Last Light (8 page)

"You, Stone, are going to be given one chance, just one, to rectify matters. You don't know how very lucky you are." He checked his watch. The target has just left the UK. You will follow him tonight, to Panama, and you will kill this target by last light Friday."

I kept my head down and let my legs flop out straight, just inches from his highly polished black brogues, and raised my eyes to him.

Sundance made a move towards me. Should I be saying something? The Yes Man held up a hand to stop him, without taking his eyes off me.

"PARC are waiting for the delivery of a missile launch control system a computer guidance console to you."

I looked down again, concentrating on the pattern of his shoes.

"Are you listening?"

Nodding slowly, I rubbed my sore eyes.

"One anti-aircraft missile is already in their possession. It will be the first of many. The launch system has to be stopped if PARC have a complete weapons system in their hands the implications for Plan Colombia will be catastrophic.

There are six hundred million dollars' worth of US helicopters in Colombia, along with their crews and support. PARC must not get the capability to shoot them down. They must not get that launch control system. You don't need to know why, but the young man's death will stop that happening. Period."

He hunched down and thrust his face so close to mine I could smell menthol aftershave, probably for sensitive skin. There was a whiff of halitosis, too, as we had eye-to-eye just inches apart. He breathed in slowly, to help me understand that what he was about to say was more in sorrow than in anger.

"You will carry out this task in the time specified, with due diligence. If not? No matter when next week, next month, or even next year when the time is right, we will kill her. You know who I'm talking about, that Little Orphan Annie of yours. She will simply cease to exist and it will be your doing. Only you can stop that happening."

He burned with the kind of evangelical zeal I supposed he'd copied from whoever he'd heard in the pulpit last week, while Sundance smirked and moved back towards the settee.

The Yes Man hadn't finished with me yet. His tone shifted.

"She must be about eleven now, eh? I've been told that she's settled in very well back in the States. It seems that Joshua is doing an absolutely sterling job. It must be hard for you now she lives there, eh? Missing her growing up, turning into a fine young woman..."

I kept my eyes down, concentrating on a minute crack in one of the tiles as he carried on with his sermon.

That's the same age as my daughter. They're so funny at that age, don't you think? One minute wanting to be all grown up, the next needing to cuddle their teddies. I read her a story last night when I'd tucked her in. They look so wonderful, yet so vulnerable like that... Did you read to Kelly, isn't it?"

I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of an acknowledgement, just concentrated hard on my tile, trying to show no reaction. He was really making a meal of this. He took another deep breath, his knees cracking as he straightened up and hovered above me once more.

"This is about power, Stone, who has it and who does not. You do not.

Personally, I am not in favour of you being given a second chance, but there is the broader matter of policy to consider."

I didn't exactly understand what that meant, but it was a fair guess he'd been told to sort out this situation or he'd be severely in the shit.

"Why kill the boy?" I said.

"Why not the father? I presume he's the one moving this system."

He kicked my thigh with his shiny toecap. It was pure frustration. I was sure he'd meant it to be harder, but just didn't have it in him.

"Clean yourself up look at the state of you. Now go. These gentlemen will collect you from your residence at three."

He gave 'residence' the full three syllables, enjoying every one. Sundance smiled like the village idiot as I hauled myself to my feet, the muscles in my stomach protesting badly.

"I need money." I looked down like a scolded schoolboy as I leant against the wall, and that was exactly how I felt.

The Yes Man sighed with impatience and nodded at Sundance. The Jock dug out his wallet from the back of his jeans, and counted out eighty-five pounds.

'You owe me, boy."

I just took it, not bothering to mention the six hundred US dollars he'd liberated from my pocket, and which had already been split between the two of them.

Jamming it into my jeans, I started to walk, not looking at either of them as I reached the door. Trainers saw me in the doorframe and hit the shutter, but not before the Yes Man had the last word: "You'd better make good use of that money, Stone. There is no more. In fact, think yourself lucky you're keeping what you already have. After all, Orphan Annie will need new shoes from time to time, and her treatment in the States will cost a great deal more than it did at the Moorings."

Fifteen minutes later I was on the tube from Kennington, heading north towards Camden Town. The dilapidated old train was packed tight with morning commuters, nearly every one radiating soap, toothpaste and designer smells. I was the exception, which was bad luck for the people I was sandwiched between: a massive black guy who'd turned his crisply laundered, white-shirted back on me, and a young white woman who didn't dare look up from the floor in case our eyes met and she sparked off the madman reeking of bile and roll-ups.

The front pages of the morning papers were covered with dramatic colour pictures of the police attacking the sniper positions and the promise of a lot more to come inside. I just held on to the handrail and stared at the dot-com holiday adverts, not wanting to read them, instead letting my head jolt from side to side as we trundled north. I was in a daze, trying to get my head round what had happened, and getting nowhere.

What could I do with Kelly? Nip over to Maryland, pick her up, run away and hide in the woods? Taking her away from Josh was pure fantasy: it would only screw her up even more than she was already. It would only be short-term, in any event: if the Firm wanted her dead, they'd make it happen eventually. What about telling Josh? No need: the Firm wouldn't do anything unless I failed. Besides, why stir him up any more than I had already?

I let my head drop and stared at my feet as we got to a station and people fought each other to get on and off all at the same time. I got shoved and jostled and gave an involuntary gasp of pain.

As the carriage repacked itself for the journey under the Thames, a pissed-off voice on the PA system told everybody to move right down inside the cars, and the doors eventually closed.

I didn't know if the Yes Man was bluffing any more, probably, than he knew if I was. But it made no difference. Even if I did expose the job, that wouldn't stop Sundance and Trainers taking their trip to Maryland. There were enough Serb families short of a kid or two because Dad hadn't gone along with the Firm's demands during the latest Balkan wars, and I knew it hadn't stopped there.

Try as I might, I couldn't stop myself picturing Kelly tucked up in bed, her hair spread in a mess over the pillow as she dreamt of being a pop star. The Yes Man was right, they did look both wonderful and vulnerable like that. My blood ran cold as I realized that the end of this job wouldn't put an end to the threats. She would be used against me time and again.

We stopped at another station and the crowd ebbed and flowed once more. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I was starting to get pins and needles in my legs. No matter which way I looked at it, my only option was to kill the boy.

No, not a boy, let's get this right, just as the Yes Man said, he was a young man some of those weapons being cocked in the aircraft hangar all those years ago had been held by people younger than him.

I had fucked up big-time. I should have killed him yesterday when I had the chance. If I didn't do this job Kelly would die, simple as that and I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't fuck up again. I'd do what the Yes Man wanted, and I'd do it by last light Friday.

The train stopped again and most of the passengers left for their jobs in the City. I was knackered and fell into a seat before my legs gave out. As I wiped the beads of sweat off my brow, my mind kept going back to Kelly, and the thought that I was going to Panama to kill someone just so that Josh could have her to look after. It was madness, but what was new about that?

Josh might not exactly be my mate, these days, but he was still the closest thing I had to one. He'd talk through gritted teeth, but at least he'd talk to me about Kelly. She'd been living with Josh and his kids since mid-August, just a couple of weeks after her therapy sessions had ended prematurely in London when the Yes Man handed me the sniper job.

She hadn't fully recovered from her PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and I didn't know whether she ever would. Seeing your whole family head-jobbed took some recovering from. She was a fighter, just like her dad had been, and had made dramatic strides this summer. She'd moved from being a curled-up bundle of nothing to being able to function outside the private care home in Hampstead where she'd spent the best part of the last ten months. She wasn't in mainstream schooling yet with Josh's kids, but that would happen soon. Or at least I hoped it would: she needed private tuition and that didn't come cheap -and now the Yes Man had cancelled the second half of the money... Since March I'd had to commit myself to being with her during the therapy sessions three times a week in Chelsea, and on all the other days had visited her at the place in Hampstead where she was being looked after. Kelly and I would tube it down to the plush clinic, the Moorings. Sometimes we'd talk on the journey, mostly about kids' TV; sometimes we'd sit in silence. On occasion, she'd just cuddle into me and sleep.

Dr. Hughes was in her mid-fifties and looked more like an American news reader than a shrink in her leather armchair. I didn't particularly like it when Kelly said something that Hughes considered meaningful. She would tilt her elegant head and look at me over the top of her gold half-moons.

"How do you feel about that, Nick?"

My answer was always the same: "We're here for Kelly, not me." That was because I was an emotional dwarf. I must be Josh told me so.

The train shuddered and squeaked to a halt at Camden Town. I joined a green haired punk, a bunch of suits and some early-start tourists as we all rode the up escalator. Camden High Street was teeming with traffic and pedestrians. We were greeted by a white Rastafarian guy juggling three bean-bags for spare change and an old drunk with his can of Tennants waiting for Pizza Express to open so that he could go and shout at its windows. The din of pneumatic drills on the building site opposite echoed all around us, making even people passing in their cars wince.

I diced with death as I crossed the road to get into Superdrug and pick up some washing and shaving kit, then walked along the high street to get something to eat, hands in my pockets and eyes down at the pavement like a dejected teenager.

I waded through KFC boxes, kebab wrappers and smashed Bacardi Breezer bottles that hadn't been cleaned up from the night before. As I'd discovered when I moved in, there was a disproportionate number of pubs and clubs around here.

Camden High Street and its markets seemed quite a tourist attraction. It was just before ten o'clock but most of the clothes shops already had an amazing array of gear hanging outside their shop fronts, from psychedelic flares to leather bondage trousers and multicoloured Doc Martens. Shop workers tried ceaselessly to lure Norwegians or Americans, with day sacks on their backs and maps in their hands, inside with loud music and a smile.

I passed under the scaffold that covered the pavement on the corner of Inverness Street and got a nod from the Bosnian refugee who sold smuggled cigarettes out of a sports bag. He was holding out a couple of cartons to passers-by and in his leather-look PVC bomber jacket and tracksuit bottoms he looked just like I felt, tired of life. We knew each other by sight and I nodded back before turning left into the market. My stomach was so empty it ached, adding to the pain from the kicking. I was really looking forward to breakfast.

The caff was full of construction workers taking a break from building the new Gap and Starbucks. Their dirty yellow hardhats were lined up against the wall like helmets at a fire station, whilst they filled their faces with the three quid all-day breakfast. The room was a noisy haze of fried food and cigarette smoke, probably courtesy of the Bosnian. I put in my order and listened to the radio behind the counter while I picked up my mug of instant coffee. The news on Capital gave only bullet-point headlines about yesterday's terrorist incident.

It was already taking second place to Posh Spice's new hairdo.

I settled down at a four-seater wrought-iron-and-marble-effect garden table, moved the overflowing ashtray out of the way, and stared at the sugar bowl. The pins and needles had returned and I found that my elbows were on the table and my face was stuck in my hands. For some reason I was remembering being seven years old, tears running down my face, trying to explain to my stepfather that I was scared of the dark. Instead of a comforting cuddle and the bedroom light left on, I got a slapped face and told not to be such a wimp or the night monster would come out from under the bed and eat me. He used to make me flap big-time, and I'd spend the whole night curled up under the blanket, petrified, thinking that as long as I didn't look out the night monster wouldn't get me.

The same feeling of terror and helplessness was with me again after all these years.

I was jolted from my trance.

"Set breakfast, extra egg?"

That7 s me!"

I sat back down and threw bacon, sausage and egg down my neck and started to think about my shopping list. At least I wouldn't need much clothing for my Central American trip. There now, maybe things weren't that bad: at least I was going somewhere warm.

I'd never been to Panama, but had operated on its border with Colombia against PARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) while in the Regiment. We were part of the UK's first-strike policy in the eighties, an American-funded operation to hit drug manufacture at source, which meant getting into the jungle for weeks on end, finding the DMPs (drug-manufacturing plants) and destroying them to slow the trafficking to the UK and US. We might as well not have bothered. Over 70 per cent of the cocaine entering the States still originated from Colombia, and up to 75 per cent of the heroin seized on the east coast of the US was Colombian.