by Chris Ryan
'I meant afterwards,' said Ivan. 'You steal from al-Qaeda, they're going to come after you.'
Another good question, thought Matt. He might be a Provo, but he's sharp. He glanced back towards Alison, noting the hesitation in her eyes. It was the first time he'd seen that: every other question pitched at her she had batted straight back with total self-belief. Not this time.
'There's no such thing as a safe mission,' she said slowly. 'From your different backgrounds, all of you know that. Five can't make any guarantees. But think about it. A boat in the middle of the Med. No one can see or hear you. You kill all the al-Qaeda men on board, then you disappear into the night. How are they ever going to trace you?'
Matt looked around the room. He could see the men nodding, satisfied with the reply. They're hungry for the deal.
They don't want to hear about the risks, and, in truth, neither do I.
'We need to speak among ourselves,' said Matt. 'About Ivan.'
Alison nodded. 'We'll take a walk around the block,' she replied. 'But remember, I think it would be safer for Five to organise fencing the goods. I'll trade you Damien for Ivan.'
'It's not a game of swapsies, it's our lives,' said Matt sharply.
Ivan stood up and looked at each man in turn, his expression dignified, polite, but also questioning. 'I don't want to work with you boys any more than you want to work with me,' he said. 'But I reckon on our different battlefields we've all learnt some of the same lessons. In a crisis, you take your allies where you find them, and you deal with life as it is, not how you'd like it to be.' He turned towards the door, not looking back. 'And remember, a proud man is sometimes also a poor man.'
The door slammed shut. Matt stood silent. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could see two million dollars slipping away from him. A proud man is sometimes also a poor man, he reflected.
I've been both, and I know which one I prefer.
'Tosser,' said Reid, his expression darkening. 'Stupid Provo tosser.'
'I reckon that's your vote then,' said Matt, trying to smile.
'Maybe she's bluffing,' said Reid. He bent down to pick up a packet of tobacco from the floor. 'I didn't like the look of her much either. Stuck-up, posh totty. I might shag her, but I don't want to take orders from her.'
'He's a bit smart, isn't he?' said Cooksley. 'It's not just that he's a Provo, there's something sly about him.'
'Tell her we'll do it ourselves,' said Reid. 'Four guys is plenty to take a boat if it's the right four men. That's us. We can learn how to blow a safe. There's plenty of Regiment guys can give us some lessons in explosives.'
'Your vote, mate,' said Matt, looking towards Cooksley.
Cooksley hesitated, his eyes rooted to the ground. 'It's the kids,' he said. 'I need this money. I'd team up with Saddam Hussein if I had to.'
'And you, Damien?'
'I'm the trade, aren't I?' said Damien
'We still listen to what you have to say,' said Matt. 'Everyone's voice counts.'
'No trust, no deal, that's my view. He's too different from the rest of us. That makes him a threat.'
'And where else does anyone suggest we're going to get this kind of money,' said Cooksley. 'We're all here for the same reason, we need this job. She knows it, and so does he.'
'No, we bluff her,' shouted Reid. 'She needs us as well.'
'OK,' said Matt. 'We'll bluff her, but in the end, we'll all make our own decisions.'
He made a round of teas, and waited in silence for Alison and Ivan to return. Nobody was saying anything.
They're all thinking. Thinking and making their choices. That's something a man has to do in silence.
'Well,' said Alison, standing in front of them, Ivan at her side. 'Have you made a decision?'
There was no hint of compromise in her voice, Matt noticed. Nothing to suggest she might bend to anyone else's will. 'It's no good,' he said, looking towards Ivan. 'It's not personal, but we don't think we can work with you. The trust won't be there.'
Alison stepped forward. 'You're an idiot, Matt,' she said softly. She glanced around the room. 'You are all idiots. Why? Because there are lots of men like you, I just have to keep working my way down the list. But there's only one of me. None of you is going to get another offer like this one.'
Matt glanced towards Reid. He reckoned he could see him wavering. He was thinking about going back to his hovel, about moving in with his mother-in-law when the house got repossessed. 'That's our decision,' Matt said, looking back towards Alison. 'It's final.'
'Fine,' said Alison briskly. 'It was nice meeting you, gentlemen. I'm sorry it hasn't worked out.' She looked up towards Ivan. 'Let's go.'
Matt could hear them walking back down the hallway then the sound of the latch opening. He looked down towards Reid. He could see him wrestling with something. 'OK,' he whispered. 'We'll do it.'
Matt looked towards Cooksley, then Damien. Each of them nodded in turn.
'Stop,' he shouted down the hallway. 'We'll take him.'
We do what we have to do. What other choices do we have?
A smile was playing on her lips as Alison walked back down the hallway. 'I'm going to forget this ever happened, and we'll pick up where we left off,' she said. 'Ivan's in, and Damien's in. That's the compromise.'
'You're tough,' said Matt.
'Hey,' said Alison, combing a lock of blonde hair away from her forehead. 'If you want to play softball go to the park.'
I'll remember that.
Matt looked back towards the gang. 'Right, we were talking about whether it's dangerous. So long as none of us ever start mouthing off, the people we nick the stuff from won't ever know. And that's not going to happen, so I reckon we're OK. Al-Qaeda will suspect a lot of people. They're hardly short of enemies. But I don't think they'll suspect a gang of British mercenaries.' He looked towards Ivan. 'Sorry, British and Irish.'
Alison reached into her bag. 'I'm going to give each of you five thousand pounds in cash,' she said. 'That's an advance on expenses. Inside each envelope, there is an address. We will all assemble there tomorrow evening. You'll get a detailed briefing on the mission then.'
She walked to each man in turn, smiling briefly as she handed across the envelopes. Her fingers fingered as she placed the money in Matt's hand, brushing against his palm. He could feel the weight of the notes, and the crisp smell of the freshly minted money.
He raised his coffee cup into the air. 'Here's to the mission,' he said, looking around. 'Just as soon as the work is done, we'll drink to it with something stronger.'
He could see Reid looking in the direction of Ivan. The anger was still in there, festering, eating away at his nerves. That spelt trouble. We'll deal with that later, Matt decided. In the kind of mess he was in, he had to take each day as it came.
Planning ahead is for people who can afford it.
EIGHT
The sand felt cold and damp against the soles of Matt's feet. He had abandoned his trainers, opting to run barefoot along the edge of the water, letting the waves lap up against his ankles. The Atlantic was cold compared to the Mediterranean, chilling the blood in his veins. But the air smelt fresher and cleaner, the salt and the brine filling his lungs each time he took a breath.
The beach was two miles from Bideford, on the North Devon coast. The sand curved in a long arc and was framed by black rocks and with mellow green hills. A few sheep were gently grazing the hillside, but otherwise there was not another soul in view. Matt had been here once before, and the contours of the landscape had remained imprinted on his memory. A family holiday, maybe when he was nine or ten, in a caravan park with his mum and dad. Looking back, he realised it can't have been much fun for his parents. The caravan was cramped – it was impossible for Mum to cook anything – and it rained half the week. But for the ten-year-old Matt it had been the wildest adventure ever. A week away from the council estate, away from the dirt, the fumes and the noise of south London. And the chance to run free on the sand, play in the
waves, explore the hills and the countryside.
It was then that I learnt two things about myself– I don't ever want a boring office job, and I don't ever want to be poor.
He picked up his pace, pushing himself to run faster, taking deep breaths of salty air. What would Dad say about what I am doing now, Matt wondered, looking up into the sky.
He'd say, take your chance, boy, like I should have taken mine.
Matt had arrived in Bideford the night before, and had met up with the rest of the gang. The location was obvious enough. Bideford was an old naval town, and it made sense that there would be some training facilities tucked away there. They were based in a disused naval barracks, which, from the state of the place, Matt guessed hadn't been used since the Second World War. About three miles east of Bideford, it was a corrugated iron shack next to a series of crumbling gun embankments. There were seven iron cots to sleep in, a pair of electric rings to cook on, and a loo you had to walk across fifteen yards of frozen mud to reach. Not luxury, Alison had explained as she showed them around, but it was only for three nights, and they would survive.
And she's staying at a hotel in town.
Matt had risen earlier than the others and got out on to the beach for a run. He checked his watch – eight-thirty. He turned and started jogging back towards the base. They were due to start work at nine, and he needed something to eat first.
Up ahead, he could see Damien walking by himself, chucking stones into the sea.
'Keeping fit?' Damien said as Matt started jogging alongside him.
'We'll need to be,' said Matt. 'You sure you're in good enough shape?'
Damien nodded. 'Two hours in the gym every day,' he said. 'The gangs are tougher than they've ever been. It's not just a bunch of boozy south London robbers like it was in Dad's day.'
'With two million you could get out,' said Matt. 'Do something different with your life.'
'Maybe,' said Damien, looking out into the sea. 'If I had someone like Gill to settle down with. You're a lucky man having a girl like that, Matt, luckier than you know. It's harder for gay men. We don't settle.'
Alison was dressed in dark blue cords, green wellies, a green Barbour jacket, and a Hermès scarf holding her hair in place. A Chelsea girl up in the country for the weekend, Matt thought. Gill would have been down on the beach with him at dawn, going for a run, exploring the rock pools, getting her hair wet in the sea and her feet dirty in the sand.
'What are you always running away from?' said Alison, looking up at the sweat dripping from his brow as he arrived at the base.
'Maybe I'm running towards something,' he said, grabbing a towel from his kit bag. 'Did that ever occur to you?'
Reid and Cooksley had brewed some coffee, and fried up some bacon, beans and eggs. Matt grabbed a plateful, wolfed down the food hungrily, then put his jeans and sweatshirt back on.
Ivan was sitting on his bed, connecting his mobile phone to a Palm Pilot. He concentrated on the tiny screen, lines on his brow, ignoring the noise around him.
Matt waited until he had pressed a button on the screen. 'How's the bridge going?'
'I got the contract – three no trumps, the greatest of all bids,' said Ivan softly.
'So who do you play against?' said Cooksley, looking across. It was the first time that either Cooksley or Reid had spoken to him.
'Other enthusiasts,' said Ivan. 'You don't need to know who they are. Just that they can play, and they pay their debts.' He paused. 'Those are the only two questions worth asking about a man.'
Pinky and Perky walked into the room, nodding to Alison. Great, thought Matt. The Comedy Club has arrived. Both men were wearing chinos, sweaters, and long thick grey overcoats. They stood at the front of the room, unpacking laptops from their cases. Alison looked around the room. 'These are two colleagues of mine from Five,' said Alison. 'They will take you through the basics of the mission, and explain the moves you need to train for.'
Pinky took off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair. 'Al-Qaeda are shipping gold and diamonds back to the Middle East,' he started. 'The mission is to intercept one of their boats, and take its contents.' He paused, pointing to a map on the screen of his computer. 'The boats generally leave from here, Portofino, on the North Italian coast. They sail through the Med, towards the Middle East Coast. It's a five-day trip. The landing points vary but it's always somewhere in Jordan or the Lebanon. The best place to base you is right here.' He jabbed his thumb at the screen. 'Cyprus.' Perky looked around the room. 'On Cyprus you'll be just a few nautical miles from the interception. Our intelligence sources will tell us when the boat is leaving and where it's going. Satellites will track it from there, so we'll be able to give you a precise location of the target.'
'Your task is to find the boat, raid it, take the goods, then sink it, and get out as fast as possible,' Pinky continued. 'For obvious reasons, we don't want anyone left alive. Except, of course, you lot.' He smiled, but was met only by stony stares on the faces of the men in front of him. 'Tony Bulmer, formerly of the Special Boat Squadron, is going to spend the next three days with you. He'll give you training on how to board the boat.'
Great, thought Matt. That's just what we need. Some animal from Shaky Boat roughing us up.
'Bulmer doesn't know what the mission is, and he isn't meant to know,' continued Pinky. 'He doesn't know who you are either, so don't start shooting your mouths off. He's been told you have to hit a boat, and that's it.'
Just then Buhner walked smartly into the room, looking more like someone who had stepped out of a student union bar than a parade ground. Matt paused. The man was nothing close to what he had expected. He must have been in his late twenties, and was dressed in baggy blue trousers and a bright-red T-shirt. His hair had a green streak in it, and was spiked up with gel. He looked more like a sales assistant at a surfing shop than a soldier.
He looked down at the five men sitting in front of him, his face immobile. 'You lot look like you could use some licking into shape,' he said.
'Piss off,' said Reid.
'Let the man do his job,' Ivan said warily. 'We all need training if we're to stay alive.'
'Hey, who asked you, bogtrotter?' said Cooksley.
'Good to see we're all getting along so well,' said Buhner. 'Perhaps we'll start with some team-building exercises.'
Matt could feel the water biting into his naked skin. It was as if blocks of ice were being dropped on to his body, freezing up his nerve endings and chilling the blood so it could hardly flow through his veins.
A wave rolled over the top of him, pushing him below the surface of the sea, filling his mouth with salty water. He struggled to open his eyes, kicking his legs to push himself back to the surface. His head broke above the waves, and he rolled into a crawl to drag himself forward. To the next bay, he reckoned, it was about a mile, past some evil rocks jutting away from the beach. If he swam hard, he should be there in half an hour.
A few yards ahead he could see Cooksley and Reid: Cooksley he knew was a strong swimmer, Reid less so. Ivan was some way ahead of them, Damien a few yards behind. Ten minutes earlier Buhner had marched them down to the beach, told them all to strip off and start swimming. 'See you at the next bay,' he'd shouted. 'If the fish don't get you.'
Matt could feel another wave crashing over his head, and a gust of cold wind whipping around his ears. 'You OK?' he shouted across to Damien.
'Apart from the hypothermia.'
By the time Matt pulled himself on to the beach he reckoned he'd swallowed at least two pints. He swam every day in Marbella, but there it was warmer, gentler water, and he only went out when the sun was shining. It wasn't Bideford in March, with the temperature close to zero. He grabbed a towel from the pile Pinky and Perky had left on the beach, and started drying himself off, unfreezing his limbs. Ivan, Cooksley and Reid were already ashore, Damien was just swimming up to the beach.