Even
so, his nerves were shot. He blundered past it back to the bungalow,
slammed the door behind him, snapped the bolts across-one, two,
three-thumbed on the Yale lock, then, hands shaking crazily, slipped
on the security chain.
Better.
Breathing
deeply to steady his racing heart, he tottered across to a kitchen
drawer, pulled out a tea towel, then mopped the oozing sweat from his
face and hands.
After
straightening his glasses, he went around every single window,
checking they were shut, and carefully closed the curtains.
Now
to kill the silence. Still unsteady, he made it back to the dining
room. There he switched on the stereo, filling the room with
Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
Normally
the music lifted his spirits and he would conduct invisible
orchestras. Not now. It sounded eerily hollow in a home that seemed
far too big and far too empty these days.
He
returned to the table where his books and files were neatly spread
out. Work distracted him from his imagination which could gnaw him
like a rat.
First
he pasted into a file a newspaper cutting.
CLEETHORPES
FISHERMAN MISSING PRESUMED DROWNED SAY COASTGUARD
After
a three-day-search, coastguards announced that there is little hope
of finding the fisherman alive. Henry Blackwood, 49, of Parade
Terrace, Cleethorpes, failed to return home from a fishing trip on
Thursday. Despite an intensive search along a fifteen-mile stretch of
coast, no trace of Mr. Blackwood or his twenty-foot cobble boat, the
Suzanne, has been found.
"Vanished
without trace," whispered Tony Gateman to himself as he dabbed
at the cutting with his handkerchief. "And I believe I know
why."
He
turned the pages of his file. They were covered with yet more
newspaper cuttings. The ones at the front of the file were now
yellowing with age. All basically told the same story.
MISSING
AT SEA ... VANISHED WITHOUT TRACE ... ANGLER FAILS TO RETURN TO
HOTEL. ... FISHERMAN WASHED OVERBOARD ... BODY NEVER FOUND ...
Some
were still heart-rending after all these years:
TRAGIC
DEATH OF OUT-BUTTERWICK HOLIDAY MAKER
Eleven-year-old
John Stockwell went for a paddle by himself, after telling his mother
he was going to look for the "funny shells". He was never
seen again.
That
was in broad daylight on a warm summer day.
Tony
sighed and closed the file. He picked up a ring binder. Stark black
letters on the first page spelled out:
SAF
DAR
He
turned to the next page. It was filled with his own neat handwriting:
Armies
throughout history have always utilized their own particular brand of
crack troops or warriors to inflict mayhem and dismay on the enemy.
The Romans employed black Nubian warriors to terrify the Northern
European foe. The Vikings had their Berserker ceremonies to turn
their wildest warriors into frenzied fighting machines. Nazi Germany
formed the feared Waffen SS.
The
Urdu people of the Indian sub-continent created the Saf Dar.
Translated, Saf Dar means simply "breaker of the line."
In
those ancient times opposing armies would face one another in long
lines, which can be shown thus:
Army:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Opposing Army: oooooooooooooooooooooooo
The
two lines would advance in an orderly way toward each other. Each
general's aim would be to force a way through his opponent's line of
men to enable his own forces to rush through the gap and attack the
line from the back or seek out the opposing army's commanders.
Clearly
what is needed is a special force to "break the line."
Hence the Urdu people's Saf Dar.
The
Saf Dar were spectacularly vicious and brutal fighters. One can
imagine them dressed in garish clothes, perhaps bright orange, to
differentiate them from the common soldier on the field.
The
Saf Dar would not be great in number but-- Tony broke off to wipe the
sweat dripping down his spectacle lenses.
The
Saf Dar would not be great in number but they would target a specific
point in the enemy's line of soldiers, which can be simply shown
thus:
Enemy
line: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
S
Urdu
line: oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The
elite warriors of the Saf Dar are represented thus: S
The
Saf Dar would charge screaming, brandishing their curving sabers. And
even though wounded by arrows and spear thrusts nothing could deflect
them from their bloody task: to break the line; which would allow the
regular foot soldiers to pour through the breach and annihilate the
opposition.
One
could imagine that the terrible sight of the Saf Dar rushing toward
them would, alone, be sufficient to put the enemy to flight. He'd
written that twenty years ago. Then it had seemed like an academic
exercise; purely a hobby to while away Out-Butterwick's quiet winter
evenings. Now he read it and he trembled. As the centuries rolled by
the need for the Saf Dar evaporated.
But
in the twentieth century they returned. Or at least a group of men
resurrected the name. Now as Tony thumbed through the file there were
more newspaper cuttings, these bearing dates from the late 1940s and
1950s.
CIVILIAN
MASSACRE IN KOREA More than a hundred men, women and children
slaughtered in Korean village.
Survivors
describe horrific events.
Eight
days ago mercenaries of mixed national and racial origins massacred
the inhabitants of a farming village twenty miles from the Korean
port of Pusan.
A
number of villagers had been spared, but not through any sense of
clemency. They were blinded and left with the instruction they tell
the authorities that a group known as the Saf Dar committed the
atrocity. And that the Saf Dar would strike again.
Tony
flicked on through the file, reading a fragment of text here and
there. Accounts of atrocities, murders, mass blindings. Sometimes
this mercenary group that called themselves the Saf Dar would leave
no survivors. But they always left their calling card. They would
hack the hands and feet from their victims and use them as bloody
paint brushes to daub on walls and the sides of buses: SAF DAR.
Tony
saw the graffiti in his mind's eye in huge wet letters-in the deepest
red: SAF DAR ... SAF DAR ... SAF DAR ... The words would drip from a
dozen walls.
Saf
Dar: The breakers of the line.
After
a time a pattern began to emerge. The Saf Dar prowled the trouble
spots of South-East Asia, India and Africa during the late forties
and fifties. The style was always the same-atrocities, civilian
massacres, mass blindings, the same bloody graffiti: SAF DAR daubed
wetly on vehicles and buildings.
The
Saf Dar's chosen role was simple. They would be employed by
revolutionary groups, or even the governments of unstable countries,
to break the spirit of the population. Their random massacres created
a climate of fear and uncertainty. If the Saf Dar went to work in an
area, they created floods of refugees that swamped other areas.
In
the late fifties the Saf Dar operated extensively in the Belgian
Congo. Thousands of civilians died in their genocidal campaign in the
Ruwenzori Mountains in the south-east of the country.
Then
they vanished as quickly, and as mysteriously, as they had come. The
last recorded encounter was in Norway, north of Bergen, when they
were disturbed in their rural hideout.
After
a gun battle with the local police they fled.
For
a while speculation suggested that the self-styled Saf Dar had been
employed by anti-communist groups to enter Russia and destabilise the
government as a prelude to a coup.
Wild
theories abounded, but the truth of the matter was that the Saf Dar
had simply vanished from the surface of the earth.
With
the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam war there was far more to
interest the media and intelligence personnel. The world forgot about
the Saf Dar.
Tony
picked up his pen and on a fresh page he wrote:
THE
SAF DAR. WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
A
rhetorical question. He already knew.
They
were-
His
head snapped up. This time he heard the sound distinctly.
The
garden gate at the front of his house had swung shut with a thump.
Someone had just entered-or just left-the garden.
With
a cold feeling draining through his stomach, he walked quickly to the
back door, still clutching the SAF DAR file in his hands.
"Hello
... Hello? Who's there?"
Shivering,
he listened hard. There was no reply.
With
the file clutched in one hand, he used the other to unbolt and unlock
the door.
"This
is madness, Tony," he hissed. "You're out of your friggin"
mind."
But
he knew he had to look. Something he could not control compelled him
to open that door and come perhaps face to face with-
BANG.
He
wrenched open the door, crashing it against the refrigerator.
Then,
with his breath croaking noisily through his throat, he looked out.
There
was no one there.
Perhaps
they're hiding around the corner-or behind a bush, just waiting to
... Get a grip, old son, get a grip. There's no one there.
From
the doorway he strained his eyes into the dark.
He'd
nearly given up and was ready to close the door when he happened to
glance down.
Tony
Gateman stared at what was on the pale flagstones, his eyes bulging.
He
swallowed, and electric shocks of fear prickled up his spine, neck
and across his scalp.
There,
darker than the surrounding flagstones, were a set of footprints.
Tony
stepped out, clutching the file to his chest, and looked down. The
prints were those of an adult who had walked-barefoot-up to the back
door of his house. He could even see the individual toes clearly
against the stone.
The
prints, Tony saw, were there because the trespasser's feet had been
wet. Even as he stared at them they faded as the moisture evaporated.
Without
hesitating, Tony followed them along the path to his front gate; once
through the gate they crossed Out-Butterwick's main street.
Tony
looked to his left and right. The street was deserted. Even at this
time most of the houses were in darkness.
"You're
an idiot, Gateman, you're an idiot ..." He whispered it over and
over as he followed the drying footprints. What if he turned a corner
and they were waiting for him? But he knew he must see where they
led.
He
followed the footprints as far as Mark Faust's shop. There they
turned left to follow a path down toward the beach.
Panting
noisily, the file clutched to his chest, he followed the path, then
crossed the seafront road to the beach. The prints had vanished now
but he knew where they led.
He
loped down the soft sand in the dark; ahead the surf showed in a
milky line a hundred yards away.
The
retreating tide had left a featureless expanse of sand.
Featureless,
apart from a set of bare footprints leading in the direction of the
night-time ocean. Panting, Tony loped after them.
The
prints led to the water's edge and disappeared beneath the surf.
Whoever had walked barefoot into the sea had not walked back out
again.
Choking
in lungfuls of air, Tony dropped to his knees on the wet sand. It was
starting. These were the first signs-or should that be: These were
the first symptoms?
What
next?
Tony
shook his head, afraid even to try to guess.
But
he knew what the immediate future held for him. He would return to
his bungalow, lock the door, take the whiskey decanter to his
bedroom, and spend the night emptying it down his throat.