Watching, Abbott’s mind went back to mad nights and dance-floor anthems. And for that reason, and because the sunlight seemed to glint so beautifully off those champagne flutes, and because when yet another bottle was hoisted aloft, he could actually see the condensation on the glass, his thirst increased.
Sod it. He left his post, found a Sheng Siong, bought a bottle of wine and returned. Just the one bottle, mind you. One would be enough – enough to straighten him out but not so much that he was knocking on the door of Mr Fuck-Up.
He used a Thermos mug. They don’t hold much, but even so, as he drained it, he felt the alcohol’s soft embrace like nimble fingers at his neck and shoulders, relaxing him, chasing away last night’s headache, taking all those shit-thoughts that camped out in his head and making them less vivid, drowning out the voices of ghosts.
He put his eyes back to the binoculars. One of the women had disappeared while he was out buying his wine, presumably to start her shift in earnest. The other one was still on deck, doing her best to continue the hip-hop video vibe, even though things had clearly moved on a notch or six. By now, the security guys were practically drooling, all three of them in the kind of rich lather that a mix of booze and prostitutes is likely to produce. Watching her as she was groped by cackling drunks who were even now imagining the various vile and despicable things they intended to do to her, Abbott thought, as he often did, that she was somebody’s daughter, and that once upon a time she had been a tiny baby and then an innocent little girl. And now she was a plaything for scumbags.
Abbott watched. She was still pretending to go along with all the high-jinks, but even as she smiled and screamed and played up to it, her eyes told a different story. Her eyes said she was working hard for her money.
They were chasing her around the deck. One of them caught her, roughly pulled off her bikini top then sent her spinning out to the others. She scampered across the deck and right into the arms of Bryars, who indicated that she should wait and then produced a note. She went to take it. Laughing, he held it out of her reach. She tried to jump and grabbed his wrist but this time he took her by the waist, holding her firmly as he stuffed the note into her mouth, much to the general merriment of his buddies.
‘Oh, you utter bastard,’ hissed Abbott, hating what he saw and feeling terrible for the girl. At the same time he knew that the messier it got on the boat, the more things worked to his advantage. And the earlier he could get the job done, the better.
CHAPTER 4
He sat back, reaching for his Thermos mug and phone. On it was Nathan’s text message, received two days ago. Dad, we need to speak. It’s urgent.
He’d attempted to reply, of course, but had no response. He tried again now. Text and call. Still nothing. He should tell Nathan’s mother, he knew, but the problem was that Nathan’s mother and his ex-wife, Fi, were one and the same, and Fi was what you might call a firebrand. It had been one of the things that had attracted him to her. After all, a firebrand can be a lot of fun, and two of them together is like napalm.
However, as he’d discovered, a firebrand makes a formidable enemy when things go tits up, which is exactly what happened. Had there been a phone call since then that hadn’t ended in a slanging match? Negative.
But Nathan’s text bugged him. Scratch that, it worried him. And the sensible, responsible thing to do was to talk to Fi about it. Having tanned the wine, he was just drunk enough to do it, too. Seize the day and all that.
He was about to do just that when the phone rang in his hand, caller ID telling him it was his fixer, a guy called Foxhole.
Foxhole was the man behind this job, which had come with the threat that if Abbott fucked it up, then Foxhole was washing his hands of him forever. Why? Because Abbott had made a mess of the last thing he was supposed to do for Foxhole; a simple close-protection gig. He’d got pissed the night before and had failed to turn up, meaning Foxhole had to hastily organise a last-minute replacement.
That had been it for Foxhole. You’re out, Abbott, he’d said. The fact that Abbott had worked with him since arriving in Singapore buttered no parsnips. It was a one-strike-and-you’reout-deal. Did Foxhole know the reason behind Abbott’s no-show? He’d never said, but Abbott figured he’d probably guessed. Mean-while, Abbott had been in the process of casting his net wider, finding other security companies that worked global markets in the Far East (correction: thinking about doing that, during his rare breaks from liquid recreation), when Foxhole had come back on the blower: he needed a specialist and he was prepared to give Abbott a second chance. But cock it up and they were done.
No doubt Abbott would be hearing a repeat of that very threat in the next minute or so. Could be that Foxhole was ringing for that specific purpose, in fact. All Abbott knew was that Foxhole’s connection was a company called Hexagon Security operating out of London, who had a reputation for not messing around. No doubt that was another reason Foxhole felt it necessary to keep repeating his threats.
‘How’s it going?’ said the fixer now. He hadn’t lost his Chicago drawl, despite ten years in Singapore playing job centre for ex-servicemen who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave the life behind – guys who called their act of denial ‘moving into security’ and joined ‘The Circuit’, as it was known.
‘I’m in position. Watching the boat.’ Abbott kept it brief, just in case the booze came out in his voice.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Party time.’
‘So you move tonight? I can tell Hexagon? Because you know they were hoping to go yesterday, right? But –’
Abbott rolled his eyes. Dickhead. They called him Foxhole because that’s where he stayed, and back there, safe out of harm’s way, he had the luxury of not giving a stuff about unimportant matters such as the need to be as prepared as you can be ahead of possible life-and-death situations.
‘I needed a day,’ said Abbott.
‘So you go tonight? As soon as possible?’
‘All things being equal. But yeah, that’s the plan. This lot are going to flake out soon, the way they’re carrying on. They’ve been at it since eleven.’
‘Don’t mess this up, Abbott. You fuck this one up, and you’ll be back in the Middle East, tail between your legs, before you can say George W. Bush, got it?’
‘Got it.’
‘Oh, and need I remind you – no weapons.’
‘Sure.’
‘Abbott, this is surveillance and tracking, you’ve no need for artillery, OK?’
‘Roger that.’
Not for the first time it crossed Abbott’s mind to ask himself why he took this shit from Foxhole, who was to combat what Abbott was to synchronised swimming – i.e. a complete fucking stranger – and he wondered if he should have stayed in Baghdad. Packed away all the shit that went down, stuck it out and made a fortune. Because that’s what his old team were doing right now. As far as he knew anyway. They were cleaning up in the security game and he could have been there with them, sharing in the true spoils of war – if he hadn’t followed his fleeing conscience. And the answer was that he took this crap from Foxhole because he needed the money. Simple as that.
And at least this way I get to look at myself in the mirror, he thought. Only just. But still . . .
He poked a toe at the empty wine bottle. The conversation had gone well, he thought, closing up the phone. If anyone was going to call him out on the being-a-bit-pissed business then it was Foxhole, and he hadn’t, which meant that Abbott was absolutely in control. The drunk guy inside was on a tight leash.
Which could only mean it was time for a second bottle.
CHAPTER 5
Singapore’s Indian quarter, and in a tiny shop squeezed between the rippling canopies of a food market on one side and the paper lanterns and gaudy clothes of ‘Girls Dreamland’ on the other was Ray’s. No canopies or paper lanterns, just the sign saying ‘Ray’s’ above windows fogged with dirt and age, giving little to no hint of what lay within.
And what lay within was Paxo. It was also Heinz, and Marmite, and jars of rhubarb and custard and Kola Kubes sweets. It was Sun-Pat peanut butter, Hartley’s jam, Robert-son’s marmalade, and Cornflakes. If you were an ex-pat living in Singapore, desperate for a taste of the luxuries back home, unable to go a single extra day without the taste of Irn Bru, then Ray’s was where you came. Ray’s – proud supplier of Hob Nobs to the ex-pat branch of the local AA group. Either he’d have your heart’s desire in stock, or he could get it for a fair price.
Ray wasn’t really ‘Ray’. He was ‘Rey’, a Singapore local who’d spotted a gap in the market and exploited it with good humour, business acumen and a perfect command of colloquial English. He was perched on a stool behind a tall counter (Rey had been specific about wanting a tall counter; even he wasn’t quite sure why) and looked up as the door opened, admitting the sound of the street outside as well as a tall Caucasian bloke.
‘All right, mate?’ said Rey.
‘Good afternoon,’ said the new arrival. He wore a navy mac – very sensible; they were predicting rain for later – and his hair was short. Rey himself was not a man who liked to visit the barbers, which was why he tended to peer out from behind a curtain of lank and greasy hair, but he knew things. He knew that nostalgia and homesickness were all in the mind, which was why only ex-pats ever ate Cornflakes. And he knew a military man when he saw one.
‘I’m looking for a guy who loves Branston,’ said the well-dressed man.
‘Is he in a pickle?’ quipped Rey with a big grin.
‘You might say that.’ The visitor slapped a photocopied image onto the counter: a thin-faced dude with a five o’clock shadow and a haunted look that was unmistakeable.
‘Oh, him.’ Rey’s lip curled and he pushed the page away. ‘Yeah, I know him. And yes, he does like Branston. He also likes Gordon’s gin and Beefeater gin and Stella Artois, which is probably why he owes me so much money.’
‘Where can I find him?’
Rey looked at him, rolled his eyes and spoke slowly, as though addressing someone very old. ‘Which is probably why he owes me so much money,’ he repeated.
The visitor frowned and reached into his mac.
CHAPTER 6
The shit-thoughts came to Abbott anyway. Like mutating viruses, they had found a way to penetrate alcohol’s defence. He tried to banish them but at the same time couldn’t help himself returning to them, prodding at them like bruises to see if they were still as painful as they had been before. Thoughts of a footpath along the perimeter of a field on a summer’s day, two sets of feet tramping towards a gap in the hedge that led to the riverbank. Of a girl from the past thought lost to him. Of bodies in a village. Of a boy who died in his arms in a battle-scarred street.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.’ And then, with a gasp, he wrenched himself away, back to the reality of the boat, and a darkness that had slowly crept over the harbour, the sun replaced by a moon that glimmered on grey water, the air heavy and pregnant with the night’s expected rainfall.
The two wine bottles shifted on the boards of the deck as he cleared his throat and leaned forward, applying himself to the binoculars, painfully aware of his blurred vison, cursing himself at the same time: youtwatyoutwat you went and got drunk youtwat. A vision came to him of Rodney shaking his head sadly. The misery tourist pursing her lips and wagging an admonishing finger. ‘You’ve let yourself down, you’ve let the school down …’ Even though he knew that was just his drunk brain playing silly buggers.
Right. Concentrate.
Taking deep breaths – lowering his cortisol, increasing his focus – he finally got his head back in the game, his vision settled, and he was able to establish that things on Bryars’s yacht had calmed down. In place of cheesy Euro-trance was silence and there was no sign of life on deck. Most likely they were all below, filming themselves doing Christ knows what with the hookers.
All of which meant that it was time.
From his holdall Abbott took his gear, first stripping off his cargo pants and T-shirt and pulling on his dive suit. He strapped on his Glock 17 9mm and then his dive knife on his left leg.
No weapons. Yeah, right, Foxhole. Abbott had a policy: better to be tooled up and not need it, than to be caught short if it goes noisy.
From the holdall he picked a suppressor for the Glock that he dropped into a waterproof comms bag that in turn attached to his chest cache along with a couple of spare mags, vacuum-packed med kit, and a mini emergency air tank which made up his basic ops kit. He threw on the waistcoat-style chest cache and zipped it up the front.
Next he fitted the mouthpiece of his Dräger LAR 5010 rebreather and checked his compass bearing to the target. He went up top, preparing to drop into the water and taking gulps of air from the rebreather at the same time. He knew from past experience that the O2 from the rebreather would help to clear his head. (Which was the kind of past experience you should, by right, learn from, but don’t because you’re the species of dickhead who necks two bottles of wine before a crucial job.)
The cold made him gasp as he lowered himself in. Around him the spur was mainly quiet, just the sound of water lapping at the hulls of boats moored there. From further afield came the sound of the harbour at large, the familiar noises of Singapore at night. Lucky for him that Bryars and pals had decided to get the party going early doors.
He took a last visual of the target and then dropped subsurface into the pitch-black, heading on the compass bearing at 3 m depth. His mind worked to overcome the fog of booze in his brain, and he told himself – as in, lied to himself – that being drunk helped sharpen the mind.
Now he was close, and the lights of the target shone through the water like lasers. Abbott hung in the water for a moment or so, feeling for changes in the surrounding environment, then headed slowly to the surface in order to gain visual confirmation of his accuracy.
He was focused now – as focused as he could be in the circumstances. All those shit-thoughts, even his concern for Nathan, were bundled to the margins. His head broke the surface just enough to see the target, approximately 150 m to the front of him. Harbour water traced lines on his goggles, and for a second he felt like he was a little kid again, staring out of the window on a rainy day, watching raindrops race each other down the glass.
Around him, the harbour was almost eerily silent. Music thump-thumped from another yacht, but the sounds of the city behind were a distant background noise. It was as though he had passed from one world into another.
He ducked back beneath the water, executed a roll and dived to a depth of just over 2 m, allowing the inky black water to envelop him. For a moment or so he enjoyed the sensation of the water mixed with that of the alcohol, cocooning him, giving him a womb-like feeling from which he had to shake himself free. His compass took him to the hull of the yacht, and he stayed there for a moment or so, holding onto the hull like a limpet before unzipping a pocket of his dive suit. From it he took the first of the listening devices, placed it and activated it. Next he swam forward and did the same with the second.
From another pocket he drew a small, handheld underwater activation device that he used to conduct a frequency test, alerting land ops that devices one and two were in place and active. Land ops, in this case, being his liaison: guys from Hexagon that he’d never met and probably never would. No doubt Hexagon were being hired by people who wanted to listen in to Bryars’s business, presumably in order to get a piece. From what Abbott had seen you could hardly blame them. Whatever game Bryars was playing, he was clearly winning.
He placed the tracking device, switched it to ‘go’ mode and moved off to the other side of the yacht in order to position listening devices three and four and repeat the frequency test. He fixed the third device. Almost done now. Kicking his legs, he moved to the stern.
And then stopped.
Hanging in the water, suspended from the side of the ship, was a corpse.
CHAPTER
7
In a black Range Rover parked in the shadows on the outskirts of the harbour sat two men, a driver, Chantrell, and his passenger, Tork. They were employees of Hexagon Security, which, in turn, had been hired by a lawyer acting as a go-between for a New York-based financial trader, the name of whom was not known to either Chantrell or Tork. Like Abbott, they were ex-forces and men for hire. And, like Abbott, they understood that discretion and plausible deniability came with the territory.
‘Who is this guy anyway?’ asked Chantrell. He wore a suede bomber jacket and jeans. Tork called him ‘catalogue model’ for the way he dressed, which was fine by him, since Tork considered an AC/DC T-shirt the height of sophistication.
Between them on the seat was a receiver, gently blipping away, awaiting the activation of the listening devices.
‘A specialist,’ replied Tork. Today’s T-shirt was a faded For Those About To Rock number. ‘According to Foxhole, he’s ex-SBS. Best in the region.’
There was a pause. The receiver blipped contentedly. ‘What’s he doing in Singapore, then? Why not be where there’s real money to be made?’
‘Beats me,’ replied Tork. ‘Maybe he hates the Middle-Eastern climate. Maybe he’s had enough of the place.’
‘Be real. It’s a proper gold rush out there.’
‘I still don’t know. Anyway, you might as well ask yourself the same question. How come we’re here and not there.’
‘Difference is, we go where we’re told.’ Chantrell shook his head. ‘I don’t know; there’s something iffy about it. I don’t like it.’
‘You decide that now?’
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