by Geoff Wolak
‘Ah.’
‘German bombers?’
‘Well, sir, got to try and lighten the mood, might be killed by a scud missile any day now.’
‘Please don’t exasperate our Saudi colleagues. And who are you, exactly?’
‘You’re not supposed to know, but I’m Mi6. I normally drive Arab officers around who don’t know I speak Arabic. Caught some selling secrets.’
‘Oh, right, well ... good work, excellent.’
The front seat colonel laughed. ‘German bombers? And that man looked up.’
They thanked me as I dropped them off, and I headed back to the hotel, ignoring the air raid warnings, and we had three that night. Some of the lads even slept in their respirators. I simply turned off the air con, because the air came from the roof, and any chemicals in the air would be sucked in.
A knock at the door at 6am, and I opened it naked without thinking, covered in sweat. I cute lady in her thirties stared back. And stared.
‘What?’ I finally asked, then realised I was naked. I looked down, then moved the door and peered around it.
‘You’re not with CNN?’ came a sexy American accent.
‘Nope, BBC, here to cover the war for Winston Churchill.’
‘Who?’
I shook my head. ‘Be a love and fuck off to the right room, eh.’ I closed the door.
A knock came again, I sighed, and opened the door again, not hiding anything. ‘Yes..?’
‘Look, your room has the angle we want, so ... can we film here later?’
I shrugged a shoulder. ‘Sure.’
‘And you’re not BBC, they don’t have gunshot wounds and look like Rambo.’
‘Right, well unless you want to get in the shower with me, come back later.’
Her mouth dropped as I closed the door.
Stood over the bed I found that it was soaked in sweat, and I remembered the air con, so turned it back on, a cold shower needed after I tore the wet sheets off.
After ordering room service, an hour spent on the balcony watching the con trails, she was back, now with her crew. I was now in uniform.
‘So what are you ... exactly?’ she asked as they set-up on the balcony.
‘I’m a major in Army Intel,’ I lied. ‘I speak Russian and Arabic, so I pose as a driver and drive around Arab officers, pretending that I don’t understand Arabic. Caught some blabbing down the phone.’
‘Can we interview you?’ she excitedly got out, twirling her hair.
‘No, because I don’t officially exist. Buy me dinner if you like.’
She smiled, her crew not impressed, and she curled a lip their way as she opened her make-up box. And a big box it was, a girl coming into help get the slap on that face.
Lights rigged up, despite it being daylight, I sat with a cold beer and observed as she used her winy Alabama voice, numerous re-takes.
‘Get the fucking lights right!’
‘What, do I give a fuck!’
‘Who wrote this fucking shit!’
I grinned as I observed her, wondering if she had been raised by the nuns. And she could switch from cursing the crew to being pleasant in front of the camera in a second.
They finally left me alone, a nice smile from the anchor lady. She had been gone ten minutes when a knock came at the door. I was about to get my end away.
I opened the door to Bob Staines. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Expecting someone else?’ he asked as he stepped in.
‘Yes.’
He sat. ‘Haseem.’
My heart skipped a beat as I sat opposite. I waited.
‘They found his body yesterday.’
‘What! That’s two fucking weeks!’
‘Yes, and the bodies were all ripe and maggot infested. We figured on less evidence that way, no idea why his staff never reported it. Anyway, they found the drugs, the guns, and have buried it all, news blackout. Good thing, a war, for hiding the news.’
I nodded, relieved.
‘We watched the tape, several times. You ... could come work for us you know, not guard the gate at Brize Norton.’
‘I’ve had enough excitement for a while, and it seems that working for you means me risking a jail term – you taking no risks!’
‘Very few of ours end up in jail, we are more stealth than action. But you’re cool under pressure, and you think outside the box, three impressive operations down here; Colonel Ali, Haseem, and Bioti’s dead friend.’
‘Let me think about it. Give me ... a year or two.’
‘You’ll be bored when you get back.’
‘Maybe. We’ll see.’
With Bob gone, I wondered why I was in uniform, and changed, putting on my swimming trunks under my tracksuit. I headed to the rooftop pool, which was closed unless to cameramen, but I snuck in anyway using the fire escape.
I had clocked up about twenty lengths when security told me to leave the pool, not impressed when I mentioned which camel his mother had shagged to produce him – and I got the syntax right.
At 9pm, down in the bar, my anchor woman plonked down next to me. ‘Hey.’
‘Hey yourself. And what is your name?’
She looked momentarily shocked. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I don’t watch American TV, no. Not the news anyway.’
‘Call me Cathy then.’
‘Call me Wilco.’
‘Wilco?’
‘Cover name, I got used to it.’ I ordered us drinks, non alcoholic, and put it on someone else’s room, a fake signature. I led her to the seats. She had a great cleavage, her boobs about to pop out.
‘So you’re a spy then,’ she began.
‘Certainly not. You’d have to tickle me to get any secrets out of me.’
‘You’re built like a pro boxer.’
‘I keep fit when I can.’
A colonel walked past. ‘Hey Wilco,’ he said with a wave.
‘Sir,’ I waved back.
‘He your boss?’
‘No, my boss is in Riyadh, but he spies on me.’
‘So how come you’re not behind the lines then?’ she teased.
‘I go where I’m sent,’ I said with a shrug. I pointed at her drink. ‘You want some real alcohol?’
‘Oh god yes, this place is killing me.’
‘Come on then.’ I led her back to my room, and she kicked her shoes off, losing four inches right off. Fridge open, I opened two beers. ‘Real beer, strong beer.’
She gulped from the bottle. ‘Ah, that’s better.’
Glasses swilled out, I poured her beer into one, and we sat facing the distant air base, feet up on stools.
I began, ‘So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’
She laughed before gulping beer. ‘Daddy was preacher, I ran away to New York, and at eighteen I had me a fifty year old sugar daddy, he paid me through college – well he got himself a virgin an all. I went to work in his ad agency, got into TV. When he died he left me some money as well, more than his daughter.’
‘Married?’
‘Twice divorced.’
‘Jesus, you’re not that old!’
‘High pressure business, but I made money from both of them.’
‘I’m poor, so you won’t even get dinner from me.’
‘My bit of rough, to use and throw away.’
I laughed. ‘Actually that’s a turn-on, I’m not offended.’
‘You’re a Brit spy with gunshot wounds, so I doubt much offends you. Got any smack?’
‘I had a two kilo bag in my hand a few weeks back.’
‘God, I’d kill for that. None left?’
‘It was evidence. Sorry.’
‘Damn.’ She finished her beer, another opened.
‘Not filming tonight?’ I asked.
‘Fuck no, been a hard day.’
With the second beer down I suggested a swim.
‘It’s closed and locked,’ she puzzled.
I lifted up. ‘Follow me.’
/>
Up the fire escape we trotted, the pool area empty, and I opened the gate with the alarm and closed it quickly behind us. ‘The gate alarm goes off after five seconds.’
‘So they don’t know?’
‘Nope. Just us.’ I started to undress, missing the camera.
She slipped out of her dress in one movement, bra and thong off, and in we dived as she shrieked like a young girl. Kissing in the shallow end, a finger on her pussy, the police burst in, six of them. We both stood up to our waists and, giggling, she put a hand across her boobs.
In Arabic I said, ‘Don’t you have something better to do?’
‘Out the water,’ the first man said, all ogling my lady.
The blast filled our ears, eyes widened, and the police stared towards the site of the explosion. I jumped out the pool, seeing the smoke – wafting away from us.
In Arabic, I shouted, ‘Respirators, it’s poison gas, you have to get some for us!’
The police ran out in one mad heap. I jumped back in the water.
‘What was that?’ she asked, suddenly afraid.
‘Scud missile, five hundred yards away, but the wind is blowing away from us, so ... no big deal.’
‘Christ, the crew will be going nuts trying to film it.’
‘Hotel staff will move them all to the underground car park. So ... we have about half an hour.’
She wrapped her arms around me. ‘Make me scream, Brit guy.’
She spent the night in my room, sex three times after she found a small amount of cocaine in the bottom of her bag, and at 6am she had to go, early filming.
An hour later I got a sharp knock at the door, security marching me downstairs, and not with their happy faces on. In the manager’s office I came face to face with the Arabic speaking British general I had driven around.
He began, ‘You were filmed having sex around the hotel pool during a scud raid. I’ve ... explained who you are and seized the tape and destroyed it.’
‘Thank you, sir, but you missed the point.’
‘I did?’ he puzzled.
‘We wanted to blackmail the lady in question.’
‘Ah. Oh, well, sorry about that.’
‘Not to worry, sir, I found out what she was up to, not a major security risk after all.’
‘Ah, so not a complete loss then.’
‘Hush hush, sir.’
‘Yes, of course.’
The manager actually apologised to me, and I was about to explode with laughter as I shook his hand and left. Bob was waiting, his arms folded.
He led me to the bar, a coffee ordered, and not with his happy face on. ‘You said you didn’t want to work for us, yet you told that general you were with us.’
‘I said I didn’t want to work for, not that I didn’t want to take your name in vain to get out of trouble. All the benefits, none of the risk.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘You had sex with that CNN lady on the roof, during a raid?’
‘Empty pool. I didn’t see the camera.’
‘And you explained it away ... how.’
‘Told him that we – MI6 – wanted to blackmail her.’
Bob’s eyebrows went up. ‘And he believed that?’
‘Yep.’
‘What a fool of an officer.’
‘Hotel manager apologised for interrupting me, shook my hand.’
Bob shook his head. ‘You do this like a natural.’
‘I’m just cheeky. And that works a lot of the time.’
‘Obviously.’
It was only a short week later that things started to wind down, and I was soon on a plane, having slipped out of my hotel without saying goodbye; the bar bill would have to wait.
As the plane levelled off, full of enlisted men and officers, I peered out the window at the sand below, and felt heartbroken, truly heartbroken to be leaving. I had not quite realised it at the time, but here I had done something useful, and had fun at the same time. My stomach felt empty, and I was not looking forwards to Brize Norton, and a long flight back would see my head full of ideas – most of them about quitting the RAF.
The homecoming welcome
I landed back at Brize Norton in the rain, and it felt odd to be back. It also felt like I would soon be on guard duty again, or teaching NBC. It was 6.30am, and there was no one to give me a lift, so I lugged my kit in the rain back to my room, finding the door open, the lock smashed – no surprise there. The place was not a mess, not as bad as I would have figured, but the padlock on my cupboard was gone, a torn shirt left behind. It was a good job I had moved most of it out.
My metal cabinet was intact, but some signs that they had tried to open it. I opened it with a key, finding all my QMAR and books intact, even some cash I left behind.
The smell hit me, and I found shit in one of the old boots I had left behind. I bagged it up ready to be thrown out. Leaving my kit, something of a risk, I went around to Maintenance and found a corporal sat nursing a mug of tea.
‘Hey, Wilco, you’re back.’
‘And my room had been trashed – as I expected.’
‘They take anything this time?’
‘No, I had it all cleared out. Can you do a lock?’
‘Yeah, I’ll get the kit,’ he said as he stood.
‘Thanks, I owe you.’
He drove me back and soon fixed the lock, and also did the cupboard lock, and I handed him twenty quid, plus forty dollars – which he would have to exchange. I fetched a dustpan and brush, and a mop, and my small room was soon clean and smelling better, the window opened a crack.
Grabbing my wash-bag I headed to the showers in just a tracksuit bottom, the door locked behind me, the key around my neck. Coming out the shower, it was now 7.30am, and of all the people I did not want to see, Trask – the block idiot, was walking towards the showers.
He laughed. ‘Looks like someone did your room again.’
I kicked him in the balls before he could react, grabbed his wrist and made him scream. ‘So who trashed my room?’
‘I don’t know?’ he pleaded.
I twisted harder, and he screamed louder. ‘So when did you notice it open?’
‘Weeks ago.’
‘And when did you report it and sign a form to that effect?’
‘What?’ he screamed.
‘It’s an offence not to report a criminal act and damage to MOD property. So, I’ll have to report you. I’ll also kick the shit out of your every time I see you, so you’d best move to another block.’ I hit him in the ribs, both sides, and kicked his knee in, making him shriek.
I left him and returned to my room. At 8.45am I got a loud welcome from the corporals in the briefing room, but not a warm welcome.
‘Here comes trouble.’
‘Nice tan!’
I took in their faces. ‘Gentlemen, I just spent six months in a five star hotel room - gym, pool, sauna, meals included, and I drove the senior officers three days a week.’
‘What a cunt,’ they complained as I smiled.
I knocked on the CO’s door, and entered when told, saluting.
‘Ah, you’re back at long last. At ease. So, how was it?’
‘Great, sir, absolutely ... great.’
‘You weren’t there to enjoy yourself,’ he said with a smile. ‘And the lads at 37 Squadron want you with them, they’ve sent in an official request.’
‘You trying to get rid of me, sir?’ I teased.
‘Life would never be the same again. But they’re based in Germany, so ... do you want to go to Germany?’
‘Not really, sir, and the Air Commodore will want my services.’
He nodded. ‘The CO of 37 Squadron can’t praise you enough, so maybe there’s hope for you after all. And the Air Commodore wrote a letter to that effect as well, and oddly enough so did Military Intelligence. Is there ... something I should know?’
‘I drove around some of their staff, and did some Arabic translation work, that’s all, sir.’
; He regarded me with a squint. ‘If you got up to no good over there, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Uh ... no, sir, definitely not, because I’d not want to see my CO have a heart attack.’
‘Oh hell. Am I ... likely to get a visit?’
‘Let’s hope not, sir, and the Air Commodore owes me a favour.’
‘Where did you live all that time?’
‘Well, sir, you remember that heart attack..?’
He squinted again. ‘Yes..?’
‘The Air Commodore booked me into a five star hotel, and I had a nice room, but ... and this is sooo not my fault, he left me there.’
‘You spent the duration ... in a five star hotel?’
Smiling, I said, ‘I did, sir, may be a bit of a steep bill to settle.’
‘I’ll leave that to the Air Commodore to worry about.’ He shook his head. ‘You little rascal, six months in a posh hotel.’
‘With a pool, gym, sauna, Jacuzzi. I also found an Indian restaurant that did alcoholic beer, and nice little Thai massage place.’
‘Why do I have the feeling that this will come back to haunt me?’
‘I’m sure it won’t, sir, I hate creating paperwork for you. Oh, and someone trashed my room, so I just had the locks changed. Again. And I’ve only hit one person since I got back, which was an hour ago.’
He shook his head. ‘Go see Admin, sort the paperwork, then see what Corporal Marsh has for you.’
‘If I could take an hour out to put my kit back, sir.’
He nodded.
At 4pm I lugged my kit and bedding back up and into my room with the help of Sergeant Marsh, and I promised to see him down the pub that night at 8pm. I flopped on the bed with a sigh, but music disturbed me.
‘Here we go,’ I sighed. I took my top off, stepped out and locked my room, and headed across the balcony to the dorm room, the music getting louder. I bet myself twenty quid it was Army.
Entering the room, a bunch of short young lads backed up, observing me fearfully as I walked to the radio, turning it down. I found sixteen keen young faces on me, and I said, ‘You’re not the only ones living in this block. So, if you keep it down, and don’t slam the doors, I won’t kick the shit out of you. Deal?’
A few of them nodded.
‘Were you shot?’ a lad asked. ‘In the Gulf ?’