by Chris Ryan
'Sallum was one, the other was a man called Keith Whitson, an IRA stooge in London,' said Ivan.
'Five have probably got a file on him somewhere. Nasty fellow, with bad breath and rotten teeth.'
'We burned the bodies up so no one would recognise them,' added Matt. 'The police will figure out who they are eventually, but it buys us a few hours.'
He noticed the diamond. It was set in a simple gold chain, and hung around her neck, but it was definitely the same rock he had given her a week ago. A beam of light breaking through the trees hit the jewel, set it sparkling.
'What do you want?' she asked.
'Three of our friends died,' said Matt. 'They were good men, and they deserved better. We want to know what happened to them and why.'
Ivan held up the trigger, cradling it in the palm of his hand. 'And it had better be the truth,' he said. 'We've been eating lies, deceit and deception for the past few weeks, and we don't like the taste.'
Alison looked first at Ivan, then across at Matt. She was scrutinising his expression. She is trying to find out what I am thinking, he decided. To see what buttons she can press and what levers she has to pull within me to make me change my mind. All men are just puppets to her: marionettes waiting to have their strings pulled by soft words and sweet perfumes. She's just searching around for the right string.
It's not going to work.
'But you already know what the mission was about,' she said. 'Otherwise you wouldn't be here.'
'We want it from your lips,' said Matt. 'We like the sound of your voice. It will be something to remember you by.'
'Let's go and sit down somewhere,' said Alison. 'Then we can talk through the whole thing.'
Ivan laughed. 'We like you where you are right now. An inch away from death, just like we have been for the past week.'
There was a pause. Matt found himself wondering how Alison would play the next few minutes. He had seen men pleading for their lives before: in Bosnia, he had seen Serbian solders captured by Kosovan partisans who wept and begged and cried for their skins even though they knew they were just humiliating themselves before enemies who would show them no mercy. In the Philippines he had seen communist guerrillas squat in dignified silence mouthing silent prayers moments before their throats were about to be cut; and in Namibia he had seen robbers drinking pure alcohol to calm themselves on the morning of their hanging. But they had all been men who had been certain they faced death within a few minutes. This was a woman, and a smart one, who believed she still had a chance of saving herself If only she could find the right string to tug on.
She looked towards Ivan and then Matt, her eyes suddenly angry. Her lips were curling into a sneer and her fists were clenched tightly together. 'You men are soldiers,' she snapped. 'What did you expect? I'll tell you what this mission was about, and if you don't like it, go ahead and blow me up. You're nothing but a pair of cowards. You don't mind taking the money, but you don't want to take any risks. Well, you should be smarter than that. Everything comes with a price, and the one demanded from you was completely fair.'
She paused, taking a gulp of air. 'I'll give it to you straight,' she said. 'We needed to strike back at al-Qaeda. The assassination of David Landau in Jeddah was one of the worst setbacks the intelligence services have suffered in years. Worse, we knew that al-Qaeda was gearing up for a spectacular in Britain. It's a tight, impenetrable network. We have moles all over the place, we have sleepers working their way up the organisation, we have men we've turned – all the old tactics we used to use against Ivan's old friends across the water. None of it was working. We were getting nowhere. That's when we came up with the plan.'
She hesitated, looking down at the ground, as if she were searching for the precise location of the bomb. 'You know what it was, of course,' she continued, her voice gaining in strength. 'We decided to stage a robbery. They are terrorists, and also Arabs. Honour is important to them. They would have to take revenge, and that would mean sending their best man after the robbers. If we leaked information about who they were, then watched them like hawks, eventually we would find the assassin. Keep tabs on the assassin, and he would lead us to the main man, the person who was pulling the strings right across Britain.' She allowed a brief smile to flicker across her lips. 'As it happened, it all worked out rather well. We got the main man. We've broken them – a lot more than the CIA have achieved in the past year.'
'And we were the hares,' said Matt angrily, 'to get the dogs running.'
Alison looked at him closely, her eyebrows drawing together. 'Don't sound so bloody hard done by,' she snapped. 'Think back a couple of weeks. You were nothing, a nobody, a washed-up ex-SAS soldier, drowning in a sea of debt and self-pity. In another couple of weeks, Kazanov would have killed you, and probably that girlfriend of yours as well.' She looked towards Ivan. 'As for you, you were just a corpse, walking around waiting for the bullet that kills you. An IRA man turned Five informer, who wanted out because he couldn't take the heat any more. Well, surely you know there aren't any resignations from that line of work? The only leaving party is the one where everyone wears black. You needed money, a lot of money, to get out and start again, and this was your only chance of getting it.'
Alison paused, wiping a bead of sweat away from her brow. 'I gave you both a chance. Sure, there was a risk you'd get killed. Boo-bloody-hoo. Go and wipe your tears on your mum's apron. You are soldiers, for Christ's sake, or at least you were when you still had some pride left in you. You risked your life for your country. It's what you do.'
She paused for breath. 'Anyway, I knew you were both good enough that Sallum would never be able to lay a finger on you.'
'Soldiers sign up for missions – they take the risks knowing what they are doing,' said Matt, feeling his face redden with anger. 'Nobody deceives them about the risks they are running.'
'They don't?' replied Alison archly, raising her eyebrows. 'Christ, if I wanted to talk to children I would have gone to Legoland. Didn't some Rupert ever mislead you, Matt? Didn't some brigade commander ever send you on a futile mission, Ivan? This is war. Deceit is the most important weapon in any arsenal.' Alison tightened her scarf around her neck. 'All of the men on the mission needed money for different reasons. I gave them the chance to make it. Each man was taking a greater risk than they knew, I accept that. But each man also had a chance to defend himself.'
A thought started to rattle through Matt's mind: what if she is right? What if we were paid a fair rate for risking our lives? Isn't that what we do for a living?
'You told al-Qaeda where we were,' snapped Ivan. 'You betrayed us, and put our lives at risk.'
'As I said, you knew your lives were at risk,' said Alison.
Matt listened to her closely. Her tone was changing, the colour of each vowel turning brighter. She was growing more confident, as if she sensed she was winning the argument.
'Think about it,' she said. 'Three men died, true, but the two of you have survived, and countless innocent women and children have been saved.' Alison paused, her eyes switching from Ivan to Matt. 'If that bomb had gone off, thousands of people could have been killed or maimed. The economy of London would have been brought grinding to a halt. You men stopped that. You should be proud of yourselves.' She raised a finger into the air, suddenly resembling a schoolmistress admonishing a particularly dim class of children. 'And you are still getting five million each for your work. So, you took a risk, you saved thousands of people, and you got well paid for your trouble. What are you complaining about?'
Maybe she has a point, thought Matt. The only difference between what I did in the Regiment and what I did in the last two countries, was that I got properly paid for risking my life for my country.
Why not take the cash and walk away? Right now, I'm a free, wealthy man. Press this trigger, and I'm a fugitive for the rest of my life.
He glanced across at Ivan, but could see only an intense anger in the man's eyes: it was as if a fuse had been lit within him
. 'Saving one person doesn't justify sacrificing another one. Who are we to make that choice? Who are you?' he said.
'Then what were you doing in the IRA, Ivan?' Alison snapped back. 'They made those choices all the time. What were you doing in the SAS, Matt?' She fixed both of them with a hard stare. 'Both of you already made the decision when you were a lot younger that lives were sometimes worth sacrificing for a cause. It's too late to go back now.'
'I don't need a philosophy lecture, thank you,' said Ivan. The muscles in his neck were bulging as the blood pumped to his head. He looked towards Matt, a question playing in his eyes. 'Let's give it to her and get out of here.'
Alison looked towards Matt, the fear creeping back into her eyes. She held out the diamond that was slung around her neck. 'Look,' she said softly. 'I had it set, and wore it. I've been wearing it every day since you gave it to me.'
Ivan held the trigger in his hand, his thumb poised on the button. 'Cut the violins,' he snapped. 'Press the button and go.'
In the middle of combat, a soldier trusts his instinct and only his instinct.
When there is no time to think with your head, you act with your heart.
Matt raised a hand. 'I say we let her go,' he said slowly. 'She has a point – we're soldiers, we get paid. Let's collect the cash and clear out of here.'
Matt noticed a smile starting to spread across Alison's lips – but it wasn't a smile of gratitude or relief. She was pleased, not to have survived, but to have won the argument. 'I always knew you were a man who could listen to reason, Matt,' she said. 'That's why I chose you.'
'Wait.'
Ivan lowered his hand, looking directly at her.
'What about Cooksley's kids?' Matt continued. 'And Reid's kids? They were just children, but you put them in the line of fire as well. How do you justify that?'
Alison shrugged, her expression suggesting that she was losing interest in the debate: her triumph had been secured, and now she had better things to do with her time. 'They were collateral damage,' she said coldly. 'I may have said this before, but I'll say it again. If you want to play softball then go to the park.'
Sometimes people say the wrong thing, thought Matt. And it costs them their lives.
'Collateral damage?' he said. 'No. They were just an innocent group of children.' He looked towards Ivan. 'I was wrong. Let's blow the fuse, and get out of here. The world will be a safer place without her.'
'Hold it,' she snapped.
'No! Enough!' Matt roared. 'Sometimes it is worth sacrificing one life for the good of everybody. Well, this time it's yours. Press the button, Ivan. Press it.'
'Please!' Alison shouted, her voice turning ragged. 'You have both made many mistakes, but the greatest one is to think me a fool.'
The wind had picked up speed, curling itself around the trees. Somewhere behind him, Matt could hear branches creaking in the gale. It was a dark and miserable place in which to die. But then, few have the luxury of choosing the places in which they die. Certainly not when it's an execution.
'Press it!' Matt snapped, glancing at Ivan.
Why doesn't the man blow her away?
'Because,' she said, 'only a fool would come here alone.'
Matt froze. The moment the words had escaped her lips, he'd known exactly what she'd meant by it. Inwardly, he started cursing himself. Naturally she would have some protection with her. A woman such as Alison made every calculation and checked every angle before she made a single move. She didn't make mistakes. That was what made her such a formidable opponent.
For half a second he resisted looking towards Ivan. He already knew what he would see, but wanted to delay the moment of confirmation. He saw it first in Alison's expression. A smile of smug satisfaction had spread on to her lips. Slowly he turned his head to the right. Pinky was standing a yard behind Ivan, a pistol in his outstretched hand, the barrel of the gun resting gently on Ivan's ear. Matt looked behind him: Perky was standing two yards behind, a gun lodged into the palm of his hand, pointing directly at his head. From that distance, it would be impossible for him to miss.
You had to hand it to them, they were good.
'Be very careful,' said Pinky, his voice so low it was barely more than a whisper. 'And hand me that trigger.'
The look of anger on Ivan's face intensified: the flame within him had just been turned up. For a brief second Matt wondered whether Ivan was about to blow them all away. His hand dropped away, but his grip on the trigger remained just as tight.
'Give us that trigger right away,' said Perky, his voice booming around the woods. 'Or both of you die. Instantly.'
'Do it!' barked Alison. 'Give him the trigger.'
It's in the tone of her voice, noticed Matt. It doesn't matter what we do. We've threatened to kill her, and that's our death warrant signed, sealed and delivered. She doesn't need us wandering around the world somewhere, with time to plot and plan our revenge. She'll finish us now. If I were her, I'd do the same thing.
'Don't do it, Ivan,' he said.
Matt was surprised by how calm his own voice sounded. Maybe I have reached the point where I don't care any more.
The noose is already wrapped around my neck – I may as well tug at the chord myself.
'She's going to kill us anyway, whether we drop the trigger or not,' he continued, his tone getting harder as the sentence unfolded. 'Hell, if we're about to die, we might as well take her and these two bastards with us.' He chuckled. 'I always wanted the smell of Semtex in the air at my funeral anyway.'
Alison raised both hands, her eyes concentrating on Ivan. 'He's wrong,' she said calmly. 'Put the trigger down, take your money, and go wherever in the world. All debts are paid on both sides. You are free, wealthy men.'
'Don't listen to her,' Matt snapped. 'I've heard a thousand different stories from her lips, and they've all been lies.'
Ivan looked first at Matt, then at Alison. Matt could see he was starting to hesitate.
'The mission was a success,' said Alison. 'Now, let's all pack up and go home.'
We've lost.
TWENTY-THREE
The trigger was still sitting in the palm of Ivan's hand, but his thumb had moved away from the button. A single bead of sweat was dripping down his forehead, past his temple and across his cheek. His mouth was turned down and there was a blank, empty expression on his face: as if, decided Matt, he was all out of tricks.
'I put this down, you'll let us both go, and we'll collect our money and get out of here,' Ivan said, looking directly at Alison. 'That's the deal, right?'
Alison nodded. 'I understand the anger of both of you,' she said calmly. 'But I don't resent it. Like I said, our work is finished and it's time to call all debts paid in full.'
Matt could feel a few drops of rain on his face. He glanced up into the sky. The clouds had grown darker now, obscuring the sun. 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' he said, pronouncing the words slowly and deliberately. 'That's from Corinthians – although I suppose a good Catholic boy would already know that.' He turned to look at Ivan directly. Rain was spitting down from the clouds, lining his face with a thin film of water. 'Funeral psalms. Yours is coming up pretty soon, mate, if you do what she asks. I just thought I'd see what you'd like read out at the service.'
'Don't listen to him,' Alison snapped. 'He's lost it.'
The words passed across Ivan as if he hadn't heard them. 'There were five men when we started this mission, Matt,' he said slowly. 'Now there are only two of us. There's been enough killing. It's got to stop somewhere.' He tossed the trigger into the mud at his feet. 'In a few minutes you and I will be dead as well,' he said. 'It's not an acceptable casualty rate.'
Matt could see Alison flinch as the trigger settled into the mud: it was as if a thousand volts had been shot through her, and every nerve in her body had suddenly jumped. She stepped quickly forwards, moving away from where the bomb was buried. Behind him, Matt could see that
Pinky was still holding his gun level with his head.