Red Notice

15

Jockey’s crew were on their way. Tom and the rest of the Blue team filed back into the holding area — the school gym that had been commandeered for resting, feeding and rehearsal.

He pulled the respirator from his face, leaving an angry red weal where the sealing band had fitted tight against his skin. His hair and forehead were streaked with sweat.

The general hum was that the man down had been stabilized and was in hospital. The world didn’t collapse because one of them got zapped. It was what sometimes happened; Davy, the man down, knew that as much as anyone. He’d been on a raid to capture insurgents just outside Baghdad when one of the team had taken a round that had carved a big chunk out of his stomach. The wound was big, wet and bloody, but Davy had thought he was looking too good as they flew back into the Green Zone. Tom had watched him give the boy a couple of kicks so the pain would show in the pictures he was taking for the squadron office. They now had pride of place dead centre of the photo board.

Tom unloaded his ARWEN and the Sig 9mm pistol on his belt and slid them, with their unspent rounds, into his ready-bag, alongside the party gear that made up his assault kit.

The others followed suit, changing into civvies for the drive back to Hereford. They compared notes on the operation and subjected each other to the usual merciless banter.

Tom peeled off his jacket and shirt and tore open his body armour. The rip of Velcro straps sounded like a chorus of jungle frogs.

‘I dropped him.’ Keenan stretched out his arm and drew an imaginary sight picture on a tree beyond the holding area. ‘Sweet.’

‘Yeah, yeah, tidy darts, mate.’ Bryce was checking that the MOE (method of entry) kit had all been loaded onto the white Transit. ‘But Tom gets tonight’s star prize — for giving one to the Barbie.’

‘Yeah…’ Vatu, a huge Fijian with a flamboyant moustache, was inside the vehicle, stowing boxes. ‘If she’d detonated that belly-rig, Tom would have been asking God for the name of his tailor, and the rest of us would have been picking her pubes out of our teeth for weeks.’

Jockey’s team had just entered the holding area. ‘A needle’s the only thing Tom gets to stick into girls.’ The trademark Glaswegian growl made even the most innocent remark sound like a threat. Especially when his red, sweat-covered face looked like it’d just spent a week in a sauna.

Tom laughed. ‘You’d know all about needles, Jockey. Drugging them’s the only way you get any.’

‘Yes, and I won't give you the benefit of my expertise unless you sing it for me. Come on, you know you love it.’

Right on cue, Tom’s mobile phone sparked up inside his ready-bag, its ringtone the chorus of ‘The Eton Boating Song’ that Jockey kept downloading onto it whenever he got the chance. Tom held it towards the Scotsman, conducting the ringtone choir expansively with his other hand. He checked the number and moved a little away from the others to take the call.

‘Delphine… We’re just wrapping up now. We’ve been on a job.’

‘I know. I ’ave just seen the news.’ Her French accent still blew him away. ‘They said there was a massive gas explosion on the Heath, but I saw the Range Rovers. Are you still there?’

Eighteen months they’d been going out, and even hearing her on a mobile made him go weak at the knees. ‘You know I can’t answer that, don’t you?’

‘Not even that? How could that possibly be a secret? This drives me mad.’ There was an echoing silence at the end of the line. ‘I love you, Tom. But I hate you.’

‘Fun, though, isn’t it?’

‘No, not any more,’ she said wearily. ‘It was once, but not any more. Are you not even allowed to tell me if you’re OK? That’s why I called. Or is that a state secret too?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘And will you be back soon?’

‘Yeah. I’ll drive to Hereford, sort the kit, quick debrief and shower. I should be ready by about eight.’ He dropped his voice and switched to French. ‘Delphine, you know I can’t wait to see you. And I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

His mates nudged each other and inched towards him, trying to overhear what he was saying.

‘We will see.’ She paused before switching back to English. He heard her voice soften. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

‘What? I wish…’

‘Not you.’ Her voice was still smooth and welcoming. ‘I was talking to a guest. I have to go now, but you will be here, won’t you? You promise? I need to talk to you. It is important.’

‘I promise.’

‘I promise,’ Jockey said, mincing around with his hand on his hip.

‘Don’t believe him, love,’ Bryce shouted. ‘He’ll promise anything to get into your pants.’

‘I have to go,’ Delphine said. ‘But we need to talk. I’ll see you tonight.’ There was a click as she broke the connection.

Tom glared at Jockey. ‘Didn’t your mummy tell you it was rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations?’

‘No,’ Jockey said. ‘She was far too busy pouring supermarket vodka down her neck and ripping the heads off parking meters. But listening to you talking there showed me why I should’ve stayed in school.’ He gave a sorrowful shake of his head. ‘I really envy you, mate. I missed out big-time.’

Tom furrowed his brow, not sure if this was genuine or just another wind-up. ‘No, you didn’t, you mad Scotsman. You can still wear that skirt and pretend to be Monarch of the Glen.’

‘I’m serious, mate. You’ve got the ability to punch well above your weight.’ Jockey’s face creased into a grin. ‘Shit, the moment you fucking start with that parlay-voo business I’d fucking shag you myself. If I wasn’t afraid of catching something.’

Tom deleted the ringtone for the hundredth time. ‘Don’t worry, Jockey, you can’t catch intelligence.’ He shoved his mobile into his jacket pocket.

‘Cunt.’ Jockey threw his respirator at Tom’s head.

Tom swerved out of the way, like a boxer riding a punch, as Gavin walked into the holding area to see what stage of the pack-up-and-fuck-off routine the team had reached.

‘Right, listen in!’ He had to shout to get everyone’s attention. ‘We’re not on island time so get a bloody move on. I want the Range Rovers out first, then the Transits, all at five-minute intervals. No speeding, no blue lights. Just get out of here ASAP before the ladies and gentlemen of the media find out who and where we are. They’re sniffing around out there already.’ He paused. ‘And Posh Lad here needs to stop and buy the woman of his sticky little dreams a bunch of flowers from motorway services. It’ll do her a power of good.’

Tom gave him a pitying look. ‘And you wonder why your wife burned all your clothes?’

Tom and Gavin jumped into one of the black Range Rovers at the rear of the holding area and moved off, followed at intervals by the rest of the convoy.

As they cut through West Hampstead, heading towards the motorway, they drove past a dry-cleaner’s. A handwritten sign in the window announced: ‘BACK IN 20 MINUTES. SORRY IF PROBLEM.’