Red Notice

Epilogue

The sergeants’ mess at the Lines was packed for the joint memorial service, almost six months to the day since Gavin and Vatu had died. These things always seemed to be late. The challenge was to find a date when most of the squadron were in the UK, not spread across the planet.

It was a cold March night. The warm, beer-laden fumes inside the mess had misted the windows with condensation. The tables were already overflowing with empty glasses, bottles and cans, and more were being added all the time.

The SAS troopers were all smartly dressed in their number-two parade uniforms. Boots and medals gleamed. Wives and girlfriends were there as well, and children slalomed between everyone’s legs. Bryce’s kids had found a jar of cam cream and were busy daubing it over their faces and everything else they touched.

There were a number of other honoured guests, including Chief Constable Alderson and a couple of his police colleagues. A group of Eurostar personnel, led by the train driver and the head steward, had been given a trip to the Lines as a reward for their bravery. They rubbed shoulders uneasily with a sprinkling of spooks and ministry officials.

The civil servant called Clements looked like a fish out of water.

Tom watched the man who was huddled in a corner with Ashton. He was taking frequent surreptitious looks at his watch, as if he couldn’t wait for the ordeal to be over.

The bouncy castle had been deflated, folded and stashed behind a stack of chairs. The walls were hung with photographs of Vatu and Gavin from every phase of their service with the Regiment: with their families, in training, preparing for ops, off duty with their mates in various far-flung parts of the world. The more embarrassing the circumstances, the more likely they were to be included.

All their personal possessions — bits of kit, spare uniforms, no matter how old and threadbare — had been taken from their lockers and laid out on a row of tables set at right angles to the bar. Tom presided over the Dead Man’s Auction — an SAS tradition following the death of comrades that was as old as the Regiment itself.

As was the custom, each item was sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds given to the next of kin or squadron funds. The two dead men had already footed the bill for the evening. Every trooper left five hundred pounds in his will to be put behind the bar. The practice wasn’t macabre: it was part of the culture. If you worried about your mates on the squadron getting hurt and killed, you’d spend your life on anti-depressants.

Fuelled in part by the drink, but much more by the respect and affection they felt for Vatu and Gavin, they had been bidding well above market value for every lot on offer, and each exuberant bid seemed to trigger another rush for the bar and another round of drinks. As the two men’s clothes, even down to their underwear, were auctioned off, the successful bidders draped them over the top of their own uniforms.

The auction was now almost over. Tom was down to the last item. He picked up a cardboard box filled with CDs. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘All we have left is his music collection.’

‘Fifty quid!’ Jockey shouted.

‘Get off the grass.’ Tom laughed. ‘Fifty quid, you tight Scots git? Each CD’s worth more than that!’

‘Bollocks,’ Jockey yelled, from the midst of a backwards moon dance. ‘He wouldn’t know good music if it gave him a slap on the head.’ He looked around. ‘I don’t see anyone else bidding. So hand them over.’

‘No, I want more.’ Tom started fishing random CDs out of the box. ‘There’s some real quality here: Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers, Keane, and a bit of real quality, Lang Lang. I bought that for him myself.’

‘Lang Lang?’ Jockey raised his belligerent Glaswegian eyebrows. ‘You’re right, Tom, now I know that Lang Lang’s in there, I withdraw my earlier fifty-quid bid.’ He paused, timing his punchline to perfection. ‘Make that ten quid instead.’

‘Very droll.’ Tom waved the CD at him. ‘But for a tight-wad like you, you’re missing a trick. If you don’t like it, you can even sell it. It’s still in its wrapper.’

‘Why don’t you buy it yourself, then? You might as well — no one else is going to listen to that shite.’

Delphine got to her feet and waved a hand. The other rested lightly on her bump. ‘One hundred pounds.’

There was a stunned silence from around the room. Jockey picked up the CD and stared suspiciously through the shrink-wrap, as if it might conceal a winning lottery ticket. ‘Do women really go for this ying-yang shit?’

‘Well, it certainly worked on me,’ Delphine said. ‘Do you remember that first night, Tom, when we were…?’ She paused, leaving a roomful of people to wait for what would come next. ‘Well, you don’t want to hear about that, do you?’ She gave them the ghost of a smile. ‘But anyway, thanks to Lang Lang, here I am, two years later, still coming back for more.’

Jockey gave her a sceptical look. ‘It sounds like bullshit to me,’ he said. ‘But go on, just in case it’s true, I’ll bid one twenty-five.’

Bryce waited until Jockey started reaching for the box, then said, ‘Make that one fifty.’

Jockey wasn’t impressed. ‘Why the hell are you bidding for it? From the number of your ankle-biters running around this room, I’d say your seduction technique was working just fine.’ He paused. ‘All right, one seventy-five, then, and that’s my final offer.’

Keenan gave Delphine an appraising look. ‘In that case, I’ll bid two hundred.’

‘OK then, two fifty.’ Jockey was well in the mood.

‘I thought one seventy-five was going to be your last bid?’ Bryce said. He was taking a breath when a voice boomed from the back,

‘Five hundred!’

Before whoever it was could change his mind, Tom slammed his fist on the table. ‘Sold!’

As Tom scanned the crowd to identify the bidder, he saw that Ashton and Clements were still in their corner. They were arguing. The seed Gavin had planted in his head was growing. Something told him all wasn’t right about those two. Ashton’s story about Gavin planting a device in the Chinook didn’t ring true. If Gavin had planned to do that, why hadn’t he told Tom during their call? Gavin had said the sniper option was all he had. If he fucked up, they had a drama. No mention of a Plan B.

The auction over, the crowd hovered in small groups with their families, lining up for the curry buffet.

Tom watched Clements slip quietly out of the mess. If Ashton and Clements had been involved with Antonov and was responsible for Gavin’s death, Tom would find out.

Ashton walked over to Tom and Delphine as they congratulated Woolf on his purchase. Ashton raised his glass. ‘To Vatu and Gavin,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost two good men there.’ He was studying Tom’s expression. ‘You’ll miss Gavin, won’t you? You two were best mates.’

Sensing trouble, Bryce and Jockey joined the group.

Delphine laid a placatory hand on Tom’s arm. ‘We’ll never forget him, will we?’

Jockey took the CD from Woolf to inspect what might have been. ‘The poor little bugger will be well hacked off with you two when he’s old enough to realize what a crap name you’ve given him.’

Bryce smiled. ‘Gavin Buckingham, eh?’

Tom looked around the room. ‘God, I’m going to miss this.’

Delphine shot him a glance. ‘What do you mean you’ll miss this? You’re not really thinking—’

‘I’m not thinking about it,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve already decided.’

Delphine stared at him in disbelief.

‘Yeah, I’ll be giving it all up in, let’s see…’ he checked his Omega ‘… in exactly ten… years from now.’

He ducked as Delphine threw a mock punch at his head. Jockey started singing ‘The Eton Boating Song’, pretending to row a scull as he cracked on with his backwards moon dance, and one by one they all joined in. Only Ashton remained stone-faced. Tom had eye-to-eye with him and there was a connection, but it wasn’t anything to do with the joke, with the Regiment — with anything, except each man knowing that the other man knew.

Delphine suddenly gave a startled cry. There was a puzzled look on her face and then she broke into a dazzling smile. She took Tom’s hand and placed it against her bump. ‘Tom? I think it is time…’