Nothing Sacred (29 page)

‘Couldn't leave it.' Banyan breaks the silence. Gabe shrugs, does not reply.

‘Fucking boy scout,' he says. ‘Why'd you give a shit anyway?' He sits down next to his comrades, legs stretched out.

‘He was under my command.'

‘He was a little prick.'

Gabe just looks at Banyan. Banyan looks back at him but I have never known anybody who could meet Gabe's gaze for any length of time. Banyan looks away.

‘Where are we going?' I ask.

‘Shut up,' Banyan says. He watches me in silence but he is a man who enjoys wielding his power and cannot stay quiet. ‘Taking you somewhere you won't be found.'

Nothing more is said and Gabe seems to have lost interest. He has his eyes closed. All four of them seem to be used to silence, to managing situations without speaking. I suspect that this is something the army teaches you. We continue driving and for a long time we are on a straight road. I can hear other vehicles coming from both directions – a two lane. Then we slow, turn to leave it and for some minutes, perhaps five, we slow, speed up, turn tight corners.

Gabe yawns. ‘Much longer?'

One of the men opposite laughs. ‘Come too soon for you, don't worry about that.'

Gabe just nods, closes his eyes again. His composure is incredible. Banyan watches him with irritation.

We drive on a little further and stop. The engine dies and the light goes off. We wait in the dark and silence, then the door slides open and Major Strauss is there.

‘All right. Out.'

We climb out and stand in what looks like a picnic area. There are wooden tables, an earth track. I can hear the sound of the sea. It is very cold. The moon is out and the sky is clear. Strauss's shaved head is big and pale in the light.

‘I'm sorry, Gabe,' he says. ‘Have to admire your tenacity. But this, it's got to end.'

‘Didn't have you figured for a traitor,' says Gabe.

‘Here.' Strauss holds up a bottle of Scotch, unscrews the top. ‘Need you to drink this.'

‘Oh?'

‘Just drink it,' says Banyan.

‘We having a party?' says Gabe.

‘Something like that.'

Strauss hands the bottle to Gabe, who takes it. ‘So it's true? You're part of Global Armour?'

‘Drink,' says Banyan.

Gabe shrugs, takes a drink, makes a face. ‘Why?'

‘You don't need to know,' says Strauss.

‘No,' says Gabe. ‘But I want to.'

Strauss sighs, walks away from us.

‘Drink,' says Banyan again.

‘More?'

‘All of it.'

Gabe holds the bottle up, looks at it. ‘Blended. Cheap wankers.'

I hear the sound of a car approaching. Headlight beams light us up and make our shadows swing. The car passes us and I think it is Gabe's car. Its headlights show that beyond the picnic tables is nothing, just black sky. We are on the edge of land. I can still hear the sea. Strauss comes back.

‘You know what to do?' he says to Banyan.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Leave it for half an hour. We want that alcohol in his bloodstream.'

‘Got it.'

‘Come on,' says Gabe. ‘You owe me an explanation.' The way he says it, as if he knows that this is it – that we are dead men.

Strauss sighs, looks at Gabe. ‘Nothing to do with you,' he says. ‘I'm sorry. I really am.' He rubs a hand over his shaved head. ‘You know how the army is nowadays. Rules of engagement, politics. If it's not the US telling us what to do, who to shoot, it's the UN. We don't do soldiering any more.' He stops.

‘And?' says Gabe. There is an edge to his voice.

‘Drink,' says Banyan.

‘Fuck sake.' He drinks. He has drunk maybe a third of the bottle already.

‘I'd had enough. Wanted more. The private military, it's like it used to be. You get things done. Clear missions. No politics.'

‘More money.' There is contempt in Gabe's voice.

‘Wasn't about the money,' says Strauss.

‘You don't drink faster,' says Banyan, ‘I'll shoot your friend.'

‘Spare me,' says Gabe to Strauss. He drinks.

‘For what it's worth, this will live with me for the rest of my life,' says Strauss.

Gabe laughs, a short sound that conveys nothing but disdain. ‘Cheers,' he says, waves his bottle at Strauss, drinks.

Strauss shakes his head and walks away. As he passes us he stops, thinks of something. Then he changes his mind and walks on, gets to his car, starts it up. He drives off and we listen to the sound of his car fading away into the distance.

‘Sorry about this, Danny,' says Gabe. His speech is imprecise and he has drunk well over half the bottle.

‘Don't worry about it,' I say.

‘Probably won't be all right. You know that?'

I feel dread in my stomach. I always imagined Gabe was invincible. ‘Fuck it.'

‘Yeah,' says Gabe. He laughs without humour. ‘Yeah.'

‘Keep drinking, soldier,' says Banyan. One of the other soldiers laughs, says, ‘Fucking soldier.'

‘Hey, Burgess,' says Gabe. I had not realised he knew the other men; he had treated them with such indifference. ‘I remember you, remember how you were in contact. Learned to shoot yet?'

‘Fuck you.'

‘Had you for a coward back then,' Gabe says. ‘Looks like I was right.'

Burgess takes a step toward Gabe but Banyan gets between them. ‘Leave it,' he says to Burgess, then turns to Gabe. ‘Just get it down you.'

‘Why?' says Gabe.

‘D'you think?' says Banyan. ‘So everybody'll figure you're just another pissed arsehole drove off a cliff.'

Nobody says anything for some time. I watch Gabe in the moonlight silently working on the Scotch and feel a deep sadness that this is happening to him. A hero, reduced to this. Being forced to drunkenness by honourless men. By men inferior to him in every way. Rendered powerless and humiliated. I love Gabe and being witness to this is breaking my heart.

Burgess gets into Gabe's car and drives it to the edge of what I guess is a cliff overlooking the sea. He gets out and walks to the van. He drives the van so that it is just behind Gabe's car, nosing the rear bumper.

‘All good?' says Banyan.

‘Should be. He drunk enough?'

‘Got to be. He's done the whole bottle.'

Gabe turns and his head moves slowly and stupidly. He has trouble focusing on me. ‘I'm sorry, Danny.'

I nod and an arm is put around my neck from behind, another around my head. I reach around but cannot get to whoever is holding me, so I rush him backwards. He is not big enough to stop me but he has seen this trick before and he does not fight the momentum, uses it to drop and turn. Suddenly I am falling and he still has hold of my head and neck, then he has me on the grass. His grip is strong and he squeezes and squeezes. I try to use my legs and arms to get up but already my vision is darkening and I cannot breathe. I feel panic and struggle but there is nothing I can do.

I can see Gabe. I am looking up at him. Things get darker and darker and the last thing I see is Banyan taking the bottle of Scotch from Gabe almost gently while another man hits him on the back of the head with the butt of a gun and he collapses slowly to the ground.

28

‘RACK THE SEAT
back, Dan. Dan, Dan, listen. Rack the fucking seat back. Now.'

Gabe's voice seems to come from a long way away but I open my eyes and I am sitting in the passenger seat of his car and he is next to me. How did I get here? I look across at Gabe. His face is shining, his hair on fire.

‘Dan. Rack your seat back.'

His hair is not on fire. It is lit up by something. I look behind and am blinded by headlights. There is a lot of noise. A car's engine screaming. This car I am in. I look at Gabe and it feels like slow motion.

‘Rack your seat back.'

I reach under my seat. There is a handle. I pull it, push with my legs and my seat slides backwards. Gabe leans over, puts his hand under the seat. The whole car is moving, juddering. The van is trying to push us over the cliff. The noise is amazing.

Gabe sits back up and he has a gun in his hand. He points it behind us. It is next to my head and so close. He pulls the trigger and the rear window explodes. The sound of the gun is huge in my ear. He shoots once, twice, three four five times and hauls on the wheel of the car. We shoot forward and turn. I look out of my window and all I can see are waves far below me, their white tops. I cannot even see the cliff we are on. We are hanging in space. There are rocks in the sea below and they are hundreds of feet down, dizzyingly far. The chassis drops. One of the wheels must have gone over. We are going over. My weight is against the door and I am looking down at the sea below. Gabe floors the accelerator but nothing happens. The van that was pushing us over is coming towards us again. We aren't moving. It is going to hit us side on, tip us over. I hear the enraged snarl of the engine, its furious impotence. The lights of the van are inside the car. Everything is lit up, shocking white, black shadow. Then like a goat finding its feet on a steep rock face, the tyres bite and we leap forward. Gabe struggles with the steering wheel like it is alive. The back wheels slide out and now we are heading away from the cliff. Gabe leans across me and shoots through my window, the gun going off in front of my face. I can feel the explosion, escaping gases slapping my skin. Then we are off and bouncing over the grassy area and then onto gravel, Gabe turning and the car skidding onto a road. He floors it and we barrel down a lane lined by high hedges, twisting through the bends until we reach a junction onto a bigger road, two lanes. Gabe does not speak. The needle is nudging eighty, ninety, a hundred, and we listen to the road unreeling under the tyres until there is a small lane on our left. Gabe swings into it, kills the engine and lights.

He turns to me. His eyes have difficulty focusing. ‘Danny. I'm going to need you to drive.'

We stop at an all-night services and Gabe walks unsteadily to the toilets where, he tells me, he intends to vomit. When he comes back he drinks four cups of coffee, one after the other, from a machine. I cannot help but notice that his hand is shaking.

‘You hit any of them?' I say.

‘Don't know,' says Gabe. His speech is still imprecise. ‘My aim was off. What a bottle of Scotch will do.'

‘You always keep a gun under your seat?'

‘That's a new thing.'

I nod, watch Gabe drink under the harsh light of the service area. He finishes his last coffee, crushes the plastic cup in his fist. ‘We need to move.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘Petroski. Where they'll go next. They'll call Strauss, he'll point them there. He's their next problem.'

‘Now?'

‘Right now.'

We get back into Gabe's car. It has no passenger window and the back window is smashed; Gabe has, I suspect, an unregistered handgun under his seat. I hope that we do not get pulled over by the police. I drive. At least the person behind the wheel is sober. Must count for something.

It is incredibly cold even though we have the heater turned up full. Outside the moon is still bright and we drive without speaking, the flat land of Essex spooling past. It is two in the morning and it feels as if we have the land to ourselves.

Petroski's home is some miles to the north and we arrive at his isolated farmhouse just after three. We knock on the door and Petroski opens up so soon it is as if he was waiting for us, although we did not have his number and had not called. In the moonlight his face is even more ghastly, the ridges silvered and the hairless skin like polished marble. But he smiles when he sees us and once again I am struck by the goodness he seems to radiate despite his appearance, and despite his desolate surroundings. He does not seem surprised to see us.

‘Gabe, Daniel. Fancied a drive?'

‘James, I'm sorry,' says Gabe. ‘I need you to collect clothes, anything you need. We need to get you out of here.'

Petroski looks at us for a moment then nods, says, ‘Right away,' and disappears back into his house. He is not gone for more than two minutes and when he's back he is dressed and carrying a green military tote bag.

‘Going anywhere nice?' he asks.

On the way back to his house Gabe explains what is going on to Petroski, how Major Strauss was involved from the start, how he believes that Strauss was taking an interest in Gabe's investigation so that he could monitor the risk he posed to Global Armour.

‘He say why?' says Petroski. ‘Why he'd sell out the army, his comrades?'

‘Claimed he was sick of the politics,' says Gabe. ‘But it's always about the money, right?'

‘Reason they're called mercenaries,' says Petroski.

‘They tried to kill us,' I say.

‘Doesn't surprise me,' says Petroski. ‘We're talking about 7 Platoon.'

‘I'm sorry,' says Gabe to Petroski. ‘I've got you into this.'