by Chris Ryan
‘It’s too easy for them to track your calls. Mine too. You want my advice? Forget you ever saw me. And don’t mention anything of this to anybody. Ever.’ They were in the kitchen now. Sam turned to took at her. Clare had her arms wrapped around her, embracing herself as though no one else would.
‘I won’t see you again, will I?’ she asked quietly.
Sam narrowed his eyes. ‘No,’ he replied. There wasn’t any point stringing the girl along.
She nodded with the expression of a child coming to terms with something difficult to understand. ‘You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Sam.’ She tried to make light of it, but when she spoke again her voice was little more than a whisper.
‘Those people,’ she said. ‘At the training camp. Are you… Are you really going to kill them, Sam? After everything I’ve told you, is that really what you’re going to do?’
The question hung in the air. Sam looked darkly at her. Any number of responses came into his head, but he knew none of them would be appropriate. He looked towards the back door. He would leave that way. Just in case.
He walked up to Clare and lightly touched his fingers to her cheek. The skin was soft and warm.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell anybody I was here. I have to know I can trust you.’
She looked steadily into his eyes. For a moment she didn’t respond. When she did, her question came out of the blue.
‘Why’s your brother there, Sam? What’s he doing?’
Sam refused to allow any emotion to show on his face. Clare was making him address things he was trying not to think about. What did Jacob’s presence at the training camp mean? It was an MI5 facility. Was he being held captive? Was he being forced into something? Once more, his father’s conspiracy theories flashed through his mind. He did what he could to subdue them. They made no difference to what he had to do.
‘I have to know I can trust you.’ He ignored Clare’s question and repeated his own.
‘You can trust me,’ she said quietly.
He nodded. Somehow he knew she was telling the truth.
‘I have to go,’ he said, and without another word he raised the blinds, unlocked the door and slipped back out into the garden.
Jamie Spillane looked at his watch. Midday. Maybe he had slept or maybe he hadn’t. In any case he was still lying on the bed wearing the same clothes from last night. The rumbling in his stomach was telling him it was time to eat. He pushed himself heavily on to his feet and surveyed the debris of fast-food packaging on the floor around him. Jesus. He’d only been here twenty-four hours and it already looked like a shit hole. Smelt like a shit hole, too. He probably wasn’t too fresh himself, but the thought of taking a shower in the grubby communal bathroom wasn’t very appealing.
He grabbed his wallet and stuffed it into the pocket of his baggy jeans, then left the room, taking care to lock the door behind him. There were other people staying here, as well as a nosy landlady, and he could tell that they would rifle through his room without a second thought if they reckoned they could get away with it. He knew, because he would do the same. Fortunately, though, he didn’t bump into any of them as he descended the three storeys of uncarpeted stairway, opened the main door to the faceless mid-terrace which housed the room he was renting and stepped out into the street. The sun was bright today. It made him wince, like an insect on an upturned brick. Instinctively, he pulled his hood over his head. It didn’t keep the sun out of his eyes, but it did make him feel more comfortable as he tramped down the pavement.
It took a while to find a supermarket. There were plenty of shops in this run-down area of North London, but they mostly sold cheap booze and cut-price phone cards. By the time he saw the familiar blue logo, he’d been walking for a good twenty minutes and was, he realised, a bit lost. He shrugged. He’d soon find his way back again. It wasn’t like there was anything else in the diary, after all.
The shop was almost empty; the few customers were elderly, pushing or carrying almost empty baskets of ready meals and cheap teabags. Jamie wandered the aisles aimlessly. He put chocolate milk and sandwiches in his basket before approaching the checkouts. There were only two of them open and so, despite the relatively few customers, each till had a queue. He joined the shortest and waited.
There was only one customer ahead of him when his mobile phone rang. Jamie pulled it out and looked at the screen. No number was displayed; to his surprise he noticed a little lurch in his stomach as he wondered if it might, just possibly, be Kelly. He placed his basket at the end of the counter and started to offload his purchases onto the moving belt with one hand. With the other, he answered the phone.
‘Yeah?’ he said. Cool. He didn’t want to give anything away.
A crackly kind of pause.
‘Hello?’ Jamie bellowed in the way only people talking into mobiles can. Briefly he considered hanging up, but at that moment a voice spoke.
‘Jamie Spillane?’ it asked.
Jamie couldn’t place the voice. ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded.
Another pause. ‘You know who it is.’
Jamie blinked. The checkout girl had scanned his items and was looking up at him with a bored, impatient expression. ‘Four pounds eighty-six,’ she said, a bit too loudly, as though she were saying it for a second time. Jamie hardly heard her. He left his lunch languishing by the plastic bags and hurried away from the checkout and out the shop.
‘I thought you’d forgotten I existed,’ he said under his breath. Silence. He was on the street now. The traffic was noisy. ‘Hello?’
‘You knew it could be some time.’ The more the voice spoke, the more Jamie recognised it. ‘The company is activating you.’
The company. Jamie knew what that meant. He knew that nobody would ever use the phrase ‘MI5’.
‘I’m listening,’ he replied. He had a finger shoved into his other ear to keep out the noise and it crossed his mind that this wasn’t quite how he had imagined things would happen. ‘Are you there?’ he asked when there was no reply.
‘I’m here.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
Again a pause.
‘Have you told anyone, Jamie?’
He was glad nobody was there to see his face. ‘Of course not,’ he replied. No hint of a lie in his voice. A bus had come to a halt just in front of him. Passengers spilled out and one of them caught his eye. Jamie started walking, speaking as he went. ‘Don’t worry about it, mate. It’s all cool.’
He carried on walking. His mouth felt dry. Jamie was frightened of the man at the other end of the phone. But he had to keep silent. He didn’t want to get Kelly involved in this stuff.
Silence. He continued to walk briskly. Randomly. He was getting a bit out of breath now – through exercise or excitement, he wasn’t quite sure which – so he came to a halt on the corner of a residential street. It was quieter here.
‘So,’ he said. ‘What do I need to do? What’s the job?’
He held his breath as he waited for the answer.
‘The job,’ the voice replied, ‘is difficult. But it’s important, Jamie. Lives depend on it. We’re asking you because you showed more aptitude than the others. Can we count on you?’
Jamie’s face twitched. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, you can.’
‘Good. You need to listen carefully, Jamie. If you don’t understand something, ask me to repeat it. Do you understand?’
Jamie looked around. The residential street was practically deserted; certainly nobody was paying him any attention. That was good. He pulled himself up to his full height. All of a sudden, he felt tall again. Excited. Useful. The row with Kelly, the shitty bedsit – all that disappeared from his mind.
‘Yeah,’ he announced into the receiver. ‘I understand. Go ahead. I’m listening…’
EIGHT
Sam’s dream had stayed with him, a shadow that haunted him for the rest of the day, just as it had haunted his night. Other things haunted him too. Clare�
�s story; the anonymous package. Who had given it to him? No matter how hard he thought about it, he just couldn’t make things add up. Driving back from London he could barely keep his car straight, let alone his thoughts. But as he approached the outskirts of Hereford, he realised he had come to a decision. And if he was going to pull it off, he had to pretend that everything was normal.
He headed straight for Credenhill. There were things that needed to be done before the op. The last thing Sam wanted to do at the moment was see any of the guys, but he had to make sure he was prepared. Pretend nothing’s wrong, he told himself. Pretend it’s just an ordinary op. If he didn’t put in an appearance, people might start to ask questions.
It was midday by the time he approached the weapons store and it was with relief, as he stepped inside, that he saw it was just him and the armourer. He was a tall man with short, spiky hair. Sam didn’t know his name. He hoped there’d be no wisecracks from him, no inappropriate questions about what use the weapons he dished out were going to be put to.
‘Didn’t think I’d be seeing your lot so soon,’ he observed drily.
A little voice in Sam’s head told him to act naturally. If you can’t keep it up in the armoury, he told himself, you’ll have no chance in the field. ‘Gluttons for fucking punishment,’ he replied before flashing a forced, rueful smile.
‘Diemaco?’
Sam nodded. ‘And the Sig.’
Each man’s weapon was particular to him. The rifle and handgun that Sam would be taking to Kazakhstan were the same ones that had kept him alive in Helmand Province; the same ones that had claimed more Taliban scalps in the previous few weeks than Sam could frankly remember. The armourer kept the weapons separate, safe and ordered in this locked, secure building. But it was up to Sam to test fire his guns on the range in preparation for the op, to make sure that they were still zeroed in to his eye. It took the armourer less than a minute silently to locate his Diemaco C8 and place it carefully on the counter along with a small box of 45 mm rounds. The Sig followed, a P226 with a 9 mm chamber and an extended twenty-round magazine. A box of rounds for the handgun and Sam was good to go. The armourer listed what Sam was checking out, then handed over the slip of paper for him to sign. He scrawled his illegible signature at the bottom of the paper, nodded curtly at the armourer and gathered up his weapons.
There were two guys at the range already, both from Sam’s troop. Jack Craven and Luke Tyler had been out with him in the Stan. Good lads. Young. Up for it. The sort of troopers who would be down the range whether there was an operation in the offing or not. Sam stood back and watched their practice rounds. They were both firing their Diemacos and their aims were both true. By the time they had finished shooting, the body-shaped targets at the end of the range were punctured in all the right places. They lowered their weapons, then turned round.
‘What you gawking at, Granddad?’ Craven called good-naturedly. He was a Geordie and thought that gave him a licence to take the piss out of everyone.
Sam winked it at him, then turned to look through the window of the small hut that overlooked the range. He couldn’t quite see who was in charge, but whoever it was gave him a thumbs up. Sam sniffed and approached one of the firing alleys. He carefully laid the Sig on the ground behind him, before loading the Diemaco, pressing the butt of the weapon into his shoulder and taking aim.
He had lost count of the number of times he had stood at this range, firing the same weapon at the same target. It was routine. Comfortable. The sort of thing he could do in his sleep. But as Sam stood there, the two younger troopers looking on, he found himself shaking. Anger, he realised. And frustration. His lips were curled, his face set; and as he lined up the sights to the target, he noticed that it felt good to have this gun in his fist. It made him feel in control. He discharged the weapon in a single, brutal burst. His aim was perfect: each round thundered into the head of his target; by the time he had finished, his cardboard enemy was fully decapitated. Swapping one weapon for the other, he loaded the Sig and, discharging it at arm’s length, gave the target a bellyful of lead. And with each shot he felt better. Not less angry. Just better. The cloak-and-dagger letters, the spooks with secret agendas – they weren’t what Sam was built for. This was. It felt good to be a soldier again.
He lowered his weapon, then turned back to the other two. They were watching him, arms folded and with grins of appreciation on their faces. ‘Like fish in a fuckin’ barrel!’ Craven shouted as Sam walked up to join them. The younger man clapped a big hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘Shame it weren’t our bearded mates from Now Zad at the end of the alley.’
Sam smiled. ‘I’d have fuckin’ RPG’d them if it was,’ he replied.
‘What’s the gossip, then?’ Tyler asked out of the blue. He was a broad-shouldered Cockney with a rugby-player’s nose and a werewolf’s eyebrows. ‘How come we’re being sent straight back out?’
Sam shrugged. ‘No gossip,’ he said quietly. ‘Least, if there is, I haven’t heard it.’
‘Fuckin’ out of order if you ask me,’ Craven announced, ignoring the fact that nobody had. Sam couldn’t help feeling, though, that despite his words he didn’t sound all that offended. ‘“B” Squadron on standby,’ he continued. ‘Bunch of fuckin’ lard-arses that lot. Probably want to send some real shooters out, make sure the job gets done proper.’ He started singing his own words, rather tunelessly, to a song Sam half recognised. ‘You say HALO, I say goodbye…’
The three of them smiled at Craven’s remarks. No one really thought that badly about the other squadrons, but slagging them off was a common enough way to pass the time. Back at the armoury they signed their weapons back in. ‘Everything as it should be, gentlemen?’ the armourer asked.
‘We’ll sign them out again in the morning,’ said Sam. He nodded at Craven and Tyler, then left the armoury without another word. In the morning he would return well before the RV time to assemble his weapons and pack his kit, but until then he wanted to be out of there.
Back home he paced the flat throughout the afternoon. He ate dinner in a café, then returned to pacing into the small hours, playing over the events of the last couple of days, trying to make sense of them, without success. His head was a jumble of images: Jacob’s picture; the faceless figure at his door; Clare’s terrified face and the tempting curve of her body in the moonlit room; her story. Even now he didn’t know which bits of it to believe. He tried to sleep, his handgun resting by his side. But sleep wasn’t going to come. Not tonight. And as the grey light of morning appeared once more, Sam felt almost as if he were in a dream. There was something unreal about what he was about to do. For years he had followed orders without question. It was hard-wired into him. Second nature. Even after Jacob had been expelled from the Regiment; even after Sam and Mac had been told, in no uncertain terms, that if they ever leaked what had happened that day to anyone they would be facing court martial; even then, with all the anger that came with it, he had stayed loyal. He hated the authorities that had belittled and humiliated his brother; but he had never been fighting for them. He had been fighting for the men who stood alongside him, the men he risked his lives with. That was what it was all about.
Only now everything had changed.
Now, he wasn’t fighting with the men in his troop. He was fighting against them. And they didn’t even know it. As Sam prepared to return to HQ, he knew that his objective was different to everyone else’s. If his brother was at the camp, there was no way Sam would let him come to harm.
It made Sam sick to the stomach to acknowledge it, but if that meant putting the operation at risk, then that was the way it had to be.
*
Credenhill. 07.00. Sam walked into his single-bunk room. The kit he had dumped in here only a couple of days before was still lying on the floor. Vaguely aware of the bustle and noise of the other guys in his corridor doing the same thing, he upturned the bergen so that everything fell out, then carefully went about the business of repacking. It wa
s reassuring to be performing this familiar, repetitive process. It made him feel calmer. More focussed. His sleeping bag was filled with thick Afghan dust. He shook it out before rolling it back up and stashing it with his Goretex bivvy bag. It was an in-and-out job, and if everything went as it should he wouldn’t require either item, but he needed to be prepared. He checked his bright halogen torch and then his small med pack. Sleeping tablets, aspirin, swabs. The patrol medic would have the big stuff – drips, morphine and all the rest of it – so that the rest of the guys could travel a bit lighter. At the squadron stores there was already a buzz of activity. Sam kept himself to himself, speaking only when he was spoken to, as he took a handful of unappetising ration packs to stash away with his kit. Boil-in-the-bag chicken curry with powered soup starter, a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar. All made by some mysterious, unheard-of manufacturer based up in Scotland. There was also something that he understood to be a biscuit, but looked more like a large, circular piece of mould. The boiled sweets were the only item that wouldn’t taste of shit. The Americans got to have gourmet packs made by designer chefs, and the Regiment got meals that some Jock had probably shat directly into. Fucking nice to be appreciated. At the signal store he signed out his sat phones and comms kit, returning to his bunk to stow them carefully away before going back to the armoury to get himself tooled up.
The Diemaco was waiting for him, of course, along with a matt black device that looked like a camera but was in fact a thermal imaging sight for the carbine. Sam signed out his Sig along with the ammo he needed, as well as a stash of flashbangs, white phosphorous and fragmentation grenades. They would be hitting the camp at night, so the 4th generation NV sights were essential. Back at his bunk, Sam removed the jeans, shirt and jacket that he’d been wearing for a couple of days. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the wall. His face was unshaven; there were dark rings under his eyes. For a fraction of a second he saw his brother staring back. Sam took a sharp intake of breath and looked away.