The Crocodile Hunter Read online

  “Come on, Winston, let’s be on our way.”

  No children had blessed the marriage of Jonas and Vera Merrick, but he supposed he spoke with the tone and charity that parents used on an errant child. He felt sympathy for the boy. They walked together, the two of them, as if leaving a bad place where neither knew true loyalty. Something a schoolmaster way back had read to the class, the words of a wartime pilot. Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love . . . The boy, in trust, held Jonas’s hand. He did not hate the boy, nor love the revellers on the river. They walked over the sodden grass and reached a pavement and crossed a main road and left the target area behind them, and the loaded weapons of the police, and negotiated a roundabout.

  Many evenings on reaching home, he would complain to Vera of the way he was distanced by those he worked with, ignored and seldom praised, and she might cock her head, grimace, and tell him that “The problem is, Jonas, you’re not, never have been, won’t ever be, a team player, and you’re never in before dawn in crisis time, and you catch the 5.49 back regardless of whether the ceiling is collapsing on the streets of London. You don’t give enough back. Always the victim, never to blame, Jonas, but go look in the mirror. They want to be heroes, do something special. And you? Your tea’s ready.” Ahead of them was the facade of Thames House.

  He took Winston to a café in a neighbouring street, left him there and went back to his one-time workplace. The atrium was empty but a few empty bottles stood on a table. There was a sealed envelope on his desk: that would be his retirement gift. He called a duty officer, identified himself, and briskly reported an explosive device that could be found on a mud spit at the next low tide, and told of Winston Gunn, alone, frightened, sitting in a nearby café nursing a coffee and needing immediate attention, and kindness . . . A barrage of questions assaulted Jonas, but he put the phone down and went to the side door. His access ID would be electronically shredded when he passed through, like a flame being snuffed, even an Eternal Flame. A hero? He laughed, rare for him, and stepped on to the pavement.

  Chapter 1

  He stepped out on to his front path.

  He passed the rose bed, only three bushes, then walked between the parked car and the caravan, and reached the pavement. He ducked his head without looking back but the gesture would have been enough for Vera to know that he was grateful for the sandwiches she had prepared for him, in a plastic box at the bottom of his briefcase, wedged between paper files. He bent the Thames House rules about taking documents outside the building and bringing them home, but few rules at his place of work seemed now to apply to him. The caravan looked well and had come through the winter in reasonable shape, the paintwork in fair condition. He and Vera had been talking only the previous evening about whether to splash out and buy a new cooker or whether to make do for another year with the current one which had been in use for the last eighteen years . . . If he had retired when it was intended he should, 34 months ago, then a new cooker would have been at the top of their shopping list.

  A neighbour was leaving from two doors down: Derbyshire, who sold double glazing for conservatories.

  “Morning, Jonas.”

  “And a good morning to you.”

  He smiled, perfunctory, and walked on. Other front gates along this south London suburban street were clicking open and shut. Jonas Merrick knew most of his neighbours by sight and could exchange banalities: the rising cost of fuel, the number of potholes in the road, the increasingly erratic attendance of the refuse carts, or the weather forecasts for the coming weekend. They knew little, next to nothing, of him. They would have reckoned to have known Vera, been on something better than nodding terms with her, but not been close. Easy to imagine the gossip in the street when Christmas drinks were being served or summer barbecues pitched smoke and fumes over the back fences. “Funny old cove, never know what he’s thinking . . . Perhaps not thinking of anything, perhaps as dull as he looks . . . Never been in his house with him there, no invites, never accepted one from us . . . She’s all right, quiet and decent, but he’s a proper wet rag . . . I feel for her, don’t know why she sticks with him . . . Do you know what he does? No, I don’t – pushes paper in Whitehall, but that’s only a guess . . . God fucking help us if the likes of Jonas Merrick are looking after our pensions or whatever . . .” He remained an enigma to them and supposed they regarded him as a source of mild amusement. It was good that they knew little of him and the nature of his employment, and Vera was always disciplined and coy when other wives pestered her for details of where he worked and what he did. It was that time of year when the gardens in front of the mock-Tudor semi-detached homes in the street were starting to sprout daffodils and in some the crocuses were pushing up, and at Number 49, the snowdrops still held their shape and colour. He always walked the length of the street, through all the seasons, leaving home each weekday morning at the same time, 48 minutes past six. It could be snowing, raining, blowing a gale or balmy, and he would be on foot, never suggesting that Vera drive him to the station. And whatever the conditions he would adopt the same dress code – neither smart nor casual, not formal and not dressed down. This early spring morning he wore grey flannel trousers and dark brown shoes, his shirt had a soft check on it and his tie was a wool weave, and his jacket had a quiet fleck in it, and enveloping him was a heavy mackintosh, old-fashioned but still with plenty of wear in it, and with a fastened belt, and on his sparse hair was a trilby that was losing its shape but was good enough to keep his cheeks dry or his face in shadow. He walked briskly because he had a schedule and would not deviate from it.

  Because the raincoat was a size too large for him, the sleeves amply covered his wrists. They hid the watch on his left wrist, and also the metal attachment fastened on his right wrist from which a fine chain ran to the handle of his briefcase. The concession that he should be permitted to take home sensitive documents had been made on the very strict guarantee that the chain would always be in place when he travelled. The practice was frowned upon by those of senior rank but was allowed and none of the rest of the hordes who packed into Thames House each morning were afforded a matching privilege, except perhaps the Assistant Deputy Director General, AssDepDG, and the handful of men and women at the heart of authority in the building. He had owned that briefcase – a present from Vera, then his fiancée – for 34 of the 38 years he had worked for the Security Service, which had the Latin title of Regnum Defende. The task of defending the kingdom was, generally accepted by those who cared to know of such matters, about as bloody difficult – that day, yesterday, tomorrow, each hour of each week in each month – as it had been at any time since he had joined the Service with the rank of a junior clerk. As he turned out of his own street, left behind the last of the trees that were coming into bud and might if the cold eased soon be in blossom, Vera would be closing the front door behind her, leaving her with only the presence of their mutually beloved youngster – a Norwegian Forest cat asleep on a kitchen chair. Vera worked in a small gallery in Motspur Park that sold watercolour paintings from the previous century. She, also, those months ago, had expected to retire, had rescinded her notice, had stayed on.

  Jonas had a season ticket. He would catch a train from Raynes Park that would take him to Waterloo in 26 minutes. The journey would take the same time as it had more than three decades earlier when he and Vera had scraped together the deposit on their home: they had not moved since and the train timetable had not altered. He could usually rely on getting a seat on that train, in the fifth carriage, and might have to use his elbows, but most mornings he could squirm through the waiting passengers on the platform. There were at least half a dozen other commuters from his street arriving at the station at the same time but he acknowledged none of them. Familiar faces would be in the carriage, some of whom he had travelled alongside for a quarter of a century, but he would keep his head down and rely on the journey to provide an opportunity for reflection. He knew the developing landmarks along the r
oute, through Wimbledon where the stampede started, and then Clapham, knew every new building sandwiched into minimal space, and although the carriage was always overheated he would keep his mackintosh on and the right sleeve would mask the wrist attachment to the chain of tempered steel and the old frayed briefcase that carried no label and most certainly not the insignia of EII in faded gold. He was anonymous, unknown. Jonas Merrick carried huge responsibility on his rather bowed shoulders, and he wore no uniform and none of those squashed around him would have realised that they were pressed close to an individual on whom responsibilities and burdens weighed heavily . . . His job was to keep them safe, and the threat was greater each day and never diminished . . . It was good to have some quiet time to think, put himself in their minds, anticipate their moves.

  He pulled up, parked the van on the grass verge.

  Behind him he heard whispers, nervous giggles and gasps of anticipation. He switched off the engine, opened his window. Silence nestled around them.

  On the files he was Cameron Jilkes, aged 25. The photographs would include ones of him as a child, then as a teenager at school, and one captured almost four years before at an airport departure gate. To his one-time friends, he had been Kami al-Britani. To his mum, whom he had loved, who had been a source of comfort in the years he had been away, to whom he had not spoken nor written since he had taken the plane out, he was Cammy.

  He took a cigarette from the pack in his breast-pocket. The packet showed images of rampant cancers that were supposed to deter smokers. Where Cammy had been and what he had seen and what he had done, and the price he had paid, the ravages of terminal illness were a low priority. Behind him, the group he had driven from Bordeaux were climbing down from the van and were stretching; they seemed to have caught his mood and their voices were stifled and the children were hushed. Cammy had an old lighter, one that produced a surge of flame when the fuel was high but now the supply was near exhausted. He had to cup his free hand around the flame against the wind and hold the lighter close to his chest, risk singeing his anorak and the stubble around his mouth, and the places where the sun had burned patches where the hair barely grew, and places where the cold had scraped the growth further. He dragged on the cigarette and then spat the nicotine fumes clear. He imagined that behind him they clustered close to each other, their hair riffling and their clothing tugged by the wind. They might have realised then that the sum of their journey was nothing in comparison with what they now faced; it was the same for Cammy.

  He had been travelling almost a year. They had been on the move – so they had told him – half of that time. Cammy had come from a point on the Euphrates, where it marked the border between Syrian and Iraqi territory. They had started out from the Iranian city of Tabriz, far to the north and to the east of Tehran. They both had a goal.

  He smoked and gazed out. They were a little beyond first light. It was common sense to travel at night. They were 500 miles from Bordeaux, and he had done the journey in three legs. They were attached to him, could have been chained to him, seemed terrified they would suddenly lose sight of him and he would be gone. It had started in a café down by the docks, across the Garonne, and his money was used up and he had no documentation. He had been in the café because it was warm, and he was chilled, hungry. The patron had been making noises about throwing him out. If a hand had been laid on him by the heavily built, middle-aged manager, if an attempt had been made to propel him to the door and chuck him into the street then he would probably have resisted: had Cammy resisted then there was a strong prospect that he would have chopped the heel of his right hand into the man’s neck and paralysed him, probably killed him. It was not difficult for him to take a life if he was minded to.

  They had pushed through the door. They were Iranians. Two men, two women, two children. Migrants who had reached France and needed help in edging closer to what would have been a “jump off point”. When the café man had challenged him, the Iranians had been sitting at an adjacent table and the kids had been given the menu, and a wad of euros was on the table. He was challenged . . . Was he ordering coffee, alcohol, food? No response from Cammy. The café was not a tram-stop shelter he was told . . . He had spat back, not loud but distinct, in English, that the man could “Go fuck yourself”. One of the Iranian men had spoken up. Cammy was to be included on their tab . . . Why? He had spoken in English. Did he drive? He could drive: could have driven a motorcycle, a car, a pick-up, an armoured personnel carrier, could have driven a tractor around which half-inch-thick steel plating had been welded. Yes, he could drive.

  He noted the wind and sensed that the children shivered, and fear might be competing with the cold. They had taken a chance. It would have been something to do with his appearance: rugged, uncomplicated, ravaged, and something to do with the clarity of his eyes and the fact he did not blink and did not look away but held their gaze and stared right back into their own eyes, and something to do with the slow and steady and winning smile. The proposition had been made. Would he take them north? He had said yes, that was where he, too, was headed.

  One of the men had said, “But we have to go across by subterfuge, not through any legal route, and . . .”

  Cammy had said softly, no drama, “And me.”

  Puzzlement. “But you are going back to your own country. Why do you need to go as we do?”

  A little shrug, not necessary for them to know the answer. He was told they had a contact name in the north, on the coast, a man who would facilitate a crossing if he were paid sufficiently. Cammy had eaten with them. He had told them that they should be on the street corner in 25 minutes, had left them. Had gone to a parking lot, had done a hot wire, had come back with a van that had sliding doors and two rows of seats behind the driver. Had driven them away from Bordeaux and had taken the minor roads where any vehicle recognition plate system was unlikely.

  The wind was bad. And the wind’s force mattered.

  For that moment, Cammy ignored his Iranian fellow travellers. They were useful to him. They had money, were headed in the same direction. But he denied them affection or friendship . . . They knew nothing of him, unless they had made educated guesses, but were obviously in awe of him. They suited his purpose. They hung behind him. He was alone. The only people in his recent life to whom he had given his loyalty, his love and his respect, were all gone. There had been six of them, all taken. When his anger was hot it exploded in his head and when it was cold then he could plan what he would do, think through the programme of it and comprehend the mayhem. It might have been the force of the wind that came off the sea and flattened the dune grass and blew sand in his eyes, or it might have been the anger and the loss that wet his cheeks. He threw down the cigarette. There had been himself and his six friends, and there had been the emir who was their nominal commander but gave them free rein. He had gone first in the break-out after it was clear that the battle was lost.

  The six of them, and Cammy, were due to go on the next evening, but their emir was off and away by dusk.

  He was Ruhan, an Iraqi, sophisticated and worldly, he had taken this flotsam group under his wing.

  There was talk now, among the foreign fighters, of a last stand. An Alamo sited on the west bank of the great Euphrates river, or a bit of Custer. Men boasted of how they would fall in combat and their black-cloaked women egged them on with declarations of the glory of dying in the name of the cause and, between the incessant air strikes, the children ran wild, and screamed in fear or in hunger. Common to all of them in the group was an adoration of the thrill of combat, a delight in their new freedom, a brotherhood, and a belief set in hard, old stone that it was only “others” who would be hurt.

  They were Tomas and Pieter and Mikki and Dwayne and Stanislau and Ulrike – and the unspoken first among equals was Cammy. They had drifted away from homes as far away from each other as Canada’s Algonquin lakes and the northern extremities of Estonia, had come to fight under the black flag. At first it had been a series
of victories, almost in the realms of amusement, then had come the serious fighting which had tested each of them, then the defeats and the retreats. Like an alarm on a wristwatch, it seemed the right time to find another corner in which to fight . . . leave the zealots and the bigots to martyrdom or the shame of surrender. Ruhan moved amongst them and there were kisses and hugs and slapped backs, and talk of a reunion but not where. Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya? Anywhere that brothers were welcome.

  The tide had turned. The aircraft came again and again, went back to a carrier or an airstrip to refuel and rearm, and came again. There was no food in the enclave, and no medical capability, and the wounded screamed and cried in the night . . . Time to move on. They would be together, could depend on each other, were brothers.

  They regarded Ruhan as the ultimate fighter, trusted and believed in him. He was older than they were, had taught Cammy everything he knew of small unit warfare, and of security, and staying safe from both the bombers and the internal security bastards who patrolled to prevent desertion but were never in the front line. Ruhan said, that “sometime” there would be a meet-up in a bar, “someplace”, and it could be in the Gulf, a five-star joint with Chivas Regal or old malt . . . He had been a hard man in his time. Now, he was only interested in winning and had no time for being herded into the enclave by the river. Tells others to fight on, tells his young brothers to ship out. Himself, he would be going home, back to the town in Anbar to his wife and his kids. He was indestructible, since winning a place on Saddam Hussein’s protection detail, had once been a colonel in air force intelligence. Had been an emir with control of a battalion of foreign fighters. He told them where they should go the next evening, how it was safe in that sector of the perimeter. How he loved them, told them also that they were shit and without him would not have known how to wipe their arses, and Ulrike laughed as much as the boys, and big bombs lasered down, and the bombardment of artillery was constant. They watched him go.