by Blake Banner
“This man has to face justice for what he did.”
Hartmann narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re an American.”
“I said, this man has to face justice for what he has done.”
“And so he shall, son. Good old American justice. We’ll see to that back home, don’t you worry. Now hand him over and quit being an asshole.”
Nothing happened, except that I could feel my finger tightening on the trigger.
“I know what you’ll do with him. He won’t stand trial and he won’t be punished.”
He took three strides and came up close in front of me. He cupped the back of my neck with his left hand and looked into my eyes.
“This guy’s brother is a Saudi prince, boy. He plays golf with three different presidents from two different parties. One of his sons is at Harvard and another went to Sandhurst, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So grow up, son. This is the real world, and down here bad shit happens all the time. So hand him over before I have my boys shoot your boys.”
I pulled Mohammed to his feet and we all marched outside. There was an icy wind and a frosted moon was riding a few inches above the eastern horizon. Bradley made the call, said, “Yes, sir...” a few times and hung up. He looked at me and jerked his head—I should hand him over.
I grabbed the bastard by the scruff of his neck and rasped at him in Arabic.
“Sawf ajduk! I will find you, and you will pay for what you did to that village. I swear!” Then I thrust him toward Captain Hartmann.
They both stared at me for a moment and Hartmann wagged a finger at me.
“I don’t like you, boy. You’re in the wrong army, doing the wrong stuff. You ain’t heard the last of me.” He turned to Bradley. “You got a chopper waiting at the plateau. You should report this son of a bitch.” He pointed at me. “He was going to execute a valuable prisoner, an unarmed man. I’m going to talk to my people, and they will talk to your people. You’d better be on the right side when the shit comes down, Sergeant Bradley.”
They walked away, along the path, toward the plateau where the choppers were waiting. I turned to Bradley. “I’m sorry, Sarge.”
He shook his head. “You should have shot him when you had the chance.”
Jones slapped a huge hand on my shoulder. “We’ll back you up, boyo. If it comes to that.”
Skinner spat again and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Ain’t nobody saw what went down here tonight ’cept us, right? Our word against his.”
I nodded. I knew guys like Hartmann, and so did they. And they knew that Hartmann’s word carried more weight than the four of us put together, and then some.
We made our way back toward the plateau and the waiting chopper in silence. We knew it was over. It was over for me, at least.
Chapter Two
They gave it the works. They wanted to make it stick, and even though the Brits—and especially the Regiment—don’t like being told what to do, they knew that the “special” part of the Special Relationship meant that Washington looked after Westminster’s interests because Westminster no longer had the military might to do it herself. So while Washington would usually ask nicely, because Britain was an essential ally, Westminster would usually say “Yes” to whatever Washington asked. That was the way it was in post-imperial Britain.
We were flown to Bagram, to the small, unofficial HQ the SAS still had in what was left of the airbase there. I was allowed to shower, eat and sleep for four hours, and then I was summoned to Brigadier Alexander “Buddy” Byrd’s office for a “chat.”
The office was functional, military green steel and melamine. The venetian blind was raised and the window showed a view of dilapidated, empty barracks and desultory soldiers and officers trying hard to look like they were doing a job instead of thinking of going home.
The Regiment doesn’t stand on ceremony, and there is a tradition of officers and troopers using first names. It’s an unspoken recognition that if you made it far enough to become a “blade,” you’re worthy of respect. I stepped through the door and Byrd watched me close it and sit down on the beige and chrome chair opposite him at his desk. At sixty, he was handsome, lean and strong, and probably the most dangerous man I had ever met. Yet he had a bland, amiable face and spoke with the quiet, deferential manner of the English upper-middle classes. He smiled, then turned it into a wince.
“Spot of bother up at the caves, ay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It got a bit out of hand.”
“Shame Mohammed didn’t defend himself, really. Would have saved everyone a lot of bother.”
“Yeah. He’s not that kind of man.”
“Whitehall wanted him rather badly, of course.”
“Hartmann was right behind us. They let us do the dirty work, then they came in and claimed the prize.”
“He says you were going to execute Ben-Amini.”
“I was. The Sarge was telling me not to do it. I couldn’t get the memory of the massacre at Al-Landy out of my head. The kids, the children...”
I stopped myself and looked out at the bright glare of the desert day. When I had my breath under control again I went on.
“But that wasn’t why he reported me. He was mad at me because I wasn’t going to hand over Ben-Amini. None of us were. But the Sarge spoke to brass and we got our orders, which we obeyed.”
Byrd sighed and pulled open a drawer. He pulled out a bottle of Glenlivet and poured us a shot each. He’d never done that before and I knew it was a farewell.
“For my part,” he said, “I couldn’t be less interested in Whitehall’s political maneuverings. But we are soldiers and we must obey orders. On the other hand, we can’t go around executing prisoners without trial, because then, however justified that execution may be on a personal level, as an institution we become no better than them. I hope you understand that, Bauer.”
“Yeah, I do, and I agree. What I was about to do was wrong, but the thought of that man living in a mansion, while the lives of those children, those women and those innocent men...” I shook my head, not satisfied with how I had said it. “Not their lives—their torture, the horror of the last minutes of their lives. All of that is forgotten, because that bastard can be useful. And his punishment for murdering those children and those women is to be given a mansion in Surrey, and a yearly income most working men can’t even dream of.”
He sipped his whisky and set it down carefully on the desk, like setting it down wrong might have consequences.
“I know, and between you, me and the bedpost, I actually agree with you. But, as soldiers, we can’t do anything about it. If you want to do something about it, you should get a different job.”
I snorted. “Like a politician?”
“Well.” He smiled. “I haven’t known many politicians to do much of any use, with some notable exceptions. But look, I have been instructed to make you an offer. It isn’t much of an offer, I’m afraid, but it’s the best we could get for you.”
“Resign or face a court martial.”
“That’s right. If you face the court martial I’m afraid the best you can hope for is a dishonorable discharge, which would be a shame, because you have served well and with honor.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will simply resign and we’ll give you your discharge papers.”
“Is that all? What kind of reference am I going to get when I apply for a job?”
He held my eye. “A bald statement that you served with the Regiment for eight years and saw active service.”
“And every major security company in the UK and the States will know exactly what that means.”
“I’m afraid so. But it’s better than a dishonorable discharge, or a prison term for attempted murder.”
“Is that a threat, sir?”
“Don’t be stupid, Bauer. I am as unhappy with this as you are, but I have my orders and I have to follow them. This is the choice they are giving you. And if they are offering it to you it’
s because somebody in the brass is looking after you. They could simply court-martial you, but they have chosen not to do that, but to give you an option. My advice is to take the offer, because if Hartmann and the Firm bring pressure to bear at trial, things could go very badly for you.”
I examined the whisky in my glass. “Sure sounds like a threat.”
He blinked a couple of times. For “Buddy” Byrd that was a major display of emotion. “Look, Harry, you can’t afford to be emotional about this. Not least because you’ll wind up turning on your friends, and right now you need all the friends you can get. We stick together in the Regiment, you know that, and you need to remember it and trust it. I want things to work out for you, but clearly what I can’t do is go up against Whitehall and the MoD, or the Pentagon and the CIA, for that matter.”
I studied the whisky a little longer and decided I could allow myself to drink it. I threw it back and swallowed it, then set the glass on his desk. I looked him in the eye and nodded once.
“Eight years. It’s a lot to let go of.”
“I know, Harry, and I’m sorry.”
“You got the papers there?”
He opened the file and slid them across the desk to me. I read them through. They were neutral: a simple resignation. I took my pen and signed them, signed away eight years of my life, signed away the only family I had ever had, signed away my friends, my comrades, my clan.
I went to stand but he stopped me.
“We’ll fly you back to London...”
I shook my head. “I can do that myself.”
He paused, hesitated. “Fair enough. But my advice to you, Harry, is to go back to New York. If you want to work in security, I am sure you’ll find a good job there. It’s a big, rich market in the States. They need men like you.”
“Thanks.”
He stood and reached out his hand. “It has been an honor and a privilege. Look after yourself and, if you need anything, you have friends here. Remember that.”
We shook and I left.
I took his advice. When somebody like Buddy Byrd gives you advice, it’s because he knows what he’s talking about. So I took the next available flight back to London. It was summer, so it was raining and sultry. I have a theory that, as climate change takes hold, the British archipelago will become tropical, with large rainforests and huge, man-eating insects.
I spent two weeks sorting out my place in Hammersmith. I gave away everything I could, and what I couldn’t give away, I sold at what the Brits call “boot sales,” where you sell junk from the trunk of your car at a parking lot, a church hall or village green. After two weeks my house was pretty much empty; the rooms were bare and had that soulless, lifeless echo. The few bits and pieces that were left I gave to a charity shop, put my house on the market through a realtor and bought myself a ticket back to New York.
I hadn’t been in the USA for almost ten years, most of my adult life. I had left behind an unhappy childhood, an adolescence of violence and rebellion against injustice, and a pregnant wife. If she had been my wife I would have stayed, but she was the wife of a local pillar of the community, and she begged me to leave and not contact her ever again.
I had done as she asked and, pretending to myself I didn’t care and I wasn’t hurt, I got on a ship and sailed across the Atlantic to start a new life in what was then still Europe.
During my teens, searching for meaningful ways to rebel, I had picked up a black belt in tae kwon do and an instructor's level in jeet kune do. When I got to the UK and applied to join the Special Air Service, it turned out I was in better shape than I thought I was. I managed to claw my way through the first phase of selection, known as “endurance” or “the hills,” which is designed to break down normal people’s physical and mental resistance.
Less than ten percent of candidates make it through that phase. I believe I only managed it because the thought of giving in to authority was worse than dying of exhaustion. But when I told Buddy that, he laughed and told me it was what they all said, and that was the very quality they were looking for.
The second phase was jungle training in Latin America, near Mexico, and the third was escape and evasion techniques, and the hell of resisting interrogation. They are months of training that shape you, and live with you for the rest of your life.
Somehow I survived them and went on to spend the next eight years on active duty in Central and South America, the Middle East and other places I wouldn’t name if I could.
In all that time, the one place I never returned to was the one place I should have called home, but never did. The USA, New York.
And now was time to return: to what, I had no idea.
Nobody lives in Manhattan, unless they have inherited property, or they are millionaires. I explored the Village, Queens and Brooklyn, but they weren’t much more accessible than Manhattan. So finally I wound up with a pale blue, clapboard cottage on Shore Drive, just beside the Throggs Neck Memorial Post, with a head full of memories, an almost empty house and a rapidly dwindling bank balance.
I started a systematic round of all the major security companies, handing in my resume and applying for interviews. Some never bothered to answer, others politely declined. A small handful invited me along and told me they could not offer me work in the States, but they always had a need for high-caliber mercenaries.
After a week I had run out of security companies to approach. The only ones that were left paid so little I would barely be able to afford a rental on a small apartment, let alone a mortgage on a house.
Another week and I was getting worried. So I began spreading my net wider to large, five-star hotels and exclusive clubs, but always I received the same polite refusal.
On the Friday of the third week desperation was beginning to set in. I was at the offices of Allied Security Solutions, at 260 on East 161st Street, between Walgreens and Checkers. The company was on the ninth floor, and the view from their personnel department’s window was depressing, like a painting by a dispirited Cubist who had nothing left on his palette but gray, beige and a nameless mixture of the two.
The guy across the desk from me, Dick Van Dreiver, was big and hard, with a platinum crew cut and pale blue eyes that had looked at death and seen it as an opportunity. He wore an expensively vulgar double-breasted Italian suit that whispered cruel things every time he moved.
When he’d finished looking at my resume, he dropped it on the desk and smiled like we were about to share a joke. His accent was South African.
“You know what I’m gonna say, right? You know, if it was up to me I’d snap you up in a second. I know how valuable guys like you are. But I am gonna be straight with you, chum. You are not going to get the kind of work you want in this city, or any major city, for that matter. I mean...” He picked up the resume and waved it at me. “You’re an amazing guy. But you resigned, and they won’t write you a letter of recommendation beyond, ‘Yuh, he was in the regiment.’ Where is your commanding officer’s reference?” He leaned forward. “You left under a cloud and they gave you the option of resigning rather than an expensive, embarrassing court martial. What did you do? Shoot somebody you oughtn’t?”
I didn’t answer and he sighed. “I know, it sucks. Eight years of devoted service and this is the thanks. But look.” He dropped the resume on the desk. “There is a lot of highly paid work out there for a man with your skills and talents.”
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t want to be a mercenary. I know what happens out there and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
“Fair enough. I get that. It’s part of the reason I am sitting behind this desk. But you don’t need to go that far. I can give you a private recommendation for a job I happen to know pays damned well, and doesn’t involve raiding small villages and murdering innocent people.”
I frowned. The slight flippancy of his tone grated on me. “What kind of job?”
He raised his palm and gave me a warning look. “Now, hear me out. You’d start as a doorman
at a club.” I laughed and made to stand, but he stopped me. “It pays a grand a week as a starting salary, rising to two grand if you pass the probation period of a month. And the employer’s creative with the way he approaches tax, so most of your pay goes where it belongs, in your pocket.”
I sat and scowled at him. “A grand a week, for a doorman?”
“Yuh, well, I’m guessing we are neither of us naive, Mr. Bauer, and obviously what we are looking at here is a position as a bodyguard. Your potential employer, Peter Rusanov, recently purchased a club, here in the Bronx. The previous owners attracted what we might call a very varied clientele. You had Hollywood actors, judges, the mayor...” He shook his head. “I even saw a senator in there once, and they are all rubbing fucking shoulders with drug traffickers and gang members with skulls tattooed on their foreheads. To say the club is lucrative is the understatement of the century. The declared turnover is in the millions. The actual turnover is a hundred times higher, because they are not selling just champagne, right?”
He shrugged, spread his hands and sat nodding for a while.
“Now, obviously a joint like that carries a risk element, and the last owner was killed. So, along comes Russian businessmen Peter Rusanov and he sees the potential of this place, but he also sees the risk. So he plays it smart. He leaves the running of the place in the hands of the local gang, an outfit that goes by the name of the Chupa Cabras, but he also gets himself a praetorian guard composed of ex-special forces veterans, whose loyalty he knows he can rely on, provided he pays them well.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “You’re offering me a job as a bodyguard to a Russian Mafia boss.”
He shrugged again and pulled down the corners of his mouth. “I have no idea if he is Russian Mafia or not, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. You’re not in the army now, Mr. Bauer, and they will not look after you anymore. They betrayed you and these are the options they have left open for you. Take it or leave it.”
I sank back in my chair. My house in London was nowhere near being sold. My bank account was approaching critical numbers and I was nowhere close to finding a job that paid anything like the kind of salary I needed. And Van Dreiver was right. The bottom line was that, even if Byrd, Bradley, Jones and Skinner had stayed loyal to me, the army had betrayed me, stabbed me in the back and hung me out to dry. I was out of options.
