His head was nine inches from Foxy’s. Their shoulders touched, and their hips. Their smell mingled. The compulsion to scratch the scabs on his stomach was worse now, and the mosquitoes swarmed. If they made it out, reached the extraction point, loaded up the Pajeros, and ‘Foxy’ Foulkes – pompous, old-world – did not put in a career-killer report on him, his life would resume alongside Ged in hides, sodden ditches and damp hedgerows. He would tell the stories with relish. He followed the Engineer with his binoculars, then laid them down and took up the night-sight. The moon climbed higher and the birds were noisier on the water.
‘How much of a moron? Enough of a moron to buy the shit they gave you?’
The goon, the officer, was out of the barracks and walking towards the house. The flash of a cigarette lighter burned out the night-vision image. He watched the security officer, used the binoculars. He felt tension coming in his shoulders, a tightening in his gut, and was confused.
‘You bought it and believed it. They must have pissed themselves – Gibbons, the Yank and the Jew – laughing at you because of your ignorance. Back of the classroom, were you? Put your hand up, did you? “Please, sir, what’s interdiction?” They gave you a bucket of shit, and you swallowed it. Want to know what “interdiction” means? Want to know that it doesn’t mean an “approach” and turning an enemy? Want to know what you’ve signed up for, young ’un?’
All the muscles had stiffened, and his stomach had knotted. Cold had settled on the back of his neck and he held his breath.
‘You volunteered for a spook-sponsored stake-out on what is bloody near enemy territory without the finesse of a war declaration. The target for surveillance is the man who makes the bombs that kill our boys, and he’s right for interdiction, and you think that means some sort of cosy approach, a buttering-up in the hope the bastard will fall into our arms? You’ve all this shit about sitting in the countryside, wildlife around you, joys of bloody nature, and maybe you get to have a little cry because a deer’s snagged on barbed wire, a rabbit’s choking in a snare or a fucking rat has a thorn in its pad. A wanking dreamer, that’s what you are… The military use of the word “interdiction” is about taking down with the use of fire power. It’s the destruction of the enemy’s potential to fight. How does it relate to this guy, the Engineer, builder of bombs? “Interdiction” for him means that he’s killed. It’s why I’m here, and why you ’re here. .. Difficult when you’re ignorant, maybe a moron, to know what’s real. He’s for killing, taking down, and you’re a part of the process, a big part.’
It was as though he had been hit in the stomach. But he held onto the binoculars and could see the goon near to the house speaking to a guard, an arm pointed away towards the bund line.
‘In your education, the little of it you had, did they tell you about killing? We use fancy words. We harvest fish, cull deer. When we bomb a village and get the wrong target, that’s not a screw-up but collateral damage. It’s bollocks, intended to soften actuality. He’s going to be killed. Didn’t you know that, smartarse?’
The officer was striding out of the light, going at pace…
He could have been sick. It was that sort of blow that he’d taken, the one that made a man double up, then heaved the puke into his throat. He didn’t know, now, how he could have swallowed what he’d been told. He almost cringed.
Foxy warmed, would have sensed he’d hit home. ‘It’s deniable. We finger the man. They move in a hit team because we’ve told them where to look. He’s stabbed or strangled, poisoned or shot, and you’re a part of it. Does that put you, young ’un, outside your comfort zone?’
He had the binoculars down and held the night-sight hard at his face. His eyeline took his head away from Foxy’s mouth, but the voice dripped on, and there was triumph in it. ‘Don’t think it bothers me, young ’un, because I’m an old bastard and there’s not much can happen to me. Different for you. Your age, that stage in a career when you reckon you’re the dog’s bollocks. Instead you might just be in shit. An integral part in an extra-judicial killing, which is at least accessory to murder. You’re a part of it and your defence is that you didn’t know what interdiction meant. Reckon they’ll be queuing up to believe you? Extra-judicial is what you’re into.’
He came level with him. For Mansoor, with the muscle wastage in his leg from the wound, it was a struggle to catch the Engineer.
It should not have happened. He had hurried, as best he could, from the house and past the barracks, then onwards until he saw the silhouetted figure in the moonlight high on the elevated bund line. The struggle to get the breath into his lungs, the pain from his leg and anger fuelled his aggression.
‘You should not be here.’
Defiance from the Engineer, lit by Mansoor’s torch: ‘I walk where I care to walk.’
‘My responsibility is to protect you. You ask me where you walk and when.’
Said softly, and with no trace of resentment: ‘You forget yourself, Mansoor.’
‘I do not.’
‘You forget who you are and who I am.’
‘I do not forget that it is my duty to protect you. I do my duty as best I can. I cannot protect you if you walk far from your home in the night and I am not warned.’
‘Here – at my home – there is a threat?’
‘There are thieves. There could be smugglers bringing drugs. There are the marsh people who would slit your throat for a packet of cigarettes or the coins in your pocket.’
‘You are dutiful, and I am grateful. Do such imaginary threats equate with the threat to my wife’s life? Call it a matter of perspective.’
‘It is my duty.’
‘And tomorrow – for how long I cannot say – you are relieved of that duty.’
‘It is wrong that I will not be there. I should go with you.’
‘Security, I think, is the smallest problem that faces Naghmeh and me. I wanted to walk and think. Now, to please you, Mansoor, we will walk back together.’
They did. The Engineer had lit another cigarette and Mansoor stayed a half-pace behind him. The moonlight was on the reeds and reflected in silver lines off the water; birds splashed and there were ripples from an otter’s hunting. He apologised – it could go badly for him if the Engineer reported his rudeness. It was accepted and hand slapped his shoulder. It irritated him that he was not permitted, on the ground of cost, he had been told, to travel with them.
‘And when we are gone tomorrow, Mansoor, what will you do?’
‘Be certain that the old lady does not want for help… and I will watch for the ibis. I hope to see it… and my prayers will be with you. I will look for that bird. What else?’
It was, thought Harding, a master class from her in avoidance and evasion.
He was the only one of the Boys close enough to hear. He didn’t understand everything because they flitted between English and local Arabic. The rest were back, relaxed now, and would have let their weapons hang loose across their legs.
It was a strange way to do business: he used English and most of her answers were in Arabic, but it helped Harding that he repeated most of what she’d said, translated it. In the business, she represented a charity from Europe of eco-freaks who wanted nothing more or less from their money than to have the most complete survey of flora and fauna in the marshes, with particular emphasis on the bird life. He did not contradict her, but pointed out that the area of the marshes she had chosen for her valuable, welcome research was not inside the triangle that had as its apex the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and was the widest, most accessible part of the wetlands, but was hard up against the Iranian border. She spoke of the importance of the habitat. He spoke of the sensitivity of the frontier zone. She told him of the value placed on the wildlife of the marshes, its uniqueness and also its vulnerability. He told her of the suspicion, if her presence were known, of the Revolutionary Guards who patrolled a few kilometres down the bund line. She said she carried references and letters of introduction from people who were in the elite of government. He said it was ‘interesting’ that none had accompanied her on her research journey.
She held her line, Harding reckoned, and he held his.
She said she was trained in the preservation of wildlife. He did not accuse her of being in the employ of Britain’s intelligence service.
She sparkled and flattered. He had mischief in his eyes and humour.
She remarked that the charity backing her could be generous to those who smoothed paths. He responded that the marsh people would always be grateful to those who showed meaningful generosity.
It was, to Harding, obvious that her cover story wasn’t believed, nothing of it.
