Delta Alpha Sierra, the third hour
Gaz had a grandstand view as the cordon closed round the village. Could see the homes and the alleyways linking them, and the small enclosures of dried thorn where the animals were husbanded at night. Looked on to the football pitch and the one pool in the river that was deep enough for the women to wash clothes and bedding. All were surrounded. He watched with big binoculars.
Possible to have a moment of doubt as the convoy had approached the track; there had been hesitation and a late swing of the wheels. But the village was in trouble when the vehicles swept down towards it. He could see and he could hear. All done with the precision of a planned military operation, and Gaz assumed that a detailed briefing had been given. He estimated a minimum of 100 men were deployed. Iranians, and not the ragtag stuff that he had watched from his covert points earlier in the year. Disciplined and organised, in uniform and carrying cleaned weapons, and on two of their trucks were heavy machine-guns. A little cluster took his eye. Customers – military intelligence and the Sixers – always wanted to know most about Russians. The Iranian commander walked with them. An officer strutted, and Gaz recognised the rank insignia of captain sewn on the arms of his camouflage tunic, and thought his cap, drooping in the rain and ruffled by the wind, had the badge of the FSB. Blond hair peeping from below the cap and an assured, tanned face and a pistol slapping against his thigh. A pair of men slouched behind him, carrying assault rifles, and the power of his binoculars showed Gaz that neither was where he wanted to be. The weather blistered on to them.
His training had taken over. He had observed the military stuff, and at a slight cost… The girl had been on her way up the hill, following the charging goats, spooked by the arrival of the vehicles. She came up the slope’s loose stone and weed and mud with a sure step and the dogs kept close to her. She turned often enough and looked back down at the village, a few houses with smoke coming from chimneys made from cooking oil tins. He sensed her indecision: where should she go, what should she do? Her family would now be trapped inside the cordon.
Some boys had run, before the route out of the village was sealed. A few carried rifles, but most were unarmed and half-dressed, some still in their nightclothes and barefoot. Other boys stood, irresolute, did not know what would happen; mothers were hissing for their kids to come to them, small children clinging to their long skirts. A dog sprang forward near to the commanding officer. Gaz had identified him from his markings as a major and reckoned he was from the Quds section, the best they had in the ranks of the Guard Corps. How would a dog, big enough to take down a wolf, with yellowed teeth and a screaming bark, know that a Quds officer was an exception to the cohorts of incompetents Iran put in the field. The dog paused in front of the Major, and the rain had flattened its fur and it might have been preparing to leap at the officer’s throat. A single bullet was fired, but it did not kill the dog. It whimpered, Gaz heard it, and it dragged itself away, its back legs paralysed. A local man, dignified, came forward to speak to the Russian officer. Might have been a part-time imam, might have been a teacher, might just have been the man with the biggest number of goats.… He expected to be treated as an equal, delicately shuffling past the crippled animal, but was barged aside, stumbled and almost fell and clutched for support and found the arm of one of the minders following the Russian captain, and was shaken off as if he were a fly or a mosquito.
The girl was close to Gaz. It was a familiar place for the goats. For them it was of no matter whether it rained, or whether the wind blew hard or wafted over them. It was where they were used to congregating, close to the entrance to his hide. They would mill about her, and the dogs would be close against her ankles. Anywhere else would have been better. He could not protect her. As an individual, Gaz was well armed, but not against 100 men and vehicles with heavy machine-guns, and without the help of Arnie and Sam who were away on the far side of the cordon and could not help him. He thought she came to him for safety. A mistake. How to undo a mistake? Did not take him long to ponder it. Must suck it and hope… Not an option to curse her from his hiding place and threaten her, or cajole her in whatever language they could muster between the two of them. Tell her words to the effect of ‘Get the fuck out’. They had never spoken, had played a children’s game, had made an art form of it. Could do nothing. He texted the Operations Officer at the FOB. Weather was foul, cloud ceiling was bouncing off the ground, wind was heavy and in gusts, and visibility was pitiful. If he bugged out then he would have to lug his gear over open ground and he’d be spotted and it would be like one of those smart Boxing Day Cotswold hunts, but a fox would stand a better chance than him. Would not have been so much of a problem if the girl had not been close with her goats and her dogs. They’d be talking at the Forward Operating Base about REDCON, Readiness Condition, and whether they’d risk a Chinook to get near to him, or send in the Hereford gang on wheels. Difficult… He sensed her fear as she stared down at her village, her family home.
As the rain bucketed and wind chopped at them, the Iranians divided the villagers into a group of women and children, a second group of older men, and a third group of the kids – the cocky little guys who had been out in the night to get themselves some fun and now were facing a reckoning. The Russian watched and sometimes called and sometimes gesticulated, seemed to have an opinion on how things should play out.
Beginning to feel the cold, and yearning for a hot drink and warm food, Knacker sat on Gaz’s gravel path, would not weaken.
The rain had not lifted and the wind had not lessened and the first smears of dawn light appeared on the horizon ahead of him, above the white caps of the sea. No one who knew Knacker would have believed he would jack in a gesture for the sake of personal comfort. He did not call out, never tried to draw his target back into conversation. He would let Gaz, first-class boy, and admired and pitied, twist and toss in the pain, self-inflicted. Tough old world, always had been and always would be…
His name had been made in Northern Ireland and he had caught the late days of the ‘armed struggle’. Was a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps. Had run a man in Lurgan and another in Londonderry and each had reached beyond the limit of safety and their ‘legends’ were becoming frayed. Should have been pulled out and left to enjoy the small sums of cash paid them. Neither had been permitted to break the link and his heavy pressure had ensured they stayed in place, continued to report. Had gone a yard too far with them, a month too long, and each had been pathetic and terror-ridden by the time they were picked up by the opposition’s security apparatus, which was a one-way trip to a ditch and then a tout’s grave. On the bright side, and what marked out this young sergeant, were the rewards: a 1000lb bomb of chemical fertiliser mixture intercepted on its way to the new shopping centre in Londonderry, and in Lurgan a safe house identified where a ‘big boy’ shagged his slag and was lifted off the bed and sent down for a twenty-five-year stretch… a local policeman had done the honours with the name. ‘His talent is to pick up an old horse, one that should have been put out to grass, and work it till it drops, then drag it off to the knacker’s yard, and with that talent there is no room for charity – but he gets things feckin’ done. He’s never far from that Yard, is a proper knacker.’ The name had stuck, and the reputation with it… All a long time ago and the young man had been noticed, demobbed, and poached.