She had a greater number of central hits than he had. He thought he had enough holes in the cardboard targets to drop a man, close down the threat. He had been a good marksman in Syria, but other skills were higher on the list, and self-taught… He had gone into the Logistics Corps and was neither popular nor disliked, hardly noticed and could drive a three-ton truck adequately, and they’d had an exercise on the Brecons where there was sparse cover. A sector was marked off and the instructors played the game and went and had a fag and a brew, and a whistle was blown and the veterans went out to find them. Thirty had started and twenty-nine were found. In growing frustration the search for the last one had gone on for another hour, and a whistle had been blown and the transports’ engines had been cranked up, and he’d stood up and brushed old heather and dead bracken off his body and they’d have damn near gone over him a half dozen times. His skills were understood and he was transferred to Stirling Lines at Credenhill in Herefordshire, and put into the training wing of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, alongside the Special Forces of the gun club, but shooting was not the priority. Concealment ruled. They finished. The weapons were cleaned, then handed back to an armourer. He turned away. A trudge back to the Land Rover. How did he feel?
“All right, thank you.”
What sort of weapon did he want to take?
“No sort of weapon. Nice of you to ask. No sort.”
It was considered necessary, Knacker’s opinion and hers, for him to have a means of self-defence, a back-stop option.
“I’d rather not, so let’s move on.”
She bit on her lip. He thought she’d do that rarely. Said nothing and did not argue. His defence was concealment, an ability not to be noticed, and he relied on such talents, and standing up in downtown Murmansk with a peashooter handgun and a magazine of nine rounds was ludicrous. He took a last look at Muckle Flugga, isolated and on a crag and jutting up beyond the last cliff face on the west of the island, and saw gannets circling, and Gaz would have bet money – all of that £10,000 – that had he been there, hidden and covert, Knacker would have found him. They were driven across Unst, came to a quayside, walked together towards a trawler bathed in bright lights.
Two men were on the quay and two more worked at the main mast where a new sail was being hoisted, and farther down on the quay were the ragged remnants of an older sail, a pretty scarlet but with slashed rents. He assumed they had come in that morning and had been at sea in the storm and must have had a pocket handkerchief of sail hoisted and assumed they’d pitched through the swell and the white caps to meet a timetable set for them. Work stopped. He was watched closely. He thought they evaluated him She spoke first to them. “Hi, boys, sorry and all that if you had a bastard of a night but appreciate that you put in the effort. This is your passenger… treat him carefully as there’s nothing in his history about riding a million dollar yacht. See you on the other side, boys.”
With the ripped sail were also tangled ropes and broken wicker crab pots. Their faces were drawn with sleeplessness, all unshaved, and they wore damp clothing, and all smoked and all held coffee beakers. There was a small Norwegian pennant attached at the back end of the trawler.
She said to Gaz, matter of fact, like nothing was that important a deal. “They’re going to ferry you to Norway. Why? Good question but a good reason… You go in one way but we don’t reverse it. They’re going to lift you out from Murmansk. They need to have a look at you because they take a hell of a chance getting involved with you. The FSB who look after all forms of border control in Murmansk, land and sea, would take a bad view of their facilitating the escape of a high-profile fugitive. They’ll decide if you’re worth the risk to them. Have fun, Gaz.”
She walked briskly away, and a hand was given him. He stepped down off the quay and on to the decking, which was where it all began, he supposed, the real stuff. It would have been reassuring to have had a Walther PPK in his belt and against his hip, but he had declined the offer, and ropes were loosed from the quay and an engine throbbed beneath him.
Chapter 5
“We’ll see you, man.”
“That’ll be good, and I’ll see you guys – I hope.”
He hitched his bag on his shoulder and walked away from the fishing boat and down the quayside. He saw Fee ahead of him and she scratched behind her ear and then kicked at a pebble, and was gazing at the skyline, and showed little interest… Might have convinced a rookie that she cared nothing about whether he was on time, or late, or whether he was washed out with sea sickness and about to jack it in, chuck the mission over the side of the quay where the weed floated. She’d care… Gaz supposed there should have been a customs officer or an immigration functionary standing with her and waiting to check his documentation. There was not, nor any sign of one hurrying to intercept him: that would have been her responsibility. Would not have lasted half an hour on Knacker’s payroll if she could not deflect such interest. She greeted him.
“A decent ride?”
“Decent enough.”
“Anything left in your guts?”
“Guts are fine.”
“Rather you…”
This was Kirkenes. The guys had told him it was a fishing port, with a booming marine repair yard, and a small dry-dock. The guys had also said that the town was dull, like ‘one horse and one street’, and had been rebuilt after the war, had been flattened by Russian aircraft during the German occupation, then the Germans had been pushed out and they’d bombed the place even flatter to make it uncomfortable for the Russian invaders. He had been told this in low, considered voices as they had swung into the fiord leading to the town and its harbour. They had been dour men at the start all weighing and judging him. Was he worth the effort? Worth the risk of going to a penal colony for twenty years? Did he have that sort of value? It was a grey, oppressive morning, the sort of day that indicated summer had given Kirkenes a miss… The guys must have been happy to have him as a passenger, and with a return booking because that was what had been called out to him as he had walked towards Fee. Good guys, using basic transport. Little luxury in the common sleeping area below deck. They’d seen him off with a noncommittal slap on the shoulders and a brief hug before he’d climbed up a couple of steps and then stretched out for the quayside. But they expected to see him, which gave comfort – and a back-stop was agreed.
He walked beside Fee, matched her long stride. If he’d have allowed it, she would have carried his bag.
It had been explained to Gaz: why four Norwegian fishermen would hazard their freedom, involve themselves in UK black operations. It had been explained as the trawler had ploughed on in what they called a ‘moderate swell’. One of the younger guys had done it as if nothing he said was remarkable. “About the second world war. Everything is the second world war. Finished seventy-five years ago but nothing is changed and the allegiances still rule. Old loyalties and old loves, and old gratitudes count now as they did then. The time of our grandfathers. Everywhere you go in your life today you can look over your shoulder and see the results of that conflict. There was the Shetland Bus. You would not know of it. Small trawlers sailed to and from Norway and berthed in the Shetland Isles and they brought back from German occupation the refugees and the agents who were considered important to the resistance, and returned there in desperate winter seas, with the same agents, this time with weapons and explosives. Only went in winter because of the darkness and when the seas were worst and when the Germans could not fly and did not have patrol craft out… All of us had grandfathers who sailed on the Bus route. The message came and of course we would answer. Can you understand that? Now, you as an island people are in decline. We have an abundance of oil and gas and can build a superior infrastructure and have as generous a welfare programme as there is in the whole of Europe. But neither situation allows us to ignore a call for help. It is unwritten, forged in iron, and still lives. But we look at you, assess you, because it is a big thing that is asked of us. At the end we will tell you whether the old friendship has a greater pull on our loyalties than common sense… What is asked of us is not easy and the penalties for failure are big. You know that, of course you do. The same as for you.”