Fee said, cheerily, “Remember, Knacker, when we were in Syria, and the gun club boys used to talk about Fire and Forget, the Milan or the Javelin anti-tank missile. Aim it and let it go… What we can expect is a right ruckus on the streets of Murmansk.”
Alice said, “We’ll be long gone, Knacker. Well out of it, and deniable.”
Fee said, “But reverberations, Knacker. Heard far and wide.”
“My impression of them, Knacker, is that they’ll want to get down to a hardware store and get a knife sharpener. Use it to freshen up razor-blades,” Alice said.
“I think that’s the game we’re into, Knacker,’’ Fee said.
He left them. A brisk stride took him out of the town and down to its coast line and there was a fine-looking church there, with a well-tended graveyard and a bench. He sat. He reflected.
Wondered if they knew his identity in the Lubyanka. Wondered if they had heard whispers of a man who was nudging towards elderly and had a silly name. If they had an address in New Malden, and knew of Maude and her hobbies and of his sons. Wondered if they had a file on the Round Table and its ludicrous pantomimes with the sword from the theatrical outfitter, and one on Arthur Jennings, dear man. Wondered if they had a man just like him, and a luncheon club where they performed their own version of pagan rituals. Wondered, most of all, whether they played the sport with any less intensity than he did… wondered if they did not know of him because he would have been regarded as little more than a nuisance, irritating and easily brushed aside; it would hurt to be so dismissed – and might be justified. He had never received, in all his years in the Service, any form of commendation, never been awarded a medal pinned on him by his sovereign, had never briefed a politician, never even met one for a flaccid handshake. The coins rattled in his trouser pocket, except for the denarius cleaned for him by Fee. His fingers rested on it and traced the lines on its face and its reverse and it seemed to show the transitory times of men who sought ‘to make a difference’. Some idiot had dropped it in the mud, and such an idiot might have been distracted by anxieties as to whether that woad-painted bastard away in the far distance was confidently plotting incursions.
He spluttered with laughter. It was going to be good: why should it not be?
“I want a bus-stop,” Gaz said.
The girl Natacha was deep in to her rant. “You have to listen, because this is why my father hanged himself, died because he could not live while all the men whose friendship he treasured were gone, lost… And why I help you. Why? Because it was these people, those in the new FSB palace, in all their palaces, who killed the men who could have been saved on the Kursk. Not all of them, but some. They should be alive, some… after the explosion and the deaths of ninety-five sailors there were twenty-three who were unharmed and who sheltered on the upper deck of the ninth compartment. They should have been rescued. Who could have saved them? The British could and the Americans could – but it was not acceptable that foreigners save our sailors. You understand why I hate?”
Gaz said, “A bus-stop is always good. No one sits outside if it is raining, but they wait for a bus.”
She was passionate, blasting him with her words. “The President was on holiday. In the sun, in the south, resting, still there five days after the disaster: that sort of man, not prepared to interrupt a holiday. And no senior officer dared to ask for help from the NATO navies. Eventually some cracked in their resolve and foreign divers and foreign equipment were asked for but no detail was given of how the escape hatch operated, and the divers were not allowed to fly to Murmansk but had to come many, many miles by sea, with more time lost. It was believed that if one, just one, of our sailors were rescued by a NATO navy then it would be political catastrophe. Such was the language of those who governed us and defended us. A deputy prime minister came to talk with the relatives of the crew at their base. A woman, perhaps already a widow, blistered him with criticism of their lies. Was she heard? She was sedated. A needle was stuck in her leg. The pride of the government was more important than the lives of sailors. It is why we help you – not just for money.”
The boy laughed. Gaz thought that Timofey had probably heard the story of the Kursk’s loss many times. He needed a bus-stop because there seemed to be no cafés here and no place to wait and watch.
“Eight days after the disaster, the NATO navy opened the hatch on the Kursk but all the men who had lived at first were now dead, too late. Three days too late, at least. Killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in pitch darkness and with water all round them and oil in it. A horrible death. Then the President came. He made a big offer to the families: every widow and every mother would get an officer’s salary for ten years for her sailor husband or sailor son. How many roubles? The President did not know. He went away. Do you understand?”
It was the way of Gaz’s work that there were times when he needed to listen to a tirade or a confession or just gossip in which he had no stake, no interest, but it was necessary to show interest, concern, and not to kill the cooperation of anyone he relied on. The same wherever he had worked. The Fiat was parked. The boy, Timofey, rolled his eyes and had a tired grin. He led them up a side street and out on to the main street, the Prospekt. There were fine public buildings and some flew a flag, limp in the rain without wind to stir it. Timofey led him to a bus-stop and when he looked across the Prospekt he saw the big building which had three prominent towers – at each end and in the centre, and two blocks that were recessed between the towers, and saw a high fence of ironwork and a gate that was guarded. And saw a drunk who was kneeling, arguing with a guard… Saw a parked car half on the pavement, two men idling beside it who seemed uninterested in all that passed them by, and the taller one threw down a cigarette butt and the smaller one held a small book of the sort that contained puzzles or word teasers. He rocked. The girl, Natacha, cannoned into him. He looked at the two men by the car, a black BMW 5 series, and the recognition flooded in him. Cold ran on his neck. Gaz knew them. They would not have known him.
He remembered graffiti in a nationalist corner of Londonderry. Daubed after it was public knowledge that Raymond Gilmore, small-time, low-life Provo, had gone supergrass which had meant the lifting of the city’s IRA brigade principals. It said I knew Raymie Gilmore – thank feck he didn’t know me. It had been regarded, by military and bad boys alike, as quality.
He had watched these two on a foul weather day, wind and powerful rain, while an atrocity was played out in front of them. They had seemed detached from the main action and had trailed around the village and across the football pitch and gone down between the buildings, had stayed close to their officer but had neither cautioned nor encouraged him. Gilmore had died a maudlin drunk, his handlers gone… The guard on the gate in front of the building’s main door was on his radio, complaining – easy enough to read it – about the drunk.
Their presence was the best sign. The bus-stop across the street had a weatherproof roof and sides of reinforced clear plastic. It served several routes… which was good because that meant it aroused no attention if a bus came and was ignored.
“Friend, you want me to stay?” A whisper in his ear.
It was what he had come for. He was not there to have his hand held, to be dependent on these kids. Before the black dog days he had been able to operate as well in solitary as in company, but before… “I want you back at the car, able to come quick, just around that corner. Nearer than where you parked, and watching me.”