The Unknown Soldier

… Would you like more tea, or another cake?'

Lovejoy shook his head patiently, and the American followed suit.

'I liked him enough to make a small effort to find him work when he left us – a garage, Harrison's Auto Repair Unit, on the industrial estate behind the high street. I don't know whether he lasted there.

Sometimes I see pupils I taught, on the street and hanging about, sometimes I read their names in the paper, remanded in custody or remanded on bail. I haven't seen him since the day he left school.

What was different about him was a desperate, unsatisfied restlessness, and nothing here that could satisfy it, and the response to my trivial efforts was a minimal answer to the symptoms. I have to believe, because you have come to see me, that he is now considered a danger to society. I suppose trained men will seek to kill him before he can kill others – and I'd not argue with that. Where would he have learned the hate? Probably from your camp at Guantanamo Bay, Mr American. No, I won't argue with you, nor will I cheer you on – I rather liked the boy. You'll have to excuse me because Violet has a dentist's appointment.'

He stood. He looked a last time at the photograph. 'Oh, yes. What you came for. His name. I presume that with his name it will be easier to find and kill him.'

The American said, 'It will be easier to find him and stop him in his tracks before he can murder innocents.'

'Of course, of course… He's from that estate near the school, by the canal. Perhaps I sell him short, perhaps he's more than I've . painted him.' His jaw jutted and his fists clenched. 'Always interesting to hear how former pupils have progressed. He is Caleb Hunt.'

Caleb did not know that a third bag dripped saline solution through the tube and the needle into his arm.

'They'll hear my name, won't they? The bastards'll hear it. Hear it loud. They're walking dead, got nothing – all they got is radios out of Beemers and sucks and smokes, got nothing. They're not really living. I live. Everyone will hear my name.'

Caleb did not know that Beth stared bleak-faced at him.

'Guys, where are you? What you doing? I did something else.

You'll live, fucking die, no one will know, you're nothing. What you got? You got fuck-all.'

Caleb did not know as he rambled, as the drip gave him strength, that Bart prepared a scalpel, scissors, clips, forceps and sterile swabs, and listened, or that Beth bit her lip.

'It's the biggest desert in the world, it's got worse heat than anywhere in the world. I'm walking in it. I'm barefoot in it. You wouldn't have lasted in it a day, not half a day. I'm going through it because my family's waiting for me… That's a proper family. I belong to my family.'

Bart loaded a syringe with Lignocaine, the local anaesthetic.

'When you hear my name, all of you bastards, it'll be because I've done what my family wants of me. Anything…'

Caleb exposed his mind, made his mind as bare as the wound on his leg.

Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay.

'This is him?'

'This is al-Ateh, the taxi-driver.'

'Have we done him?'

'No, the Agency haven't interrogated him. The Bureau have hut not for eight months. The DIA done him since eight months back. These are their transcripts.'

He stood with his head bowed in docility. In front of him were two men he had not seen before. He had learned well to give no sign that he understood what they said.

'Who did him last, from the DIA, which of those creeps?'

'Dietrich. You know Dietrich, Jed Dietrich?'

T know him. What does he say, Harry?'

'He doesn't say anything – he's on vacation. And won't say anything – not back till after the due date, if this jerk goes.'

The chain manacles bit at his wrist, and the shackles at his ankles. He stared at the floor, made a target of his feet and did not watch them as they shuffled paper between them. The interpreter stood beside them, an Arab, and his respect for them told Caleb of their importance.

'It's the quota, that's what matters. Two old guys, a middle-aged guy and a young guy to make up a quota minimum of four – if they're clean.'

'Too many of them are clean.'

'I hear you, Wallace. Try not to think about i t… You going to the club tonight, that concert?'

'Marine brass band – woiddn't miss… OK, let's go process this guy.'

The interpreter translated. The one called Harry told him that the United States of America had no grievance against the innocent, the United States of America valued the freedom of the individual, the United States of America was committed only to rooting out the guilty. The one called Wallace told him that he was going home, back to Afghanistan, to his family then had checked as if a paragraph in the file about the iviping out of the family by B-52 bomber had been, for a moment, forgotten. He was going back to the chance of making a new life with his taxi.

Through the interpreter, Harry asked, T hope, young man, back in Afghanistan you won't come out with any lies about torture?'

The meek answer. 'No, sir. I am grateful, sir.'

Through the interpreter, Wallace queried, 'You have no complaints about your treatment here?'

'No, sir. I have been treated well, sir.'

Through the interpreter, both of them: 'You take good care, young man, of the opportunity given you… You help to build a new Afghanistan…

Good luck… Yes, good luck.'

The guards' hands were on his arms, and the waist chain was tugged back.

He heard Harry say, 'Pathetic, aren't they, these jerks? He's lucky to be out. I reckon the lid's going to come off this place.'

He was being led out through the door. Wallace said, 'Too right – discipline's cracking, more suicide tries and more defiance. When the . tribunals start up and when that execution chamber comes on line, the lid could come off big-time. What time is the concert?'

He was shuffled away, the chains clanking on his ankles.

He had contempt of them, had beaten them. He would hear them scream, wherever he was. When he had returned to his family, he would hear them scream in shrill terror.

'I think I'm going to ask you to help me.'

'Of course.'

'And it's best if I educate you to my equipment.'

'Yes.'

She followed Bart out from under the low awning, stretched and stood tall. 'What should I know?'

He hissed, 'Not what you should know, what about me knowing something? When did you realize this man was a fully fledged terrorist, and British? May we begin there?'

'What do you want? A confessional?'

'The truth would help.'

'What he is and what I knew, does that determine what treatment you give him?'

'My decision, Miss Jenkins, not yours.'

She told him, haltingly, what had brought her to this unmapped corner of the greatest desert in the world and what she owed this man. He thought, himself, he owed nothing. 'That's it – are you going to walk away?'

Whatever he was, Bart was not an idiot. If he walked away, went back to the awning, collected up his boxes and packages, carted them to the Mitsubishi and loaded them, the rifle on the older Bedouin's lap would be up to the shoulder and would be aimed. The eye behind the sight would be brilliant with hatred, and he'd hear the clatter of it arming; he would die in the sand. He pondered on all those who had wrecked his life, had walked over him.

'In about half an hour,' Bart said, 'I'll start to work on the leg wound.'

'I trust you.'

From the sky, the heat cascaded on him, and the sweat ran on his body and collected in the folds of his stomach. 'That's good, because you have to.'

*

Gonsalves rang the bell.

Wroughton checked him in the spy-hole then opened the door. He held his hands across his privates.

Gonsalves walked inside, had half skirted the black bin-bag, then stopped at it, put down his briefcase and tipped the bloodstained clothes on to the floor.