by Geoff Wolak
‘Well, as I pointed out Saturday, firmly, on a job for him ... he is responsible, not us.’
I smiled. ‘Yes, sir, that he is.’
Sat thinking with a cup of tea, having caught up with the lads in the armoury, I called Bob Staines. ‘Bob, I was thinking ... that you need to be paying my way when I give up my weekends for you.’
‘Oh, well ... yes, it’s overtime of a kind. What ... er ... were you thinking of?’
‘I’ll leave that to you, but when I get some stitches put in you put your hand in your pocket. Not you personally, but the plonker who runs your show.’
‘I’ll chat to the right people. I’m sure that it won’t be a problem. Pro rata with your regular pay.’
‘I’d say time and a half for weekends risking my life, extra for injuries. Have a think.’
That week I got fuck all done, my head wound itching, then throbbing, then keeping me awake at night. I was damned annoyed at it all week, a few trips to the MO on the base. I spent a few hours on the pistol range with the SSM, trying to stay sharp, and practised quick draws at playing cards, the SSM suggesting that I was just about the best shot in the Regiment. Well, with all the practise I was getting I should have been, a great deal of taxpayers’ money spent on 9mm ammo.
On the Friday I felt OK, so headed to Sennybridge with Smurf, Rizzo and the SSM, plus a new guy, and we hit the moving targets, rapid fire practice. I stood behind the new guy and gave him pointers, the man in awe of me, which was annoying. Stopping for a cigarette break, them not me, I told stories of Bosnia and of shooting dogs.
The new sideways railed targets were up and working, which we only found out by flicking a switch, no fucker had bothered to tell me, so the SSM operated it from behind a bunker wall and we practised shooting at targets that not only popped up, but went sideways – as if a man running. I did well, the guys struggling, and I guessed that I had learnt something useful in the damned forest after all.
A few days later I was back in London. Lifting my head from behind a parked car, I judged the time and rushed my mark and his bodyguard. First the bodyguard. He glanced around, uncertain if he had heard anything, and caught me out the corner of his eye, but a little too late.
He turned, surprised but not alarmed, and I closed the gap, a dangerous lunge and a risky punch to the jaw. He fell back, the mark instinctively trying to catch him, and that gave me the chance to close the gap, a left punch down at an angle as the mark turned his face towards me, a look of surprise etched into him.
With both men unconscious, the bodyguard groaning, I scanned the underground car park, a hand to my fake beard and moustache, my clear glasses still in place, the cap on my head still in place. I had sprayed window cleaner onto the CCTV cameras, approaching them with my head down first, and guessed that there was no one sat watching them 24hrs a day.
Silence, just noise from the street echoing off the concrete walls of the dim underground car park.
I whipped out a cigar case, screwed off the top as I knelt and let the syringe drop out handle first. Reaching over, I injected the mark under the hair, both sides, a final dose in the arse, injecting the bodyguard under the hair just once. Miniature whiskey bottle out, I poured some into their mouths, some in the hair, some on their clothes. Syringe away, I stood and backed up, checking the ground for evidence. It was clear. I turned and ran.
Up the vehicle down-ramp I sprinted, slowing as I hit the street, and as I hit the heavy rain – a blessing in disguise; everyone had their heads down. I ran across the road, my own head down, around the corner and down a lane, past a mews and into a park. Walking briskly, I discarded the fake beard in a bin, next the glasses – into a pond, but kept the cap. After all, it was pissing down.
Out the other side of the park I found a parked van and turned my jacket inside out as I sheltered under a tree, soon on the road and flagging down a taxi. Inside, I gave him a nearby Baker Street address, accented, and spoken Russian into my mobile, the phone off. Out the cab, I crossed the sodden street, head still down, and turned a corner, entering the first bar I could find, cap off and coat shaken.
At the bar I ordered a ploughman’s lunch, a beer, then sat with my drink at an empty table. I had taken several sips when I noticed a lady observing me. She was well kept, and so were her colleagues. They looked official, but there was no way they could have gotten into place ahead of me.
With my lunch placed down, she came over and sat next to me. And waited.
Her face registered just in time to make me look smart. ‘Some cheese ... Ma’am?’
‘Ma’am?’ she toyed.
‘You are a few ranks higher up the food chain that a grunt like me.’
She nodded. ‘So you remember me.’
‘You were sat two rows ahead, two over, blue top that didn’t match your grey skirt.’
She smiled, and was quiet attractive for a lady in her late thirties. ‘Observant little bugger, aren’t you. And that skirt went with the jacket, which I had – obviously – taken off.’
‘Funny the detail you remember, eh,’ I quipped, carrying on with my lunch.
‘What brings you to this area?’
‘Interrogating me, Ma’am?’
‘Just curious. No bases or buildings in use nearby, so ... I was curious.’
‘Playing hide and seek for Bob Staines, a few places to visit without being seen, observations made. It’s supposed to teach me something.’
‘You sound .... cynical of such training methods.’
I nodded. ‘It all comes down to luck. Step left, landmine, step right – no landmine. Not sure how hitching a ride on a coal train advances my skills.’
‘Well, if you were caught behind enemy lines –again – you have some experience of using such trains. It all helps.’
I nodded and made a face. ‘If Bob Staines and his crew knew I was sat here with you...’
‘What, they’d be ... a bit put out? Chatting to the enemy?’
‘You’re all paid by the taxpayer. Never understood the rivalry, and 14 Intel ... they created a whole new meaning to the word duplicity.’
‘Think of it in these terms: if I get some juicy intel and my colleagues don’t, I get noticed and maybe promoted.’
I stopped eating and faced her. ‘Is there’s something you think you could get out of me ... with a damp afternoon in a hotel room?’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Because if there is I’m up for it.’
She tried not to smile. ‘As pleasant as that sounds, I have to be somewhere.’
‘Bummer. Anyway, if you have any nice young ladies that you need to test -’
‘Test?’
‘- of their seductive abilities, send them my way.’
She offered me a coy smile. ‘I’m doubting that they’d make you crack, and I’m not your pimp. Find your fun yourself.’
Her colleagues collected her and led her out into the rain, so I finished my lunch, washed down with a pint.
Pamela something, her name was Pamela something. I nodded to myself as I left, soon back at the MOD building and signed in, my clothes damp in many places. Bob had his concerned face on as I attended the kettle.
‘An ambulance was called to the address of Serkey...’ he noted.
I shrugged. ‘Maybe he tripped in the shower. Any police called?’
‘No.’
‘The ambulance report says drunk and unconscious,’ Bob noted. And waited.
I faced him. ‘The mark will wake, but he’ll never recover.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His senses will be destroyed by what I injecting him with. Anti-freeze.’
‘Anti-freeze,’ he hissed, and it was a good job we were alone. ‘It ... it’s supposed to look like a stroke if done properly.’ He stared past me for a moment. Facing me again, he had his puzzled face on. ‘How does that help us with Yuri?’
‘Trust me. Just get me the medical reports day by day.’
‘He’s not dead?’ Bob puzzled. ‘And won’t be.�
� I waited. ‘But ... if he is permanently stuck in a vegetative state...’
‘But conscious inside his own skull...’ I nudged.
‘Yuri will like it, a punishment, a life sentence to a nursing home being spoon-fed. He couldn’t even take his own life.’ He shook his head. ‘Jesus.’
‘Anyhow, at the exact time it was happening – more or less – I was sat in a pub being observed by Pamela ... something.’
Bob stiffened. ‘Pamela Houghton?’
‘Could be. She sat in on a Joint Intel Brief, the one where I lost my rag with 14 Intel.’
‘That’s her. My opposite number, sort of.’
‘And ... up a rank,’ I teased.
‘Well ... yes.’
‘So look at it this way: no assault recorded, no police, and even if there was police action it would be Bodily Harm, not murder, so a minor case at best. Try and get the medical reports before I go see Yuri.’
‘And why ... in particular ... were you having lunch with MI5?’ Bob delicately demanded.
I resisted teasing him. Too much. ‘Was raining like hell, ducked into a pub, she spotted me, I recognised her. No big deal, nothing given away. I told her ... that I was on a training exercise for you.’
‘If she were to -’
‘What? Try and seduce me?’ I asked with a coy smile. ‘Switch sides? Bob, I work with you because my CO allows it and encourages it, and because there is an overlap with my other work – such as Northern Ireland. I don’t work with you for the money, or because I like you.’
He seemed mildly offended, which was my aim anyhow.
I added, ‘God Save The Queen was inked onto my arse, not engraved on my heart, Bob.’
Monday, after squadron orders, I grabbed the Major and the Colonel. I took a moment, and they exchanged a look as we sat there. ‘I did a job for Bob Staines and ... I didn’t have to. It was a risk. I’m wondering ... if I’m starting to enjoy it, and that I shouldn’t be doing this shit for him.’
The Colonel eased back. ‘If you weren’t doing it, someone else would be. It’s not work unique to you, just that you’re good at it. What ... concerns you?’
I shrugged. ‘Why I do it, instead of being here.’
‘They were the ones that nudged us to come get you,’ the Major pointed out. ‘You ... think the work is too risky?’
‘Not really, not so far. Not as fucking risky as Bosnia, sir.’
The Colonel took a reflective moment. ‘You’re part of the security of this country. So are we. You play a part, and they think it’s a very valuable part, and you’re helping to secure the nation. What you’re doing ... is looking at it from the wrong angle, from the angle of someone testing their own sanity for doing it. Would someone have done that on D-Day, 1944?
‘Fact is they need you, the country needs you doing this stuff, or someone less qualified does it and fucks up. You worry about going back to prison, and you’re trying to rationalise why a sane and intelligent person would volunteer for something like this instead of holding down a sensible career.
‘And you’re right, it would be crazy to an outsider. There’s no war on, Wilco, but we are in a fight, as we are with the IRA and others. If we don’t fight back, people get killed, bombs go off. This is a never ending war.’
‘What bothers you?’ the Major asked.
I gave that some thought. ‘The lack of a wartime mentality I suppose. I choose to do this stuff, but part of me is holding back -’
‘Because of the way you were treated in the RAF,’ the Colonel noted. ‘And prison. That will never go away, that feeling of injustice, and your desire to avoid another prison cell. Just keep thinking of our national security – as with the IRA.’
‘You had no issues with going south of the border,’ the Major noted.
‘I guess I see Northern Ireland as a shooting war, green uniforms, London streets as ... domestic streets.’
‘Can be odd,’ the Major agreed. ‘First time I did an anti-terrorist op in London it was strange, civvy clothes and guns, members of the public wandering around.’
The Colonel nodded. ‘A green field war is more straight forwards. Undercover is a grey area.’
‘It may be because it’s them controlling me ... and not you two,’ I pointed out.
‘Don’t trust them?’ the Major asked.
‘Not as much as I would like to,’ I testily pointed out. ‘And the rivalry between the agencies...’
‘Yes,’ the Colonel began. ‘Enough to make you scream, bunch of girls at the best of times. And you’re right to be cautious, and not to trust anyone fully. Take a look at that 14 Intel chap – and who took responsibility for his death?’
I nodded.
‘What’s your real concern?’ the Major nudged.
I focused on him for a moment. ‘I put a man in a coma for Bob, but ... I had no order nor request to that effect, just that ... that was what they all wanted but wouldn’t say out loud. I did it, got away with it, and I seem to be good at this shit. What worries me ... is that I quite enjoy doing it.’
‘You enjoy getting a result,’ the Colonel noted. ‘A job well done. You wanted to please them. And this ... individual?’
‘Low life gangster and gun runner.’
‘Did the world a favour,’ the Major loudly noted.
‘Not his life that worries me, it’s the ... enjoying it. I’m getting like Rizzo.’
The Major nodded. ‘Rizzo will stick ten rounds in a man for fun, you stop and think then maybe wound him. Same war, different styles. And if you are enjoying it, so what. What we care about is killing the bad guys, securing our nation’s safety. And most of the lads here would fail a psyche test and be banged up as nutters. You have a conscience, an odd fact around here, but it’s nice to know that you’re starting to fit in.’
‘So ... by being more of a nutter ... I’m fitting in?’
‘Damn right,’ the Major loudly stated. ‘So don’t worry about enjoying it. We don’t.’
I shook my head. ‘My god, I’m becoming Rizzo...’
Yuri was puzzled as we stood in his plush hotel room. ‘They say he suffered a stroke, but there were signs of a struggle, alcohol found on his breath but not in his blood.’ He waited.
‘I knocked him and his bodyguard down, and injected them under the hair with anti-freeze. It looks like a stroke.’ I squared up to Yuri and closed the distance. ‘He is blind, deaf, can’t smell, can’t taste, can’t feel, but is fully and completely conscious and aware inside his own skull.’
Yuri shook his head. ‘What a fate, to be conscious like that.’
‘They say ... that such people go mad very slowly. It’s like being in a dark cave with no sides, no sounds. They go mad. And the only way to communicate is to draw characters onto the palms of their hands. He will live a long time. You could, if you like, wait till they teach him, then go and pretend to be a visitor and write him a message, tell him it was you.’
Yuri grinned. ‘I will let others know what you did. A deterrent. But please ... if we fall out, just shoot me.’
‘Yuri, if we fall out ... what you get will be much worse,’ I told him, my sinister smile on, and he backed off, soon fixing himself a drink. ‘Anyhow, someday soon you’ll have some paying work for me, no?’
‘Soon,’ he genuinely agreed.
Back at the drab MOD building, Bob was waiting with the Deputy Director himself, a man I had not met before. He shook my hand. ‘Good to finally meet you.’
We sat.
He took a moment to study me. ‘There is no solid evidence of who ... may have dealt with this Serkey chap, which is good. Very good in fact.’ He took another moment. ‘There are not many people we can trust with ... delicate work. Would you be up for more ... delicate work?’
‘If I was convinced that they were a threat to our national security, then ... maybe,’ I offered him. ‘Not that I had anything to do with ... who did you say?’
He smiled. ‘And ... would there be something you’d w
ant in return?’
I took a moment. ‘Not that I can think of.’
He exchanged a look with Bob. ‘There are those in the corridors of power, not a hundred yards from where we sit, that think a ... commission would be in order.’
My eyes widened. ‘A commission? Are they mad? Do they know how many people I’ve killed?’
‘Officers kill people all the time. That is ... what they’re ordered to do, whether that be from a plane dropping a bomb or one of your officers shooting a terrorist.’
I squinted at him. ‘Are they interested in ... making me more of a part of the establishment, a career move, an obedient and loyal servant of the crown? Roll over, play fetch?’
‘You’re not stupid, you figure it out.’
I was surprised, to say the least.
He added, ‘Some have you down as ... officer material, yes, but also someone that could train and maintain a specialist little unit as part of “E” Squadron.’
‘Ah...’ I let out.
‘Take what you’ve done with your three-day training scenario and expand upon it. Produce more ... like you, for us.’
Bob said, ‘We can recruit anyone in the Armed Forces if they show a talent. Imagine a younger version of you, yet to be discovered.’
I liked teaching and training, that was true, and very appealing.
‘You’ll consider it?’ the Deputy Director asked.
‘I like teaching and training,’ I said with a shrug.
‘So there’s a synergy,’ he said. ‘We find suitable people, you assess them with a view to ... discovering more versions of yourself. After officer training you’d jump a few ranks, but be out of mainstream work.’
I nodded to myself, thinking. ‘My old CO in the RAF would have a heart attack.’
Bob said with a smile, ‘You could go visit him, just to piss him off.’
‘I would,’ I threatened.
The Deputy Director stood, and we followed him up. ‘I’ll nudge the right people.’ And we shook.
I mentioned to the lads that the first intake for my training scenario would try it in three weeks, and word spread like wildfire, most everyone from squadrons far and wide wanting to have a go, including the SBS and others. The CO of the Army sniper school at Sennybridge would hold the details of the attendees, and liaise with me through the RSM – who knew the man well, and some of the early candidates would be from the Army sniper instructors, followed by the Marines sniper instructors, who may go on to be involved in running the scenario.