Marine I SBS

by David Monnery

  ‘Ah,’ he said, as if something had just slotted into place.

  ‘I am trying to get in touch with him,’ she said. ‘He often talks about you, and I thought perhaps you might know where he is.’

  There was a brief silence. ‘No, I don’t, but I have had a letter from him . . .’

  ‘A letter,’ she echoed.

  ‘A strange letter,’ he added. ‘He says that he will be away for several months working on a government project, but he doesn’t say where or what the project is.’

  ‘What sort of government project would need a physics professor?’ she wondered out loud.

  A long silence ensued, and for a moment she thought they had been cut off.

  ‘He has only been an academic for a few years,’ Akhundov said eventually. ‘Before the break-up he worked for the Soviet Rocket Forces research division.’

  Tamarlan had never told her that. ‘Doing what?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure – he doesn’t like to talk about it much. Something to do with missile engineering, I think.’

  She let that sink in. ‘What was the postmark on the letter?’ she asked.

  ‘Baku,’ he said promptly.

  She had the feeling that both of them were now treating Tamarlan’s disappearance as suspicious, without actually saying so.

  ‘There was something else in the letter, something which I didn’t understand until now. I still don’t, but . . . wait a second and I’ll read it to you.’

  She listened to him walk across his room and back again.

  ‘He says, "If Raisa calls tell her it’s time to start her life and to stop chasing rainbows – there’s no pot of gold at the end of mine." Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, but promised to think about it.

  An hour and two glasses of vodka later she was no nearer to inspiration. There didn’t seem much doubt that he was trying to tell her something, but she was damned if she could work out what.

  She went back over the two years of their affair, trying to remember each meeting, each conversation. She relived their first meeting, at a scientific conference, the first time they had made love in his Volga, the first time they had done it in the forest. She found herself thinking how much fun it had all been, and then realized how selective her memory was proving. All the evenings and nights she had spent waiting for the phone to ring had been conveniently erased.

  This was getting her nowhere. She poured another slug of vodka, curled up on the sofa once more and let her mind go blank. A pot of gold . . .

  And then it came to her. It had been almost two years ago, a showery autumn day, and they had met in the same picnic area above the city, maybe even for the first time. She could see the arc of oil-drilling piers stretching out into the choppy water, and the rainbow which suddenly appeared in gloriously bright colours, one end caught in the clouds, the other seemingly rooted in the farthest tip of the man-made isthmus.

  He was out there in the Caspian.

  But doing what? Her department should have received notification of any new government project in the area, but there had been none. For a few moments her anger at this betrayal thrust Tamarlan to the back of her mind. What the hell were they doing in the middle of her sea?

  Still, at least she knew where he was, and presumably his wife was with him. She reached for the phone to call Akhundov, then took her hand away. It was almost midnight – much too late to call. And now that she had solved at least part of the riddle there seemed no reason for urgency.

  Next morning she arrived at work to find the university buzzing with the news that a professor had been run down and killed by a car just outside the gates. It had been an accident, of course, but the car had not stopped.

  5

  Uday al-Dulaini padded down the richly carpeted underground corridor and rapped softly on the door of Kusai Hussein’s Mukhabarat office.

  ‘Come,’ Kusai said, his voice only just audible above the whirr of the basement’s air-conditioning.

  Inside, Uday found his boss idly snacking, dipping Jacob’s Cream Crackers into twin bowls of red and black caviar. There was something irredeemably provincial about the man, Uday thought. Like his brother, he was a peasant in urban dress. A peasant with the power of life and death over twenty million people.

  Kusai poured them both a glass of bourbon and sat down on the white leather couch which lined one wall. ‘So your sleight of hand with the scientist was a success,’ he said encouragingly.

  ‘It worked like a dream,’ Uday agreed, lowering himself into Kusai’s massage chair. ‘We videoed the UN people as they arrived at Falluja. Their eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when they realized there was nothing there. For the next few months they’ll think twice before voicing their suspicions, and in the meantime our people in Washington and Brussels will be using the proof of our innocence’ – he allowed himself a smile – ‘to strengthen the case for lifting sanctions. Abas Naji may not have intended it, but he served his country better in death than he ever did in life.’ He took a sip of the bourbon.

  ‘There are lingering suspicions,’ Kusai argued, as much to put the arrogant puppy in his place as because he thought they mattered. ‘There was an article in the London press a few days ago.’

  Uday dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand. ‘They are afraid of us,’ he said, ‘and frightened people are always suspicious. But I think we have given our friends enough ammunition already, and soon they will have more.’

  ‘The Russian operation is underway?’

  Uday looked at his watch. ‘The call was made about two hours ago.’

  Kusai shook his head and smiled. ‘What makes you think they will take the bait?’

  ‘How could they not?’

  Kusai laughed at the sheer hubris of the younger man. ‘I hope you’re right.’ He took a gold cigarette case from his pocket and extracted a cigarette, noting Uday’s slight frown of disapproval. ‘Do we have a new delivery date?’ he asked, the Zippo lighter poised beside the cigarette.

  ‘No. It’s still eighteen months, assuming nothing goes wrong . . .’

  ‘What could go wrong?’ Kusai asked, realizing as he did so that seeing Uday fall flat on his face would offer at least some consolation for any future failure.

  ‘Who knows?’ Uday was saying philosophically.

  ‘The Azeri scientist is not making difficulties?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

  Kusai blew smoke in Uday’s direction. ‘So all we have to do is wait.’

  * * *

  The cast of characters in Conference Room B was much the same as it had been three weeks before, with a Lieutenant Colonel Colhoun in the seat previously occupied by the anonymous young man from the Foreign Office Gulf Desk. The presence of this newcomer, introduced by Martin Clarke as ‘the Officer Commanding the Special Boat Squadron’, had given David Constantine cause to hope that this particular meeting would generate more than words.

  Neil Colhoun, who had been invited up from Poole at short notice, was hoping much the same thing.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s Saddam’s bomb again,’ Clarke began, with what he probably thought was a winning smile. ‘The subject is becoming something of an old chestnut, but . . .’ He raised his hands in mock helplessness.

  ‘But we all know what happened to the boy who cried wolf,’ Manny Salewicz interjected somewhat inappropriately.

  ‘Quite,’ Clarke agreed. ‘Sir Christopher?’

  The head of MI6 looked like he’d been up all night. ‘We have received some information from St Petersburg,’ he began. ‘According to a man who telephoned our consulate there, a ship left port at dawn yesterday – that’s about thirty-two hours ago – bound for the Syrian port of Latakia. The manifest claims the ship is carrying agricultural machinery, but our man on the phone says there’s also sixty pounds of weapons-grade Uranium 235 on board. He even had the number of the hold and the markings on the crates. The shipment has been purchased by th
e Iraqis through a Russian syndicate of ex-military and neo-Mafia people.’

  Clarke turned his gaze on Constantine. ‘Enough for two Hiroshima-power bombs or warheads,’ the weapons science adviser said. ‘Maybe three.’

  ‘Shit,’ Salewicz murmured.

  Colhoun now knew the reason for his own presence, and his enthusiasm dimmed slightly. In the past the SBS had often been asked to act in circumstances which bent the rules of international law, but high-seas piracy would be something new. There was even an added element of irony – that very week an SBS team had just wrapped up an operation against organized piracy in the South China Sea.

  ‘What are the chances of putting some real pressure on Syria?’ the man from the MoD was asking. ‘They would be guilty of sanctions-breaking, and they’ve never been that fond of the Iraqis.’

  ‘Do they even know what’s headed their way?’ Salewicz asked.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Hanson answered the American. ‘But my feeling is, we can’t afford to trust the Syrians to sort this out. Even if they’re willing, they’re unlikely to be competent.’

  ‘Her Majesty’s Government,’ Clarke said ponderously, ‘is of the opinion that this ship is already guilty of sanctions-breaking, and can be considered a rogue vessel according to international law. Lieutenant Colonel, do you think your men could board and search this vessel as it proceeds through the English Channel?’

  ‘And remove the relevant contraband?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Colhoun shrugged. ‘I can see no practical difficulties. But if my men meet opposition they will obviously have to defend themselves, perhaps before they can verify the existence of the nuclear material. If people are killed and there turns out to be no contraband then there will be a major international incident. Is Her Majesty’s Government prepared for such an eventuality? And can I have your assurance, Minister, that my men will not be left holding the baby if something like that happens?’

  Clarke looked almost hurt, as if such a possibility had never occurred to him. ‘We stand by our people,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Remember Gibraltar,’ Salewicz said sardonically.

  Colhoun realized that was all the assurance he was likely to get. ‘Are we certain the ship is taking the Channel route?’ he asked Hanson.

  ‘According to the course they filed with Lloyd’s. Our rough estimate, based on an average speed of fourteen to sixteen knots, puts the ship in mid-Channel sometime between sunset on Monday and dawn on Tuesday. But of course we’ll be getting more precise updates from air reconnaissance once she enters the North Sea.’

  Which gave him almost four days to prepare his team, Colhoun thought. He hoped the ship would oblige them by moving through the Channel at night. In such matters darkness might provide no more than a fig leaf, but a fig leaf was always better than nothing.

  Once ensconced in his first-class compartment for the return journey to Poole, the SBS boss turned his mind to choosing a team for the job. The four-man team led by Callum Marker had the most active-service experience – the real thing was distinctly hard to come by in this day and age – but it was still in Hong Kong, and in any case lacked the specialist knowledge needed for this assignment. Gary McClure and Paul Noonan, on the other hand, had finished a course in nuclear-related issues only a few weeks earlier, and presumably now knew one end of a Geiger counter from the other.

  ‘McClure,’ Colhoun murmured out loud, causing the woman sitting across the aisle to stare in his direction. To his certain knowledge, Gary McClure had a perfect service record. He had graduated from the Marines to the SBS with flying colours, and in hardly any time at all had passed through the SC3, SC2 and SC1 courses, passed the Senior Command Course, and been promoted to sergeant. He was probably the best swimmer in the Squadron, a veritable wizard when it came to explosives, and his leadership of a behind-the-lines team in the Gulf War had won him a Military Medal. He seemed to live for the SBS.

  And yet there was something about the twenty-eight-year-old Londoner which made Colhoun less than a total fan. Something which he had never been able to put his finger on. He could point to certain things – McClure was too dedicated, too willing to put aside ordinary physical and mental needs, too good at turning off his own humanity the way a soldier sometimes has to do. These sounded like positive attributes, and of course in certain situations they were, but . . .

  Colhoun sighed, and watched the outskirts of Guildford slide by. Over the last few years he supposed he had come to see McClure as someone who existed at the very edge of what was acceptable in a soldier. He remembered Raymond Chandler’s description of the perfect private eye – a man who was able to walk the mean streets without becoming mean – and thought that a perfect soldier could be described in much the same way. McClure’s record made him look like one, but Colhoun sometimes had the sense that he had chosen to walk the mean streets – or in SBS terms, swim the mean waters – because he felt most at home with meanness.

  He sighed again. You were supposed to get more resigned with age, not more moralistic. If McClure got the job done, what did it matter if he had a heart of stone?

  It mattered, Colhoun told himself, if McClure was so tightly wrapped that one day he simply lost control of himself. And it was with such a possibility in mind that he had asked for a psychiatric profile the previous year. The psychiatrist had reported back that McClure was a very angry man and a very controlled man, and that it was hard to imagine a career in which he could make more productive use of his anger than the one he was currently in.

  There had been no indications, either then or since, that an explosion was imminent. There was only a hunch in Colhoun’s gut which he couldn’t substantiate, and which might well be playing him false.

  Besides, McClure had just acquired the extracurricular knowledge he would need for an otherwise straightforward mission. There was really no choice, no matter how much the man in the back of Colhoun’s mind wanted there to be one.

  Paul Noonan took a sip of bitter without taking his eyes off the door of the Ladies. She emerged, and he found that the sight of her walking towards him was as bad for his blood pressure as the sight of her walking away had been. It wasn’t just the shape – it was the motion.

  The jewelled stud in her nose glinted in the lights as she sat down. A few days ago he would have imagined something like that putting him off, but now it just seemed an extra come-on. He was glad she didn’t have a ring through her lip or tongue though – no matter what people said, things like that had to get in the way of all-out kissing.

  And he did hope to be kissing her before the evening was over, on the mouth at least. And then, either tonight or sometime in the very near future, he wanted to lick his way down her lovely throat towards the nipples that were pushing against the tight sweater.

  But first, he thought with a sigh, they had to get to know each other.

  Julie seemed to have the same idea. ‘So how long are you in for then?’ she asked, making life in the Marines sound like a stretch in prison.

  ‘Until I feel like quitting,’ he told her, with scant attention to the truth.

  ‘But you like it?’ she asked, licking the Guinness foam from her upper lip with a perfect pink tongue.

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘It doesn’t just feel like you’re playing soldiers?’ she asked mischievously.

  ‘No,’ he said indignantly.

  ‘I told my dad what you did, and he just said it must be better than working for a living.’

  Noonan made a face. I can’t wait to meet her father, he thought.

  ‘Well, there’s no wars, is there?’ she persisted. ‘And the Cold War’s finished. It’s just terrorists these days, right?’

  ‘You never know,’ Noonan said. ‘We have to be ready for anything. We have to be the best.’ And the SBS was the best, but he couldn’t tell her he was a member of that. ‘It’s not just combat skills,’ he said seriously. ‘You have to be a mechanic, a parachutist, a sailor, a radio oper
ator, a bomb disposal expert . . . You can tell your dad it’s bloody hard work.’

  Julie grinned at him. ‘You’ll probably get to tell him yourself one of these days.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ he said sarcastically, though the implication behind her remark made him feel good.

  ‘He’s OK really. Are your parents still in Liverpool?’

  ‘Yeah. My dad’s like one of those mobile phones you can’t take too far from its base, only in his case it’s his football team. If he moves more than a mile away from Anfield his circuits start shorting. My mum’s a councillor – spends her life trying to stir up the neighbours.’

  ‘What’s your dad do?’

  ‘Building, when there’s any work. He was a merchant seaman for twenty years, but the unionized jobs just disappeared – it’s all Filipinos these days.’

  ‘My dad lost his job about four years ago. He can get seasonal work in the summer but there’s nothing else around here. I think they’d have trouble making ends meet if I wasn’t bringing in any money.’

  He took another sip of beer, and wondered if it was too cold to suggest a walk on the beach. ‘You like being a nurse though, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Most of the time. It’s really depressing sometimes. People die.’ She looked at him with a rueful smile. ‘And I never get enough sleep.’ She arched her back and yawned, tightening the sweater in the process.

  Noonan was about to suggest the walk when a uniformed Marine loomed over her lovely head. For reasons that he couldn’t begin to guess at, much less excuse, he was needed back on base.

  * * *

  The surprises continued. For one thing, it was the CO himself who required Noonan’s presence; for another, as he walked in through the great man’s door the first person he set eyes on was his monosyllabic partner from the recent nuclear course. Exchanging Julie’s company for Gary McClure’s was like trading in Meg Ryan for a depressed Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  ‘Sit down, Corporal,’ Colhoun said, gesturing Noonan towards the one empty seat in the ring of four facing his desk. Sitting beside McClure were two SC3s whom Noonan knew by little more than name. Davies was a curly-headed giant from East Anglia who looked like he could lock horns with a combine harvester and win. Appleton was a slightly smaller, straight-haired Geordie who seemed about as verbose as McClure.