A Deniable Death (55 page)

He sat alone and watched the skyline – and his phone, with the encryption software, bleeped. Not Sarah – asleep, no doubt, on a fold-away bed – but the Cousin. He glanced at the little screen: something about exfiltration in hand. He cleared it.
Infiltration
and
exfiltration
were history. The job had moved on. For a moment, Gibbons tried to remember the faces of the two men, but could not and gave up: they were from the past, not the present, and did not affect the future.

He smiled to himself. He had decided where he would be in the morning, when the strike went home.

Low voices alerted him. He didn’t understand the speech, but thought it was Russian.

There was a light knock on the door. He came off the bed, slipped on his trousers, went to the door and opened it. The synagogue’s caretaker shuffled away. Framed in the doorway, a man gave a warm smile and had a large old leather bag hanging from his shoulder. A hand was offered. He took it. He had never met the man, and offered a formal greeting that betrayed nothing.

The man spoke in their own tongue, used the word that in their language meant ‘engineer’ and smiled again. He had a light, tuneful voice.

The transport would be outside at seven that morning, in four hours. Gabbi nodded. There would be the two of them, for the wheels and the hit – not five, not ten or twenty-five. A sneer curled the man’s lip: it told Gabbi that this one – from Berlin Station – had had no dealings with the unit in the Dubai business. He was shown a photograph, taken in poor light, and it was explained that the woman was the Engineer’s wife. The shirt-sleeved man was the neuro-consultant. In the foreground of the picture there was a car with a rear door open. He was told the registration number and make, that only one security man was used for the escort. He looked hard at the photograph and saw the face, eyes, the shape of the spectacles, the cut of the hair and the clothing, and memorised it. His hand never touched the photograph, and when the man’s fingers held it, Gabbi made out the fine texture of the latex gloves he wore. It was assumed that the entry of the Engineer, his back to the street, would be a difficult interception, but when he left, it would be an easier shot, into the face and stomach. Then the man shrugged, as if he had realised he should not presume to lecture an expert in techniques. On the likely schedule, he would be on the return sailing of the ferry in late morning. He had faith in the arrangements woven around him and did not query them.

Gabbi was asked if he was comfortable. He said he was. Did he need to know more about the target, why the target was identified? He did not. Was he satisfied with the arrangements in place? He was.

Anything he needed would be brought to him. Gabbi said he had found a book of drawings by a girl who had been a witness inside the camp at Theresienstadt and had survived. He said he had had family there who had not lived. He did not say it was his wife’s grandparents who had been incarcerated in the camp and had died of starvation.

The bag was opened. A package in greaseproof paper, held together with thick elastic bands, was handed to him, with similar gloves. He knew the Beretta 92S, and a little grin flicked at his mouth when he was told that this particular weapon, and the ammunition it was loaded with, had been sold to the Egyptian armed forces: a small matter, but likely to cause confusion in an investigation. There were two magazines, eighteen bullets in all, and he would use two. It was wrapped again, and put on the table beside the bed.

The man reached forward, gripped Gabbi’s shoulders and gave him a light brush kiss on each cheek. Then he was gone and the door closed on him. Gabbi heard the slither of the caretaker’s slippers, then the thud of the outer door being shut. He went back to bed and hoped to catch more sleep.

His shoulder was shaken gently. The pilot, Eddie, jack-knifed up on the cot bed. His co-pilot hovered above him. ‘Thought you’d like to know that we’re fuelled, armed, all the checks done, ready to press the tit and lift. And likely we may be lifting.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

‘You were sleeping like a baby – would have been a crime.’

‘Fuck you.’ The pilot rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘What we got?’

‘Could go around first light. As we thought. A covert team up on the frontier, and maybe there’s casualties coming with them. The other bird is getting herself to speed. We go together.’

He could hear the rotors of both birds turning over, and the ground-crew people would be crawling over the Black Hawks. It would likely be the last mission of interest that Eddie flew before the draw-down sucked him in. Then he might go home, or might be packed off with his guys and his machine to Afghanistan. He’d like to finish well. He tightened his boots.

‘Oh, and Eddie . . .’

‘What?’

‘We don’t exist, and any flight we make is classified as never happening. It’s likely the mullah-men will be powerfully angry if we do get called out and are up close on their ground.’

‘Fuck them.’

The birds’ engines sounded sweet and the windows shook. If an exfiltration needed a helicopter lift-out, they’d be in trouble, deep stuff, and it would be close run. It was good of the guys to let him sleep and recharge. Might have been their own survival instincts that had allowed it. Spooks, the pilot reckoned, were mad – not people you’d take home to your mother – and he’d go as far as he could to save them.

Badger hissed, ‘How you put yourself in this place, Foxy, I don’t know.’

The dinghy was holed: a bullet had pierced the metal hull about an inch below the waterline.

It went down a few yards short of the mud spit, where the water was up to Badger’s waist. He had time to hoist Foxy onto his shoulder, as he had before. The skin, against the stubble on his own face, was wet, clammy and seemed white in the darkness, as if there were night-lights under it – like the ones used in nurseries and hospital wards. He went over the spit and past the heap he had made of dead foliage then slipped back into the water.

‘Don’t ask me how I’m doing. Actually, I’m doing fine. Just don’t bother to ask.’

He could hear the jeeps’ engines on the bund line away from him, but he would have been masked by the reed beds. It was as well that he was. He could stand upright, which was best with the weight he carried. The level dropped and lapped at his knees, the birds thrashed for take-off and he plodded on, the mud under his boots clinging to them. He was taking deep breaths, struggling to suck the air deeper into his lungs. His legs were leaden. He had not begun: Badger was only at his start line. He came out of the water and was on the open ground. He went by the carcass of the bird, unrecognisable now as a creature of beauty. Badger didn’t do bird-watching, he wasn’t eco-obsessed, but he had learned to respect nature when he was in hides and when he hiked, testing himself, in Scotland or in the Brecons of Wales. He knew the range of the small songbirds that would come from the heather and bracken to filch crumbs, and the predator hobbies, peregrines and eagles; he knew also the divers on the lochs. There had been a poem drilled into them by a teacher about a bird a seaman had shot with a bolt. He was cursed for it, his mates too. That was what Foxy had done; he had killed the ibis, made it into rats’ food.

‘Shouldn’t have done it, Foxy. Look what it’s done to us, with you killing it . . . You could say something, Foxy, not play bloody miserable.’

He went as fast as he could, and his boots went into the side of the scrape where the hide had been. He lurched out of it, and Foxy’s weight shifted on his shoulder. Badger gasped and swore softly. It had been a sizeable piece of his life, important, and might be memorable, a bit of ground two yards square that had held them both, and the bergens, for hours, days and nights. He would remember it. Badger couldn’t have said then how long his life expectancy was, but the image of the scrape, the net and the camouflage, the smell of the bags, the piss bottles, Foxy’s body and breath, and Badger’s own would stay with him until the last. That might be when a firing squad was given the order or in a far distant bed in whatever home was then his. He went by the scrape and it was behind him. He would never see it again, but he wouldn’t forget it, ever.

‘Good riddance, Foxy, eh? How you doing? We’re getting there . . .’

He staggered a bit going down the slight slope. He came to the bergens and the little inflatable. For a moment, he considered whether to tip Foxy into the inflatable along with the bergens. Only a moment. There were reeds off to his left and behind them the clear space used to bury the poor bastards who had come scavenging, and then – across more water – the elevated track. He could see the lights of the two jeeps. They were going slowly but making progress, and there would be a place ahead of them where they could swing to their right and either drive over mud, or trudge to get across the route Badger intended to take to the extraction point.

‘I reckon you’re better with me, Foxy. The bergens can get the ride.’

He didn’t hear agreement or criticism. It was best to have Foxy on his shoulder – if there was a crisis, anything near to catastrophe, Badger didn’t want to be crouched over the inflatable, heaving his man onto his shoulder. He cantered into the water, which splashed up round his ankles, into his boots, and up the hem of the gillie suit. The weight was fierce on his shoulder. There was a string at the front end of the inflatable and he had it in his free hand. The other steadied Foxy, was on his buttocks and had a grip there. Foxy’s head bounced on the back of Badger’s hip, and his knees were over Badger’s heart. The feet kicked his stomach with each step.

‘Not going to be fun, Foxy, the next bit – and it’d be good if you helped yourself a bit. Know what I mean?’

He went deeper into the water. The level rose. He realised that Foxy’s head, upside-down, would go under. He didn’t break his step and the mud gave him a useful grip. He twisted Foxy a bit so that his head lay on the side of the inflatable. They went further out, and he could follow the path of the two jeeps’ lights, bouncing. He thought they were now on a rough track that, maybe, hadn’t been used for many years – the longer the better – and was crumbling. They were moving slowly. If he was ahead of them, for all his burdens, when they swung and came after him, he reckoned he had a chance – slim but a chance – of reaching the extraction point. If they were in front blocking him, and the dawn light came up, he didn’t feel inclined to make any bets on himself coming through, not the chance of a cat in hell. He had seen Foxy’s body, and had heard his screams, and the two encouraged him to keep going forward. His breath sang from his mouth and each step was harder, the burden heavier.

‘Don’t get it into your head, Foxy, that I’m doing this for love of you.’

He was out of his depth. His feet flapped and had nothing to grip against. The weight of the bergens steadied the inflatable, which had to take most of his own weight, and Foxy’s. It didn’t seem possible to Badger that he should tip the bergens into the water and rid himself of them: instructors always talked about the
requirement
of bringing back kit and in Stores they grumbled if it wasn’t accounted for. It was an
obligation
to return it after an operation. Requirements and obligations were part of the bible he worked to.

The lights of the jeeps were harder to see. Important? Yes. It told him that dawn was coming, not there yet but not far away. If they blocked him when the dawn had spread its light, it had all been for nothing. He thrashed his feet, and attempted to paddle with his free hand, and they went forward. If they were blocked . . . Who was listening? Maybe some pigs were, an otter, the birds, but the men in the jeeps wouldn’t hear him.

Badger said sharply, ‘Not for love of you, Foxy, no. I don’t even like you. And you’re a fucking passenger hitching a ride.’

Twice they went under. Twice he choked and cleared his throat, then spat out the marsh water. But he kept the pace. Had to.

Chapter 18

A wind had risen. It came from the south, perhaps the south-west, and ruffled the water Badger waded through. It was a warm, vigorous wind. It flapped the tips of the reeds off to his left. The bed below him was uneven. Sometimes his boots found a grip and then he was able to lurch forward faster with the inflatable and the weight over his shoulder. He used the craft’s rim for buoyancy when the bed fell away under him. The wind helped to drive him on.

Little white crests were now whipped up and water splashed over the sides. He fancied that the bergens shifted because they were floating in the bilge. The wind brought the sounds closer of the two jeeps’ engines. If the wind, steadily strengthening, had been from the north, or the north-east, he might not have heard them straining in low gear on the the bund line that was little more than loose-packed sand. Had he not heard them and been able to plot their position, he might have slowed and clung to the rim of the inflatable, let his legs dangle in the water.

The engine noise drove him forward. If the jeeps could get past him, then swing to their right and come from his left, his route to the extraction point was blocked. Rest was not possible. Badger could not have said when, if ever, he had felt so tired, so hungry and thirsty. He thought once, very briefly, of pictures he had seen on television screens: refugees on the move pushing prams laden with possessions or carrying little suitcases, or the skeletal figures of men gazing at an eyewitness from the far side of a barbed-wire fence. Mostly his mind was blank, as if the screen had been switched off, and the matter of the moment was getting the next secure hold for his right boot on the mud, then following it with the left. Crisis was when the right boot, or the left, slipped and pitched him forward, Foxy’s weight dragging him down. Triumph was when the left boot, or the right, had good grip and he seemed to surge. It was like the flight of a wild animal. Maybe a deer, isolated on Bodmin moor with hounds closing, would have understood what drove Badger on.