by Andy Maslen
She pulled her phone out. “Let’s Google it. Hold on.” Her thumbs danced over the screen and moments later she frowned. “Well, that’s not much help.”
“What does it say?”
“Did you know there’s a boxer called Fury?”
Gabriel hitched his shoulders and let them drop. “Vaguely. I don’t really follow it.”
“All the hits are a threat some other boxer made to him. ‘I’m coming for you.’ Could this be some boxing fan who’s after you?”
“Honestly? I have no idea. But it sounds about as plausible as any of the scenarios I’ve been able to imagine.”
“OK. So I’ll search each word in turn, starting at the front.”
After a few more seconds, she grimaced. “Fury. It’s a war film. And a word that means very angry. I think we could have worked that one out for ourselves. Nope. Bad idea. We need to think laterally. More wine, please.”
Gabriel poured two more glasses.
“It could be some kind of literary reference. You know, Shakespeare, or something,” he said.
“Yes. Or a code of some kind. Some crazy wants to tie you in knots figuring out their game. You know, a control freak. Someone who likes having power over people. Who do you know who’s good at that stuff?”
“What, control-freakery?”
“No, idiot!” she laughed again. “Literary stuff. Cultural symbols, all that shit.”
Gabriel thought for a moment. Took a sip of the Barolo. He could feel the beginnings of a headache building behind his eyes. The wine was powerful. Combined with the weak opioids Doctor Sendrathan had prescribed him, it was making his brain feel two sizes too big for his skull.
A memory swam into view.
Temptation
A bunch of the lads sitting around under a desert camo net strung across some poles driven home into the sand. Rifles – M16s, because back then, The Regiment preferred them to the British Army’s SA80s – leaning against the side of a stripped-out pickup truck. Gabriel had been sitting in a yoga pose, eyes closed, focused on his breathing. Ben “Dusty” Rhodes was playing blues on a harmonica, the soulful, yearning sound of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee’s “Stranger Blues” floating out over the desert. Damon “Daisy” Cheaney was writing in his journal, an obsessive habit he pursued at every available opportunity. And, because Mickey “Smudge” Smith – God rest his soul – was out of action with a fever, the fourth member of their patrol was a twenty-five-year-old import from The Royal Green Jackets.
Johnny “Sparrow” Hawke was originally from Durham. He’d moved around a lot as a child, as had Gabriel, because his dad was in the Army himself. Sparrow’s way of passing the time was to solve crossword puzzles. Not the simple, five-letter-word-meaning-snow-leopard kind either. The full-fat cryptic variety. He’d sit for hours, scratching at his cropped blonde hair, tapping a pencil against his front teeth, occasionally snorting with amusement before filling in a solution.
Gabriel quietened his mind as he inhabited the memory more fully. What had Sparrow been talking about? How you couldn’t hope to solve the really hard Times crosswords unless you knew your Shakespeare, your Jacobean dramas, your world religions and their stories, your classics.
“Take this clue,” he’d said, that baking hot morning, fifty Celsius at least and climbing, despite its only being nine in the morning. “Nine across. Falstaff’s ancient weapon is spoilt, unhappily. Six letters.”
Gabriel considered this, his eyes drifting open, as the distant booms of heavy artillery reminded them that this particular puzzle had a deadline coming. He slapped at a sand fly buzzing round his face, scratched his beard and tried hard to imagine what this nonsense meant.
“Falstaff’s from Shakespeare. I get that. And an ancient weapon could be a blunderbuss or a trebuchet. A javelin.”
“Yes,” Sparrow said, with a patient smile like a teacher spending one-to-one time with a particularly stupid child, his blue eyes dappled with blotches of sunlight coming through the camo netting. “But it’s six letters. You’re not approaching it right. It’s not a general knowledge quiz. Look, it’s in two parts. Falstaff’s ancient is the first part. Weapon is spoilt unhappily is the second. Do you see it yet?”
“For fuck’s sake, Sparrow just tell him the answer!” This was Daisy, looking up from his journal.
“Patience, grasshopper,” Sparrow said, his Geordie accent lending a comic angle to the line from the Kung Fu TV show. “Falstaff’s ‘ancient’ was a Shakespearean character called Pistol. See? Pistol is the weapon.”
“So what’s the rest all about?” Gabriel asked.
“Come on, boss, surely you can see it? Spoilt unhappily? It’s the word spoilt but an anagram. That’s what ‘unhappily’ signifies – it’s the setter’s code word.”
Gabriel nodded, and smiled. “OK. Spoilt is an anagram of pistol. Very good.” He checked his watch. “Time to go, boys,” he said, standing and reaching for his rifle.”
Gabriel looked at Eli, who has leaning back against the sofa cushions, eyes closed, almost asleep to judge from her breathing. He watched her chest rising and falling for a few seconds, then went to the kitchen and called Don.
“What is it, Old Sport?”
“You remember Johnny Hawke?”
“Sparrow? Yes, of course. I remember you all. What about him?”
“Is he still serving? In the Regiment? Or did he RTU?”
“I don’t think he returned to unit. Let me make a call. Might be the morning before I get back to you. That all right?”
“Fine, yes.”
“Want to tell me what this is about?”
“I want to talk to him about the message Sasha left for me on the shell casing. See if he can help me figure out what it means.”
“Good idea. Always was a clever chap. Speak soon. Goodnight, Gabriel.”
“Goodnight, boss.”
He returned to the sitting room, went over to Eli and shook her shoulder lightly.
“Huh? Oh, hi. Is it time to go to bed?”
“Yes. But how do you fancy a trip tomorrow?”
“Where to?”
“I’m not sure. It’s to meet an old friend.”
“Sure. Why not?”
Eli stood and stretched, reaching up towards the ceiling until her shoulder joints cracked. Two little pistol shots. Gabriel looked at her as she held the pose. She was staring directly at him. It was an invitation. Unmistakable. He’d once gone out with an anthropologist. Robyn had specialised in chimpanzees. She told him over dinner once that humans still betrayed their baser instincts by subconsciously adopting primitive behaviours. “Say a woman fancies you,” she said. “She lifts her arms up. She’s displaying her breasts for you. She can pretend she’s just yawning, or stretching and she may even believe that’s all she’s doing. But inside there’s a horny little chimp waiting to jump out.”
Eli put her arms down, hooking her thumbs in the waistband of her trousers.
“So, Gabriel Wolfe. Where am I sleeping tonight?”
Not so long ago he would have suggested that, perhaps, she might find his bed more comfortable than the spare. But things had changed. Britta was a part of his life now. The beautiful Israeli was smiling, her grey-green eyes half-closed. Waiting. She closed the gap between them and reached her arms around Gabriel’s neck to draw him closer.
He could feel her breasts pressing against him through her thin T-shirt. She stretched up and placed her lips, soft, plump, inviting, against his. He could taste the wine on her. The kiss was long, her breath whispered across his cheek. Then she drew away.
“Well?” she said.
Gabriel thought of Britta. Her pale, freckled skin compared to this woman’s tanned, olive complexion. Her coppery hair, bright where Eli’s was deep, reddish-brown. He opened his mouth to speak.
Unarmed Resistance
GABRIEL surprised himself with his answer. “I think that the spare bedroom would be best. You’re a beautiful girl, Eli, believe me. But I’m eng
aged. To a woman I love. I’m sorry.”
She pouted, but only for a moment. She put her hand on his cheek.
“She’s a lucky girl.”
Don called at eight the following morning. Gabriel had been out for a run. Eli was still asleep.
“Got you some good news, Old Sport. Sparrow’s still in the Regiment. Better yet, he’s leading a war-fighting course at Credenhill. I spoke to the CO to clear it. They’re expecting you sometime today.”
Gabriel smiled, and felt the band of tension that had been intermittently squeezing his chest over the previous week loosen a fraction.
“Thanks, boss. I’ll get going as soon as Eli’s ready.”
“What’s with the ‘boss’, Old Sport. Don not working for you?”
“It’s not that. I don’t know, I just feel this is serious. More like battle than a mission.”
“Well, whatever works for you. And how is Ms Schochat? Still in bed, you say?”
Gabriel hesitated. “Yes. Eli’s fine. Fantastic asset. I think we had a little too much red wine last night, though.”
“Asset. Yes, well, I suppose that’s one way of describing her. I wouldn’t call her that to her face, though.”
The call ended. Gabriel made coffee and toast and took it up to Eli’s room. He knocked on the door. The voice that answered was breathy.
“Yes. Come in.”
He balanced the tray on one upraised knee and twisted the knob with his free hand. He went in.
Eli was doing press-ups. She was wearing pale-grey briefs and a matching vest. She didn’t stop while he placed the tray on the top of the chest of drawers beside the window.
“Thanks, Gabriel. You OK?”
“Yes, fine, thanks. How are you?”
“Head’s a bit thick. But OK. Look, about last night.”
He shook his head. “It’s fine, really. There’s no need to apologise. I – we – had a bit too much to drink. It’s been a fuck of a stressful week for me and—”
She jumped forward and stood to face him. Her nipples were erect beneath the fabric of the T-shirt. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat. She smelled good.
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t going to apologise. I was going to say my timing was off. But it’s not just Sasha Beck who fancies you. So, keep that in mind. Now, pour me some coffee, would you? I’m going to have a quick shower.”
Gabriel complied. Then, as she turned her back on him and began to pull the vest up and over her head, he left, hurriedly, knocking into a lamp as he went.
At five past nine, they were on the road, Eli behind the wheel. As soon as they were out of his drive, she floored the throttle. Gabriel was slammed back against the padding of his seat. Eli was an expert driver. She positioned the car on a racing line through each bend, keeping the power on and picking up speed as she entered, then left, the village.
He smiled. “It’s a thirty limit here, you know.”
“Listen,” she said, dropping down into second, and provoking the engine into a roar of climbing revs, “we’ve got a bootful of firearms and enough ammunition to take out a terrorist base, plus ID cards that put the police back in their box. Do you really think a traffic cop’s going to trouble us?”
She turned to look at him as she said this and for the first time in his life, he wanted to be in a car going slower.
“Could you keep your eyes on the road, please?”
“Not nervous, are you? What is it, having a girl drive you? Are you a sexist pig after all, Mr Wolfe?” she asked, reaching across to squeeze his knee.
They reached the end of the village as she asked this, and the Audi surged forward under her right foot’s urging, the sound from the gaping twin exhausts a deep bellowing shout, pierced by the whistle of the turbochargers.
“Not at all. But it’s bad enough having one woman trying to kill me without doubling it.”
It was a limp joke, but she took it in the spirit he’d intended it.
“Fine. Eyes front and centre, Segen Rishon Schochat,” she barked. “That was my rank, by the way. First Lieutenant. How about you?”
“Captain.”
“Never made it higher, then?”
“I wasn’t great at strategy. I guess you could say I was more of a tactician than a politician.”
The line sounded rehearsed – because it was. The truth was more complicated. After leaving Smudge Smith’s mutilated body behind in a bullet-shredded clearing in the Mozambican forest, Captain Gabriel Wolfe MC had resigned his commission. Gabriel had, finally, recovered Smudge’s remains and laid him to rest in a cemetery in southeast London, but the past was still the past.
“Me? I liked action. If they’d’ve let me, I would have stayed a Samal Rishon.”
“Which was?”
“Staff sergeant. A squad leader.”
“That’s the trouble with the brass, isn’t it? Always promoting people to jobs they don’t want to do.”
Reunion
HEREFORD
ACCORDING to the signs on the gates at the Special Air Service base outside Hereford, the visitor is approaching RAF Credenhill. In fact, the Royal Air Force maintains no such base. While they waited for the heavily armed guard to check their credentials, Gabriel and Eli sat in silence. He returned five minutes later, still unsmiling. Gabriel recognised the look. It was the standard, “don’t fuck with me” expression. Eyelids lowered a fraction, jaw tight, mouth a grim, straight line, muscles in the chest, neck and shoulders taut to increase the wearer’s bulk.
“In you go, sir, miss,” he said, in a baritone voice that would grace any nearby choir that would have him. As long as they didn’t mind frightening small children listening in the front row.
Eli drove smoothly and slowly around the perimeter road and parked outside a low, brick building. As they left the car, a tight squad of eight men, each carrying a fully loaded Bergen that cleared the top of his head by a good foot, ran by, their boots clumping in unison on the tarmac.
Johnny Hawke had called Gabriel en route and told him to come into the main training complex and find him in Room G16. He pressed the entry phone call button to the left of the heavy reinforced steel door and waited.
“Yes, sir?” A brisk, clipped, Yorkshire voice was asking the question.
“Gabriel Wolfe and Eli Schochat to see Captain Johnny Hawke.”
“Hold on, please, sir.” A ten-second pause. “OK. Push the door, please.”
The solenoid rattled in its housing as it held the bolt back, and Gabriel shoved the door hard, disengaging the latch with a clack.
Inside, they looked left and right down a corridor. Marching towards them was a short, compact man of maybe thirty. Clean-shaven, black hair cropped very short, bright blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. He was smiling, and Gabriel noticed he had a gold tooth on the right side of his jaw. A flicker of anxiety squirrelled its way into his mind. He was remembering a man called Davis Meeks. A Hells Angels chapter president, Meeks had been an early opponent in Gabriel’s new career as a government enforcer. He, too, had favoured dental bling.
The man arrived, smiling broadly now, hand outstretched. Gabriel shook hands.
“Sergeant Major Sam Arkley at your service.” Then, “Oh my good Christ! It’s Wolfie, isn’t it? How are you, sir?”
Gabriel smiled. “I wasn’t sure you’d recognise me, Sam. Can I introduce my partner? Sam, this is Eli Schochat, late of Mossad and now working with me in government service.”
Gabriel watched as the Yorkshireman performed a lightning-fast body scan on Eli with his eyes before shaking her hand, too.
“Pleased to meet you, Eli.”
“You too, Sam.”
“Government service, eh?” he said, turning back to Gabriel. “Still sending the Queen’s message then, Wolfie?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Oh, I get it. Top secret, very hush-hush. ‘If I told you I’d have to kill you,’ eh? I’d like to see you try. I had you on your arse in t
he mud on more than one occasion, did I not?”
Gabriel laughed. “Only because I let you. Didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the other lads, did I?”
Still bantering with Gabriel, and making the odd comment to keep Eli included, Sam led them down the green-carpeted corridor to an office, sparsely furnished with a single, cheap wooden desk and a couple of hard chairs. The only picture on the wall depicted Queen Elizabeth II, aged about forty, Gabriel judged from her youthful appearance and lustrous dark, wavy hair.
“Wait here, please,” Sam said. “I’ll go and extract Sparrow. That is to say, Johnny. I believe we’re teaching them how to kill people with kitchen implements this afternoon.”
He winked, then about-turned and left at the double.
Eli turned to Gabriel. “I once killed a Hamas terrorist with a skillet. I was undercover, working in a cafe. Short-order cook. They were using the place as part of an escape route. He came through the kitchen and I beat his brains out with it. What’s the most unorthodox weapon you’ve ever used?”
Gabriel thought back. His had been a thirteen-year period of service, first in the Parachute Regiment and then the SAS. Everyone ran out of ammunition at some point, in some firefight, in some theatre. Everyone found themselves up close and personal at some point in their war-fighting career. It went with the territory. The weekend warriors and the Soldier of Fortune-reading fantasists thought it was all laser-equipped AR-15s and Glocks with high-capacity magazines. But he, and every other soldier since the Tommies squelched their muddy, bloody way through the trenches, had known that sometimes the bullets just ran out and you still had to fight. In the trenches they’d used nail-studded clubs, entrenching tools, lengths of four-by-four timber intended for shoring up the corpse-studded walls. He’d never been a fan of sharing kill stories, never used the easy slang of “slotting” enemy fighters. But faced with Eli’s openness and candour, he felt the need to give her something in return.