by Ian Rankin
Reeve made a final check on the contents of his bag, finding nothing immediately incriminating or suspicious. So he walked through the cool morning air towards the terminal building. He was starving, so he bought coffee and a sandwich first thing. He slung the bag over his shoulder so he could eat and drink as he walked. He walked among businessmen, all looking bleary-eyed and regretful, like they’d spent the previous night being unfaithful. He’d bet none of them had spent a night like his, but at least he was blending in better than expected. Just another disheveled traveler up too early.
He felt a little more confident as he walked to the desk to buy a ticket. He just hoped they’d have a ticket to spare. They did, but the saleswoman warned him he’d have to pay full business rate.
“That’s fine,” he said, sliding over his credit card. He was running up a huge bill on the card, but what did that matter when he might not be around come time to pay? Intimations of mortality bred a certain recklessness. Better financial recklessness than any other kind. He waited while the deal was done, looking for recognition in the woman’s eyes as she took details of his name from his passport. But there was no recognition; the police weren’t on to him yet. She handed back the passport and credit card, and then his ticket and boarding pass. Reeve thanked her and turned away.
There was a man watching him.
Or rather, he had been watching him. But now the man was staring at the morning headlines in his paper. Only he didn’t look like he was reading them; Reeve would bet the man couldn’t even read French. He could walk over and reassure himself of that with a couple of questions, but he couldn’t cause a fuss here on the concourse, not when his flight was still some time away. So he walked casually in the direction of the bathrooms.
The bathrooms were up a passageway and around a corner, out of sight of the concourse. They faced each other, the Ladies and the Gents. There was a sign on a trestle outside the Ladies, saying the place was closed for cleaning and could customers please use the other toilets at the far end of the building. Reeve shifted the sign to the Gents and walked in.
He was lucky; there was nobody about. He set to work fast, looking around at the possibilities. Then he went to the sink nearest the door and turned the tap on full, stuffing the plughole with toilet paper. The sink started to fill. On the wall by the door there was an electric hand-dryer. Perfect. On the far wall were some vending machines. Reeve dropped a ten-franc piece into one and pulled the drawer. The small package contained a tiny toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, Bic razor, and comb. He threw the toothpaste and comb aside and got to work, smashing the head of the razor against the sink until he’d snapped off the plastic. He pushed half the blade’s length into the head of the toothbrush until he was sure it was firmly lodged there. Now, holding the toothbrush by its handle, he had a scalpel of sorts.
Water was pouring onto the floor. He wondered how long it would be before his watcher would get suspicious and wonder what the hell was going on. Maybe he’d suspect another door, some sort of exit from the toilets. He would come to look. Reeve just hoped he wouldn’t call in first, letting his boss or bosses know the score. He wanted one-on-one. He sat up on the edge of the sink, right in the corner of the room, and reached over to the hand-dryer. An electric lead curled out from it and disappeared into the wall. Reeve pulled on the end of the cord nearest the dryer, tugging it hard. Eventually it came away, but he kept on pulling. As he’d hoped, there was cable to spare inside the wall cavity. Electricians did that; it made it easier later if the unit had to be moved. He pulled out as much of the cable as he could. Then he waited. Water was still pouring onto the floor. He hoped the bastard would come soon, or maintenance might get nosy, or a businessman’s breakfast coffee might work its way through…
The door opened. A man splashed into the water. It was the watcher. Reeve flicked the live end of the cable into his face, then hauled him into the room. With his hands up to his face, the man slipped on the wet floor and nearly fell. Reeve let the cable drop from his hand to the floor, connecting with the water, making the whole floor live. The man’s face went into a rictus spasm, and he fell to his knees, hands on the floor, which only made things worse. The electricity jerked him for another couple of seconds, until Reeve hauled the cord away and rested it on the sink tops. Then he slid from his perch, crouched in front of the man, and held the blade to his throat.
The man was shaking all over, sparks still flying around inside. Some people got to like it, apparently. Reeve had been trained in interrogation techniques, and one of the instructors had told him that some prisoners got hooked on those jolts so that afterwards they kept plugging themselves into the socket, just for old times’ sake…
“Who are you?” Reeve asked quietly. “Who are you working for?”
“I don’t know anything.”
Reeve nicked the throat, drawing a bead of blood. “Last chance,” he hissed.
The man swallowed. He was big, and had probably been hired for that reason alone. But he was not smart—not really a professional to Reeve’s mind—he’d fallen too easily. Reeve searched his pockets. The man was carrying cash, but nothing else, no papers, no ID, no telephone or radio.
“When’s your RV?” Reeve asked.
“Noon,” the man said.
So he knew what RV meant; a lot of Americans would have taken the letters to mean “recreational vehicle.” So he’d served time in the armed forces.
“That’s when your relief takes over?”
The man nodded. He could feel blood running down his throat but couldn’t see any, not at the angle his face was at. Reeve would bet the cut felt worse than it actually was.
“What do you do if I’m spotted?”
“Watch you,” the man said, his voice unsteady. He was losing color from his face. Reeve thought maybe the bastard was about to faint.
“And?”
“Call in to report.”
“Have you called?”
The man swallowed. “Not yet.”
Reeve believed him, and was thankful. “When you call in, what’s the number?”
“It’s in Paris.”
“Give it to me.”
The man recited the number.
“Who’s on the other end of the phone?”
“I don’t know.” More pressure with the blade, a fresh trickle of blood. “He hired me in L.A.,” the man said quickly, “at my gym. I don’t know his name, I only know an initial.”
“Jay?”
The man blinked at him, then nodded. Reeve felt his own temperature plummet. It was true; of course it was true. Reeve drew back his fist and hit the man solidly on the side of the jaw. The head jerked, and all resistance went out of the body. Reeve dragged him into a stall and locked the door, then hauled himself up and over the door. He tossed the blade into a washbasin and pulled open the door. A man was standing outside, briefcase in hand. He wasn’t sure about the sign. Reeve showed the man the floor.
“Flooding,” he said. “Toilet’s out of order.”
Then he walked back to the concourse and made straight for his departure gate.
PART FIVE
BIRDY
FOURTEEN
REEVE TRIED TO EAT the proffered breakfast on the plane but found he had no appetite. Instead he asked for an extra orange juice, and then for another after that. Heathrow was busier than Orly had been, but he still couldn’t spot anyone waiting for him. He went down to the Tube station and made the call from the telephones there.
“Hello?” a voice answered.
Reeve waited.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jay,” he said.
“I think you must have a wrong number.”
“Oh?”
There was a long pause at the other end. Reeve watched the units on his card click away. The voice came back on.
“Hey, Philosopher, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s new, pal?”
Like they’d spoken only last week and had
parted the best of friends. Like Jay wasn’t in charge of a band of mercenaries with orders to hunt Reeve down and terminate him. Like they were having a conversation.
“I thought you were dead,” Reeve stated.
“You mean you wish I was.”
“Every day,” Reeve said quietly.
Jay laughed. “Where are you, pal?”
“I’m at Orly.”
“Yeah? Then you must have met Mickey.”
“He gave me your number.”
“I hope he charged you for it.”
“No, I charged him.”
“Well, I knew you’d be tough, Gordon.”
“You don’t know how tough. Tell your paymasters that. Tell them I’m taking this personally. Not a job, not a mission, just personal.”
“Gordon, you’re not really at Orly are you? Don’t make me run all the way out there.”
“Maybe we’ll talk again.”
“I don’t think so, Philosopher.”
And Jay put the phone down first.
Reeve took the Tube into central London.
He thought about Jay. Paddling ashore with him in darkness, hitting the coast just south of Viamonte. Their target, Rio Grande, was twenty miles to the north. They were on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, the western half of which belonged to Chile. If their escape route back to Viamonte was compromised, their best bet was to head west. A forty-mile walk from Rio Grande would take them into Chile.
Jay was carrying the transmitter, Reeve most of the rest of their kit. It was a 100-pound load. Additionally, he carried his M16 rifle and 200 rounds. The M16 came fitted with an M203 grenade launcher. The other armaments consisted of a 66mm antitank missile, fifteen HE grenades, a 9mm Browning, and an assortment of SAS flash-bangs, more for cover than anything else.
He carried binoculars, a night-sight and tripod-mounted 60x telescope, a sleeping bag and quilted trousers, a change of clothing, Arctic dried rations and compo rations, plus a hexamine stove for cooking the latter.
And the song Jay had been singing had somehow stuck in his head, so he couldn’t think straight.
They’d begun their march under cover of darkness, aiming to complete it before dawn. That first night, they knew they probably wouldn’t reach a good spot for an OP. They’d just find a good hiding place, maybe making a scrape and lying doggo all the next day under their netting and camouflage. And that was what they did. They maintained radio silence throughout. If only Jay was as easy to shut up…
“Fucking Argies better not expect me to eat their scummy corned beef again. You know how they make that stuff? I read about it in the Sun or somewhere. Makes sausages look like best fillet steak, I swear to God, Philosopher.”
He was a good-looking man, a bit heavy in the face, but with short fair hair and greeny-blue eyes. His looks were his best feature. Reeve didn’t like him and didn’t know too many men who did. He was a braggart, cruel and bullying; he followed orders, but always with his own agenda hidden in there somewhere. Reeve didn’t know if he was a good soldier or not; he just knew he didn’t like him.
But there was something else about Jay. Early on in the conflict, he’d been part of a team dropped by Wessex helicopter onto the Fortuna Glacier. It was an important reconnaissance mission. They landed in near-whiteout conditions and sixty-mile-per-hour winds. Snow turned their guns to ice. They somehow had to cross the glacier. In the first five hours they progressed less than half a mile. To save them from freezing to death, they erected tents, but these blew away. Finally, the order came to abandon the mission. A helicopter sent in to lift the men out crashed in the blizzard conditions, killing three. A second chopper eventually succeeded in getting everyone out. Most of the survivors were suffering from exposure and frostbite. Jay’s cheek had been slashed in the crash and required seven stitches.
He should have been out of action for days, weeks even, but insisted he wanted straight back in. The command applauded his readiness, and a psychologist could see no aftereffects from the ordeal. But Jay wasn’t the same. His mind was on revenge, on killing Argentines. You could see it behind his eyes.
“You know, Philosopher,” Jay said in the scrape that first night, “you may not be the most popular man in the regiment, but I think you’re all right. Yes, you’ll do me.”
Reeve bit off a question. He’s just trying to wind me up, he thought. That’s all. Let it go. The mission’s all that counts.
Jay seemed to read his thoughts. There was a roaring in the sky east of them. “Rio Grande’s getting plenty of action tonight. Wasn’t that a film, Rio Grande? John Wayne and Dean Martin.”
“Just John Wayne,” Reeve told him.
“Now Dean Martin, there’s an actor for you.”
“Yes, a fucking awful one.”
“You’re wrong. Ever see Matt Helm? Or those comedies he did? Great actor.”
Reeve just shook his head.
“Don’t shake your head, I’m serious. You can’t let anybody else have a say, can you? That’s why you’re not popular. I’m only telling you for your own good.”
“Fuck off, Jay.” He liked to be called Jay. Most of the Regiment were known by their first names, but not Jay. He liked people to use his surname. Nobody knew why. He called Reeve the Philosopher after finding him reading Nietzsche. The nickname had stuck, though Reeve hated it.
The second evening, they set up the OP properly with a half-decent view of the airfield. That night, they sent out their first signals, then moved again double-quick, an eight-man Argentinian patrol heading in their direction.
“They were fast,” Jay conceded, carrying the half-packed transmitter.
“Weren’t they though,” said Reeve, almost slipping under the weight of his rucksack. They must have picked up the transmission straight off. It had been no more than a burst of a few seconds. Whatever direction-finding equipment they had down at the airport, it was earning its keep. Jay had sent a “burst transmission”: a coded message, its contents predetermined, which could be transmitted to sea in a split second. Prior to transmission, he’d keyed the scrambled message on a machine which looked like a small electronic typewriter. In theory, the Argentines shouldn’t have been able to use the direction finder on them given the brevity of the transmission. Theory was a wonderful thing, but fuck all use on the ground. The Argentines obviously had some new bit of kit, something they hadn’t been told about, something that Green Slime—the Intelligence Corps—had missed.
There was aircraft noise overhead as they moved. Skyhawks, Mirage jets. Earlier there had been Pucaras, too. The Argentine Air Force was keeping itself busy. Both men knew they should be noting the flights in and out, ready to send the information on. But they were too busy moving.
The main problem was the terrain. As with most airfields—and with good reason—there weren’t many hills around. Flat grassland and brush with some outcrops, this was their territory. Hard territory in which to remain undiscovered for any length of time. They shifted a couple of miles and scraped themselves another hide. They were farther away from the airfield, but still able to see what was flying out. Reeve stood guard—rather, lay guard—while Jay got some sleep. They didn’t dare brew up for fear of the steam being seen. Besides, you never knew what a heat-seeking device could find. So Reeve drank some cold water and ate raw rations. He was carrying out conversations in his head, all of them in Spanish. It might come in handy later. Maybe they could bluff… no, his Spanish wasn’t that good. But he could use it if they were caught alive. He could show willing. Not that he was obliged to, not under the Geneva Convention, but then Geneva was a long way from here…
Reeve blinked his eyes. The Tube compartment was full to bursting. He looked over his shoulder out of the grimy window and saw the station sign: Leicester Square. He got up and pushed his way out of the train, making for the Northern Line. Standing-room only for the first couple of stops. He stood next to a very beautiful young woman, and stared at her reflection in the glass, using her to take his m
ind off the past.
He alighted at Archway and, after a couple of questions, found Harrington Lane and Pete Cavendish’s house. Cavendish was still in bed, but remembered him. When Reeve apologized and said what he wanted, Cavendish gave him the key and told him to bring it back when he was finished. He didn’t need to ring the bell, just stick it through the mail slot.
“Thanks,” Reeve said. Cavendish nodded and closed the door again.
It took him a little while to figure out how to access the lane behind Cavendish’s street, but eventually he found a road in and walked down the lane until he saw what looked like the right garage, empty cans and bottles and all. He unlocked the garage door and pulled it up. It took him a few goes, and a few gentle applications of a half-brick on to the rollers, but eventually the garage was open. Dogs were barking in a couple of the walled back gardens, making as much noise as he’d done.
“Arnie! Shuddup!” someone yelled. They sounded fiercer than any dog.
Reeve unlocked the car, fixed the choke on, and turned the ignition. It took a while, reconditioned engine or not, but the car finally started, shuddering a little at first, then smoothing itself out. Reeve took it into the lane and kept it running while he went back to shut the garage door. This set the dogs off again, but he ignored them, relocked the garage, and got back into the Saab. He drove slowly to the end of the lane, avoiding glass and bricks and sacks of rubbish. A couple of lefts took him back into Cavendish’s street, and he left the car long enough to put the garage key through the mail slot.
He searched for a London street map, but didn’t find one. The glove compartment didn’t have one, and there was nothing under the seats. The car was what he’d call basic. Even the radio had been yanked out, leaving just wires and a connector. Basic maybe, but not as basic as his own Land Rover, its carcass somewhere in France. A lot had happened this past day and a half. He wanted to sit down and rest, but knew that was the last thing he should do. He could drive to Jim’s flat; maybe Fliss Hornby would be there. But he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to put her in any danger, and he’d already seen what a visit from him could do to a woman on her own…
