Fortress

25

The driver was waiting in Reception, dark suit, REME tie. Even without the tie Tom would have clocked him as ex-Army at fifty yards: the bearing and the battered face were giveaways.

‘This way, sir.’

The hint of contempt in the ‘sir’ marked him out as a probable ex-RSM.

‘Actually it was “sergeant” till last week. What’s your name?’

‘Jackman, sir.’

A gleaming dark green Bentley was parked outside. ‘Nice wheels. Good to see your boss is flying the flag.’

Tom reached for the front door but Jackman opened the rear.

‘I think you’ll find the back more comfortable, sir.’

Tom slid into the hushed compartment and closed the door. Extra thick windows indicated it had been bullet-proofed. Jackman climbed in and brought the car to life. Tom felt his frame press back in the seat as the twin turbo-charged V8 powered forward.

‘Really, it’s a Volkswagen underneath. Pains me to say it, but the Krauts have done a bloody good job.’

‘My great-grandad raced a Bentley in the twenties.’

Jackman sighed. ‘Bet he’s turning in his grave knowing that nasty little Führer-mobile was what saved it from oblivion.’

They swept up Park Lane, the needle touching fifty.

‘Watch out — I got pulled over up here on my bike.’

‘Nah, not us. The cops know whose this is. Mr Rolt’s immune. Makes my job a lot pleasanter, I can tell you.’

Tom still had a titanic hangover and wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but he decided he might as well milk Jackman for all he could get. ‘Been with him long?’

‘Few years.’

‘And before?’

‘Well, it was the REME till 2008, then a bit of a blank after that.’

Tom glanced at him, curious.

Jackman’s gaze was fixed on the road. ‘Put it this way: if Mr Rolt hadn’t tripped over me on the pavement, I’d most probably be six feet under by now.’ He shot a glance at Tom. His heavily etched face told its own story.

‘So you’re more than an employee, would you say?’

Jackman nodded. Just the other side of Victoria, one of the lanes was cordoned off where a Lebanese restaurant on the Edgware Road was still smouldering. Builders in hi-viz overalls were erecting scaffolding. The whole building looked unstable. Jackman shook his head. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’

Tom murmured assent.

‘Mind you, given the situation, it was going to happen, sooner or later, wasn’t it?’

Tom nodded, though he wasn’t ready to put any of his cards on the table. Right now there were a lot of things he wasn’t as sure of as he used to be. His life had been so full of certainties — the job, serving his country. Now it was in bits. ‘So you went through the Invicta programme?’

‘One of the first. I was in Basra, and I was in Bosnia, but Basingstoke!’ Tom frowned. ‘Invicta’s base is just outside.’ Jackman shuddered at the memory. ‘When you’ve been chucking back a dozen Special Brew before noon, it’s a long climb back up. And coming off the fags, same time.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘That just about sums it up. Ask me then if I thought I could do it. No way, José.’

‘But you did.’

‘With Invicta, once you set foot in there, it’s out of your hands. Solitary confinement the first week. No bed. You want a pillow, you got to take your jumpsuit off and roll it up. Only you don’t do that cos it stinks of shit and piss.

‘Second week, you start running. Each day they double the distance. Fall over, there’s no one to get you back up. Just some bastard like I used to be — excuse the language, sir — shouting right in your ear to go back to the start.

‘Third week you get a change of kit and a shower — cold. But you’re so glad of it because by that time you look and stink like a hunger striker.’

‘Bit brutal, isn’t it?’

‘It’s what works.’

‘Do they have many drop-outs?’

‘Zero tolerance. One hundred per cent success. And once you’re back on your feet, they never lose sight of you — unlike the bloody Army. Invicta’s for life. Me, I’m happy with my lot.’ He patted the soft leather of the dash. ‘But there’s blokes he’s put through college, found them jobs.’

‘What does Invicta demand in return for all this?’

Jackman shrugged. ‘Just loyalty. But that’s worth more than riches.’