by Geoff Wolak
‘Listen, French President in London next week, he wants to meet you and the team.’
‘Bob, Bob, Bob, when will you learn; invite him to Brize Norton, make a big thing of it, let the RAF show off a little, I’ll get the Air Commodore to invite him whilst making it look like it was his idea.’
Bob laughed. ‘You’re wasted where you are, you should be working up here.’
‘A pen pusher? Not likely.’
‘I’ll wait for the Air Commodore to make the suggestion, then make it look like my own.’
‘Milk it, Bob, milk it.’
I called the Air Commodore, getting put straight through, and no doubt the Air Commodore had told his people to always put me straight through.
‘Wilco, my lad, you well after Djibouti?’
‘Yes, sir, no wounds. How are the RAF Regiment lads that were injured?’
‘The one lad lost an arm, he’ll not be able to continue obviously, so he’ll be compensated, but the others will be OK.’
‘They accredited themselves well, sir.’
‘Any of them ... suitable for a medal?’
‘I couldn’t honestly say that any one of them saw any action that would merit it, but they all fired their weapons in anger, no moaning about conditions – living in a hole in the ground.’
‘Well, they’ll all get a campaign medal. And the officer in charge?’
‘He started off looking nervous, sir, and ended up getting the experience and the right attitude.’
‘No fuck-ups?’
‘None, sir.’
‘A lack of fuck-ups is medal winning conduct, as you know.’
‘Yes, sir. Anyhow, French President is in London next week, so you could invite him to Brize Norton, show off those involved, and we’d come over. And invite the French Paras, provide accommodation and a meal out somewhere.’
‘I’ll be all over it, but I’ll make it look like my idea.’
‘Why not, sir, why not. Let me know if it’s going ahead, French President may be busy.’
‘I’ll get back to you.’
After the call, a strange face came wandering in. He saluted me, which was odd. ‘Looking for Captain Wilco.’
‘I am he.’
‘I’m Trooper Davis, “B” Squadron. They said to come see you about working over here.’
‘They did? Oh, you did the-day scenario?’
‘Yes, got ninety-two percent.’
I stepped closer to him. He was the same height as Rizzo, which was the same height as most of the lads, a face that suggested he was good with the ladies - he certainly didn’t appear to have been hit much, and he offered unusual blue eyes, light brown hair growing long.
‘So what do they call you?’ I asked.
‘Travis, sir.’
‘Why ... Travis and not Taffy?’
‘Well, I’m not Welsh for starters, just got the name, and my initials are TR, so it’s TR DAVIS, and a corporal called me Travis by mistake, and it stuck.’
‘Where did you start out?’
‘RAF Regiment like you, sir. I was Queen’s Colour Squadron after basic training, then 37 Squadron - where they still talk about your time in the Gulf War.’
‘A good runner?’ I asked.
‘Marathon in three hours, or just under. I’m not fast, but I keep going.’
I stuck my hand out and we shook. ‘Welcome to the team.’ I turned my head. ‘Mister O’Leary, sign this man up.’ Moran and O’Leary stood and came out. ‘This is Davis, known as Travis, and he got ninety-two percent on the three-day.’
‘Welcome aboard,’ O’Leary offered. ‘I’ll get your files from admin later.’
I faced Travis. ‘As part of this team ... you are on leave till Monday, so ... get some running in and be back Monday, 8.30am. Oh, where are you living?’
‘Got a step-brother in Leominster, been staying there.’
‘We’ll issue you some suitable kit next week,’ I told him. ‘Now go away till Monday.’
He saluted and left.
‘Fills in the gap,’ Moran noted.
I faced O’Leary. ‘Bateman and Robinson?’
He made a face and shrugged. ‘They’re better, metal pins in legs, but ... they’d not get back to full fitness. Bob had in mind that they can still be useful.’
‘If you’d seen my injuries after Bosnia you would’ve ruled me out as well, so let’s not rule them out yet. Any word on Stretch’s leg injury?’
‘Didn’t you know, he had a minor op in Camp Bad that last morning, check up here, no infection.’
I lifted my arms wide. ‘No one ever tells me anything.’
‘The SBS lads, most are not well enough to move yet,’ O’Leary informed us. ‘Still in that French military hospital in Djibouti.’
I shook my head. ‘Burns.’ I faced Moran. ‘If I’m ever burnt badly, put a round through me, no one will know.’
He nodded.
I got a call into the CO of 2 Squadron for a long chat, followed by a chat to the SBS Major down in Poole, and I tackled a few more forms. I took a few files over to Admin, where the RSM tentatively suggested a curry, which made me smile – he wanted all the detail.
Leaving our interest room, I took in our new logo and motto; crossed AKM sniper rifles annotated with ‘We joined to fight, not read about it.’
At 8pm I met the RSM, but with Swifty, Rizzo, Rocko and Stretch all meeting us there, and I gave the RSM the detail, spirits high, and he found it hilarious that we tried to blow up the hostages by mistake – so we blamed Rizzo, it was his RPG.
Sat in the curry house, I thought I saw a familiar face outside, and that maybe he was watching us. Still, I had my pistol on me. Driving back, I thought I was being followed and so went around in circles, the car not keeping with me, and at the apartment I checked around, figuring I was being paranoid.
At 3am, a figure dressed in black moved very slowly across the grass outside my apartment block, inching slowly across the gravel, a hand on a window sill, then a boot, and up he went with the grace of a squirrel climbing a tree. Suction cup on my window, he fastened himself securely, a knife used to cut away rubber and plastic in the double glazing over twenty minutes, a metal device placed inside, a handle turned so as to push the frame up and down at the same time.
Ten minutes later and he tossed the outer window pane down to the grass with hardly a sound, and he eased out the second pane. Moving inside quickly, quietly and deftly, he replaced the pane and knelt, stopping and listening for a minute. His eyes adjusted to the dark over the next five minutes, and he moved with cat-like grace over the carpet, and towards my bedroom door.
I woke as my bedroom door handle moved slowly down, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see the door slowly opening. A hand reached for the light and it came on, and a figure in black fatigues and webbing appeared, smirking, and I recognised him from his file. It was Captain James Bond psycho himself.
He lost his smile as he noticed my sheets, and my look, and my three rounds robbed him of further thought on the matter. Easing out of bed, I stared down at his lifeless body, wondering if he was alone, and somehow knowing that he was. My rounds had hit him high in the chest, the throat and under the chin, and now he was making a mess on my nice carpet.
Stepping over him, I checked the apartment, and I wondered if the neighbours were calling the police. Still, I had fired from under the sheets and blankets, and that had muffled the sound. An ear to my front door, and I could not hear movement.
I called Bob.
‘Hello,’ came a very sleep Bob.
‘It’s Wilco, wake up, get the coffee on!’
‘Wh ... what’s happened?’
‘Your man, Captain Nichols, I just shot him dead in my apartment.’
‘You ... what?’
‘He broke in, woke me up, I shot him.’
‘Oh Christ. Police on the way?’ Bob asked.
‘No.’
‘Let me deal with the body, no police if we can, this coul
d be really fucking embarrassing.’
‘He’s bleeding all over my fucking carpet,’ I told Bob.
‘Get some help, and ... if the police don’t turn up then hide the body somewhere till I send a van for it, I can’t go through Operations.’
‘Call me back in half an hour.’ I cut the call, dialled Swifty, soon followed by Rocko and Moran.
As I stood in my apartment I inspected the damaged window, impressed with what he had done, and I wondered if there was anyone else out there. And I knew why he came, and it was not to cause me any harm but to get me to work with him. If he wanted me dead he would have shot me from a distance, and he could have – a worry.
Back in the bedroom, I checked the body, finding a pistol in its holster. Grabbing a sheet, I bound him up, a large towel around his head, then I wrapped him in my poncho and tied the ends off.
Swifty was the first to arrive and I let him in without putting the lights on, and he got to work on a diluted bleach solution and soap to clean my carpet and the wooden wardrobes.
Moran arrived at just about the same time as Rocko, and I knocked the lights on, explaining what had happened. With Swifty cleaning my apartment, Rocko lifted the body over his shoulder, and Moran and I checked that there was no one around, the body soon in the boot of my car. The three of us drove to the base, the one place where the police could not execute a search warrant, and we carried the body into the detachment’s interest room unseen.
Grabbing a metal crate, we lined it with plastic and then a poncho, the body folded up inside, bleach poured over it to hide any smell. Moran locked the metal crate with a padlock, labelled it as “Kit return, Bob Staines only”, and we left it there.
Back at my apartment, Swifty had removed most of the blood, and he had done courses on how to do so, but would come back with some Coke or Cola later and destroy any DNA evidence. But, since the stiff was “E” Squadron, his attendance in my apartment would have been normal.
‘What now?’ Rocko asked.
‘Has to be a car nearby,’ I told him, and he headed out with Moran.
Rocko came back up with my outer window pane, and he informed me that Moran had found an unlocked car, military magazines in it, and so had driven it off down the road.
I got the kettle on as we debated the nutcase’s interest in me, and Moran returned ten minutes later.
‘Car is down the road, public car park, keys inside, maybe someone will nick it.’
I called Bob, and he was more awake now, if not panicked. ‘Car is down the road, open, keys inside, send someone for it, body is in the detachment interest room, metal box labelled up as returned kit for you.’
‘Good thinking, I have a man with a van on his way, be two hours, traffic is light.’
‘Any ideas what that fuck was up to?’ I asked Bob. ‘His intent was not to kill me, pistol wasn’t out.’
‘He had mentioned that he and you should be working together, but I didn’t think you’d get along with him, he is ... or was ... a bit of a nutter.’
‘I saw him earlier at the curry house, I was suspicious, pistol under my pillow – as opposed to pistol on the night stand.’
‘What difference would moving it from the night stand make?’
‘I like to caress it, know it’s there.’
‘You’ve been at this too long. I’ll call you back.’
I faced Rocko, Swifty and Moran as they stared back at me.
‘You like to caress it?’ Swifty asked with a grin.
‘Where’d you keep yours?’ I challenged.
‘Under the bed. That way I have to reach for it, not fire it by accident if I wake up – which I did once.’
I faced Moran.
‘Locked away, not to hand.’
I faced Rocko.
‘Jacket, hanging up.’
‘None of you have been targeted by the IRA yet, so call me paranoid.’
‘Your paranoia kept you alive tonight,’ Swifty said. ‘He may have wanted to kill off the competition for top spot.’
I nodded. ‘Another “E” Squadron nutcase.’ I faced Moran. ‘Wonder what form O’Leary will have to fill in for that guy.’
‘AWOL, I guess,’ Moran suggested with a smirk.
‘Swifty, on the couch, Moran and Rocko, into the base, wait the removals men. And guys – not a word to anyone, or we’ll all get a jail sentence. Self defence is fine, but interfering with a crime scene is a very serious offence.’
At 7am, myself and Swifty headed into the base, and we found Rocko asleep, his feet on the metal case, arms folded. I made us a cup of tea, Moran tackling paperwork whilst it was quiet, and getting the piss taken out of him, and half an hour later a van turned up – a very long two hours becoming seven hours – expected at the gate, Rocko woken, the crate loaded, the padlock key handed over, the two van drivers not saying a word nor making eye contact.
Moran remained, the rest of us heading home since we were on leave, and I inspected my damaged window in the daylight.
An hour later and my phone trilled. ‘Wilco.’
‘It’s Bob, we have his car, and ... the rest of him, I have a team going over his house for anything that might embarrass us, and apparently they’ve already found a grenade and plastic explosives, so it could have been very embarrassing for us. But ... there’s a problem.’ I waited. ‘He seems to have been in contact with 14 Intel.’
‘Oh dear. And yet he didn’t want to kill me, his pistol away.’
‘His odd ego may have convinced him that you should work together, and then ... maybe he would have set you up for a fall.’
‘Better men have tried, Bob.’
‘Anyhow, we’re looking into it. You enjoy your day off.’
‘Send a man to fix my window, it’s your apartment after all.’
‘Right, yes, will do.’
When I saw the retired major next door I made a point of chatting, but he had clearly not heard anything. The police officers down the hall must have gone to work without saying anything, and certainly without calling their colleagues on the force.
When they appeared at 5pm, cases in hand, I asked if they had been on holiday.
‘A few days on the south coast,’ they informed me. ‘And you?’ they asked with smirks.
‘Nowhere interesting, as usual,’ I said as they claimed their apartment.
Bob called me an hour later. ‘Some bad news.’
‘James Bond left a note? Off to kill Wilco – please feed my cat?’
‘Hardly. No, we found a definite link to 14 Intel, and he should have declared that, and we would have kicked his arse, so we’re worried. We’ve just put an illegal tap on a major in 14 Intel, and a few others, be hell to pay if they found out, but I have discussed it higher up, and if the Cabinet Office knew they’d want 14 Intel taken apart.’
‘Get me the phone number of the major in question, at home, and tell me when he’s there.’
‘Why..?’
‘Because if I call him it’ll spook him, and he’ll call other people or go see them, so have a team on him ready.’
‘Well, yes, it would cut short a long process.’
‘And get me some detail on his family first.’
‘I’ll get back to you.’
I popped into the base and grabbed a sat phone, and I was chatting to a concerned O’Leary about the odd interest shown by 14 Intel – O’Leary none the wiser about Nichols yet, when Bob called me back. I wrote down a few things, hung up, and I took the sat phone home.
At 7.30pm I got a call to say that the 14 Intel major was at home. I punched his number into my sat phone, Bob ensuring that it would register my current location as being in the Bahamas, and after three rings the man answered.
‘Major Preston,’ I asked.
‘Yes..?’
‘Wilco, SAS.’
There came a long pause. ‘What do you want?’
‘Question is, what do you ... want with me? Nichols gave up your name, and a few other details, as I cut
his fingers off one by one, then his cock, which I shoved down his throat. Made him sick of course, no man wants to swallow his own cock.
‘What about you, Major, how do you think you’ll feel when I do that you to? Or maybe I’ll cut the fingers off your lad, Phillip, at his school south of Bristol. He gets the bus, be easy to pick him up. Got high hopes for him have you, a life with fingers in place, ears not cut off.’
The call was cut, and I made sure that the sat phone was switched off.
Half an hour later Bob came on. ‘Your call had the desired effect, Major Preston rang his colonel, then another major, all of them spooked. But, they’re up to something, and the colonel seems confident that you’ll be gone soon enough.’
‘Perhaps I should sleep with two pistols under my pillow, instead of just the one.’
‘We can’t go through the usual channels with this till they do something silly.’
‘So we need them to do something silly, and I have just the men to help with that. Have some men put near that major, the one’s we used with Hitchins, tell me when his house is empty, and where he’s off to this weekend.’
‘Green paint?’
‘He’ll want to get back at us. So, I guess the colonel lives in Aldergrove, but he must have a house in England, so get me his address, and the second major.’
‘That’ll get the message through,’ Bob said with a sigh.
‘That’s the first step, second step will be their offices.’
‘Inside RAF Aldergrove? It’s max security.’
‘And we’re supposed to be good enough to get in,’ I countered with.
I called in Tomo and Smitty, Smitty well enough and keen to help out, as well as Swifty, Moran, Rocko and Rizzo. Slider was off with his lady, Stretch visiting family. They met at the detachment interest room in civilians clothes, the tea made.
‘We have a problem,’ I told them as they sat waiting expectantly. ‘A while back a 14 Intel man was killed in Southern Ireland, and it seems he was a double agent for Mi5 and was sold out and left to die. 14 Intel blamed me, but I was not involved,’ I lied. ‘They also feel that many of the jobs that we do ... they should be doing. They’re jealous, and they mean us harm. They mean to try and trip us up.’
