The spy looked at his watch. “Indeed. I wasn’t always sat in an office. But I’m vain enough to want my MBE and Scottish enough to covet my pension.”
Snow drifted by the window past the bridge, “tell me why isn’t this juicy stuff on the forbiddenfacts.com website? And why are you telling me all this?”
“The answer to the first question, courtesy of my man at Cheltenham, is that the encryption on the files is almost certainly top notch. The person who sent the file had a protected version with nine levels of security. He had only cracked the first two. Even Van Basten’s technical experts will take time to crack it, but crack it they certainly will.”
“Go on.”
“And the second is that Alisa Turov wants Zamok for the SVR to play with.” The spy spoke slowly, examining my face, “that’s her primary mission. We are very much an alliance of limited convenience, I suspect.”
I shifted uneasily in my seat, “so she isn’t the anti-FSB crusader she makes out she is?”
“Oh yes” replied Marcus, “she’s a zealot when it comes to her hatred of the FSB, and then some. But she’d happily take down our government and national business infrastructure in order to achieve her mission. Collateral damage and so on. My view is that she can still achieve her objectives without getting her hands on Zamok, there’s enough FSB dirt to go round without that specific file.”
“And you want me to make sure that she doesn’t get hold of it?”
Marcus nodded slowly, a contented smile on his moon-shaped face. “Indeed I do Cal, not her or anyone else. It needs to be destroyed. In return you’ll have a friend inside of SIS. You never know when The Firm might have no need of you anymore. And if that happens … you can call Uncle Marcus, day or night.”
Opening the fridge, I pulled out bacon and eggs. “Do you want some breakfast Uncle Marcus?”
Marcus patted his gut lovingly, “given my blood pressure I shouldn’t, but you can take the boy out of Glasgow …”
“I want out of The Firm,” I said.
“That makes sense” he purred, “in your shoes, so would I. Maybe a job with us, something secure.”
I pulled out the frying pan and began cooking, “can you help me do that?”
Marcus smiled like a TV quizmaster with all the answers on a card in his back pocket. I made him breakfast as he offered to be my guardian angel, in exchange for guaranteeing the destruction of the Zamok archive. If Harry found out he’d have me killed. I told Marcus that.
He methodically dissected his fried egg, balanced it on top three rashers of bacon and slid the lot onto a slice of heavily buttered bread. He sighed happily. “When we met, Alisa explained quite adequately what the situation is.”
“Yes” I said, “that you don’t deal with the likes of me. In which case how can you help?”
He chewed on a mouthful of food as he thought about it. “The service codename of the officer that looks after contact with The Firm is DIADEM. The identity of the DIADEM is a closely-guarded secret within SIS but I knew who the last one was.”
“How?”
“I was married to her” he said sadly, “Margaret was a wonderful woman, died of MS Christmas before last.” He reached across and took more bread, “of course, Maggie broke service confidentiality when she showed me the files, but only when she genuinely needed my advice. I’ve been a case officer for over twenty-five years: Moscow, Riyadh, Brussels, Baghdad, Berlin … she valued my opinion.”
“I’m sorry about your wife,” I said, and I was.
“That’s very kind of you Cal. When she passed away I copied her paperwork. So I had your details, and those of your colleagues. I even know who Harry is.”
I shot him a look. “So? Can you help me get out? Walk away from The Firm?”
The old intelligence officer smiled and looked out of the window. It was dawn. “Perhaps. One day, if you’re good, I might tell you more. But right now is there any chance of some more of that excellent bacon?” Marcus shambled over to the open-plan kitchen and cracked some eggs. “We’re making a big omelette!” he laughed, “we must break eggs. Yes, I can help you, but it depends what they have on you, to coerce you to stay and keep quiet: tell me about your sins. How bad is your story?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Precisely, we’ll see. But before you send my hair white with shock at your moral depravity, tell me what you’ve discovered about the FSB.”
I told him about Misha Baburin. “Will the police be all over his farm in Essex?”
“I doubt it” he smiled, “I checked with my man at Thames House. They’ve only got him officially linked to a flat in East London. He kept the farm off the grid for obvious reasons, although I’m sure the police will trace it to him eventually. I’d be quick.”
I left the SIS officer cooking and got ready. After I showered I strapped on my body armour and slid the Walther into the pancake holster on my belt. I made sure I was carrying no ID.
“I’ll let myself out when I’m finished,” said Marcus. The smell of fried food and the sound of Radio 4 drifted from the kitchen.
I padded towards the front door, dry-swallowing three painkillers. “How do I contact you?”
“Here” said Marcus, tossing me a padded envelope, “that mobile phone has one number programmed into it: mine. Only use it in emergencies.”
“I will” I said, putting it in my pocket.
“Thank you,” said Marcus.
“It’s a bit early for that” I grunted, “let’s see how it goes when someone turns the heat up a little.”
“Indeed,” said Marcus, his pudgy face softening. He walked over and put his hand on my shoulder, a piece of egg stuck to his chin. His voice was low and gentle, like you’d get at a Confession. “Tell me what it is you did? This terrible thing The Firm has on you?”
So I told him, as I stood in my apartment with my head pounding. Outside snow tumbled from the sky, blocking out the sun.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maysan Province, Iraq, 2006
The Commanding Officer for my last tour of Iraq was Lieutenant Colonel Justin Powell. Since his last trip to Staff College he’d morphed into a complete tool, heart set on red staff tabs and a general’s pension. The chatter in the officer’s mess was that on previous Op. TELIC tours, as a Major on Brigade Staff, he’d taken unnecessary risks with the boys to impress the brass. We all noticed that the battalion had suffered more than its fair share of casualties since his appointment. It didn’t help that the last CO had been a brilliant leader and universally popular.
‘Colonel Justin’ had let it be known that he thought I was too informal with my soldiers, and we both knew that as long as he was in the chair the chances of me making major were zero. He’d also been a platoon commander when I was a lance corporal, and I don’t think he liked me then either. He called me into the battalion CP, set up in an old office building in the crumbling, fly-blown shithole that was Amara. The place was held together with bullet holes and dried blood. I knew he was on the radio to Brigade HQ from the puppyish expression on his ruddy, handsome face. He ran a beefy hand through his mop of golden hair and motioned for me to sit down. “Yes sir,” he said smoothly into the handset, “but we’ve got some problems up there with IED attacks, I’d rather …”
I sat down and took off my helmet, working clumps of sand out of my greasy scalp with filth-crusted fingers. One of the HQ Company signallers gave me a “hallo sir,” and brought me a cup of tea. I nodded gratefully and emptied four sugars into it, offering the signaller a fag from a bashed-up pack of Marlboro Red. Funny how in scorching weather all I wanted was a hot, sweet brew and a cigarette.
“I understand, Sir. What, their three-star is jumping up and down?” said the CO, “Yes, I know what the Yanks are like. I’ll get right onto it.” He put the handset down and sighed. “Cal, take Recce Platoon up to Al Halfayah. We’ve got more reports of sabotage on the oil pipeline up there, Brigade want eyes on ASAP. We’ll O-Group in …”
�
��With respect, Colonel Justin” I said, offering him the packet of Marlboro, “I’ve got two wagons out of action, three of my men are injured and Harris was killed the day before yesterday by that IED up on the MSR. My snipers are attached to ‘C’ Company, so I’m down three guys there. That part of Maysan is crawling with insurgents. I’ll need some support. Maybe ‘A’ Coy can lend us a half a platoon?”
‘A’ Company was bolstered by a platoon of Gurkhas on attachment, and was shit-hot. As a result, Powell had taken to wearing a Nepalese Kukri fighting knife on his webbing, an affectation that made us all think he was an even bigger wanker.
“Are you saying you won’t do it, Cal?” he said, head cocked as he took a cigarette. He almost smiled. I knew he was pissed off about my medal citation because it had been personally OK’d and pushed up the line by a Colonel from Brigade who’d witnessed my alleged act of heroism. We both knew it gave me unofficial traction.
“No. I’m just letting you know we’re not best placed to do it, sir” I replied, “not until I get my wagons back. Just so you can make an informed decision.”
“That’s not the attitude I’ve imbued in this battalion Cal. I expect can-do. Everyone has been run ragged on this tour, not just Recce Platoon.”
“By ‘can-do’ do you mean getting the fuck blown out of us in unarmoured Land Rovers?” I said quietly. I stood up so I was face-to-face with the Colonel, who looked me up and down curiously. We were still waiting for the long-promised Mastiff armoured cars, so still had to rely on flimsy, WMIK-fitted Land Rovers.
“Look Cal” he said finally in a treacly voice, hand on my shoulder, “I know your guys have had a tough time, and you’ve been operating at full capacity, so I’ll let that one go. But remember, you get the tough jobs because you’re good,” he treated me to a flinty-eyed gaze. “Our battle group is one of the best-performing in theatre, and I’m the forward-facing guy with Brigade. I can see why sometimes that looks tough from your side of the fence, but dealing with all the bullshit up the chain of command has its moments too.” He smiled and gave my shoulder a squeeze through my body armour.
Behind him the Ops Officer, a major, looked at me and attempted a sympathetic smile. Then he disappeared, busying himself with maps and reports when he saw I was up for a ruck.
“Sir, we get a dozen reports of insurgent activity up on that pipeline a week. You know it’s usually just bait for another bloody IED.” I shrugged and sat down again, “they must be laughing their beards off that we always fall for it.”
“It’s the business we’re in. We’re infantry soldiers, not shelf-stackers at Tesco. This is a big deal for Brigade for some reason. The Americans need us up there and the Poles have their hands full to the North.” He looked at his watch and lowered his voice. “I want you up there ASAP. The Yanks are running fast air if you need it. This is important.” His missions for Brigade were always bloody important because he was camped so far up the Brigadier’s rectum he needed a flashlight to read his watch.
“Yes sir” I said wearily, picking up my rifle and helmet, “I take it that’s a direct order despite my representations?”
“Representations, Winter? I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but I’m paid to give orders,” he said, studying the tip of his cigarette “and you’re paid to follow them.”
“Yes sir,” I barked like a Day One recruit.
His eyes narrowed, his voice barely a whisper, “and if you ever question me in front of the men again, you chippy little cunt, I’ll have you court-martialled. Now fuck off and never barrack-room lawyer me again. It might have worked when you were a corporal but not now.”
Ah, the days when I followed orders. I sloped out of Battalion HQ and made my way back to the platoon.
Clarkie and the others didn’t make a girly fuss like I did. They rolled their eyes, sorted out their weapons and kit and told sick jokes to each other as they brewed up tea. After the O-Group we loaded up the dusty, shrapnel-pocked WMIKs, checked that our laughably crap radios weren’t working and drove up the dusty, pot-holed road east towards Al Halfayah.
The next morning we got into a contact with some insurgents cutting about in an old Toyota pickup. We were advancing to contact when one of our wagons was predictably fucked by an IED. As we went to help them out of their WMIK, skilfully hidden insurgents with MGs and mortars opened up on us. We were pinned down, tracer bouncing across the pancake-flat landscape and mortar bombs exploding around us. We returned the serve with AT4, GPMG and .50 cal machineguns but it wasn’t enough. Two men took shrapnel wounds and we took cover in a fold in the ground. Some five hundred metres away, hidden snipers engaged us with their long-range Dragunov rifles.
I got on the radio and called in the Yank fast air for urgent support, Danger Close. The F15E dropped a pair of 2000lb JDAMs. One shredded Clarkie’s Land Rover with shrapnel. It killed him instantly and critically injured his driver. It was my airstrike. My call.
It killed Clarkie. If I hadn’t called in the fast air he’d be alive. Fact.
Later on the enquiry would decide that it was one of those things, not my fault or the pilot’s. It didn’t feel like it then and it doesn’t feel like it now. I must have got the grid wrong, or the drills. There was no Forward Air Controller available.
It was down to me.
Clarkie was blown into pieces, as was the Toyota full of insurgents. They stopped shooting, and I took the opportunity to look for my friend. Clarkie’s torso was a chunk of roasted meat, both his legs severed at the knee and his innards trailing behind him like putrid sausage. We found his head a hundred metres away, but never located his right arm. I’ll never forget the stench, explosives and petrol and burning guts and shit. I shovelled him into his sleeping bag and put him in my vehicle. His dog-tags were in the foot well of his Land Rover, and I tucked them away in my body armour. In his wallet was a photo of Sam and the kids, which I kept. I’ve still got it at my flat, the corner charred and black. I feel guilty about the photograph, just like I feel guilty about everything else.
We pulled back as the RAF CASEVAC landed and took away the wounded. Vultures circled overhead. The Yank F-15s finally returned and blew up the dug-in mortars, MGs and two adjacent villages. We drove back to Amara, the engine of Clarkie’s smouldering WMIK still burning by the side of the road. Our mission, whatever the fuck it was meant to be, was accomplished. We made it back to Battalion HQ the next morning.
It turned out that my patrol had been ordered to act as a distraction for some American SF naughtiness going on a few miles north. Another success for the battalion.
Colonel Justin was up at Brigade so I didn’t get to deliver the angry speech I’d prepared. The Ops Officer told me that Powell had even made an entry in his ops log stating that I’d taken the patrol out under-strength without asking for extra resources, to cover his arse for the inevitable Steward’s Enquiry. He also put me on a charge for insubordination.
By that point I couldn’t care less about the lying bastard: I’d received my joining instructions for Special Forces selection. I knew my future in The Battalion was finished. By the time of Clarkie’s funeral Justin Powell was already a full colonel, knocking on the door of Brigadier, a one-star General. When they lowered Clarkie into the earth, Powell didn’t look me in the eye, and never did again.
Well, that’s not strictly true. He looked me straight in the eye, with surprise, a year after I was cashiered and fresh out of rehab. He was enjoying a solitary morning’s fly-fishing in the Borders. Brigadier Powell almost said “hello,” before I double-tapped him with .45 hollow-point rounds, which blew his handsome golden head clean off his shoulders. He slipped into the misty waters of the Teviot, his surprised looking red setter howling in indignation. Re-holstering my pistol, I patted the mutt on the head and took a salmon for later.
As far as I was concerned it was just karma. Powell rolled the dice when he sent us out on that patrol and put his ambition before us.
The next day I drove down to Kent, to put f
resh flowers on Clarkie’s grave and throw the acid-cleansed gun in the Medway. I took Sam and the kids out to lunch afterwards. “You look happier, Cal,” said Sam brightly as she fussed over the children in the pub restaurant, “I think that place you went to has worked wonders.” She didn’t want to say ‘rehab’ or ‘mental hospital’ in front of the kids. She was wearing a short red dress, hair worn in a trendy bob. She looked great. Her mum called her The Merry Widow, but you only had to look in her eyes to see the truth.
“Thanks” I smiled, “I feel better. Hey, this burger’s good.”
“This place was Jason’s favourite” she said cheerfully, “they give you too much food, the beer is dead cheap and he fancied the barmaid.”
It was funny. I knew Clarkie for eleven years and never called him Jason.
Brigadier Powell’s murder hit the newspapers and was the mystery du jour for a couple of months. Then some nutty fringe Irish terrorists claimed responsibility, the first time I’d ever been grateful to Republicans. I was working back out in Iraq by then, for a PMC called Longbow. I was on leave in Amman, drinking too much again and trying not to develop a rock-star level cocaine habit.
In Amman I met a bloke in a noisy hotel bar who’d been a Sergeant in the Battalion before going Special Forces. I vaguely remembered him, a guy called Bishop who’d left about the time I went to Sandhurst. One night, after too much booze, cocaine and exaggerated reminiscences, the subject got onto Justin Powell. Bishop was a good listener, and I’d already told him about my language training, recce experience and my medal. I’d even told him about getting kicked off SAS selection, but he knew that already.
“I remember Powell” said Bishop, offering me another drink, “he was my Company Commander just before I went for selection for the Regiment. What a wanker.” He told me an anecdote about Powell behaving like a dick in South Armagh.
“Tell me about it,” I said. For some reason we were drinking Japanese whisky, Suntory. Bishop poured me another slug, so big it would have made Ollie Reed blush. I drank it, itching to go to the bog so I could hoover up some more Gak. At the other end of the bar a shoal of Hookers circled. I hadn’t had an erection for a year but was willing to try.
The Ninth Circle Page 12
