cultures that stretched back several millennia and a people who had been bombed, gassed, hit with napalm jelly and driven from their homes. Then on to ‘rat-runs’ and the smugglers’ trails along which the padded crates brought the bombs into Iraq. Through doors left ajar, and along corridors with stone floors, came the wail of a kettle boiling. That would have been the signal to the triumvirate – Boss, Friend, Cousin – that business should have been done.
Praise from the Boss: ‘You’re both the best in your field, excellent and professional.’
Admiration from the Friend: ‘Your files tell us you’re of high quality. This is not work for men at the second level.’
The proposition from the Cousin: ‘We can identify, gentlemen, the target’s location. He’s about two kilometres inside Iran. He’s protected – but he’s about to travel away from his guards. We don’t know where or when he’s going. We think – are pretty sure – that you are the guys who’ll give us the answers. That’s what we’re asking of you. Be there, watch, listen, and tell us what you see and hear.’
He was the older man. Predictable that their eyes should bead on him first. He could see, had adequate eyesight and wore glasses only for close work or with binoculars; he could listen because Six and the Agency, and whatever gang the Israeli was signed up to, would have top-of-the-range audio equipment; and he was almost fluent in Farsi, not interpreter standard but the level down from that. It would have been the language that had ticked boxes when they had trawled the files. He had also, rusty but never forgotten, the skills of a man trained in the techniques of covert rural surveillance. He had served a few days less than four months on attachment to the Joint Forces Intelligence Team at the Shaibah Logistics Base, where the questioning had been ‘robust’ or, in more legal phrasing, had involved ‘coercive interrogation techniques’. His breath came harder and almost, he realised, whistled through his teeth. Did he want to go? Did he hell. Where did he want to be? The map was fastened with drawing pins to the board, then propped against the back of the chair. A dull ceiling light, economy bulbs, fell on it. Nowhere near east or west of Highway 6, or near the Hawr al Hammar marshes, or within spitting distance of those turgid, stinking cess-pool rivers, and the towns that smelt more of human excrement than of donkey shit.
He wriggled on the hard seat of the chair. He was given no help. Would have gone down on his knees in gratitude if he’d heard, ‘Of course, Foxy, this is just a fishing exercise and if you don’t want to bite we’ll forget you were ever here.’ In the Cousin, the Friend and the Boss, he saw no mercy. If he had been given further explanations, perhaps on the physicality of the operation, he might have been able to peddle excuses about the state of his hips, his ankles or the cramps he was subject to at night – but his file would have stated that his condition was first class, the product of gym work and, once a week, an hour’s cross-country. He would have liked to be at home, with a malt in a crystal glass and Ellie in the kitchen, maybe humming to herself… He would have liked to be at a seminar, in a mess or at a conference, maybe, in Wiesbaden, or Madison, Wisconsin, with a spotlight on him and his words heard respectfully.
He wondered how long they would let him writhe before coming to his aid – ‘Look, Foxy, if you’re not up for crawling in the shit across the Iraq and Iran border with a directional microphone, your language skills, and that little creep alongside to carry the gear, you only have to say so, and there’ll be no criticism of you.’
The room was at the corner of the building and the wind caught against the stone and howled. The branches of an overgrown shrub lashed the windowpanes. The wind came through and lifted the curtains, and there was the sound of waves on shingle. Two small truths gnawed at him. First, Ellie, his wife of six years, was less often in the kitchen now and his dinner was more likely to come from the microwave; also, the chance of sex had become remote. The second truth was that the invitations to talk and lecture and address were fewer and now he never had to concern himself with two clashing on one date. Allowing a pall of silence to hover was a tactic used at the Logistics Base by the interrogators of the Joint Forward Intelligence Team. Foxy, as the interpreter, had played the game. Silence disturbed men. He didn’t know how to break clear.
Beside him, the quiet was broken.
The voice of the young man fucked Foxy: ‘I’m assuming I’m next to be asked. So’s we don’t mess around till Christmas, I’m on. That’s it.’
Smiles broke their faces and there was light in their eyes as they reached to shake Badger’s hand – the Cousin and the Boss had to stretch across Foxy. If the bastard had asked about the positioning of back-up, what fee would be paid and how much up-front, what the insurance aspect would be, Foxy might have been able to keep the wriggle going and find a sticking point. Too late.
‘Sounds important, sounds necessary.’ He thought himself truly skewered, managed a thin smile. ‘I’m taking it that the ground work’s been done. I’m on board, of course.’
His hand was shaken: the heavy fist of the Cousin, the light, lingering touch of the Friend, and the cursory grip of the Boss. None of the bastards thanked him. It was like he’d jumped a river and there was no going back. He assumed they were unable to put a drone over a house and a barracks inside Iran, and that they didn’t trust locally employed assets, or didn’t have them. The three sat back, and Badger’s arms were folded across his chest. He seemed relaxed.
Gibbons said, ‘I think we might take a break now. Tea and, hopefully, cake. Plenty after that to push on with-’
‘I said I was accepting your offer, but there are matters outstanding.’
‘What matters?’
He hesitated – could have done with Badger’s support, but was denied it. No damned response. Felt the loneliness. ‘For a start, what’s the back-up?’
‘Very adequate, and you’ll be well briefed on it before you’re inserted.’
‘Is that all I’m getting?’
‘It’s enough at this stage. Tea will be waiting.’
He blurted, ‘The business of remuneration. Well, where we’re being asked to go… am I not entitled to know the recompense?’
The Cousin said, ‘We were under the impression that you were still, Foxy, a serving police officer, therefore salaried and liable for full pension if you care to quit and take it. Probably there’s an overseas per diem allowance, disability stuff and widow’s entitlements in the package. I’d say you’re well looked after.’
The Friend said, ‘Your remuneration is a great deal healthier than anything my government wants to or would be able to pay.’
The Boss said, ‘If you’re having trouble in the cash area, Foxy, I can always arrange for a diversion, on the way to the airport, via Headley Court. You’ll get a chance to talk to amputees, victims of IEDs and EFPs, and see them learning to walk again or eating with artificial aids. You can discuss disability payments, your money and a soldier’s wage.’
Badger gazed at him. No contempt there, but a dry smile.
‘I was just checking because of my wife – because of Ellie. Tea would go down well. Thank you for your understanding. I suppose I’ll want to learn about the target, his security and…’
He touched her hand. There were few gestures of intimacy between them when they could be observed. He did not care then that her mother watched as he let his fingers fall on her wrist. He saw the thinness of her arm under his fingers. He didn’t care that Mansoor, the security officer, eyed them. Dark thoughts flitted in his mind. He could imagine her mother making love to her father when he was still alive – she had comforting weight about her hips and stomach, warm against a man, a sparkle in her eyes.
He couldn’t imagine this for Mansoor, who limped from the rocket fired by the Americans’ drone. Mansoor’s wife worked as a typist for the intelligence officer in the Guard Corps barracks, the Crate Camp Garrison off the Ahvaz to Mahshar road – he had never seen her without her burqah. Mansoor seemed devoid of tenderness and without the need for a woman.
Rashid, the Engineer, yearned to celebrate triumphs with his woman underneath him, her nails in his back and her small squeals in his ear – not loud enough to wake the children – when his work in the factory and on the testing ground went well, or when she cleared a minefield sown three decades earlier or gained new funding from the provincial government. They would not lie again together. He did not believe that medical success could be snatched abroad… but he had demanded it. He smiled weakly. He said that very soon he would have the detail of where they would travel and the name of the expert she would visit.
He went again to read to their children and tell them more of the three princes. The story was about lions that terrorised a farmer’s oxen and how Prince Korshid took the harnesses from the oxen, captured the lions, harnessed them to the plough, worked them and freed them. They went back to the hills and left the farmer in
