He did not seem to take offence. Maybe he understood how the tension swarmed in her head.
‘We could be getting into problems when the time comes to get out of here, ma’am.’
Obvious. At that time, past midnight and well into another day, she alone carried responsibility in this little corner of the world – her sphere of influence. She had responsibility for herself and the four men paid to protect her, and for the situation further forward – a black hole of information, cut off from contact. She had helicopters on stand-by that could be utilised once only. She couldn’t call up the Station in Baghdad and request guidance: Sorry, Abigail, don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s nothing that’s flown across my desk. What to do? The best you can. And neither could she make a sat link with London and the Towers. Call her home desk: I’m just the lowly minion, the night duty officer, and I’m not permitted to contact your HDO before 06.00 local… Anything I can help with, or will it keep for the next seven hours? And she could hardly raise Len Gibbons, likely in Germany and leading the charge on a target: No way I can contribute, Abigail, because you’re there and I’m not, which means your judgement will be the one that counts. I’m sure whatever decision you take will be the right one and will stand up to scrutiny. If she asked for the advice of Corky or Shagger, or went to Hamfist and dropped the matter in his lap, if she looked up into Harding’s face and asked what she should do, she would lose authority.
‘If they’re in the way when we need to get out, we’ll go over or through them – whichever.’
He shrugged, acceptance. These men were happiest when told what to do and when. They would drive hard and shoot straight, and it would be for her – Abigail Jones – to face the wrath of the aftermath. Fuck it. The problem was that the money had been handed over and had bought a few hours but not enough. The radio stayed silent and she had no word from forward, the other side of the border. She could rail, stamp, blaspheme and swear, but the radio stayed quiet. The number of men from the marshes now outside the gate had increased through the night, and by the morning they would again be boxed in, and the dollar bills were exhausted. It had been a short window and they hadn’t used it. Fuck it was about the best answer she could muster.
‘If that’s what you want to do, ma’am, that’s what we’ll do.’
She smiled, grim. ‘Settled, then. Harding, one of your Rangers told me when I first came here that his father had been with a paratroop unit of the South Vietnamese army and had done time as an adviser in the Central Highlands. The old guy had told his son that what made the early days there ‘comfortable’ was the certain guarantee that if he had been wounded or killed, heaven and earth would be moved to lift him out, on a stretcher or in a bag. Might take the services of a platoon that needed reinforcing with a company that then had to call on a battalion to be moved, and a flight of helicopters with a wing of air support. Whatever it took, it was available, and the guys on the ground knew it, so they were ‘comfortable’. I can’t go and get Foxy, and can’t go as far as Badger likely is, but I’ll sit on the extraction point for him – and we’ll move before dawn whether I’ve heard from him or not. Like I said, ‘‘over or through them’’. A coffee would go down well.’
It was fraying, might already be unravelling.
‘I’ll get you a coffee, ma’am.’
‘And we can-’
He interrupted her, almost kindly, like he tried to share – but could not. ‘Packed and ready to burn some rubber. We’ll go when you say, ma’am.’
‘Hang him up, like a pig, hang him high.’
The officer gave his order. He thought his men barely recognised him. Not long before, he had led the killing of the Arabs who had crossed the frontier in search of abandoned military material, and his men – from the ranks of the Basij – had shown no hesitation or emotion in shooting, then digging the pits. They were frightened of him now. He was down on his haunches and his back was against the wall. The prisoner was on the far side of the table and chair. He realised that so much would have confused them. Why were senior men from Ahvaz not here? Why had they not been given custody of the man? Why had the man been beaten so savagely that he lay prone, unmoving? Why was the top sheet on the notepad clean, and the pencil laid neatly beside it? Why did they not know who they had captured and why had they not been praised for the success of their efforts? Why did their officer hug the floor and the wall, his head bowed? He was panting in spurts, and he clasped his hands together but could not stop them trembling. Why? The enormity of what he had done engulfed the officer, Mansoor. He did not turn towards the men who crowded in the doorway.
‘Get him out. Hang him up.’
They hesitated. All of them, not merely those who had guarded the doorway, would have heard the prisoner’s screams, and his own shouted questions, the thudded blows with the wood, and the water splashed from the bucket. The Basij were the arm of the regime: they broke up demonstrations against the authority of the state; they made the cordons on arrest operations; they kept back the crowds at executions; they enforced the edicts on dress and music. They hesitated to go close to the man. Mansoor did not know who he was. The man wore no chains, no rings; his one boot had no label and the one in his underpants had been cut out. Only at the end had he spoken and then with such insults that… His head was on his knees and he recognised the enormity of disaster brought on him by his loss of temper. The man, prone, terrified them.
His hands scratched at the wall. His fingernails gouged the plaster over the concrete blocks and he pulled himself upright. He went past the table and kicked the chair from his path. He stepped over his prisoner and did not know if the chest moved but he saw no bubbling in the blood at the mouth. He could not look into the man’s eyes because the swelling above and below had closed them. As he bent to reach past the man and loose the rope from the ring on the wall, he saw the wounds and bruises he had inflicted, the scars of the insect bites and the sores that ticks had caused. The man had destroyed him. He felt – almost – wonderment, a confusion. His face was very close to the man’s and he murmured the question he needed answering more than any other: ‘Why did you come to this place, which is nothing? Why were you here? Why was it worth it for you?’ He freed the rope, dragged on it and the man slid across the floor, through the blood, urine and water, on his back and buttocks. His other leg was bent but he did not cry out. Mansoor threw the end of the rope into the doorway, where it was caught by a guard, and gave his order again. The body was heaved past him and jammed in the door. It was freed, and then had gone down the corridor.
He slumped again, and his hands held his head.
Badger watched. Perhaps the coots did too, the frogs and the pigs. He hadn’t slept, eaten or drunk. He had been without sleep, food and water for more hours than he could calculate. He was close to delirium, on an edge.
They brought Foxy out. There were two on the rope and they went at a good pace, Foxy bouncing along behind them. They had come out of the main door into the barracks and had turned towards the water. They went into the pool of light thrown from the high lamp. When a stone caught at Foxy’s shoulder or hips and he got stuck, he was kicked free by those who flanked him. If his trailing leg snagged, he was kicked again. Badger saw it through his binoculars so he lived with each jolt of Foxy’s head. One of those who followed kicked at Foxy whether he was caught or not; another bent every three of four paces to scoop up dirt and pebbles, then threw them hard at Foxy’s face. Badger, with his lenses, could see the wounds, the cuts and the drying blood. He could also make out – among the scabs – the red marks where the skin had been burned. Now he knew why Foxy had tortured the dark with his screams of agony.
He looked for the goon, for Mansoor. He didn’t understand why he, too, had not come outside.
But Badger – on the edge of control – understood little.
The rope was thrown up and looped over the arm of the lamp, a strip of ironwork welded to the main pole. Its free end was caught, tugged down, and a gang of them took the strain. Foxy’s head bounced a last time in the dirt, then the body was up and clear. The light shone on the rope’s knot around his ankle, and onto the leg that took the weight. The other hung angled and crazily. The arms were loose in the shoulder sockets and the wrists brushed the ground. He turned slowly, gently.
Badger watched.
He watched for more than a minute and saw some of the guards punch the body, or kick at the head. He waited until their tiredness took over and they drifted back towards the barracks. The shadow under Foxy turned slowly, then went back on itself. Badger went to the bergens and took from them what he would need. It did not seem to be a matter for debate.
Chapter 17
