Hunter Killer (13 page)

‘There’s a whole regiment full of guys just as well qualified to pull off this job as me and Spud.
Better
qualified, some of them. So why the hell have you been pulling strings to get
us
involved?’

The windows were misting up inside. Buckingham stared directly ahead.

‘You should be thanking me for giving you a chance, Black,’ he said. ‘The lads who eliminate these bombers will be showered in glory. And as for Abu Ra’id . . .’

‘Bullshit,’ Danny said. ‘At best, the lads who eliminate these bombers will go back to Hereford until the next time they’re needed to carry out someone else’s dirty work. At worst, you’ll shit on us from a great height like those Military Reaction Force guys who did your dirty work in Northern Ireland. The only people who’ll get showered with glory are you and your Hammerstone chums, and as far as I can tell, you’re sticking the knife into them already. Which is hardly surprising, because that’s what you do.’

Buckingham’s nostrils flared. As he turned to look Danny full in the face, all pretence of friendliness had fallen away. ‘If I were you, Black,’ he breathed, ‘I’d do exactly as I was told. I’d make very,
very
sure that I carried out this operation to the letter.’

‘Because Hugo Buckingham’s on his way up the slippery pole. And he’s very keen for that glory to be showered all over
him
. Most people see an atrocity. You see a fucking opportunity.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Buckingham hissed.

‘Go to hell.’

‘Can you carry out this operation? Quietly, effectively and without any hitches?’ And when Danny didn’t immediately reply: ‘Well,
can
you?’

Danny did it swiftly, slipping his hand into his jacket, pulling out his handgun and thrusting the barrel against Buckingham’s temple in one swift movement. Camouflaged from the gaze of any passing pedestrians by the rain-sluiced windows, neither man moved for a full thirty seconds. Buckingham’s jugular pulsed. His breathing became shallow.

‘Of course I can,’ Danny whispered. ‘Killing people is easy. It’s keeping them alive that’s the hard bit.’

He nudged his weapon. It made Buckingham visibly start, and close his eyes. ‘Put the bloody gun down,’ he breathed. ‘You’re not such a damn fool that you’re going to shoot me.’

‘Maybe I was a “damn fool” to save your fucking life – several times over.’

Danny lowered the weapon.

Buckingham drew a tremulous breath. ‘I told you earlier on that I was your best friend in all of this, Black. But believe me, I’ve enough dirt on you to make life very,
very
difficult. You’d better bloody well stay in line, soldier, and remember just who is calling the shots.’

‘The only one calling the shots,’ Danny breathed, ‘is the guy with the gun.’ He sneered as he stowed his weapon. ‘I report to Hammerstone,’ he said. ‘Not to you.’

Buckingham was clutching the steering wheel with one hand, the gear stick with the other. His knuckles were white. He was scared, and that pleased Danny. He opened the door and stepped out into the rain. A busy street. A red London bus passed in the opposite direction, its large wheels trundling through puddles and spraying the almost deserted pavement. To his left, a Middle Eastern food store, ‘The Star of Damascus’, rain sluicing off the canopy protecting its crates of vegetables. Arabic writing on the window, behind which the pale pink and white carcass of a sheep hung from a hook. Above the Star of Damascus was a window. A face looked out. Its features were strange – the eyes slightly too close together, the face itself podgy. Danny remembered what Victoria had said, about the bombers using a Down’s syndrome kid. He felt a pang of sympathy, and an equally strong surge of revulsion. There were no rules for these terrorists. No strategy too low. In that sense, at least, they and Buckingham weren’t so different.

The face above the Star of Damascus disappeared. Danny slammed the car door behind him and hurried off through the rain. He was cold and wet, and didn’t know exactly where he was, but anything was better than being stuck in a moving vehicle, being fed poison by Hugo Buckingham, the most venomous creature he knew.

17.50hrs

Clara stood by a child’s bedside.

She knew he wouldn’t make it. The wounds he had sustained were too severe, the septicaemia too advanced. It was frankly a miracle he had lived this long. He had lost both legs above the knee, and a piece of shrapnel had robbed him of the sight in one eye as well as splintering his right cheekbone. He’d been unconscious since the blast, thank goodness, unaware that he was already an orphan. Here in St Mary’s Hospital, Clara had seen more than a dozen victims die of their injuries. But there was something about this little lad that was too sad. Normally, when children were unconscious, they looked peaceful. But this kid looked like he felt every ounce of the torment he was suffering.

She sat by his bed, holding the thin hand from which a cannula emerged, attached to a saline drip. Not long now, she thought. His breathing had changed. There was fluid on his lungs. The end was close. She could do nothing for him, except be there.

It seemed to Clara that her life had been turned on its head. She had become a doctor to help people. To save lives. But now, wherever she went, innocent people seemed to be dying in their multitudes. Was it something to do with her, she sometimes wondered in the illogical panic of the darkest nights.

He died at three minutes past six. The breathing suddenly stopped, the heart rate monitor flatlined. Clara didn’t do anything at first. She simply sat there holding his hand. Tears welled up in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Her friend Emily found her like that ten minutes later. She put one arm around her shoulders and gently disentangled Clara’s fingers from the child. Then she took her to have a cup of hot, sweet tea in the crowded hospital canteen. And then, seeing the dark rings of tiredness around her eyes, she sent Clara home.

Clara
was
tired. She had left Hereford at sunrise, just as Danny was heading in to base. He was able to function on a couple of hours’ sleep, but that wasn’t enough for Clara. Her lids were heavy and her limbs ached. She walked along the Edgware Road and out towards Maida Vale, huddled under her umbrella, the shins of her trousers soaked. When she arrived at the small ground-floor flat in a mansion block just by the canal which her parents had bought her on the promise that she would never –
never
– work for Médecins Sans Frontières again, she was bone-cold. She ran herself a hot bath, then slipped into her tracksuit. She’d only just finished getting dressed when the doorbell rang. She padded to the front door and looked through the spyhole. She saw Danny’s dark features, distorted by the lens and bedraggled by the weather. She didn’t know whether to feel glad to see him, or apprehensive about the severe look on his face.

She opened the door and forced a smile. ‘Hi,’ she said.

Danny didn’t reply.

‘Come on in.’

‘Let’s take a walk,’ he said.

The rain had stopped, but the sky was still heavy. ‘Right,’ she said, discouraged by the tone of his voice. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

They trod the streets in silence. As they left the flat, Clara felt for Danny’s hand. But he didn’t reciprocate like he normally did. They walked side by side without touching.

She wanted to tell him about her day, but for some reason couldn’t find the words. Or maybe she was scared to start a conversation, because she didn’t know where it would end.

‘I was at the hospital today,’ she said finally. ‘That kid – you know, the one I told you about? – finally died.’ They walked a little further. ‘Oh, God, I hope they
find
the people who did this. And I hope they put them in a
British
jail, not send them home where they’ll be treated like heroes.’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Danny muttered.

Clara stopped walking. ‘Why?’ she asked.

Danny gave her a look she’d seen before. A look that said:
Don’t ask questions you know I can’t answer.
She felt her hackles rising. ‘For God’s sake, Danny. You
can
trust me, you know.’

Danny suppressed a sneer. Clara thought she’d seen it all in Syria, that she was safe back here in London, but Danny knew that wasn’t true. London wasn’t all Beefeaters and bars. It was a place where bad things happened. The Iranian Embassy. God’s Banker. Litvinenko. Guys from both sides killed each other on the streets of London just as surely as they did in the shit-holes that ended up on Channel 4 news. And now Danny was one of their number. He was being sucked in.

‘The list of people I can trust,’ Danny said, ‘is getting shorter.’

Clara shook her head, confused. ‘What do you
mean
?’ She looked around. They’d been walking blindly, and she couldn’t remember what route they had taken. Somewhere in the distance she heard the traffic of the Edgware Road, but she saw they were standing outside a dilapidated United Reform church. Its red bricks were crumbling, its windows were boarded up and covered in graffiti – as was the road sign on it that said ‘Station Way’. An old metal padlock clamped the main doors shut.

Danny wouldn’t look at her. She put herself in his line of vision, but he just moved his head.

‘I can’t see you any more,’ he said quietly.

She’d been expecting it, but it was still like an ice-cold corkscrew in her heart. ‘Why?’ she whispered.

‘Does it matter why?’ Danny snapped. His brow was furrowed and he still refused to look at her.

‘It matters to me.’

Danny took a deep breath. He sounded like he was controlling his anger. ‘Go home, Clara,’ he breathed. ‘Go home and stay home. That’s my advice.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Stay home? What do you . . . oh my God, there’s going to be more, isn’t there? These awful bombings, there’s going to be more of them? Danny, I understand you’re worried about me, but you don’t have to do this . . .’

‘You’re not going to see me again, Clara. Get used to the idea.’

Clara tried to stop herself from crying, but she couldn’t. ‘Danny, you’re not thinking straight. It’s Syria, isn’t it? It’s affected you. I’ve told you before . . . you have to stop remembering the things you want to forget.’ She grabbed the hem of Danny’s jacket but he pulled it away. A loud sob escaped her lips.

She turned and ran away, her wellington boots splashing in the puddles as she went. She only looked back once, to see a dark figure standing in the lamplight by the church, casting a long shadow on the pavement, its head bowed, its hands deep in the pocket of its jacket.

Danny watched her go. Just before she reached the end of the side street and turned left into Edgware Road, he followed her. Once he was on the Edgware Road, he kept a distance of 30 metres, closely following the line of shops so he could disappear if she turned to look back. But she didn’t. She reached her flat five minutes later, let herself in, and was gone.

He felt sick. Sick with himself, and sick with everyone. He tried not to think of the distressed look in Clara’s eyes as he had rejected her. But that was impossible. Not only did he
see
her despair, he felt it in his gut.

But he knew one thing for sure. Right now, the best way for a person to be safe – no, the best way for
Clara
to be safe – was to stay away from him.

Because when death gets its claws in you, it never lets go.

He heard her voice ringing in his ears.
You have to stop remembering the things you’re supposed to forget.

Sure, he thought to himself. But you also have to stop forgetting the things you’re supposed to remember. Like how death stuck to men like Danny and Spud like shit to a stick.

There’s going to be more, isn’t there? These awful bombings, there’s going to be more of them?

Yeah, he thought as he cast one final look at Clara’s mansion block. It’s not over yet.

It’s hardly even begun.

The Star of Damascus sold vegetables, rice and halal meat at bargain prices. There would be no point doing anything else, because this part of New Cross was not well-to-do. Unemployment was high, rents were cheap – and none so cheap as the small studio flat above the supermarket. The one room had thin, shiny carpets and smelled overwhelmingly of the rubbish rotting in the kitchen bin. There was a single, unmade bed at one end of the room, and a small table, at which a young man sat, his eyes staring wide at his computer screen.

He was exceedingly pleased with his computer. It was an old PC, very slow, but he didn’t mind that. He’d never had one before, and when his social worker had arranged an internet connection for him three months ago, it was as if that little flat had become a gateway to a world he never knew existed. She’d shown him how to send e-mails, how to read the BBC news website to stay up to date, and even how to access his bank account. But of course, he’d barely done any of this. He spent his days and nights staring at pornographic videos that even now made his hands tremble with excitement and gave him a thrill in the pit of his stomach. He liked it best when the girls looked directly into the camera. It was as if they were looking straight at him. Inviting him to join in. Sometimes he clicked on the banners at the right-hand side of the screen – the ones that offered to put him in touch with ‘fuck-buddies’ in his area. They always filled his screen with banner ads, but that didn’t stop him from trying again each day, sometimes more than once. He just couldn’t resist.