The Engineer’s wife dominated any thoughts of Alpha Juliet. An instructor on the last week before Badger had been awarded his Blue Book, certifying his surveillance competence, had told the group that thinking of sex, stripping down women, doing business with them, was excellent for holding the concentration needed in a hide when paint drying might have seemed interesting. He had said that far and away the best shagging he’d had in his life was when he’d been lying on his belly, enveloped in a gillie suit, with nothing happening. It would have been good to remember Alpha Juliet – a fine, strong girl who didn’t blather, didn’t seem in search of commitment and seemed to have chosen him for better reasons than that she had gone without for a week: unfathomable – but he couldn’t remember Alpha Juliet now. He stared through the glasses at the woman, and because he kept the focus on everything familiar about her, he knew which crow’s feet were deepening at her eyes. Her breathing seemed harder, and her mouth would twist when the pain dug.
‘You’ll call me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because without me you’re worse than useless.’
He didn’t answer.
Foxy went on, ‘And keep watch all round.’
A point of principle: he didn’t react and kept the glasses on her. He didn’t take orders from the older man.
‘Why are you only watching her?’
No response. He held the focus. Her hands were very still, and he thought she had a serenity.
‘You gone soft on her, young ’un? Unprofessional if you have.’
Badger held his silence.
‘If you’ve gone gentle on her, just remember who she is. She’s the wife of Rashid Armajan, bad bastard, bomb-maker and enemy. She shares his bed and, before she went sick, used to spread her legs for the guy who spent his days planning the next generation of nasties to kill our boys inside Iraq. I feel nothing for her. She would have kept a nice tidy household for him, left him with no worries in his life other than working out the best way to blow up, mutilate and kill coalition troops. He was pretty good at it. Forgotten what the man said? ‘A small number of clever and innovative men is capable of wrong-footing us so consistently that the body-bags keep going home, and the injured with wounds they’ll carry to their graves… We call an enemy a Bravo. Rashid Armajan is a big bad Bravo.’ That’s what the man said. She’s that man’s woman and what she has in her head is immaterial to me. It matters that, because of what’s in her head, he’ll travel away from here. Nothing less, nothing more. In case you’ve forgotten it, young ’un, the ceremonies at Wootton Bassett when the dead come home didn’t start with Afghanistan killed-in-action troops. They started with Iraq. We couldn’t stay in Iraq because of the bombs, his bombs, bombs turned out on a production line to the Engineer’s blueprint. My Ellie calls them heroes, the soldiers brought through that town. It’s fantastic, such an honour to those soldiers, to have thousands line a street in respect. Only, sad thing, they don’t see it. They’re in the box. A good number of them were put there by that man and his talent for bomb-making. Because of him, all that the rest of us can do is stand on the pavement and give them respect, which is something but not much. A good number of the first heroes who came through were victims of explosions, his bloody bombs. And maybe by now his gear’s in Afghanistan, I don’t know. So, I have no love for him, and I’m not going soft for her. My Ellie talks about Wootton Bassett and the heroes… Are you getting my drift?’
A crisp whisper. ‘So much of an enemy that we’re going to turn him.’
Surprise, a murmur. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘It’s interdiction.’
‘So, it’s interdiction. Yes.’
‘I checked it with the Boss. It’s their way – spook jargon – of describing an approach. “Interdiction” is “approach”. They hope to turn him.’
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘They’re going to turn him, Mr Gibbons said – like it’s a defection.’
Foxy muttered, ‘Time for my sleep. Wake me when there’s something you can’t do.’
She had fine features and she sat so still. Her back was straight in the chair and she gazed ahead. Almost, her eye line was on him. Nobody came to her, she had no one to talk to, and Foxy slept. The wind had gained strength and he heard its rustle in the reeds.
Chapter 9
‘What the hell are you-’
‘Wake up.’ As normal, when Badger used his elbow to dig into Foxy’s ribs, he held the palm of his hand across the older man’s mouth, loose but a reminder.
‘Where am-’
‘In the hide in the marshes in Iran. What more do you need to know? Could give you the co-ordinates, except you bloody dropped the
The voice whistled back, almost shrill, between the teeth: ‘I was saying, before you fucking interrupted, “Where am I looking?” That was my question.’
‘You don’t have to look anywhere. Just listen.’
The headset was already off Badger’s ears. He tried to pass it to Foxy. Foxy muttered that he needed a piss, always did when he woke up. Badger told him to wait. The cable was caught in the front of Badger’s gillie suit, had fastened itself among the material strips sewn into it and the dried-out reeds. You couldn’t pull a cable tight and hope it would free itself, and it was underneath Badger. They were in darkness, hip against hip, elbows locked and legs bloody nearly entwined. Their movements had roused the mosquitoes, and there were convulsions under the covering that shielded them. The cable wouldn’t come free. Insults were swapped.
‘Be careful, you clumsy bastard.’
‘Use your fingers!’
‘How did you snag it?’
‘If you stayed bloody still I could free it.’
Badger laid down his night-sight kit. It was the hour before dawn. His fingers felt for the tangle in the cable. Foxy had his head down, grappled for and found the headset and put it over his ears. God alone knew how, but the cable’s snag was near Badger’s groin, and Foxy’s head was halfway there. Time for a laugh? Foxy’s head had moved to a comfort zone below Badger’s ribcage. His fingers were under Foxy’s chin and tugged gently. Twice Foxy gulped, then the cable came free.
He would be told, and didn’t ask. To ask would demonstrate dependence on the older man. Nor would he get, now, a running commentary from Foxy.
He settled again as best he could. Difficult while Foxy used the bottle. There was no relief from the mosquitoes and when they crossed the moon, almost full, they seemed dense enough to throw a shadow. They had both been out of the hide during the night, and Badger had buried more plastic bags. He had gone as far as the wall of reeds to their right, where it bordered the open ground, and done exercises there, had moved his limbs and stretched his back. Foxy had gone further, almost as far as the mound of mud, but had stopped short of the bulldozer tracks. He could go further than Foxy. Anytime Foxy left the hide, the translation of remarks passed at the house was zero.
It was the time of morning that medics said was when people died – and well known to police crime squads as the best time to hit front doors, break them down and get up the stairs before weapons, narcotics or documents could be hidden. The target had emerged from the front door and started to pace.
She had joined him. He would have been well on with his first cigarette, a white glow in the dull greened wash of the night-sight lens. He wore cotton boxer shorts and a vest, and she had a shawl across the shoulders of her nightdress and was barefoot; he had put on sandals. The guard using the plastic chair by the pier had already scrambled away when he’d appeared, before she’d come – and Badger had woken Foxy.
It was going to be soon.
They had logged the carrying into the house of the new suitcase – black, with no motif that would stand out on a carousel. She had greeted him and her voice had been easy, clear, in his ears. He dreaded most that one dawn or evening, that day or the next, the black Mercedes would come, the driver would go to the door, bring out the case and lift it into the boot. The targets would climb into the back seats, the engine would rev, the goon – the officer – and the guards would straighten, the old lady would wave from the door, the kids at her knee, and the car would go. Where? Which airport, connecting with what flight? It was what he dreaded most.