The Crocodile Hunter Gerald Seymour (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📖

The boys made no sound, just attempted to protect their bodies. Perhaps their lack of defiance annoyed the gang . . . He remembered a neighbour’s cat, a weedy and unlovable beast that would come over the garden fence with a mouse in its mouth, carrying it by a fold of skin at the back of its neck. It would dump the mouse on the patio at the back door. The cat needed the mouse to contribute to the fun, show some spark, attempt a break-out. If the mouse did nothing other than tremble, then the cat would bash it with a paw, try to get a reaction, would be irritated if the mouse did not scamper . . . Now, the gang shouted insults, violent and obscene.

Cammy saw a fist thrown. Heard the hit and the wheeze of breath that followed and a swallowed cry, but no retaliation. And saw a boot go in. No response.

Cammy knew it would get harder for the boys, and one – the boy who wore eye-shadow – was covering his groin and his head and another punch was swung at him. The boy ducked and twisted and he would have seen his assailants, seen the hatred and contempt on their faces, and would have seen all the people scurrying past and looking away and . . . The boy’s eyes found Cammy’s, locked on them. Might have thought that a man who lingered would intervene. Would have seen that he was dressed in a sports jacket and a check shirt and wore a tie and had an anorak against the weather, and was weighing up the situation. Was not too proud . . . implored his help, pleaded for aid, and fists came more frequently, and boots and more abuse. The boy, in silence, cried out for his help.

A long way back . . . two years ago.

A suburb of Raqqa. A stinking heat, the middle of the day, and stuck in a traffic queue. Dwayne driving the pick-up and a heavy machine-gun mounted behind Cammy’s front seat, and Tomas beside him. In the open back were Mikki and Pieter, and Ulrike wearing camouflage and with a keffiyeh scarf wrapped around her face: a combat unit and untouchable, almost. The street was blocked and the men in front wore black and had the long beards of the security police. They had brought a guy out of a house, and a woman was shrieking and kids were bawling. The woman was reaching to touch her man and a rifle smacked into her face and she reeled away. He was struggling, and there was a moment when his glance found Cammy. Might have believed he saw a fighting man, and might have believed that a fighting man was different stock to the political police unit whose principal job was to root out spies. If they weren’t busy they went after kids who played on the internet, or guys who were shagging the girl next door, and they went after the homosexuals too; but top of their list was hunting spies. Spies would have been recruited by the middlemen who worked for US or UK intelligence agencies, or for the Saudis and the Jordanians and the Gulf rulers. Their main job was locating High Value Targets. HVTs would then be hunted down with air strikes and drone strikes, or even justified the insertion of a Special Forces team for capture. The HVT would come to see his wife, and might want to see his kids, and the bug would be slapped under the vehicle and he could be tracked, then hit from the air. If he was seen but no vehicle identified, then the enemy would put up a drone and fly high over that quarter of the city and their analysts would feast on the feed pictures and dissect that area of the city. Unlikely that a target would hear the approach of a fast jet with a 500lb bomb laser-guided to a matter of inches’ accuracy, or the drone above. Spies were feared and detested by the régime. The fate of a spy? Might be tortured to extract information, then crucified. Might be tortured then taken out and filmed as his throat was cut. Might be tortured, then have a breeze-block roped to his ankle and be tossed off a bridge into the Euphrates. A man did not know if he had made it sufficiently high on the pecking order to be targeted. No way that Kami al-Britani would know if he might have been betrayed. Leaders, emirs, might assume they were named and that the drones flew slow circles unseen in the sky and that the geeks searched the screens. Not a matter that had then concerned him, nor worried any of the brothers . . .

He did not know why this man fastened his gaze on him, beseeched him. Might have seen something different in his face, thought he might find help. The woman wailed on the threshold and the kids howled and clung to her. Why would he help him? If he had stepped in, caught the guy by the scruff of his neck and hoisted him into the pick-up, Cammy would have brought down on his own neck many layers of Hell. He saw the fear before the guy was heaved into the waiting vehicle. The street was left with the reek of diesel fumes. The woman gone back inside and closed her door. No neighbours would come to her home with food, with flowers, would stay with the children if she went to the authorities to try to discover the fate of her man. She was abandoned. Cammy remembered his face for many days, and the appeal in his eyes.

The two boys were having a bad time. Cammy could have intervened. Could have pushed through, used his presence and the authority in his voice, and the threat he carried when controlled aggression was painted on him. He did nothing. The