Even while he was still on the rope, Carver had seen the doors opening on the ship down below: one at the rear of the bridge, above a set of metal steps that led down to the deck; a second at deck level, on the far side of the yellow-painted superstructure. Carver was targeting the bridge.
As he moved forward towards it, a man emerged at the top of the steps, carrying a gun. He looked towards Carver and the men descending like black-clad wraiths from the helicopter that now loomed over half the length of the boat.
Carver tried to shout over the noise of the engines, the rotors and the wind, ‘Put down your weapon, now!’ But before the words were out of his mouth, the man - acting out of courage, desperation or sheer blind panic - had started firing, his shots spraying randomly as he tried to keep his balance while his ship moved beneath him.
Carver did not hesitate. The moment his hands had let go the rope, he had torn off his gloves and reached for the Heckler and Koch MP5 strapped across his chest. A flashlight was attached to the barrel of the gun. Now Carver swung it to his shoulder, let the light pick out his target and fired a three-round burst that hit the drug-runner full in the chest, sending him back a couple of staggered paces before the boat pitched up into an oncoming wave, and sent him falling down the stairs.
His body came to a halt just above the deck, held by a boot that had caught in one of the steps. The dead man’s forehead was bumping into the bottom step with every movement of the
Maid of Dumfries
. For some reason that steady, repetitive impact seemed more disturbing to Carver than the three gaping exit wounds his bullets had ripped from the corpse’s back.
Carver forced his concentration back to the matter in hand.
To his left, on the far side of the deck, he saw Tyzack raise his own MP5 and fire. Tyzack flashed him a quick OK with his thumb and forefinger. A second man was down.
Carver nodded in acknowledgement and gestured to Tyzack to keep moving. Then he turned to the men behind him and started signalling more orders, his hands moving like a tic-tac man at a racecourse betting stall.
The six men now split into three pairs. Carver took one man and moved to secure the bridge and take control of the vessel. Tyzack and his back-up were tasked to enter the superstructure to clear the cabins and engine-room. The final pair would secure the holds and start the search for the drugs that were the justification for the entire operation.
When Carver and the man behind him reached the bridge, it was deserted, the boat moving forward on automatic pilot. So where was the third crewman?
The question had no sooner crossed Carver’s mind than it was answered by a burst of gunfire from the cabin below. The last echoes died away. Then there was another short, sudden blast of firing. Then silence.
‘Stay here,’ Carver said to his partner. ‘Keep an eye out. Make sure we don’t bump into anything.’
Then he went back out of the bridge, stepped over the dead body now lying on the deck at the foot of the steps, and made his way towards the sound of the guns.
‘Very interesting,’ said Tyzack. He was standing a couple of paces from Carver, looking down on him. He’d adopted the attitude of a QC cross-examining a witness. Carver wondered how long he’d been dreaming of this moment, working on his delivery, polishing up his questions.
‘So you admit that Trench knew that I had superior military skill to you?’ Tyzack went on.
‘That was his opinion, yes. You were good under training conditions. I always felt combat would be a different matter.’
‘And yet, when we landed on that boat, we advanced together and both of us took out our designated targets.’
‘Yes.’
‘And those were certainly combat conditions.’
Carver nodded. ‘Yes, you were doing a good job at that point.’
‘It was my first kill, you know. Do you remember your first kill?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Really?’ said Tyzack. ‘I thought it was an amazing moment. I’d heard all about that sort of thing, of course. Growing up in my family, I could hardly avoid it. But it’s a bit like sex, isn’t it? Until you’ve actually done it, you really have no idea …’
‘If you say so.’
Tyzack ignored him. ‘I can still see the way the rounds hit their target. There was much more blood than I expected. I’d allowed for the wounds going in, you see, but not for the mess coming out the far side. The poor chap I hit, his body sort of rippled with the impact; it was the most extraordinary sight, filled me with absolute, pure pleasure. But you say it wasn’t the same for you?’
‘No.’ Carver leaned back a fraction and the open wounds on his back touched the frame of the chair. He gasped with pain.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Tyzack with exaggerated concern. ‘Painful, is it? Well, concentrate on what you’re saying, why don’t you? Take your mind off it. Tell you what, I’ll give you a little drink just to wet your throat. I really can’t say fairer than that.’
Tyzack walked across to the table and poured a dribble of water into the bottom of the paper cup. He gave it to Carver, who gulped it down in one swallow.
‘There,’ said Tyzack, ‘we’ve got a little system going, water for talk. So let’s talk some more. Answer me this: if you hate killing so much, why do you keep doing it?’
Carver smiled wearily. Tyzack was not best pleased.
‘Did I say something funny? I wasn’t aware that I’d been trying to amuse.’
‘No,’ said Carver, shaking his head. ‘I’ve just heard that one before.’
He thought back to a clinic by the shore of Lake Geneva and the sessions he’d had there. Carver’s mind had been torn apart by unendurable trauma. A psychiatrist called Karlheinze Geisel had helped to put it back together. He’d harped on about Carver’s deadly profession, too. So Carver gave Tyzack the same answer he’d given the shrink.
‘I do it because it’s the thing I can do. I look on it as a curse, for what it’s worth. I wish I had another saleable talent. And if you want to know how I justify it, I’ll tell you. The people I take out have got it coming. The world is a better place for them not being there.’
‘Not always, it isn’t,’ said Tyzack, a teasing smile playing around the corners of his mouth. ‘Dear old Percy Wake told me how you once killed a certain well-known woman in Paris. That was hardly a service to mankind. And all those poor people at the hotel last night. Did they have it coming?’
‘No, they didn’t. But both those times, I was set up, and you know it.’
‘Oh, I see. They were unintentional killings?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about all the people who’ve died just because they happened to get in the way? How do you justify it when you trot off to Canada and take out a plane with someone on it you think deserves to die and - oh dear! - the pilot dies too, and the chap next to him, and the poor little trolley-dolly, and a couple of passengers too? This is an actual case I’m quoting …’
‘I know.’
‘You were trying to get a man named Waylon McCabe.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But he was the only person who walked away. Dearie me, that was a bit of a mistake.’
‘Yes … yes, it was.’
Tyzack stepped forward till his mouth was just inches from Carver’s right ear. ‘So why, when I make a mistake, just one mistake … a mistake which harmed far fewer people … why did you have to ruin my entire … fucking … life?’
Carver took a second gulp of water and went back to the story of the
Maid of Dumfries
.
‘Even when I was topsides I knew that the weapon I’d heard was an MP5 set to automatic fire - one of ours. So I went below decks, came through the door of that cabin and your oppo, McWhirter, was standing there saying something like, “Oh Jesus … what the fuck have you done?” This tough Glasgow bastard, seen it all, done it all, and whatever he’d just seen, it had shocked him to the point he was almost in tears. Then you caught sight of me and said - no, that’s wrong, you whined: “He had a weapon.”’
Tyzack stepped back, away from Carver’s chair, and started pacing up and down the floor of the barn. He looked agitated, twitchy, on the brink of another loss of control.
‘Would you like me to stop?’ Carver asked, the victim briefly inflicting more damage than his torturer.
‘No,’ snarled Tyzack. ‘Keep going. Tell me the lies you told Trench and the rest.’
‘Whatever you say. So, I was looking for a man with a weapon. And I was puzzled, because I couldn’t see him anywhere. And then I noticed something. There was a padded bench, ran most of the way round the cabin wall. And something had been flung on it. At first I thought it was a pile of dirty rags. And then I realized that the dirt was blood and the pile of rags was this little kid. God knows how many rounds you’d put into him because you’d practically cut him in two, poor little beggar.’
Now the anger was rising in Carver too and it was emotion that constricted his voice, not the collar round his neck as he said, ‘And next to the kid was the weapon, except it wasn’t a weapon, was it, Tyzack? It was a plastic toy gun. And in front of the kid, on the floor, was a woman, the mother. She’d tried to protect her baby, and you’d given her a burst too. Once I’d seen that, what else did I need to know?’
‘You could have asked me what happened?’ said Tyzack, still pacing up and down. ‘You could have let me explain.’
‘All right then, explain. Tell me why you couldn’t tell the difference between a grown man with a gun and a small child with a toy.’
‘Because it was dark down there. We were all using goggles, remember? No lights on at all, just the flame from that gas hob in the corner. There was a cooking pot on top, so I reckoned there had to be someone there. Plus, we’d been told to expect a minimum crew of three, and there were only two down, both of them armed. And I didn’t see a kid. I just saw something moving across the room, I saw a gun barrel, and I heard the sound of firing—’
‘Do me a favour,’ Carver interrupted. ‘You heard the sound of the kid’s toy. He probably thought it was all a big game. And if you think a toy gun sounds anything like the real thing, you need your ears examining, as well as your head. How about muzzle-flash, see any of that? Notice any bullet holes anywhere, any ricochets? You were in a cabin no more than eight foot square. If he had been firing a real gun, you’d have known all about it.’
‘I didn’t have time to work that out, did I?’ Tyzack protested. ‘I don’t know, maybe I thought he had a suppressor. And there was at least one adult in the cabin. They could have been armed, too. I couldn’t afford to take chances.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Carver, quite calmly. ‘I’ll tell you what happened. You were on your first mission. You’d just had your first kill and you were practically coming in your pants with excitement. You couldn’t wait to do it again. So when you saw two people in that cabin you let rip. And all the training you’d ever done went right out the window. How many hours had you spent in the Killing House, training for exactly this kind of moment? That’s why we did it, so we didn’t kill the wrong people. And if you really want to know, what pissed me off was not just that you were such a blatant bloody psycho, it was that you were a total amateur. You’re just a fucking awful soldier.’
Whatever scenes Tyzack had played out in his mind, that hadn’t been in the script. He came to a halt, turned to face Carver and there was outrage in his voice as he protested, ‘That’s not true! You said it yourself, my assessment scores were better than yours. I was just inexperienced. If I’d been given a chance, I wouldn’t have made mistakes like that again. But you never gave me the chance. You humiliated me in front of the other men, and then you had me kicked out.’
Carver shook his head in disbelief. ‘That’s what all this is about, is it? I’m sitting here because I’m the man who got poor, misunderstood Damon Tyzack his dishonourable discharge? You moron. You’d still be in prison if it wasn’t for me. I didn’t ruin your life. I saved your bloody neck. ‘
Carver had said nothing when he saw the bodies. He stepped across to the light switch, turned it on, and took off his night-vision goggles as the cabin suddenly filled with the harsh glare of an unshaded bulb. Then he put a hand up to his face and massaged his forehead, the movements of his fingers alternately smoothing and deepening the single deep furrow on his brow, the outline of his goggles still visible on his skin. When he removed his hand and opened his eyes, they looked as chilly and green as the ice in a glacial crevasse.
‘You’re very lucky,’ he said, looking straight at Tyzack. ‘This is a secret operation, and we don’t want it compromised by a murder inquiry, or getting in the media. So we’re going to have to destroy the evidence. I want you to place charges on the fuel and water tanks. If you’ve got any spare, put them against the inside of the hull, below the water-line, ten-minute fuses on the detonators. When they’re set, open the seacocks, so the boat starts flooding. That’ll do most of the work. The charges will just blow the buoyancy out of the tanks and give us a bang for the fly-boys to see.’
There was a clattering of boots behind Carver and another SBS man, Sergeant Hirst, appeared in the doorway.
‘We found half of Colombia down there, boss,’ he shouted. ‘Tons of the stuff. You’ll never …’