by Andy McNab
But Sean wasn’t laughing. Him, a terrorist? Who did this posh twat think he was? The bastard! The utter, wanking bastard!
He gave no warning. One moment he was calmly resting his empty champagne glass back on the silver platter. The next, he’d nutted the moustachioed bastard in the face to split his nose, and now, with him floundering on the floor, was going in for more.
‘So I’m a terrorist, am I?’ he yelled. ‘Is that what you think? Fuck do you know, you twat? Nothing, that’s what! Hanging out with all your wanker pals, talking bollocks about what’s going on, when what do you actually know? Fuck all, is what. Fuck all!’
He was reaching down to drag the man back to his feet, just so he could have another go, when something like steel pincers grabbed his left arm and jammed it up into the centre of his back. He tried to stand up straight, and white-hot agony fizzed along his arm through the champagne bubbles. His arm was held at an angle which made it plain that bones would snap unless he moved exactly as directed. His eyes focused on the mirror across the room. He could see himself bent forward with the hard bastard right behind him, and the guy’s eyes were deader than ever.
Heaton ignored the sight of a comrade being attacked and made a beeline for their host. ‘Rich, I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Look, I mean he’s a good lad – he’s just not used to—’
‘Oh, go fuck yourself,’ Sean shouted. Somewhere in the haze of champagne bubbles in his head was the vague idea that this was not good, but screw that. ‘Tash-twat reckons I’m a terrorist, and Clarky was in on it and blew herself up!’
The man with the moustache was now back on his feet, nursing his face with a napkin.
‘Harker, you’re pissed!’ Heaton shouted back.
‘Can’t be pissed,’ Sean protested indignantly. ‘It’s only champagne, for Chrissake.’ He tried to move, and pain shot through his hand and arm again. ‘And get your fucking Doberman off me!’
‘Doberman!’ laughed Rich. ‘I rather like that. What do you think, Malcolm?’
Despite the pain, Sean laughed. ‘Malcolm? You’re kidding!’
Another twist. More pain. Sean doubted his arm would go much further before giving way completely. He had to shut up.
Rich turned to Heaton. ‘What an entertaining young man he is, this partner of yours.’
‘That’s one way to look at it,’ Heaton replied, and Sean caught the sharp glance he shot at him.
‘I think I’m going to like him,’ Rich said, ‘as long as he sticks to the soft stuff.’
Heaton agreed, with another dagger glare at Sean.
The pain in Sean’s arm was penetrating the anaesthetic effect of the champagne. ‘Look,’ he said, calming a little. He tried to match Rich’s rah-rah voice. ‘Would you mind calling Malcolm off? I didn’t mean to lose it.’
‘Let him go, Malcolm.’
The pain and the pincer grip vanished immediately. Sean staggered free and stood up straight.
‘Sometimes,’ Rich said, turning to him, ‘actions speak louder than words, wouldn’t you agree?’
Sean said nothing. He focused on Rich and bit back on a vom-flavoured burp as his host continued.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘no matter how loudly you shout, how clearly you put across your point of view, no one takes the blindest bit of notice. It is then, as you just demonstrated, Sean, that you have to act to make someone listen. And sometimes that involves doing things you wouldn’t normally do or indeed approve of. Don’t worry about the law. Just get above it.’
Sean had no idea what Rich was on about. Didn’t care. Wanted to get back to barracks. The room was boiling hot and he was sweating freely.
In fact, he realized suddenly, getting out of this room and into the toilet in the next thirty seconds would be a really good idea.
Rich walked up to Sean, leaned in close. Sean had given up on trying to focus. Rich was a man-shaped blur.
‘I like you,’ Rich told him. ‘I like your . . . verve? Yes, that will do I think. Verve. Now— Oh, Christ! Josh! Get him out of here!’
Sean dropped to his hands and knees as his guts heaved, and seven glasses’ worth of champagne and a lot of chewed-up lobster spewed out over Rich’s thick, expensive and very absorbent rug.
The journey back to barracks was silent.
Chapter 23
‘Fuck me, Stenders, what happened to you?’
Shitey Bright had been posted outside the briefing room to guide the platoon in. Sean came shambling down the corridor towards him, pain lancing through his head like someone had wired electrodes to his temples, his stomach still churning. He had forced a piece of toast down for breakfast, and now even that felt like it might be going the same way as the lobsters.
At zero eight thirty on a Monday morning the platoon was meant to be doing PT. When Sean clocked the notice that they were to report to the briefing room instead, he began to think there really might be a God.
‘What’s going on?’
Bright shrugged. ‘Change of orders. And, mate, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like something that fell out of my arse last night. Only worse. And that was saying something. I mean, I had this mega-hot curry, right? Cut through me like a welding torch!’
Weeks after Clark’s death, the platoon’s banter levels were approaching normal again, and Sean would usually have given as good as he got. Now his stomach twisted at the thought, but he seemed to have done most of his throwing up.
‘Met this total div at the weekend,’ he muttered. ‘Thought champagne was basically fizzy wine. Didn’t realize it’s twice as strong, and the bubbles mean the alcohol gets absorbed into the system double quick.’
‘Champagne, eh?’ Bright grinned. ‘Sounds like your mate ought to stick to his type of people. Only wankers drink champagne for pleasure.’
‘The real wank de la wank,’ Sean agreed.
Bright sniffed. ‘And then, by the smell of it, your mate slept with his mouth open and the cat used it for a litter tray. Here.’ He handed Sean a packet of extra-strong mints. ‘Eat the pack. Sergeant gets a whiff of that, you’ll be right in the shit.’
Sean took the mints, dropped four into his mouth and crunched. Then he went on through to the briefing room.
Five minutes later the door opened, and Lieutenant Franklin and Sergeant Adams bowled in. The room came to attention. Sean was pleased that he could still do that and not hurl or fall over.
‘Sit,’ Franklin ordered curtly. He stood at ease, feet apart, hands behind his back, and surveyed the room. Adams stood behind him, silent and impassive. ‘You’ll be wondering why you’re all in here, and not out getting your arses worn into the ground by some psycho PT instructor.’
Sean squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to push some of the hangover out. It didn’t work.
‘Over the weekend, during an Army Reserve exercise up on Salisbury Plain, it was discovered that a number of SA80s had gone missing.’
Sean heard gasps. If he’d been more alert, he would probably have reacted. In his current state, it was all he could do to stop himself chucking up.
But the gasps were more amused, not dismayed. It was the first good laugh the platoon had had in a long time.
‘The daft bastards left them out there?’ said Mitra. ‘And now we have to go and find them – is that it, sir?’
‘No, that is not it.’ Adams took over, no hint of amusement in his words or tone. ‘Now, from time to time we’ve all heard about some daft twat who hasn’t quite clocked the harsh realities of life and decides to take his gun home as a souvenir. The army catches up with him and that’s the end of that. But this was not some daft twat taking his gun home.’
‘Correct,’ said Franklin. ‘This was half a dozen automatic rifles, swapped for fakes. Wherever the real ones are now, that’s a small arms cache – enough to ambush an army unit with . . . enough for a major terrorist incident.’
The smirks around the room were disappearing fast as the reality sank in. With everything that had happened in t
he last month, the words major terrorist incident had a way of hanging in the air and sucking the last shreds of humour out of the situation.
It was just a shame, Sean thought, that he wasn’t able to reassure them; that he couldn’t tell anyone, No, lads, the point is, we’re preventing another one . . .
He wondered how Heaton was taking the news. The corporal was sitting at the back of the room so Sean couldn’t see him.
‘There’s a full and immediate investigation into what happened,’ Sergeant Adams said. ‘Every unit based on Salisbury Plain – and I mean everyone – is going to be interviewed. Starting now.’
‘Why, sir?’ asked West. ‘Weapons got nicked and they think it’s an inside job? That’s bollocks. No one would be that stupid. Swiping that many SA80s? That’s organized crime stuff, that.’
Franklin said, ‘The point is, West, no one knows who did it, or why, or even how. Hence the interviews.’
‘But, sir, it’s not like they can actually send out the Redcaps and interview every one of us, is it?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘No, they can’t. Which is why it’ll be me and Mr Franklin.’
For a second or two it was clear no one believed him. Then everyone did, mainly because Adams’s face had grown even darker.
‘We will interview you all this morning,’ Franklin explained, ‘and then we will be interviewed ourselves by Special Branch to report on the results. Men, I don’t expect any of you to have any idea about what happened, but that doesn’t mean I don’t expect you to take it seriously. You will.’
‘Because if you don’t,’ Adams added, ‘it’ll be a boot up the arse followed by the shittest week you can imagine. And don’t think, based on everything that’s happened recently, that I can’t make it shittier – because I promise you, I can.’
No one doubted it.
Oh . . . shit.
Sean closed his eyes for a moment, then forced them open again in case anyone thought he was dropping off.
He had never lied to Sergeant Adams. He had never tried, or wanted to. He had too much respect for the man. And the sergeant was the kind of guy who forced you to tell the truth just by sheer will power. So how was he going to get through an interview and not get pinged?
By being ready, he told himself. That’s how. He had been questioned by men in uniform before, even before the one time he got nicked. They had always had to release him. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no’, don’t rise to the bait, don’t try to fill any silences.
So he had practice. But what had seemed like an easy job was now turning into a serious ball ache.
Adams was speaking. ‘This won’t take all day. Interviews will be held in the room across the hall, and we will start with . . .’ He paused and glanced around his soldiers.
Sean stared into the middle distance, avoiding the sergeant’s eye, trying to appear relaxed – anything to avoid being picked first.
‘Let’s have Shitey first, I think,’ Adams said.
‘Ah, bollocks,’ said Bright. ‘Now?’
‘Unless you have any other pressing appointments, Private,’ Franklin said.
Sean watched as Bright followed the sergeant and the lieutenant out of the room and across the hall. Now all he had to do was sit and wait.
Someone tapped his shoulder. He turned to find Heaton staring at him.
‘What kind of prick nicks weapons, then?’ the corporal asked.
‘One with no brains and massive balls,’ Penfold offered from behind them both.
‘Well, it’s not Shitey,’ Mitra said. ‘Can’t be. They’d have caught him by now, just by following the stink from the crime scene to his man-cave.’
Sean laughed, hoped he didn’t sound nervous. Then he said, ‘And Penfold’s out. Too fucking clumsy. They’d have been able to follow the trail of broken weapons parts.’
More laughter.
A few minutes later Bright came back and nodded at Penfold. And that was how the rest of the morning panned out. One would leave, have a chat, then come back and send in the next. No one who had been questioned was allowed to talk to anyone who hadn’t been, apart from sending them in.
At first Sean hadn’t wanted to be picked first, but he soon realized that waiting was a hell of a lot worse. He had longer to think, longer to work on his innocent face, longer to go through every possible scenario that might play out if the sergeant suspected anything.
He and Heaton could really do with a cover story for that night. They could just say they had been doing completely separate things – why not? But if Heaton said he had been at the movies, say, with Sean . . . Oh shit, would he? Did he have the sense to leave Sean out of it? He wished he could have even thirty seconds to discuss it, but there was no privacy in that room with the dwindling numbers of the platoon.
And so, at last, he entered the interview room. It was very simply laid out – a table in the middle, Franklin and Adams on one side, an empty seat on the other. There were the usual notices on the walls, chairs round the sides, and a second door which was shut.
‘Sit,’ Adams said. It wasn’t polite and neither was it rude. It was just an order.
Sean obeyed. He spent a few moments trying to get comfortable without giving the impression that he wasn’t – because, he was sure, that would make him look like he had something to hide. Then he worried he was breathing too loudly and tried to control it – except that now he sounded out of breath. Next it was his heart he noticed, the thump-thump, thump-thump of it surely visible through his clothes. Surely both men could see, he thought. Yes, that was why they were making him wait so long, wasn’t it? They knew he was guilty. Oh, fucking hell . . .
‘Right, Harker,’ Franklin began. ‘Before we begin, you need to know that this conversation is completely confidential. Sergeant Adams will be taking notes and you will be given a copy if you want one. Also, it’s not so much an interview, more a conversation. We’re just going to chat through what we know and go from there. Understand?’
Sean nodded, realizing for the first time that he had been too busy worrying about what Heaton might say to think up a cover story for himself. The lads thought he had spent the night with a girl. Oh shit, if they pressed him for details, then he was going to have to get creative on the spot, and that was how they always found the loopholes . . .
‘What do you know about what happened?’ Franklin asked.
Sean shrugged. ‘Only what you just told us, sir, which isn’t much.’
‘That’s because not much is known,’ the lieutenant agreed with a tight smile. ‘Have you got any idea how someone could swap real for fake weapons?’
‘No, sir,’ said Sean. ‘We have to sign everything in and out.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Adams. ‘The missing weapons are not traceable to anyone. In fact, no one can actually work out how this was done at all. Whoever did it really knew what they were doing.’
Sean wasn’t so sure. ‘So why are we being interviewed, sir?’
He bit his lip. Arsehole! Shut up! Don’t engage!
‘I wasn’t exaggerating when I said the missing rifles were enough for a terrorist incident. It is Special Branch’s belief that this is exactly why they were stolen.’ Franklin looked at him impassively – though his face was a naked mass of emotion compared to Adams’s rock-like blankness. ‘Does that bother you, Private?’
‘Course it does,’ Sean said indignantly, and remembered to add, ‘sir. What soldier would give guns to terrorists? That’s just . . . crazy.’
‘So is stealing weapons in the first place,’ said Adams.
‘Yeah, but none of our lot would steal weapons for terrorists.’
‘So you think they would steal them for other reasons?’
‘That’s not what I said,’ Sean said, suddenly feeling cold.
‘So what are you saying?’
Sean stopped talking. He was digging himself into a hole. The sergeant was just trying to push his buttons, had probably done the same with everyone else. It was his j
ob to be absolutely sure, after all, wasn’t it? Make sure his lads had no involvement?
‘What about your own past?’ Adams asked. ‘It’s not like a bit of theft is beyond you, is it, Harker?’
Sean’s face blazed red. That was a low blow, even if it was absolutely true. ‘Sergeant, I would never give weapons to terrorists,’ he said tightly.
He thought back to the people he had met the last night. Rich and his types were dodgy, yes, but they weren’t radicalized teenagers. That was terrorists. Rich and his fellow tossers were white Brits, and proud of it. Posh gits with slightly weird political views, sure, but there was no way they were terrorists. And the point – he reminded himself yet again – was that they were protecting people.
Adams and Franklin looked at each other, and some signal seemed to pass between them. The sergeant slowly rose to his feet and walked over to the second door. He stood at ease next to it and gazed at Sean. Sean nervously returned the look. It reminded him of . . .
It reminded him of the very first time they had met, in his solitary cell back at Burnleigh. Adams had had the same expression in his eyes then: a confident, I’m-going-to-have-you look.
Only that time, Adams had also been smiling. He wasn’t smiling now.
Sean looked back at the table, where Adams had left his jotter. He hadn’t written down any notes at all. Not one.
‘Private Harker,’ Franklin said. Sean swung his eyes round. ‘The questions we have asked you so far are the questions we have asked everyone, so you will all have something to chat about when you compare notes afterwards. Now we are going to ask you some questions that are just for you.’ He nodded at Adams.
The sergeant came to attention, then turned to open the door. He stepped back to allow a pair of civilians, a man and a woman, to enter the room. They looked like any pair of off-duty Ruperts – a Rupert and a Rupertess. The woman wore a light summer dress. The man—
Oh, fuck!
Sean could swear his heart stopped.
