The Network - Jason Elliot [15]
Hot water feels like a miracle, and the breakfast that H cooks is worth any lottery win. After we eat, H asks if I’m ready for a debrief. He gets out one of his laminated maps and points out the crossroads where I stopped to get petrol, and the place where I began my night-time escape. We find the ridge where I woke up, and we find the village of Shobdon and the airfield where my travels came to an end.
‘What I don’t understand is how you knew I was at the airfield,’ I say.
‘Clever that,’ he says with a knowing smile. ‘Where’d I put your jacket?’ He retrieves it and goes to work on the stitches of the collar with his penknife, extracting a thin piece of black plastic the size of a large stamp with a six-inch-long tail of fine wire. It dawns on me that I never really had a chance to escape my pursuers after all.
‘Tracker,’ he says, tossing it in his palm. ‘A bit sneaky beaky. Used to use these all the time Over The Water. We were going to let you go a lot longer, but we couldn’t have you nick a plane. Nice idea, though.’ He grins. The airfield is where the Regiment has been known to practise what he calls hot exfils, which is Regiment-speak for getting people like H in or out of countries where there isn’t much time to socialise, and involves driving a Range Rover at high speed on or off the ramp of a moving Hercules aircraft, which H calls a Fat Albert. He doesn’t know why Hercs are called Fat Alberts, he says; they just are.
The place I had my tête-à-tête with the colonel is, as I’ve guessed, an abandoned chicken farm on the periphery of the airfield, and the colonel, he says, really is a colonel with the Green Slime.
‘Arrogant bastard, but a good soldier,’ he concedes. Billy, he tells me, is just a big softie, and the Face, who’s actually called Nick, was the youngest member of Pagoda Troop at the Prince’s Gate hostage rescue.
‘He said he was going to shoot me,’ I tell him.
‘Don’t be daft,’ says H. ‘We’re not allowed to carry weapons. Probably just a water pistol.’ A wink suggests this isn’t the whole story, but I let that go.
‘What about that fucking farmer who tried to kill me?’
‘Old Tom? We knew where you were, so we put him at the bottom of the woods. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Known him for years. Some of the lads practise their OP skills on his farm.’
‘What happened to the dogs?’ I ask, because this has been puzzling me.
‘Dogs?’ he asks. ‘We didn’t have any dogs. Must have been a hunt. Happened to me on my E & E once,’ he says, going back to his own selection days. ‘Whole pack of them came swarming over us. I was sure I was going to be Platform 4’d. Scared the life out of me, but a minute later they were all gone.’ He folds up the map. ‘Sorry about all the psycho games. They get quite into it sometimes. Must have liked you.’
‘They don’t know what I’m used to from my ex,’ I say, and the effort to laugh hurts my eye again.
I retrieve the Firm’s magic mobile and bring it to life. There’s a text message waiting which reads int locstat, which is Seethrough’s way of asking where I am and what I’m doing. I call London, activate the encryption and listen to the watery-sounding ringing tone until it stops.
‘This is Plato for Macavity,’ I say.
‘Macavity here. I’m told congratulations are in order. Good show.’
Crisp, to the point and ridiculous as ever.
‘You’ve got some travelling coming up. Be here on Saturday, can you? We’ll send some transport.’
I have no idea what day it is, but agree.
‘Did you really try to steal an aircraft?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, don’t make a habit of it. And don’t let this go to your head.’
‘Roger that,’ I say.
But it won’t be easy.
PART TWO
3
This is not how it all begins. It begins a month earlier with a minor and, to my mind, forgivable act of theft committed on a grey March morning with Gerhardt, my partner in crime. We have been stealing firewood from a patch of forest not far from home, thanks to an undefended muddy track which Gerhardt