A Deniable Death (35 page)

Chapter 11

They had drunk water, two mouthfuls each, and it had been Foxy’s turn to finish the bottle. He had held it longingly to his mouth and sucked the final drops. One bottle remained. The silence wouldn’t last through the night.

The moon climbed. Foxy, Badger realised, was exhausted and close to breaking point. He couldn’t sleep. Not until the house lights were put out and conversations were stilled would Foxy pass over the headset and close his eyes. The anger each felt for the other was raw, of course. Badger was labelled a moron and ignorant, and Foxy was accused of being the cheat who stole water.

The light had gone; the moon was on the climb. The target, the Engineer, was out, smoked and walked, but he was alone.

There were birds in the water ahead, splashing, and Badger thought that once he heard the convulsion of a pig and wondered if the wound he had made in the nostril was infected.

He sensed Foxy would break the silence first, felt him to be increasingly restless. It was worse to be branded a cheat than to be called an idiot without education. Was he
certain
that the water level had been lower than it should have been? ‘Certain’: a big word. Foxy could not move from the hide and go into the reed bed to crap or piss. It was two full days since the new suitcase had gone inside the main door. It would not have been bought to be shoved into a corner but because travel was imminent. There would be – if fortune favoured them – one remark, half a sentence, or a throwaway comment.

He didn’t think Foxy could last much more than the night and another half-day, and didn’t reckon he himself had the strength to go on past the end of the following day . . . He hadn’t seen Foxy’s skin. He assumed it would be the same as his own, mottled with tick scabs and mosquito bites. Not possible to lie still because the itching was so great, and the flies came for their ears, noses and mouths, could burrow under the scrim net. Never again would Badger complain about a Welsh hillside: rain, a low mist, night frost, a view of a farmhouse with a field for campers would be paradise – if there ever was an
again
. He had twice punched a fellow officer, another croppie, and had allowed himself to be niggled by rank and personality. If it were ever revealed by his oppo that twice he had thrown punches, and had accused a colleague of cheating and stealing, there would not be an
again
.

The thought jagged his mind. What did a croppie do with himself after he was booted out for gross misconduct? For assault? For screwing up in the field and going unprofessional? He’d go to work for a local authority, tailing disability-benefit guys who did half-marathons and played golf twice a week after limping down to collect the hand-out dosh . . . He’d be on the phone, burning the ears of former policemen who ran PI firms and found evidence of marital infidelity, or did in-house security on companies that were leaking petty cash and equipment . . . He would have nowhere to go that was anything like satisfactory to him. Would he jack it in? He wouldn’t grovel. He’d lose his job before—

Foxy broke. There was a trace of a whine: ‘There was no call to hit me . . .’

Badger gave him nothing.

‘. . . and no call to make that accusation.’

Badger thought Foxy had broken because, having barely moved since the hide was made, he would not be able to get out and do the legging back to the extraction point.

‘I’ve tried to do a good job in extraordinarily difficult conditions and . . .’

Worth thinking about. The retreat from the hide – because the mission was fucked and the target had been driven away, or was complete because the information had been radioed out – was well worth consideration. A repetition in his mind of what he dreaded most: the car came, the new suitcase was loaded, and there might be a label on it they could not – with a ’scope or binoculars – read, and the Engineer and his wife, the goon, the wife’s mother and the kids didn’t say where they were going. To have done this for
nothing
would be the humiliation of his life, and he would stand accused of misconduct and professional failure because Foxy would nail him. Badger would make no apology, would not help in going to the extraction point in exchange for two punches being forgotten, and a cheating call being wiped off a slate.

‘. . . and I’ve had no co-operation from you, no support, no comradeship.’

Badger watched the Engineer. Could have been his fourth cigarette. He was still alone and walking, no longer in silhouette from the lights behind him, thrown from the house, but moving away from the little pier where the dinghy was tied. He passed an old iron crane that in daylight seemed rust-coated – it was beside the water and might have dated back to a time when the water was the main highway – and went on towards the duller lights that fringed the area round the barracks. He was heading for the bund line to the right.

‘Of course, I shouldn’t have expected more from you. Too easy for you newcomers. And “too easy” makes for arrogance, and arrogance makes a kid useless. What did I say you were?’

Badger raked the shore with the binoculars, which were good for watching the house, but had the night-sight ready for when the Engineer was walking towards the raised track of the bund line. He could have scripted the line that would follow.

It did. ‘I said you were moronic and ignorant. I had that right, double time.’

Hours of building resentment were over; a dike had been breached. Foxy had the verbal shits, Badger thought. He himself felt calmer and was not about to hit him again. It was
likely
that the water had been drunk out of hours.

‘Did I say without good cause that you’re moronic and ignorant? Are you fool enough to think that?’

His head was nine inches from Foxy’s. Their shoulders touched, and their hips. Their smell mingled. The compulsion to scratch the scabs on his stomach was worse now, and the mosquitoes swarmed. If they made it out, reached the extraction point, loaded up the Pajeros, and ‘Foxy’ Foulkes – pompous, old-world – did not put in a career-killer report on him, his life would resume alongside Ged in hides, sodden ditches and damp hedgerows. He would tell the stories with relish. He followed the Engineer with his binoculars, then laid them down and took up the night-sight. The moon climbed higher and the birds were noisier on the water.

‘How much of a moron? Enough of a moron to buy the shit they gave you?’

The goon, the officer, was out of the barracks and walking towards the house. The flash of a cigarette lighter burned out the night-vision image. He watched the security officer, used the binoculars. He felt tension coming in his shoulders, a tightening in his gut, and was confused.

‘You bought it and believed it. They must have pissed themselves – Gibbons, the Yank and the Jew – laughing at you because of your ignorance. Back of the classroom, were you? Put your hand up, did you? “Please, sir, what’s
interdiction
?” They gave you a bucket of shit, and you swallowed it. Want to know what “interdiction” means? Want to know that it doesn’t mean an “approach” and turning an enemy? Want to know what you’ve signed up for, young ’un?’

All the muscles had stiffened, and his stomach had knotted. Cold had settled on the back of his neck and he held his breath.

‘You volunteered for a spook-sponsored stake-out on what is bloody near enemy territory without the finesse of a war declaration. The target for surveillance is the man who makes the bombs that kill our boys, and he’s right for
interdiction
, and you think that means some sort of cosy approach, a buttering-up in the hope the bastard will fall into our arms? You’ve all this shit about sitting in the countryside, wildlife around you, joys of bloody nature, and maybe you get to have a little cry because a deer’s snagged on barbed wire, a rabbit’s choking in a snare or a fucking rat has a thorn in its pad. A wanking dreamer, that’s what you are . . . The military use of the word “interdiction” is about taking down with the use of fire power. It’s the destruction of the enemy’s potential to fight. How does it relate to this guy, the Engineer, builder of bombs? “Interdiction” for him means that he’s killed. It’s why I’m here, and why
you
’re here . . . Difficult when you’re ignorant, maybe a moron, to know what’s real. He’s for killing, taking down, and you’re a part of the process, a big part.’

It was as though he had been hit in the stomach. But he held onto the binoculars and could see the goon near to the house speaking to a guard, an arm pointed away towards the bund line.

‘In your education, the little of it you had, did they tell you about killing? We use fancy words. We
harvest
fish,
cull
deer. When we bomb a village and get the wrong target, that’s not a screw-up but
collateral damage
. It’s bollocks, intended to soften actuality. He’s going to be killed. Didn’t you know that, smartarse?’

The officer was striding out of the light, going at pace . . .

He could have been sick. It was that sort of blow that he’d taken, the one that made a man double up, then heaved the puke into his throat. He didn’t know, now, how he could have swallowed what he’d been told. He almost cringed.

Foxy warmed, would have sensed he’d hit home. ‘It’s deniable. We finger the man. They move in a hit team because we’ve told them where to look. He’s stabbed or strangled, poisoned or shot, and you’re a part of it. Does that put you, young ’un, outside your comfort zone?’

He had the binoculars down and held the night-sight hard at his face. His eyeline took his head away from Foxy’s mouth, but the voice dripped on, and there was triumph in it. ‘Don’t think it bothers me, young ’un, because I’m an old bastard and there’s not much can happen to me. Different for you. Your age, that stage in a career when you reckon you’re the dog’s bollocks. Instead you might just be in shit. An integral part in an extra-judicial killing, which is at least accessory to murder. You’re a part of it and your defence is that you didn’t know what
interdiction
meant. Reckon they’ll be queuing up to believe you? Extra-judicial is what you’re into.’

He came level with him. For Mansoor, with the muscle wastage in his leg from the wound, it was a struggle to catch the Engineer.

It should not have happened. He had hurried, as best he could, from the house and past the barracks, then onwards until he saw the silhouetted figure in the moonlight high on the elevated bund line. The struggle to get the breath into his lungs, the pain from his leg and anger fuelled his aggression.

‘You should not be here.’

Defiance from the Engineer, lit by Mansoor’s torch: ‘I walk where I care to walk.’

‘My responsibility is to protect you. You ask me where you walk and when.’

Said softly, and with no trace of resentment: ‘You forget yourself, Mansoor.’

‘I do not.’

‘You forget who you are and who I am.’

‘I do not forget that it is my duty to protect you. I do my duty as best I can. I cannot protect you if you walk far from your home in the night and I am not warned.’

‘Here – at my home – there is a threat?’

‘There are thieves. There could be smugglers bringing drugs. There are the marsh people who would slit your throat for a packet of cigarettes or the coins in your pocket.’

‘You are dutiful, and I am grateful. Do such imaginary threats equate with the threat to my wife’s life? Call it a matter of perspective.’

‘It is my duty.’

‘And tomorrow – for how long I cannot say – you are relieved of that duty.’

‘It is wrong that I will not be there. I should go with you.’

‘Security, I think, is the smallest problem that faces Naghmeh and me. I wanted to walk and think. Now, to please you, Mansoor, we will walk back together.’

They did. The Engineer had lit another cigarette and Mansoor stayed a half-pace behind him. The moonlight was on the reeds and reflected in silver lines off the water; birds splashed and there were ripples from an otter’s hunting. He apologised – it could go badly for him if the Engineer reported his rudeness. It was accepted and hand slapped his shoulder. It irritated him that he was not permitted, on the ground of cost, he had been told, to travel with them.

‘And when we are gone tomorrow, Mansoor, what will you do?’

‘Be certain that the old lady does not want for help . . . and I will watch for the ibis. I hope to see it . . . and my prayers will be with you. I will look for that bird. What else?’

It was, thought Harding, a master class from her in avoidance and evasion.

He was the only one of the Boys close enough to hear. He didn’t understand everything because they flitted between English and local Arabic. The rest were back, relaxed now, and would have let their weapons hang loose across their legs.

It was a strange way to do business: he used English and most of her answers were in Arabic, but it helped Harding that he repeated most of what she’d said, translated it. In the business, she represented a charity from Europe of eco-freaks who wanted nothing more or less from their money than to have the most complete survey of flora and fauna in the marshes, with particular emphasis on the bird life. He did not contradict her, but pointed out that the area of the marshes she had chosen for her valuable, welcome research was not inside the triangle that had as its apex the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and was the widest, most accessible part of the wetlands, but was hard up against the Iranian border. She spoke of the importance of the habitat. He spoke of the sensitivity of the frontier zone. She told him of the value placed on the wildlife of the marshes, its uniqueness and also its vulnerability. He told her of the suspicion, if her presence were known, of the Revolutionary Guards who patrolled a few kilometres down the bund line. She said she carried references and letters of introduction from people who were in the élite of government. He said it was ‘interesting’ that none had accompanied her on her research journey.