Assassin (John Stratton)

by Falconer, Duncan

  ‘Two glasses, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’ While the bartender busied himself, Chandos turned back to Stratton. ‘Bugger them,’ he said in a lowered voice. ‘Might as well enjoy it to the bitter end.’

  The bartender brought the wine over and tipped a sample into a glass, waiting for them to taste it.

  ‘If it’s corked, I’ll let you know,’ Chandos said, not in the mood for such ceremony.

  The bartender filled both glasses and left the pair alone.

  Stratton had convinced himself Chandos was about to tell him he was terminally ill. Maybe he’d had some news from the doctor. He looked bad enough. Chandos was never dramatic. On the contrary. He was famously understated. No matter what the threat.

  ‘Officers could never be dual SF and military intelligence,’ Chandos said. ‘Not full time. Their careers are too structured. It would have to be either one or the other. And few officers would elect to join MI6. There’s little money in it. Little chance of promotion. And much of the romance of the business is restricted to the pages of the novels that have been written about it. NCOs are a better choice to cross-deck. Theoretically. But the pickings are slim. There are many qualities required for an SIS operative. Few have most. You are rare, my boy. Don’t get too cocky, though. You don’t have ’em all. You’ve gained some over time. And you’ve lost some.’

  Stratton could hardly guess what he was referring to. He did wonder what he’d lost, though. His enthusiasm perhaps. He never showed it in the early days. Nowadays he was more of a cynic. He’d lost his naivety too.

  ‘That happens,’ Chandos said, as if to soften the criticism. ‘There are the inevitable pressures. We grow stronger in some ways. Weaker in others. Our scepticism weakens us. As does our paranoia. That’s a strength too of course. We begin to think we want to quit. But we don’t really. Not really.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘I was recruited into the SIS immediately after I left the SBS.’

  Stratton was impressed. Not about the contents of the revelation, which he’d suspected for a long time, ever since he’d seen Chandos at headquarters. It was that he had chosen to tell him.

  ‘I was too old to be a frontline mechanic like you. They used me for light footwork at first. Planning. Spy contacts. Ops organising. Crisis management. That sort of thing. I expect you’re wondering why I’m suddenly telling you all of this.’

  Stratton was. But he shrugged as he finished off his beer and put the empty glass to one side.

  The door opened and Chandos turned quickly to look at the man who walked in on the cold breeze. It wasn’t a subtle examination. The new arrival, dressed in a business suit, walked across the room and greeted two other well-dressed men. The way they immediately laughed suggested they were chums. None looked in Chandos’s direction.

  Chandos took a large gulp of wine from his glass and put it back down on the bar. ‘I thought life would get less complicated when I joined military intelligence. Less responsibility at least. Instead of running the whole show as I did in the SBS. I expected, as a foot soldier, if you like, to be given orders and to follow them through. And after the job was done, kick back and relax while waiting for the next. Rather like you do now.

  ‘But that wasn’t to be the case. I became involved. I ran double lives. I became more than one person, to others as well as to myself. Life became more complicated than it had ever been before.’

  Chandos reached for the wine again. ‘I’m not making much sense but perhaps it’ll come together in a minute. When I joined the SIS I was rather cavalier. No surprise there, I hear you thinking. When I pushed for your involvement it was mostly because I could. Of course, I believed you would be an asset, as you have been. But it was mostly arrogance on my part. I thought it was a game I was going to enjoy, on the sidelines as much as on the pitch. I knew you’d enjoy it too. Is that true?’ Chandos suddenly looked unsure about something. ‘Have you enjoyed it?’

  Stratton shrugged. He wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. ‘For the most part, I suppose,’ he said. As he thought about it some more he decided he’d enjoyed the early days immensely. Mostly the freedom to operate alone. But over time he’d grown jaded. By the system. By the attitude of some of his employers. They seemed to be more interested in their own importance. Placing personal ambitions ahead of what was best for the country. And the operatives on the ground at times. It seemed to him that patriotism was not a driving force for the mandarins or politicians. But they expected it, or better still, demanded it, from the lower ranks.

  ‘I’ve made enemies over time,’ Chandos said. ‘Not that that was ever a real concern. It’s all a part of the job. You see, you make enemies on an operation, you can usually leave them there. But I made enemies too close to home. And they can’t be avoided so easily.’

  Chandos took another sip of wine. ‘You know how you make a serious enemy in this business, don’t you?’

  Stratton expected it was a rhetorical question and waited for Chandos to answer.

  ‘You don’t do it by revealing their incompetence or lack of patriotism. You do it by letting them find out that you know they’re not on our side at all.’ Chandos finished the glass and refilled it and Stratton’s own.

  Stratton decided not to let his friend drink alone and took a sip. ‘Are you talking about double agents?’ he asked, unsure. Even saying the words felt odd. It seemed like an outdated phrase. From the Cold War.

  ‘I’m talking about people who work only for themselves. And they have partners on other teams. In other countries. Among our friends as well as our foes. It’s sickening. It makes a mockery of everything people like you and me live for. And of those friends who have died. And the real joke of it is, those bastards couldn’t do it if we weren’t patriots – they make sure we are. And we feel good about that and we ensure everyone else on the team is too. And they laugh at us even more for it.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Stratton said, starting to feel a tad irritated with Chandos’s increasing lack of clarity. Berry was a usually a great talker. Particularly on the subject of geopolitics. But not like this. His favourite topic was normally the old days and the evolution of the Service.

  The front door banged shut as a couple of people left and Chandos jerked around to look at it.

  He turned back to the bar again, realising he was tense and that Stratton was aware of it.

  ‘Can I give you some advice?’ he said.

  ‘Your advice has always been sound.’

  ‘Quit the SIS.’

  The advice didn’t sit well with Stratton. He didn’t want to quit and saw no reason to. ‘What’s bothering you?’ he asked.

  Chandos finished off the wine. ‘I received a warning today from a friend. Someone I trust. And there are few of them these days.’ He had his elbows on the bar, looking directly ahead. ‘I’m being hunted.’

  Stratton found himself thinking about Chandos’s so-called retirement again. He had been a highly respected and much-loved SBS commander. He’d been one of the great leaders and operational planners of his day. He was highly decorated and had been mentioned in several military history books, not always by his real name. There was a photograph of him on the stairs in the Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge.

  ‘What do you mean, “hunted”?’

  ‘It’s a specialist. Not some rank amateur. A professional. It’s a bit like being told you have an incurable disease and that you’ll expire at any moment. Without warning. Pop!’

  Stratton knew better than to ask if there was anything Chandos could do on an official level. Berry was no fool. He had recognised Stratton’s own potential from the start. He’d been a mentor to him from the earliest days after Stratton’s arrival at the SBS HQ in Poole.

  ‘Maybe together we could do something,’ Stratton said.

  Chandos shook his head. ‘Even if we succeeded, he’d be replaced by another. You’d become a target too.’

  ‘Are you saying there’s absolutely nothing you can do?’

  ‘Ther
e is something. It’s all I can think of. I need to get to the person who sent the assassin against me. But I don’t know how much time I’ve got.’ He turned to Stratton and looked at him as if he’d arrived at the crux of the meeting. ‘I came here for a specific reason, Stratton. But you have to know that if you take it on, your life will also be in danger.’

  This was beginning to sound as if it would be unsupported. Independent of assistance from government or allies. Stratton wouldn’t be getting a briefing in a pub otherwise.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Finish what I started.’ Chandos was looking at him with great sincerity. It was as close to pleading as Stratton had ever seen from him. ‘I wouldn’t ask if there wasn’t so much at stake. In the short term, it could involve several thousands of lives. But it could ultimately lead to the loss of many more.’

  Stratton was reminded of why he’d agreed to come here after Chandos’s call out of the blue. Chandos certainly believed what he was saying. But the talk of an assassin had made Stratton a little suspicious of Chandos’s mental state. Just enough to sow a seed of doubt. On the other hand, he owed Chandos the right to be believed. After all those years, and after so much that Chandos had meant to him, he had to give the man the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing yet. Only if I fail. If anything happens to me, you’ll be contacted by a close and special friend. Someone I trust implicitly. Remember the name Bullfrog. They’ll tell you the objective. The rest will be up to you. You can take it or walk away.’

  Chandos took some money from his pocket and dropped it on the bar. ‘Forget about the assassin,’ he said. ‘At the risk of damaging your pride, you’d not be anywhere near good enough to take him on.’ Chandos paused a moment as if to examine his thoughts. ‘If I fail, if I die and you decide not to take it on, then do what I said, leave the business. Quit it all and walk away. Go to the mountains and raise sheep or something. There’s no point if we’re not going to take on the big tasks. We can’t let these people take over. Although sometimes I fear they may have already.’

  He put a hand in his pocket and removed something from it. A large silver coin with a small chain attached. He put it on the bar in front of Stratton.

  Stratton picked it up to look at both sides. It was an SBS stone. A coin every retired member could ask for on leaving the Service. It had the SBS badge on one side: a frog with crossed canoe paddles, a parachute and inscribed with the SBS motto, ‘By Strength By Guile’. On the other side was Chandos’s name. The coin didn’t come with a small chain, something Chandos had added himself.

  ‘It’s your stone,’ Stratton said.

  ‘I want you to keep it,’ Chandos said. ‘Keep it with you. Will you do that?’

  Stratton thought it was an odd request. He would, unless it threatened to compromise him in any way. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘I mean to have it back one day. Least that’s the plan.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ Stratton said. It was all he could think of saying by way of encouragement.

  Chandos held out a hand. ‘All the best,’ he said.

  As Stratton took hold of his mentor’s hand, he felt very odd. It seemed that more should have been said in terms of farewell, considering they might never see each other again. He was about to say something, but before he could form a word, Chandos released his hand and walked to the door. He opened it and left on the breeze he had swept in on, without a look back.

  Stratton felt very strange about the meeting. Chandos had apparently gone to his death, or at least to try and save himself from it. Though he clearly doubted his chances of succeeding. And as for Stratton, if the worst was to happen, if Chandos was to die, he was supposed to pick up the pieces of some mysterious and world shattering plot and try and put them together.

  He felt very strange indeed.

  5

  General Mahuba sat beside his servant as they drove the Toyota along a never-ending line of parked trucks. Old and new. Battered and shiny. An assortment of fuel transports and container trucks parked nose to tail along one side of the road. The vehicles’ drivers slept in their cabs or congregated in small groups around their vehicles or on the verges. Some resting beneath them. Smoking, cooking, drinking tea. This was the habitually congested Torkham checkpoint on the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. It was a mass of convoy transportation waiting to move through the narrow customs, police and army checkpoint into Afghanistan. A snake of supply vehicles several miles long patiently waited to gain entry to feed and fuel the country, as well as the massive NATO and US war machines that occupied it. Full transports going into Afghanistan, empty ones coming out. Vehicle and aviation fuel. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Ice cream and hot dogs. Spare parts for vehicles and machinery. Sacks of corn. A line of flatbeds carried a dozen brand-new US military Humvees. All the vehicles waited for their paperwork to be verified and, in some cases, the loads checked.

  Mahuba looked over his shoulder through the rear window as he had done a thousand times since leaving the Sheraghund Mountains the night before. He wasn’t so much interested in what or who was behind him as in the contents of his small flatbed. The crate was still there. Tightly lashed down.

  They drove past a group of burned-out fuel trucks. The result of a Taliban attack a few days before. Mahuba noted that the Taliban were finally listening to his advice. It wasn’t always the case. The commanders were a stubborn lot and thought they knew everything. He’d become irritated with them of late. They’d pressed few successful attacks against US and NATO supply lines within Afghanistan and he’d been urging them to conduct more of that activity within Pakistan where there was far less security on the convoys. Sometimes none. And there were definitely no US or coalition military to chase them. He’d met stiff resistance from within Pakistan itself when he first suggested such a plan. But Mahuba had ignored it. The Pakistan military and government were full of the weak and the corrupt. And the Americans had too much control over enough of them to make things difficult.

  The truth was he no longer cared about all of that. The Taliban were never going to wrest control from the Americans, the way they were going about the war. Their only chance lay in waiting until the Americans left. But that would mean the loss of their enemy and the loss of opportunity. It would be very difficult to hit the Americans once they ran home.

  So things were about to change. Mahuba was going to tip the balance. But one subject always followed when he thought of his task. And that was, he would not live to see the results. He kept telling himself it didn’t matter. The outcome would be in his favour. Wherever he was. But that’s where his troubles lay. His faith was not as strong as it should be.

  The Toyota reached the border and the Afghan servant presented their papers to the guard. As the soldier read them, he seemed unsure about something and looked over his shoulder towards an Army captain in command of the checkpoint. The captain registered the soldier’s expression and beckoned him over. The guard hurried to him.

  Mahuba watched the captain take a look at the paperwork and decide himself to inspect the man sitting in a Toyota pick-up truck with such important credentials. The general ignored the soldier, who looked at driver and passenger before withdrawing to examine the crate in the back. Mahuba watched him in the rear-view. The soldier came back to the cab and Mahuba sensed the man’s curiosity. He turned his head to look at the captain, who saw the warning in Mahuba’s eyes and thought better of it.

  The captain handed the documents back to the guard, nodded to him and walked away. The guard handed the papers back to the servant and waved them through. When they arrived at the Afghan checkpoint fifty metres further on, the guards were dealing with a truck driver who seemed to be arguing because they were refusing him entry.

  An officer broke away from the debate and came over to the Toyota. The servant offered the guard a different set of papers. The soldier read the document, glanced at the crat
e in the back with little interest and back towards the angry truck driver, who’d begun screaming at the other guards. The officer handed the papers back to the servant and waved them through.

  Mahuba and his servant headed into Afghanistan. The vast, undeveloped country lay before them. After half a mile they approached three Hilux pick-up trucks parked on the side of the road. Two of the pick-ups had mounted PKM machine guns. A dozen Afghan fighters were gathered near the vehicles and seated on the ground nearby, all armed with AK-47 rifles. Three had RPG-7 rocket launchers.

  The servant pulled the Toyota over and stopped it behind the rear Hilux. The men watched without moving. One got up and walked to where he could see the new arrivals. When Mahuba climbed out, the fighter recognised him and came over to greet the general. After a brief exchange the fighter barked a command and his men climbed into their pick-ups, while Mahuba returned to his own. The fighter got into the first Hilux and it pulled away. Mahuba and his servant followed. The other two pick-ups dropped in behind Mahuba.

  The road to Kabul was characterised by long, quiet stretches of barren terrain followed by sections packed with civilian fuel and supply convoys and the occasional line of military vehicles. Mahuba’s little group spent much of the drive overtaking where they could to make headway.

  When they reached Kabul they avoided the main gate to the city and cut across to the Bagram road. Although it was a significant highway, it was not a great piece of engineering. And single lane for the most part, much of it potholed and lumpy. To add to that, it was hellish busy. Full, sluggish convoys headed to Bagram while empty trucks returned.

  The road was significant because it was the only highway connecting a major military base with the capital. The military used it heavily. That made it relatively safe compared with many of the other roads in Afghanistan. And because it was safe, it was frequented by the Afghan police, who rarely travelled through dangerous locations if they could help it.

  Mahuba grew more at ease with every mile they travelled towards Bagram. The hours to the attack were ticking away. And then, as per usual, he began to think of his own imminent death. One of the earliest questions they’d all asked in the planning stage was, who will press the button? At the time, he had been filled with the excitement of the venture. None of those involved would survive anyway. Not for long. So he’d volunteered to be the one to initiate. If the plot had been uncovered before they completed, their lives would have ended sooner, and at the hands of any one of a multitude of internal and external sources. And if they were successful, every one of them, and anyone remotely related to the operation, would be hunted down by every major intelligence organisation on the planet – except their own – until they were dead. But as time moved on he felt the urge to taste the complete meal of victory. The suicide bomber could never be sure of his success. Mahuba wanted to know and experience the aftermath.