‘I see.’
‘And is that it? Is that why you’re here?’
‘Look, Graham, you seem like a great kid, but I can’t say any more.’
‘OK,’ said Graham. ‘He’s in the greenhouses. Go through the shop and out the back you’ll find them. Dad says the heating there reminds him of the Middle East. You should feel right at home.’
Graham was right. Strolling through the first greenhouse, Abbott stripped off his overshirt, thinking how long it had been since he last saw Ward. Would he even recognise him? A guy in overalls pushed a wheelbarrow past him. ‘Is Ward about?’ he asked.
‘Back there.’
Abbott went on until at the far end of the last greenhouse, he found Ward, who was standing there, hands on his overalled hips, staring out of the window. A droplet of perspiration ran down his temple.
‘Ward,’ said Abbott.
‘Abbott,’ said Ward, turning slowly. ‘You’re early, aren’t you?’ He checked his watch. ‘Oh, sorry, no, you’re not early.’
‘Well, I think I’ve seen it all now,’ said Abbott as the two of them turned and began to walk together. ‘I’ve never known any explosives expert get sloppy with their timings, especially not the legend that is Freddie Ward.’
‘Well, mate, quite a lot has changed, I’m afraid.’
‘Yeah, and I heard the reason why,’ said Abbott.
‘You spoke to Graham, then?’
‘He’s a good kid.’
‘You had one yourself, didn’t you? I’m sorry, I forget the name. I mean, I’m not sure I ever really knew it.’
‘His name was Nathan.’
Ward looked up sharply at the use of the past tense. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, it happened in Iraq but any more than that I don’t want to say. Put it this way, I dearly wish we had been running a garden centre together. Even if he isn’t so sure that it’s what you want.’
‘Oh yes? What did Graham say about that, then?’
‘That maybe his dad misses the old life.’
‘Ha ha, yeah. One minute you’re blowing things up in the Middle East, the next you’re selling water features in Middle England.’ Ward sighed. ‘Look, I know what the right answer is. I’m supposed to tell you that I’ve never been happier. Never felt more content. And if you came here two years ago, when Lou was alive, then I’d have told you that, and it would have been the truth. Now, I’m not so sure. Put it this way, when you got in touch my first thought was that you needed me for a job. And my first thought after that was that I hoped you did.’
‘Well, I do,’ said Abbott. ‘It’s a job that requires your skill set. Or will, if everything goes to plan.’
Ward nodded. ‘Then I’m in.’
‘One thing, though,’ said Abbott.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m not taking you into any danger. You do what you do best and stay away from any bullets, OK? I’m not having Graham be orphaned.’
‘So there’s real risk, is there?’
‘This isn’t some soft private security gig.’
‘OK, I’m interested. You got my attention. Give me a figure.’
‘The job is worth a million. It’s a million for what will be preparation then a night’s work. A million to be split between you, Miller and Brace, provided they also agree to sign up.’
‘What about you? What do you stand to gain?’
‘Me? For me this is personal.’
CHAPTER 36
‘Miller, are you wearing fake tan, mate?’
It struck Abbott that his old team was a group of guys he knew well enough to trust them with his life and knew that they could trust him with theirs in return. And yet, he had never really experienced the civilian version of them. Freddie Ward’s passion for gardening, for example, had come as something of a surprise, and while he had always known that Miller was a little on the vain side – you couldn’t hide a thing like that, even in the field – he hadn’t realised how evolved it was.
Abbott looked around. Miller’s gym – called, appropriately, The Mill – was hidden away in a corner of North London. None of your Holmes Place. This was a proper, old-style joint, just short of a boxing gym. But, although it had all the hallmarks of a place where grown men spent hours perspiring heavily – in other words, it reeked – it was well-kept, tidy, properly maintained.
Like its owner. Miller had always been buff, but never quite as toned and sculpted as he was now. And then, yes, there was the question of the fake tan. Abbott suspected that there was quite a bit of depilation involved in the current upkeep of Miller, too. Back, sack and crack, all that.
Still, aside from all that, the same Miller.
Ward had travelled with Abbott, who had raised a surprised eyebrow when he turned up wearing the same overalls he’d been wearing for work. Abbott thought it diplomatic to say nothing, but standing here with Ward in his overalls and Miller looking like one of The Chippendales, it struck him what a strange and eccentric bunch they had always been and clearly still were.
Miller had turfed out the last of the customers and closed up for the evening. They stood in the semi-darkness, surrounded by gym equipment, regarding each other awkwardly. Three men who had been through so much together. Who had killed and seen comrades die before them. Who had saved lives and taken them.
‘Ward said something about a job,’ said Miller.
‘If you’re up for it,’ said Abbott. ‘If you’re not,’ he lifted his head and looked around, ‘because you’ve clearly got a nice thing going here, then I’ll quite understand.’
‘Tell him what it’s worth,’ said Ward. Miller licked his lips when Abbott revealed the figure.
‘When do we get to hear the details?’ asked Miller.
‘If you’re on board, then the next step is to get into touch with Tom Brace.’
‘This isn’t a job the three of us could handle?’ said Miller.
‘Maybe so, maybe not,’ said Abbott, ‘but I don’t plan to risk it. We did jobs together as a four. Call me superstitious. Call me loyal. Call me somebody who wants the best sniper I’ve ever worked with at my back. But, yes, I don’t want to proceed without Tom.’
‘Then you’re in luck.’ The voice came from the shadows and was followed by the man himself. Tom Brace, who appeared from the dark apparently having lost none of the stealth for which he was famed.
Abbott’s eyes travelled from Ward, who shrugged nothing to do with me, to Miller, who smiled. Abbott wasn’t sure how he felt. If it was a test then, sure, he’d passed it with a show of loyalty. How he felt about having that loyalty tested, and therefore questioned, was another matter.
Clearly his thoughts were displayed for all to see, Brace coming forward to take him by the shoulders. ‘Don’t read anything into it, Abbott,’ he said. He spoke as he always spoke. Quietly. A surgeon mid-operation. ‘We just thought it would be a laugh to see your face, that’s all. You wouldn’t have been asking for me if you didn’t want me, right? Nobody ever doubted you, dude.’
Abbott calmed himself a little. Trust was needed. Of course it was.
Where both Miller and Ward had gone on to non-military careers, Abbott and Brace had stayed with the life. Abbott in security, plying his trade in the Middle East and then in Singapore. Prior to the trouble with Nathan, that was. While Brace had become a gun for hire, working wherever the money took him. Not always for the ‘right’ people, it had to be said. But then, that was the nature of the beast. ‘We’re going up against traffickers,’ Abbott told him. Brace had always nurtured a special disgust for them. One thing Abbott could count on was that.
The guys caught up. Abbott offering a truncated, condensed version of his life since they last saw one another. He accepted their condolences over the death of Nathan, just about managing to keep his emotions under control.
‘A little birdie told me that you were drinking,’ said Brace. ‘I mean, you always liked a pint. We all did. But . . .’ His eyes went to Miller a
nd Ward, who were both watching Abbott’s response carefully. Brace wore a pained expression, as though he was worried he might have gone too far.
‘No, no, it’s OK,’ said Abbott, addressing them all. ‘You’re right to ask. I’d do the same in your position. No way you want somebody on the team who’s likely to let you down. But you’re going to have to take my word for it that, for the time being at least, I’m off it. Just like in the old days. When you hear what I have to tell you, you’ll understand.’
He outlined the job, giving scant detail. They nodded, saying little.
‘What’s the first step?’ asked Miller.
‘First, equipment,’ said Abbott. He looked to Brace as the team member who was still in the game and could lay his hands on what they needed.
‘We’re going to need NVGs, as well as large dems charges, smaller door charges, solid shot shotgun to take out door hinges and locks in addition to the charges. We’ll need shock tube and detonators. Zip ties. And of course we’ll need weapons. As well as my sidearm, I’d like an FN Scar.’
After the AR-15, the FN Scar heavy and light was the special forces’ favoured weapon. Abbott knew that Brace favoured the SSR – sniper support rifle – which was a marksman version. If Abbott’s previous experience of the men was anything to go by, then Ward would choose the Scar, too, while Miller would opt for the trusty AR-15. They wouldn’t want to make their decision yet, though.
‘What’s our objective?’
Abbott nodded approvingly. Just by asking that question, Ward was proving that his head was fully in the game. After the plan, the most important aspect of any operation was keeping that objective in mind. The mission is the goal. And the mission, as he told them, was to infiltrate the camp, locate and terminate Doyle, release the children and extract to safety, neutralising as many of the enemy as possible. That was the mission. The reason that they needed to keep that mission in their heads was because when an operation goes noisy, it needs to follow a process. It’s not about feelings or emotions. It’s about going into your one metre square, focusing on your immediate environment and moving towards your objectives.
Which was to release the children. Terminate Doyle.
The plan. ‘Tom, you’re providing sniper coverage.’
‘Of course.’
‘Ward . . . Sorry, bro, but you’re on your own. You’ll be responsible for setting the charges. Miller, you’ll be my number two. We’ll clear the building and locate Doyle. Once that’s happened, we can get the kids extracted. Tom, you make sure to take out any sentries and obvious X-rays trying to escape. That, gentlemen, is our DA plan.’
Any operation has two plans. First of all, a Deliberate Action plan, known as the DA, which was the preferred method of execution, in which you commanded the incursion, controlled the situation and, most importantly, decided when it got noisy. In addition to your DA, you had an Immediate Action plan, known as an IA. This was for when things had not gone to plan. For when the operation had turned noisy on you ahead of the Deliberate Action plan. It was, in effect, a contingency plan for when things went wrong.
And things always, but always went wrong. No plan survives first contact.
‘OK,’ said Brace to Abbott, ‘what can you tell us about the set-up?’
Abbott told them everything he had learned from his time as a Doyle employee. The sentries, not an especially disciplined rota. The inner sanctum office where on the night of the incursion Doyle would no doubt be located, and the fact that most nights he stayed in the office until at least 7pm, which was when the incursion would take place, darkness having fallen at least an hour earlier. How Cynthia Doyle was often present on a Tuesday and a Friday, when she would turn up with their son, Finn.
‘For that reason we’ll avoid Tuesday and Friday,’ Abbott told the men. ‘I want no family members involved in this. Add that to your list of objectives, please. No innocents are to die. Anybody armed then brass ’em up. Anybody else, if they’re obviously trafficked children then they’re to be extracted. Any persons that you have doubts about, zip-tie them and we’ll deal with them before we blow the place. Here . . .’ He’d sketched a plan of the Kemptown site, pointing out where sentries might be expected to appear. ‘This room here,’ he indicated, ‘is where the men tend to hang out in the evening. Here,’ he moved his finger, ‘this is the inner sanctum. This is the site of objective number two. It’s where I expect to find Doyle. I anticipate that by the time we reach it, things will have got noisy, thus we can expect Doyle to barricade himself inside. Door is solid, but hinges are on the outside. I can take them out with the charges and use the shotgun as a back-up if necessary.’
‘Blow the door, but unless it peels clean, they’ll be waiting for us,’ said Miller.
‘But we know what to do about that, don’t we, Ward?’
‘Distraction charge?’ said Ward.
‘Exactly what I’m thinking. If you can set a charge in the car park here, and then blow it, make it loud and pretty, they’ll be turned to the window wanting to know what’s going on, at which point we’ll blow the door, get in the room and take out any X-rays that stand in our way.’ He looked at Ward. ‘Do you think you can do that?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And after that, the dems charges. I want the whole complex totalled by the time we leave. We’re sending a message here. Nobody else is going to move in there and take over the operation.’
‘It’s why I’m here,’ said Ward. ‘Who’s carrying out the CTR?’
The CTR, a Close Target Recce, would be carried out during the planning phase. Abbott already knew the complex well, but experience taught him that you bypassed a CTR at your peril. He didn’t dare carry it out himself, instead entrusting it to Ward and Miller while Brace sourced the equipment.
A week later, the team was based in the Welcome Break hotel on the A50 in Derby, where they met in Ward’s room and the two operators reported back on the results of the CTR, the results being that there was an increased presence at the factory. More activity than Abbott had suggested. More men on site. More cars coming and going and, perhaps most disquieting of all, more kids. More civilians.
Abbott called McGregor.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Let’s meet,’ he was told, and a couple of hours after that they were in a greasy spoon.
‘Problem?’ Abbott took a sip of tea, set the mug down with a grimace and decided to make it his first and last sip of tea in this particular establishment. Funny, he thought. Time was he would have insisted on meeting in a pub, no matter how dangerous it was.
‘Problem? You could say that,’ exploded McGregor and then remembered to keep his voice down, leaning forward and keeping his voice low. ‘Right now, Doyle thinks you’re something close to the devil. He doesn’t like the fact that you went to see Lady Norton. He doesn’t like that you haven’t turned up back for work to give him the skinny on what went on. He is only just – and I mean only fuckin’ just – buying my story that I know nothing. I tell you, I am this far from having my fingernails pulled out. Cynthia’s in his ear, giving it all that. He’s just getting more and more paranoid.’
‘According to Her Ladyship, Kilgore was going to put him back in his box.’
‘He’s only just in his box and whatever Kilgore’s said to him it’s done nothing to put his mind at rest. He is convinced that forces are lining up against him.’
‘Well then, he’s not so stupid, is he?’ said Abbott ruefully, at which McGregor pulled a face.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing. We’re going to proceed according to the plan.
Why is he putting children on site? What good are they at Kemptown?’ Abbott thought of the little cleaner girl, but other than that . . .?
‘He’s talking about some kind of human shield.’
‘Jesus.’ Abbott shook his head. ‘And what about The Free-masons? Has that shut down?’
‘Since you wasted Sweaty, you mean? No, I�
�m afraid not, pal. You remember the barman, the guy with the dreads? He’s in charge now. Mind you, they scaled it down. Some of the kids from there are the ones they brought into Kemptown.’
‘The Polish couple’s kid?’
‘Yeah, he’s there, too.’
Abbott looked across the table at him, eyes blazing. ‘You feel proud of yourself for that, do you?’
McGregor blazed back. ‘Do you? Listen, don’t go getting any wrong ideas. I’m not the avenging angel in this scenario. I’m no angel at all. My heart is black and it’s broken. I’ve thrown my lot in with Juliet Norton because she pays me more and quite frankly, I’d rather be based at a mansion in Richmond than a shithole factory in Derby. That’s it. That really is it. You carry on with your pure motives and if that puts us on the same side then so be it. I’ve seen what you can do, and I’d much rather be with you than against you.’
Abbott looked at him, thinking, You’re in this up to your fucking eyeballs, aren’t you? But said nothing. Keeping his cards close to his chest.
‘Any idea when you’re going to do it?’
‘You asking for me or because Her Royal Highness wants to know?’
‘How about a bit of both?’
‘Well, in that case, you both need to remember that I’m not in the habit of sharing status reports.’
‘So you’re not gonna tell me when you plan to move?’
‘I still don’t know. And even if I did know, no, I probably wouldn’t be telling you when I plan to move. We operate on a need-to-know basis, and I’ll decide when you need to know.’
‘OK, but here’s something that you need to know. Doyle’s levels of paranoia are going through the roof. He’s called on a bunch of guys from Manchester. He wants a larger force down here. They’re arriving at the weekend. Does that make any difference to your thinking?’
It did. It meant that Abbott had to move Thursday night latest. ‘He didn’t like having his hand forced, but on the other side of the coin maybe it was for the best. Perhaps he had been prevaricating, holding off.
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