Abigail walked away from her Boys, following the gaggle of men, towards the gate. She reached it and shouted, in good Arabic, what she wanted. She had resumed her role of authority.
She sat down in the dirt and folded her legs in the middle of the track. She waited for them to do as she had instructed. It was a gamble – as was the whole goddamn thing. She waited, and soon dawn would come.
When would he know? Mansoor asked him. And caught him flustered, having had to duck back into the house because there were papers he had been reading early that morning and he had forgotten to replace them in his briefcase. Know what?
Mansoor said it slowly, as if he talked with a demented man. When would he know the date on which he travelled, and when would he know where he travelled to?
The door of the Mercedes was held open for him and he threw the briefcase towards the far side of the seat. He said he would know that day – he had been promised.
A radio had been switched on in the house.
The security officer had fine hearing. He realised that the wife, Naghmeh, had not packed the new suitcase. He had been roused by a sentry in the night, and had gone half dressed from his room alongside the communal dormitory of the barracks. He had seen them – washed in moonlight – walking beside the water. He understood that the two were, almost, crushed. He had thought in the night that the wound on his leg was healed, and that the muscles and tendons that had been ruptured were knitting well. He had pondered, watching them walk together, that the time would come soon when he could apply for service with the al-Quds again, in Lebanon. It was an honour to be chosen to protect a man of the Engineer’s prominence, and it could not have been said that he was careless with the responsibility, but it did not extend him. He was asked by the driver what the situation was that morning in central Ahvaz.
A news bulletin came on the radio.
He could answer. His father had telephoned that morning. The hanging of the terrorist the previous day had gone well. There had been militia and Guard Corps personnel on the streets; no live rounds or gas had been fired; the crowds had dispersed quietly after only one charge with batons. His father had said that the hanging had been witnessed by the family of a bystander who had died when the bomb the youth had placed had exploded; the mother had spat at the condemned as he was lifted, trembling, onto a chair with the noose round his neck and the hood over his face. The father of the bystander would himself have kicked away the chair if he had not been restrained. His father loved to watch the hangings… His father had said that the streets were calm. He said it was safe to take the quicker route through the centre of the city.
He was surprised. The question had shocked him. Never before had his charge, Rashid Armajan, made such a query. It had been asked from beside the open rear door of the car, as if an afterthought: ‘Do you believe it possible that the regime governing us is, in fact, similar to a house built of playing cards that can be blown down, destroyed?’
The security officer, a true believer, gagged and must have betrayed his shock.
The Engineer was sharper: ‘Could the regime collapse? Is internal dissent, external aggression – combined – enough to break us?’
He sensed a trap. The question was close to treason. Men, and women, were hanged for treason. Did the question test his loyalty? Was he doubted?
‘Can the regime be swept away? Are we merely temporary? Are we like the Fascists and the Communists, the Ba’athists, the apartheid oppression in South Africa and the…?’
He stuttered it: ‘The regime is strong, is a rock. Those who denounce it and look to betray it will fail. There are spies everywhere, and danger. Vigilance must be rigorous. I tell you, should I find myself confronting such an enemy, he would know pain the like of which he has never experienced before. We are strong.’
‘Thank you. You are a good friend.’ The Engineer sank heavily into the car, swung in his legs and the driver closed the door after him.
Mansoor pondered. He could – and most probably should – report such a conversation. Who would be believed? Himself, a junior functionary, or a man who was feted by the high command of the al-Quds Brigade and who was about to travel abroad on the state’s funding? Could he, by implication, accuse such a man of treason? The car turned a corner beside the barracks and disappeared, dust billowing behind it. Always it was necessary, if denouncing a man of prominence, to be certain. He was prepared to dither.
It would have been the wife’s mother who had the radio loud because she was partially deaf, had been afflicted since the enemy’s artillery had pounded Ahvaz.
He went to his chair in the shade and sat down with his binoculars. He wondered if this would be the day when the Sacred Ibis came over the reeds fringing the lagoon and settled on the exposed mud spit.
Foxy whispered brusquely, ‘The radio knocked out the long conversation at the car. Before it was switched on he said he would be told today the “when” and the “where”. That’s about it. For me it’ll be some sleep.’
Soon he would start to snore.
Badger felt alone. He had lost count of how many hours, days and nights it had been since they were scooped from their lives and taken north to the house facing out over the bay. The hours, days and nights since he had met the girl, Alpha Juliet, had merged too. He had taken the headset. Most of what it picked up was the babble of the radio. The heat inside his suit climbed, the sweat ran and he felt the weakness that lack of exercise produced. Those people at the house with the ruins of a castle and the pipes’ wail were too distant: he could no longer put faces to them. Time dripped, the images blurred. .. He couldn’t bloody remember them.
‘The carvery is always good value,’ Gibbons said, ‘and the fish is usually passable.’ He played host to the Cousin, the Friend and the Major. It had been Sarah’s idea. She had suggested it that morning, had made the phone calls with the invitations, had booked the table and appeared to believe he needed respite from sitting in the inner office, contemplating the wilting flowers, the pictures on the wall and the silence of the telephone. It had been sleeting in central London when he had walked from the office to the club.
A bottle of red was brought, a bottle of white and a small jug of water.
He smiled, a little deprecating. ‘Always the hardest time for us, the waiting. We’re all from that neck of the woods… I often think that others who are parked at their desks in our place and write those analysis pieces have little idea of the strains placed on us by our work in the front line… very little idea.’
Sarah had bundled a wad of cash into his hand, the implication being that she would lose it somewhere in the budget – elastic bands, highlighters, paper clips. In the club’s restaurant, rarely used by him because of its expense, she had reserved a corner table where they could speak and be free of eavesdropping.
The Cousin remarked, ‘There are people in Langley who drive up the Beltway before it’s light for half the year, look at a screen all day, and it’s dark when they’re back in the car and off home. They tell the little woman, ‘It’s been a hell of day, sweetie, just one hell of a day.’ They have no idea, and less concern, about the pressures we’re under when we’re running sharp-end stuff… But I take comfort from the feeling in my water that we’ve gotten close to the serious time. I’ll start with the white, Len, thank you.’
The Friend said, ‘I don’t intend to badmouth my own people, but Israel has the world’s highest proportion of jealous bastards who think they know better than the man of experience. We have awards that would fill a wall for interference and shit-chucking. What we do is difficult and stressful and you can piss against the wind for all the appreciation you’ll pick up. The red would suit me as a kick-off, Len, and I’m grateful for the invitation.’
The Major grimaced, smiled. ‘I can remember a day when I’d been out on those open-sewer streets of Basra from dawn till dusk and I’d killed five IEDs. Each was complex and would have been shipped in from that bloody production line across the border, and one was for me and complicated. There were bad guys on a roof, watching to see how I went about it – hoping also to see the big flash and hear the bang. I went back to the mess. Believe it, please. There was a colonel in there – using the Basra Palace, Saddam’s old watering-hole – for a farewell bash. He and his guests had put on their fancy-dress outfits and their gongs for smart dining. Flopped in a chair, feet on the table, beer bought me, and this bloody colonel wants to know why I haven’t washed, shaved, changed before entering the mess. Didn’t understand there was a life outside the limit of the air-conditioning system. I told him to fuck off – took my brigadier in Baghdad a week to smooth the waters. People have no idea about the real world. I’ll start with the white and then try the red. Thanks, Len.’
They ordered, drank and ate. Another bottle of red was required, but the water lasted. In a vacuum of information, responsibilities were reiterated and guarantees given. Coffee was accepted, but no brandy – an indication of work taken seriously.
The Major said, ‘I just want to put it on the record in this rather select company… People, these days, are
