The Walking Dead

Chapter 13

He heard Naylor give his name, then say, 'And with me is Mr Josiah Hegner, of the Bureau and out of Riyadh, who has made a study of these matters and, in an advisory capacity, is fully welcomed by my superiors.

His world was darkness, but his senses were acute.

'…and this is Mary Reakes, from the Service. Where are we?'

Where? Well, Hegner had been told — on the walk between the car and the building — that Paddington Green was the high-security place where all high-flier terrorists arrested in the United Kingdom were brought for questioning; and had been told it was bombproof, stormproof, and escape-proof. Seemed simple enough to know where they were. A place like this was available to the Bureau in a' score of American cities, and there was the cordoned-off holding area at the Baghdad airport military wing, the Mabatha interrogation centre out south from the Saudi capital…Should have been 'Where are we getting?'

Mary had his arm, and he kind of liked that, but she didn't do leading him as well as' his Cindy did.

A voice said, laconic and like his presence — and Naylor's and Mary's — was an intrusion, 'Early days as yet. Because he was picked up at dawn, then brought down here, we've let him stew in his cell — as we're obliged to — and he's been offered a meal, declined it, and a chance to pray, used it. It's been done by the book, and we've had him in here for a couple of hours…Like I say, early days.'

His nostrils picked up the recycled, regurgitated airflow of the block. The same air, damp and stale, circulated in these buildings everywhere Hegner had been. And there was always a television screen cabled through to a ceiling camera in the room where the jerk was. He heard the low voice, the question, but there was silence for an answer. He swung his stick in front of him, hit a table leg and moved forward skirting it, swung the stick again and heard a yelp of pain, then, 'Hey, steady with that thing, if you don't mind.' Hegner went to a speaker, stood under it. He reached out with his hand, touched the covering material, then eased his ear against it.

A second voice, irritated, 'Excuse me, but you're half in my lap.'

He heard again the question, then the silence. He said, 'Mary, get me a chair here.'

There was a snort of annoyance. He didn't care. The chair was brought and he settled on it, but his ear stayed against the speaker. He heard the crackle of the connection, the rustle of papers, the clink of a bottle's neck on a glass and the silence…and he knew what he would say but was not ready to say it. He heard Mary's breathing near to him, and Naylor's cough.

'Do you want a coffee, Joe?' Mary asked.

He gazed into the blackness, and strained to hear better from the speaker. Hegner said, 'A coffee'll make me need a leak. What I want is you to describe him to me. I want to know him.'

He sensed around him the resentment his presence created, and it did not concern him. Little sounds, not from the speaker, told him of the three men and one woman in the room, and they would have thought themselves the experts, and he was the intruder. As an intruder, he was familiar with resentment. Sometimes he used folksy charm to dismantle it and sometimes he didn't bother, as now. If it had been his territory that was invaded he would have bawled them out, slammed the goddamn door on them.

She said briskly, 'It's a monochrome screen and the lighting's poor. He's in a paper jumpsuit. He's Asian, maybe middle twenties…

He's a big man, powerful, heavily muscled, but his shoulders are down. The tongue's out, flicks his lips. He's frightened.'

Not frightened bad enough, like he would have been — Hegner thought — in the Mabatha interrogation centre or at Baghdad's airport, or if the cold, bad guys of the Bureau had him in a 'black site' military camp.

The question came over the speaker, conversational: 'It's confirmed, Ramzi, that there are traces of explosives on your hands, and I'm giving you the opportunity to explain them. How did they get there?' No reply.

'What's his eyeline?'

'Seems, Joe, that he's looking at the ceiling, not at the officer across the table. On the ceiling and staying there.'

The patient rephrasing of the question: 'Look, Ramzi, there may be a perfectly innocent explanation for these traces on your hands; and I'm giving you the chance to tell me how they came to be there.' He listened to the silence.

Mary said, 'The eyeline has changed. It's gone to the wall, the bottom of it, to his left. He's sweating, hands clenched and fingers locked. I'd say frightened but fighting.'

No exasperation, no bluster and hurry: 'It would, of course, be best for you, Ramzi, to be utterly truthful with us. You've been in a cell with comrades, but you're now alone. Help us, and you help yourself. You realize, — don't you, the advantages of cooperation?' The silence echoed in his ear.

Mary said, 'I wouldn't swear to it, but I think he is, if anything, more comfortable now than when we came in. Still frightened, but it's like he believes he can survive…The eyeline is still on the wall by the floor. He doesn't risk contact.'

Nor would he. Didn't have to. Hegner asked if anything had been said by the prisoner. 'Nothing,' was the laconic voice's response, 'not a single word.' What had he said in the car coming south to London? Hadn't opened his mouth. They had a name — had they now an address? Officers were still at the house, with his mother and his two sisters; his room was clean, bare, and his lap-top computer had the hard drive removed. There were no posters of Islamic jihadists and no books and no pamphlets in his room that were relevant, and all that had been learned was that the man had been absent from home — on an IT course, his mother said, but had not known where — for thirteen days.

He did the arithmetic in his mind. Ibrahim Hussein, wearing the T-shirt of The Threatened Swan had gone through King Khalid airport, had flown out of Riyadh, seven days before. Ibrahim Hussein, still in that damn shirt, had come off the Eurostar five days before. Hegner leaned back, groped, found Mary's arm. 'That boy was met at that train station.'

'But we didn't have a face for the greeter, only the boy.'

'Describe the build of the greeter.'

He heard the snap of the lock on her shoulder-bag. He had already decided on the body shape. He sought only to confirm his status. She was rifling among papers. Another question was put, was met by the same silence.

Mary said, 'Big, heavy and filling an anorak, over six feet in height, and two thirty — could be two forty — pounds was the estimate.'

Hegner stood; in doing so he kneed the groin of the officer beside him, did not apologize. He swung his stick ahead of him, hit the leg of another officer and the table's. 'I find the air kind of suffocating in here,' he said.

He shook Mary's hand off his arm. From the door he called, 'Thank you for your welcome,' and he murmured, too softly to be heard, 'Keep going the way you are and you might break him by Christmas.'

He set off down the corridor at pace, and Mary Reakes was skipping to keep up with him. He remembered exactly each step he had taken into the building, and the route to get clear of it. Hegner stopped, stood in the yard, and the rain lashed him. He said, 'They're going nowhere, and fast. That was a joke.'

He heard Naylor: 'Quite predictable, they never talk — all of them have had the training on resistance to interrogation.'

'That was no interrogation, that was like a PTA conversation.'

He heard Mary Reakes: 'In the gathering of evidence to go before a court it is not permitted to suggest that cooperation will be rewarded with a reduced sentence. It would be what we call "offering an inducement". It's not admissible — would most likely lead to acquittal.'

'Mary, you're a great lay but this is old men's work and you'd do well to go sit in your tower, dream moralities and stay clean.' There was a gasp, a choke, then a clatter of her heels, and he heard their car door open, then slam.

Naylor said, hoarse, 'Spit it, Joe, get it out.'

'Do you want to crack this guy or not? Do you want to listen for the bang, then scrape up the bits on the pavement and up the buildings' walls to stay clean? Who's going to go the extra mile? Where I work, we do that mile, get the mud on our boots, then they talk. You got hang-ups, Dickie? Are you in the lady's camp, waiting for the explosion? Think I got you wrong, Dickie. Maybe you're a man to go slack on me. Do you have people who'll do the business, do what's necessary?'

'I'm not her cheer-leader but what you said to her was out of order. She's in the car now, sobbing. Please, make your peace…Yes, I do have such men and I've put them on stand-by.'

'Get them here — talking is wasting time. Trust me, Dickie, you ain't got time.'

Hegner went to the car.

Naylor stood in the centre of the yard, the rain coursing down his face. He dialled.

He thought it was about duty. About, of course, the carrying-out of a verbal instruction — no minutes taken, nothing on paper…no. He covered himself in those two frail cloaks. It was the right thing to do, and it was an order given him.

His call was answered.

Dickie Naylor understood the effect of a bomb blast: the hammering detonation, the sound coming faster and louder than an express train from a tunnel, the orange- and yellow-tinted flash that almost blinded, the leaping column of acrid smoke and the slower climb of the debris, then the pressure wave of heated, dirtied air. He understood also the injuries of a bomb blast that killed and mutilated men and women and children thrown down with their bladders and sphincters loosened, pieces of concrete, glass, stonework and roofing tearing into their chests and stomachs, heads and limbs and shredding them. For many only tiny fragments of their humanity remained — the fingers on a severed fist or a shoe still worn on a foot; the spinal column often survived intact but lungs collapsed fatally from compression and so did spleens and livers; entrails were exposed and heads cast off…and if it was a cold day, or a chilly night, when a bomb exploded, steam exuded from the cut-open bodies of the dead and the living…And then there was quiet. Dickie Naylor, the nearly man, could justify his call to an island of the Inner Hebrides.

He spoke briefly, concisely, said what would happen and what should be done — and heard the gulls, the sea, the bloody gale's whine, and rang off.

Still, it rained; still he stood in the centre of the Paddington Green yard. He dialled again. He could not see into the car, did not know whether the old goat comforted Mary, or whether she, too, now received a lecture on martyr cells and motivation — maybe on the virtues of the legitimate weapon of torture…His call, into a personal line, was answered.

'Tristram, it's Dickie…Yes, I'm fine, yes…I'm at the Green. Our boy is sitting in an interview room and looking at the floor or the wall or the ceiling, saying nothing. Tristram, we need to move on a stage, on to areas we discussed…Yes, they're coming, but I need transport for them. I can't authorize, at my level, RAF flights. That has to come from you. I suppose we need a helicopter and a lift to a fast jet, an executive, for the leg down here…No, Tristram, I haven't a clue where the helicopter should pick them up, but there must be somewhere that isn't bog. When you've done the necessary, get the boys in blue to call me and I'll have the phone number they can liaise with…Tristram, I doubt I have to stiffen your resolve, but the clock's ticking. There is no alternative…I'm grateful, Tristram, for your appreciation of what needs doing. I'm on my way in and we have a mountain to clear, know what I mean?…Yes, "obfuscation" is an apt word for it. Be with you in an hour.'

He felt a burden was now shared and was relieved for that. He.strode to the car, brushed the rain off his coat.

Mary Reakes sat bolt upright in the seat beside the driver.

Hegner was saying, '…I accept there are no stereotypes for activists, but what is a common factor is the sense of brotherhood, family, tribe that exists inside the cell. It has taken over the role of parent and sibling. He might, after a few days of gentle probing persuasion, betray his father, mother, brother and sister, his cousins.

He will not, unless under extreme pressure, betray the cell…Dickie, you look like hell., You gotten things moving?'

He nodded bleakly, and slipped into the car. He could not get out of his head the quiet voice on the line, the birds' cries, the waves' roar and the gale's song.

They walked together, bent against the surge of the wind, to the McDonald farm.

At the door, declining politely an invitation to come inside for a pot of tea, Xavier Boniface told the farmer that they had business on the mainland, and would be away three days, or four.

Donald Clydesdale, and he knew there would be no hesitation from the farmer, asked if care could be taken of the cow, Marigold, and the heifer calf, Daisy, born in the lee of the hill that was close to the cliff of Cnoc nan Gabhar.

They would be attended to, and their sheep, goats, fowls and geese.

Boniface asked the farmer if he had seen the sea eagles up over the cliff and hunting in bad weather, and the farmer said they must hunt because the young in the eyrie had hatched. And he wished them well and did not ask what was their business off the island.

They trudged back to their house to pack their bags and make ready the gear they would take south. The light was failing and the weather worsening. It would be a rough flight for the helicopter's pilot, and there would only be the bright lights of their flash lamps to guide him in, but neither Xavier Boniface nor Donald Clydesdale had considered refusing the summons to come south.

His voice torn away by the wind, Clydesdale said, 'It'll be a hard nut to crack if Mr Naylor's called us.'

'Hard or soft, it'll be an important nut and needing to be cracked quick,' Boniface said. 'Nuts — hard or soft — with the right treatment, they all crack.'

The camera lens, like a fierce eye, caught him. He had the sheet of paper on his knee. Ibrahim Hussein, the drop-out first-year medical student, thought that at last he had memorized the text given him. He sucked in air, waited for the dropped finger to tell him to begin and felt a tightness through his body…He was told the bulb was blinking, that a new battery was needed, and the tension subsided, the text vanished from his mind. He heard the hiss of annoyance from the darkness behind the light that beamed on to him.

He knew now that Ramzi, the muscle, had run. Knew, too, that crisis engulfed the cell. Knew, also, that time was precious. It was to be his fourth attempt to speak the words written for him, and on three attempts he had stumbled and the thread had been lost. The filming of the video had first been held up by an argument between Faria, who had written it, and Jamal, who operated the camera: what language should be spoken? The Arabic, with the dialect of Asir Province, that was easiest for him and most suitable for the Al Jazeera satellite audience? The English that she had composed and that was aimed at the Crusaders' society? But Ibrahim Hussein did not have the depth of vocabulary to translate from English to the Saudi tongue, and Faria and Jamal had the taught Arabic of the Book, which was insufficient…The argument had been resolved by the Leader's cutting response to the delay: 'It is not important. He will speak what is given him.' Then more bickered problems.

Should he, or should he not, wear the waistcoat?

The martyrs in Lebanon, Palestine and occupied Iraq wore robes when their video statements were recorded, carried weapons and had slogans in praise of God painted on to the wide bandannas tied across their foreheads. There were no robes in Oakdene Cottage, and no Kalashnikov assault rifles. She denied it had been her responsibility to provide robes that fitted him. Jamal criticized the lack of a weapon, even a replica. The Leader had said, 'Again, it is of no importance. He does not want to wear the waistcoat, he does not — he does and he wears the waistcoat. Ask him.' They did. Ibrahim had said he would wear the waistcoat and, taking great care not to dislodge the wires between the sticks, the batteries and the button switch, the girl had eased his arms into it, then settled it on his shoulders.

The waistcoat's weight was on him. The girl sidled close to him, took the sheet of paper and he saw, momentarily, her smile — as if she encouraged him. He tried, in desperation, to remember what he would say — and why.

The finger dropped.

Ibrahim gulped.

The light bored into his face and the lens was bright.

He recited what he had learned. 'I would like to say to you that I have come to Britain to strive in the path of God and to fight the enemies of the Muslim faith. I am the living martyr. God, be He exalted. At this time when the oppression of the Crusaders and infidels destroys our people in all of the world where we live, I look for martyrdom as a sign that we — believers of the true Faith — can never be defeated. I…'

The voice from the darkness was guttural, cold. 'You sound like a parrot. A parrot is taught words that have no meaning — they are just spouted. Do it with feeling, or forget it.'

He cringed. The waistcoat constricted his breathing and lay heavy on him; in his nose was the stale smell of the filth in the bags. She came from the side, slipped into his vision. Her hand was on his neck and her fingers massaged the tightness of the muscle — where the pressure from the waistcoat's weight was.

She said, 'We love you and we admire you. Nothing can stop you, no one. We are privileged to walk in your shadow. The sun shines on you and God's hand is on you and will guide you. In this country, in little streets and in homes and in all holy places — wherever Muslims live and gather — your name will be spoken and God's greatness will be glorified. You give us an example of dedication that we will strive to follow. Believe it1 and say it.'

He believed it. Her hand loosed his shoulder. Where there had been a listless struggle to remember, there was passion. She slipped back and was beyond his vision. He said it: 'I give my life readily because the British authority attacks Muslims where they are weak and cam-tot defend themselves. I avenge the wrongs done by the British, and many more will follow me. I go, God willing, to Paradise. Pray for me.'

The voice from the darkness growled, 'It is satisfactory. Save it and box it.'

He slumped. Light flooded the room and the curtains were pulled back.

The girl helped him out of the waistcoat. He thought there was tenderness in the motion of her fingers. We love you and we admire you. It was as if, Ibrahim Hussein believed, she alone had time for him…Then a stark truth hit him. There was now no retreat. He must walk.

His testament was recorded. He had said: 'I go, God willing, to Paradise.' His own words condemned him.

He carried his tray away from the counter. He skirted the tables and made a target of the one furthest away from them. Into Banks's ears came the bleat of the one called Peter: 'This stuff might be all right for strapping young soldiers needing their strength built up — not for us. Sausages and chips. A pork chop that is more fat than meat and chips. Fish that drips with batter and chips…Someone might have told these people about cholesterol levels. What's this going to be doing to our hearts? Frankly, it's a disgrace.'

Food did not matter to him. At work and at home in his bedsit, he ate what was fast and convenient. He would have reckoned his fitness levels compensated for the rubbish he swallowed, snatched when he had time.

A plate loaded with sausage, bacon, beans, fried bread and chips was on his tray, with a can of soft drink He sat at the table, distanced from them. He ripped back the ring-pull, swilled the drink and started to eat.

He had not dented the plate's heap when he heard the shuffle of feet, loose sandals, behind him. 'Mind if I do? Is it permitted?'

He emptied his mouth. 'Please yourself.'

It was hardly a welcoming invitation, but enough for his Principal. On Wright's plate there was a chop in a pond of gravy, peas, but no chips.

'Not much to write home about, is it? The food…'

'It's what's on offer,' Banks said curtly. It had been his intention to sit quietly, alone, at the table, clear his plate and then submit to the addiction — open that bloody notebook, take his fix if he could find a vein to lance the needle into.

He kept his eyes on his food, listened to his Principal eat.

Banks had meant it, what he had thought in the courtroom, the hatred. But the guy was in his pocket, in his mind, and the bloody place where the guy was…There should have been a photograph. Maybe an outing from work, before he'd travelled, down to the coast; a group of young men in suits and shirts with collars, ties knotted below the stud. Without a photograph, he could hate but could not ignore the damn man. He was thinking of Cecil Darke's food: no meat, no fat, no fried chips served up in the forward positions on Mosquito Hill.

'Well, Mr Banks, what sort of day have you had?'

'Just a day, a day's work.'

'Me, I've had a good day.'

'Pleased to hear that, Mr Wright.' He mouthed it, hoped that his lack of interest would register and be rewarded with quiet. No bloody chance.

'See that Vicky, sat behind you?'

He didn't turn.

'I reckon anyone, and wouldn't take too much patience, is in there with a chance, a damn good one. Shoving her curves out for everyone to see. She's rather lovely, don't you think?'

He lied: 'I hadn't noticed her.'

There was a grin opposite him. 'Don't you do women, Mr Banks? Don't you have time for them? God, I'm telling you, it's an empty world without women — specially women like that Vicky. You married, Mr Banks? That why you don't do women?'

'Divorced, actually.'

He didn't have to — could have put his head down and gone on clearing the plate — but Banks broke the rules of his trade: he told his Principal about Mandy, about Mandy's adultery, about the dispute on the money share-out, about the collapse of any reasonable post-marriage, post-divorce relationship. It was no business of his Principal's but he was given it, chapter and verse, as if that was a way to lose a load that had festered. Couldn't have justified it, but he spilled out confidences on Mandy.

'Sorry to hear that, Mr Banks…Never mind. Look on the bright side. You're free, can play the field.'

'Things seem to get in the way,' Banks said. He felt inadequate and squirmed deep in his gut.

He looked up into Wright's face, and took the full-impact force of a smile.

Wright said, 'I don't suppose we're exactly a roller-coaster of thrills. Are you usually with people like us, life's flotsam?'

'The people I'm usually with would not appreciate the description "flotsam",' Banks said, and warmed to it as if the smile chipped at his natural reserve. 'What's normal for me, as a Protection Officer, is minding royals, diplomats and politicians. You see, Mr Wright, we're a finite resource, and by the time the big cats have been looked after there's not many of us left to look after — I'm uncomfortable with the word—"ordinary" people. Don't you see us on TV? We're jumping out of cars, opening doors, heaving back the great unwashed so they don't get too close. We're part of the scene of pomp and circumstance. Those people, they judge their importance by the number of Protection Officers assigned to them. There's a pecking order. The actual threat, well, that's a whole different argument. Take Churchill in the war, see him walking through the East End after a bad blitzing, and look for how many men there are around him with Sten guns — none. How many men in long raincoats with a Smith & Wesson in a shoulder holster? Two, maximum three. Now a junior minister in Northern Ireland, where there's supposed to be a ceasefire, has a whole busload of them. We open the doors and close them, we book restaurants, we do the shopping. They're the elite, and we're an integral part of the panoply. Odd thing, but they need us to massage their vanity, and we need them to show how important we are…A crowd of jurors, you and them, or a Protected Witness is damn lucky to get us for more than the bare minimum of days.'

He was interrupted: 'We were told about a duty of care…and I was told by the man who approached me of "long arms" and "long memories". Don't we get looked after?'

Banks grinned, sardonic, and was finally enjoying himself — couldn't remember when he had last talked freely outside the corral of the Delta team. 'Don't hold your breath, Mr Wright. It'll all be about the budget that's been allocated. When the coffers are dry you'll be dumped. You'll be given an in-house alarm and a few telephone numbers. You'll be up the creek and no paddle. Of course, if you were a politician the coffers don't go dry.'

'Is that-the party line, Mr Banks?' The smile spread.

'Think about it. We rely on people like you to pedal the justice system forward, but don't expect thanks for your efforts.'

'But you — you as well, Mr Banks — you're a man of substance.'

'Am I? Haven't heard anybody say so.'

'Stands to reason, you have to be.'

'I doubt it.'

'Wrong…Wrong because of what's on your belt. Wrong because of that oil smear on your shirt. That's trust, isn't it? Is it loaded?'

Banks hesitated. He sensed they were off territory. The way he sat, the tip of the holster dug into the flesh of his upper thigh. He saw mischief dance in the eyes in front of him. Could have retreated, should have backed off…He shrugged. 'Not much point in having the thing if it goes to Condition Black, but you have to hold up your hand. "Can we please have a break while I go to the car and load up?" It's loaded, and I carry replacement magazines. Each morning, though, I clear the bullets out and reload them. If you don't, if you leave them there for a few days, a week, you can get a jam. Condition Black is an imminent and real threat, and I just have to flick the safety. That's all.'

'When would you do it — shoot?' More of the mischief, more of the sparkle, and Wright had pushed away his plate and was hunched forward, as if the talk was their conspiracy and not to be shared.

'If my life was in danger.'

'That's good — your life. Brilliant, I'm so reassured.'

Banks said, 'I don't remember if I said it to you — if I didn't I should have. We aren't bullet-catchers. We don't stand in front of Principals and make heroic sacrifices and end up a bloody paraplegic with a thirty-eight-calibre slug lodged in the spine. We do realistic assessments of threat and we evaluate our resources, and we have as our Bible the theory that the bad guy cannot get close enough. It's about as far as it goes.'

Maybe he was mocked. 'You're telling me that it's not John Wayne, life ebbing, in the dirt of Dodge City, the lady's arms cushioning his head, violins going on full scrape, and the smallholders saved from the wicked rancher — not that?'

He grimaced. They were areas he had never discussed before with a Principal. Should have closed his mouth, should have stood up and walked away.

'I've never fired for real. No one I've worked with has ever fired for real. You have a microsecond to decide what to do, that's the training…but it's only training. If you shoot, your life will be destroyed, and I don't mean if you've taken the wrong option. I met an officer on an exercise, and he'd done it, had fired and slotted a gangster, and that gangster had a firearm in his hand and had already used it. Double tap and the gangster's down, dead, but it took two years for the process of investigation formally to clear the officer so he could go armed again. Two bloody years of his life and he was entirely justified in what he'd done. And if he hadn't been justified he would have faced a charge of murder. There's a post-shooting incident procedure, the inquest into what's happened, and the officer will get no sympathy, no support, from his seniors, and every moment of the confrontation leading up to the weapon discharge will be picked over, vultures at carrion, by Complaints and Discipline. Does that answer you?'

'Tells me what to expect.' Wright chuckled. 'Tells me to stay in bed tomorrow morning.'

'You'll be all right.' He pulled the wry look. 'It never happens. We pretend it's going to, and simulate it, but it doesn't.'

'Could you? It's not to disable, is it, it's to kill? Mr Banks, could you shoot?'

'When it happens I'll answer you — hasn't this gone far enough?'

'Am I keeping you? Come on. It can't just be training, it has to be in the mind. Wouldn't be in mine. Look into a man's face, over the sights, might be a pleasant face, or a scared face, even if he's a threat, then do judge and executioner. Not me. Don't have the certainty or the guts.'

'You're being trumpeted as the hero, Mr Wright.'

'Probably you didn't do Shakespeare's Othello at school. A very bizarre line, "I am not what I am," whatever it means. My question was, could you earn your corn, could you shoot to kill?'

'I don't know.'

'That's not a very good answer.'

'Try this one. There are some who say I couldn't,' Banks blurted. 'It's what was said. A team said it.'

No more mischief, and the sparkle was gone. A frown cut Wright's forehead. 'Is that the truth? Your own people said it? Said you couldn't shoot to kill? But that's your bloody job…means they think you're useless.'

'Why I'm here, why I drew this fucking straw, the short one.'

He stood up. Should have done so a quarter-hour before, and could have.

Banks said, 'My apologies if I've destroyed your confidence in me, Mr Wright. It's about someone I never met, never knew…about somewhere I've never been…It is why lam categorized as useless, and about why I could be spared from a state of alert in London — reckoned not able to do it — and be here with you. Goodnight.'

The notebook flapped in his pocket. He walked briskly — having made an idiot of epic proportions of himself — across the room. He passed a rubbish bin as he threw open the door. Should have, could have, dumped the notebook.

'Of course, it's different when you're operating abroad, far away, on foreign territory. No Queensberry rules there. No monitors watching over you, and no human-rights pinkos. You do your job…You go in after your target, fair means or foul, and all that matters is that the target is captured and handed over, or it's his hand or head that gets brought back…Has to be something, or you won't get the bounty payment. Did I ever tell you what the rates were for bounty on a Taliban guy in Ghazni Province?'

He was perched on his stool at the left end of the bar, and his surgical sticks were propped between his legs. George Marriot's audience migrated between the bar and the dartboard. The golf team was back after victory on a sodden course, and the darts team were throwing. The crush at the bar suited him well.

'Didn't I? Well, for an Ali Baba — that's a thief, operating on the road, turning over aid convoys — there might only be a thousand dollars in it. Hardly worth the effort. I'd a team of more than a dozen to keep sniffing and interested after the Tora Bora. Did I tell you about the Tora Bora? Don't remember. Well, another time…I've this team to keep happy, damn good trackers and the best fighters anywhere, and the way to keep them happiest was to go up into the foothills of Ghazni Province, maybe up into the mountains, and go after the Taliban. Hard bastards, but I respected them — they'd have had my head off my shoulders soon as spit at me, if they'd had the chance. Yes, I respected them as quality opposition. For a big Taliban man, one of the old regime who'd been close to Mullah Omar, I was looking at a bounty — alive or for a head, ears and fingers for taking the prints off — at twenty-five thousand minimum. The Yanks, fair play to them, weren't cheapskates and they paid on the nail. They weren't easy to get, the big Taliban men, took days of tracking, weeks of hunting through the caves, and when they were cornered they fought like rats in a sack…Did I ever tell you how I got that grenade stuff in my leg, Russian made HE-42 with a hundred and eighteen grams of high explosive, did I?'

How many times had the story been told? One day — God, it would not be a pretty sight — the landlord swore he'd tell GG to drop his trousers, right there in the bar, and show the damn scars. One day…No, no, it would be cruel — no scars there to show. They listened politely and tolerantly, carried their pints away from the bar counter, left the story for the next customers, and talked their golf and darts, their business and families.

'Myself, I'd never ask a man under my command to do something, go somewhere that I wasn't prepared to do or go. I led into this cave. Knew it was used because the earth at the front was all scuffed. Went in with my torch, and the beam caught his eyes, like a damn cat's, and my finger was off the guard and on to the trigger bar but the grenade came bouncing at me. I stayed those seconds too long, gave him the whole magazine, thirty rounds of ball, then chucked myself down, but not fast enough and not far enough away. My boys, they carried me back down but not before they'd taken off his head, his ears and his fingers. The man I'd killed was a big man, a proper Taliban field commander. He was a man like me, a true fighter, not one of those who'd get some daft kid — a suicide-bomber — to do the work for him, hide behind a kid. He'd have heard me and the boys come to the cave, and wouldn't have thought of surrender, knew he was going to die but tried damn hard to take me with him. Have to respect that sort of man…The Yanks did, gave me thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars for his head and his bits. But I was finished, too bloody wrecked to go back up the mountains after the hospital.'

He was asked, a snigger from an accountant who queued for service, whether he'd worn the same shirt when he was in Afghanistan. Frayed cuffs and collar, the colour gone from it. He heard the laughter ripple round him. He was told that the shirt, it might be clean on that evening, looked worn enough to have done time on his back in Ghazni Province. Did he know that a sale — with bargains at giveaway prices — was staged that weekend in the town down the road? Another piped up, said he should have left the shirt up the mountain. The ripple of laughter was a gale. Had his sister sewn up the shrapnel holes in the shirt and washed out the bloodstains? He should treat himself to a new shirt, not leave thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars untouched in a biscuit tin under his bed.

George Marriot sensed, and it was new to him, that gentle mocking had gone nasty was ridicule. His hand came off his glass and his fingers touched his collar, felt the loose, worn cotton, and he saw the threads that hung apart at his cuffs. He let his sticks take his weight, left his unfinished drink on the counter, dropped his head and pushed forward towards the door. He heard a protest it was only a joke.

He elbowed the door open.

'Safe home, GG, see you next week,' the landlord called to his back…then, quieter, 'Shouldn't take the piss, just because he's soft in the head.'

The door swung shut behind him.

The two men ran heavily towards the helicopter's open side hatch, their heads ducked below the thrash of the rotor blades. Each carried small cheap bags of clothing, but between them they shared the weight of the Bergen rucksack in which their work kit was stowed.

The hand of the loadmaster reached down and helped up Xavier Boniface, then Donald Clydesdale.

Old thrills surged in each of them, and old habits came naturally. The loadmaster was waved away. They dropped into the bucket seats, slotted the shoulder harnesses across their bodies, fastened the clamps.

'You all right, Xavier?'

'Fine, Donald.'

'It'll be good to see Mr Naylor.'

'A gentleman. It'll be fine to see him.'

The helicopter lifted and yawed in the face of the wind. The engine pitch strove for power and suffocated their voices, then each closed his eyes and they were oblivious to the tossed and thudding flight as they climbed.

They were veterans of campaigns from the end of empire. As young lads in the marines, 45 Commando, they had been assigned in the Protectorate of Aden — forty years before — to guard the life of an officer in the RAF's Special Investigation Branch. They had taken him, Sterling submachine-guns loaded and cocked, most days from his Khormaksar billet across the causeway to Sheikh Othman, then past the roundabout where the concrete block and sandbagged Mansoura picket tower stood, and they had huddled with him between them in a Saracen armoured personnel carrier for the run to the fort where prisoners were held. At first, the initial couple of weeks, they had lounged around the fort's yard, and the officer had been inside the interrogation cells with captured men from the National Liberation Front. Each evening he had emerged in a state of growing frustration: he couldn't get the time of day from his prisoners, and most certainly no intelligence.

Now, inside the helicopter, bucking in the wind and leaving the island's coast behind them, neither could have said which had made the suggestion to the officer, but made it had been: 'With respect, sir, why are you pussyfooting around? There's lives at stake, right? Don't you think, sir, it's time to take the gloves off?' Perhaps it was both of them who had made the offer. They had gone with their officer into the cells the next morning. At first it had been fists and boots, then they had learned a little more of the trade, and water buckets, lights and noise had been employed. Intelligence had been extracted from choking throats, from mouths without teeth. Only the intelligence produced by pain had been written down by the officer — where a safe-house was, where an ambush site was planned, where an 81mm mortar was hidden or a blindicide rocket, where an arms cache was buried. They'd left on the same evacuation flight, one of the last from Khormaksar, as their officer. After touchdown — and he'd kept his new wife waiting a half-hour beyond the arrival doors — he'd taken them to the bar and bought them two doubles each, might have been three, and had promised to be in touch if the need for their skills arose again. The officer, of course, had been Mr Naylor. That had been the start.

When the helicopter's nose dipped and it lost height, both woke. Awaiting them at Glasgow airport was an executive jet, in RAF colours, fuelled and ready to fly them south.

They lived in dangerous times, and such times, they knew, demanded 'taking the gloves off'. Neither Xavier Boniface nor Donald Clydesdale would have said that this call from Mr Naylor would be the last.

He lay beside her, the scent of the ageing hay bales in his nose. The cottage was only five hundred paces away, but fifteen minutes' walk with the load they had brought across two fields.

The boy slept, breathing heavily, on a bed of fodder they had made for him on the far side of a low wall of bales.

Only the three of them remained. When the house had been cleaned, and the bedding bagged, he had sent away the lightweights — the driver to his mini-cab company in west London, the watcher to his family's fast-food outlet in the north of the capital. The recce man would still be travelling to reach his father's cloth shop in the West Midlands. They all believed his target was Birmingham — as did the kid who had fled. It had been a precaution of Muhammad Ajaq, the Scorpion of a faraway war where the strength of his sting was a legend, to deceive them with a lie, but his survival had always depended on precautions. The barn where he lay beside the girl, on damp, musty hay, was set back from the lane into the village. In an hour, before dawn came, he would make a fire at the back of the barn and burn their bags of bedding.

He manipulated her mind. His hand was under the coat she wore, the sweater and the T-shirt. His fingers played on the skin of her stomach. His nails made gentle patterns on the smoothness, softness of her navel. He did not work his hand up towards her breasts or down to her groin. She had not moved his hand.

He was not aroused by the touch of her against his fingers: what he did was a tactic of war. He made little sensual movements and could hear the growing pant of her breath. The experience of his mother, and, the scars left in him by the learning of it, had left deeper wounds on him than the pitted line across the forehead and cheek' of the girl. He had no trust in emotion, believed it weakness. To have had sex with her would have disgusted him perhaps frightened him. He heard the rustle and knew that her legs opened 'for him, but his fingers, nails, stayed on her stomach. Above the scent of the straw he smelt her wetness. He teased her, but it was only as a tactic of manipulation to achieve what he thought was necessary.

She was a virgin. If she had not been she would have pulled down his hand, buried it in her hair, and she had not.

He heard the breathing of the boy, steady but heavy with catarrh, beyond the wall of bales. It asked so much of him, the simpleton who was in love with God, that he must endure the delay, and he had thought hard as to how he could hold the resolve of the boy for more hours, more days.

The nail of his forefinger penetrated her navel cavity, and he heard the small gasps. He moved his hand away, rolled on to his side with his back to her, left her.

There was silence, long, and her breathing slackened.

He had angered her, knew it and intended it.

She was the pick of the cell, the only one among them that he valued.

Her anger burst. She spat out her whispered anger: 'Is it arrogance that drives you, or cowardice that rules you? Which? Are you, in your mind, too important to die, or too frightened? Which? It is never the leaders who make the sacrifice. The leaders choose targets, they make the vests, they recruit, and they tell young men of the rewards of Heaven and of the praise that will be heaped on them when they have gone to Paradise, but at the last they stand aside. Are you too valuable? Is the fear too great? Everything you have done since you came is to ensure your own safety and ability to run, to be clear. I have not seen, ever, from you one moment of compassion for him, nothing. And I have read that in Palestine it is not the young boys of the leaders who wear the vests, because they are sent away — abroad — for education and it would never be. permitted for them to wear one. I tell you, I think that he is the one with true courage, but you treat him, as if he were a package, disposable, to be thrown away. I despise you.'

The anger stilled. She would not have known it, in the darkness and with his back to her, but he smiled and was well satisfied.