hands, yes?’

The navigation officer grimaced because that was the truth. ‘We are heading for the Canal, we are due to sail the length of the Red Sea, and then into waters where there is a threat of piracy.’

‘I know that.’

‘We are approaching Alexandria and the captain is informed that the owners have declared insolvency, and we should return to our home port. If we are lucky, there we may be paid off. But we are Greeks, and used to the imposition of disappointment, and more possible is that we go down the gangway to be abandoned without pension rights, anything. I cannot take it back to Greek territory. I could throw it overboard. Or could make it available to a friend.’

‘It is functional?’

‘I assume so. I was told it was. I believe that the Kalashnikov has a longer life than me, than you, otherwise why would they have manufactured a hundred million of them… If you were a fish, my friend, I would say you are nibbling.’

Both laughed, but without humour. The navigation officer had made the offer of a gift to this official from the harbourmaster’s office because the man was of the Christian faith. Many were in Alexandria… they lived, as he knew well, in a state of siege, their churches were bombed by zealots, and their children were abused and their wives friendless outside their own small community, and the police seldom answered emergency calls when they were threatened. Not quite a time of lynch mobs seeking out those worshippers, but it would come. He had thought this individual would welcome the chance to have the weapon, hidden away, only to be considered if the mob were on the stairs or had brought flaming torches and gasoline to the front door. A last stand when his family and himself faced death by fire or by stabbing and chopping with butchers’ axes, might be an attractive alternative.

First nibbled, then taken into the mouth.

‘It would be the noose and the gallows.’

‘Whatever you want. It is intended as a gesture of friendship.’

The navigation officer, in the days since they had left their home port, and had gone into the Black Sea for a topping-up of cargo, had many times, late at night and alone in his cabin, taken the weapon out of its protective wrapping. He had held it, then had learned one piece at a time to dismantle it, then reassemble it. He had cleared the magazine, had filled it again. He had learned what he could from the internet about its history and culture, of the freedom struggle that the weapon enjoyed. Set in the metalwork was the identity of the rifle, and he knew by heart, often silently recited its last digits, 16751, and had wondered at the heritage that an individual rifle, a killing machine, carried. Had not fired it, not stood on the deck in darkness and nestled the stock against his shoulder and aimed at a fisherman’s buoy, but had held it in the firing position inside the privacy of his cabin. The scratches on the stock, which tickled the skin of his jaw when he aimed, were of particular interest. Easy to assume that different owners had made those marks and that if their code could be deciphered then the history would be clear. They were gouges, or notches, or crude marks made from a blunt blade or the tip of a screwdriver. Young men, college students, lucky enough to bed a girl, might leave a small memento on the bed post: young men, soldiers or activists, might remember a killing by marking the wooden stock. It had fascinated him. It would be, he reflected, similar to a child abandoning a prized toy, but he could not contemplate, now that the ship was recalled and the owners bust, having Customs men go over it as they docked for the last time – not a hanging offence but the probability of a lengthy gaol term.

Enough… ‘Do you want it, or not want it? Will you take it or does it go in the sea?’

He would take it. A farewell to a friend. Never used but valued. He would add nothing to the marks made on the wooden stock but hoped it might be of help, or merely comfort, to a friend. He looked for a last time at the body of it, where so little paint had survived the years. It was wrapped again, then would go into the official’s bag – where his laptop was and his waterproof clothing, and a change of shoes. They hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, and his friend – he noticed – shook, almost trembled, had gone quiet, and his breath was fast but erratic. He thought the reason was the fear that the weapon, unused, could create.

Over the boy’s shoulder, Zeinab saw the silver line across the rough stained greyness of the road’s surface. They went towards it with all the speed that the scooter was capable of. The line she saw went only to the middle of the street, and he was steering towards the end of its bright length: the sun caught it, made it pretty.

Two police vehicles were parked up, doors open on the street side. She saw the crowd and seemed to hear also, louder than the siren behind them, a dull timpani from spectators on the pavement behind the police vehicles, when they saw the scooter and Karym and herself breast the top of the slope and then accelerating. And noted the guns… registered two handguns, pistols, and a small machine-gun. The guns were held by three men and a woman, all drab blue in the uniform of the Marseille force, what she had seen when walking with Andy… and it hurt to remember him and recall his voice, to think of him. She had no idea where they were going, what she would do. Helpless, in the hands of the kid, somewhere she did not know – lost.

‘It’s a shit old world’, the kids at the Hall of Residence would have said. ‘Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’, her tutor would have said. There were pictures on the TV of long-distance races through streets, full- and half-marathons, and always there were parts of the nominated course where the crowd was sparse but they were vigorous in their support for a struggling and isolated runner, and clapped and sometimes whistled to show empathy… like now. There was applause, there were yells, that she took as encouragement, and Karym took a hand off the steering bar and clenched a puny fist, shook it, as if he were a freedom fighter and they were his followers. It was what she thought. She had realised that the siren noise stayed constant, that the vehicles did not close on them. There was a car behind them but it was not easy for her to turn, see it clearly… and some on the pavements saw the rifle and yelled louder and made the gesture of aiming and firing and their laughter cascaded on her. They gave her their applause because she had the rifle, was invulnerable, strong; but she knew nothing. She liked the sound of their clapping and cheering, and held the rifle so it was better seen, and felt the power in her arms, and its weight seemed as nothing.

He veered across the street. The police stiffened, and she thought they aimed. The swerve that Karym made would have confused them, made their target harder to follow. She understood: he rode the scooter beyond the silver line. A woman stepped out of a shop doorway, 25, 30 yards away. She wore police uniform. Karym saw the pistol lodged in a holster. She had auburn hair with highlights, and was powerful at the hips and shoulders, and she carried a thick silver coil, like a big resting eel – and threw it. Nowhere for Karym to go. The road was blocked, The unravelling coil shivered on the street surface, rocked and bobbed and was almost still when he drove over it.

He had said nothing, gave her no warning. She sensed the sudden quiet, heard the squeal of the tyres, and the tight, small explosions as they burst, and the ripping sound where they were torn. The momentum of the scooter reeled under her.

The scooter skidded, slewed across the road, was past the silver line, and she had seen the teeth bared as the tyres shredded. Karym struggled to hold it, and seemed to swear in a language she didn’t know. She clung to the rifle with one hand; the other was around his waist, gripping the material of his T-shirt and feeling the little knots of his muscles. They went down and she felt the heat as sparks were thrown up.

She held the rifle. The knees and thighs of her jeans, right leg, ripped. The skin beneath was stripped. She hung on to him, clung on to the rifle. They headed for a street rubbish bin, filled to overflowing, seemed endless getting there, but reached it and the scooter took most of the impact, and Karym took some more. She felt little, until the shot was fired.

They had hit the bin.

Her thumb would have shifted the lever, taken it off safety and on to single shot mode, when her body careered into the bin. A finger would have gone into the space behind the trigger guard and caught the lever, not squeezed it, but yanked on it. A bullet was fired. It would have hit a lamppost, then ricocheted into the road, then struck the surface and maybe gone on, as a flat stone would if flipped on to smooth water, and flew down the street, until breaking a window.

The effect of the shot, fired involuntarily, was as good an outcome as there might have been. Three policemen and a policewoman taking cover, either flat on the pavements and not aiming, and the policewoman who had thrown out the tyre shredder was on her haunches in the shop doorway. She could not have said whether it was she who pulled him up, whether it was Karym who tugged her arm and dragged her upright. No sports races, running for a tape, were permitted at the school she’d attended in Savile Town. Never ran in Manchester. No cause to, no reason to run. She did now, learned how, but never released her grip on the rifle.

Karym was bent low, ducked and weaved and scampered. He took her with him. Nothing said… She had fired the Kalashnikov, had seen policemen, policewomen, cower, had known the strength of it when the kick came, and thought it the proudest moment in her life. She did not look behind her, just ran and tried to match Karym, did not see who followed her. She was panting, her chest heaving. There was a drumming of feet, and still the siren, then a rippling, chanting applause.

It was not his business, beyond his remit.

Another of those bloody instructors would have said, ‘Something to remember: you do not get caught up in events that are beyond the remit. You stay focused and remain inside the tramlines of your assignment. Anything else and you drift away, go far into the shadows. What is paramount to remember is that personal feelings have no place in the governing of your reactions. Hold on to that and you’ll be fine. Ignore that and you will finish up at the wrong end of shit-creek… It’s simple, and keep things that way – simple.’ He was out of the car, left the door open and the engine running, and his rucksack and her bag were in the boot.

He wondered why the police had not fired on them. They did not run fast but would have made difficult targets because the boy had the wit to move with a low gravity centre, and to duck and to zigzag, and the girl, Zed, followed his lead and was pulled after him. She clutched the rifle, and a second magazine bulged from her hip pocket. Perhaps they had been ordered not to fire, perhaps no one in authority had told them anything and had abandoned them to ‘use your own initiative, boys, girls, and we’re all behind you’, the big cop-out anthem.

Nobody told him what he should do, and nobody was there for him to ask. He started to jog up the street. He could recall the good times with the girl and the bad times. He went faster, lengthened his stride.

Behind him, the sirens had been silenced. Ahead of them, astride the slope of a hill, was a housing estate, close-set windows, grey-white walls pocked with satellite dishes, blue sky and bright sunshine and a lapping wind that blew the washing suspended from balcony wires. That would be their goal, their place of safety. An old slogan was in his mind, what an officer would have lectured them at Lympstone, what they searched for among recruits – First to understand, first to adapt and respond, and first to overcome, and the officer might just have nodded approval. His advantage, to be exploited, was that the police where the stingers had been thrown, were all looking up the road. He went over the silver lines, hopped over the spikes. There was a perfunctory yell but he ignored it, ran easily. The two of them, in front of him, both limping and in obvious pain, went close to the spectators.

He ran past the scooter, the tyres gone, the tank leaking fuel, dumped in the centre of the street, and useless; he had seen it in the square below the hotel window, and the street-light had shown him the pride with which the boy had climbed on to it and gunned the engine and waved for her to sit behind him, settle on the pillion. He was noticed. A policeman stood up from his crouching position and attempted to block him, jabbered in a language that neither Andy Knight, nor Phil nor Norm, would have been familiar with, and then he was waved aside and grabbed at the anorak and shaken clear, and squeaked something which was ignored, but he did not shoot.

He heard far behind him a woman’s bellowing voice. ‘You fucking idiot, come back here.’

Then a plaintive voice, her superior’s. ‘Friend, this is not a good idea. Don’t go any farther.’

‘She’s not your business, not now the whole thing is wrecked.’

‘I really do urge you to turn around.’

The boy and Zed were gone from sight. The crowd on the pavement had engulfed them, one moment he could see them, their heads bobbing, and the next a mess of shoulders and backs made a screen around them. They were inside a clamour of noise. The mob had claimed them… Like a great caterpillar, the crowd seemed to wriggle up the hill. He caught a glimpse of the tip of the barrel of the assault rifle, and he imagined her thrill at being among people so loving, so admiring; she would have felt herself a fighter and cherished.

Behind him, the couple that he knew as Gough and Pegs, a team suckled on police culture, had managed to run – or hustle – and had closed on him, had stepped over the tyre shredder, were past the scooter. The voices were faint.

She bawled, ‘Gone native, have you? You’re finished. You’re nothing, you’re history.’

He called, ‘You are in the way of an arrest operation. Do not go any farther.’

He looked over his shoulder. Gough had indeed run and now leaned against a lamppost and heaved as he sucked air into his lungs. Pegs, who used cheerful building site obscenities, now stood in the road with her back bent and might well be vomiting on her shoes. Walking briskly, at the head of a small phalanx of uniforms, was a plain clothes officer, suit and tie, straight-backed, and in his fist was a pistol, carried easily… half a pace back from him was a man with a balaclava masking his face, carrying what he recognised as a Steyr sniper’s rifle, the SSG 69, what an élite marksman would have chosen, a weapon of quality and with reputation. He started running again. He heard the name murmured, like the rustle of dead leaves hurried by a wind: Samson. The voices were from the people who had lined the pavements down the hill, where the stingers had been used.

He followed the crowd who escorted the boy and Zed, made ground on them.

Chaos, it seemed.

More sirens and more vehicles arriving, and the road blocked, and in the middle of the lights and the confusion was the Volkswagen Polo with the driver’s door hanging open. Municipal police on site, and with their own command chain, and Major Valery seeking to confirm primacy. Kids gathering, bricks in their hands. A thunder of vehicle horns because a busy road was blocked and the tailbacks grew. A crowd jeering, except when one particular man passed. And a caterpillar of people, wriggling along, carried two fugitives to an entry road into the La Castellane project… rumour running riot, some claimed to have seen a foreign girl, ethnic Asian, carrying an aged Kalashnikov, and reports said she had already fired at the police, but there was no blood on the street or the pavement, only an abandoned scooter.

And the street filled, and mobiles summoned more people to come, and the word was passed that the executioner himself was there…

Gough said, ‘Little for us to be proud of.’

Pegs said, ‘In the big scheme, we are small beer.’

They stood apart. Order was being restored. The marksman had slipped away. The Major was in a tight knot of officers and seemed to be laying down terms and conditions for the next phase. Obvious to all that both of them had attempted to call back their man, and had been ignored. Gough had called it ‘a Nelson moment’, and Pegs had described it as ‘bloody near as makes no difference to mutiny’. And she had retrieved from the depths of her handbag an ancient leather-coated hip-flask, swigged, wiped her sleeve on her mouth, passed it to him, but he shook his head.

He said, ‘I suppose among the many operations, different grades of danger, running at this moment, what makes us different, is that we have the usually reliable component on our side, an Undercover. That presence has made us envied, attracts jealousy, and we look to have been inadequate in using it.’

She said, ‘And every time a suicider detonates and takes fatalities with him, the folk alongside us – some we know and some we don’t – will shiver, get the cramps, guard their backs, against the accusation that they fucked up, it was on their watch. Could be us, we could be the ones sneaking out the back door, no leaving bash, while the TV shows the carnage. We’re not a bag of laughs, Gough. Not flavour of the day.’

Far ahead of them now walked the man with the sniper rifle, at his own pace, heading for the distant blocks towards which the girl, principal target for Rag and Bone, had gone. Pegs and Gough were ignored, were outside the equations.

At the entrance, youths formed a line. He took her, and the watchers parted.

She held tightly to the rifle but did not know which posture to assume. He had tried, a minute or so earlier, to remove it from her. She did not permit it. So, instead, he had fiddled with a lever at the side, had depressed it, told her it was now safe. Dead eyes greeted them, and she did not know whether they had the support of the young people or were to be treated with hostility. They went as quickly as their bruised, grazed legs would take them, and her elbows were raw, and her jeans torn. At the entrance to the block where he had taken her in the small hours, parked in the shade of the building was a powerful bike, a big one and a big man’s… and she remembered. It had come past them, the rider had tried to snatch her weapon. She had kicked full force, the first injury of the day had been her bruised toes. Youths guarded the stairs. Space was made for them, but no encouragement given… Did Karym expect a hero’s return? If so, would be disappointed.

Andy Knight, the lorry driver who was a straight sort of guy, and did not threaten, had a way of getting where he’d no right to be. He had never been Phil, did not recognise Norm, but also had once been in the Royal Marines, and identified by a service number.

Something distant but an experience to feed off. Older men told stories. Liked the ones that featured bluff, getting where they were not welcome, and having the style to seem to belong. He came to the line of youths. Remembered all he had been told. Out on manoeuvres on the moor and a weathered, gnarled company sergeant major would give them the benefit of his reminiscences, good stuff and the recruits were spellbound. The best were about bluff.

Eyes peered at him, muscles flexed, he saw the light catch the steel-sharpened surface of a knife blade, saw a hand go down and pick up a bottle that had been left on one of the big rocks. They had no weight to their bodies, were small and sinewy and their clothes hung loose on them. Most wore sports kit, designer jogging suits, and designer trainers, and he doubted that any had ever competed on a track. The hairstyles were exotic, most with the sides and above their ears shaved, as the boy’s was. The eyes had a deadness to them as if joy rarely visited. He thought the ‘trade’ employed them all. He walked towards the line, to the centre of it; the youth on the right of where he was aiming to go through them held the bottle, and it would be the work of a moment to break the glass, create jagged edges. The one to the left held the knife, showed the blade.

A firm voice, English. He walked up to them. Something about it being a ‘good afternoon’, and something more about ‘just following my friends’, and winding up with ‘excuse me please’. The line split, a parting of the sea. It might happen once, and would not happen again. He was against them, body to body, and he reached out to a youth in front of him and seemed to roll his eyes at the boy’s appearance, and he fastened the buttons on the youth’s shirt and tutted in disapproval at the kid’s appearance, and he was through. Others were laughing at the one who had been gently reprimanded… There was a corporal, a weapons instructor, and the story was a party piece: a small convoy in some distant snow-bound corner of Bosnia, on a glistening icy road and the road block was Serbian and all half-cut with slivovicz high-proof stuff, and tempers frayed and some weapons cocked. The corporal had stepped down from the Land Rover and had lined them up with the acumen of any well-practised drill NCO, had tongue-lashed them for their dress and bearing, had had them on basics, attention and at ease and weapon handling, had inspected them, had drunk a toast to them, and they had gone through with the aid lorries they escorted. Just happened once, and he’d used the ‘once’, and was through – and had his hand shaken for his trouble. The motorcycle was there.

It had passed him at speed. He had seen the girl, Zed, resist the attempt to snatch the rifle, and he had seen the same man on the plaza. He went inside, was engulfed in darkness, the fierce sunlight lost. Shadows around him, then guttural voices, and one figure had swaggered close to him. Questions thrown at him. He stood his ground, waited, allowed his sight to settle. It would be bluff, another strong dose of it, had to be. He knew well enough the story of the Beirut negotiator who had gone back to the city one time too many and had believed that his status and bearing gave him protection, had walked tall and had seen his mission as clear-cut: winning the release of hostages trapped by the civil war, held as pawns in abysmal conditions. And the bluff was called and a gun pulled on the negotiator and his arms pinioned, and he’d rot for years in a primitive cell with those he’d tried to free… A sergeant in the sniper training section had told a story of a plain clothes soldier, masquerading as a journalist, alone in the Creggan estate of Londonderry, and a crowd of Provo supporters round his car and shouts and anger, and no help in sight. The joker had managed to get out of the car, and fingers poked him and fists grabbed at his clothing, and he had seen his saviour: an Irish setter, a big, rangy and adorable dog with feathered auburn hair, had wandered by, oblivious of the tension. Down on his knees, and the animal immediately warming to him, and tickling under its chin, and where was the owner? A man pushing to the front, hostility lining his forehead, and the soldier asking questions about diet, and what exercise it needed, and how his coat was so beautifully kept and how hard they were to train, and him being everybody’s friend – and able to get the fuck out. Likely, afterwards, the dog took a heavy kicking when they realised the trick performed on them. A kid, might have been fourteen years old, had a sub machine-gun. It was an Ingram, a MAC-10, obsolete and out of production, a spray close quarters weapon, short barrel, range around 50 metres for doing damage… he ignored all the other weapons, made himself the kid’s friend. Quick action, and left them confused and had it in his hand and the kid hardly knowing how else to respond. Pitifully poor light, and the big chance taken, and he started to strip it, take it apart, lay the pieces out. Had never done it before. And put it together, and took the magazine out, and cleared it, and was smiling wide enough for all to see in the grim light. He slotted the magazine back in place, and handed it back. Had never done it, and he’d used hand speeds that a magician would have prided himself on. Had given it back. Then had held up his open hand, ready for a high five, and been awarded one from the kid, then from the others.

He pointed to the big bike outside, the Ducati, then indicated the stairs. The kid would lead him. He was their friend, best friend. They guarded the door behind which the goods were stored, where the customers came. They would kill and regard it as less significant than eating a breakfast. All done with bluff, and fast, and never to be repeated. The rancid smell of the stairs was alive in his nostrils. The kid scampered up the stairs.

He followed… and tried to consider what he would do when he reached the right apartment, and why he was there. And how it would be.