‘Will do. They might open up if they think they’re next-in-line for the great Nuremberg Rally in the sky.’
‘What’s in it for them?’
‘A full-on smile and eternal gratitude from me.’
Wood cocked his head. ‘Lights up my day, but it might not be enough for them.’
‘C’mon, Fletch. It’s gossip I’m after. Hardly the realm of Witness Protection. I’ll keep things routine and low-key.’
‘I dare you to try. It’s like me demanding forty acres and a mule at a Klan rally. These guys have seen their bosses and colleagues minced.’
‘So they’ll be sore, scared, feeling insecure.’
‘Shouting for their lawyers and human rights people.’
‘As long as they’re shouting.’ She tapped the page and slipped it into a security drawer. ‘I’ll simply be taking the notes.’
He leant over and kissed her on the head. ‘You should simply be praying.’
* * *
‘Holy Jesus …’
The stone timpani bounced off the bonnet and flew over the windscreen. It was followed by another. The driver winced, cursing as the car stalled. He fumbled with the ignition key, pumping the accelerator. Damn it, he would flood the engine, and was ready to flood his pants. Sweat had erupted in a rank sheen on his face. Musn’t look scared, musn’t… . Another rock struck. He was talking to himself, jabbering with the shock of unfamiliarity, of being lost. Had to channel the adrenalin, think positive. He could barely think at all. This was not happening, not happening to him. It was a stranger who had come off La Cienega onto Pico, turned south into Crenshaw, crossed the 10 Freeway into a hinterland of hole-in-the-wall liquor outlets, autoglass yards and fleapit shopping malls. The stranger had made a mistake, been hypnotized by the barbed wire, the repetitive streetscape of low-rise churches and low-cost drugstores, the shooting-gallery motels frequented by junkies, the mesh and steel security gates that indicated the Hood. He should have kept going for Hollywood Park, should never have swung onto Florence or compounded the error by cutting back through the side streets. This was Inglewood; this was not meant to be.
They had reversed a vehicle behind him, had cut off his escape. For a moment he sat, hyperventilating, rabbit-inertia reducing him to the basic state of corporate white male with fancy wheels and no back-up, nowhere to go. He could hear the stranger crying now, but could not respect the man. An out-of-body experience. Beyond-the-realm-of-total-fucking-nightmare experience. He should have known, should have taken precautions, been more careful. Everyone agreed that the area was No-Go, strictly for the suicidal or the dedicated gangbanger. Since the shootings in MacArthur Park, the LAPD were more heavily armed and less often seen. It suited some people. The man locked in his car, backed up in a cul-de-sac, was not among them. He was from Chicago, from an exclusive – exclusively WASP – community, the gated, protected environment of a smart and vacuumed suburb.
Jeering. He heard it, crowding in before a paving slab hit the bodywork. The chassis rocked. ‘Run you white faggot … It’s Uzi-time … You wanna play?… We gonna take your heart and your ass.’ Then an argument. ‘Don’ mess with the paint. Take out the glass, man.’ Heavier bucking. ‘Pull the motherfucker out.’ A pair of legs had planted themselves on the bonnet and were trampolining wildly. He sat passive in terror, head and body rodeo-responding. ‘Look at the sonofabitch. He likes the game.’ But they were the ones who enjoyed it most, grimacing and pulling cry-baby faces against the window. Urine spattered on the windscreen. ‘You gonna turn on the wipers?… You gonna call the cops?…You gonna say goodbye?’ He clenched his eyes, balled his fists, tried to shut the noises out.
Stranger was thinking of his family, stranger was thinking how extraordinary it was that palm trees could grow so tall and thin without toppling over. The palms had lulled him, lured him. They lent a beach-party aura to the meanest project, invested a cosmetic mellowness in whatever district they grew. Sun and sand, sea and sex. Palm trees fitted in. No one ever mentioned the bodies rolling in the surf, the executions on the dunes; no one ever mentioned Somalia and Sierra Leone. Crack open the rum – stranger eased his eyes paper-cut wide, saw the flash of a crowbar – they were intent on cracking open his car. He screamed, heard an echo, or their laughter. They were ravenous, wanting to feed. He had folded over, was moaning gently. Bravery was for fictional characters, for epic battles and historic charges. He could not summon the will for it. It had sputtered and choked in the same fashion as his auto.
The hammer-blow fell. Sounds invaded his space, the cheering riding in from the outside. It was in his face, buffeting. He felt arms reach in, hands tug to haul him through. A lifting sensation, and the journey out to join them on the asphalt. All he had wanted was to make it to the race track. Too late to ask for directions, he supposed. He did not struggle, did not protest. It was warmer in the open, the ambient colours and background shouts disorientating. He landed on his side, curled into a ball. All the better for a kicking. He was the centre of attention, focus of their intent. Not a pleasant thing to be, not quite what he had imagined. If only he could crawl beneath the car, drop through a manhole cover. He brought his hands up as the first toe-cap connected.
Mary saw the pack, the loitering stance of participants in a homicide. They were clustered around the kill, shoulders heaving with exertion or elation, eyes judging distance and effect, legs snapping back and forth. A heavy boom-bass music mix started. Entertainment animals, torn between indifference and excitement, tearing at a fallen thing. The place was jumping, the man’s body jumping with it. He was limp, semi-conscious, going under.
She stared, fury climbing mercury-cold in her gut. There was right and wrong, good and evil, and these people – her people – were losing their reason, losing her sympathy. She had closed up her shack, bundled her few possessions into a kitbag, and left Mississippi by bus with Jesus in her arms. It was not a question of choice. A shadow was reaching across the Delta, moving along its dirt tracks, creeping deep across the fields and bayous, turning into the entrance of every church and every black homestead. She had to get away, knew the night the masked devils appeared and whispered while her baby slept. They could have stamped on her or the infant, bludgeoned her in private or dragged her out for public lynching. For the sake of a different skin-colour, of being born in a backwards county. And no one would dare to act, or was there to intervene. She had escaped, moved to live with a sister in Los Angeles, safe as a stranger among her own. It was time to make a new life, to leave behind rural poverty for a future in a town she had never visited. Of course there were doubts, unpacked with every item. Even the canvas bag had history. It was army-issue, had returned from Vietnam with her brother, passed to her when he passed into prison, stayed with her when his remains were pulled from a mangrove swamp. Everything wrapped up, brought with her. After a week, she was barely acclimatized, a homeless hick with a heavy accent, lumpen country ways and a second mouth to feed. But she was free – or had thought she was. Until this. And this was not justice.
A figure had appeared among them, was hauling them off, screaming. ‘You think this is right? You think this is fuckin’ right? You back off. Back off, or I’ll hurt you bad, so help me.’ She was a sister from hell, her face contorted, teeth bared. A youth pushed her away, attempting to swat the inconvenience aside. She punched low, hit hard. He doubled over, air expelled, his friends beginning to take note. ‘Do I have your attention? Do I? You think ah’m jokin’? You think ah wan’ the law? This man’s done nothin’. You should be ashamed. You stay back, all of yah. Y’hear?’ There were angry retorts, jostling before the onslaught. Momentum broken. They faltered, leaderless, shuffling with the resentment of boys interrupted while beating a dog to death on a West African beach. She raised the stakes, had a lock-knife in her hand. The blade was steady, her gaze fixed. She was wild enough to use it. Of that they were certain. Mutterings, parting threats, a drifting away. She had spoilt their joke. They could come back for her – for both of them – later. White men weren’t worth the effort, the risk of injury. Besides, they had left their mark. The sister, a southern whore, had attitude. She would keep.
She crouched beside the bleeding heap. It groaned, eyes too swollen to open. ‘We gotta get you to hospital,’ she murmured.
‘Thank you.’ A whisper that came as a breath.
‘Hey, I don’ like no mob.’
She hated a mob.
* * *
No one ever looked behind them. From pantomime to smuggling, from North Sea to southern oceans, it was a fundamental error, a serious miscalculation. Easy to exploit. The trawler was doing ten knots in a light swell, would make Peterhead some time the following morning. An incident-free trip, an excitement-free night, how the crew wanted it. Nets were stowed, holds battened down, a skeleton watch maintained on the bridge. Closed up. It would be several hours before sweaters and deckshoes would be donned, before the offloading into dinghies began. Unconventional methods, unconventional catch. That was the catch.
‘Pelican on racetrack, maintaining radiation and thermal.’
Over the horizon, twelve miles distant, the Royal Navy frigate continued to tail. It was not alone, it was watching, orchestrating, with the help of a Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and the ship’s own Merlin helicopter. A lot of technology, a lot of coordination. It was an important bust, had almost warranted the deployment of divers, a limpet tracking-beacon and nuclear sub. This should suffice. On scopes and screens, bracketed and numerated on tactical plotters and weapons designation terminals, the trawler was lit up and displayed. Target circled. In the frigate’s Ops Room, the captain sat before his command system display conferring quietly with the Principal Warfare Officer beside him. Everything was in place, everyone had their place, their function. Fifteen men and women – Operations Room Supervisor, Electronic Warfare and Electro-optics operators, the Surface Picture Compiler and Supervisor, a Tactical Picture Supervisor, and Aircraft Controller among them – inputting and retrieving, gazing at their coloured, crawling pictures. An artificial environment that showed the real world, a drama unfolding without obvious drama. The atmosphere was purposeful, unruffled, attention focused, movement and conversation economical, restricted to the working of keypads, the passing and distribution of information. Here, Armageddon would be announced in the same clipped, unembellished tones. British understatement, Royal Navy understatement.
‘Juliet One, this is X-Ray Six Romeo, report deck activity. Over.’
‘This is Juliet One … Standby … Status unchanged. All quiet. No lookouts visible. Over.’
‘Juliet One, Roger. Scram to new station. Out …’ The ACPWO turned his concentration to the whirlybird hovering downwind and distant from the fishing vessel. If necessary it would provide the fire support. ‘Foxtrot Five, this is X-Ray Six Romeo. Confirm you have passive acquisition …’
‘This is Foxtrot Five. Have electronic eyeball. Target course maintained at two-seven-zero, speed-one-zero. Over.’
‘Foxtrot Five, Kilo Nine is closing. Over.’
‘X-Ray Six Romeo, we have them. Kilo Nine approaching at twenty knots. Contact imminent …’
Run-in. A pace change, switch in mindset – adjustment of headsets – as handover was made to the Special Forces controller. The SBS officer swivelled his mike and leant over the shoulder of the G-Pod operator to peer at the synthetic link plot. Nighttime was daytime, made bright and immediate on the passive imaging equipment. Nothing was hidden from the sensors; the entire assault would be hidden from those on board the trawler. Live coverage, covert insertion. Homing. Overhauling. The raiding craft streamed in through the wake, a hunting pair, the noise of their outboards deadened in the slapping wash, lost in the relentless diesel grind of the fishing boat’s power plant. Target reached simultaneously, port and starboard, the matt-black objects sliding into position alongside, lashing on, to disgorge operators onto the stern deck. Takeover time. No warning, no lights, no shots, no running up of flags. Just precision, ten figures vaulting over, moving fluidly to a stop-watch schedule, employing surprise – willing to use violence. Top deck and bridge secured, captives taken. Next stage.
The Royal Marines officer frowned, spoke curtly in his mike, and reached across to switch the audio link from headphones to speaker. ‘You’ll love this,’ he murmured to the seated Navy men. The metallic burble-hiss of a frequency-hopping radio turned loud cut across the Ops Room.
‘Boss, we’ve got a problem … Slime’s given us bad intel. No narcotics. Say again, no narcotics … But I hope you’re a movie- and music-lover …’
* * *
The UK
‘A gift from Five.’ Aubyn St Clair flicked the CD onto the low table.
