Scar Tissue

by Ollie Ollerton

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘I fucking swear to you, Guy. I found out myself literally a matter of hours ago. As God is my witness. Biscuits. Tell him.’

  ‘It’s no fucking good, mate, he’s lost it. Look at this shit.’ He gestured at the broken, slit-open form of Mahlouthi in front of them. ‘He’s gone loco.’

  No, thought Abbott. Stone hadn’t gone suddenly nuts. These were plans that were long in the making. They had marinated in hatred, stewed in grief. But Burton was right about one thing. Stone wasn’t listening to reason right now. He was beyond caring about the details of Abbott’s involvement. All he knew was that Jeremy might have stayed out of danger if not for Abbott.

  ‘So Mahlouthi came for his slice of the pie,’ said Abbott. ‘And you turned him down.’

  ‘I denied all knowledge.’

  Mahlouthi raised his head, the very effort of doing it causing him pain.

  ‘But he wasn’t convinced, of course,’ continued Stone, ‘and if he couldn’t profit one way he decided to profit another way, by plugging the leak permanently on behalf of his paymasters. And my boy was left to die in the street.’

  At least he didn’t know that Abbott had been there. At least there was that.

  ‘I couldn’t even grieve, you know,’ continued Stone. ‘A quick trip home to bury my son, a few days off that I disguised as something else, and that was it.’

  Burton’s head had dropped. Perhaps remembering.

  Feebly, Mahlouthi raised his head and spoke at last. ‘Help me,’ he rasped.

  Abbott ignored him, feeling only contempt. ‘What about Nathan?’ he asked of Stone, but Stone made a disgusted sound and Abbott knew he shouldn’t have brought up his own son so soon, cursing his lack of tact.

  ‘You and Biscuits now have ten seconds,’ said Stone. ‘Think you can run fast enough?’

  ‘Don’t go,’ pleaded Mahlouthi, the words vibrating on wet lips. ‘Please don’t go.’ His eyes were fully open now, beseeching Abbott and Burton, and for all that he had done – practically the architect of the whole shit show – Abbott’s feeling of disgust for him was gone and in its place he felt a rush of absolute pity.

  And then, with no choice left, he grabbed Burton’s sleeve to urge him on as the two of them turned and ran, not for the gash in the wall but to the closer front door.

  Abbott was counting in his head: one thousand, two thousand, three thousand … wondering how powerful the bomb would be as he and Burton hit the little wicket door. And as they dived through, he twisted, taking a last look at Mahlouthi and seeing the Arab bucking with fresh pain, his chest smoking, his face contorted as he screamed his final pleas. And then they were outside, blinded momentarily by the sun as they raced out onto the waste ground beyond, their boots pounding the dirt and the screams of Mahlouthi in their ears.

  ‘The van,’ shouted Burton. Ahead of them was the burned-out VW, the only cover for yards around. They made it, skidding around to the rear, curling up with their hands over their heads as behind them, the bomb blew.

  Whump.

  The air seemed to vibrate around them. A great heat pulsed across the waste ground, making the light shimmer. Debris rained down.

  For a moment or so, that’s how they stayed, knowing to wait in case of a secondary explosion. When none came, Abbott peeked around the side of the blackened van, seeing that while the warehouse still stood, a new hole had been punched into the front of it, a plume of black smoke issuing forth. Abbott still had the phone in his hand. From it came Stone’s voice: ‘Did you both make it, then?’

  Abbott opened his mouth to reply but Burton had grabbed the phone from him, ‘You’re a fucking prick, Fingers,’ he bawled.

  ‘Prick, is it? Who’s the prick really? The geezer who wants to see justice done? Or the geezer who gets in his way? There needn’t be any danger to you, Biscuits, if you’d just stayed out of the fucking way like I said. Far as I’m concerned, if anything happens to you, it’s your own fucking fault. You ride the roller-coaster at your own risk. I repeat, no harm need come to you as long as you stay out of my way.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t out of your way, was I?’ Flecks of spittle formed on Burton’s beard. ‘What am I? Just another Tommy. A poor bloke who’s got in the way of your “main objective”. We were part of the same team, Stone. Doesn’t that fucking count for something?’

  ‘It doesn’t count for nothing when blood’s involved. Anyway, fuck it, the team was history as soon as Mahlouthi and Abbott went after my son. Just you next, Monk. Just you and the boy.’

  ‘Where is he?’ demanded Abbott.

  ‘Getting ready to keep Jeremy company.’

  Abbott’s jaw clenched. ‘How do I know that you really have him. How do I know he’s still alive?’

  ‘You’ll just have to fucking hope, won’t you? But I’ll be seeing you, Abbott, when you get your shit together. I’ll be waiting.’

  CHAPTER 47

  Cuckoo was at Heathrow, having at last sorted out a temporary passport and having bid a not-at-all fond farewell to Singapore.

  Dealing with the consulate in order to obtain his temporary passport, he’d been in constant terror of the cops wanting to talk to him. Surely they would have been able to ID him from outside the café? ID him, find him, interrogate him. Leaving the country then would have been out of the question. He’d stayed in that state of perpetual suspended terror the whole time he’d been waiting for his bit of cardboard. He’d been gripped by the same ass-cheek-clenching fear while waiting for his flight. During the flight itself? Ditto. Constantly asking himself, would they turn the plane around? No, of course not. But contact the authorities in the UK? Yes. Have somebody waiting for him at the other end? That was surely possible, too. Maybe even likely. After all, Abbott had certainly thought so. The pair of them had worked out a signal: Cuckoo was to clear his throat twice on the phone if he’d been picked up, in which case they were to assume that he was being monitored.

  However, he’d made it this far. Back to Blighty, at least. After he’d disembarked, cleared passport control and sailed through customs unaccosted, he had allowed himself to relax a little.

  Until, that was, he saw the two guys in plain clothes waiting on the other side of customs. How one guy nudged the other and pointed in his direction.

  Cuckoo stopped. His little suitcase on wheels stopped, and for a crazy second he considered making a break for it. But that, he knew, was just his panic response kicking in. Instead, he stood still as the two men approached him.

  ‘Alan Roberts?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Cuckoo. ‘That’s me.’ His heart was sinking. ‘Who wants to know?’

  His question was ignored. ‘Just come with us, please,’ they said. ‘Let’s keep it unobtrusive, shall we? There’s nothing to be gained by making a fuss.’

  They led Cuckoo away from the stream of travellers heading for arrivals, through a door marked for security personnel only, and into a side office where, seated behind a desk, was a guy in a scruffy suit with large Fred Basset bags under his eyes and a hangdog face to match.

  ‘Mr Roberts,’ he said, half standing and holding out his hand to shake. ‘My name is Lansdale Thorpe from military intelligence.’

  ‘Mr Thorpe.’ Cuckoo shook his hand, parked his suitcase.

  ‘I’d like a word, please.’ Thorpe, indicated for Cuckoo to sit. It wasn’t a question, but neither was it a threat, and as the two escorts disappeared and the door shut behind them, Cuckoo felt himself relax a little. Although he was in a little windowless room, he was pretty confident that nobody was going to try to kill him. Not here in Heathrow.

  He settled into his chair, facing Thorpe, who shot him a tired smile and said, ‘I’m sorry to grab you literally the second you step off the plane, but needs must, I’m afraid. What we have here is a very fluid, fast-moving situation.’

  ‘And what situation is that?’

  ‘Right. Well. We’ve been interested in a company based in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a commerc
ial security firm called Executive Alliance Group. Do you know it?’

  Cuckoo tried not to let anything register on his face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘“Sort of”. Excellent. That’ll do. What about EAG’s CEO, an ex-SBS specialist by the name of Guy Stone?’

  ‘I know of him.’

  ‘OK, good. Well: EAG and its CEO Guy Stone have for some months now been the subject of a departmental corruption investigation. Not only that, but we’re linking the murder of a Foreign Office worker, Jeremy Robinson, with them and their rivals Hercules. Do you know of Jeremy Robinson?’ Cuckoo said nothing and Thorpe continued. ‘At first we thought that Robinson was simply the luckless victim of a street robbery and nothing whatsoever to do with the investigation. It was a young whizzkid in our office who made the link.’

  ‘Link being?’ asked Cuckoo, who knew the link.

  ‘He was Guy Stone’s son.’ Thorpe paused. ‘Now. Park that for a second. And let’s go to your wife, Fiona Roberts, who also happens to be the ex-wife of Alex Abbott. Mrs Roberts, your wife, has been making inquiries as to the whereabouts of her son with Abbott, Nathan, a serving soldier who is currently “where-abouts unknown”, according to his base.

  ‘Then there’s you, hotfooting it to Singapore, which just so happens to be the current home of Alex Abbott. Abbott then entering Baghdad.’ Thorpe nodded, acknowledging the look that flitted across Cuckoo’s face. ‘Yes, we know all about Abbott entering Baghdad. Added to that we know that two of Abbott’s former team members, Mowles and Stone – the aforementioned Guy Stone – have both died recently, except we’re not happy that Mowles’s death was an accident, nor that he was actually jumping with his stated partner, a guy called Burton, on the day he died. Neither are we content with the explanation that Stone drowned. For us, what works is that Stone was behind Mowles’s death. And then went on to fake his own. And now Abbott’s in the mix, too …’ Thorpe sighed and threw up his hands theatrically. ‘What’s a man to think?’

  Cuckoo cleared his throat, and shifted on his seat which suddenly felt a good deal less comfortable than it had before. ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t. I let other people do that for me. But you’re in this room, and I’ve got people on the ground in Baghdad who are desperate to lift Abbott. Literally pick him up in the street now …’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Cuckoo, quickly.

  ‘Why?’ said Thorpe quickly leaning forward. ‘Why not?’

  Cuckoo took a deep breath, feeling like he was on the hook and at the same time knowing that now was not the time to summon the big guns – it was time to spike them. Forgive me, Abbott, he thought. And began to tell Thorpe what he knew, which was what he’d been told by Abbott. How Executive Alliance Group was being supplied with the information they needed in order to supply the right people with the kick-backs, particularly the Farlowe contract. How Hercules weren’t happy about that and no doubt had orchestrated the murder of Jeremy Robinson.’

  As for Stone faking his own death?

  ‘Because, as the head of Executive Alliance Group, Stone was under investigation by us,’ said Thorpe, thoughtfully, the pieces of the jigsaw clearly forming a bigger picture for him now. ‘By us, by the Americans, by just about anybody with an interest in the rebuilding of Iraq. You know I can have SF ready to move on Executive Alliance Group in an hour.’

  ‘You have to let Abbott find his son first,’ said Cuckoo quickly. ‘Whatever you want with Stone. We just want Nathan back unharmed.’

  ‘We’ll come to that,’ said Thorpe. ‘According to his base, Nathan was taking time off for a bit of work on the side. Could be that the work is with Executive Alliance Group …’

  ‘It’s not. Like I’m telling you, it’s a kidnap situation.’

  ‘Have you been in receipt of any demands?’

  ‘Not as yet.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, well, we think we do know.’

  Cuckoo gave a start. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. We think that he’s in the EAG compound.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Good question. Let me show you.’

  From beneath the desk, Thorpe produced a laptop. In moments he was showing Cuckoo drone and satellite footage. It was overhead, distant and far from distinct. ‘Do you recognise this area?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s the Green Zone. What you’re seeing there is the Executive Alliance Group compound and that there is a vehicle leaving the compound. Now—’ he leaned forward and fast-forwarded the footage – ‘different satellite. Different part of the city.’

  They watched, and it was impossible for Cuckoo to make out what was happening but he was reliably informed by Lansdale Thorpe that he was seeing the kidnap of Nathan from outside the women’s prison.

  ‘He seemed to go peacefully,’ said Thorpe. He reached to speed through the footage a little more. ‘If Abbott is right, then what we’re seeing here is his kidnap, although it’s impossible to tell if he’s going along willingly or not.’

  Cuckoo looked at the date stamp. Made sense. He swallowed, hoping his face betrayed nothing. ‘It’s impossible to tell. Maybe.’

  The footage showed the van moving off. The image switched to another source. ‘Same SUV,’ pointed out Thorpe, ‘and if you watch, you’ll see it’s heading to the Green Zone.’

  ‘And it ends up at EAG.’

  ‘Exactly. You’ve got the picture.’

  ‘Right. OK, so why would Stone be interested in kidnapping Nathan Abbott?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ lied Cuckoo. ‘I wish I did. Main thing is that we get Nathan out, though, yes?’

  ‘Do you want the official answer?’ replied Thorpe. ‘OK, well, the official answer is that of course it’s our number one priority to rescue one of our military personnel who’s fallen foul of an outside agency. Or do you want the real answer? That he’s low down the list. We need to take down Stone. We need to be seen to be acting on intelligence given to us by our American friends, and they very much want to see Executive Alliance Group out of the picture. That is our primary objective, and nothing must stand in the way, including Abbott.’

  ‘All Abbott cares about is rescuing Nathan. He won’t get in your way.’

  ‘He’ll be in the way. We need him out of the way.’

  ‘You do know that I’m going to relate the particulars of this conversation to Abbott. You know he’s going to want to go in.’

  ‘You’re to advise him not to,’ said Thorpe pleasantly. ‘That is your job, Mr Roberts. It’s precisely why we’re having this conversation. I’m prevailing on you as a member of the forces as well as a good upstanding, law-abiding citizen to work with us in ensuring that this operation goes ahead unhindered by Abbott. You are to tell him that we will be readying an SF team to go into the EAG compound in the next couple of days, and they will have instructions to ensure that Nathan is extracted alive. You tell Abbott that he doesn’t mess this up for us, because if he does, then hell hath no fury. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Abbott’s not going to step away that easily. You’ll have to give him something in return.’

  Thorpe smiled. ‘Then we’ll give him something in return.’

  CHAPTER 48

  Breathe, recalibrate, deliver. That had been their mantra in the Special Forces. Abbott and Burton looked to it now. They made their way back to Mahlouthi’s villa complex and had just dropped exhaustedly into the ops room chairs, taking a breather before they regrouped, when Abbott’s phone rang.

  It was Cuckoo. Beside Abbott, Burton’s head dropped, maybe glad of the respite, able to catch a few moments’ shut-eye before they formulated a next-step plan, and Abbott stood, taking the call in the hallway outside the room. ‘Hello, Alan,’ he said.

  ‘All right, Abbott?’ said Cuckoo. ‘Dare I ask, how are things?’

  ‘Well, I know now that Stone has got Nathan. He’s behin
d all this,’ said Abbott. He pincer-squeezed the bridge of his nose. ‘You might say that he’s been in touch.’

  ‘With a ransom demand?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t want a ransom.’

  ‘I see,’ replied Cuckoo, and even through his fatigue Abbott couldn’t help but notice a distinct lack of reaction from Cuckoo. ‘Why? Why don’t you think he wants a ransom?’

  That was something that Abbott didn’t particularly want to go into. ‘That remains to be seen, mate. What about you? What have you got?’

  ‘I’m back in the UK,’ said Cuckoo with a touch of reproach in his voice that Abbott simply couldn’t be bothered to respond to. ‘And while I was half expecting them to be questioning me about Foxhole, what I got instead was a meeting with military intelligence.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They’re investigating Stone for financial irregularities,’ Cuckoo was saying. ‘Apparently, the Americans weren’t happy with him. And they’ve managed to put you and Nathan together with all that. They think Nathan is at the Executive Alliance Group compound. They’ve got the place under satellite surveillance. They want you to stand down. Let them take it from here.’

  ‘They know that Nathan’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘How the hell do they …? Wait, you didn’t tell them, did you?’

  ‘I had to. They have a team preparing to go in,’ interrupted Cuckoo. ‘The team’s due to be in place sometime tomorrow and will be moving in shortly after that. Look, Abbott, we’ve done our work. All we have to do is keep our heads down. SF will do the rest. You of all people know that they’re the right people for this job.’

  ‘Hostages die,’ said Abbott. ‘They especially die when a team goes in.’

  ‘You’re to stand down, Abbott.’

  ‘You’re not giving the orders here, Cuckoo. I’m not standing down. There’s a guy who wants my balls on a platter. The same guy currently holding my son prisoner. And you think I’m going to stand down? Jesus Christ.’

  ‘SF can handle this.’

  ‘So can I.’

  ‘OK, look, obviously I anticipated you might feel this way. So did they. So how about if you could closely monitor the situation?’