A Deniable Death by Gerald Seymour

than he anticipated needing. All of them had overnight bags except Badger, who likely stank and would be higher by the evening.
    ‘Not down to me. He who pays the piper calls the tune – know what I mean?’
    He blinked in the rain. ‘I don’t.’
    ‘All in good time, Foxy – if you don’t mind the familiarity. It’s always best if names are in short supply. Our esteemed colleague from the Agency is paying the piper. The Americans are doing the logistics, which means their bucket of dollars is deeper than our biscuit tin of sterling. It’s the sort of place that appeals to them.’
    ‘And people live here – survive here?’
    ‘There is a life form in the Inner Hebrides that probably needs to huddle for comfort in the kitchen. I’m assured we won’t be disturbed by the family. Truth is, for this one the piper needs quite a bit of paying because it’s not the sort of thing – Monday through Friday – we usually do. Let’s get out of this bloody weather.’
    They went in through the high double doors, but no warmth greeted them. Foxy had good eyes and a good memory, and his power of observation in poor light was excellent: he noted the washing-up bowl in the centre of the tiled floor, the portrait of a villainous-looking kilted warrior above the first bend in the stairs, the faded pattern on the couch, that the paint was off all the doors, the smell of dogs and overcooked vegetables, an older man in earnest conversation with the American and a woman with bent shoulders, a thick sweater and a bob of silver hair. The rain beat on the door behind them, water dripped into the washing-up bowl and Badger sat on the bottom stair, showing no interest in anything around him. Foxy noted all of it.
    The voice of the greeter was soft in his ear: ‘Their grandson was Scots Guards in Iraq, attached to Special Forces, didn’t survive the tour. They’d want to help and, as I said, the Americans have a deep bucket. Improvised explosive device, on the al-Kut road. You’re going to hear a bit about improvised explosive devices, but I’m getting ahead of myself.’
    Foxy said vacuously, ‘I have some experience, but this should be interesting . . .’
    The man laughed without mirth, and Foxy couldn’t see what had been funny about his remark – about anything to do with improvised explosive devices.
     
    When the Engineer worked in his laboratory, or was on the factory floor checking the craftsmanship of the machine-tool work, he could escape from the enormity of the crisis that had settled on him. It was like the snowclouds that built up over the mountains beyond Tehran when winter came. When he played with the children he could briefly think himself free. When he walked on the track in front of his home and watched the birds hovering, swirling and wafting, there were moments when the load seemed to slip away. When he was at his bench, working on the use of more ceramic material to replace metal parts and negate the majority of the portable detectors . . . When he was out on the long straight tracks that had been bulldozed beyond the camp into wilderness and studied the capability of his radio messages to beat the electronics deployed against him, he sometimes forgot . . . The moments never lasted. There was laughter, rarely, and there were smiles, sometimes, and there were those times that the work was successful beyond dreams – counter-measures failed, detonation was precise and a target was destroyed in testing – but every time the cloud formed again, and the pleasure of achievement was wiped out. He could see the ever-growing weakness in his wife, the depth of her tiredness, and could watch the bravery with which she put on a show of normality. She was dying, and the process would each day be faster, the end nearer.
    He could not acknowledge it to her, but he realised his fingers were clumsier and his thoughts more muddled. He suffered. He couldn’t picture a future if – when – she was taken. Only once had