by Geoff Wolak
‘Excuses, Staff Sergeant Rizzo,’ the Major put in, shaking his head.
‘That ain’t fair,’ Rizzo protested.
Moran told Rizzo, ‘Pull your finger out, Staff Sergeant,’ which left Rizzo cursing under his breath.
Movement at the door caused heads to turn, and Sergeant Crab limped in wearing civvy clothes.
I stood and walked over to him. ‘You in the right place, Sergeant? “D” Squadron heroes are over the parade ground.’
All the lads turned to face Crab, his face black and blue.
‘I ... er ... came by to thank you. Captain. Should be dead right now, kicked to death by the fucking wogs.’
‘Sergeant, if you try and hug me I’m going to punch you very hard.’
The lads laughed, Moran and the Major closing in.
‘How are you feeling, Sergeant?’ the Major asked him.
‘Better, sir. They did a little operation on my ribs, I have a wire apparently, and I can breathe OK, leg wound got skin off my arse, and the bruises will go. Got a tooth missing, so I have to see the fucking dentist.’
‘A return to duty?’ Moran asked.
‘Couple of weeks, no drama,’ Crab told us. He focused on me. ‘I can’t remember much, just flashes, but that new colonel, he said I walked most of the way...’
‘You did,’ I confirmed. ‘After ... shooting seven guards.’
‘I though you said eight,’ Moran corrected me.
‘Could be,’ I agreed.
‘I shot some of the guards?’ Crab puzzled.
I nodded. ‘When the shooting started you overpowered your guards and picked up a rifle.’
‘Odd, because the doctor told me I couldn’t ‘av walked ten yards as I was.’
The Major put in, ‘What the fuck do doctors know about anything!’
‘And that story in the papers, about you carrying me?’
‘Made up by that reporter, he wanted to sensationalise it,’ I told Crab. ‘Anyhow, you get better, and we’ll see you on the next job, protecting our arses.’
‘You’d ... want me along on the next job?’
‘Why not?’ the Major loudly asked. ‘Are you going soft on us?’
‘No, sir. I’ll ... I’ll be there.’
And off he went, looking puzzled.
We sat back down.
‘Did he ... shoot anyone?’ Rocko asked.
‘Does it matter,’ I asked.
Moran put in, ‘However many Sergeant Crab shot ... it was more than Rizzo did.’
The room erupted into laughter, pointed fingers and accusations, and complaints from Rizzo as I exchanged smiles with the Major.
An hour later I wandered over to find Major Horrocks, the CO of “D” Squadron. I knocked and entered, then saluted.
He stood and came around to me. He was tall, but looked a little overweight, his hair almost gone. ‘Our first official meeting,’ he noted. He pointed me towards a seat and reclaimed his desk. ‘The trooper you hit has withdrawn his complaint, after reflection - and a few harsh comments from his colleagues – as well as Sergeant Crab. For rescuing Crab I’m grateful, and ... well, you’re not to blame for the losses we suffered.’
‘Thank you, sir. And I think it taught the lads something about trusting local police forces.’
‘Indeed, and we’re all damn glad you evened the score there. Still, we’re hurting and we have a few gaps, so we borrowed two men from “B” Squadron, they’ve got too many lads on the books.’
‘If there was another job, do you think I’d get any volunteers, sir?’
He eased back. ‘Well, I’d be tempted to ... hold back a bit given our losses, but that would seem odd. I mean, how long do we hold off taking risks given what we do, and the men would go stale just training after training, exercise after exercise. And to quote the lads themselves, they came to fight not to read about it.’
I smiled. ‘Seems like a good motto, sir.’
‘So the answer is ... if a job comes up we’ll see at the time.’ He interlaced his fingers. ‘The new CO talks highly of you.’
‘That’s always a good thing, since I find trouble easily enough.’
‘Indeed, and if you clobber one of mine again I won’t be able to protect you from charges.’
‘No, need, sir, I have friends in high places.’
‘Indeed.’ He took a moment. ‘And that trooper ... Hitchins, found with drugs in his car.’
I took a moment. ‘What you need to understand, sir, is that powerful forces out there have a great deal invested in me, and I know where the bodies are buried – since I killed them. They won’t let anything get in the way of their next good newspaper headline, they’re like drug addicts after that next fix.’
‘And when the music stops?’
‘I get a bullet in the back of the head.’
‘And does that not concern you?’
‘No, sir. It may seem odd, but this is all I know now, and my previous life ... I hardly think of it. I’m a rollercoaster that won’t slow down, and the only way off ... is to jump and hit the concrete. But the fact is ... I’m liking the ride.’
‘Many ex-troopers can’t handle the come-down, they hit the bottle and kill themselves, but we keep it quiet.’
‘I won’t be taking my own life. Why waste the effort when there are so many lined up to keenly assist me.’
He shook his head in disapproval. ‘Colonel Peter’s has a brain injury, drunk driving, wasted career.’
‘And how many of our lot like to drink too much, sir?’
‘Yes, quite.’ He eased back. ‘The Colonel is keen about your three-day test, but with an adjusted time and score for seniors.’
‘That would seem like a reasonable approach, sir. I’ll chat to the RSM and work something out based on years served.’
The phone went. ‘Yes, he’s in with me now. I’ll send him in.’ He put the phone down. ‘Colonel would like to see you right away.’
I stood. ‘That does not sound like good news.’ I saluted and stepped out, soon knocking on the Colonel’s door.
‘Come in!’
I stepped inside and saluted. ‘Sir?’
‘Sit.’
I took a seat as he studied me. ‘Right, two things, both involving the police, but both unrelated.’
I was more curious than worried.
‘First, police down in Newport want a tracker, and I’m led to believe that you’re quite good.’
‘Pretty good, sir.’
‘Then you meet the detectives when they get here, which could be soon. Second ... the Mali Government has accused us, or you, of killing men in that police station that were not involved in what they term an unfortunate incident – and by that they mean their officers killing my men.
‘They’re trying to shift blame, but ... a janitor and a man who cooked their dinners were both killed in the crossfire, as well as a man sent to do their taxes apparently.’
‘Leave it with me, sir.’
‘What the hell do you mean ... leave it with you? This could lead to formal charges of manslaughter, a court martial.’
‘Sir, there have been a great many hostage rescue situations around the world where hostages were accidently killed, and in none of those cases did the police stand trial. When the hostage takers took a man back to their police station, in their home town, they invited an armed rescue – with all the consequences that go with it.
‘Sir, if I fire a gun at your house, and you fire back – which you are entitled to do, and you hit my wife, who’s responsible? I am, because I fired that first shot.’ I stood. ‘I’ll deal with it, sir.’
‘Friends in high places?’ he curtly asked.
‘Yes, sir. Trust me.’ I saluted and left.
The lad on the front gate called me ten minutes later, police were here for me, a few in the office panicked, but relaxed by my smile.
I walked out to find a car, two men in suits getting out. ‘You the detectives?’
‘Yes, South Wales Pol
ice, after a tracker.’
‘You have one. What you need?’
‘We found marks and tracks near a murder scene, they’re fresh, thought we’d get a professional to have a look at them because they lead into the woods.’
I gestured towards the car. ‘Lead on.’ I opened the door and sat in the back. They turned and headed out the gate.
‘What do we call you?’ the driver asked.
‘Wilco.’
The driver swerved as he glanced over his shoulder. ‘Wilco?’
‘Yes, that chap. And watch the road, or you’ll have a few more dead bodies.’
We drove down to Chepstow, the detectives keen to chat about rescues, and carrying men on my back, before we cut across country to the north of Wentwood Forest.
‘The murderer dumped the body in an offshoot of the Usk River, so he was trying to get rid of forensics. Also makes it impossible to time the death. We know the girl, Newport lass, and we have a suspect in mind, the ex-boyfriend.’
‘It’s nearly always the ex-boyfriend,’ I quipped.
‘Stream is just ahead.’
‘Which way would he have approached from?’ I asked.
‘The other way.’
‘Do me a favour, go that way and approach as he would have done, body in the boot.’
They exchanged looks, stopped and turned, and drove half a mile before turning back. ‘This is the route from her flat to where the body was placed, we think.’
‘OK, go slow,’ I told them.
We drove up and over a ridge, and I could see the police below.
‘Stop here.’ They eased to a halt, and I moved forwards, peering through the windscreen. ‘Down there is where you think he dumped the body?’
‘Yes, past the police cars and left ten yards.’
‘And ... he dumped the body at night?’ I asked.
‘She went missing at 11pm, noises heard by the neighbours.’
‘So ... take a look ahead and tell me what you would see at night.’
They exchanged looks. ‘Dark road ... down to a river,’ the driver ventured.
‘And?’
‘And ... what?’
‘There are houses in the distance. So what would you see at night?’
‘Lights.’
‘And in your two o’clock position?’
‘Woods.’
‘And no lights. If I was driving this way to dump a body, why drive towards house lights when there’s a deep scary wood just there?’
‘To ... use the water to hide forensics.’
‘And is the boyfriend an expert on these things, was he panicked that night, thinking clearly? Drive off to the right, please, those woods.’
They exchanged puzzled looks, but did what I asked. At the start of the woods I halted them and eased out, so did they.
‘Wait at the car, please,’ I told them, and walked on, head down.
Car indentations, a car turning, fresh, last night, a condom, a courting couple. Smiling, I walked on. Discarded cigarette, weeks old, camp fire, weeks old, Land Rover tracks, fresh, turning in a circle. I stopped and knelt. Heavy footprint, drag marks, broken branches.
Edging left, I tried to avoid adding to the tracks. Halting, I sniffed; cigarette smoke, wind blowing down the hill. I tapped my pistol inside my jacket, force of habit. I followed the drag marks, finding a shallow grave, no one in it, broken plastic sheet, broken branches. I closed in. Blood on a sharp branch, high up, his not hers. He rubbed his arm or face.
I doubled back to the road, a side glance up the hill, and back to the detectives as they waited. ‘Does the boyfriend drive a Land Rover?
‘Fuck, yes, how’d you know?’
‘Tracks. He came in here last night, deep and dark, dragged her down in plastic – some plastic down there, dug a shallow grave, but was then disturbed by a courting couple, tyre marks and a condom. If you get the condom and get a DNA match, you may have some witnesses. He has a cut on his face from a branch, and ... he’s hidden in the woods and watching us as we speak.’
They glanced around from under their eyebrows.
‘Am I allowed to go get him without breaking the law?’
‘Well, you could make a citizen’s arrest, but ... it might affect the case; we’re here and we know. We can’t deputise you as such, we can seal off the area.’
‘He may leg it away. How about, I never told you he was there, I just followed tracks, and ... I stumbled upon him. What’s his name anyhow?’
‘Richard.’
‘So ... we never had this conversation, and ... wait here, please.’
‘He could be dangerous.’
I cocked an indignant eyebrow at them.
‘Sorry,’ they offered. ‘Stupid thing to say.’
I turned away and walked up the road, checking tracks as I went. Twenty yards up I reached the part of the road level with the shallow grave, a hint of cigarette smoke from an obviously nervous man chain-smoking nearby, and I walked on. Finding a dense area of wood on the right I ducked in, found a path and sprinted quietly up it, a good hundred yards, beyond where his smoke would have reached me – my back aching. At the top I turned right, stepping quietly for thirty yards, and I watched where I stepped, slow measured steps.
Twenty yards down through thick trees, and I could see his head as he peered down at the crime scene. Moving behind a tree, I studied him, and he was wearing a combat jacket. When he turned his head left he displayed the cut on his face.
He had been crouching, but then stood and moved back, and he was a big lad. Since he was coming up to me, I simply hid and kept still, no particular plan. But remembering my bad back, I most definitely did not want to try and tackle him to the ground and chase him down. And if I hit him...
My strategy suddenly had lots of holes in it, and the seconds were ticking by. I sighed, unzipped my jacked quietly, and stepped out, startling him.
‘Nice day for a walk,’ I said, the first thing that came into my mind.
‘What ... who are you?’
‘Wilco, SAS. And you’re Richard.’
He straightened, shocked, but not about who I was. ‘How ... how’d you know my name?’
‘It’s the name of the man they’re looking for, body in the river.’ I took a step closer. ‘But I guess you never meant to kill her, just an accident.’ He stared back, his features softening. ‘I can understand that. I have a child with a girl, she don’t let me see the kid. Maddening, aren’t they ... women.’
He nodded. ‘She said she loved me, then ... then I saw her with another man.’
‘What a bitch, eh.’ I took another step. ‘Those cops down there, they don’t have any evidence, just ideas. You might get away with it.’
‘Yeah?’ He thought about that. ‘You really Wilco?’
I pulled my pistol and stuck it in his face. ‘Want to try my patience?’
He backed off a little, his hands half up. ‘No offence, like.’
I put the pistol away. ‘Just you and me in these woods, so ... if I kill you there’re no witnesses. You ready to die?’
‘No,’ he came back with, appearing fearful.
‘Those cops down there, they got nothing solid. And even if they did, accidental death, seven years, out in three years.’
‘Three years?’
I nodded. ‘Then a nice holiday, someplace warm. Thailand, fuck a lot of girls, eh.’
He almost smiled, but fought it away.
‘So unless you want me to shoot you, turn around and walk down the hill.’
He glanced down the hill, and half turned, glanced back as I closed in, and we moved down the hill. I closed the gap, a kick to his ribs – the air leaving him, a kick to his knee – a crack sounding out before he screamed, I dropped to a knee to be level with him, a chop to the throat, and I knelt back and watched as he turned red then blue, the life leaving him.
‘Fact is, scumbag, you may well have been out in seven years, even for murder, walking around the same streets as my daughte
r.’
When he finally gave up moving I punched down on his right and left knuckles, stamped some skin off, and hit him in the mouth, cutting a lip. It would have to do.
Standing, I checked the area, and that we were alone, listening to the wind before I set off down the hill.
‘Over here!’ I bellowed as I hit the tarmac road, and they came running, two police cars tearing up the road behind them. I guessed that they had called for help.
They reached me. ‘Officers, I spotted someone in the woods, and he attacked me, we fought, he lost. Get an ambulance, I accidentally caught him in the throat. This way.’
I led them up, uniforms chasing after us, and to his warm yet blue body. They dragged him twenty yards down the hill, a uniformed officer giving CPR on the road.
‘Still got a pulse,’ one said, and I wondered if he would survive.
I gave a statement then and there, they took notes, but it was all black and white, and unless he recovered it was just my word, and if he did recover it would be my word against that of a killer.
‘Cut on his face just like you said,’ a detective noted.
I pointed at the original crime scene. ‘Seal that all off, there’s blood on branches, so you’ll get DNA. Now, I know how these things work, and I’ll make a formal statement when asked, and with my legal brief sat there. In the meantime, how about a lift back and ... some lunch.’
They drove me back, but we stopped half way for some lunch, the two men in awe of me, not least for solving their case so quickly, but they worried about their jobs because I had apprehended – and maybe accidentally killed – their prime suspect.
‘Gentlemen, you were not involved. You called in a tracker, all perfectly legal, I spotted the man, spoke to him, asked him to come down, he tried to attack me – and I am allowed to defend myself. I’m carrying a pistol but I never used it.’
They settled down, and relaxed a bit. When a mobile went they answered it. The suspect was alive, but in a coma.
‘So he’ll stand trial,’ I said. ‘Good result for you, case solved quickly.’
‘Did he say anything?’ they asked.
‘Kept saying that he was sorry that he did it, and that he caught her with another man, then he went wobbly and cried and attacked me.’