Red Notice

20

The rest of Blue team arrived over the next forty minutes and spent a couple of hours cleaning their weapons and sorting out their kit. There was a quick debrief in the crew room with Major Ashton, though not the full post-mortem, which wouldn’t take place until the next day.

Tom headed for the washroom. He’d towelled himself dry and was dressed before most of the rest were out of the showers. His Omega Planet Ocean told him it was fast approaching 20.00 hours. He weighed it for a moment in his hand. Lots of guys in the Regiment had one, but it never failed to give him a kick. The offer of a special-edition watch had been made by the company a couple of years earlier, the sort of deal usually reserved for Formula One teams and Premiership clubs. It was a good marketing ploy, and the Regiment guys got a great watch at a discount.

The Regiment version looked like a regular Planet Ocean, until you turned it over. The engraved case-back had a winged dagger in the centre, ‘22 Special Air Service’ around the circle, and the first two letters of the wearer’s surname, followed by two digits indicating the year he’d passed Selection, then the last four digits of his army number. On the case side, between the shoulders, he could still read, ‘ALWAYS A LITTLE FURTHER’, taken from the SAS pilgrim poem.

He snapped it onto his wrist, grabbed his motorcycle helmet from his locker and was heading across the car park to his BMW when he heard a shout from behind him. He looked back and saw Ashton come out of the team office and hurry across the car park.

‘You want me, Boss?’ Tom started to put his helmet on. He was on a mission.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I promised to meet Delphine and —’ he glanced at his watch again ‘— I’m already running late.’

‘You’ve not forgotten it’s Fight Night, have you?’

‘Oh, shit.’ The helmet started to lift away from his head. ‘Yeah, I had, I’m afraid.’

‘I haven’t,’ Ashton said. ‘Not after what happened last year.’

Tom nodded. ‘So you’ll be looking for a bit of payback…’

‘I’d hate to be the cause of a domestic. But I think you owe me that much.’ Ashton adopted just the right note of sarcasm.

Tom bristled. ‘The thing is, I haven’t seen Delphine in weeks, what with that team job in Yemen and a few other things, and I had to stand her up again last night because of Hampstead.’

Ashton shrugged. ‘But you’re on the list, Tom. You can’t back down now, can you? Besides, I’ve been training.’

Tom stared at him for a moment, weighing up his options. He came to the conclusion he had very few. ‘You’d better go and get ready, then, hadn’t you, Boss?’

Ashton gave a triumphant smile, then turned on his heel and headed back towards the office. He called over his shoulder, ‘Stand by to be on your arse within a minute.’

Tom fumbled in his pocket for his phone.

It rang twice before she answered. ‘Tom?’

‘Yeah… I’m… er… back.’

‘Perfect timing. I’ve just finished work and I’ve booked a—’

Tom had to cut in to minimize the disappointment. ‘I’m going to be a while longer, I’m afraid. I’ve just been reminded it’s Fight Night.’

‘What? Again? I’ve booked a table and…’ Her voice tailed away. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or tears were welling.

‘It’s only once a year. I forgot about it… but I can’t get out of it. I’m on the list. I said I’d fight. I’m really, really sorry, but I can’t let the team down. It doesn’t mean—’

‘The mistress always wins,’ she snapped. Her voice rose an octave as she tried to control herself. ‘Tom, this is important to me… to us. I need to talk to you, tonight.’

‘You will — I will be there. It’s just that I have to do this first. I was looking forward to seeing you so much I forgot I’d committed to this. I’m so sorry…’

Delphine’s tone stayed calm. ‘There is no need to be sorry. I blame myself for being stupid enough to think that this time you actually would turn up when you said you would.’

‘No, it’s my fault, Delphine, and I will make it up to you later, I promise. But I really do have to go. It won’t take long. I won’t stay — I’ll come straight over. I can get this done and dusted in less than an hour.’

‘And just how will you manage to do that?’

‘I’ll throw the fight,’ he said. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it from the lads, but I could be on my way out of the door again within an hour at the very most.’

Delphine’s voice showed her surprise, despite herself. ‘You would really do that for me?’

‘Absolutely. Why don’t you cancel the table, head home and chill out with a glass of wine and I’ll come straight round to the flat?’

‘You promise?’ she said.

‘I promise.’

Delphine thought about it for a moment. ‘All right, then. I’ll be waiting. But not for too long. Don’t let me down again, Tom, please.’