Dead Centre - Andy McNab [43]
I used to spend a lot of my time-off in Ascari’s, eating toast and drinking coffee. It was where I’d really got to know Crazy Dave. When I joined he was already a sergeant, something like three generations above me. He was in A Squadron, I was in B, so I didn’t get to see him that much. But over coffee and scrambled egg, we’re all the same. We both used to spend our Sunday mornings there, reading the supplements; him because he was trying to avoid his wife, me because I didn’t have one. Crazy Dave didn’t need to go there so much now. His wife had left soon after he’d got himself fucked up. His legs were useless, and as far as she was concerned, so was he. He was in and out of hospital like a yo-yo, and she didn’t fancy joining him for the ride.
There was a bit of bad blood between us too. I’d felt sorry for him when we met up again in 2005 – but it only took me a week or two to start thinking two fucked-up legs weren’t enough. A friend of mine from Regiment days tapped Crazy Dave for some work. He was in the early stages of motor neurone disease and wanted one last big pay-off so his wife would have a pension. So far so good, but Crazy Dave had found out and taken advantage of him. Charlie was so desperate he’d accepted only a fraction of what the job was worth, and Dave had trousered the rest.
I made him give Charlie’s widow the lot. In return, I’d hold off telling the guys who came to him for work how much of a markup he liked to take, or telling the companies that used him that he had a quality-control problem – he didn’t even check his workforce had fully functioning limbs.
The bit I’d enjoyed most was telling him that if he didn’t get his finger out and have the cash in her account within twenty-four hours, I’d be straight over to separate his bony arse from his wheelchair.
Next time I saw him, a year later, that was precisely what I did. I’d needed some int, but I’d fucked up. Instead of just asking him for a favour, which would have given him a bit of a kick, I’d tried to blackmail him. He gave me the int, and told me we were all square. Then he told me that if I made the mistake of thinking otherwise, he had three hundred guys on his Rolodex who’d happily take a shovel to my face.
If only I could have left it at that.
There are times when you have to accept you’ve been fucked over, and that was one of them. But it pissed me off that he made so much money from scamming his own people, and something in me snapped.
I grabbed his right calf and started towards the door, dragging him and the wheelchair behind me. He screamed and shouted at me to stop, but I kept right on going. When we reached the door Crazy Dave couldn’t hold onto his chair any longer and fell out on his arse. I dragged him through the rain and only let go when we reached his Popemobile. He flailed around on the wet tarmac, trying to pull himself along on his elbows, back towards the house.
To this day, I didn’t know why I did it. It was immature, gratuitous and got me nowhere – but, fuck, it put a smile back on my face.
Unfortunately, I now needed his help again.
6
I TURNED RIGHT at the junction with Broad Street, passed the front of the hotel and headed towards the River Wye.
The only crazy thing about Crazy Dave was that he’d earned his nickname because he wasn’t: he was about as zany as a teacup. He was the kind of guy who analysed a joke before saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I get it. That’s funny.’ But then again, he wasn’t trying to find work for a bunch of stand-up comedians – even if we sometimes thought we were pretty fucking amusing.
There had always been a broker knocking around Hereford. He had to be ex-Regiment because he had to know the people – who was in, who was getting out – and if he didn’t, he had to know a man who did. When Crazy Dave left after his twenty-two years, he became an intermediary between ex-Regiment guys and the private military companies and individuals who wanted competent people. Dave got his cash by providing the right person for the