The drone, of course, had not crossed the border. He was shown the fence from an elevated angle, could see where pine trees had been cleared and the ploughed strip where footprints would show up, and the track of crushed stone that was another 100 yards back and used by patrol vehicles. The Norwegian said how often they came by, and had unfolded a map which had the camera arcs marked, and he’d pointed to a section where a bend in the fence left dead ground… a small length but with tumbler wires. Beside the Norwegian was a clear plastic bag holding strands of animal hair. He spoke quietly, never looking at Gaz, as if the sight of him would contaminate: he would have been just one more of the foot-soldiers that Knacker had rounded up. They were on the northern section of the wire, and it was explained that farther south the frontier was first in the centre of a river, then halfway across a wide lake, as big as an inland sea. Where their interest lay, marked with a streak of red, was outside the eyeline of the nearest watch-towers. Gaz did not query the intelligence the Norwegian brought: how recently had the length of wire been surveyed, how long since the patrol patterns had been logged, had this location been used before? Had to take it on trust.
He was asked if he wanted to stretch his legs. Knacker assumed he did, had already opened the vehicle door.
Something that Gaz loathed: the final talk before a mission, when a spook would tell them all how important it was, what a difference it would make. He stood on the edge of the clearing and they would have been 100 yards back from the frontier fence that was shielded by the pine forest where no birds sang.
Knacker came close. “I saw you wince. Don’t worry, you’ll not get a portrait of our monarch or the Union flag, and how we’re all reliant on you. Take it as read. What matters are my assurances. We don’t send you out bare-arsed. We’ve done our best, which is a good best, to ensure you have the planning and backup you deserve. Why you? You are the only one we have, as an asset, with the knowledge and the qualities to do what is asked. Interrupt me any moment you want to…”
Gaz asked nothing, busied his mind memorising what he was told. He shook his head. The rain was lifting, the clouds breaking and the wind dropping. Flies were gathering.
“…We had this sleeper family in Murmansk. Been there for ever. Codeword Matchless, and that was the name of a Royal Navy warship doing Arctic convoys, and a seaman came into the port, sneaked ashore during a blackout, had his leg over. He never went back but word reached his mates on another convoy that ‘herself’ had been down on the dockside with a little bundle all wrapped up and needing a dad to be shown off to… Bit of a yarn but twenty years later the intelligence people had a whiff of the story and some digging was done, clever stuff, and the girl was identified, and her little bastard, and they were signed up. Good people and brave, because they faced a miserable death if they were caught after taking our shilling. Yes, we paid them. Money into the account each quarter, and it vegetates in the Channel Islands, and they sleep, sleep well and are not disturbed. Moved through the generations and contact with them is through the Italian embassy in Moscow, and a SISMI officer. We have no reason to believe that the family are not receptive to being woken. We see them as reliable, hard-working, fond of this bank account where their wealth accrues, though not yet touched. The contact has assured them that a substantial bonus applies to this work. They meet you at the rendezvous point they have been given. You will have trekked to get there but you have all the necessary skills to achieve that. They take you into Murmansk. You will be placed in the vicinity of the FSB building on Lenin Prospekt. Play it how you wish to play it, Gaz… Identify him, tail him, the major, establish his place of residence, and that is pretty much it. You leave the rest to us. Get this down your throat, Gaz – and I am not merely urging you to go the extra mile, get this…”
Nothing to say, he listened.
“It was a war crime. It was a job for the International Court of justice. It was the marker laid down by a civilised world that such behaviour was unacceptable. War crimes are only applicable to the team that loses. They didn’t lose, they won. They flattened the country and slaughtered the opposition and gassed them, and clapped their hands and cheered for Victory Syria Day and not a prosecutor in sight. They won. Except that we, non-combatants, do not see it quite in that light and have our own end-game which will bring gratification to the few who survived. That brave and rather attractive girl is one who, I hope, will feel a tad of satisfaction, and the others who survived. Do we do this, Gaz, because we like to donate comfort and love to victims with a munificence based on vengeance? Not really. It’s about gaining friends and allies and putting them in debt to us, and that way we thrive. As I said, you leave the rest to us, and don’t worry your pretty head about what the rest entails. Mark him for us, Gaz, as you used to mark for the snipers, or for the drone strikes. Give us the opportunity to finish it, Gaz. I think Fee brought a thermos of coffee, and probably some biscuits.”
Knacker stood back. Not a man who regularly congratulated himself. He had been listened to, had been heard. It was his familiar speech on the eve of a mission, the last hours before a man was put in harm’s way. Minor variations, but done many times. Earlier in his life he had stayed close to the border and had watched his agent go over or under or through a fence. Or had seen him into the departure hall at an airport. Or had been on a platform when a night train pulled away, his man settling into a seat and ticking fast in his mind the details of the legend, a lifestyle story, he’d been provided with. There had been a few men, and one woman, who had believed they possessed the strength of will to change their minds late in the day, to step back, and say to his face they were no longer prepared to go, wanted out. None had succeeded. He had ridiculed them, had praised them to the hilt, used the poetry of inspiration, had threatened… Quite a considerable armoury of tax investigation, job loss, consequences that were brutal and which he would not flinch from employing. They’d all gone… a few had even come back.
He seldom lingered in the past, just a fast kaleidoscope of faces that seemed to blur the image of Gaz in front of him. There were enough of them who had gone boldly forward with his soft-spoken encouragement trilling in their heads. Some had died beyond the reach of help after experiencing the violence of interrogation cells, and some had gone to the penal colonies, and some would emerge as broken individuals, but Knacker could comfort himself that, the end had always justified the means. A couple lost in Iran and three in the Damascus hell-holes, but the outstanding majority had gone into the territory of the Russian Federation. In his experience, the men he sent put on a show of confidence. There were those who were traitors to their own regime, who loathed it, or were keen to accept Knacker’s money, intelligence officers or scientists, one from the military general staff. And some who worked in telephone exchanges or in central banking. Some would earnestly say to him, ‘I think I’ve done enough…’ He’d respond, total sincerity, that their safety was his paramount concern and ‘… just one more time, friend, just once more, then we’ll call it a day…’ They all did, and there was always a moment of reflection at the Round Table, when a new casualty was spoken of, a pause in laughter and gossip and a raised glass. And life moved on. His hand was in his pocket and his fingers played with the coins – sterling and euros and Norwegian kroner – and they rested on the one that Maude had stolen at the Wall. He liked that thought, being a Pict or a Cantabrian painted with woad, not wearing a suit and a waterproof against a change in the weather and pushing men forward towards that great Wall, or a simple fence, all in the interests of the greater good.