THE HEART OF DANGER (8 page)

Jim

didn't use the pub at lunch time, left Basil clear with Deirdre, but

he

came by at five most evenings. Jim, one-time detective constable

in

the Fraud Squad, liked a game of pool in the bar and a swift pint,

or

three, with Basil. It was where the hard business of Alpha Security

was talked through. "They don'c come on trees, young fellow, they're gifts from heaven. You fell on your feet, young fellow." Henry,

one-time Telecom engineer, came to the pub only at Christmas,

birthday,

or celebration time, and nursed orange juice. Henry was valuable,

41

always sober, and spent his drinks money on bug equipment and the

gear

for tapping hard lines, and the new pride and joy was a UHF room

transmitter built into a thirteen-amp wall socket. "Milk it .. ."

"Run it .. ." "Enjoy it .. ." It wasn't talked about, but Penn assumed that Basil and Jim and Henry did odd-job work for Five. Work

that was boring and work that was illegal would be farmed out, Penn

assumed. It had to be a good assumption because when he had been

working out his notice at Gower Street, when he was getting all the

flak from Jane as to where the mortgage money was going to come from,

there had been the quiet call from the fourth floor and the request

that he attend the office of Senior Executive Officer Arnold Browne.

A

soft word of sympathy, a frowned nod of understanding, and a

suggestion

that Alpha Security, SW19, might be looking for an able man. He

guessed a little empire had been built, the tentacles spread, and

Henry

never seemed short of gear that cost, and plenty more than he saved

by

drinking only orange juice. They were a good little team: give Basil

three phone calls, he could find a burglar, a mugger, a safe-breaker;

give Jim half a day, he could get an Inland Revenue annual statement

print-out; Henry could fix, in twenty-four hours, best quality audio

and. visual surveillance. They were a good little team, but

needing

young legs and young eyes and a guy prepared to sit through the

bread-and-butter crap .. But it wasn't bread-and-butter crap they

were

celebrating in the pub, with Penn buying the drinks, it was a hell

of a

good overseas contract, with money going half share to the partners

..

. Penn felt quiet satisfaction, because Basil was almost jealous,

and

Jim couldn't quite hide the envy, and Henry didn't seem too cheerful.

Penn was reaching for their glasses, and none of them was shouting

that

it was his round. Penn said, "Actually, she's quite a decent woman

..." "Bollocks, she's a punter." "Daily rate, plus per them expenses,

plus Club-class flights." "Half the daily rate up front, per them expenses in your greasy hand for a clear week before you go, and that

doesn't include the hotel of your choice." Penn said, "Pity is that her daughter was a right little tosser .. ." He scooped up the

glasses

42

and headed for the bar. Two pints of best bitter, an orange juice,

and

Penn was taking low alcohol because when he was shot of them he would

be going back to the office over the launderette and he would be typing

up the finances and faxing them down to the Manor House on the Surrey/

Sussex border, and then he would be going home to Jane, and hoping

to

God, some hope, that the baby slept hard .. . and hoping to God, some

hope, that Jane wasn't flat on her back with exhaustion ... It was

going sour with Jane, not solicitors and courts stage, just going

stale, and he did not know what to do about it, nor whether it mattered

if he did nothing about it. He brought the drinks back, shouldered

his

way through the shop people and the mechanics in their overalls and

the

building site workers who were all on the 'black'. Wouldn't have been

seen in there, not seen dead in there, when he had been at Gower

Street. It still seared him, and it would do so for a goddamn long

time, the memory of when he had come back home to Raynes Park off

the

train from Waterloo, and told Jane that he was washed up, working

out

his notice, gone. Jane, seven months pregnant, and hysterical, and

him

not able to staunch the screaming. She'd done it, Jane, she had wound

him up when she had packed her job in because the baby was coming.

She

had done the sums of the household accounts, told him they couldn't

survive, not with the baby coming, not without her money, unless he

had

himself promoted. She had told him he should have been made up from

executive officer to higher executive officer, and like a bloody fool

.. . Basil took his drink. "Cheers .. . I'm going to give you advice, you jam my bastard. Don't go sentimental on it, don't get yourself

involved." Jim grasped the pint glass and nodded his agreement.

Henry

sipped at the orange juice. "Good trip .. . Just pile the paper up, reports, analysis, interview transcripts, like you've been a busy

boy."

"I hear you." He made his excuses and left them still talking, debating, arguing, what the rate of per them expenses should be. He

walked out onto the street. They were closing the shutters down on

the

fruit and vegetable shop, and locking up the jeans and denim store,

and

the launderette was packed full. Gary bloody Brennard, Personnel,

43

wouldn't be unlocking a paint-peeled door beside a launderette and

going back to work at 6.33pm, and Gary bloody Brennard, Personnel,

wouldn't even remember his little talk with Bill Penn, executive

officer. His own fault, because he had not copped on to the new scene

at Five. Too dumb, too stupid, to have evaluated the new mood at

Five.

Entry to General Intelligence Group was restricted to higher

executive

officers, new scene, didn't he know? Entry to General Intelligence

Group was restricted to university graduates, there was a new mood,

didn't he know? They didn't want watchers, nor leg-men, nor

ditch-men

.. . they wanted analysts and information control management, and

they

wanted graduates. "Don't have a degree, do you, Bill?" Gary

Brennard's sneer. "Didn't make university, did you, Bill?" His feet

hammered the linoleum above the launderette. He snatched the cover

off

the typewriter. "Without a degree, without a university education, you've reached your plateau, haven't you, Bill?" He began to type.

He

accepted the assignment. He listed the daily rate and a half to be

paid in advance, and the per them expenses rate .. . He pounded the

keys of the typewriter. "If that's the way you feel then you should consider transferring your talents to the private sector. We

wouldn't

want disaffected junior officers, would we, Bill?" He read through the

paper. No, he wouldn't be sentimental. No, he wouldn't get himself involved. He dialled the number. He watched the fax sheet go.

There

was not enough light for him to make a clean job of the sewing. He

did

it as best he could, and it was poor work because he could barely

see

where he pushed the thick needle, and his hands shook. His hands

shook

in fear. Ham sewed strips of black elastic onto the arms and the

body

of the tunic. The others watched him and waited their turn with the

one needle and the reel of heavy cotton. He tried hard to hide the

shaking because each of the other five men who would go across with

him

believed in his professionalism. It was what he was paid for, what

he

44

was there for, to communicate professionalism. There were eight

lengths of black elastic now on his tunic, and he had already sewn

five

lengths onto his combat fatigue trousers, and when they were down

at

the river, when they were ready to slip into the inflatable, then

they

would collect old grass and they would tuck the grass lengths in

behind

the elastic straps. They were important, Shape and Silhouette. He

passed on the needle and the cotton reel and the roll of black elastic

tape. He set himself to work on Shine. He spat into the palms of

his

hands and then scooped the cream from the jar and worried the mess

together, and made the sweeping smears across his eyebrows and nose

and

cheeks and chin, and his ears and throat and wrists and hands. He

handed the jar to those who were waiting to use the needle and the

cotton roll. He had told them about Smell, and he had bloody lectured

them that there should have been no smoking since the middle of the

day, and he had checked that the tinfoil was in his own battle pack

for

their shit and the burying of it. He had lectured them about Sound,

and he had shaken each of the webbing harnesses they would wear for

the

rattle of loose ammunition magazines, and he had made them all walk

round him in a circle until he was certain that their boots were

quiet.

Ham had learned Shape, Silhouette, Shine, Smell, and Sound at the

Aldershot depot, and none of the others, the dozy buggers, cared ..

.

They needed it, too fucking right they needed Shape and Silhouette

and

Shine and Smell and Sound, where they were going .. . the others were

from 2nd Bn, 110 (Karlovac) Brigade, and they had been pissed up since

morning and Ham was stone sober and his hands shook and his gut was

tight. They were dumb bastards to be spending the night with, across

the Kupa river, behind the lines. On down his checklist .. .

ammunition magazines for the Kalashnikov, knife, gloves, the radio

that

thank Christ he wouldn't be bent under, cold rations, the balaclava,

the water bottle that wasn't full of bloody brandy or the usual

slivovitz piss, map and compass, field dressings .. . The big fear,

what tightened Ham's gut, shook his hands, was of being wounded, of

being left. It was better in the old days, better when there were

45

Internationals on the ground like flies on meat, because then there

was

the promise that the Internationals, the 'meres', would look after

their own if one was wounded. You wouldn't know with this lot,

wouldn't know if they'd fuck off and get the hell out in a stampede

back towards the river from behind the lines. They were chuckling

at

him, the others, and it was because they laughed at his care and his

thoroughness that Ham felt the fear.

They were dumb bastards to be with, but there was no one else who

would

have Sidney Ernest Hamilton, late of 3 Para, late of east London,

late

of the Internationals attached to the Croatian army. His fingers

found

the twin dog tags hanging from the dulled chain at his neck. The

tags

were bound in sellotape to keep them quiet. The tags gave his number

from 3 Para, his name, and his blood group, and his number and name

and

blood group from the Croatian army. He knew it would be bad bloody

news for any of them if they were wounded, captured, across the river,

and double bad bloody news for a mercenary.

Ham didn't eat any of the bread that was offered him, and he turned

down the alcohol, and he thought the Croatians must have known that

he

was shit stiff scared.

It would be late evening when they moved off down towards the Kupa

river where the inflatable was hidden.

Under the new scene, the new mood, there were little chores for a

senior executive officer.

The little chores were adequate to remind Arnold Browne that he was

outside the mainframe of Service operations. Once a week, a little

chore, he met with a senior executive officer from Six, and they

talked

platitudes, nothings, for an hour before going to lunch on expenses.

A

little chore because it was unthinkable that the Service would offer

valuable information to Six, and inconceivable that Six would

volunteer

worthy information to the Security Service, Valuable information,

46

worthy information, was power and would not be squandered on the

sister

organization .. . So, Arnold Browne who was old guard and old time

would parry and probe for a straight sixty minutes with a man who

was

also without a future, and then go take a damn good lunch. The

probing

and parrying that morning had involved the tedious matter of

Ukrainian

nuclear warheads and he had extracted nothing that was worthy or

valuable. It was ludicrous, of course, that Six should not share

their

information from the Ukraine so that Five could follow and monitor

the

Kiev government's attempts to get the hardware of the former Soviet

Union operational, bloody pathetic but, then, Arnold Browne was not

sharing with Six what Five had learned of PIRA arms acquisition on

the