The Untouchable

'Well, go in on it.'

Gough hesitated, and flushed. 'That's a bit beyond me.'

'Should I ring my granddaughter and have her ferried over?'

SQG8 inserted herself, knelt beside Gough's leg and worked the mouse. She highlighted the russet blob, clicked and zoomed, dragged it closer and clearer.

It was not necessary for Cork to speak. They could all see what he saw. Cork blurted, 'Christ, it's a bloody fox… What's it got? It's got a bone. It's cleaning its bloody teeth on a bone… What's that on the end of the bone? I don't want to believe what I am seeing. It's a shoe. It's Arbuthnot's shoe. The fox has eaten his bloody leg, all except for what's in the shoe… Christ almighty.'

The smoke of the cigarettes and the small cigar, and from Gough's pipe, floated over the screen. The zoom pulled out, then SQG8 took the centre point of Mister's back, and he was pulled, jerked, closer to the watchers. They could see the silver streaks of perspiration at his temples.

The voice came over the speakers. They were pin-drop quiet as they listened.

'Are you going to run, Mister, or are you going to beg for help to come and get you? Let me talk you through the begging. Throw the gun away first, then strip, get off every last stitch, then beg. You're naked and you're begging, and all the world knows you're finished, and a loser… or you run. Those are your options, Mister… Come on. Come on.'

The voice was gone. Light wind bruised the camera's microphone.

'Who is that?' the commander barked.

'His name is Cann, he's SQG12,' Gough said flatly.

'He is our most junior executive officer.'

'It's torture, psychological torture,' Cork snapped.

'What's his problem? He is challenging him to risk his life in a minefield. Packer – as damn near as makes no difference – is in custody, if you've anything to charge him with. What you're doing is obscene. Even Packer has rights. I never sanctioned such behaviour. All I sanctioned was surveillance.'

'Then you didn't know your man,' Gough said. 'What did you want, Mr Cork? Did you want a packaged legal process, or the elimination of our Target One? I thought I knew what you wanted.'

'Get him out. That is an order, Mr Gough. Remove Cann.'

'Easier said… If you hadn't noticed, Mr Cork, that field and that valley and Packer and Cann are a long way from me. But I'll do what I am able.'

'An order, Mr Gough.'

'How many mines do you reckon are there, Mister?'

Frank listened to the pitiless ring of Joey's voice. He thought Mister's shoulders, out in the field, were lower and he wondered whether Mister's knees were near to buckling. Frank had driven into Mostar and dumped his prisoner in a police cell, under IPTF supervision, and then had bought supermarket cold food and water. He had come back to the crest of the hill, then the call on Maggie's phone had driven him down the slope path, with the food and water, past the skeleton of a wretch who had tripped the wire of a PMR2A mine, with the instruction from London. The men had their backs to Joey Cann. He crouched beside them and listened to what he was told as they ate and drank. Frank Williams was a career policeman and he believed in the rigour of law enforcement and in the processes of the criminal code. He listened to Ante, their spokesman, and then to the chipped remarks of Salko, Fahro and Muhsin, who had the dog's leash coiled in his hand. He had seen the monitor picture from the video camera and had heard the mocking shout across the valley. What he had seen and heard made a travesty of justice as he knew it. When they had finished, said what they wanted to, he went and stood behind Joey Cann, brought bread and cheese and an apple and what was left in the water bottle.

The head wasn't turned, the eyes were locked on the back in the dark suit jacket that rose above the hazed heat of the fields.

'Are you listening to me?'

' I'm hearing you.'

' London want you out.'

'Do they?'

'The instruction to be passed to you was made, personally, to me by Douglas Gough acting on behalf of Dennis Cork, chief investigation officer. Not tomorrow or the day after, but now. Out, and quit.'

' Is that what he said?'

'What you're doing is barbaric. Maggie rigged up the video and it's playing over the mobile. They are watching it in London. They know what you're doing and, like me, they are disgusted at your self-serving arrogance. You're going down to his level, Mister's, maybe going lower than him. If you don't believe what I'm telling you, out and quit, then use your mobile and call your Gough. Go on.'

Joey shifted his weight and took the mobile off his belt. He peeled it out of the ragged leather case, flipped off the back flap and took out the battery. The battery went into his breast pocket and the mobile was hooked back on his belt.

Frank spoke, steely quiet: 'Those men behind you, they call you Nasir. They've given you the dog's name

… Muhsin told you that Nasir Oric, defend -r of Srebrenica, their military leader, was a hero. Salko's just told me that when the town fell the people rampaged and looted in the last hours before the Serbs came in, and they found warehouses stacked to the roof with UN-donated food, but it wasn't for free handouts. It was for black-market sale, and that was criminal… Ante tells me that Nasir, who had been pulled out by the government to Tuzla before Srebrenica went under, led a column of a hundred and seventy men who fought through the Serb lines to link with the fighters breaking out, hand-to-hand combat, against the odds, and that was heroic… Fahro tells me that today Nasir Oric is a rich man, not bad for an ex-police bodyguard, with a money-spinning restaurant on the lake at Tuzla and won't talk about the source of the start-up cash.'

'Why do they call me Nasir?'

'Only one side of him was a hero. The other side of him was… a good man and a bad killer. It's the sort of confusion this place breeds, and you've got it bad.

So, I'm telling you now, I want no part of it, nor Maggie, nor them… Do I leave you food? We want no part of what you're doing.'

'He's not eating, so I'm not eating.' Now he turned.

Frank saw the boyish sincerity wreath his face, and the smile. ' I'm going to win, you know. He's the loser, I'm the winner.'

'At what cost?' Frank asked sourly. 'At what bloody cost?'

The smile slipped, the frown was above the big spectacles. 'I've only one favour I need from you.

Please, request of them that the dog stays with me. I'll bring him back to Sarajevo, safe and sound, a promise, but I'd appreciate it if I could keep him. The food and the water'll do for the dog, if there's nothing better.'

It was only a dog. Frank put the request. Only another dog. Frank left with the Sreb Four. Before he went into the depth of the trees, he stopped and looked. Joey fed bread to the dog, then poured water into its mouth. He started to walk, hurrying to catch the men ahead of him, and the sun fell in shards between the trees.

It was a soft call. 'Thank Maggie for what she's done for me – give her my love.'

He was weaker.

The sun was on Mister's back. It was off his face and that brought slight relief. He stood and did not move. He gabbled numbers but they had no sequence, no rhythm, and he had no target number. The numbers were random, the decision was put off. He did not know the time, but the sun's force had come off his face and away from the top of his head and was now on his back.

He was sinking.

The numbers, in hundreds, tens and thousands, cluttered his mind. When he lost them, they slipped away from him. Then he thought of Cann. Between the scrabble of numbers was the sight of Cann's face.

Big spectacles, a wide forehead, curly hair without a comb, a small mouth – the clerk, the paper-pusher of Sierra Quebec Golf. At that age he would be little more than a probationer. The kid stuck leech like to him. Why? Mister could buy policemen and judges and bankers and the civil service and… What was Cann's price? Small change, ten thousand, pocket money, fifteen thousand, enough for a down-paymert on a flat. The Eagle had said: You know what I worry about?