Deep Black ns-7

by Andy McNab

  I checked the viewfinder once more, but I had a sinking feeling deep in my guts. Who was I trying to kid? The strike wasn’t going to happen. Mladic and the rest of his bastards were going to get away with this. And they were going to live to do it another day.

  Zina’s eyes stared back at me. They were no longer clear and bright, just vacant and drab like everything else around her.

  Fuck the Firm, fuck Mladic. I should have called in the Paveway as soon as she’d turned up.

  11

  Washington DC

  Thursday, 2 October 2003

  ‘Fuck it, that was over nine years ago. It’s all history now.’

  Ezra sat back in his chair and studied me with one of those serious yet deeply understanding looks they probably teach at shrink school.

  I shifted slightly in my own chair and the leather squeaked. I let my gaze wander along the wood-panelled walls, past the pictures and framed certificates. Ezra would probably say this was me looking for a way out, but I knew there wouldn’t be one for another twenty minutes at least. I ended up staring through the window at the Arlington Memorial Bridge, fifteen floors down and a couple of blocks away.

  ‘Was that the first time you felt betrayed?’

  I looked at him across the low coffee-table. There was nothing on it but a box of tissues. In case I ever wanted to burst out crying, I supposed.

  Ezra was maybe seventy, seventy-five, something like that. His hair was like a steel-grey helmet, and although the rest of his face had aged, his eyes sparkled as much as they probably had when he was thirty and knocking women shrinks senseless at conferences in Vienna. For all I knew he still was.

  Why was he still working? Why hadn’t he retired? I’d wanted to ask him that ever since I started with him nine months ago, but these sessions were strictly about me. He’d never tell me anything about himself. All I knew about him was that he was the one who got lumbered with the fruits who worked for George and needed sorting out.

  He raised an eyebrow to prompt my answer. I was well used to his repertoire of body signals by now.

  ‘Betrayed? No. Shit happens. It was more a turning point in how I thought about them. So many deaths, so many of them kids. Especially Zina. It’s just, well . . .’ I paused and looked back out towards the bridge. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’

  He didn’t believe me and I heard myself filling the silence. ‘Three hours I waited there. All that time, calling on the net, trying to find out what the fuck was happening. Meanwhile, Mladic filled his face, had his afters and left. And all that time his boys were upstairs with the girls. When I finally got back to Sarajevo I didn’t even get told why the job was cancelled. Just to wind my neck in and hang around the hotel for the next one. Which never happened.’

  Ezra just sat and waited.

  ‘Who knows? Maybe if Zina had held on and not done a runner she’d still be alive. Maybe if I’d called in the Paveway earlier she would have lived, or I would have put her and the others out of their misery. Fuck it – who cares? It’s all in the past.’

  Ezra tilted his head a little to one side. Even through the double-glazing I could hear an aircraft coming out of Ronald Reagan airport just the other side of the Potomac. I watched it lift into the sky, probably rattling the windows of my apartment block as it went.

  ‘Then why talk about it so much these last few weeks, Nick? Why does it always come back to Bosnia?’

  I didn’t have an answer, and I knew by now that he wouldn’t fill the silence himself. If it took the whole fifty minutes, he’d wait.

  In the end I just shrugged. ‘You brought it up.’

  ‘No, Nick, I think you’ll find that you did. But we always get to a certain point and then we stop. Why do you think that happens? It certainly feels to me that there’s a lot more in there you want to let out. Could it be that your psyche is protecting you? Preventing you letting everything you feel come out?’

  I hated it when he played the subconscious card. ‘Listen, I don’t know too much about the psyche shit, but I’ll tell you this: I’ve been thinking about topping myself.’

  ‘Because of Kelly?’

  ‘Because it’s hard to think of reasons why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘You know it wasn’t your fault. You know there was nothing you could have done to save her. So why would you do that?’

  ‘I might as well. She’s gone. What the fuck’s left? Therapy with you twice a week for the next ten years? You might not last that long.’

  I rubbed my fingers into my hair and smelt them. I was waiting for him to ask why I thought I did that. He normally did. Even though I bet he knew the answer.

  He brought his right hand up to his face and stroked his chin. ‘You know, Nick, if you really thought that way, you would have done it by now. I prescribed you enough drugs to open your own pharmacy.’ He pointed at the window. ‘You could try running away if you wanted to, just like Zina did. But the fact is, you continue to come here to carry on with our therapeutic relationship.’

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. ‘I keep telling you, I’m not here for any sort of relationship. I’m here because George sent me. The whole thing is bollocks.’

  It was like water off a duck’s back to him. ‘Why is it bollocks, Nick? It was you who thought therapy might help you cope with Kelly’s death. Isn’t that what all this is about – helping you overcome the trauma of losing her?’

  ‘No, I’m here because George sent me. And everything I’ve said will be reported back to him, won’t it? Maybe he’s listening right now – what the fuck do I know?’

  ‘Nick, you know that isn’t true. How are we going to move forward if there isn’t complete trust between us? You have nothing to fear. I understand the pressures you’re under. I understand the sort of work you’ve been involved with. It’s natural in your business that you would keep everything battened down inside. I’ve been doing this for people just like you since Vietnam, trying to help them overcome those feelings. But we’re going nowhere unless we have complete trust.’ He sat back slowly, giving me time to let it all sink in. The index finger went back to his chin. ‘George understands the pressures and constraints you’re under. He wants you back, fit and able to work.’

  We were going round in circles. We must have had this conversation at least a dozen times. ‘But being here won’t help that, will it? I feel I’m trapped in some kind of Catch 22 situation. If I don’t conform, you’ll keep me here until I admit I have a problem. If I do conform, I’m admitting there’s a problem and I won’t get out.’

  ‘But you must still have some notion that you want to be helped. You’ve talked about having feelings of loneliness . . .’

  ‘I didn’t ask for help, I only agreed to it because I didn’t know what the fuck else to do. I now realize I should have shut up and got on with my job. People all over the planet have their kids dying on them every day and they still go to work, they still get on with their lives. I should have said nothing and got on with it.’

  Ezra leaned forward. ‘But Kelly didn’t just die, did she, Nick? She was killed – and, what’s more, you were there. It does make a difference.’

  ‘Why? Why does everything have to have a label? You can’t be shy any more, you have to have social phobia. Try hard to succeed and you’ve got a perfectionist complex. Why can’t I just get on with life and go back to work? What are you going to say now, that I’m in denial?’

  He studied me again in that way of his that always got me pissed off. ‘Do you think you’re in denial, Nick?’

  ‘Look, I know I’m fucked up a bit, but what do you expect? Who isn’t? Can’t you be happy with that diagnosis – “fucked up a bit”? You’ve got to be a bit Dagenham to do the job anyway.’

  He raised an eyebrow. They must learn that at shrink school too. ‘Dagenham?’

  I nodded. ‘Two stops short of Barking.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘London joke. On the London Underground, Dagenham is
two stations away from Barking. Barking? Barking mad. Dagenham, two stops short of Barking.’

  He sort of got it but decided it was time to close that particular chapter. ‘So, did you see Bang Bang yet?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m not sure it helped. I didn’t become a gibbering wreck or come out crying, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  I got a smile out of him again, but I hated it when he did that: he looked as if he could see right through me. ‘Nick, what you’ve really got to remember is that by doing your bit to help end that war, you probably did save a whole lot of lives.’

  I lifted my hands. ‘So what? The war was bollocks. People got killed for nothing, kids got killed for nothing. Anyway, whatever. Over and done with.’

  His eyes flicked towards the clock on the wall behind me. ‘I see we’ve run over our time again.’

  That was always my cue to get up and take my leave. Most times I’d have liked to wrench the door open and make a break for it. But I knew that would only mean the next fifty-minute session would be spent talking about why I’d done a runner, so, as always, I got up and put on my leather bomber slowly. I’d learned that I needed to take it off when I arrived, because if I didn’t we’d end up talking about the reasons why I’d kept it on. Did it mean I didn’t want to be here, and was hoping for a fast getaway?

  He stood up with me and came to the door. ‘I’m glad you finally went to Bang Bang, Nick. The psyche, you see – you can never rush it, it takes its time to work things through, to help you take the right decisions.

  ‘I think Bosnia affected you more than you think. I think there’s a connection between losing Kelly and the death of Zina. We’ll get there eventually, when the psyche is ready to beam us in.

  ‘But that can only happen if you feel comfortable with our therapeutic relationship. I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help you. All your life you’ve had to hold things inside and not show your feelings, so I appreciate it was never going to be easy to let all this emotion out. As long as you realize it’s going to take some time . . .

  ‘And, Nick, even if you were lied to, it sounds like you really did make a difference during that time.’

  I stood on the threshold. ‘Just like old Beardilocks, yeah? At least he had the bollocks to let a few die in order to save the rest.’

  12

  Friday, 3 October

  My neck was stiff and my face was stuck to the leatherette. The sofa wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but that was what I always seemed to end up doing these days.

  Forcing my eyes open, I checked Baby-G. It was a pink one – Kelly’s fifteenth and last birthday present from me. There was still time, so I pulled the blanket over my head to block out the glare of the TV and the dull grey light just seeping through the blinds.

  I pressed one of Baby-G’s side buttons and watched the face glow a purple colour and the stick man do a break-dance. She’d thought it was a bit silly, but I liked it. Fucking hell, I missed her. I rubbed my hair and smelt the grease on my hand as I closed my eyes.

  She lay so perfectly still, as I’d seen her lie so many times when she was asleep – stretched out on her back, arms and legs out like a starfish. Except that this time there’d been no sucking of her bottom lip, no flickering of her eyes under their lids as she dreamed. Kelly’s head was twisted to the right, at far too unnatural an angle.

  Why the fuck hadn’t I got there quicker? I could have stopped the fucking nightmare . . .

  As I’d leaned over her, my tears had fallen on to her hair-covered face. I checked for a pulse, even though I knew it was futile.

  I’d dragged her to the edge of the bed and gathered her in my arms, trying to hold her as best I could as I stumbled back towards the doorway.

  They would be coming up the stairs soon, respirators on, weapons up.

  I’d lain down next to her, gathering her head in my arms and pulling it on to my chest.

  And buried my face in her hair.

  Avoice from the TV told me tonight’s hot ticket was going to be Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt. The TV had kept waking me during the night, but I couldn’t be arsed to scrabble around for the remote to switch it off. In fact, last night I hadn’t even been arsed to get undressed before channel-hopping for hours and eventually falling asleep. On an MTV night I could learn quite a lot about the latest bands out there. Kelly would have been proud of me.

  It was no use. I was awake now. I felt about on the floor, knocking over a couple of empty mugs then running my hand over the remains of a toasted cheese sandwich. I finally got hold of the remote and flicked through the morning soaps and re-runs of Jerry Springer until I hit a news channel. Another two US soldiers had been killed in Iraq.

  I planned my day, which didn’t take long. It was going to be exactly the same as most of the other days I didn’t spend sitting in front of Ezra. Or maybe not. I remembered promising myself I was going to open the windows today. It was getting so rank in here that even I could smell it. And, of course, there was another meeting with George.

  I rolled off the sofa and threw the blankets back on top. The kitchen was a disaster zone. The stainless steel and glass had been clean and shiny when I took up the tenancy, but these days I seemed to be sharing the place with a gorilla. He came in every night while I was asleep and messed up all the cleaning I’d done. He dirtied all the plates, filled the bin to overflowing, then spilled coffee and tea on the work surfaces. To top it all, he chucked bits of stale bread and empty spaghetti-hoops cans about the place, and after trashing the kitchen he fucked up the rest of the flat. The last thing he always did before leaving, as far as I could tell, was shit in my mouth. It certainly tasted like it, this time of the morning.

  I shoved the last couple of slices into the toaster and peeled the plastic from some processed cheese. A constant stream of aircraft headed into Ronald Reagan, and the TV next door blasted out that Channel Nine was going live to an armed siege in Maryland.

  I fired up the kettle and wandered back in to watch, munching on the cheese. I never knew why I bothered taking the wrappers off: it all tasted the same.

  I found myself watching a young black guy coming out of his front door in just a pair of jeans. His hands were in the air, but there was a pistol in one. The place was surrounded by police, one barking at him through a megaphone to put down the gun. It was hard to tell from his body language: was this guy drugged up or just pissed off?

  I tried to unstick the cheese from my teeth and the roof of my mouth. The black guy shouted for them to shoot him, pounding on his chest with his free hand. The megaphone screamed at him to put down the weapon, and for a split second it looked like that was what he was going to do. He started to lower the weapon, but instead of laying it on the ground he turned the muzzle towards the group of police hunched down behind their cruiser, and that was the last thing he did. Six or seven rounds hit him at once and he dropped like liquid. The screen went black, then we were back in the studio, the anchors changing swiftly to traffic conditions on the Beltway. Another suicide-by-cop for us to watch live over our corn flakes.

  The toast popped up. I went and shoved a fresh batch of cheese squares between the unbuttered slices and scraped the last bit of Branston from the jar with a dirty teaspoon. I’d been getting through three or four jars of the stuff a week. Ezra would have had a field day if I’d told him: I clearly had an unfulfilled yearning for the old country. Sliced white bread, cheese slices and Branston pickle – often three times a day, and lying on the sofa watching Oprah. No wonder my jeans were getting difficult to put on.

  I turned towards the window, looking through the gloom in the direction of his office to have my daily mimic. ‘Do you have any idea what that might mean, Nick?’

  Chewing on the sandwich, I shoved what was left in the air at him. ‘Shove it up your arse.’

  ‘That’s ass, Nick – you’re an American now.’

  I rooted round in the empty boxes on the worktop but with no luck. I was out of teabags but not
out of pills. I had nine big bottles of the stuff Ezra prescribed me. I told him I was taking them but, fuck it, I didn’t want that shit inside me. I had enough problems with the Branston.

  I was going to have to haul my fat arse out of the flat and down to the Brit shop in Georgetown that all the embassy boys went to. All Brits hate the fancy teabags on a string they try to fob you off with in the States. They taste terrible and there’s hardly anything in them anyway. What I wanted was monkey tea, the sort you can stand your teaspoon up in, the sort that comes out of a plumber’s Thermos looking like hot chocolate. But, then, could I really be bothered? Probably not. Depending on what George had to say, I could be leaving today. Where would I plug in my kettle then?

  I thought about taking a shower, but fuck it. I just ran the kitchen tap and threw some water on my hair to tame the Johnny Rotten look, and pulled my trainers on.

  On the way to the Metro I grabbed a Danish and got it down me before I reached Crystal City station. Eating, drinking, smoking – you name it, you can’t do it on the Washington Metro.

  A few minutes later, as the pristine aluminium train rumbled under the capital, I found myself thinking about the guy on the news. Whatever problem he’d had, it was over now. He’d got it sorted.

  I didn’t care what happened to me, but Ezra was right: if I really thought that way, I’d have already done it. I would never take that route. I could still remember the feeling I got when other ex-Regiment guys killed themselves, and it wasn’t envy, pity or anything else. It was just anger, big-time, for leaving someone else to pick up the pieces. Sometimes I’d had to sort out their kit before it went back to the next of kin. It was important there weren’t any letters from girlfriends or anything else from their secret lives to embarrass the family. I remembered burning letters to one particular guy, thinking they were from a girlfriend. When I took the rest of his kit round to his wife she burst into tears. How could Al not have kept any of the love letters she signed off as Fizz, his pet name for her?