Red Team had been suspended, pending an internal investigation. And now Bald was being hung out to dry. His first test as assault commander had gone south. Big-time.
‘Good morning for the Dance, eh, Jock?’ the operator next to Bald said, grinning inanely. Bald turned and glared at him. Steve Stoner was a burly Sheffield lad with a permanent smile plastered across his mug, and an easygoing manner that really pissed Bald off. Stoner was the kind of guy who could find the silver lining in any cloud. Even when those clouds were grey as fuck and it was pissing it down across the Brecon Beacons.
‘If you say so,’ said Bald.
He sighed and shook his head. He’d only agreed to join in with the Blue Team guys on the Fan Dance to clear his head after yesterday’s shitstorm. But as the skies turned grey as coal and the icy rain stabbed him in the face, Bald was starting to think that this was a really bad idea.
Should’ve stayed at home, John. Stayed away from Stoner and the other twats. They’ll be gloating over your failure. Taking the piss out of you.
They passed the students. Some of the guys glanced in awe at the veteran Blades in their midst. Bald just ignored them and strolled on.
Stoner nodded at the students and said, ‘McCanliss had better go easy on these lads this morning. Can’t push the students too hard in these conditions, Jock. One of ’em might come down with hypothermia.’
Bald shrugged. ‘Yeah, well.Nature’s way of saying you’ve failed Selection.’
‘You’re a mean bastard, Jack.’
‘Someone’s go to be.’
They beat a path across the tarmac towards the instructors. Half a dozen of them were standing in a loose group around the tea urn, helping themselves to steaming hot brews. Among them Bald noticed a vaguely familiar face. Noticed the two stumps on the guy’s left hand. Bald then did a double-take. Turned to Stoner.
‘Christ,’ said Bald. ‘Is that Porter? What’s he doing here’
Stoner nodded. ‘Didn’t you hear? He transferred to the Training Wing a few weeks ago.’
‘Fuck me sideways. He’s aged a lot.’
And he had, thought Bald. The last time he’d seen Porter the pair of them had been on an op in Serbia. Just over half the squadron had been deployed to the region during the Bosnian war, wearing UN berets and armed with SA80 rifles to blend in with the regular squaddie units. Their orders had been to hit the paramilitary units that had been propping up Milosevic’s regime, slaughtering Muslims in the surrounding villages. That had been almost eighteen months ago. Bald hadn’t seen him since.
‘He looks like crap,’ said Bald. ‘Like a five-pound shit stuffed inside a one-pound sack.’
‘His missus just left him,’ Stoner explained. ‘Took his kid and all. Word around Hereford is that he’s been hitting the bottle. Big-time. I’m surprised the guy’s keeping it together.’
Bald gritted his teeth. ‘He shouldn’t be on the Training Wing, then. You’ve got to be fit as fuck to lead those lads on the big runs. How’s he going to handle the workload, looking like that? I’ve taken shits that are in better shape than him.’
Stoner said nothing. Bald strolled on, clenching his jaws and shaking his head. He had zero sympathy for guys like Porter. As far as he was concerned, whenever life kicked you off the log you dusted yourself down and climbed right back on it. No matter how many times, no matter what. When you cut through all the bullshit, that was what being a Blade was all about. Refusing to give in. Sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself, that was for posh housewives in Surrey, and the French.
‘Morning, lads,’ Bob McCanliss said, greeting the SP team guys as they marched over to the tea urn. ‘Good to have you along the for the stroll.’
The chief instructor took a sip of his brew and turned to Bald. His lips parted into a wicked grin. He arched his eyebrows, feigning surprise.
‘Wasn’t expecting to you see here this morning, Jock. Thought you might be resting up a bit after that nasty business down the Killing House.’
Bald gave a shrug of his broad shoulders. Stared at McCanliss. ‘Yeah, well. Thought I’d come down here and clear my head on the Fan. Get away from all the paperwork. You know how it is.’
‘I do, John, I do.’ McCanliss was still grinning. There was a gleam in his eyes that made Bald angry. ‘Still, it’s a bloody shame what happened yesterday with poor Eddie. Fucking tragic, that.’
‘Accidents happen,’ said Bald. Blood boiling in his veins.
McCanliss made a face. ‘Accident now, was it? I heard different, Jock. I heard that Eddie was slinging one up Bowen’s missus. So Bowen gave him a bullet for his troubles. That’s what I heard.’
‘You know what they say. Don’t believe everything you hear, Bob.’
McCanliss smiled. Bald felt a compulsive desire to rearrange his face. He somehow stood his ground and composed his features. ‘Sure, Jock, sure. Still, if it wasn’t an accident, it served Eddie fucking right. You don’t fool around with another Blade’s bird. First rule of the Regiment, that.’ His smile twitched at the corners. ‘Just a shame you’ll take the fall for what happened. Real shame.’
Bald kept his lips pressed shut. The voice picked at the base of his skull. The one telling him he should’ve stayed at home. Now he was having to put up with McCanliss’s shit. ‘It was an accident,’ he said woodenly. ‘Nothing more than that.’
‘You daft cunt,’ McCanliss said. He chuckled heartily. ‘Try telling that to the CO when they’re done with their investigation. The top brass will need a scapegoat, and guess who’s neck’ll be on the line? Yours, Jock. Yours.’
McCanliss laughed again. Before Bald could reply, a figure marched briskly over to the instructors from the direction of the Landies parked outside the Storey Arms. Bald recognised him as the CO of the Training Wing. Cameron Borthwick had a face like a freshly polished pair of leather brogues, and a nose as wide as a wind tunnel. With his heavily furrowed brow and reddened cheeks, he looked more like an Oxbridge Latin scholar than a soldier. Borthwick cleared his throat and looked at each of the instructors in turn.
‘Gents,’ he said too loudly, as if he was addressing a lecture hall of students rather than a few hardened Blades. ‘I’m afraid we have a problem.’
‘What’s that, boss?’ McCanliss asked.
‘We’re still unable to establish contact with our chaps at the RV. We’ve been trying for the past fifteen minutes, and there’s still no answer.’
‘What the fuck are they doing up there?’ Terry Monk wondered aloud. ‘Inventing a longer-lasting light bulb?’
Porter scratched his cheek. ‘Radio’s probably knackered. You know what those Clansmans are like. About as reliable as a Nigerian bank account.’
‘Either that,’ McCanliss offered, stroking his face. ‘Or one of those twats has fallen into a ditch and broken a leg. Wouldn’t put it past those two jokers.’
Borthwick considered. ‘Unlikely. If that was the case, one of them would have radioed down for help, surely?’ He shook his head firmly. ‘No. Porter’s right. It’s far more likely to be a technical problem of some kind.’
‘What’s to be done, then?’ McCanliss asked.
Borthwick pursed his lips. ‘I’m sure you’re all familiar with the protocol. I’m not authorised to release the students until we have the all-clear from the RV. There’s only one thing for it. One of you will have to go up and investigate. Find out what’s happened and sort out the Clansman so we can get things moving at this end.’
‘Go up?’ Porter asked, incredulous. ‘An extra trek up and down that bastard?’
Borthwick shrugged. ‘It’s either that, or we sit here and wait for Vowden and Skimm to establish contact, or return from the RV. Which could be hours. And I don’t particularly want all the students standing around in the cold. Especially after what happened last year.’
Everyone nodded grimly. An officer had died during the previous Winter Selection. Bald remembered the shitstorm that had caused at Whitehall at the time. The guy had gotten separated from the main group during the Long Drag, and died of hypothermia. Mountain rescue had discovered his corpse on the frozen mountain days later. There had been a media leak. Questions had been asked. The Regiment top brass was already coming under pressure to change some of Selection’s practices, such as forcing the students to forage for their own drinking water once they ran out, and no one wanted a repeat in case the Whitehall pen-pushers tried to make Selection easier.
‘Well?’ Borthwick continued, searching each instructor’s face in turn. ‘Any volunteers?’
No one offered a hand. Which wasn’t exactly a surprise. Trudging up the Fan, sorting out the RV and possibly having to fix a knackered Clansman was going to be a royal pain in the arse, Bald figured.
Suddenly McCanliss’s eyes lit up and he turned to Borthwick. ‘Porter should go, boss,’ he said. ‘He’s new to the Training Wing. He could do with putting a few more miles in his legs.’
Borthwick swivelled his arrogant gaze towards Porter. ‘Well, man? What’s your answer?’
Bald looked at Porter. The guy was wrestling with the decision. He clearly didn’t fancy it, but McCanliss had called him out in front of the other lads. There was no way Porter could turn him down without looking like he was trying to cry off his duties.
‘Fine, boss,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll do it.’
Borthwick clapped his hands and nodded stiffly. ‘Good man. You’ll need one of the other lads to go with you, of course, in case one of your fellow instructors is injured.’ He creased his smooth brow. ‘But we’re two men short as it is. We really can’t afford to spare another instructor or we won’t have enough men to begin the exercise.’
He looked around at the guys. Waiting for a response. Bald thought for a moment. Then he stepped forward. ‘Fuck it, I’ll go.’
‘Excellent, Jock!’ Borthwick exclaimed. He cleared his throat and looked at Porter and Bald in turn. ‘Right, then. Leave at once. And for God’s sakes hurry. I don’t want to leave the students waiting here for a moment longer than necessary. Got it?’
The CO nodded at the two Blades before turning on his heels and marching back over to the Landies. McCanliss followed in his wake like an obedient dog. Terry Monk made his way over to the students and barked at them to sit down on their Bergens and help themselves to a brew while they waited. Porter turned to Bald.
‘Ready, mate?’
‘The excitement’s killing me,’ said Bald.
The two Blades set their Bergens down and beat a quick path across the main road. A fierce wind picked up as they approached the old red telephone box fifteen metres to the left of the Storey Arms, driving the rain into their faces. Bald shook his head angrily.
‘Wait till we find Vowden and Skimm,’ he snarled. ‘I’m gonna give the pair of them a slap for making us go up this bastard.’
Porter turned to him and smiled. ‘Thought you wanted to clear your head, Jock?’
‘Did I fuck.’ Bald made a face and spat on the ground. ‘I just wanted to get away from that twat McCanliss. Ten seconds longer round that wanker and I’d have given him a Glasgow kiss. With fucking bells on.’
Porter suddenly stopped in his tracks a few metres before the phone box and the start of the trail. His eyes were drawn to the first floor of the main Storey Arms building. Something moved in the third window from the left. A glimmer. A fleeting shadow. It was there one second and gone the next.
‘I thought that place was supposed to be empty over the winter,’ said Porter.
Bald grunted. ‘Yeah? So?’
Porter didn’t reply. He looked back to the window. In the summer the Storey Arms was an outdoor education centre. School kids and youth groups stayed in the dormitories while they earned their Duke of Edinburgh certificates in basic rock-climbing and white-water rafting. But over Christmas, the building stood empty. Or at least, it usually did. As far as he knew.
So who the fuck did I just see in the window?
Bald scanned the window. Shrugged. ‘I don’t see anything.’
‘It was just there. I definitely saw something, Jock.’
‘Maybe they’ve got the cleaners in?’
Bald shrugged again. Porter could tell what he was thinking. It’s the drink. He’s hallucinating.
The drunken old bastard’s seeing things
. Maybe he’s got a point, Porter conceded. Maybe my mind is playing tricks. All that booze is finally catching up with me.
Christ, I’m starting to lose the plot.
Bald said, ‘Let’s get a move on. The sooner we get up the Fan, the quicker we can get this shite sorted.’
He turned away and headed for the stile next to the phone box, arms swinging. Porter hesitated for a moment, still searching the windows. Looking for the shadow. But he couldn’t see anything. He looked away. Then he turned and followed Bald up the trail.
SEVEN
0644 hours.
Stankovic watched the two Blades disappear from sight.
‘They’re gone,’ he said. ‘Back to work.’
Dragan crept back towards the window. The two Serbs resumed their task of observing the crowd of soldiers across the car park. The Serbs weren’t using telescopes or military optics to watch their targets. There was no need. They were less than fifty metres from the car park, kneeling in front of a south-facing window on the first floor of the Storey Arms. The dormitory room looked like a cheap imitation of a Swiss chalet, but it offered them a perfect vantage point. From their position Stankovic and Dragan had an unobstructed view of the students and the instructors lining up on the other side of the road.