by Chris Ryan
He nodded at the bar. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Freebar,’ she said. ‘The best kind.’
She sauntered over to the bar, grabbed a glass from the rack under the counter and slid down into the chair opposite Porter. Poured herself a double measure of the Absolut and tipped it down her throat in one gulp. Either she’s a heavy drinker, thought Porter, or she’s even more worried about the situation than she’s letting on.
‘How long do you think we’ve got?’ she asked, setting her glass down.
Porter shrugged then took another hit from the bottle. ‘Not long. My guess is the rebels will have another crack at the bridge first thing tomorrow. Strike while morale is low with the Nigerians. It won’t take them long to smash through. We’ve got twenty-four hours at the most. Probably less.’
Tannon poured herself another slug of vodka. ‘Let’s hope you’re wrong. I just got off the phone with the commissioner. Seems like Downing Street finally understands how serious the situation is. The evacuation’s been set for tomorrow afternoon. We’re still waiting for an exact time. It’ll be a joint US-British operation. Details are scant but we’ll brief the guests in the morning.’
She looked up her from drink. Smiled nervously. Her eyes were half filled with hope, and half with fear.
‘You think we’ll make it?’
‘It’ll be close,’ Porter said. ‘But I’ve survived worse.’
Tannon sipped at her drink. ‘I guess you’ll be leaving on the first chopper?’
Porter nodded. ‘We’ve got our orders. What about you?’
‘I’ll be flying to Conakry with the commissioner to meet with President Fofana. We’ll return here as soon as it’s safe. Downing Street wants us to take the lead in negotiating a truce with the rebels.’
‘Won’t work. Never does when you’re dealing with scum like this lot. Trust me, love. The only language they understand is bullets.’
‘It’s different this time.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The rebels have the people on their side now. In the past, they didn’t have much in the way of public support. It was mostly a bunch of self-interested army officers looking to make a name for themselves. This time the rebels have the sympathy of a large number of people in the south of the country. If the president comes down hard on them, he’ll lose the next election.’
‘I thought the locals were terrified of the rebels,’ Porter said.
‘They are. But they’re also angry with the president. Because of the missing children.’
Porter frowned. ‘What missing kids?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Tannon saw the puzzled look on his face and went on. ‘Hundreds of children have gone missing in Sierra Leone in the past year. Mostly from the poorer villages and farms to the south. At first, everyone assumed they’d been abducted by the West Side Boys.’
‘Makes sense. They’re the ones recruiting all the child soldiers.’
‘Right. Except for two things. One, the kids going missing are too young, even for the West Side Boys. We’re talking about six- and seven-year-olds. Kids that age aren’t old enough to hold a rifle properly, let alone use it.’
‘What’s the second thing?’
‘Not long after the disappearances, Fofana’s men captured one of the West Side Boys’ commanders. He confessed to a bunch of stuff, but he swore blind his men hadn’t abducted these kids.’
‘So who took them?’
‘We don’t know. But whoever’s responsible, it’s got the locals pretty worked up. They think Fofana isn’t doing enough to find the missing children. Some of them even formed a pressure group here in Freetown to petition the president. Mothers of the Lost Children.’
Porter nodded. ‘I’ve seen the posters.’
‘The mothers have caused quite a stir. The rebels took advantage of the public anger and advanced on the city. The president is on the brink and they smell blood. The only way Fofana will survive is if he can form a truce with the rebels and put an end to the bloodshed. But it’s going to be tough. The rebel chiefs won’t agree to a ceasefire until the president cuts his ties with Soames.’
‘Will he?’
Tannon laughed and shook her head. ‘He can’t. Fofana needs Soames for his political comeback.’
‘Because Soames protects the mines?’
‘Correct. Without control of the diamond fields, Fofana is a lame duck. Besides, Soames has the political connections in Westminster to make things happen. Securing foreign investment, that sort of thing. Without Soames, the money dries up.’
‘Is that why Angela March has had you keeping tabs on Soames?’
Tannon nodded. ‘Whitehall is worried about blowback.’
‘Against the president?’
Tannon nodded. ‘Some people at the FO are concerned that Soames isn’t exactly clean. Angela included.’
‘The diamond smuggling. Hawkridge and your friend Angela told us during the briefing.’
‘The rumours have been floating around for a while. Angela was concerned that if Soames got caught with his hand in the till, it would reflect badly on the president and strengthen the rebels’ hand. We can’t afford any scandals. Not if we want to keep Fofana in power, obviously. So I looked into it.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘I tried. But I couldn’t get close to the diamond mines. Soames has got a tight security presence there. Which struck me as odd.’
‘We’re talking about a diamond mine in the middle of the most dangerous country in Africa. Security in these places is tighter than a nun’s snatch.’
‘This is different. The mine makes Fort Knox look like a branch of Abbey National. I’m telling you, Soames has got something hidden there. Something big.’ She paused. ‘And then there’s unannounced visits.’
Porter said, ‘What visits?’
‘In the past several months, a number of prominent military personnel and politicians have made unscheduled trips to the mine. We’re not sure, but we think they might be checking on something.’
‘Such as?’
‘We don’t know.’
Porter said nothing. He thought back to the conversation with Hawkridge after they had found the murdered Russian in Soames’s office. Remembered the MI5 agent telling him the rumours about Soames stealing diamonds from the mine and selling them on to dodgy fences for a profit.
Nothing has been proven, Hawkridge had said.
But I know Soames, Porter thought. I know how the bastard’s mind works. He doesn’t care about money. He’s already minted. All he gives a toss about is climbing the greasy pole, getting a knighthood, and the lifestyle that goes with it. The parties with the super-rich on their yachts in Monte Carlo. The weekend invites to Chequers. Chummying up to media tycoons and future prime ministers.
But if he’s not smuggling diamonds, then what the fuck is he up to?
He forgot about all this as Tannon knocked back the rest of her drink. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at Porter. Shyly at first. The hint of a smile, rather than the full thing. It carried the promise of something more than a smile, somewhere down the line. Then she leaned across the table and pecked Porter on the cheek. He caught the scent of her skin as she leaned over, and felt something hot stir in his blood. He wondered if Tannon was coming on to him. Bloody hell. I might actually be in here.
‘Thank you,’ Tannon said as she straightened up. She smiled more fully at him now. The booze breaking down her anxieties. ‘For everything that you’ve done for us today.’
Porter took another swig of vodka, then waved a hand at her. ‘Don’t thank me yet. We’ve still got to get through tomorrow first.’
Tannon poured herself another shot and downed it, giving herself more confidence. Then she broke out the full smile. It was less like a smile, and more like an invitation. She wet her lips and ran her finger around the rim of the shot glass.
‘I might not see you after tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I wish there was
some way I could thank you.’
Porter sat dumbfounded. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. It had been a long while since he’d had a woman. His last shag had been a drunken fumble in the dark with an Irish waitress with a face like a bag of ferrets. Porter had simply assumed his days as a bedroom warrior were behind him. Nowadays most women ignored him. Or worse, took pity on him. They could smell the moss on his dick from a mile away. Here we are in the middle of a war zone, and this bird is gagging for it.
Tannon leaned in closer to Porter. Lowered her voice to a whisper.
‘You know, I’ve got a room to myself on the fourth floor. Crowder insisted. There’s a fully stocked mini-bar in there too. How about you and I take this party upstairs?’
He didn’t need a second invitation. He set down the vodka bottle and shot to his feet. Tannon slid out of her chair, turned on her heels and sauntered out of the bar, her wide hips swaying hypnotically from side to side. Porter stared at her cracking arse, grinning widely as he followed her out into the lobby. He could hardly believe his luck. Five minutes ago I was going to spend the night with the bottle, drinking myself into oblivion. Now I’m in with a chance of shagging the deputy commissioner, someone with direct access to a minister in the Foreign Office. He smiled to himself as he imagined the look on Jock Bald’s face when he found out he’d spent the night with Tannon.
He felt his heart pounding with anticipation as he followed the deputy commissioner into her room. Porter glanced around the room while Tannon kicked off her shoes and retrieved a couple of miniatures from the mini-bar. The double mattress had been propped against the window and the rest of the furniture shoved against the wall. A makeshift bundle of pillows and duvet covers lay on the floor next to the bedside table. There were several bottles of prescription pills arranged on the table, Porter noticed. He read the labels. Zoloft, Xanax, and a generic brand of sleeping tablets.
‘For my anxiety,’ Tannon said as she wandered back over to Porter, clutching a pair of Jim Beam miniatures. ‘I get panic attacks sometimes.’
Porter tipped his head at the miniatures. ‘Should you be mixing that stuff with all them pills?’
‘It’s no big deal. I’m used to it by now. Besides, you’re hardly one to talk. The amount you drink, you should be dead by now.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Don’t look so surprised. Angela sent me your file. It was all in there.’
She handed one of the miniatures to Porter and unscrewed the cap on the other. Then they sat on the bedframe side by side, her long legs touching against his thighs as they sipped at their drinks.
‘What happened to your hand?’ Tannon asked, pointing to the two stumps where his index and middle fingers had once been.
‘We were on an op in Beirut. Me and some other lads were sent in to rescue a British businessman being held hostage there. Things got noisy. I took a round from one of the guards.’
Tannon reached down and touched the stumps. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.
Porter shrugged. ‘I got off lightly. Three Regiment lads died that day.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a kid. He was one of the guards.’ Porter knocked back half the miniature before continuing. ‘I remember his face even now. He must have been thirteen or so. I knocked him out cold during the mission. A blow from a bloke my size, the kid should have stayed down. But he didn’t. He got back to his feet as we were bugging out and dropped three of the lads. If I’d slotted the kid, those three lads would still be alive.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Eleven years. Back in ’89. Not long after I passed Selection.’ Porter fell silent and stared down at his drink. ‘There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about those three lads.’
Tannon took her hand and placed it on top of Porter’s. ‘You can’t blame yourself for what happened.’
Porter looked her in the eye. ‘I did what I did. There are no easy decisions in a battle. If I’d shot the kid, I would have broken the Geneva Convention and I’d probably be rotting in a prison cell right now. I made my choice and paid the price for it. A heavy price. But I can’t forgive Soames.’
‘Why? What did he do?’
‘He was the CO of the Regiment at the time. He blamed me for the Beirut op. What happened to me could have happened to any of the lads at Hereford, but Soames didn’t see it that way. As far as he was concerned, I’d flunked the op and made him look bad. He needed a scapegoat. So he hung me out to dry. I went from being on the fast track to being thrown on the scrapheap.’
‘He ruined your career?’ Tannon said. ‘That’s why you hate him?’
Porter nodded. ‘I wasn’t the best operator in the Regiment. Far from it. But I was a decent soldier and I had a good future ahead of me. I’ve got blood on my hands, and that’s on me. But Soames wrecked my career over it. He should have had my back. Instead he blackballed me just to cover his own arse. That bastard was more concerned with looking good in front of the top brass than losing three of his men. Now everyone thinks he’s a bloody hero.’
Tannon traced her fingers up the tight knotted muscles of his arm. ‘It can’t be easy. Having to protect Soames, after all that’s gone on between you in the past.’
‘I didn’t have a choice. The Firm sent us out here. And your mate Angela over at the Foreign Office. Seems Soames has got half of Whitehall under his thumb.’
Tannon frowned. ‘How comes you’re working for Angela, anyway? I didn’t know the SAS was in the habit of working with the Foreign Office.’
‘We’re not.’ Porter shook his head. ‘We’re on secondment to the Firm. We did a job for them a year ago, and they decided to keep us on. Been working for them ever since. They’re the ones who brought Angela on board.’ He looked up at Tannon. ‘What about you? How did you end up here?’
Tannon teased a wry smile out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Sometimes I ask myself that very question. I come from a military family. Dad was an officer in the Coldstream Guards, my grandad fought in Sicily with 1 Para. I followed the family tradition and joined the First Military Intelligence Battalion. Did four years, then left to join the Foreign Office and got posted here. Needless to say, Daddy wasn’t very happy about it. He always thought I’d marry some rich bloke in the City, settle down and pop out a couple of kids. But that was never what I wanted.’
‘What did you want?’ Porter asked.
‘Adventure. A chance to see the world.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘I guess at some level I wanted to prove my father wrong. Show him I was capable of being more than a stay-at-home mum.’ She looked up and shrugged. ‘Guess I have unresolved Daddy issues.’
‘I’m sure he’d be proud,’ Porter said. Because he felt he had to say something.
The awkward silence was punctured by another distant burst of gunfire. Tannon glanced at the window as the sounds of the rebels’ cheering and whooping carried across the night sky.
‘Do you think we’ll make it through tomorrow?’ she asked, looking back to Porter.
‘I don’t know. But I can promise you two things. If the rebels have a crack at us, me and Jock will give them the fight of their lives. The fuckers won’t know what’s hit them.’
‘What’s the second thing?’
Porter smiled weakly. ‘Once this is over, Soames will probably get a bloody medal. That wanker’s like Tefal. Nothing sticks to him. He always come out smelling of roses.’
Tannon went quiet for a beat. Then she looked deep into his eyes and said, ‘I don’t care about Soames and his medals. I know who the real hero is.’
She leaned over and kissed him, hard. It was the kind of long, feverish kiss that left them both breathless and trembling as they sought out each other’s tongues. Then they were tearing each other’s clothes off. Porter ripped open her blouse and unlatched her bra with his big clumsy fingers. Her small, pert breasts popped out. Porter cupped a hand to one, drawing a moan of pleasure from Tannon. Then she drew
back, making noisy inhalations as she stood up from the bedframe and took Porter by the hand and moved over to the bed. She peeled off his shirt, paused when she caught sight of the scars on his chest then pulled him close, socketing her groin to his. Porter felt the warmth of her breasts flattened against his bare chest as he kissed her pale neck.
‘Fuck me,’ she gasped. ‘Fuck me hard.’
Tannon slid her hand down to his crotch and unbuttoned his khakis. Then she reached around to the back of her pencil skirt and pulled down the slip, letting the material slide down the length of her smooth legs. For a moment Porter just stood there, his head spinning as he admired her stunning figure. She wasn’t just pretty. She was transformed. A totally different woman from the awkward, shy creature he’d first met in the hotel lobby. Tannon had the kind of body that looked better naked than clothed. She had wide curved hips and powerful thighs and a flat, smooth belly. She was lean, but not skinny. Slender, but not bony. The kind of woman who took care of herself, but knew how to have fun as well. Porter grinned.
Just wait until Jock Bald hears about this, he thought again as he watched Tannon slink out of her black lace knickers. She smiled at him with moist lips and a sweet, playful look in her eyes.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Porter grinned. He forgot about his mucker. He forgot about the booze and the mission, and Soames and the rest of it. This time tomorrow we might all be dead. So I may as well enjoy tonight. He pulled Tannon tight and clamped his hands around her firm buttocks, and kissed her like it might be the last kiss he ever had.
FIFTEEN
0639 hours.
Harsh sunlight spilled into the room the following morning. Porter woke early, glowing with satisfaction and listening to the light sound of Tannon’s breathing as she rested her head against his chest. A pungent aroma of sex and perfume lingered in the cool air of the room. He was hungry, and content. Waking up in bed with a beautiful woman by my side, and without a massive hangover splitting my skull in half. So this is what it feels like to be sober, Porter thought. Bloody hell. I could get used to this.