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  ‘There going to be any nobby social engagements in this line of work, ma’am?’

  ‘I’ll keep them to a minimum for you . . .’

  Shoe. Colour Sergeant, C Coy., 3 Para: ‘You don’t like my tattoo?’ He looks at her, genuinely shocked.

  ‘I think you need to let your hair grow through . . .’

  Shoe’s scalp was shaved bald. Above his neck, like some Hells Angel gang member, he’d had the words Utrinque Paratus freshly tattooed in Gothic lettering. Ready for Anything, the Para motto.

  ‘You’re finding it hard to let go, aren’t you?’

  There’s a brief flash of light in Shoe’s eyes, a fleeting thought that he could hold the lie. Then his body droops, and his eyes follow the patterns on the carpet around the hotel room until he feels strong enough to look up at her again.

  ‘I was part of a team. Best damned team in the world. We had élan. Esprit de corps. We trained. We fought. We held up our end . . .’ His voice breaks with emotion, and it’s a tiny child’s voice that whispers, ‘and now it’s all gone and I feel so dead inside . . . terrible.’

  He told her how he’d got a job at McDonald’s. He’d read something about the team ethos they had, which sounded vaguely Para-esque. ‘I started as a batch cooker then they put me on HBOS.’

  ‘HBOS?’

  ‘The guy in the window of the drive-through: Hang Bag Out and Smile. I must have looked into a thousand faces, dipped my head, said my Thank you, sir or Sorry about the mix-up, sir. And all the time I’m asking them, Do you know, do you even care, how many people are risking their lives for you right now?’ ‘You didn’t get the answer you wanted . . .’

  ‘Not even close: between the bastard youth of today and the politicians who’ve never served, don’t know what the armed services is about, what it means . . . it was doing my bloody nut in.’

  ‘Shoe. Listen to me. I’m serious about the hair. You have to let it go. You’re a civilian now; that Utrinque Paratus stuff, it’s over. It’s like school: nice to remember back, but when you’re done, you’ve got to walk out those gates. Walk away, with your honour and your memories. What I’m here to discuss is not rejoining the army on the sly. But it’s also not flipping burgers and sexing baby chickens either. It’s a decent cause, using what you know and what you’ve been trained to achieve, so that your mates and my mates and hundreds of people we’ve never met can get the deal they deserve . . . OK?’

  Piglet. Corporal, D Coy., 2 Para: Tristie had looked up from the file, a little bewildered. ‘So your father sued the MoD . . .’

  ‘Well, it was my sister actually. She’s the lawyer. My family is quite tight like that. But Dad was determined to hammer them. Said that was the only way to teach a big organisation to change, though it pretty much brought the curtain down on my time with the Paras.’

  Piglet’s file showed that a couple of months after getting his wings in 2000 he’d been part of a contingent scrambled to Sierra Leone to protect a United Nations contingent. Operation Palliser. As the Hercules droned across the steaming West African jungle, they’d passed out the anti-malaria tablets. But there were not enough. And the MoD had supplied a less effective brand instead of Mefloquine. Over a hundred Paras would catch malaria, cursing them with recurring bouts of fever, vomiting, joint pain and worse.

  ‘My father, you see, comes from a very wealthy family. Serious Jewish money. He was always uncomfortable that I joined up, had his own plans for me. In the end he took a bit of quiet pride in what I was doing, until, that is, I got the malaria. He got really ugly about that. Just found it outrageous that a set-up like the Ministry of Defence would do such a thing. Putting us in harm’s way is what we get paid for. But without basic medicines? I mean, who would do something like that? In the event it turned out to be nothing more than a dry run for everything that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan . . .’

  Chiswick roundabout

  Junction of M4/A4 and Chiswick High Road

  It’s all about the timing. Always the timing.

  Piglet powers the Honda sports cruiser bike in and out of traffic on the old Great West Road, trying to make sure they keep close to the black cab. The road ahead seems awash with black cabs all nose to tail, heading into London with the long-distance, early morning Heathrow arrivals. Ferret cinches his thighs together. Clutching tight on to the rear seat using desperate muscles he’s never put into service before. He needs both hands to thumb a text message.

  On the left, about twenty yards ahead, is the off-ramp that leads down to the Chiswick roundabout. When the cab leaves this roundabout, Tristie Merritt on the other side of the river gets her second text message. Only two markers after that . . . the Kew Bridge railway station on the right and a thousand yards later, when they come off the bridge itself on to the south bank of the Thames, by the top of the Green.

  Ahead the lights are red and traffic is backed up from the roundabout. Piglet nudges the bike up to the rear of the stationary cab. Discreetly. Dougal MacIntyre is the poor guy’s name. Ferret feels the slightest wince of pity for what is about to happen. The trouble they are about to cause. Then easily dismisses it.

  The senior official from the Ministry of Defence has his head laid out on the back headrest, his thick grey hair dishevelled and clearly visible through the rear window. Zonked out. Just to his right is the redhead. Dalia. One of Tristie Merritt’s mysterious friends summoned up from her shuttered past. The redhead is curled in towards MacIntyre. Not quite à deux but with a slender inch of air between them. A promise of good things to come.

  Beyond the name Dalia, Ferret has no idea who the redhead is. Never saw her paperwork. Tristie’s assignment for him was simply to contact, shadow and facilitate. So. They had met at Washington’s Dulles International the previous evening, in a Starbucks on the other side of the airport to the Virgin Atlantic check-in. He’d been reading a copy of Exchange & Mart and she swept up to his table, dousing him in Chanel No. 5. He could feel the stares from males and females alike. She was strikingly beautiful in a lush, accessible sort of way.

  An easy, transatlantic sort of accent. ‘You must be Ferret.’

  He nodded mutely. The woman had him off balance already.

  ‘My friend, the lady captain, tells me Ferret is short for Womb Ferret.’ Her hair was auburn, mid-length, and her dark eyes heavy with mascara and bronze eyeshadow. ‘Fancy yourself as the Womb Ferret, do you?’ Just like the captain, Dalia was absolutely no pissing around.

  ‘W-why don’t you sit down?’ Ferret stuttered. Then, ‘Can I get you something?’

  ‘Doesn’t the Womb Ferret even stand up for a lady?’

  Ferret clambered quickly to his feet. Couldn’t help but stare at the shape of her body busting through her creamy silk blouse. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed, crossing her legs so provocatively half of Starbucks had fallen sideways out of their chairs. ‘Now tell me what makes the Womb Ferret such an expert on women . . .’

  That was how she was. All business. Ferret didn’t even have a chance to muss up his hair and get his puppy eyes working. Dalia was full on. Just as Tristie had said she would be: ‘Think of her as a fire-and-forget missile. Don’t walk her to the target. Just give her all this information . . . and let her get on with it.’ And the captain passed over the surveillance photos and the dozen pages of background she’d been able to trick up from her contacts in the Adjutant General’s Corp. The subject? A Scot. MacIntyre. Forty-seven. Two divorces. A weakness foretold in his habit of trying to expense-claim on hotel bills unnamed pay-per-view purchases and massage treatments.

  Ferret had then watched from a distance after they had boarded the flight. MacIntyre had made a solemn, rather pompous introduction while Dalia was at the bar at the back of Virgin’s upper class. He came on like a real prig. For a second Ferret had wondered whether this whole scene would work, but then Dalia took over, playing the man the whole nine hours they were airborne. Not more than a kiss passed between them – as far as he could tell – but she had
him all the same.

  Ferret had trained on both the Starburst and Starstreak surface-to-air missiles and the fire-and-forget analogy was a good one. That was just how Dalia operated. Tiny adjustments to her onboard gyroscope, tweaks to her accelerometer: little bit faster, then easing off. First in complimenting this rather lugubrious character by choosing him over the other men at the bar. Then laughing easily, throwing her head back, running her fingers through her luxuriant hair, a quiet whisper in his ear followed by a throaty laugh, running her hand softly over his cuff. All the time tuning that gyroscope and accelerometer, all the time squeezing off the space between them. Eventually – as the flight map showed the 747 crossing the west coast of Ireland – moving to sit at his feet on the little ottoman, all the better to stoke the slow sizzle of seduction.

  Men. Such idiots. The guy looked absolutely toast this morning as he stumbled off the plane, Ferret trailing some distance behind. Just like a guy who’d been fed single malt whisky for nine hours; a hard-on for this out-of-the-world woman giving him no hope of sleep. At the luggage carousel, for just a moment, Dalia had eased off MacIntyre’s arm and with a barely perceptible flick of the wrist pointed out the object of the exercise; the case Captain Merritt was after. Ferret had texted an appropriate description.

  As Piglet powers the Honda down the off-ramp, Ferret wonders. Perhaps there’s a factory somewhere that churns out women like this Dalia and Tristie Merritt . . . and his mind trips to the hybrid human–alien SIL. The Natasha Henstridge character in Species: a big shag-fantasy in 3 Para during his time. A babe fashioned by splicing human DNA with that of an extraterrestrial. As one of the scientists reflects wistfully, after SIL’s murderous sexual rampage across Los Angeles, ‘We decided to make it female so it would be more docile and controllable.’

  Yeah, right, Ferret thinks, the widest smile under his helmet. His cheeks dimpling as he laughs. Like this female was ever going to be docile and controllable.

  Certainly the man from the ministry, Dougal MacIntyre, has no idea what is about to happen . . .

  The redhead eases herself closer to MacIntyre as the cab runs along Forest Road. To her immediate right is the overground District line and beyond that the modern-brick and glass wingspans of the new National Archives, the Public Record Office.

  ‘Dougal. Wake up.’ She nudges him. ‘I think this is your place.’ The cabbie eyes them knowingly in his rear-view mirror, before swinging left into Bushwood Road, a long line of three-storey, red-brick Victorian houses on either side. Halfway down to the left is the rear end of a refuse collection vehicle – the front end poking through into Priory Road, which runs parallel with Bushwood. Workmen are across the street tugging green wheelie bins backwards and forwards.

  The cab slows, the driver craning left and right to find number 79. MacIntyre makes a long, low groaning sound. His eyes blink, close, and then open sharply as he inhales the redhead’s presence. ‘Hello, again.’He straightens himself up. Leers intently.

  Seventy-nine is on the left-hand side, just beyond the rump of the rubbish van. A half-dozen yellow warning lights are rotating at the back end and there’s a constant and awful screech of garbage being compacted by huge hydraulic crushers. The taxi eases up, double-parking next to two family saloons.

  The redhead plays with the lapels of his grey herringbone suit with her gloved hands. ‘You must call me tonight, won’t you?’ She looks him in the eyes. ‘Just like you promised.’

  To the untrained observer, what happens next would appear fast, furious and apparently unconnected.

  The cabby steps out, moves to the front passenger door. Offloads on to the kerb two extra-large Italian leather wheeled holdalls, MacIntyre’s checked luggage . . . The rubbish-bin men weave in and around the taxi, whistling, joshing loudly . . . Inside the cab the man from the MoD holds the white calfskin glove of one of the redhead’s hands, all lecherous intent . . . The cabby stands by the open rear door. Clears his throat noisily. Wanting this lovebird stuff to be over with . . . behind him, one of the wheelie-bin men guffaws loudly. About Spurs. Bunch of tossers! . . . MacIntyre twinkles his eyes into Dalia’s. ‘I am going to give you such a seeing-to tonight.’ The redhead smiles; a long, sexy, try-your-best sort of a smile. ‘Of course you will,’ she exhales . . . And MacIntyre turns, humps on to the roadside the two aluminium briefcases, his hand-carry luggage, one slightly smaller than the other . . . then crouches his way out of the taxi. Stands with his feet astride his two briefcases . . . More loud japing from a different wheelie-bin man about Arsenal. All of them, bloody poofs, need a good kicking . . . MacIntyre passes two twenties and a ten, asks for a receipt from the driver, who returns to his seat, starts scribbling . . . Dalia turns it on one last time. ‘Aren’t you going to give a girl one last kiss?’ and beckons him back inside . . . he reaches out blindly for the receipt with his left hand, half-fits himself back into the cab . . . and gets a long awkward embrace, which ends with a lingering kiss and a breathy promise that would give Elton John the shivers. ‘Tonight, my darling . . . be ready.’ There’s a discreet phhisshh of airbrakes being released, as the refuse collection vehicle eases away, job done . . . MacIntyre blows a kiss on the end of a finger, before reversing his way back on to the road. He shuts the door carefully, watches the London cab move off and quickly accelerate to the end of the street. Dalia looks back, beaming at him. He waves. Amazement and gratitude written on his face. Brake lights, pause, then the cab turns left, disappears from view.

  Quiet and calm returns. All is as it should be on pretty Bushwood Road.

  And then a long, loud howl pierces the dignified quiet of this London suburb. As if a too-thick needle was being pushed through the tip of someone’s nose. The MoD’s Deputy Chief of Defence Materiel (directly controlling an operating budget of £16 billion per year and assets of £76 billion) bends down to gather up his luggage. Notices he has three bags instead of four. And the one that’s missing . . .

  It is just after midday when an exasperated MacIntyre finally tracks down Professor Sir Roddy Kerr, the MoD’s chief scientific adviser. As would be expected, the old man has a particularly dusty and vacant voice, bordering on contemptuous. Recently Sir Roddy had been char-grilled by the defence select committee, wanting to know why five hundred computers and laptops had gone missing from the MoD over a five-year period. His only defence had been an embarrassed ramble about the difference between missing-misplaced and missing-stolen. The MoD comprises more than four thousand sites, almost fifty thousand separate buildings on a quarter-million hectares of land. With an estate that large we must be allowed to lose a few things every so often.

  Kerr’s voice sounds suitably irked. ‘So long as your computer is encrypted, I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem.’

  MacIntyre grips the phone so hard he thinks he might end up crushing it. ‘But is my laptop encrypted?’

  In the background, he hears the tap-tapping of a keyboard. Pause. Then a hmmmm sort of sound as a list is slowly reviewed. MacIntyre is halfway up the wall with worry . . . ‘The serial number I have for your laptop . . . yes, it has the usual encryption features on it.’ The scientist explains the technicalities: the MoD uses a tailored version of an open-source encryption program to make-safe the dynamic random access memory, or DRAM chip. ‘I hope you didn’t leave it in sleep mode . . .’ But MacIntyre isn’t even listening now.

  Knowing his laptop is encrypted means losing it represents only the slightest stain on his administrative record. A trifling matter. Which is just as well. MacIntyre knows better than most the MoD are not frightened of making an arbitrary example of someone. The tethered-goat principle. He’d seen it before . . . he’d even happily set people up himself. Watched from a distance as the media pecked away till not even bones were left. As far as he is concerned, it was the easiest way to teach a sharp lesson to a large organisation. Memories of a wooded glade in Oxfordshire . . . a bloodstained penknife . . . and the ignominious end to the storied career of an MoD analyst
called David Kelly.

  Thank Christ for encryption, he thinks, sinking back into his couch. His pulse returning to something like normal.

  Nine hours on the single malt has papered his mouth with what feels like cheap wall-to-wall carpet. So he rumbles off into his kitchen to find a glass, pours a generous measure of Laphroaig. Hair of the dog. Fishes out the boarding pass from his shirt pocket. Oh, happy day. Dalia’s mobile number is written in red. With a big love heart, and a cartoonish drawing of a kiss. The number looks . . . familiar. Vaguely. Perhaps she’d read it out to him on the plane . . . last night, this morning, it’s all a bit of a blur. MacIntyre can’t wait to mess up her pretty little face.

  He looks at the dialled number one more time, comparing it to the boarding pass, and presses the green button. A sequence of letters springs on to the Nokia’s screen. FSLCNS. A sign he’s calling a number already in his memory.

  Strange.

  He rubs his eyes, looks again . . . FSLCNS. That doesn’t make sense but his brain is so bloody gummed up. Working awfully slow. He checks the boarding pass again.

  ‘Hello? . . . Hello? . . .’ A tinny voice intrudes on his confusion. ‘Dougal, is that you?’

  In a heartbeat, a shaft of memory opens in his mind, shimmering through the fog of whisky. Himself, opening up his computer while they were snuggling on that Virgin flight. Himself, taking a picture of the two of them together with his little in-computer lens. She had nibbled his ear, tugged on his ear, nuzzled against his ear. The two of them giggling as the rest of the cabin slept . . . her body pressing into his . . . and then her fingers lightly rising up his thigh. So delicate, yet so totally suggestive.

  So distracting too . . . which is why Professor Sir Roddy Kerr’s one simple query, ‘I hope you didn’t leave it in sleep mode . . .’, he can’t truthfully answer. That particular memory is sealed in the foggy mess of last night’s lust.