But they weren’t here, those who tapped out the texts. Back in an Afghan deployment, a guy out alone, on the edge of an irrigation ditch and looking at a path that skirted a ripening maize field. Seeing in his image intensifier night-sight the white shadow of a man advancing on the path towards him, and screwing the silencer attachment to the end of his assault rifle and watching the figure looming closer. The way his position was sited, he would have to exit the ditch, crawl through a thorn barrier and then leg it away, and he’d make a noise like a buffalo on stampede, and then there was another shadow hurrying behind the first. Had to be a mujahid patrol checking the edges of the compound perimeter. If the guy did a positive identification then the SAS would go in, or a drone would be fired. The noise of the darkness, insects and frogs and distant dogs, was around him, and the slapping sound of approaching sandals. The front shadow had stopped, then had turned to wave the second figure forward. Had seemed the way that a mission finished and a trip through Wootton Bassett beckoned. They had come on together, the two shadows – and the guy had fired. Two shadows prone on the trail and they would have been five seconds from discovering him. Had got the hell out… An inquest had followed. He had killed a teenage girl and a boy who had followed her out of the compound for a kiss and cuddle, and the talk had been of a court martial and a murder trial. Had been a suggestion that a guy in SRR was not above the law, was its servant. The trooper in interrogation had snapped back at his inquisitor. ‘… But you weren’t there, weren’t there and don’t know…’ The investigation had been stopped.
Gaz was there, and the men and women who sent the text were safe in a Forward Operating Base, behind concrete walls and perimeters of razor wire set with claymore mines. He had just replied that he would ‘move when I judge it possible’. Not possible at that moment because when he crawled from his hide the goats would scatter, the dogs would bark, then snarl as they hugged her ankles. He would have said something like, ‘Sorry about this, darling – and sorry I don’t know your name, but I’m going to run for it and the commotion will probably be fatal for you – and sorry also for what is happening in your village…’ And had texted that he expected to meet the pick-up point, but a bland answer would have to satisfy them. Sorry for what is happening in your village was worse than anything he had seen before. What had happened to the men was now visited on their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters. Women were kept inside a diminishing circle and the tips of the bayonets were pressed against their stomachs. Some were pushed hard enough to draw blood. One at a time they were dragged out of the group. Pulled clear, then led away, had their legs kicked out from under them, then shot while they knelt… The village had become an abattoir.
It was the intention, plain to Gaz, that no witnesses should remain alive.
They would have been fighting men, and taken casualties. Had been shot up in the night, would have thought they were deployed against vermin, creatures out of the gutters and the sewers. He watched the Russian officer. The man had a quiff of blond hair and what Gaz could see of his face reflected only the pink hue of sunshine and insufficient protective cream. If a Russian was posted here – so their briefers said – he’d likely have had a decent education. His goons followed him… Did he shoot, the Russian? Not always easy for Gaz, because of the strength of the rain and the force of the wind, to follow each detail of the man’s hand movements, and sometimes the sound of the gunshots was close to his ears and sometimes distant. He thought the Russian had fired his handgun down into the dirt and it might have been, if he had, to blast the back off a head and kill a woman already wounded. The girl was crying hard now. Not noisily, but shaking, near choking on it. Gaz held her arm. Had no idea of any words, in any language he had, that might have edged towards an appropriate response. Said nothing. Gaz had water with him but did not use it and had not passed its container to her. Two more women shot. His grip was broken, his hand shaken clear. She was pushing herself upright.
He snatched at her. Had a hold of her clothing… Could take it no longer, that she would live, perhaps, and others die. She would be the only survivor of the village. The boys who had fled at the start, when the convoy had come, would have looked to save their skins. He thought that the courage she had shown had reached a burn-out point. He clung to her clothing. She wriggled and then lashed out with her foot, kicked behind her.
The force of her heel, held inside a rough strap on her sandals, shook Gaz as it caught him across the nose and lips. His eyes smarted. He clung to her. She kicked again, and then turned to force him. Could not get to his skin and eyes because of the scrim net. What would he have wanted to do? Watch it, or join them? Live or die with them? He would not let her go. If it had not been for the netting she would have had her fingers into his face, and her nails would be in his eyes. She would be free of him and would start to career down the hillside, the dogs running with her. He thought she would be dead in half a minute. He held her and the kicking was more frantic.
Gaz hit her. The sort of smack that might have calmed a child’s tantrum. He released his rifle, reached out and used the palm of his hand to smack her face and his other hand held tight to her long sodden skirt… it ripped. Gaz saw her bare legs and cursed himself, and the moment passed, and he knew then that – better or worse – he had saved her. He let go of her and she huddled down with her dogs. Gaz knew it was not finished.
The light, miserable all day in that weather, had further deteriorated. He watched the officer. Would never forget him.
Sure or not sure? Nearly sure or probably sure?
Gaz had had the binoculars on the face of the Russian officer for the greater part of that day. Rain had been carried on the wind through the scrim net covering the hide’s entry. At times the lenses had misted, but he had seen the face, stubble covered and showing the dirt stains from the road and then from the grit kicked up by the force of the wind when he walked in the village. He had seen the officer come out of the door of the building on the Prospekt, clean and scrubbed and shaved and wearing a laundered uniform, and had known him best because of his recognition of the two guards who watched him. Was sure. Gaz thought about being on board the trawler, going up the fiord and turning out into the open sea, and the bottle appearing and all of them drinking from its neck, and likely all of them, crew and passenger, legless by the time they tied up at Kirkenes, and him on an afternoon flight out. Might get a light punch from Knacker, might get a bone-crushing hug from the woman called Fee. But had to be certain, not nearly certain. Did not want to, but had no choice, and told Timofey what he needed.
No argument, and Timofey said that since he would not slit his father’s throat, he needed the means to make the old bastard cooperative, and gave a grim smile.
“You don’t talk, you never speak.”
“Understood.”
“There are enough fools here – behave like one, understand nothing… can you do that?”
“Have to look in his face – can do the rest.”
The glance over him from Timofey was cursory and there was a dissatisfied hiss between his teeth, but he whipped off his anorak and thrust it at Gaz. He shrugged into it, too small but breaking the khaki and olive colour of his shirt. Natacha started the tuneless whistle, like hope had gone, and Gaz grimaced. Not much else to do… except that he had to be certain and not nearly certain.