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  Para had a knife in his hands now. Gardner recognised the distinctive fine tip of a Gerber Compact.

  ‘Fuck it, you cunt,’ said Para. ‘Come on then.’

  Para lunged at Gardner, angling the Gerber at his neck. Gardner shunted his right hand across and jerked his head the same direction, pushing the blade away. Then he launched an uppercut at Para’s face. His face was a stew of blood and bone.

  Gardner moved in for the kill. He grabbed the planer and lamped it against the side of Para’s face. Para groaned as he fumbled blindly for the Gerber.

  Too late.

  Gardner yanked Para’s right arm. He pinned his right knee against the guy’s elbow, trapping his forearm in place. Then he depressed the button to start the planer. The tool whirred above the incessant rain as he slid it along the surface of Para’s forearm. The blade tore off strips of flesh. A pinkish-red slush spewed out of the side of the device. Gardner drove the planer further up Para’s arm. His scream turned into something animal. The skin below was totally shredded, a gooey mess of veins coiled around whitish bone. It didn’t look like an arm any longer. More like something a pack of Staffies had feasted on.

  Pleased with his work, Gardner eased off the button and ditched the planer. It clattered to the ground, sputtered, whined and died.

  The rain was now a murmur.

  ‘My arm,’ Para said. ‘My fucking arm!’

  ‘I see you again, next time it’s your face.’ Gardner’s voice was as sharp as cut glass. ‘Are we fucking clear?’

  Gardner didn’t wait for an answer. He gave his back to the three fucked-up pricks and walked down the road, past the construction site. He had reached a crossroads in his life. Lately he’d been getting into a lot of scraps. And deep down he was afraid of admitting to himself that fighting was all he was good for. The problem was, he was no longer an operator. His injury had reduced him to cleaning rifles and hauling HESCO blocks around Hereford, and the suit did not fit a fucking inch.

  He was a couple of hundred metres from the site when his mobile sparked up. A shitty old Nokia. Gardner could afford an iPhone 4, but only in his dreams. The number on the screen wasn’t one he recognized. An 0207 number. London. He tapped the answer key.

  ‘Is that Mr Joseph Gardner?’

  The voice was female and corporate. The kind of tone that belonged on airport announcements. Pressing the phone closer to his ear, Gardner said, ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Nancy Rayner here. I’m calling from Talisman International.’

  Gardner rubbed his temples, trying to clear the fog of booze behind his eyeballs. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  ‘The security consultancy?’ the woman went on. ‘You submitted a job application . . . let me see . . .’ – Gardner heard the shuffle of papers – ‘. . . two weeks ago.’

  Her words jolted his mind. Fucking yes. He did recall applying for a job. He also recalled thinking he had next to no hope of getting it. Talisman were one of the new boys on the security circuit. He’d not heard anything, and figured it was the same better-luck-elsewhere story.

  ‘We’d like to invite you for an interview.’

  Gardner fell silent.

  ‘Mr Gardner?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How does tomorrow sound? One o’clock at our offices?’

  It sounded better than good. It was fucking great.

  He said simply, ‘OK.’

  ‘Excellent. So we’ll see you tomorrow at one.’

  Click.

  Gardner was left listening to dead air. Suddenly the drunken mist behind his eyes was lifting. He tucked the mobile away, dug his hands into his jacket pockets and quickened his pace.

  Maybe he wouldn’t be hauling gravel around Hereford for the rest of his miserable life.

  four

  London, UK. 1257 hours.

  As the First Great Western train slithered into Paddington, the passenger announcement shook Gardner from his slumbers. ‘All change.’ The doors bleated and opened, and Gardner made his way to the Underground. The concourse was crawling with armed police patrolling around with their Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine guns strapped around their chests. Gardner afforded himself a wry smile. These coppers couldn’t shoot their way out of a wet bog roll yet here they were prancing around like fucking Rambo. He parted with six quid for a one-day Travelcard and caught the Bakerloo Line towards Elephant and Castle. Twelve minutes later the Tube coughed him up at Charing Cross.

  Life had not been kind to Gardner since he had stopped MI6 agent Leo Land from engineering a conflict between Israel and Iran. Land had been publicly humiliated and war narrowly averted, but the media didn’t give Gardner any credit. Not that he wanted it. Aimée Milana, the journalist he had been protecting, had been killed by a sniper’s bullet in London’s Parliament Square in front of the world’s media. The 7.62x51mm NATO round entered her left eye, bored through her brain and exited via her left shoulder. Aimée died immediately, and in death she became both martyr and the intrepid investigator who had uncovered the plot. Gardner hadn’t loved her, but he cared enough to let her take the afterlife glory.

  He emerged from the Tube into the chaotic embrace of Charing Cross. More coppers. The crowds were thinner than he recalled from his last visit. The shooting at Knightsbridge had put everyone on edge. Copies of Metro carpeted the ground, stamped with shoeprints and bird shit. He caught half of a headline, the word ‘HORROR’ in big bold letters next to a pixelated CCTV image of a woman covered in blood. He hooked a left onto the Strand and kept an eye on the clouds, bulging like overfilled flour sacks.

  Gardner quickened his stride and tried to feel at ease in the cheap suit he was wearing. He carried on down Whitehall and the classical buildings imposing themselves between old boys’ boozers and souvenir shops. At the back of the Household Cavalry’s headquarters Gardner hung a left onto Horse Guards Avenue and tipped his head in quiet respect at the statue of the Gurkha outside the Ministry of Defence. Left again and he found himself on Whitehall Court. Twenty metres down the street he found the place he was looking for.

  Compared with the ostentation around it, the building looked subdued. It was three storeys tall with a stucco front and an oak door, above which a dark glass fanlight framed the company name in finely etched gold letters: Talisman Security. The ‘International’ had been shortened to ‘Int’l’. Gardner approached the intercom to the right of the door and pressed the buzzer.

  ‘Yes?’ a woman squawked.

  ‘Joe Gardner. I’m here for the interview.’

  Static crackled from the speaker. Gardner scratched his freshly clipped beard, straightened his tie.

  ‘Please enter.’

  There was the diplomatic click of a lock being released. Gardner gave the brass doorknob a twist and entered the reception. The woman who had spoken to him through the intercom greeted him with a stern face. She was disappointingly old and fat. He was signed in and given a visitor ID badge.

  He rode the shuddering box lift up to the first floor. When he stepped out he got a surprise. This floor was nothing like the gentlemen’s club décor of the reception. Gone were the dark-framed portraits and the musty smell of old money. Instead he was in a white-tiled corridor with frosted-glass office doors. A fragrance like freshly chopped pinewood hung in the air. He stopped outside the interview room for a moment and wiped his brow.

  Gardner had faced down terrorists and been shot at by African warlords, but job interviews scared the shit out of him. Fuck it, he thought. Let’s get it over with. He opened the door and entered a long and wide meeting room. A white walnut table faced him. A deck of Cisco phones were lined up on the table, along with a projector, and at one end of the room was a pulled-down white screen.

  Three figures were seated at the far end of the table.

  On the left was a woman. Slimline body, small breasts, early thirties. Her brunette hair was tied back in a businesslike manner and she was dressed in an understated skirt suit. On her wedding-ring finger she
wore a discreet band that depressed Gardner.

  The guy on the right was almost as thin as the bird. He was sitting stiffly in his chair and scribbling on a notepad. Conservative-blue suit, white shirt, grey tie. His face was smooth and clean-shaven, his fingernails immaculately cut. He didn’t look like he had ever lifted a weight, let alone spent a night in the jungle.

  Then Gardner set eyes on the figure sitting in the middle, and did a double-take. He blinked. His eyes were not deceiving him. The man was sitting with his hands splayed in front of him and broadcasting a smug, taunting look at Gardner.

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ he said.

  There was a long pause while an invisible rope tightened around Gardner’s chest.

  ‘This is Nancy Rayner,’ said the man, gesturing to his right. ‘And this is Danny, my PA,’ he added, nodding at the corporate twat to his left.

  But Gardner couldn’t take his eyes off the man in the middle.

  ‘You two know each other?’ Rayner asked, her eyes flicking between Gardner and the man sitting next to her.

  ‘We do,’ breathed Gardner. ‘Hello, John.’

  five

  1334 hours.

  John Bald looked good for a dead man. He was decked out in an olive-green Ralph Lauren polo shirt, stonewashed jeans and brown Timberlands. The muscles on his forearms bulged like a pair of knotted garden hoses about to burst. A TAG Heuer Aquaracer watch glinted on his wrist.

  ‘You’re not here,’ Gardner said. ‘You’re fucking dead.’

  Bald leaned back and laughed at the ceiling. It was a full-bellied, confident laugh and it made Gardner feel like he was something Bald was scraping off the bottom of his shoe.

  ‘And now I’m back,’ said Bald. ‘Hallelujah! It’s a miracle, Joe – isn’t it?’

  Gardner edged closer. Deep, thick scars were pressed into Bald’s cheeks like barbed wire. His forehead was marked with pink gashes. Scar tissue. It all came hurtling back at Gardner. The village of Brezovan. The Presevo Valley, Serbia. He had looked on helplessly as Russian mafia goons pumped Bald full of hot lead. The rounds had rent terrible damage, thundering through Bald’s body and tearing off clumps of flesh. And Gardner hadn’t been able to do a thing about it.

  ‘But I saw you with my own eyes. You had more holes in you than a fucking choirboy.’

  ‘I got lucky,’ Bald said. ‘I was out of it for hours. Lying there in that fucking foul ditch. Left for dead. Then I came to. It was dark but somehow I managed to drag myself to the nearest town. God knows how I made it that far. Some farmer found me. Drove me to the hospital. I remember bright lights and a doctor telling me I wouldn’t make it.’

  Bald’s eyes shone like polished steel.

  ‘It took me six months to recover,’ he said, his gaze now dropped. ‘I was so weak I could barely lift a spoon to my mouth.’

  Gardner tried to take in what Bald was telling him. The pain flared up in his ribcage again. He put a hand to his chest and caught his breath.

  ‘You OK?’ Bald looked genuinely concerned.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Gardner said much too quickly.

  ‘Why don’t you have a seat?’

  Gardner deposited himself on the chair facing Bald and accepted a tumbler of chilled water from the PA. Now Rayner was flicking through a neat stack of papers in front of her. Danny had his thin lips sealed. Something didn’t seem right about him in Gardner’s mind. He knew John Bald better than most. And Bald would never hire a bloke as a PA. He’d go for a smoking-hot blonde every time.

  ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we?’ said Bald. ‘That’s what we’re here for, after all.’

  Gardner nodded and gave Bald a chummy smile.

  ‘’Course,’ Gardner said. ‘I’m glad you’re alive, mate.’

  ‘Likewise, Joe.’ Bald was grinding his jaws like he was chewing tarmac. ‘It’s fucking good to see you. Not many of us old Blades left in the world, is there? You’re practically family.’

  Gardner smiled and felt the lead weights lift from his shoulders. No one knows me better than John, he was thinking. John was a lying, thieving bastard, but he was also an old mucker. I’m fucking in here, he told himself.

  ‘Thanks for inviting me up here,’ Gardner said, framing his premium-grade smile. ‘I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity, John.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Bald said, generously waving aside the compliment. Rayner placed a sheet of paper in front of him. Bald took a breath mint from an expensive-looking little metal case and popped it into his mouth. Gardner caught a glimpse of the paper and recognized it as the CV he’d emailed to Rayner when applying for the job.

  ‘Very impressive credentials,’ Bald said, raising his bushy eyebrows. ‘I mean, seriously fucking good. Says here you were awarded the MM in 2 Para by the age of twenty-one, applied as a candidate for Selection aged twenty-three and passed at the first attempt.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Gardner said. His smile began to crack at the edges as he wondered, what’s John trying to get at? He knows all this shit already.

  Bald said, ‘You finished second overall in the long drag. Who was first?’

  ‘You were.’

  Bald slapped a hand dolefully against his forehead.

  ‘Fuck me, that’s right. I’m always forgetting that.’ Rayner suppressed a laugh while Bald returned to the CV and read on. ‘One tour of duty in Kosovo, undercover work with the SRR in Northern Ireland, two combat tours in Iraq as part of Task Force Black, then combat operations in Afghanistan. And then – oh, what’s this?’

  He tapped at a note at the bottom of the page.

  ‘Says here you sustained combat injuries in Afghanistan.’

  Gardner was still trying to hold the smile. Bald stared down the barrel of his bulbous nose at him. His voice was growing louder, his Scottish accent more pronounced. ‘I know that too, of course. I was there. I was the one who saved your fucking life.’

  ‘And I’ll always be grateful—’

  ‘Lost your hand, though,’ Bald cut Gardner short.

  Gardner instinctively covered his artificial left hand with his right. Bald passed the CV back to Rayner and shook his head.

  ‘No. I’m sorry, Joe. But your combat injury, your fucked-up hand, whatever you want to call it – I can’t consider you for this job. We’re looking for someone who can, well, really grasp this opportunity with both hands.’

  Rayner laughed, this time out loud, unable to hold it in. Gardner could sense his temper breaking loose. He slammed the glass down on the table.

  ‘The hand’s not a problem,’ said Gardner. ‘Come on, mate.’

  Bald shook his head. ‘Sorry. Mate.’

  ‘But no one else has the experience I’ve got. You know that. Come on, John. Give me a fucking chance and I’ll not let you down.’

  Bald shrugged with his lips.

  ‘That’s all well and good. But we need someone who can blend in.’

  Gardner frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t go into too much detail, Joe. But our client believes they have a terrorist sleeper cell operating at the very heart of their organization.’ He glanced hesitantly at Danny. ‘We’re looking for someone inconspicuous. And that hand of yours? Well, it stands out like an Arab at Gay Pride.’

  Gardner felt his jaw muscles twitch. It had taken him the best part of six months to get his foot in the door with the security companies. Most of them had more operators than jobs, especially now the work in Afghanistan and Iraq had dried up. Opportunities elsewhere were limited to guarding Saudi princesses and protecting African diamond mines. As for MI6, they had cast him out without so much as an iTunes gift certificate.

  Bottom line: this interview was Gardner drinking in the last-chance saloon. And John Bald, the mate he thought had died in a hellhole village in the Balkans, was pissing all over his dreams.

  ‘I can do this, John,’ Gardner said.

  ‘With that thing?’ Bald angled his head at the prosthesis. ‘I don’t
think so.’

  Danny excused himself and left the room. Gardner watched him leave and turned back to Bald.

  ‘Don’t do this to me.’ His voice echoed off the walls. ‘We fought alongside each other, for fuck’s sake. I’m not asking you for a favour, I’m just asking for an honest chance. I know—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Joe.’ Bald held Gardner’s gaze. The look in his eyes was pure, unfiltered indifference. That was the worst of it for Gardner. His old mucker didn’t hate him. He just thought he was a fucking joke. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other business to attend to.’

  Bald strode confidently towards the door. He rested a hand on Gardner’s shoulder.

  ‘Never mind, mate. There’s always your local Jobcentre.’

  With that Bald exited the conference room. Rayner trailed in his wake. Gardner was left alone with nothing but a glimpse of bling and a life rapidly disappearing down the shitter. The notepad Danny had been writing on was lying on the table. Gardner craned his neck at the open page. It was covered in doodles. The cunt hadn’t even been paying attention.

  They had invited him down for nothing.

  Gardner was humiliated. He didn’t own a watch, having pawned his Breitling SAS watch in order to pay off credit card debts. But the stylish antique clock on the far wall told him it was just past two.

  He needed a beer.

  He pissed off out of Talisman’s offices and tramped back up towards the Strand. Finding a boozer that charged less than four fucking quid a pint was impossible, so Gardner bought twelve tinnies of cheap lager from a corner shop for a tenner and headed for Temple Tube. Beside the station, with its scattershot of grey-faced street sellers, was a tiny park. South of this ran the Victoria Embankment. On the other side Arundel Street climbed up to the Strand east of Somerset House and the Savoy. Gardner settled on a park bench and knuckled down to the important work of getting shitfaced. He lost track of time. At some point the peat-bog sky dulled into a cocktail of purple and orange clouds as night closed in over London. Earlier the area had been throbbing with important people. Now it was abandoned.