by Chris Ryan
'No, for Christ's sake,' I told myself. 'The one thing you do not need is a drink.' So I went back to bed, sickened by the knowledge that a long, lonely war of nerves lay ahead. I'd just come through one nightmare, but another was beginning, and this one was going to be far worse.
THREE
Even though I was dog-tired I couldn't sleep. I'd got over my fear of an immediate attack, but there was no way I could stop thinking about Tim and Tracy. After a while I went to lie on Tim's bed, imagining the look of his head on the pillow when we came in to check him last thing at night, the way his flaxen hair lay softly on the back of his neck. Even at four and a bit he was still wedded to Billy, his teddy bear, and usually dropped offsucking one of the damn thing's ears. Now Billy sat forlornly on the window-sill, and I knew that Tim, wherever he was, would be all the more miserable because he hadn't got the little bugger with him. What heartless bastards the PIRA were, to lift a kid as young as that.
In time I began to feel cold, and forced myself to accept that lying in his room wouldn't bring him back.
So I returned to my own bed and tried to shut my mind down. I heard the clock in the hall strike three, then four — but that was all. I must eventually have nodded off, and the next time I came to it was seven o'clock.
Since I was officially on leave I had no need to hurry into camp. So instead I called the incident room to make sure there had been no developments, then made myself breakfast and spent an hour going through Tracy's things. As usual, her desk was in perfect order: there were a couple of unpaid bills, but otherwise she had everything beautifully squared away. A school
34 exercise book contained a record of her expenses, in her neat writing, and she'd collected the drawings Tim had done at school into a folder. Most of them seemed to have violent subjects — tanks exploding, planes being shot down — and it wouldn't have taken a psychologist long to work out where all that came from. But the tidy way in which Tracy operated nearly choked me, because it made me realise how much she'd done for me.
At the time of Kath's death she'd been working as receptionist in the Camp Medical Centre. A week or two before I got posted to Northern Ireland she and her friend Susan had been thrown out of their lodgings in Hereford, so I had suggested they should occupy Keeper's Cottage while I was abroad. Events then speeded up in a direction I hadn't anticipated: Tracy and I fell i-or each other, and she had moved into the cottage for good, taking over Tim as though he were her own son. In a few months she had grown up with incredible speed and developed from a lively, knock about girl into a responsible foster mother. She'd kept on her job for a while, but then, when I went to Colombia, she'd given it up.
Driving away from the cottage wrenched me back to the present. In camp again, I was heading for the Kremlin when I spotted Jimmy Wells, the int officer, coming towards me on a converging path. A scrawny fellow with a narrow face and lank, dark hair brushed sideways over the top of his head, he usually went about with a hunted look, as though he were permanently worried; but his harassed appearance belied him, because he was at heart a cheerful character, always inclined to make the best of things.
'Hi, Geordie,' he called. 'No news yet?'
'Nothing so far.'
'Got time for a natter?'
'Well… sure.'
At the top of the stairs I followed him into his office and sat down in front of his desk. As I quickly found out, he was bang up to speed on the kidnap situation, and I realised that he'd invited me in purely to give some friendly support. He was like that; not being a badged officer — not a member of the SAS, but on attachment to us from Intelligence Corps — he had no hang-ups about regimental priorities or feuds and could afford to be himself with everyone, high or low.
'By the way,' he said in a conspiratorial voice after a pause in the conversation, as though letting fall some tit-bit of local scandal, 'Farrell's on his way back to the UK.'
'What?' I was taken aback. 'Already?'
'Well, more or less — I'm jumping the gun a bit. But the Colombian authorities have agreed to extradite him.' He picked up a sheet of fax paper and scanned it briefly. 'It seems they don't want anything to do with him. Don't blame 'em. He'll be flown out by military transport later today. Apparently he's suffering from gun-shot wounds in the right arm and flank. Flesh only nothing serious. Who shot him? I wonder…'
'No idea.'
I saw Jim smiling. He knew what had happened, of course, because he'd covered the Colombian operation from this end.
'If only I'd aimed a bit bloody straighter,' I said. 'But it was still only half light, and the bastard was running like the clappers.'
I stopped, suddenly remembering something I'd read about a British weight lifter at the opening of the Berlin Olympics in 1936. 'I read once about this bloke who found himself standing right next to Hider in some parade,' I told Jim. 'He realised he could have topped the bugger there and then. And afterwards he said, “What a hell of a lot of time and trouble I would have saved.” I feel like that about Farrell. I could have saved the country millions. What'll they do with him here?'
'Put him in the nick on remand while they sort out a case against him, I imagine.'
'There's any amount of things they can get him for: drugs, kidnapping the rupert, murder…'
We'd been chatting for several more minutes when my eye strayed to a photograph in the in-tray: a blown- up black-and-white mug-shot of a man with a moustache wearing a dark beret. Although the picture was upside-down I felt the hair on my neck crawling, because I was certain I recognised the subject.
It wasn't long before Jim noticed my attention was distracted. 'What's the matter?' he asked, following the direction of my eyes. Then he shot out a hand to cover the 10hoto and said, 'Ah. That's strictly need-to- know…'
'I know it's none of my business,' I said, 'but could I have a proper shufti?'
'You're not supposed to. Why?'
'I think I know the guy.'
'You can't possibly…'
'Let's have a look anyway.'
'Well… I'm not showing it you. You haven't seen it.' Watching me curiously, Jim picked up the photo and flicked it across the desk. The moment I saw it straight, all doubt vanished.
'It's him.'
'Who?'
'Shitface. I don't know his name. But this is the bastard that gave us a hard time in Baghdad. An Iraqi, isn't he?'
'That's right.' Now Jim was looking at me in a yet more peculiar way, as if he was seeing a ghost. 'Geordie, are you certain?'
'Absolutely. He came to the gaol three or four times to interrogate us. There was always a big palaver when he arrived — the guards shouting and saluting as though he was some high-ranking officer. It was this fucker who used to hit the plaster cast on my broken arm with his swagger-stick. That was bloody agonising. But it wasn't the pain that got to me, so much as his attitude.
He started saying that if I didn't give him the information he wanted, he'd open up the plaster, infect my wounds with bugs, and plaster it over again, so that I'd get gangrene and lose my arm. Sadistic bugger! I'll not forget him in a hurry. Luckily for me, the war ended before he could carry out his threat.'
'He sounds a sweetie,' said Jim.
'He is.' I shuddered as I remembered the screams that came from other parts of the gaol. 'He likes to see prisoners jump. To be more specific, he likes to see them convulsed. He's a specialist at administering electric shocks, and favours giving them through wet sponges, so that the prisoner gets high charge but isn't left with tell-tale burns. We called him Shitface because he was always frowning, like here. What's his real name?'
'I can't tell you that.'
'So what's his picture doing on your desk?'
'Classified, I'm afraid. But look: this identification's very important. Can you be absolutely sure you know the man?'
'One hundred per cent.' I saw doubt in the in the officer's face. 'You don't believe me?'
'Well, a lot may depend on it.'
'I tell you
what. There's another guy here in camp who was in that gaol with me: Tony Lopez, the American. He'll remember the sod as well as I do.'
Suddenly Jim was all lit up. 'Where is he now?'
'He's on leave, after Colombia. But he'll be around the Lines somewhere. I saw him last evening. If you like I'll go find him…'
'No. I'll ring round and see where he is.'
A flurry of telephone calls ran Tony to earth in the gym, and he said he'd come right up. As we waited, I saw that Jim was in a state of excitement. I realised why he hadn't let me go looking for the Yank myself.“ he wanted to confront him with the photograph before I'd had time to give any briefing.
In came Tony, looking big and brawny in his ash- grey tracksuit, sweat still trickling down his temples.
'Apologies for showing up like this,' he began. 'I was half-way through my weights, but this sounded urgent.'
'No sweat,' said the int officer — and then, grinning at the unfortunate pun, Td just like you to answer a simple question.' He flipped over the mug-shot, which he had turned face-down. 'Do you recognize this man?'
'Goddamn it!' Tony cried. 'It's Shitface, the son of a bitch who gave us third degree in Iraq.'
'There you are!' I said. 'What did I tell you?'
'Yeah!' Tony went on, his voice loud with indignation, jabbing a forefinger at the portrait. 'We used to think he looked like Saddam Hussein, with the moustache and the beret. But then, all Iraqi officers do.
This one always seemed to be scowling. A big guy, shambling, a bit like a bear. Boy, what wouldn't I do to get my hands on that bastard!'
Jim nodded. 'OK,' he conceded. 'That does it. Now you'd better forget I asked you.'
'Wait a minute,' said Tony. 'What's he got to do with us now?'
'Nothing.' Jim stared straight at me. 'As I say, forget it. And don't mention it outside this office. You never saw the picture, and I never asked you anything.'
Of course we couldn't forget it. Tony and I obeyed orders and didn't mention the matter to anyone else, but we talked to each other about it at lunch that day, then again in the evening. Obviously the Iraqi was up to something that involved the SAS, but we couldn't figure out what it might be. We guessed Saddam Hussein might be using him to suppress the Kurds in the north of the country; but at that time the regiment had no presence in Iraq — at least, none that we knew of- and a couple of veiled enquiries drew blank. On the other hand, secret operations were our bread and butter, and when guys got involved in something really hot they were generally tight as gnats' arseholes about it.
So it seemed quite possible that some operation was brewing and nobody was talking.
Nor did the day produce any information about Tim and Tracy. Telephone engineers had re-routed the lines so that anyone calling my old number in the cottage went straight through to the incident room, where the phones were manned twenty-four hours a day, and the line was bugged, so any conversation on it would be “automatically recorded. Foxy Fraser of Special Branch, who was there in person for much of the time, decreed that the phone must be answered by men only, with instructions to be as non-committal as possible. That way, if the PltkA did come through, they might think it was me on the other end.
For several hours I sat in on the control room, listening to the check calls that came through from Special Branch in London, Birmingham, Holyhead and other places, fervently hoping that one of them would bring news of a positive lead. At first I was on edge, jumping around whenever a phone rang; but after a while boredom began to kill hope and I settled into a resigned torpor, crushed by the realisation that we were probably in for a grinding marathon of a wait.
Hanging around, flicking through old magazines, I couldn't help being aware of the Streisand look alike, Karen Terraine, with her swept-back blonde hair and big nose. There she sat, all neat and tidy in a pale blue blouse and grey skirt, taking the odd call, making notes, checking things, going through to the SB central computer for specialised information, and bringing up one list of names after another on her screen. Most of the time she looked totally demure, but twice I caught her giving me the eyeball, and I began to get irritated by her presence.
Fraser saw I was less than chuffed, but he naturally attributed my unease to the general situation and tried to cheer me up by saying, 'Don't worry, Geordie, the touts are out there. The touts are about. They're all hungry, and they're all listening. Our eyes and ears are open.' A search was on in Ulster as well, in case the party had-somehow managed to cross the water undetected; but the presumption still was that the hostages had been taken to London.
In the afternoon I went out for an eight-mile run through the lanes, but although I kept pushing myself I couldn't settle into any rhythm. I just had too much on my mind. My anxiety about Tim and Tracy prevented me from concentrating on the exercise. The result was I wasn't looking at the ground properly and I kept stumbling and jarring myself, so that running, instead of being a pleasure, became hard, uncomfortable work.
It was the same when I went to the gym and got on the weights. Nothing would go right. From my own experience — and from watching other guys who were into big lifts — I knew how essential full concentration is; without it, you're at only half strength, and liable to do yourself damage. Now I just couldn't get my timing.
After half an hour I thought, Ah, fuck it! and gave up.
As I came into camp next morning — the second day after the kidnap — I went up to the Squadron Interest loom and found a note in my pigeon-hole. I was on the point of reading it when the clerk forestalled me by saying, 'Hey, Geordie. You're to report to the ops officer, soonest.' I went upstairs wondering what this could be about.
Mac Macpherson was in his usual gracious mood.
'Lucky sod, Geordie,' he said. 'Looks like you're in for more action already.'
'What d'you mean, Boss?'
'You're to report to the OC, SAW — immediately.'
'What's on, then?'
'Don't ask me. Ask him.'
'Christ! This isn't a great moment for me to go away anywhere.'
'See what he says before you start worrying.'
Before I'd even reached the bottom of the stairs I had made the connection: this had to do with the int officer's photo.
The Subversive Action Wing was the most secret part of our organisation, the unit that took on the most sensitive jobs, often working in cahoots with MI5 or MI6. Just as the two Government agencies were known as the 'Firm', so the SAW was known simply as the 'Wing', and its operations were the most highly classified of any the SAS undertook. People trying to be clever described it as the cutting edge of the organisation — and in fact that wasn't a bad description.
Because of its connections outside the legiment, it was almost a national force.
To gain entry to the SAW's area, one had to punch a series of numbers into the pad beside the door. Not knowing the combination, I had to bang on the steel door and wait for someone to let me in.
I found the OC sitting at his desk. In his day Major Yorky lose had been a fearsome boxer and front-row forward. On his way up through the ranks he'd never bothered to shed his Yorkshire accent or drop his native expressions like 'ee bah gum' and 'you'll not get owt for nowt', and similarly he'd never given a bugger what people thought about his ferocious training regimes.
Whenever strange noises were heard emanating from his office, it was said that Yorky was practicing walking on all fours: toes and knuckles.
Now in his late thirties, he'd lost most of his dark hair, and kept what was left shaved so short that at first glance you might miss the fuzz on his scalp and think he was totally bald. He had a high, domed forehead that made his head egg-shaped, and his thick, arching eyebrows seemed to accentuate the length of his face.
Guys in the Regiment tend to age prematurely, due to the amount of effort they put into life; by the time they're thirty-five, they look like they're pushing fifty.
Yorky was no exception: he already had deep lines across his forehead and
down his cheeks.
'Well, Geordie,' he began, 'I'm sorry to hear about your kid and Tracy. Any news of them?'
'Not a whisper, Yorky.'
'That's tough. I hope you get sorted soon. Mean while, I need your help. Take a seat there a minute.'
I perched on the chair at one side of his desk, pretty certain what his next step would be — and sure enough, he opened a folder, brought out a photograph, and turned it round for me to look at.
'You know this gent, I gather.'
I nodded. 'You're telling me.'
'How would you like to top him?'
'Top him?' For a second I was taken aback. But a moment later I said, 'Try and stop me.'
Yorky smiled briefly. 'As I thought.'
'Where is the bastard?'
'Last seen in Piccadilly Circus… No, you'll know soon enough. You've been selected to lead an operation to take him out. We want you to command one of the SAW patrols.'
'Jesus!'
'The timing of it, you mean?'
'Exactly. This isn't a good moment for me to piss off abroad.'
'I know that.' Yorky pushed back his chair and went walkabout, throwing a pencil in the air and catching it as he spoke. 'All the same, it could work out all right.
I've talked it through with the CO and the ops officer.
Also I had a word with the SB guy, Fraser, about the way he thinks things may go here. I've come to the conclusion that it's on for you.'
Missing a catch, he had to crawl under the desk to retrieve the pencil from the floor. 'The point is,' he continued as he stood again, 'this is going to be a quick job: in and out. You'll not be abroad for more than six days. Two weeks' training here, then less than a week away. To get the hostages back may take a couple of months.'
He saw me grimace, and went on, 'If anything breaks on the hostage front during the training phase you'll be here to deal with it. Your personal problem may well be cracked before the operation goes down. But even if it ain't, we can hold the fort for you while you're out of the country. Besides, you'll have Satcoms as usual, so that you won't ever be out of touch.'