Stand By Stand By

by Chris Ryan

  After a while the chief ran out of questions, so I asked a couple myself.

  ‘What’s happened to the hire-car?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be taken care of.’

  ‘The keys were in the pocket of my windproof.’

  ‘Yes. We found them.’

  ‘Have you informed my people that I’m here?’

  He picked up a telephone and spoke briefly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they know. There’s someone on the way over. Meanwhile, we’ll get the doctor to clean up that cut. When did you last have anything to eat?’

  I stared at him. Was he offering me food? What was this place? A fucking hotel with cells? I had to think back. Of course – we’d had lunch with my in-laws. ‘About one o’clock.’

  ‘Do you want something now?’

  I shook my head. I couldn’t have eaten a thing. ‘No, thanks.’

  The custody sergeant took me along to the medical room, where a doctor cleaned the rip on my temple, declared that it didn’t need stitching, sprayed it with disinfectant, and put a dressing over it. He also took a look at the puncture-marks on my ankle and gave them similar treatment.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll get rabies,’ he said, ‘but you’d better have an anti-tet.’ When he saw the bruises on my shoulders he said, ‘You may be glad to know that you’ve got one broken police nose to your credit.’

  Back in the cell, I sat on the bed with my mind spinning. There was no way I could start telling lies within the Regiment. The only thing to do would be to admit the truth. But, Jesus – the humiliation of it! Not only had I broken all the rules and tried to take out a target on my own, but I’d failed to carry out the operation efficiently. I’d failed to recce the ground properly, failed to notice that I was under surveillance, failed in everything.

  The minutes crawled past, and I felt sick with remorse. Nine o’clock. Tracy would be home by now. Suddenly I wanted contact with her. I’d promised to call.

  I pressed the button beside the door, to sound the buzzer. Presently the hatch opened and a face appeared outside the grille.

  ‘Is it possible to make a telephone call?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘Can you make a call on my behalf?’

  ‘Only to inform someone that you’re in custody.’

  Bloody hell! That was the last thing I wanted her to hear. So I said, ‘Forget it, then,’ and tried to settle down.

  At last, about 9.30, there was a stir out in the corridor, and I heard several pairs of boots on the floor. The door of the cell swung open, and my heart jumped. There was Tom, a bit haggard and drawn, but big and reassuring all the same. I could have embraced the old bugger, I was so glad to see him.

  ‘Is this him?’ asked the custody sergeant.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘D’you want to have a word with him?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They ushered Tom into the cell and closed the door. For a few seconds he stood looking at me as if I was a ghost. Then he said, ‘For fuck’s sake, Geordie, what’s this about?’

  I glanced round the shiny yellow walls. ‘Tom, I can’t talk in here. I’m sure the place is bugged. For Christ’s sake get me out.’

  ‘Yes, but what the bloody hell have you been doing? You’ve dropped a king-sized bollock, I can tell you. The shit’s hit the fan in a big way. You’re a fucking disgrace to the Regiment.’

  That was the nearest I’d ever heard Tom come to shouting. Then he calmed down a bit and said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re going. You’re not under arrest. But what the hell have you done?’

  ‘Nothing. I haven’t killed anybody. I haven’t threatened anybody. I haven’t damaged any property. Nothing.’

  ‘What’s the problem, then?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get out of here. There’s one thing, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The bastards here have entered me in their records. I saw them doing it. We’ll need to get the entry erased.’

  ‘Don’t worry. That’s in hand. This has gone right to the head-shed in Hereford.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Yep. They’re closing everything down in double time. If any mention of it gets out, you’ll really be in it. Meanwhile, I’ve got to take responsibility for you. Let’s get you out of those fucking pyjamas, for a start.’

  Tom banged on the door until someone opened it, then called for my kit to be returned. While I was dressing he went out to deal with the chief superintendent. I don’t know what arrangement he made, but somehow he got things well enough squared away to take me with him. The hire-car was still on my mind; I felt in the pocket of my windproof, and found that the keys had gone. I had visions of the Datsun sitting in the wood for weeks, and a phenomenal bill from the hire company winging in my direction. But when I mentioned the problem to the custody sergeant, he said the same thing as before: the car had been dealt with.

  Tom had brought two vehicles, for mutual back-up, but as I rode back across the city in his company we couldn’t talk, because the driver was from the pool and possibly insecure. Only when we reached the ops room was it possible to open up.

  By then it was eleven o’clock. The boss had come in, or stayed up, specially to see me. He sat at a desk, with me in front of him and Tom beside me, together with a clerk to take notes and work the tape recorder. I was relieved to find the atmosphere reasonably sympathetic; everybody was puzzled and worried, but not too hostile.

  ‘You look knackered, Geordie,’ the boss began. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘Not since lunch.’

  ‘What about a cup of tea?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘And a sandwich? Yes.’ He called through the open door, ‘Get us a sandwich and a cup of tea, will you?’

  As somebody went off to the canteen, he said, ‘By rights I should be sending you down to Lisburn, but there’s something big on there and they can’t deal with you. I can’t deal with you either, but I’ve been told to take down a preliminary statement. So – what happened?’

  I told them everything – that I’d found out that Farrell was behind the bomb that killed Kath, and that I’d tracked him down and stalked him. When the boss asked how I’d got my information, I just said, ‘From the RUC.’ Then Tom asked where the Luger had come from, and I had to admit that I’d nicked it after the car hit. Everything I said seemed to sound flat and ordinary. There was nothing impressive about my performance, and I finished up lamely by saying, ‘I suppose I got a bit obsessed.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Tom scratched his grizzled head. ‘You went off your bloody rocker.’

  Somebody brought the sandwich and mug of tea, and I got them down me. I felt curiously calm, as if everything was now over and done with. I said, ‘Can I ask something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘How was it I got lifted?’

  The boss gave a wry smile. ‘I checked with the Det, and it appears you weren’t the only person chasing that target. People have been watching him for a couple of months. You’re right that he’s one of the leading players, and now he’s getting into drugs. Apparently our little plans are maturing nicely – so the last thing they wanted was to have Farrell topped just as he was about to lead them on to something hot. When you came on the scene, they weren’t very pleased.’

  I sat silent as this information sank in, remembering how, on my first CTR, Farrell and his two companions had staggered from the Mercedes to the barn with those heavy cases. I thought, Should I mention that now? Then I decided not to, as I didn’t want to start being cross-examined by RUC agents. The boss jolted me back to the present by saying, ‘Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I can say is that you’re off back to Hereford first thing in the morning.’

  I looked at Tom, as if to question the ruling, but he only said, ‘That’s you finished in Northern Ireland, right enough. You’d better shift your arse and get packed, because the chopper’s coming in at nine o’clock.’

  It
felt extraordinary to be back in camp so suddenly, so far ahead of expectations. People I knew were surprised to see me, and asked what was up. I took refuge in simple evasions – ‘Just back for a few days,’ and so on. In theory I could have been on leave, as guys from the troop got a week’s leave every month. But if I was on leave, why was I hanging around the Lines?

  By the end of my first day back I’d had bollockings aplenty. But on the whole the mood was sombre rather than angry; there was no screaming and shouting, more puzzlement. When I went in on CO’s orders, I was sat down and told how stupid I’d been. ‘Surely you realize by now that we do things in small teams,’ the colonel said. ‘That’s the whole basis of the Regiment.’ He had very clear, pale blue eyes that penetrated like lasers, and now I was getting the full glare.

  ‘What we do not do is bugger off and try to carry out idiotic missions on our own. For all you knew – for all the checking you’d done – we could have been running an operation of our own against Farrell. You could have ended up shooting some of your own mates, or vice versa. It’s bad enough to have fallen foul of the HMSU. It makes us look a load of pricks. An own-goal would have been that much worse.’

  I nodded. There was nothing I could say.

  The CO leafed through some papers on his desk. ‘The pity of it is, you were doing very well until then. I’ve got some positive reports here. You were making an excellent comeback after your various problems. Now you’ve gone and blown it.’

  He put his thumbs to his cheekbones and his fingers to his temples, staring down at the desk-top as though his head was aching. ‘If I RTU’d you, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Would you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘By rights, you should be RTU’d. If a thing like this got out it could do tremendous damage to the Regiment. But in view of what you went through in the Gulf, and losing your wife, we’re prepared to give you another chance. At the same time, to show I’m not condoning what you did, I’m putting you on a three months’ warning. As you know, any slip-ups during that period, and you’ll be out.

  ‘Also, I’m going to fine you heavily. I’ve discussed your case with the Director in London, and he’s instructed me to fine you £2,500. I’ve got no alternative. Is there anything you want to say?’

  Again I shook my head. The fine was fearsome – a whole month’s pay, which I knew would be stopped at source. That month, there’d simply be nothing coming into my account.

  ‘You’re to take a week off, while things settle down,’ the CO was saying. ‘You live out, don’t you? Well, keep out of camp for that time. The most important thing is that nobody else should know what has happened. If you have to say anything, say there was a personality clash, as a result of which you had to come home. If what you did leaks out, that’ll constitute an offence under your three months’ warning. Understood?’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Don’t forget: the bottom line is that you’ve got to pull yourself together properly. From now on you’re really going to be watched. If you want to survive, you’ll have to get your finger out.’

  By the time all that was over, it was early afternoon. I reckoned Tracy would already be back at Keeper’s Cottage, so I phoned her there. She was amazed to hear that I was in Hereford. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘Come over for a day?’

  ‘For good,’ I said. ‘Things have changed a bit. I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m heading out now.’

  ‘Why didn’t you phone last night?’

  ‘I couldn’t. Tell you in a minute.’

  It seemed incredible that I’d said goodbye to her at Belfast City Airport less than twenty-four hours earlier. Half my life seemed to have gone by since then.

  I was going to call for a taxi. Then I thought about my fine and changed my mind. After a while I managed to press one of the cooks into making a diversion on his way home and giving me a lift. I even made him stop at a flower shop while I ran in. There I had to curb my natural extravagance again, and forgo the big bouquet that I fancied most. Hounded by the thought of my empty bank balance, I settled for six red roses.

  The first thing Tracy said to me was, ‘You went back after him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you got lifted.’

  ‘How on earth d’you know that?’

  ‘It’s written all over your face.’

  ‘It’d better not be. I’ve been sworn to silence about what happened.’

  ‘You can tell me, anyway.’

  I told her. The hardest thing was to admit that I’d deliberately deceived her about my intentions, that I’d been planning to go back on the attack even before she and Tim had left. Although I didn’t say it, I felt it was nearly as bad as if I’d gone off and screwed some other woman the second she was out of my sight. All I could do was apologize, and promise that that was the end of deception between us.

  Tracy was fantastically forgiving – even if there was a touch of the schoolmarm in her when she said, ‘Well, that’ll teach you to mess about.’ Then she took me to see Tim, who was playing in the sitting room. ‘Look!’ she called out cheerfully. ‘Here’s your dad come home. Isn’t that lovely!’

  TEN

  All through the next week I was way up and way down. Part of the time I felt incredible relief at being clear of Northern Ireland, at having escaped from that cesspool of hatred and fear. It felt great to be away from the dark, horrible, underhand warfare practised by the scumbags of the PIRA.

  At other times I was desolate at having let my mates down. I kept thinking of Pat, stuck over the water for another nine months, and Mike, no longer pink or punk, but still bearing the scars of Farrell’s Rotty on his right shoulder.

  The fact that the head-shed had been lenient with me didn’t lessen my feeling of shame and degradation. Privately, I reckoned the mainspring of their attitude was fear that, if they did get rid of me, I would start mouthing off about the Regiment to outsiders. They’d calculated that it would be safer all round to keep me where I was.

  The last thing I wanted was to go back to my parent unit, the Parachute Regiment. For a couple of days I seriously considered leaving the army altogether, and to test the water about civilian jobs I phoned two guys who’d got out the year before. Neither was particularly encouraging. Both had gone into forms of BG work – bodyguarding – but both said that, although the jobs were ‘well paid, they were also boring as hell.

  One was retained by an Arab sheikh, and although he spent most of his time twiddling his thumbs, he had to be prepared to take off for any corner of the globe the instant the phone rang. The other had signed up with a crazy Dutch family of millionaires who lived in mortal fear of having their two boys kidnapped. Father and mother were both nutty as fruitcakes, constantly feuding with each other, but it sounded as if the kids needed a shrink even worse than the parents. They refused to do what they were told, couldn’t sleep in the dark, ate junk food at all hours of the day and night, and did nothing but lie around watching videos, the more violent the better. The idea of working for people like that turned me right off, and as I had no other ideas about what I could do, I decided I’d better stay put.

  More than that, I realized how much the Regiment meant to me – how hard it had been to get in, how much I had put into the years of training, how much I’d lose if I left. Before I’d gone off the rails my prospects had been excellent – and now I became determined to do my best for myself, as well as repay the trust the Regiment had put in me. That meant ditching all thoughts of becoming a rogue warrior and consigning my idea of revenge to the past. Besides, what would I achieve if I did drop Farrell? I’d have a murder on my hands – and it wouldn’t bring Kath back.

  Two people in particular made me determined to soldier on. One was Tracy, who was emerging as more and more of a star with every day that passed. On the surface she carried on as if nothing had happened – going in to work at the Med Centre, taking Tim to the camp playschool, cooking for us in the evening – but u
nderneath the surface she was giving me phenomenal moral support. I know it sounds stupid, but I was amazed that someone of such slender physique and sunny personality could have such resources of strength inside her. It made me feel humble, first that I had made such a boob myself, and second that I had underrated her.

  My other saviour was Tony. As I’d predicted, he had sailed through selection, and was now a fully-fledged member of D Squadron. He immediately heard on the grapevine that I’d come back, and blew into the cottage for coffee on Sunday morning. There was no way I could conceal what had happened from him, so we went for a hike through the woods around one of my jogging circuits, and I told him the story.

  His reaction was positive, to say the least. Far from criticizing what I’d done, he lamented the fact that I hadn’t quite succeeded. ‘Maybe I could go get him for you,’ he suggested, when I described the layout of the forest, the OP in the gorse, the perimeter fence and the house. ‘Now we know exactly where he is, maybe I should line up a deer-hunting trip over there. You said there are deer in those woods? OK. I get a hunting permit and go over. Then I have the right weapon to take him out from up the hill, without going near the house. What about that?’

  But we agreed to let the idea of a hunting trip ride, meanwhile, and we resorted to the age-old SAS formula for sorting out personal troubles: we drove out to Talybont, parked in the lay-by, and tabbed it as hard as we could to the summit of Pen-y-Fan. No matter that it was a miserable day, with rainstorms sweeping across the bare mountains; the physical challenge and the grandeur of the hills wrought their usual magic, and I came home with my confidence at least partially restored. Of course I would carry on with the Regiment.