Tracers

TWENTY-EIGHT

The words dropped into the room with the impact of a grenade, and Harry struggled to keep his expression blank. If she was telling the truth, it explained a great deal about her behaviour, lifestyle and obvious air of resilience. ‘Private or army?’

‘I started in the army. Northern Ireland, Germany, Iraq — even Afghanistan for a while — and all the boring places in between. I did all the courses and a few more, got good reports and they asked me to go on the Regimental Provost course. I came out of that second in my class, which pissed off a few of the blokes, but that didn’t bother me. Then six months ago, in a pub in Germany, I was approached by a man and we got talking. I was single and bored and he looked like he wanted company. We talked, he told me almost nothing about himself but asked lots of questions. After a while I realized I was being interviewed.’ She shook her head, ‘Right there in the middle of a pub, surrounded by other squaddies. Not that they could hear what we were talking about, but it was surreal.’

‘He’d followed you.’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he ask?’

‘Background stuff to begin with — where I came from, whether I had any family, friends and so on. Like he was interested in me. Then he began asking weird stuff, like whether I enjoyed live firing, what sort of security training I’d done, if I’d ever considered joining Special Forces. It was then I decided he must be recruiting for something a bit unusual, like 14 Company or maybe undercover with the RMP. I thought it was odd doing it like that, but for all I knew then, that’s how it always works.’

‘What did you say?’

She shrugged. ‘To be honest, I was intrigued and flattered. After years of doing shit jobs and slogging about at everyone’s beck and call, I wanted something better. Why not? I had no family or responsibilities, nothing to tie me down — it sounded exciting. I said yes.’

‘Who was he?’ Harry asked, ‘this recruiter?’

‘He called himself Douglas, but I doubt it was his real name. It’s not, is it, with people like that?’ She stood up. ‘Excuse me — I need to. .’ She disappeared into the bathroom, passing Rik standing by the door. He shook his head to indicate all was quiet outside.

‘You hear any of that?’ Harry asked.

‘A bit. Sounds like someone was talent spotting.’ He picked up his brandy and retreated to the back of the room. ‘I’ll listen in.’

Joanne returned and resumed her seat, ignoring Rik’s presence. She looked pale but composed. Harry wondered if talking was helping her relax. ‘What made you think his name was false?’

‘It didn’t suit him. I don’t know why. Not that it mattered, because at the end of the evening, he gave me a card with a number on it and passed me up the line. This time it was on base, and I was interviewed formally by two men in suits. One was obviously military — he had that look, you know? Like the clothes weren’t his usual kit. The following week, I signed a batch of papers, handed in my gear to the stores and returned to England, where I spent four weeks being put through a meat grinder.’

‘Go on.’

‘It was CP work, mostly — lots of it. Hours of live firing, defensive driving, unarmed combat, knife work. . basically learning more ways to overcome an attacker than I knew existed. There were night exercises, computer and comms classes, more close-quarter weapons training, covert surveillance and bugging techniques, anti-device training, emergency evacuation exercises. . it felt endless.’ She almost smiled. ‘They even threw in a basic medic’s course. I nearly fainted when they shot a pig for us to practise on. But it was a hell of a buzz after all the boring stuff I’d been doing. I was the only girl on the course, too; great for the ego. Not that I was allowed to fraternize with the men. We weren’t told each other’s names and they chucked one bloke off the course for asking. We were just numbers, an army of robots. God knows what the others were being trained for.’

‘Did they all last the course?’

‘No. There were RTUs — Returned to Unit — all the way through. Some of the guys right near the end must have been gutted. I never found out why they were dropped and we weren’t encouraged to ask.’

‘What next?’

‘They sent me on a total-immersion language course at a place in Beaconsfield. I joined the army to get away from classrooms, and here I was back in one for fourteen-hour days, non-stop.’

‘What language?’

‘Arabic. It went on day and night. It was torture. And I had to learn how to prepare basic Iraqi food. That wasn’t too bad, though.’

Harry was surprised at the depth and detail of her training. Whoever had planned it hadn’t left much out. It still didn’t explain why she was connected with the man named Silverman, but the mention of Arabic was a clue. He had a feeling that it was bringing them closer to an answer.

‘Where did they send you?’ he asked.

‘Baghdad.’ She gave a half-smile. ‘If I’d known that at the start, I’d have told them to shove it. But by then it was too late; I was so far in I didn’t have the guts to back out.’ She poured the remainder of her brandy into the coffee and took a sip. ‘The operation was code-named Pamper. Someone’s sick idea of a joke, probably. They inserted me into the area among a bunch of aid workers, then split me off and took me to a house on the outskirts of the city. I was assigned a handler — a guy named Gordon Humphries. He was about fifty-five and looked like he’d spent ten years on the bottle. But he was as tough as boots and knew more about covert ops than I’ll ever learn. He was there to keep an eye on me and brief me about what I had to do. He was quite sweet, but hard-nosed, you know?’

‘So what did you have to do?’ Harry thought he could guess but he wanted to hear what she had to say. All that training had to have been for something truly special; the government wouldn’t waste time, money and talent unless it was for something of crucial importance.

‘I had to pose as personal assistant to a man named Subhi Rafa’i. He was a former cleric and something of a big cheese among the locals. I wasn’t told much about him, only that I had to be with him twenty-four-seven, living in his house or going wherever he went. He’d had a western secretary for years — a Swiss woman named Siggert — but she’d just retired with a medical condition. At least, that’s what they told me.’

‘You didn’t believe them?’

‘It was Rafa’i who didn’t. He said that one minute she was there and fine, the next she’d gone. But it was probably for the best because she was getting on. I just slid into her place and kept my head down.’

‘Is Rafa’i the man in the photo?’

‘Yes. He was a nice man. I liked him. I still can’t believe he’s alive. Are you sure he wasn’t killed?’

‘We’ll get to that. What was your brief?’

‘As far as anyone was concerned, I was his PA. He’d had Frau Siggert working for him before, and I was her replacement. It sounds bizarre, me being a westerner and a woman, but nobody locally seemed to think it was unusual. And that’s what I did day to day; I handled his correspondence, ran his office, made sure he had what he needed. Rafa’i did a lot of lecturing at seminaries and university campuses, and he also had some business interests. He needed someone who could organize it all.’

‘And you could do that?’

‘Yes. It was part of the Beaconsfield course. When I wasn’t learning Arabic I was picking up computer and office admin skills. That was boring.’

‘But it wasn’t your real job.’

She took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘No. Rafa’i had a team of bodyguards, all local men who’d been trained by the Coalition forces. He was important, you see. Some said vital. He had influence with lots of leaders across the country. Because he was a former cleric, he was listened to and respected by people across the different factions. That made him valued. . and therefore dangerous.’

‘What was he?’

‘Shi’ite. But he never trumpeted his origins. To him, Iraqi was Iraqi. It made him unique. There are people in the Coalition who believe that even with a properly elected and fully functional government in place, there will be a constant threat from extremist groups who’ll try to overthrow them. And if the day ever comes when they succeed, there has to be someone around who can wield influence on the street to stop it all going shit-faced. It would have to be someone pretty special. . what they called a Golden Solution.’ She smiled thinly. ‘A bloody saint is what they meant. That’s where Rafa’i came in.’

‘He’s that highly regarded?’

‘And some. I saw the reactions from people around him. They worshipped him.’

Harry looked cynical. ‘Obviously not all of them. What about the bodyguards?’

‘There were ten on constant rotation. He never travelled with less than six and they all lived in the compound around his house. It was a miniature fortress.’ She looked down at her mug. ‘They were all big and macho, so full of themselves it was laughable. Good at their jobs, though. They’d have had a fit if they’d ever found out what I was there for.’

‘Which was?’

Joanne sighed. ‘“If all else fails” was how Gordon Humphries put it to me. He wasn’t one for flowery words. I don’t think he was happy with the situation, but I doubt there was much he could do about it. He had his job, I had mine.’

‘What did that mean?’ muttered Rik, speaking for the first time.‘“If all else fails”’?

She gave him a level gaze. ‘What it said. If all else failed and the security perimeter around Rafa’i was breached, he had to have a final backstop. That was me. I was his last line of defence.’