Pirate - Duncan Falconer [34]
When Stratton was handed his, he studied the contents of the bowl in his tied hands. It looked like some kind of fish stew, with more bones than meat. But he was hungry. He crunched down on a fish head and chewed the bones to a pulp and swallowed. Someone in the room choked violently as he struggled to extricate a bone from his throat. The man beside him slammed his back repeatedly. The choking man managed to cough it up.
‘It’s Saturday,’ Hopper said, eating his food as if it were an everyday meal. ‘The wife would have expected me back by now. She won’t be worried of course. Not if I’m late by a few days.’
Stratton sympathised. But it only reminded him once again of why marriage wasn’t the wisest choice for someone in their business. Close relationships were almost as bad. Something Stratton had managed to avoid for the most part. And times like this proved him right. He wasn’t missing anyone. And no one was stressing over him because he hadn’t come home when he should have.
He had long since identified it as a kind of loneliness and he was well aware that it wasn’t healthy either. The way his mind worked, no man could really be complete without a family. Surely that was the prime purpose, to find a partner and produce offspring in order to continue the line. But there was time yet for all of that. Right now he was a soldier and he needed to focus on that alone. Every lifestyle had its sacrifices. His was a lack of companion -ship, of love. He would do without for the time being and gamble that he could find it when he was good and ready. When he was no longer in this business.
‘We were going cycling today,’ Hopper said. ‘Bradbury Rings … When do you think they’ll tell her I’m missing?’
‘If they thought we’d taken a boat, then they’d more than likely assume we’d been lost at sea before considering we’d been taken by this shower,’ said Stratton. ‘They won’t rush into assuming the worst. First thing they’ll probably tell her is there’s been an extension to the op. They won’t give her any bad news until they’re certain.’ He knew that much from experience. He’d had to pass on the bad news more than once. Watching a loving wife or girlfriend break into small pieces right in front of you is not something he was built to take, tough as he felt. He didn’t have the tools to deal with it. Which only served to cement his belief that close relationships weren’t worth the pain they could create, even for those not directly involved in them.
‘If Sabarak barters us to Lotto, we’re screwed,’ Hopper said. ‘Even if London agreed to pay a ransom for us, which I strongly doubt, Lotto might not take it. He might rather make a present of us to the jihadists. We should consider making a break for it, and the sooner the better.’
Stratton knew that was the right course of action. But the boxes on the ships were bothering him. Kidnapping Sabarak was one part of a larger operation. The big picture was about something else. They might have failed to bring in Sabarak, but perhaps they had stumbled on another and possibly larger piece of the puzzle. He couldn’t let that go. If they concentrated on saving their own skins, they would be failing in their duties. They weren’t just ordinary soldiers charging at an enemy. They were specialists. That meant thinking for yourself, changing course and making decisions, sometimes major ones, without consulting the head shed. He felt an urge inside him that was far stronger than the need to save his own neck. He couldn’t leave Somalia until he found out what was going on.
‘We can’t leave,’ Stratton said. ‘Not yet.’
Hopper couldn’t hide his surprise. He didn’t know Stratton very well personally but he knew his reputation. Like everyone else in the SBS, Hopper hadn’t been privy to the details of Stratton’s operations for the SIS and, on occasion apparently, for the Americans.