Sixty Minutes

by Tony Salter

  ‘What? I thought you MI6 guys were all ex-SAS macho men?’

  ‘Some of them are,’ he said. ‘Not me. I started at GCHQ. I’m an analyst. They only transferred me to Six when they needed a senior techie in Karachi. That was three years ago.’

  ‘… And you’ve not been through basic training? Never been out in the field?’

  ‘Christ, no,’ he said, tugging on his sandy-blond hair. ‘I’m hardly going to go unnoticed in Peshawar, am I?’

  He turned back to face the headrest as the driver flicked on his blue light and jumped two red lights on the Embankment. Ed had clearly got the wrong end of the stick somehow – it wasn’t as though they were about to get into a gunfight. They were only there to figure out what was happening and to pick up Snowflake’s trail if there was anything to pick up. The pistol was a standard precaution. Any consequent follow-up would be for SCO19, not them.

  Although it didn’t always work out as planned.

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ she said to Ed. ‘Nothing’s going to happen. She patted the pistol on her chest. This is going to stay right here.’

  The engine screamed as the car threaded its way through an impossible gap between a bus and a cyclist – Nadia could see that her comforting assurances were falling on deaf ears.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, from between clenched teeth. ‘I’m not actually that much of a wimp. I just hate driving fast. I’ll be better once we stop.’

  Nadia didn’t feel especially reassured. Why had David given her this guy?

  ‘Ed,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be rude, but what exactly are you doing here? I mean, you’re not trained for this and we’ve no time to waste.’

  Was that a small smile? She couldn’t be sure.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I get it. Things would have been clearer if there’d been ten minutes for proper introductions.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m not just an IT nerd. My first degree was in psychology. I’m a profiler and I’ve been assigned to Unicorn for a long time - ever since he was linked to the Karachi embassy bombings. If anyone can double guess what he’s going to do, it should be me.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Nadia. ‘Now I get it. And you’re convinced he’s behind this?’

  ‘Ninety per cent,’ said Ed. ‘It smells like him. Sorry if that sounds a bit unscientific; it’s actually based on eight years of living with him in my mind, day-in and day-out.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with gut feel,’ said Nadia. ‘It’s often all we have.’

  Ed nodded. ‘And I know your gut feel is telling you that Snowflake isn’t capable of anything like this,’ he said. ‘But don’t underestimate Unicorn. He’s got a kind of evangelical charisma, I don’t know how else to describe it. One way or another, his acolytes will do anything for him. It’s like they become hypnotised or brainwashed.’

  Nadia nodded, although she still wasn’t convinced.

  At least there was a valid reason why David had saddled her with a desk jockey and Ed seemed to be calming down. For a while, she’d been certain he was going to throw up.

  He turned towards her. ‘Changing the subject,’ he said, pointing at the bulge in her jacket. ‘You ever had to use that?’

  ‘Just once,’ said Nadia. ‘And I’m happy to keep it that way.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You don’t want to hear about that,’ said Nadia, turning to look out of the window. It was a time she tried to forget although she knew no-one else had. Her career had taken a boost and, at the same time, a distance had formed between her and her colleagues. It was as though everyone had taken a quarter of a step backwards and Nadia’s personal space had become slightly bigger overnight.

  ‘Go on,’ said Ed. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘If you’re here for a few days, you’ll probably hear about it, anyway.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘It was two years ago. My partner, Mark, and I were staking out a pub in Streatham. There was a room at the back where National Action used to meet – as nasty a bunch of right-wing fascists as you’re ever likely to come across.

  ‘Anyway, the room was miked up and a good friend of mine had been undercover in the group for over a year. Things had suddenly jumped up a few gears when our inside guy told us they were planning an attack on a synagogue within two weeks. The main man, Stu Ronson, had been a roughneck on oil rigs in the North Sea and had managed to source explosives from one of his old contacts. Serious stuff - shaped charges, RDX, hugely powerful.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Ed. ‘Surely that sort of thing is always logged and secured?’

  ‘Apparently not well enough,’ said Nadia. ‘Anyway, we weren’t expecting anything out of the ordinary that night. There were only three of them in the room and the explosives weren’t due for two days. They were drinking and playing Madness at full volume; it was difficult to hear what was being said until the sound of arguing and smashing furniture drowned out the music.

  ‘We called for SCO19 back-up as soon as we picked up Stu shouting “you fucking traitor”, and then moved in when we heard our agent screaming, “I would never do that to you.” That was one of our abort phrases; there was no time to wait for the cavalry so we kicked in the door and piled into the room.

  ‘The third guy saw our guns and immediately lifted his hands, but Stu was standing in front of our agent and, before we could do anything, he’d spun round behind him and was pressing an evil-looking commando knife into his neck. I tried to calm things down, telling him that more armed police were on their way and he had no way out. But he muttered something about having nothing left to lose and that’s when I saw something change in his eyes.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ said Ed.

  ‘It was as though he gave up all hope and all that was left was his bitterness and resentment. I was convinced he was going to cut our man’s throat.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I took the only shot I had, Stu was thrown backwards before he could use the knife, and then SCO19 arrived. It was all a bit of a blur after that.’

  ‘Sounds incredible. You saved the day.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Nadia. ‘And maybe he wasn’t planning on doing anything stupid. The bit I haven’t mentioned is that the shot I took was through our guy’s shoulder. I aimed for the soft tissue, but unfortunately, the bullet clipped a nerve and he’ll probably never make a full recovery.’

  ‘But he’s alive because of you,’ said Ed.

  ‘I guess,’ said Nadia. She looked at Ed. ‘What sort of person deliberately shoots a friend in cold blood, though? Everyone pretends it’s good-humoured banter, but I know they’re all a bit scared of me now.’

  11:24

  Jim

  Janet Wilson, Security Team Supervisor (AKA Hatchet Face), was doing her rounds.

  She was a sharp-nosed witch of a woman who looked like she should have been in charge of a 1960s hospital ward, possibly in some dodgy black-and-white film comedy. Although probably not much over thirty, she was already pumped full of her own importance and worshipped policies and regulations. Jim enjoyed imagining her slinking home from the museum to a lonely flat, feeding the cats and then settling in to read Fifty Shades of Grey for the tenth time.

  He watched her talking to Will across the hall. Ramona had already left and Will would almost certainly be turning on the boyish charm; Janet would probably be lapping it up. It wouldn’t work for Jim, not that he’d ever tried. They both knew that he hated the job and Hatchet Face seemed to have made it her life’s mission to find new reasons to make him hate it even more.

  He hadn’t given up on the idea of telling her exactly what she could do with her stupid coaching and development targets; it wasn’t the worst idea in the world and even the thought of doing it made him stand up straighter.

  Even better, it would be sweet to give her a slap at the same time. Wipe that smug grin off her pompous little face, pick up his flask and walk out with his head held high. She’d probably sue him though, and he couldn’t f
ace going through all of that again.

  Jim had been brought up with a cast iron set of unwritten rules: you never hit a woman; you never swore in front of a woman and you never cried. That was what made a man.

  Beyond that, of course, there were the ten commandments and the laws of the land but, as far as they went, there tended to be a lot more flexibility. It was like that pirate bloke said in the Disney films his girls loved; they were more like ‘guidelines’.

  But, circumstances changed. Even cast-iron rules got broken and, once broken, the shattered pieces could never be put back together.

  Jim hadn’t gone home from the pub after he learnt about Julie’s betrayal.

  After Bonehead had told him what little he knew, the temptation to storm out and across the road to confront her was almost overwhelming.

  But, a small voice inside him held him back, and he chose the only alternative – to test the boundaries of science and medicine and find out just how much whisky a man could drink without dying.

  His mates must have looked out for him, as he’d woken up face down on Phil’s living room floor, having apparently fallen off the sofa at some point during the night. As he lifted his head, the memories of stale Hamlets and whisky-flavoured bile were still oozing from the rancid carpet fibres which were stuck to his tongue.

  He couldn’t remember getting home or anything else that had happened as the night degenerated, but Bonehead’s words were seared into his memory in black, charred letters six feet high. Even as he bent over the stained toilet bowl, hacking and retching, the images of Julie with Grant Andrews wouldn’t leave him in peace.

  He knew Grant, of course. Grant worked for Dave Vickers and could often be seen round and about in his white BMW, black aviators pushed back over his pathetic comb-over. He was a nasty, vicious little man and word was that Dave used him whenever he had a need to send a message that couldn’t be misunderstood.

  Jim swilled his mouth out with tepid tap water and staggered into the kitchen where Phil was hunched over the sink, trying to fill the kettle. Jim was pleased to see that Phil looked as bad as Jim felt.

  ‘Where’s the tea?’ he said.

  Phil reached down and pulled a box out of a drawer. ‘Got no milk though,’ he said. ‘Not been so good with the shopping since Sal left. Might be some powdered.’ He scrabbled about in the grimy cupboard next to the water heater and grunted with apparent surprise as he pulled out a half-full jar of CoffeeMate. ‘Who’d have thought it?’ he said, plonking it down on the unit. ‘Who says I ain’t got it together?’

  The two men stood leaning against the kitchen units sipping their tea. It was still early and the weak January sunlight, combined with the overhead fluorescent tubes, did nothing to add colour or life to Phil’s grey, pasty face. Jim suspected that they looked like a pair of corpses propped upright as part of some sick undertaker’s joke.

  ‘Grant Andrews,’ said Jim. ‘Grant Fucking Andrews?’

  Phil looked down at his cup and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘And you knew?’ said Jim.

  ‘Of course I fucking knew,’ said Phil. ‘Everyone knew.’

  ‘And you didn’t think it might be an idea to tell me?’

  ‘No. I didn’t think that would be a fucking clever idea,’ said Phil. ‘What fucking use would that have been? You were in Ulster and some of us still had to live round here.’

  ‘So is it over, then?’

  ‘As far as I know, it’s been over for a year.’ Phil looked up at Jim. ‘I’m sorry mate, but would you have told me? If it hadn’t been for fucking Bonehead …’

  Jim couldn’t help smiling. ‘How many times have we said that?’ said Jim, his laugh turning into a choking cough. ‘If it hadn’t been for fucking Bonehead … Why’s he still around?’

  ‘Beats me,’ said Phil.

  They stood in silence while Jim struggled to control the images which wouldn’t stop flashing in front of him. ‘Grant Fucking Andrews,’ he said again. Streaks and blotches of crimson were spreading across his waxy cheeks and he could feel the rage building.

  ‘You can’t do anything, Jim,’ said Phil. ‘Grant’s on the inside. You can’t touch him.’

  ‘Do I look like someone who gives a fuck?’ said Jim as he picked up his jacket and turned towards the door.

  Julie must have seen him coming out of Phil’s and was waiting for him in the narrow hall. She didn’t have a rolling pin in her hand but her hands were firmly planted on her hips and she was clearly planning on giving him a proper earful.

  As Jim walked into the house and closed the door behind him, Julie stood facing him, mouth half open, angry words half spoken, frozen in mid flow. She’d seen the look in his eyes.

  Jim was pleased to see that he still had the presence to put her in her place without a word, but it didn’t do much to help his struggle for self-control. He ached all over and the pain from the nail gun working overtime on his right temple was curdling the stale tea in his stomach. The only thing holding him upright was the burning flame of betrayal and that was threatening to overwhelm him.

  ‘What is it, Jim?’ said Julie, stepping towards him. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘How could you?’ Jim shrank back, pressing himself against the door and lifting a hand in warning. He was surprised to hear his own voice, calm and controlled and quite unlike him.

  Julie wasn’t reading the signals and came closer, arms stretching towards him. ‘How could I what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  It wasn’t Jim’s hand that slapped her. Twice. Hard.

  As she spun sideways and fell, smacking her head into the door jamb, Jim remembered thinking that she deserved that and more.

  ‘Slag!’ he said. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t find out?’

  Her eyes changed colour, two black circles filled with fear. She knew what he was talking about, she knew she’d crossed the line and this was the day that had always been coming.

  It wasn’t the time for Jim to take things further though. Apart from the fact that he could barely stand upright, it would be best to let her stew for a while. He looked at her lying there; she’d pushed herself back to the foot of the stairs and was curled up in a ball, bright blood flowing from her nose and pooling crimson on her white blouse.

  Julie’s hands were lifted in a weak, half-hearted attempt to protect herself and the look in her eyes said ‘please don’t hit me again.’ Jim liked that. This wasn’t over, but it was a good start.

  He pushed past her roughly and started up the stairs. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said. ‘Clean yourself up.’ He turned when he got to the top of the stairs. ‘… And don’t fucking go anywhere.’

  He wasn’t proud that he’d hit Julie and it had only ever happened on four, maybe five, occasions afterwards; he’d never taken it too far, but the worrying thing was that he’d enjoyed the feeling every time. It was like a cocaine rush, filling him with strength, wellbeing and invulnerability.

  Slapping Janet, the supervisor, wouldn’t come with any complicated guilt strings. She had just finished with Will and was walking across the hall towards him with her no-nonsense gait. Each step was identical, her sensible heels clacking against the tiles in perfect clockwork rhythm.

  ‘Good morning, Jim. How are we this morning?’ She looked him up and down with a sneer as though so much about Jim was sub-standard that she didn’t know where to start. It was like the first day of army basic training – bad enough when you’re eighteen, but now? He was sixty-two for Christ’s sake.

  ‘Good morning Janet. I’m all right thanks.’

  ‘Everything in order here?’ She surveyed the hall with her supervisor’s eyes, blessed with superpowers which a mere security guard couldn’t imagine.

  ‘Seems to be. Never seen it so quiet though.’ Jim only had to endure this for a couple of minutes and then she’d be on her way.

  ‘What about him?’ she said, nodding her head towards Dan.

  ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on him
and don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Five minutes ago he was chatting to a young girl and looked perky enough then.’ Jim peered at Dan who had put his book down on the bench and was leaning forward, hands gripping his knees. ‘He doesn’t look so great just now,’ Jim said. ‘I’ll give you that … But he’s no spring chicken is he?’

  ‘Indeed no,’ said Hatchet Face, drawing herself up to her full five foot two. ‘Have you any idea what would happen if someone died on our shift. We’d be up to our necks in bureaucracy for hours.’ She smoothed her skirt and straightened her black jacket – supervisors didn’t have to wear the stupid fleeces. ‘I don’t know about you, but I have plans this evening and need to leave on time.’

  She gave Jim a look which made it clear that he’d let the side down again, sighed and turned towards Dan. ‘Seeing as I’m here, I might as well go and check on him myself,’ she said, before launching back into her metronome march.

  Hassan

  Hassan had felt strong fingers digging into his upper arm as his father steered him towards one of the matching coffee-brown armchairs and eased him down without speaking. The chairs were still covered in protective plastic which squeaked in protest as he sank into the soft cushions.

  Nothing was going as planned. He’d made up his mind about Oxford and had been ready for a fight. He knew his dad and had no delusions about his expectations of obedience. ‘My way or the highway’ was a favourite in the Qureishi household, usually delivered with a horrific cowboy accent and a satisfied chuckle.

  But, there had been no fight and his father had even given the impression that he was proud of his son for making up his own mind. The events of the previous days had turned Hassan’s world on its head and he felt reality slipping away. There had to be a catch.

  And, of course, there was.

  ‘Dad. Look. I’m really sorry to mess you around but …’