“You missed!” Edith’s voice was shrill, close to tears. “How could you miss?”
She slouched in the passenger seat, fidgeting and chewing at her already bitten-down fingernails as Bardwell bumped the Land Rover carefully out onto the main road.
“He moved.” Bardwell gave a shrug, little more than a twitch. “It happens.”
“Well, why didn’t you have another go?”
“One shot, Edith.” He allowed disappointment to show in his voice. “Any more than that, they get a fix on you. Told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “But if he survives they’ll make him out to be some kind of hero—”
“Don’t push it.” Softly now. “We’re not going back.”
She didn’t reply to that, settling into a sulky silence. Bardwell’s thoughts turned back to the failed shot. It didn’t happen often and he always went over it in his mind, worked out why. Satisfying himself outside forces had been at work.
In this case, the man had chosen the exact moment of Bardwell’s shot to turn unexpectedly. Bardwell had been centred on the largest area of his body mass, crosshairs settled on the man’s chest. He’d gauged the range, the conditions, with the finest accuracy his experience could supply.
But the man had moved.
And regardless of what he’d told the girl, Bardwell knew he would not have taken a second shot even if his cover had been perfect, his concealment impenetrable. It was if, by setting that rule, he yielded responsibility to some higher power. Lap of the gods. The man Bardwell selected chose that very moment to twist on his heel. Might even be enough to save his life. Who was he to argue with the hand of fate? He’d never had anything personal invested in his targets. Until now at any rate.
The Inglis woman had been his primary interest and he’d taken her out, clean, surgical. Even threaded the round past the man whose arm she was holding, and not a scratch on him. Have to dump that cream suit, though.
But the second target had been Edith’s choice—could have been picked at random for all he knew. But at least he’d been in uniform, and that classed him almost as a combatant. Enough to salve Bardwell’s conscience, more or less.
A flash caught his eye. A police car, lights and sirens blazing, appeared in his mirrors, closing fast. Bardwell lifted off, drifted towards the shoulder. Edith jerked upright, twisting in her seat, mouth dropping open.
“What do we do?”
“Nothing,” Bardwell grunted. He flicked on the left-hand indicator. “You keep your trap shut, you hear me? Just remember—he was yours, that last one.”
He started to brake, watching all the time as the pursuing vehicle leapt towards them. A big Volvo, maybe, from the shape of the front end.
No, wait—it was a Toyota four-wheel drive. A Land Cruiser full of armed Iraqi secret police, looking for the man who’d just taken out a general at eight hundred and fifty metres. The man had been one of Saddam’s relatives. No surprise there—most of them were—but retribution tended to have a knock-on effect all the way down the line. Bardwell had already seen them slaughter a family in sheer temper, for nothing more than protesting the roadside search. Beat the father to death with the butts of their rifles, in front of his screaming wife and children. Killed the others just to shut them up.
He’d sweated inside his stolen robes as he inched the ancient van towards the roadblock, praying that the fake papers his contact supplied would pass. He’d been in the desert long enough to burn his skin dark, he knew the manners and the customs, but he couldn’t escape the knowledge that his eyes might give him away. Not just the colour, but there was something in them he couldn’t seem to hide. Not from men who knew what to look for. Who were just the same as he was, underneath.
The police car swerved out around the Land Rover, now barely crawling, and roared past, lurching as the suspension loaded.
Bardwell was almost stationary now and the patrol left them behind at an accelerated rate, disappearing into the distance on the straight stretch of road like a fast jet.
“Are you all right?” The voice seemed to come from a long way away, and he reacted to the anxiety more than the question. He looked up, shook himself, found his hands clenched tight round the top rim of the hard steering wheel. The sweat stung his eyes and he wiped them with hands too damp to make a difference.
Something nudged his arm. He glanced down, found Edith holding out a crumpled handkerchief with the hesitancy of someone expecting rejection. After a moment, Bardwell took it and mopped his face, not quite sure what to do with it after.
“’S’all right—keep it.” She looked unaccountably pleased, trying for nonchalant. “I got another.”
“I’ll wash it. Let you have it back,” he said, not understanding why that disappointed her.
She fell silent. The only sound was the frantic keening of the siren, growing gradually fainter in the distance, and the grumble of the Land Rover’s engine ticking over.
“They won’t find out, will they?” she asked then, in a small voice. “They won’t catch us?”
Bardwell turned, found her staring fixedly at her hands, clasped in her lap. Her head was bent, showing the prominent vertebra at the top of her spine.
“How would they do that?”
She shrugged, awkward. “I dunno—all that forensic stuff you see on the telly. They can tell loads, can’t they?”
Bardwell paused at the hopeful note. Hopeful we’ll get away with it? Or be stopped? Hard to tell.
“From what?” he said. “A few photos? Be a miracle if they find the hide. We policed the brass. They’ll never dig out the rounds. How’re they going to catch us? What with?”
She shrugged again, an uncoordinated spasm.
He took the Land Rover out of gear and turned a little in his seat to face her. “Long as you don’t blab to anyone, they’ve no chance.” He saw something stammer in her face. “What?” He leaned forwards, sharp enough to have her head rearing up in shock, guilt even. “What have you said?”
“I haven’t!” she protested, face flaming. “I haven’t told anyone. I wouldn’t!”
“You better not,” Bardwell said, unsure if she was lying. Girls worked on different rules, sly and shifty.
He unclipped his seatbelt and edged towards her, hand sliding round the back of her rigid neck, locked his eyes with hers all the way in. Right up ’til hers fluttered closed as he kissed her, hard. Held it long enough to feel her fire up beneath his mouth.
“Just mind what I said, Edith,” he warned, pulling back. “We’re in this together. You and me.”
He released her and her chin lifted. “Yes. We are, aren’t we?” and now there was something else in her voice that Bardwell had no trouble recognising. Heard it often enough, from soldiers on all sides of every conflict he’d ever been involved in.
Pride.