Killing for the Company (31 page)

A voice from the back. ‘What the fuck’s Hanukkah, boss?’

‘Festival of Lights. Their version of Christmas. One of the most provocative times for the Palestinians to make a statement. Stratton needs close protection, and the Israelis aren’t prepared to send anyone into the strip, so we’ve got the gig.’

‘Oh right,’ said the same voice. ‘’Cos Hamas fucking love the Brits, yeah?’

‘Shut up. Stratton might be a peace envoy, but he’s controversial among the Arabs for obvious reasons. In addition to the CAT team, Whitehall wants a QRF on standby in Israeli territory while the talks are in progress.’

O’Donoghue looked over towards Dawson and nodded. The OC got to his feet and took over the briefing. ‘We’ll be stationed at an Israeli military base about twenty miles from the strip. I’ve selected a four-man team to accompany Stratton.’ He looked around the room. ‘Finn Jacobs, Nigel Foster, Russ Barker, Luke Mercer. Luke, you’ll lead the unit. We’ll brief you separately and take you through the imagery.’

Luke looked over his shoulder at the others. Finn, Fozzie and Russ. As units went, it was one of the most experienced. No Flash Harrys, just good professionals. Each man looked serious as O’Donoghue took the floor. ‘You’ve got forty-eight hours till departure,’ he continued. ‘Buses leave here for Brize Norton 14.00 hrs Wednesday. Everyone to remain in camp in the interim. Squadron weapons checked, kit squared away. Each man report to your troop sergeant now. There’ll be further briefings over the next couple of days. Let’s get moving, gentlemen. Holiday’s over.’

There was a scraping of chairs and a sudden hum of noises, like a classroom at bell time. ‘Luke,’ the ops officer called, ‘get your guys together. Briefing in ten, my office.’

Ten minutes later there were six of them crowded into O’Donoghue’s office. Spread out on the table was a large satellite map. ‘The FO have requested up-to-date imagery from GCHQ,’ O’Donoghue explained, ‘and we’ll have detailed mapping for you to study in the next twenty-four hours. But this’ll give you the lie of the land.’ Luke examined the map. A long western coastline met the azure blue of the Mediterranean, and where land met sea was a strip of golden beach. From this distance, it looked look like a holiday brochure, but Luke knew that a closer look at this tiny piece of land would reveal a war-torn territory of brutal destruction. Ordnance had been hurled into the Gaza Strip for decades, destroying buildings and infrastructure beyond all hope of repair.

‘Hamas are refusing to cooperate,’ O’Donoghue told them. Now that he wasn’t addressing the whole squadron he seemed a bit more relaxed. ‘They’ve stated that they’ll fire on any aircraft violating their airspace, and that includes Stratton. You’ll have to take him in by road, but they’ll only allow a single vehicle on to their territory.’ He pointed at a spot on the Israeli border. ‘This is the Karni crossing. It’s the checkpoint closest to Gaza City, so you’ll cross over there. Tension is high on the streets. The Firm have eyes inside the city reporting that militants are out in the open, and that since the train bombings, half the young men of fighting age have joined them. There’s already been some mortar fire over the border into Israel, so these kids are armed with more than just rifles. Stratton’s visit won’t be a secret. They’ll know you’re on your way. But don’t expect anyone to welcome you with open arms.’

‘Last time someone welcomed Luke with open arms,’ Finn murmured, ‘she was charging by the hour.’

‘I like to keep your mum in business, buddy.’ But Luke’s was a half-hearted response and no one laughed. They were all absorbing everything O’Donoghue was saying. It sounded like they were going to be driving into a war zone.

The ops officer continued: ‘The RV between Stratton and the Hamas representatives is to take place in an administrative building in the centre of Gaza City. We’ll forewarn them of your route and hopefully they’ll do what they can to keep it clear.’ He looked up at the four men in the unit. ‘But what Hamas say and what they do aren’t always the same thing. You’ll need to go in heavy, lads. Very heavy. Stratton might be a cunt, but if anything happens to him, the fucking mushroom cloud goes up.’

‘Don’t worry about it, boss,’ Fozzie said quietly. ‘He’ll be safe as houses.’

Yeah, Luke thought to himself. Safe as houses. Only houses weren’t that safe on the Gaza Strip.

He continued to examine the map as his unit stood around him in silence, doing the same.

Now that the whole squadron was in camp, there was a new bustle around Credenhill. There was plenty to do in advance of the op. Each man needed to test-fire and zero his personal weapons, while the SQMS checked that all the squadron assets were available and ready to go, in advance of the hardware being bagged up for transit. There were further squadron briefings in one lecture room or another, and in between times the men went about the business of selecting their own personal gear, suitable for the operation and the theatre in which they might find themselves. Luke and the unit rejected their digital camo in favour of civvies: once they hit Gaza, they didn’t want to look military, as there was nothing like the sight of a foreign soldier to provoke unrest. But he’d be wearing his body armour underneath – he’d definitely want that if things went noisy.

Later in the afternoon the squadron OC and sergeant major left camp, part of an advance party heading out to meet with Israeli liaison officers on the ground, while Luke and his men continued to study the imagery of their route in and out of Gaza City. They’d have GPS on the ground, and the ops room would have a handle on their location at all times, but all that wasn’t a substitute for a working knowledge of the terrain.

The rest of the day passed quickly. At 19.30 Luke got some scran with Finn just as O’Donoghue walked into the sergeants’ mess to tell them that there would be a further briefing the following morning at 07.00. ‘Royal Protection Squad,’ he said curtly. ‘Stratton’s usual team when they’re in the UK. Do me a kindness, fellas: shake their hands and smile sweetly.’ They all understood what he was saying. The Royal Protection boys were trained up by the SAS in the first place. There wasn’t much they could tell Luke and his unit about the ins and outs of acting as a counter-attack team. But the unit would press the flesh with Stratton’s usual point men.

Once O’Donoghue had left, the men started wolfing down their plates of thick stew and heavy dumplings. ‘If you ask me,’ Finn muttered, ‘Stratton would look a whole lot better with a Palestinian round in his cerebral cortex. Fucker’s got a cheek asking for a Regiment guard in the Middle East after everything he’s done.’

‘Get used to it, buddy,’ said Luke. ‘Did no one ever tell you we’re not here to play politics – just to help the dickheads who do?’

Finn grunted. He hadn’t changed much over the years. He was still a shoot first, ask questions later kind of operator. What
had
changed was his relationship with Luke. Their first op together in Iraq had been tense, and Finn hadn’t liked following Luke’s lead. They were closer now. They’d fought alongside each other for years. It had created a bond.

Tomorrow promised to be another long day, so when he’d finished eating, Luke headed off to the single-bunk room where he kept all his gear and slept when he was staying in base. He was beat and looking forward to getting his head down, so he shut the door behind him, laid down on his bunk and – despite the sound in the corridor outside of his more boisterous colleagues – he was asleep within minutes.

And as Luke slept, he dreamed.

His dreams were vivid. He dreamed of flashing blue lights and the gnarled wreckage of a train. He dreamed of Alistair Stratton, a man he had never met but whose thin face was very familiar. A voice spoke in his head.
Stratton’s all right
.

Suddenly Luke saw himself sitting in a scummy bar in the arse end of Serbia. He knew just how to reply. He was reliving a conversation that had already happened, after all.
Stratton is a politician. Therefore Stratton is a wanker. End of.
He turned his head to look at his companion, fully expecting to see Chet as he was back then.

But he saw nothing of the sort. The figure sitting at the table next to him was unrecognisable. His hair had burned away; the skin of his face was charred and suppurating; his clothes were rags, sticking to him in places and non-existent in others.

He didn’t know what it was that woke him. The horror of that vision, or the sound of his mobile phone. Luke sat bolt upright in his bed, his skin damp with sweat, and for a moment he wondered where he was. It was the smell that told him he was in camp: the antiseptic, institutional aroma tinged with a hint of cordite. The noises from outside had stopped and the only light in the room came from the phone glowing through the pocket of the trousers that he’d dumped on the floor by the bunk. He squinted at his chunky watch, its hands and face still vaguely luminous. Quarter to twelve. Who the fuck was calling him at this time of night?

Luke hauled his arse out of bed and fumbled in the darkness, pulling his phone from his pocket and shielding his eyes slightly from the brightness of its screen. The phone continued to vibrate in his hand as he looked down to check the caller’s number.

His brow furrowed. ‘What the fuck . . . ?’ he muttered.

He shook his head. His eyes were playing tricks on him. They had to be. Either that or he was still dreaming.

Luke took another look at the phone.

He wasn’t dreaming.

He wasn’t mistaken.

But what he was seeing was impossible, because the caller was dead. Burned to a cinder in a house fire years ago. Luke had been to the memorial service in a little Hereford church; he’d offered his condolences to the parents of the deceased; he’d shed his own private tears at the passing of a good friend.

More than a good friend. The man he owed his life to.

No wonder, then, that he felt he was staring into the eyes of a ghost. Because how was it possible – how in the
hell
was it possible – that the phone in his hand should be displaying the words ‘freeman, chet’?

NINETEEN

Little Harry was fast asleep. He looked angelic with his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling softly. Suze couldn’t imagine, though, as she sat on an upturned milk crate gazing at him, what kind of angel would find itself in a place like this.

The disused factory they called home was as cavernous as a cathedral and as cold. Most of the windows – high up in the brick walls – were broken, and nobody had bothered to sweep up the shards of glass on the concrete floor. During the daytime the windows let in a watery grey light. But at night it was black. There was no electricity here.

The squat never slept. There were always people awake, no matter what the time of night. It was cold out, and most of the other squatters gathered round a brazier in the middle of the building, burning rubbish that they’d gathered during the day, and sharing spliffs. The air smelt of damp, smoke and skunk, but both Suze and Harry were used to that by now.

They kept themselves to themselves. Suze had found them a little corner of the factory that had perhaps once been a manager’s office. It no longer had a door, and the walls were in a poor state, but it afforded them some privacy. There had been squats in the past where they’d had a room to themselves, with a window and a bed. Not here. Harry lay on a mattress of old clothes, covered by a thin blanket. But he never seemed to feel the cold.

‘Fancy a toke, gorgeous?’

Suze looked round to see a figure standing in the doorway, the glowing dot of a joint between his fingers. She couldn’t make out his features, but she knew well enough who he was. He said he was called Danny, but Suze knew that nobody gave their real names in places like this. His black hair was braided into tight dreadlocks, his lower face was covered in a wispy beard and his body reeked of dope and dirt. Get him when he was stoned – and that was every night – and he’d tell you he was an eco-warrior, or an anarchist, or a trustafarian. In truth, Suze knew, he was just a waster, pissing his life up the wall like everyone else she’d met in squats.

Like her.

‘No thanks, Danny,’ she said. It paid to stay on good terms with your housemates – they could be volatile, and you didn’t want them against you – but all Suze really wanted was to be left alone. Especially tonight.

Danny didn’t move.

‘I’m going to get some kip now, Danny,’ she said with a hint of steel in her voice.

‘Suit yourself, love,’ Danny muttered. He disappeared back into the factory.

Suze gave it a couple of moments before checking nobody was nearby. She peered round the doorway of their makeshift bedroom to see nine or ten silhouettes congregated around the brazier. There was nobody in her immediate vicinity, so she hurried back to where Harry was lying.

Her worldly goods were stowed in a single bag. A change of clothes for herself and her son; some antibiotics she’d cadged from a mobile drop-in centre intended for junkies, just in case either of them needed some – registering with a doctor was out of the question, after all; a story book, written for children younger than Harry, from which she had intended to start teaching him to read. But there was never time for that. There was only time for the business of survival.

And at the bottom of the bag, hidden away where nobody could find it, a wallet.