The UK
Early hours. Black shadows padded across a stretch of scrub lawn, dodged behind a brick outbuilding and flitted towards the row of chain-link fencing stretched high and taut along the perimeter. They had travelled far, and done so illegally, Somalians with little cash, no English and a fierce bent to escape to a new life and better experience. It was what modern transport was there for, why human rights had been invented. For them. The decision was easy. Tantalizing rumours had reached the Africans of the riches to be had, the steady incomes, the routine nature of joining other human traffic in the underground migration through Europe. This was liberty, destiny, this was the lure of Albion. And so they came, paying for the privilege, herded into wagons, guided across rivers, heading for the nation of gentlemen and fog, of Changing the Guard, of James Bond, of Leicester Square, of the World Service and Winnie the Pooh. Comforting thoughts for those claustrophobic days and weeks in confinement, for the heart-skipping handovers, the negotiations with middlemen, the dash for trains and boats, the arguments, the hunger, the despair, the waiting for criminal gangs to pick them up and pass them on. It had taken a year. Average, by any standard. A few of them had died, but attrition was to be expected. Contraband goods of this kind were notoriously perishable. It was part of the folklore, the rites of passage, stories handed down of scuttled ships and mass drowning, of slavery and prostitution, of crippling heat and searing cold, of barbarity and suffering. After a time, they spoke less; after a time, the gaunt faces, alarm-strained eyes and huddled misery communicated for them. They were veterans, too poor to go back, too threatened to stay put. Forward motion was instinctive. They kept on, had inched further across the map, reaching Calais after detours, upsets, additional fatalities, and a circuitous route through the Balkans. They were at low ebb, lower on the food chain.
Unloading had come without formality or drama. Yet it was a moment for relief and supreme exultation. They were at Sangatte, the Red Cross encampment and launch-pad for a thousand cross-Channel assaults on British territory. A small divide of water, a minor barrier for seasoned travelers, aided by teams of racketeers and the hidden aspects of the international tour industry. The white cliffs were close, the Midnight Express so real. Some fried on the 25,000-volt Eurotunnel track, but they were fools, solo artists. They should have hired professional guides, followed procedure. Fast-learners did. Farewells would be brief, down-payments ruinous, advice proffered by officials from the French Ministry of Labour delighted to transfer their cost-base to English counterparts and Kent County Council. All in the spirit of European fraternity and integration. If caught and returned, the asylum-seekers would be signed back, counted, allowed to try again – and again. Few reappeared, for once across they could disappear into British multi-ethnicity and legal process, sit out the appeals system, sidestep deportation, enter the netherworld of cheap labour, false passports, assumed identity and rampant benefit fraud. No ID cards necessary, no records kept, no supervision provided. Over a quarter of a million people whose asylum applications were refused had simply chosen to vanish. They were in good company, burgeoning company. The Somalians intended to join them.
They had arrived in Dover by truck, their breath emissions dampened by CO2 absorbers, their heat radiation and reflective energy reduced with infrared baffles and foil blankets, their urine and faeces captured and contained in plastic. It was enough to deceive the dogs, detectors and particle-analysers deployed by the British authorities. Import documents conforming, trade manifests in order, trailer roadworthy – go-ahead given. The vehicle had moved out of the compound, gathering speed. Inside, the Africans were jubilant. It had been worth the risk and the hardship. Eighty thousand economic migrants a year could not be wrong. Only 12 per cent of asylum applications were ever accepted, but fewer than 10 per cent of those refused were removed forcibly. A weighted equation, heavily in their favour. They had dealt with worse.
Then, a surprise. Tip-off or chance encounter, a blue light flashed and coaxed the truck towards a police checkpoint. The Somalians were discovered – the driver arrested – and temporary accommodation found at a holding and processing unit. Very temporary. The refugees absconded, were traced, and sent by the Immigration enforcement division to a secure centre in Cambridgeshire. Fast-track was the Home Office buzzword, a rapid solution to the tide of refugees; pre-emption was the chosen course of many of its target customers. Undeterred by warning signs, unimpressed with the ‘secure’ epithet added by government to appease voters, within a week of its opening a group of Romanian asylum-seekers had strolled, unopposed, to freedom. The Africans were taking their cue, slipping away.
There were seven of them. They made their way to the wire. No one challenged them, for the base was nothing more than low-level internment, token containment. It had once been an army camp, was surplus to requirement, designed to keep intruders out rather than inmates surrounded. These inmates had made their decision. Exit. They rolled themselves over the top strands and slithered down to the ground before running low for the bushes. All present. They began to walk, pausing to check for tails, diving for undergrowth when headlights declared the oncoming progress of cars with a glimmer burst of ambient light. Alarm over, a scout was sent forward, and the mission resumed. Their absence from the camp would go unnoticed until morning. By then, they would be many miles distant, blended in the wider community, several spaces removed from their old lives and former selves. The gate was found. It was marked on their map, the directions precise. Organization was the key. Ten minutes of fast-walking across fields and they reached a farm track that led to a barn.
The van was waiting. Two men stood beside the rear doors and counted the Africans as they entered. Time to go. They were instructed not to speak, shut in without ceremony. It was reassuringly efficient. The Somalians smiled. They had not travelled to England to be incarcerated in immigration centres, or treated as pariahs and parasites. These British were unfriendly, viewing everyone with suspicion. There was nothing criminal in wanting to find employment, in making sacrifices to improve one’s lot. They would put down roots, save money, do well for themselves. A reasonable goal. The gang effecting their flight from Cambridgeshire would help, had done the same for others, offered its expertise, the world, in exchange for IOUs and a stake in future earnings. Fair enough. Everything had a price, charged at a premium, particularly in this business.
Rocking with the motion of the van, the small group stayed silent. The rear windows were blacked out, the countryside around cloaked. But they had years ahead in which to explore, hours ahead in which to immerse themselves in the adventure of their new home and adopted country. They were too excited to sleep, too happy to feel boredom or cramp. One day, they would write to their families; one day, their families would reunite with them here. The van slowed and turned joltingly on to a rough lane. It was a different sensation to the arrival at Dover. There would be no interruptions, no random checks, sniffer probes or inquisitive canines.
Doors flung wide, the harsh welding-flash brightness of powerful torchlight illuminated the van interior. Dazzled, shielding their eyes from the night brilliance, and obeying the command, the Africans clambered out uncertainly. They were in a cavernous structure, enclosed, the space empty but for their vehicle, themselves and their hosts. Quite a reception committee, five men dressed in dark clothing and peering uninterestedly at them. The Somalians felt self-conscious. They supposed it was routine, assumed that this was the first stage in their departure. In a sense, on both counts, they were right. A nod, and they were ushered to the far end where a string of bare bulbs hung starkly over the scene and tarpaulins covered the ground below it. Photographs were necessary. They stood in a line, waiting for the flash and shutter-click, composing their features, smoothing hair, adjusting their collars. Had to look right, had to appear respectable for the shot. There was a noise, the cocking of heavy-duty cameras. Partial recognition changed to total realization. It was too late to scream, run, to regret. What was done. Nothing more to be said. Barrels raised, the suppressed flicker and subsonic flatulence of silenced weaponry rippled out in staggered unison. Bodies fell, wriggled, were finished off. A fairly clean kill. Several spaces removed. Journey’s end.
On the Folkestone Road, Dover, two guest houses sheltering refugee families from Africa started to burn.
* * *
The USA
If you go down to the sea today … Dockweiler Beach, Playa del Rey – ‘roach beach’ to locals – where black gangbangers occasionally came to play, light fires, loose off shots. Krista’s house overlooked it. A desirable residence and surf-view property, if you forgot its proximity to the crack-dealers of Inglewood a stoned throw down the road, the smell of aviation fuel which could blow on the wind from LAX international airport, the syndicated press photograph of the National Guard Humvee parked up on the sand during the ’92 riots. Turn right on the beach, you would enjoy a quiet shoreline stroll; turn left, you were likely to become a target. Living on the edge, living in Los Angeles. There was something peculiar in inhabiting the surface-deep veneer of civilization, but nothing strange in having four cars stolen from the driveway in under eighteen months. She guessed the beachside revellers needed wheels for their return journey into town.
A tanker crawled across the horizon, its pace stately, verging on sedentary, stitching the join between Cambridge-blue sky and Pacific-blue ocean. Postcard perspective. It was what she liked best, sitting out on the deck with a juice and the breeze, losing herself, leaving the city behind, staring at infinity. Not today. The turbine drone of a wide-bodied jet carried high on the air as it headed out to sea and the turning-arc for Europe. Some people could leave their troubles behind. She had to stick with them, construct the flowcharts, dissect the computer print-outs, convene an al fresco conference à deux with FBI partner Fletcher Wood. A post-mortem on the prison interviews, the search for a strategy. Distantly, the deep melodic timbre of a blues vocal insinuated itself beneath the receding sound signature of the aircraft. LA Blues.
Krista closed her eyes, lowered the ring-file. ‘Why do people hate?’ she asked.
Wood pulled long and reflectively on a glass of mineral water. ‘La bête humaine, baby, la bête humaine.’
‘It’s all French to me.’
‘Same in any language.’ The glass returned to the table.
‘If only it was talk, rhetoric. We’re dealing with people who think either one of us is the Antichrist because of our respective skin colour.’
He smiled. ‘Lady, I know you’re the Antichrist.’
‘Part of the job-spec.’
‘If it makes you feel better, there are weirds and Klansmen out there convinced the only way to kill me is with a silver bullet, sold on the idea blacks are from a tribe propagated by the Fallen Angel.’
‘Just wish the bastards could chill.’
‘Preferably in long-term storage at the city morgue.’
‘I’ll ditto that. It’d save me having to speak with them.’
Wood sighed and shook his head. ‘God sure fucks up sometimes on the software packaging. We’re the emergency engineers.’
‘Emergency. I hate the word.’
‘Get used to it. It’s how things are panning out.’
He was right. Prison snitches had been kept from the information loop, cut out of the programme. The authorities were outmanoeuvred, aware of connection and coordination between wholesale termination in California’s maximum security jails and bloodshed on the sidewalks, blind to their catalyzing elements. No one was talking. Even the white survivors of the first round preferred to slap down inducements to parley. But then, they feared a trap, blamed the government, its agents, its prison governors, the New World Order, for participating in the slaughter. Whoever was stoking the crisis had anticipated the moves, war-gamed the possibilities, reckoned on every facet of the racial structure. It meant a tight – watertight – conspiracy, implied discipline, training, organization, omertà. Not a customary trait of black gangs. There had to be a hard core, a political rather than a criminal cause. It would come from the outside, a kernel nurtured in secrecy and infiltrated into the prison system. Cause and effect. The Bureau was examining the cause, sitting in Playa del Rey sipping iced drinks and waiting for the effect.
Wood rattled the rocks in his glass. ‘Step on bad eggs, the smell’s gonna spread.’
‘How far?’
‘Dunno, but it’s strong. A lot of folks are wrinkling their noses, beginning to gag already. Politicians sweetening the air with eau de cologne won’t make a whole lot of difference.’
‘I’m concerned about the eggs left in the box.’
‘Your interviewees?’ Wood split an ice-cube between his teeth. ‘So am I.’
‘Timing’s the only issue left … We intend to hit back … A realignment, it’s coming.’ She quoted from her meeting at San Quentin.
‘Everyone’s agreed it’s coming.’
‘And are we agreed the operation’s big enough to have us in its sights, big enough to stretch beyond the boundaries of this state?’
‘Both of those. The man mentioned Emmy because he wanted to throw you, Krista.’
‘Consider me thrown.’
‘You’re tougher than that.’ He focused hard on her face, his expression stern. ‘When we’re ready, we’ll go to work on him.’
