A Different War

by Craig Thomas

  "Is he armed? You don't think so make certain! When you know, close in on him-!"

  He flung the arm holding the RT aside, as if discarding the instrument.

  His hand banged achingly against the flank of the Land Rover. For the sake of God, how difficult is it to take one unarmed man by surprise?

  Don't let him get out of the hangar, don't'Lucien what is he doing?

  Where is he?" he snapped into the RT.

  "Sorry, boss can't see him at the moment. There are vehicles parked down at the far end of the hangar. Pascal and Edouard are moving in on him from different sides—"

  "Until they can be certain that they can hit him and the slug won't pass right through his body, no shooting. You understand me, Lucien?"

  "Yes, boss I've given the order."

  "A fucking smoke grenade! There was no need—"

  "No, boss—"

  "Can you see him?"

  "No, boss—" He crouched in the lee of a parked aerial platform, squashed down on its hydraulics like an abandoned concertina, smelling its small rubber tyres. He listened to their movements, their urgency.

  It was almost as if they were the ones panicked by danger, not himself except that his breathing was ragged, trapped as he was. There had been no shots. They didn't want evidence left behind, shell cases, spent bullets. The smoke grenade had been to startle him into the open.

  Lights… He slid back from the parked platform to the corrugated wall as if only that moment remembering why he had bolted for this far end of the hangar. Red box on the wall. Main f use box His skin crawled with the anticipation of his exposure, the impact of a bullet. He reached above his head as he remained crouching against the wall, his hand scrabbling for the lever. Threw it — darkness.

  Then the breath was knocked from his body, the noise of the collision rumbling through the corrugated wall. He rolled over, a heavier body pressing against his, hands gripping his arms. He gasped, the air expelled again as he collided with one wheel of the aerial platform. A hand over his mouth, his own hands striking as ineffectually as those of a baby as the dark-clothed, black-faced man sat astride him, his other hand against Gant's windpipe, pressing down with damaging force.

  Gant struck out at the black-streaked face with his hands, trying to hit, trying to hold. The man's breath smelt of food and triumph, sickly-sweet.

  "Edouard got him?" he heard someone call. English with a heavy European accent.

  "Oui-! I'd-!" His breath failed, gargled out, as the edge of Gant's hand struck across his throat. The pressure on Gant's windpipe was released.

  He bucked his body, twisting it out from beneath the man as eager hands reached for his eyes. Gant struck sideways and upwards with his forearm, catching his assailant across the cheek and nose. He heard a muffled explosion of breath and the man's body jerked away from him, his hands feeling for his own face now.

  Gant rose to his knees, then into a crouch. Kicked twice, jaw, side of head as the man went down.

  "Edouard-!" he heard, then: "Where are the lights!"

  "Fusebox they're not working!" came a voice from near the hangar doors.

  He hit the fallen man again as he struggled to get to his feet, bruising his knuckles against the man's temple. Something had skittered away in the darkness gun? He stared wildly round but could not see it, then scrabbled at the man's pockets, looking for a weapon, an identity. Took what felt like a leather wallet.

  "Edouard! Christ find the fuse box Claude stay by the doors!"

  Gant hesitated, trying to recall the dimensions, the points of the hangar's compass doors, windows, equipment. Then he moved along the wall, away from the doors and the man who was guarding them, away from the man who had been calling for Edouard. French names, and the assailant had called in French, even though the language of the operation was English. Gant felt the angle of the wall with his hands, his back, continued to move away from the doors. A parked truck, passenger steps, a forklift… piled boxes and crates, then an open space. He could see the outlines of the vehicles now in the seeped lights of the airport. He could see well enough to know that they would see him.

  "Here!" he heard.

  "Bastard! Here it's Edouard! He's alive—" Gant saw someone move towards the aerial platform, and ran, his footsteps audible even above the racing of his pulse in his ears, above his loudening heartbeat…

  The shadow of the Boeing's nose wheel He clung to the tyre as to a life belt He could see Claude's form framed by the open doors.

  In moments, one of them would locate the fuse box and the lights would come on.

  They were edgy, shocked into error, panic. That edginess meant they'd start shooting when the lights came on and he was exposed, even if their orders were to dispose of him elsewhere.

  Gant looked up. The nose wheel undercarriage rose above the huge tyres like an Indian rope trick… He began climbing, inching his way up, squeezing the undercarriage strut against his body, between his thighs.

  Then he clambered into the nose-wheel bay as the lights flashed on bright as lightning. Claude moved a few steps from the doorway, the others he couldn't see… Yes, he could just glimpse the aerial platform shunted into the corner of the hangar, the man he had hit and the one who had found him. He couldn't see the fourth man as he hung from the bay, head down, arms already aching, his feet scissor-gripping the undercarriage strut at its root.

  The fourth man walked beneath him. If he even glanced up, he would see Gant hanging like a paper kite above him.

  "Lucien — I thought I saw something near the aircraft!" he called.

  "Pascal, could he have got aboard?"

  "Maybe. The passenger door's wide open but there are no steps up to it. I can't see how." Like a bad actor attempting the sinister, he surveyed the underbelly of the Boeing.

  Gant stilled his breathing, sensing sweat drop from his forehead towards the man, like rain… Taking his weight with one arm, he savagely wiped at his forehead. His renewed grip was slippery. Lucien and the injured Edouard emerged from the shadow of the aerial platform.

  "Where the hell are you, Mr. Gant?" Lucien shouted.

  His voice echoed around the hangar. Into the silence which followed, the rat scratches of an RT and a tinny, indecipherable voice sharp with orders. The man below him, Pascal, seemed to take a firmer grip on the pistol he held, mocking decisiveness, determination. Don't look up…

  Even if he dropped on the man the instant his head lifted, there would be time for one shot at least.

  "You can't get out, Mr. Gant!" Lucien shouted. In the ensuing silence, the RT again. How many more of them?

  "Give yourself up!"

  He could see Lucien vigorously gesticulating. He heard the scuttle of footsteps.

  The doorway was empty now, presumably covered from outside. Pascal remained beneath him, alertly to attention beside the nose wheel Again, sweat dropped from Gant's forehead. They'd be slipping along the walls of the hangar, waiting for him to move, wild fowlers beating up a bird into their waiting guns. They would have been told they could kill him on sight now, too much time had passed and they would have started to fear their own discovery.

  Pascal would move in another moment… Shadow of another man in the hangar doorway. Just one.

  No, Pascal wouldn't move, not yet. He was holding the sight-line position. They were the beaters, he the sportsman. The pistol gleamed in his hand. Gant wiped at his forehead, his grip slipping, arms aching, legs beginning to numb. Pascal was rotating like a fairground sideshow toy, swivelling body and gaze across the expanse of concrete.

  He could hear the others moving in rapid, scurrying movements, almost hear their pauses as they checked equipment, machines, crates and pallets. They knew they still had him. Sweat dropped-the man's cheek flinched, his head turned almost in curiously slowly. Gant dropped.

  His numbed legs buckled under him and his grip was slippery on Pascal's gun hand. The Frenchman's breathing was hot, surprised against his cheek as Gant lay on him, the gun waving
at arm's-length as if taunting both his grip and Pascal's.

  Gant felt himself heaved away, his grip loosening on the man's arm.

  Felt himself struck numbingly across the shoulder with the pistol, heard Pascal shout. Butted at the face that was open-mouthed, feeling his neck go hot with the jarring impact.

  Sensed himself climbing Pascal's struggling body legs kicking out at him, hips twisting towards the gun. Explosion-deafness, a submerged roaring, distant, tinny shouts like a telephone ringing while taking a shower. He realised the pistol was in his hand, which then seemed of its own accord to strike down across the bridge of Pascal's already bloodied nose. Heard running footsteps, the first shot-lee of the nose wheel momentary shelter, breathing stentorous. Two shots loosed off quickly towards men who suddenly realised they were exposed on a coverless killing ground. Shots from the direction of the doors of the hangar, the spitting snake noise of a silenced weapon. He was crouched behind the wheels, protected from them only until they encircled him.

  Pascal lay unconscious, his blood masked face staring at the hangar roof.

  The desire for survival was as urgent as his heartbeat. His mind raced French professionals… protecting Strickland… videotape evidence in the office… He loosed off another two shots. The gun was a Beretta M092 fifteen rounds. He fired once more, suddenly cautious, then ducked out of the lee of the nose-wheel, darting across the lit, grease-stained concrete towards what he had seen as a slowly approaching shadow but which became the man who had last entered the hangar.

  He saw, in his joggling vision, surprise, hesitation, the close of the gap between them. Then the initial movement of the hand that had to be holding the gun, and the other arm jerking up in protective instinct.

  He launched himself sideways, cannoning into and off the man, stunning the breath from his body as he landed, rolling — they fired now because the man they might hit, their field director, was down and they had a clear sight of Gant. One bullet whined off the hangar wall just above his head as he reached the doorway, where the night air struck with unexpected cold. The side of his body was bruised and aching. He lurched to a halt against the open door and fired back at them. Three shots, scattering them.

  Time gained. He ran towards their parked vehicle, away from the hangar lights, into the darkness, scrubby grass beneath his feet, the pattern of the airport's thousands of lights dazzling and disorientating him and them, and them… He heard a couple of futile shots, then only his own blood. He was invisible to them now. Safe-for how long?

  CHAPTER NINE

  All My Sons Giles Pyott, waiting beside the empty ticket collector's box at the end of the platform, glimpsed Marian coming towards him, briefcase at her side. She appeared worn, shocked. His customary elation at seeing her became a sudden terror of recognition; always she reminded him of Anne, but now her hesitant, slightly lost progress was too similar to that of his wife during her last illness.

  Giles felt enfeebled, even afraid, seeing Marian's haggard, weary features.

  Marian halted, still without having seen him, and seemed to struggle with her handbag. Then he saw she was answering her mobile phone.

  "Yes Ray?" There was something breathlessly excited, deeply angry about Banks' voice. She felt physically assailed and weakened by its outrage.

  '-nothing more to do with it or you!" he stormed.

  "My family comes first-!" It was the whine of a man who had been compromised by another, led into danger.

  "She was on her way to school! Their bloody car just climbed the pavement and knocked her against the wall!" There was breathing, but no pauses; the anger was one fearful, long exhalation.

  "She's all right, just concussed and shocked, a few scratches no thanks to you!" His own guilt was evident, he was beating it towards her as if fighting off a swarm of bees that tormented him.

  "Besides, the whole thing's been cleared up! They've paid most of the money. Cheque came this morning from the biggest firm I supplied… plus a cheque for the site work!" He did pause then, knowing he had admitted the nature of the stick, the nature of the carrot. She could not despise him.

  "I'm glad she's all right, Ray, I really am," she managed to offer. He seized on it like an admission of culpability.

  "I shouldn't have listened to you in the first place!"

  "No… probably not."

  "Just don't try to involve me again in anything? he threatened guiltily.

  No' Ray…"

  Banks broke the connection. She felt dizzied.

  Giles Pyott saw her sway with weakness and hurried to her, grasping her to her shock, until she recognised him and leaned against him like a drunk needing support.

  "Are you hurt?" he asked as she looked up at him. They must, he thought, have looked like lovers he ridiculously old, but certainly to be envied.

  Marian shook her head.

  "No. Just delayed shock or something," she murmured vaguely. Then, the soldier's daughter, forcing a smile, she added: "Corporal Davies always rescues me!"

  She tried to mock the gravity of his expression, but he ignored her attempt at humour.

  "What happened, Marian?" he asked sternly.

  "Daddy," she warned: "Nothinghappened!"

  "Someone tried to kill you. You were more confiding from hospital."

  "Must have been shock didn't know what I was saying."

  Giles tossed his head. It did not serve to clear his features or shake off concern.

  Tell me what happened. Shall we go now?"

  "Mm."

  He picked up her briefcase and ushered her towards the concourse. The other passengers on the InterCity Shuttle had vanished towards Euston's taxi-ranks or the tube, they were virtually alone on the platform, except for a clattering, towed caravan of parcel skips. Their noise startled her unreasonably.

  "What happened?"

  "Someone set fire to the flat I told you." He sensed her frightened attempt at secrecy.

  "Who did it? Listen, my girl' he ignored the arch, mocking glance she gave him 'you weren't the almost-victim of an attempted lesson in smoking this time. Quite possibly, someone wanted you dead." It seemed ridiculous, saying that to his daughter, crossing the crowded Euston concourse, amid baggage and the announcement of delays.

  Tell me what happened."

  She seemed to revive in the fresh morning air as they reached Melton Street and he pointed out the Jaguar parked near the corner of Euston Street. They crossed as gingerly as two pensioners on the zebra stripes.

  "It was a petrol bomb, through the kitchen window. The fire officer told me that."

  She was concentrating intensely as she spoke. Or perhaps simply studying her uncertain footsteps, he could not be sure.

  "It took them no more than fifteen minutes to bring it under control saved the bedrooms, the office… I wasn't burned," she added with a perceptible shudder.

  Thank God," he murmured involuntarily, unlocking the car, throwing her briefcase on the back seat amid newspapers and books.

  He watched her brush her hair away from her face with a gesture that was defiant, but saw the almost cringing sense of fear in her eyes. As if she guessed his response, she said:

  "Yes, they did frighten me, Daddy they frightened me very much. If that was what they wanted and not, not—"

  "Get in the car, Tig," he said, and she immediately brightened at the use of his childhood name for her short for the Tiger he always claimed she was. Giles remembered murmuring the pet-name over and over again as she lay on the grass, her arm burnt, her eyes filled with stunned, traumatic terror.

  As the car pulled away from the kerb, up Euston Street towards Gower Street, she sniffed loudly and said:

  "I must talk to Kenneth about it."

  She lit a cigarette. He wanted to disapprove of it, in his car.

  "Why?"

  She turned violently to him as he halted in traffic.

  "Because only he can explain it!" Her voice cracked with strain. There were dark stains under her wide eyes. She s
tabbed at the air with the cigarette.

  "It seems to be Kenneth's world, invading mine doesn't it? It doesn't seem to be casual, does it?"

  "Marian," Giles said heavily, "I don't know what this is, but I blame you and I blame Kenneth in equal measure." Suddenly, in his fear for her, he could not control his parental anger.

  "How can you have stirred all this up? What the devil did you think you were doing, and on whose behalf? My God, you could have been killed!

  Marian stared ahead, her lower lip quivering. He was wrenched by guilt. She knew she could have died. Perhaps it was better to take her to Kenneth. Damnable Kenneth, who had no child to lose… Unfair, he corrected himself. Nevertheless, he could vent his anger more justly on Kenneth than on his daughter.

  "Sorry, Tig," he murmured.

  Her hand covered his as it rested on the gear lever. He tried to ignore the hot waves of terrified gratitude at her safety which seemed to rise in his body like lava.

  His complete lack of any luggage stirred the vague and momentary interest of a young Customs officer as he walked through the green channel. It was a small rehearsal which sharpened his senses so that when he emerged into the concourse of Terminal 2, he was almost immediately aware that they had already picked him up two of them.

  Midday, Heathrow, and one of them was no more than ten yards from him, moving parallel and without concealing his interest, even signalling to the other man. They wanted him to know they were close.

  Gant had shaken them off in Oslo by raising the alarm, swamping the maintenance hangar with airport police. It had cleared the area around him, giving him the time and space to catch the morning flight to London. He needed to see Burton, explain Strickland and the-pausing to catch their reflections in the windows of the bookstall, he felt as if struck by a fist. The newspaper headlines, the pink Financial Times bearing a picture of Burton and someone who looked Eurasian celebrating a new transatlantic leasing partnership between Artemis Airways and the Skyliner.