Osama

by Chris Ryan

  Gardner noticed two guys with Para, one at either shoulder. The guy on the left was shaven-headed with dull black eyes and the kind of hulking frame that you only get from injecting dodgy Bulgarian ’roids. He wore a grey hoodie and dark combats. Gardner noticed he was clutching a battery-operated planer. The guy on Para’s right stood six-five. A reflective yellow jacket hung like a tent from his scrawny frame. He smiled and revealed a line of coffee-brown teeth. He was holding a sledgehammer. Raindrops were cascading off the tip of its black head.

  ‘Call yourself a Blade,’ Para said. ‘You’re just a washed-up cunt.’

  Hoodie and Black Teeth laughed like Para was Ricky Gervais back when he was funny.

  Gardner began scraping himself off the pavement. The rain hissed. The guys were crowding around him now. He swayed uneasily on his feet.

  Black Teeth was gripping the sledgehammer with both hands. He stood with his feet apart in a golf-swing posture and raised the hammer above his right shoulder. Gardner knew he should be ducking out of the way but the booze had made him woozy. Dumbly he watched as the hammer swung down at him.

  Straight into his solar plexus. Thud!

  A million different pains fired in the wall of his chest. He heard something snap in there. Heard it, then felt it. His ribcage screamed. He dropped to his knees and sucked in air. The valley of his chest exploded. He looked up and saw Black Teeth standing triumphantly over him.

  ‘What a joke,’ he said.

  Black Teeth went to swipe again but Hoodie came between them, wanted a piece of the action for himself. He’d fired up the planer and was aiming it at Gardner’s temple. Gardner managed to climb to his knees. He didn’t have the energy to stand on two feet, but he wasn’t going to lie down and leave himself defenceless. First rule of combat, he reminded himself: always try to stay on your toes. The planer buzzed angrily. Gardner was alert now, his body flooded with endorphins and adrenalin. In a blur he quickly sidestepped to the left and out of the path of the planer. Momentum carried Hoodie forwards, his forearm brushing Gardner’s face, the planer chopping the air.

  Then Gardner unclenched his left hand and thrust the open palm into Hoodie’s chest. Winded the cunt. Hoodie yelped as he dropped to the ground. The planer flew out of his hands and Gardner reached for it, but Black Teeth was on top of him and bringing the sledgehammer in a downward arc again. Gardner feinted, dropping his shoulder and leaving Black Teeth swiping at nothing. Out of the corner of his eye Gardner spied Para fishing something out of his jacket. Gardner folded his fingers in tightly and jabbed his knuckles at Black Teeth’s throat. He could feel the bone denting the soft cartilage rings of the guy’s trachea. The sledgehammer rang as it hit the deck.

  Para had a knife in his hands now. Gardner recognized the distinctive fine tip of a Gerber Compact.

  ‘Fuck it, you cunt,’ said Para. ‘Come on then.’

  Para lunged at Gardner, angling the Gerber at his neck. Gardner shunted his right hand across and jerked his head in the same direction, pushing the blade away. Then he launched an uppercut at Para’s face. His face was a stew of blood and bone.

  Gardner moved in for the kill. He grabbed the planer and lamped it against the side of Para’s face. Para groaned as he fumbled blindly for the Gerber.

  Too late.

  Gardner yanked Para’s right arm. He pinned his right knee against the guy’s elbow, trapping his forearm in place. Then he depressed the button to start the planer. The tool whirred above the incessant rain as he slid it along the surface of Para’s forearm. The blade tore off strips of flesh. A pinkish-red slush spewed out of the side of the device. Gardner drove the planer further up Para’s arm. His scream turned into something animal. The skin below was totally shredded, a gooey mess of veins coiled around whitish bone. It didn’t look like an arm any longer. More like something a pack of Staffies had feasted on.

  Pleased with his work, Gardner eased off the button and ditched the planer. It clattered to the ground, sputtered, whined and died.

  The rain was now a murmur.

  ‘My arm,’ Para said. ‘My fucking arm!’

  ‘I see you again, next time it’s your face.’ Gardner’s voice was as sharp as cut glass. ‘Are we fucking clear?’

  Gardner didn’t wait for an answer. He gave his back to the three fucked-up pricks and walked down the road, past the construction site. He had reached a crossroads in his life. Lately he’d been getting into a lot of scraps. And deep down he was afraid of admitting to himself that fighting was all he was good for. The problem was, he was no longer an operator. His injury had reduced him to cleaning rifles and hauling HESCO blocks around Hereford, and the suit did not fit a fucking inch.

  He was a couple of hundred metres from the site when his mobile sparked up. A shitty old Nokia. Gardner could afford an iPhone 4, but only in his dreams. The number on the screen wasn’t one he recognized. An 0207 number. London. He tapped the answer key.

  ‘Is that Mr Joseph Gardner?’

  The voice was female and corporate. The kind of tone that belonged in airport announcements. Pressing the phone closer to his ear, Gardner said, ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Nancy Rayner here. I’m calling from Talisman International.’

  Gardner rubbed his temples, trying to clear the fog of booze behind his eyeballs. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  ‘The security consultancy?’ the woman went on. ‘You submitted a job application . . . let me see . . .’ Gardner heard the shuffle of papers ‘. . . two weeks ago.’

  Her words jolted his mind. Fucking yes. He did recall applying for a job. He also recalled thinking he had next to no hope of getting it. Talisman were one of the new boys on the security circuit. He’d not heard anything, and figured it was the same better-luck-elsewhere story.

  ‘We’d like to invite you for an interview.’

  Gardner fell silent.

  ‘Mr Gardner?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How does tomorrow sound? One o’clock at our offices?’

  It sounded better than good. It was fucking great.

  He said simply, ‘OK.’

  ‘Excellent. So we’ll see you tomorrow at one.’

  Click.

  Gardner was left listening to dead air. Suddenly the drunken mist behind his eyes was lifting. He tucked the mobile away, dug his hands into his jacket pockets and quickened his pace.

  Maybe he wouldn’t be hauling gravel around Hereford for the rest of his miserable life.