Days of the Dead

by David Monnery

  Clarke was not having any of it. ‘The first option is clearly out of the question,’ he said. ‘A cynic might think that it had been conjured up just to make the second option look more reasonable. Either way, we’ll be sending British soldiers on to the soil of a sovereign nation to blow up boats and kill people.’ He locked eyes with the Prime Minister. ‘Are we really going to sanction the use of the SAS to assassinate a drug baron?’

  ‘Well, they can hardly bring him home,’ the PM said coldly.

  ‘If you really have moral qualms about this operation,’ Hanson told the FO minister, ‘I think you should save them for a more suitable occasion. Bazua is a mass murderer, drug dealer and worse.’

  ‘And since when has MI6 set itself up as the moral guardian of the New World Order?’ Clarke asked sarcastically.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ the PM admonished them. Greaves was expecting him to side with his minister, but he didn’t. ‘I would obviously prefer to work with our allies in this matter, but that seems to be the one option which is definitely denied us. And with all due respect to the Foreign Office’s real concerns, I don’t believe we can let the fear of American disapproval deter us from the pursuit of crucial British interests. I want those boats destroyed and I want this man brought to book.’

  There was a glitter in his eyes as he enunciated the last sentence, and Greaves suddenly thought he understood why the man had seemed nervous before – it was because he had decided on a course of action which seemed completely out of character. But why? Greaves wondered. Was it the drugs that enraged him, the thought of another war or just Bazua’s character? Was there anything there to undermine life-long habits of caution? No, he decided, and then he understood. The man was on his last legs politically and he knew it – there was no need to hedge any more. Like those beyond the age of responsibility he could do whatever he felt like doing. Taking on Bazua was like a last hurrah for seventeen years of Tory rule.

  ‘So are we all agreed on the smaller-scale option?’ the PM was saying.

  There were nods from around the table, an almost infinitesimal twitch of the neck in Clarke’s case.

  Now Greaves knew why the meeting had been called. The PM had needed Clarke’s metaphorical signature next to his own, just in case everything went wrong.

  The SAS CO took the quicker route home, and despite stopping off for a late lunch in Witney was back in his office at the Stirling Lines Regimental HQ of 22 SAS by a quarter past four. He felt physically tired after seven hours of driving in one day, but mentally refreshed by the distance he had put between himself and Whitehall. The meeting in Conference Room B had left him feeling manipulated and none too respectfully inclined towards his political masters.

  It had also left the Regiment with a job to do.

  Once he was behind his desk, Greaves’s first action was to order two cups of tea, his second to summon Major Jimmy Bourne, the long-time head of the Regiment’s Counter Revolutionary Warfare Wing. The planned action against Bazua didn’t come within the CRW Wing’s purview, but before his retirement Barney Davies had recommended Bourne to Greaves as the best available source of personnel information and general advice, and on more than one occasion during the past year the new CO had been grateful for the tip.

  ‘So we’ve been given the green light?’ Bourne asked before he was even through the door.

  ‘Plan B,’ Greaves told him, indicating the waiting cup of tea.

  ‘Good,’ Bourne said, shovelling sugars into the dark-brown brew.

  Greaves stopped counting after three. ‘So who shall we send?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Bourne said, testing his tea for sweetness. ‘It’ll have to be one of our best, or Jamie Docherty will walk all over him.’

  Greaves smiled despite himself. ‘Does the bastard really expect a consultant’s fee?’

  Bourne grinned. ‘That was a joke,’ he said. ‘But he’ll bloody well expect to be consulted. I think we should give the job to my senior sergeant.’

  ‘Wynwood, right?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘He just got married, didn’t he?’ There had been a photograph in the local paper which Greaves had found amusing – the bulky Welshman with the big grin and mass of dark, curly hair, the diminutive bride looking demure and serious enough for life in a convent.

  ‘That was a couple of months ago,’ Bourne said. ‘A great bash,’ he added wistfully. ‘Anyway, he knows Colombia.’

  ‘I know.’ Wynwood had been one of two advisers sent by Her Majesty’s Government to help train the Colombian Special Forces Anti-Narcotics Unit in the early 90s. After his partner and a prominent local politician had been kidnapped by the drug-dealing Amarales family, Wynwood had taken charge of the four-man patrol sent in to execute a rescue. The team had proved successful but not in the way intended, and had ended up having to walk across a mountain range to escape pursuit. Even then, two of their number had died at the hands of the Amaraleses’ sicarios. ‘The Colombians might remember him,’ Greaves thought out loud.

  ‘The name maybe, but we can change that. He’s brilliant in the field, he speaks fluent Spanish and he’ll get on with Docherty.’

  ‘OK, I’m sold, he’s the PC. What about the others?’

  ‘Why not get Wynwood in here?’ Bourne asked.

  Greaves hesitated – even after a year back he was still not fully attuned to the Regiment’s uniquely democratic ways – but only for a moment. ‘Why not?’ he agreed.

  Joss Wynwood was just getting into his car, having decided to trim the odd half-hour off his working day. He and Sarah were going out for a meal with her elder sister and brother-in-law that evening and he wanted some time with his wife before they went. They could do a jigsaw together, or take a shower together, or…

  It was his sister-in-law’s thirty-eighth birthday, and he’d be thirty-nine himself in a couple of weeks. Next year he’d be forty. He had used to worry about getting older, but not since meeting Sarah.

  He was just moving towards the gates, midway through fastening his seat-belt, when the trooper appeared in the side window, running along beside him and tapping on the glass. He rolled the window down and slowed the car to a crawl, letting the trooper slow to a walk as he delivered his message. The news that the CO wanted to see him made him feel like a schoolboy caught skiving off school early.

  ‘Any idea what it’s about?’ he asked optimistically.

  ‘Not a clue, Sarge,’ the trooper told him with a grin.

  Wynwood parked the car and walked thoughtfully across the parade ground towards the CO’s office. The sky in the west was beginning to fill with clouds, which usually meant overnight rain. With any luck he wouldn’t have to water the garden.

  He knocked on the door and heard the CO’s ‘come in’. Wynwood hadn’t had that much to do with Greaves since his appointment the previous year, but like most of the Regiment he’d been pleasantly surprised by the ease of the transition. Barney Davies had been a much-loved and respected figure, and so far Greaves didn’t seem that much of a comedown.

  It wasn’t just the CO waiting for him inside – Jimmy Bourne was there as well. Maybe the CRW Wing was being abolished. He took the seat next to his immediate superior and prepared to be enlightened.

  ‘There’s another cup of tea on the way,’ Greaves said by way of preamble. ‘We’ve been given a job to do,’ he continued, and proceeded to outline what it was.

  Wynwood listened, feeling initially torn between wanting to go and not wanting to leave his current happiness behind. But as the CO, with occasional help from Bourne, sketched out the prospective operation, the Welshman’s two decades of professional commitment reasserted themselves. The job itself seemed straightforward enough; the only obvious problem was weapons supply. The actual assault should present no real difficulties, as long as it was properly planned and executed. And as for the getaway, Bourne had apparently spent most of the morning confirming that a chopper from the Caymans could be customized to collect the team
from just outside the twelve-mile limit.

  ‘We think you’re the best man to lead the team,’ Greaves told him.

  ‘Thank you, boss,’ Wynwood said automatically. He had just seen the new film of Mission: Impossible and half expected to be handed a self-destructing tape. ‘Who else have you chosen?’ he asked.

  ‘No one yet,’ Bourne said. ‘You’re here to help us pick the names out of a hat.’

  Terry Stoneham left the car by the wooden gate, not really caring whether he was infringing on a farmer’s right to move his livestock, and started up the public footpath, kicking stones as he went. Every time he saw the kid a great bundle of conflicting emotions seemed to knock him sideways, and as usual he found himself wondering why he was putting himself through it all. Mark was Jane and Don’s child in every way that counted. It might have been his sperm which fertilized the egg, but Don had been the one at the birth, the one who had watched the first walk and heard the first word. He was the one the kid called Dada.

  He kicked another stone, with slightly less vicious intent.

  Jane had asked him to let go, stand back, give up the kid. All his friends in the Regiment thought he was just digging himself a hole to be miserable in. Even his parents had told him to think about what was best for the boy, and God only knew how much they wanted a grandchild.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t know if it was a real attachment or pure stubbornness, just as he still didn’t know whether he’d really loved Jane or only thought he did.

  His early life had not prepared him for this. In a world of broken families and free-wheeling angst his parents had loved each other and him – just about the only thing he’d been deprived of was a sense of deprivation. He’d been a happy baby, a happy child, a happy youth and a happy grown-up, right up to that moment when his pregnant wife had told him about her lover.

  But that was two years ago, he told himself as he reached the top of the hill. Just before the hostage crisis in Samarkand which he and Rob Brierley had sorted out with a little help from the locals. Well, quite a lot of help actually. He had really fancied Nurhan, the woman in charge – in vain, unfortunately – but at least the fancying had helped dull the pain of his ex-wife’s betrayal. He had noticed today that he no longer found Jane in the slightest bit sexy. He had given up on her, so why couldn’t he give up on a kid he only saw for a couple of hours each week, a kid moreover who didn’t really seem to know who the occasional visitor was?

  He thought he’d make a good father one day, but then Don already seemed to be one, and an art teacher was less likely to get killed than an SAS sergeant, even one who seemed permanently stationed in a classroom full of smart-arse trainees.

  Stoneham smiled to himself and ran a hand through his straw-coloured hair. ‘Ah, what the fuck,’ he murmured to himself and gazed out at the fuzzy line of the distant Black Mountains. Maybe he could get a security job with Princess Di, entrance her with his ready wit and manly body, and get a cut of the millions Charlie had lobbed in her direction.

  He laughed and looked at his watch – he had a class in half an hour.

  There was no irate farmer waiting by the gate and the traffic was kind, so he made it with three minutes to spare. The trainees were full of enthusiasm and long on naïve questions, and by the end of the class he felt old for his thirty-four years. Still, he’d outlived Jesus, he thought, as he headed for the canteen and a possibly life-threatening meal. He was only ten metres from the doors, and could almost smell the spotted dick, when the adjutant collared him. The CO wanted to see him at eight the following morning, and he should cancel his classes for the coming fortnight.

  At twenty to eight the next morning the ‘Twins’ were mopping up the last of their fried eggs with slices of white bread. Both accent and appearance offered proof positive that there was no blood relationship between Corporals Sam Blackman and Charles McCall. The Liverpudlian ‘Blackie’ had dark hair and an almost gangling frame, the Glaswegian ‘Bonnie’ ginger hair and a riot of freckles, but since their simultaneous badging in 1990 the pair had seemed virtually inseparable. They were now in the last stretch of their second three-year term in the SAS and had no intention of missing out on a third.

  But shit happened, as the Americans said, and on this particular morning they were anxiously wondering why the CO had developed this sudden yearning to see their pretty faces.

  ‘It can’t be about that fight you got us into, can it?’ Blackie asked plaintively.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘In the Slug & Pellet.’

  ‘It was you got us into that one, staring at that tart’s tits.’

  ‘It was you asked if they were real. That was what really set her boyfriend off.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Bonnie agreed, remembering the breasts in question.

  ‘Anyway, that was two weeks ago,’ Blackie said. ‘He’d have had us in before now.’

  ‘So what did we do last weekend?’

  ‘We went to that party in Ludlow.’

  ‘We crashed that party in Ludlow,’ Bonnie corrected him. ‘And you tried to go swimming in the punch-bowl.’ He sighed. ‘But let’s look on the bright side. He doesn’t want to tear us off a strip – he wants to tell us what a great job we’ve been doing. Or maybe there’s a job waiting for us, and we can get out of fucking Hereford for a while. Give the women a chance to miss us. You know, build up expectations for when we return.’

  ‘Yeah, right. An all-expenses-paid fortnight in sunny Belfast.’

  ‘It could be another HAHO drop on to the mountain above the bad guy’s lair,’ Bonnie said reminiscently. He and Blackie had been part of the back-up troop parachuted into Colombia in 1990. They had been on the ground no more than a couple of hours, but just about every minute, not to mention the preceding hour-long drop, was etched in the memories of the two men.

  ‘Christ, I hope so,’ Blackie murmured.

  ‘Or they could send us after that Bosnian Serb – what’s his name? – the one they want for the war crimes.’

  ‘Karadzic.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s him. Well, someone’s got to arrest the bastard, haven’t they?’

  Blackie shrugged. ‘It’d be a change.’

  ‘Those Bosnian women won’t know what hit ’em.’

  ‘Your sledgehammer wit, you mean?’

  Bonnie grinned. ‘You’re just jealous. That new barmaid at the Pig’s Head thought I should go professional.’

  ‘She was winding you up.’

  ‘No chance. I think I’m in there this weekend.’

  ‘If you’re not in Bosnia,’ Blackie said, looking at the canteen clock. ‘I think it’s time we got our orders from Jimmy.’

  They gulped down the last of the sludge-like coffee and started across the parade ground in the direction of the CO’s office. In the distance the unmistakable figure of Senior Staff Sergeant Wynwood was coming towards them. ‘Christ, maybe we are going back to fucking Colombia,’ Blackie muttered.

  ‘Change of venue, lads,’ said Wynwood. ‘It’s the Kremlin for us.’

  ‘So what’s it about, boss?’ Bonnie asked innocently.

  ‘All will be revealed shortly,’ Wynwood told him. ‘As the actress said to the bishop.’

  ‘I bet that made his cassock bulge,’ Blackie murmured.

  In the briefing room they found the CO, Jimmy Bourne and Terry Stoneham already waiting. The mounted water-buffalo’s head, a forty-year-old souvenir of the Regiment’s time in Malaya, gazed moodily down at the assembly. As they took their seats, Bonnie and Blackie noticed the large-scale map of the Caribbean draped across the easel.

  Bourne started the ball rolling with a brief biographical sketch of Bazua and his activities. Stoneham, Bonnie and Blackie, who were hearing of the man for the first time, looked suitably angered by his presence on the planet. The involvement of Jamie Docherty – a famous SAS old boy – was greeted with interest.

  ‘Can we call him Grandad?’ Bonnie wanted to know.

&n
bsp; ‘If you want to end up feeding the sharks,’ Wynwood told him.

  ‘Right,’ Bourne said, leaning towards the map. ‘Now for the interesting bit. You four are off to the delightful Colombian island of Providencia.’ He tapped a point in the Caribbean which seemed closer to Central America than Colombia, then folded the sheet back to reveal a smaller-scale map of the island itself. ‘Wynwood and Stoneham will arrive tomorrow afternoon, Blackman and McCall will spend a day on the adjoining island of San Andrés – an uneventful day, I should stress – and then move over to Providencia the following day. That night – preferably that night – you will break into Bazua’s home and sink his boats.’ He did a round of the four faces. ‘All clear so far?’

  ‘Not really,’ Blackie said. ‘Why do we need to break into his house to sink his boats? They’re not in the swimming pool, are they?’

  Bourne grinned. ‘We didn’t want to make it too simple in case you got bored. For one thing your chances of escape will increase about a hundredfold if you destroy Bazua’s communications with the outside world. For another, Bazua has something the Intelligence boys want to get their hands on – he has military records from the 70s Dirty War in Argentina.’

  ‘Most 70s records are crap,’ Bonnie murmured.

  ‘Why do they want them?’ Stoneham asked.

  Bourne looked at Greaves, who nodded. ‘They may find out that Bazua has an important friend in American Intelligence,’ he told them.

  ‘What about Bazua?’ Stoneham asked. ‘Do our masters want him dead or alive?’

  Bourne looked at Greaves again.

  ‘We don’t want him brought out,’ the CO said. ‘The government couldn’t put him on trial without admitting that British troops had snatched him from Colombian soil.’ He paused, looking almost embarrassed, Wynwood thought. ‘I’ve been put in a difficult position,’ Greaves went on, ‘which I’m afraid means that you’re in one too. MI6 want this man dead, and they will also be involved in this operation – they already have a man on the island. I can’t say that I’d shed too many tears if Bazua gets killed, but I have been given no orders for his assassination. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to play it by ear.’ He paused again. ‘And there’s another complication. There are several women on the premises – we don’t know how many. Five were kidnapped on the mainland a year or so ago and taken to the island, and as far as we know three of them are still there. They’re Bazua’s prisoners – slaves virtually. And there may be more than three.’