Street Soldier

by Andy McNab

  Enough was enough. Worst case scenario – Sean got chucked out of the car and never got to meet the blind date. He could live with that.

  ‘Hang on, mate . . .’ he started, anger flashing in his eyes.

  ‘OK, OK. What I said about colour – sorry, that was out of order. It came out wrong. And she’s your mate – that’s cool. She’ll get a chance to show what she can do soon enough.’

  Sean hadn’t realized quite how hyped up he was to fight until he felt it draining out of him. Heaton was saying sorry, and that was enough to let it go. So instead he picked up on the other thing the corporal was saying: Clark getting a chance to show what she could do.

  ‘You mean, when we all ship out to wherever we’re going?’ he asked.

  Heaton pulled a face. ‘Reality lesson, Harker: we’re going nowhere. Why do you think we’ve been kept home for so long?’

  Sean shrugged. ‘Because it’s cheaper?’

  ‘Because the war’s coming here, mate,’ Heaton said. ‘Everyone knows it. All those wankers who’ve been heading out to the Middle East to join some group of crazies – they’re coming back to spread their own twisted brand of crap. How long do you think it’ll be before we get the army on the streets here, in England, like we used to in Northern Ireland? And I’ll tell you frankly – it can’t be soon enough, in my book.’

  Sean frowned. He hadn’t thought of it like that.

  The corporal lived in a block of flats a five-minute drive away; it couldn’t have been more than two or three years old and seemed way off limits on a corporal’s salary. The large living room was full of light from the studio windows.

  ‘Stick some music on,’ Heaton said, with a vague wave at a music system in one corner. He disappeared into the kitchen area, an alcove set into one side of the main room. Sean squatted down in front of the system and whistled again. It was Bang & Olufsen, all smooth, flat surfaces that only lit up with hidden controls when you touched them. Put that with the cinema-sized TV, and Sean was pretty sure it would cost more than everything he had ever nicked in his life, all added together.

  He pressed a button at random. Music began to play from hidden speakers – quadrophonic, around the room. ‘Smooth . . .’ he murmured.

  Heaton popped his head out of the kitchen and grinned. ‘Want to see something else? See what that remote does.’ He pointed at a small unit on the table. It wasn’t as sleek as a shop-bought device – in fact, Sean suspected as he picked it up that it might be homemade. Instead of buttons it had sliders. He experimentally moved a slider from top to bottom.

  That was how he found out that it controlled the flat’s hidden lighting. Turn it up, turn it down, even change the colours and synchronize it to the music.

  ‘Yup,’ Heaton said proudly. ‘I wired it all up myself. Did an electronics course at Feltham – about the only good thing I got out of it. Get you a beer?’ He pulled open the door of a well-stocked fridge.

  ‘Uh – sure.’ Sean caught the can Heaton chucked at him. ‘But how the fuck do you afford all this?’

  He still wasn’t one hundred per cent certain that the story of the girlfriends wasn’t a con. On the other hand, there was no doubt that this flat was a first-class shagpad. He took a quick scan around as he pulled the tab on the can. He wasn’t an expert on the brand names of kitchen appliances or furniture, but he knew what looked good. Shit, this was impressive.

  ‘Meh. I inherited some money a couple of years ago – seemed like an investment.’

  And five minutes later the girls showed up, dropped off by a taxi. A dyed blonde and a redhead – natural, at least so far as Sean could see.

  ‘Right!’ Heaton clapped his hands and rubbed them together. ‘Remind me, which of you two is Debs?’

  ‘Oh, ha fucking hilarious.’

  The blonde opened her arms up to him. He walked straight into them and the two locked lips for so long that Sean and the redhead started to feel self-conscious, hanging in the background behind their respective friends.

  Sean caught her eye. ‘Uh – get you a beer?’ he offered.

  After that things became less awkward. In fact, a whole lot less, even though it turned out she wasn’t from East London. Her name was Rachel, she was from Lancashire and she was going back on Sunday, not knowing when she would be down again. But she was really grateful to Sean for showing up, she said. She hadn’t looked forward to being the odd girl out.

  All this came out in chat while they knocked back their beers and waited for the pizzas to arrive. They ate their slices and Heaton kept the drinks coming while they squeezed onto the sofa to play games and watch all the crap TV he had stored on the TiVo. It was good fun, lubricated by booze and music and good company. After a while it seemed only natural for Sean to put his arm around Rachel. She seemed to appreciate it, if the snuggling close and head resting on his shoulder were anything to go by.

  It was all pretty sedate compared to the chemistry blazing away at the other end of the sofa. It was fairly obvious how Heaton and Debs intended the evening to end, at least for them. Heaton would not be calling a return taxi for Debs that night.

  After a couple of hours they disappeared into Heaton’s room, and everyone knew they weren’t coming out again.

  Which meant it was crunch time. Sean wasn’t quite sure how far his duties as Rachel’s escort extended, or how she felt about it. It wasn’t a question he had ever had to ask before. Rachel was a nice girl, but he hadn’t really been expecting . . . Had she been expecting . . . ?

  Just taking a taxi back to barracks and leaving her wouldn’t be very friendly, and he was too tall to sleep on the sofa comfortably. But then she draped her arms around his neck and looked into his eyes, and pointed out that the spare bed was a double . . . and the problem kind of solved itself.

  Chapter 9

  ‘Sit in the front, you twat,’ said Heaton.

  ‘Nah,’ Sean said with a grin. ‘This way I get to pretend you’re my taxi.’

  He had climbed into the back seat of the Impreza and spread his arms over the rests. Heaton rolled his eyes, but he gunned the engine and the car pulled away.

  Heaton had dropped the girls off at Andover station – Rachel had a train to catch, and Debs was seeing her up to London. Then he had run Sean back to barracks to get his overnight kit, and now they were heading back to the station again so that Sean could head into London himself.

  Sean and Rachel had exchanged a heavy goodbye kiss and a ‘See you, then,’ both knowing full well that they wouldn’t. They had both known it was for one night only, but a bloody good one. Sean knew for a fact that he had had the best night of his life since getting out of Burnleigh.

  ‘So what you getting up to in town?’ Heaton called over his shoulder. He wasn’t exactly breaking any speed limits, but the Impreza didn’t hang about. It gripped the road like the tyres were glued to it. ‘Seeing your old crew?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ said Sean. ‘Just checking up on my mum, that’s all.’

  For the first time since he had left her, a year ago . . .

  Of course, she hadn’t made his passing-out parade, though she had said she would, and Sean hadn’t been back to Littern Mills since he got shipped off to Burnleigh. The parole service had thought it was best he was relocated to a new estate, away from his old haunts, which had suited him fine. It had already stopped feeling like home. His name would have been mud with Copper and Matt – he remembered everything Copper had said back in the prison, and he just couldn’t be arsed with the hassle. And of course there would be the gaping hole left by Gaz. Cutting himself off had been a big deal, and he’d done his best to make sure he did it properly.

  It had helped that PJ had been one of his mum’s longer-term boyfriends. It had sounded like he was looking after her, so Sean hadn’t needed to head back and check up. The occasional phone call was all he needed. Only PJ had finally gone the way they all did. So he thought it was about time he paid a visit. Make sure the silly cow was doing all right.

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nbsp; ‘Good man. But it’s always handy to keep the old contacts alive, right? Never know when they could come in useful.’

  Sean laughed. ‘Yeah, because they’d be well useful in a firefight!’

  Heaton shrugged, then grinned. ‘So what’d you think of the pad?’

  ‘Fucking A,’ Sean said sincerely. ‘Still can’t believe it.’ He wondered if Heaton was on the lookout for a lodger in the spare room . . . No. That really would be weird. And unless Debs brought a friend along every time she stayed over, Sean would be the odd one out on other occasions. He had his pride.

  Heaton laughed. ‘Thing is,’ he continued as he shifted gear, ‘maybe I wasn’t one hundred per cent truthful about my, uh, inheritance. It’s the easy answer I give when I don’t know someone that well. It’s what I tell the neighbours.’

  ‘So – how . . . ?’

  ‘I worked for that place, Stenders. I earned every penny.’

  Sean was all ears. Heaton earned that, on a corporal’s pay? No.

  Heaton went on. ‘You have to make the army work for you too, right? So that’s what I’ve done. Army pay only goes so far, so you have to use your head a little, know what I mean? And that’s how I have this.’ Heaton tapped the dashboard like he was giving an affectionate pat to a pet.

  ‘Then whatever it is you’re doing, I want in!’ Sean joked. ‘I haven’t even got a car!’

  He knew a few other lads who had sidelines to their regular jobs. The army gave you skills that civvies were always on the lookout for. Some worked occasional nights as doormen in Andover or Salisbury. Nightclubs were always happy to bump up security with a soldier or two. Others bought and sold cars, upgrading each time so that they eventually ended up with a decent motor – though nothing like what Heaton was riding around in.

  ‘I might take you up on that,’ said Heaton. He looked at Sean in the mirror; he was smiling, but his eyes were serious. ‘Could always use a little help. Assuming you’re the right person for the job, of course. All kinds of perks. Cash, mostly, but also payment in kind.’

  Sean grinned. ‘It’s the cash I’m after.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Heaton leaned forward, keeping one hand on the wheel and fumbling beneath the driver’s seat with the other. He pulled out a flat box and passed it back. ‘What do you think of this?’

  Sean took the box in both hands. It was heavy. The photo on the lid showed the smoothly curving, dark lines of a Glock 17 Gen 4 pistol. It was the one pistol Sean could have identified immediately, since it was issued as standard to the British Army and he had just finished a training course on it. It could hold seventeen rounds compared with the thirteen of the Browning that it had replaced. It was also considerably lighter than the old Browning, because its frame, magazine body and components were built from a nylon-based polymer that was pretty much bombproof. It was a state-of-the-art, space-age weapon.

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  But it wasn’t the picture of the Glock that surprised him – it was the logo next to it. A silhouetted figure of a huntsman with a rifle, and the word AIRSOFT. Sean had heard of Airsoft, never seen it. Grown men running around in woods in camo, playing soldiers with replica weapons – identical to the real thing on the outside but modified inside to fire off plastic pellets with compressed gas or springs. To Sean, who handled a real-life SA80 every day, it was laughable.

  ‘You mean, you run around with real weapons during the week, and then you dick around with wannabe Rambos at the weekend too?’

  He opened the box out of curiosity, and whistled. Inside, as the box had told him, was a replica Glock. A very accurate replica, right down to the wear and tear detail on the moulded matt surface.

  ‘Give it a feel,’ said Heaton. ‘Only don’t wave it around. Police don’t like seeing blokes in cars waving guns about. It’s political correctness gone mad, but what can you do?’

  ‘So what? It’s still a fake.’

  But Sean picked it up, as invited. It sat comfortably in his hand with just the right weight and balance. The NSPs – the Normal Safety Precautions – that had been drilled into him meant he automatically pulled back on the slide to reveal the chamber, and peered into it to check for rounds. It was the first thing any trained soldier did when picking up a fresh gun, to ensure they knew what state it was in.

  And suddenly, with a feeling like cold water trickling through his body, he knew that this wasn’t a fake. This thing didn’t fire bits of plastic. He was looking into a chamber that was precision engineered to take standard NATO 9mm Parabellum rounds. This was real. Empty, but real.

  ‘Uh . . . Corp . . .’

  In the mirror, Heaton’s eyes were cold. ‘No one wants to be the next target, right? I’m just being pre-emptive. It saves time and bother if you keep it in a box that says it’s not real, you know?’

  ‘So . . .’ Sean struggled to think this through. ‘You’ve got a real Glock just knocking around in your car?’

  ‘It’s all legal and licensed and signed for. Trust your corporal. And put it back in the box.’

  Sean did as he was told, quickly.

  Club bouncer? No. Whatever it was Heaton was doing, if it required his very own Glock, then he was into something way heavier than that. And Sean was pretty sure Heaton was winding him up, deliberately being mysterious until Sean just had to ask what was going on. And then he would be in whether he liked it or not.

  Sean didn’t appreciate dancing to other people’s tunes. If Heaton wanted him, Heaton could tell him. In his own time. Badgering him would just sound desperate.

  And then they were at the station. Heaton pulled into the drop-off zone. ‘Have a good weekend.’ He held out his hand.

  Sean, surprised, reached over and shook it. ‘Will do. And thanks for the ride.’ He pushed the matter of the gun to the back of his mind and took one last look around as he climbed out. ‘Shit, I seriously need this car.’

  Heaton winked. ‘Well, maybe we can do something about that, eh?’

  Chapter 10

  All the familiar smells of home, thought Sean. Damp concrete, frying stuff – and do I detect the faintest aroma of stale piss? I believe I do.

  God, I used to live here.

  He’d got into London at lunch time, and then spent a few hours knocking around the West End before heading east. Part of it was just practical – his mum had told him not to turn up before she ended her shift at the shop. And part of it . . .

  Part of it, he had to admit, was that he hadn’t been sure if he would still recognize the place.

  He got off the Tube for the familiar five-minute walk to Littern Mills. The estate was basically three large squares, each one surrounded by four tower blocks. The ground level of each block was a row of shops set behind concrete pillars. Above them were levels and levels of open-air balconies, and the front doors of the inhabitants.

  The sun was halfway to setting and the tower blocks cast long shadows over the square where his mum lived. He scanned the shops at the bottom of his block as he slouched his way over, bag slung over his shoulder. They seemed pretty much the same. The laundrette and the chippy – both doing good business on a Saturday evening. Lakhani’s, the small general store where his mum had stacked shelves for as long as he could remember. It was closed, with a metal shutter pulled down over the plate-glass windows. Cool – she would be home.

  For some reason he remembered Copper’s dire warnings, eighteen months ago, about the estate. There’s foreigners moving in, Seany! Which basically meant strangers. Well, Sean didn’t recognize any of the kids clustered around the dry fountain in the middle of the square, knocking back tins of stuff they were way too young for. But he was prepared to be friendly, so he gave the hand sign that identified the Guyz – thumb, forefinger and little finger pressed together, other two fingers outstretched, hand held across his chest. It was meant to be something that could be used anywhere – it could look like a deliberate signal or it could look like you were just scratching your shoulder.

  ‘Hi,
guys.’

  Three of them gave him the finger, two of them sniggered, one just rolled his eyes in disgust.

  ‘Fuck off, pig.’

  ‘Pig?’ Sean exclaimed, half laughing, half horrified. They thought he looked like a cop? Maybe he was just too smartly turned out. Shit. ‘No, mate, you got it all wrong. I was just on my way to shag your mum so I thought I’d be friendly.’

  That got their attention. They stood up, and two of them blocked his way.

  ‘You got a problem?’ the pig boy asked.

  ‘Nah.’ Sean took the smile off his face and looked at him the same way he looked through an ACOG at something he was about to shoot. He also didn’t break step. ‘You?’

  He saw their shoulders square up, their jaws go firm . . . and then give, as it dawned on them that they might match him in height but there was no way they matched him in build or confidence. They stepped aside and he walked between them, shoulders bumping.

  ‘Twat,’ one of the boys muttered. Sean held a finger up over his shoulder to say goodbye as he walked away.

  Now, that was interesting. A bunch of kids who obviously weren’t Guyz, acting like they owned the place. OK.

  He didn’t bother to see if the lift was working. Even if it had been, Sean knew from experience that the piss smell would be strongest inside it. He took the steps up to the fourth level two at a time, long legs falling automatically into the old rhythm that had always helped him keep in trim, even before the army. At least the graffiti was the same – the usual riotous swirl of colours, tags, slogans and misspelled obscenities. He swung onto level four and a grin appeared on his face as the stylized G that had always dominated the far wall came into view.

  But the grin stopped, and then faded, as he saw more of it. Only half the G was visible. The rest was covered over. He was pretty sure that at least two of the symbols and glyphs that had replaced it were gang logos, but he didn’t recognize either of them. There were slogans in English, and something foreign with letters he could at least read, and something even more foreign in squiggles that he had no clue about.