Strike Back (17 page)

Danni laughed, taking another sip of wine. ‘This is a very small place,’ she said. ‘And nobody gossips like an office full of spies. This lot love to know what everybody else is up to.’

Maybe that’s why someone tried to kill me, thought Porter. Maybe word leaked out somehow. Maybe it got through to some al-Qaeda or Hezbollah guys in London, and they wanted to take me out before I had a chance to get out to Lebanon.

‘You have to be tough to get in, don’t you?’ said Danni. ‘I thought there were special tests?’

Porter could feel his mind flicking back almost two decades. There were special tests all right. He’d spent weeks of his life tabbing through the Brecon Beacons, with a deadweight on his back, and with the Welsh rain lashing into his face. He’d done the rock climbing, and the abseiling, learnt how to fly a plane and drive a tank, and he’d done enough hours running around the killing house to last a man several lifetimes. He’d watched men die as well: two guys had bought it on the selection courses he’d been on, good lads both of them who just wanted to prove they could hack it, but who must have been cold in their graves for almost twenty years now. And for what? A few years taking orders from some jumped-up public schoolboys, before they toss you back on the scrapheap, and walk straight past you on the street when you ask them to help you out with the price of a beer.

‘Because you were in a bad way when you came in here,’ said Danni. ‘I mean, I thought Regiment guys could get good jobs in industry. Or go out to Iraq, and earn two or three grand a week in security.’

Not me, thought Porter. I flunked it. And once you’ve done that, there is no way back.

‘I had …’ Porter paused, taking a sip of the wine, already wondering if she might have something stronger tucked away in her handbag. What was it I had exactly? he wondered? Why couldn’t I get back into the world again? Maybe if I’d been able to figure out an answer to that I wouldn’t have been searching around at the bottom of so
many beer glasses all my life. ‘I was out in the Lebanon. A long time ago. I was going in with my unit to get a hostage out, but I fucked it up.’

‘Go on,’ she whispered.

He looked up at Danni, his expression solid and strong. He held up his left hand. ‘That’s how I lost these,’ he said, nodding towards the missing fingers. ‘But that wasn’t the worst of it. I lost three guys from my unit, good men. It was my fault, you see. My own sodding fault. They’d have lived if I hadn’t …’

Porter stopped talking, leaving the sentence hanging between them. It felt strange to be talking about it. He’d tried to discuss it with Diana, but that was years ago, soon after he came back, but she was so preoccupied with the baby she’d hadn’t had any time to listen to him, and pretty soon he found it easier just to have another drink and forget about it. Since then, he’d never spoken about it to anyone. He just brooded on it himself, burying the story deeper and deeper within himself, until it was as much a part of him as the blood running through his veins.

‘If you hadn’t what …?’

He shrugged, emptied the wine glass into the back of his throat, and refilled it from the bottle. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters to me.’

‘I let a kid live, and then he killed my three mates.’

Danni edged forward on the bed, so that there was only a couple of feet separating them. ‘And you think going back there will fix it for you?’ she said.

She was looking straight at him, her bright blue eyes alive with curiosity, with a hunger for knowledge that Porter found puzzling. ‘I sure as hell hope so,’ said Porter with a shrug.

She edged another few inches closer. With her left hand, she was brushing a lock of hair away from her face, and her right hand was resting on the top of the bed. Slowly, she
uncrossed and then crossed her legs again, and Porter was struggling to keep his eyes away from her. She was so close to him that Porter couldn’t escape the heady smell of the perfume splashed across her body.

‘I hope so too,’ she said softly, leaving her lips slightly parted, and her eyes half closed as she completed the sentence, ‘because it’s a bloody brave thing to do.’

Porter’s hand edged forwards on the bed, so that it was just inches from hers. Christ, she’s coming on to me, he told himself. Unless the signs have changed completely in the years since I last tried it on with a girl, I could be in with a chance here. He could feel his heart thumping. He wanted her, of course. She was blonde, and buxom, and dressed in a white, crisply starched nurse’s uniform: what man wouldn’t want her in his bed. But when you live out on the streets, he reminded himself, you stop even thinking about women. They aren’t on your radar screen. Christ, I’m buggered if I even know what to do any more.

‘Not that brave,’ said Porter, his tone turning weaker.

‘I think you’re plenty brave,’ she said. ‘And strong …’

Her hand was almost touching his now. Porter let his right hand stretch out, his fingers creeping across the bedding, until slowly they reached hers. He could feel the warmth of her skin against his, and as he looked up at her face, her eyes were still half closed and her lips still parted a fraction. He moved closer towards her, gripping her hand in his, and suddenly her eyes opened wide, and she looked straight at him and smiled. ‘Kiss me,’ she said slowly.

Porter leant into the kiss, and in the next instant could feel her tongue lashing into his. The embrace was passionate and urgent, as if they were both painfully aware of how little time there was. He could taste the wine on her lips as he flicked his tongue against hers, and her breath was warm against his skin. He could feel her breasts thrusting into his chest, and even through her lace bra, he could feel her nipples
stiffening. Porter ran his hand down towards her legs, making impact just above the knee. Small gasps of pleasure started to moan from her lips as he ran his hand slowly up the side of her thigh, until it was nestling in the warmth of her crotch. Danni’s own hands were roaming across Porter’s chest, tugging at his sweatshirt. She rolled onto her side, and then suddenly was underneath him, pulling him down into the warmth of her body. ‘Fuck me,’ she muttered, her voice husky and harsh. ‘Fuck me right now.’

Porter pulled away her tunic, and buried his face in her chest. His tongue was lashing against her nipples, enjoying the way her large breasts rose and swelled under his touch. As he did so, her hands were busy unbuckling his trousers. In the next moment, Danni had turned him over, stripping the last of his clothes off him, then making him wait a few tantalising moments as she slowly peeled away her dress and tights, leaving just her lace knickers for him to feast his eyes upon. Jesus, thought Porter, as he lay back on the bed and watched her head disappearing towards his groin, girls have learnt a new trick or two since the last time I did this.

The sex was hot and frantic, over in a matter of minutes, but no less satisfying for that. Porter had worried briefly about someone coming in, but the door was bolted. When they finished, they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, and for a second Porter found himself wondering about the security cameras he felt certain they had installed in the room. Sod it, he thought with a wry smile. They can watch if they want to. I might even buy a copy of the tape from them.

Danni lay on the side of the bed, her body still vibrating with pleasure. She looked up into his eyes, then planted another kiss on the side of his cheek. ‘They don’t think you’re coming back, you know,’ she said.

‘What?’

He could feel her hands tickling his chest, and couldn’t help himself from smiling. It was so long since he’d been
with a woman – there had been one brief girlfriend when he managed to hold down a job for three whole months quite soon after Diana threw him out of the house but since then nothing – that he’d forgotten how good it felt to have someone’s arms around you. It made him feel alive again, pushing away the demons that raged inside his mind: already he was wondering about when he might see her again.

‘They were talking about it, I heard them,’ said Danni. ‘Layla and some of the other case officers.’

‘What did they say exactly?’

‘They reckon there isn’t much you can do,’ said Danni. ‘This Hassad guy, they reckon he’s a ruthless bastard, and whatever you offer him, he won’t accept it. He’ll kill Katie Dartmouth just like he said he would, and then … well, it’s not going to leave you in much of a position, is it?’

Her eyes flickered up tenderly towards Porter’s.

Porter remained impassive. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said firmly. ‘Whether I can get her out or not …’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Hell, I don’t know. It’s worth trying, that’s all I know.’

‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘Of a few ragheads? Fuck, no. They run around screaming to Allah and all that bollocks, but you put in a bullet into them and they fall over pretty quick.’

‘But … of dying?’ asked Danni.

Porter paused. He’d thought about that sometimes over the last few years. When you lived out on the streets, you got used to the idea you weren’t going to reach a ripe old age. ‘Dying isn’t so bad,’ he said. ‘There are worse things that can happen to man. Trust me, I’ve been there.’

Slowly, Danni climbed on top of him, grinding her crotch into his groin. There was a wicked, lustful smile playing across her smudged red lipstick. ‘I want to fuck you one more time before you go,’ she said.

The BMW 520 pulled smoothly away from the kerb, and turned sharp right onto Vauxhall Bridge. Porter sat back, listening to the low hum of the engine. Don’t get used to it, he warned himself. They’ll take you to the airport in style because it suits them. But once you get off that plane, they’ll toss you straight back into hell.

It was only just after six and there wasn’t much traffic around at this time of the morning. Living rough, Porter had learnt there was no such thing as a quiet time on the London streets: it was a cliché, he knew, but the place really had forgotten how to sleep. Still, as the BMW turned up through Pimlico and Kensington on its way to meet the M4 heading out towards Heathrow, the school-run mums hadn’t yet started wheeling out their Chelsea tractors, and the delivery vans hadn’t begun their rounds, so the place was relatively calm. He watched as the silent, darkened streets slipped past, recognising places where he’d kipped down for the night, tried his hand at begging, or grovelled to some puffed-up arsehole for a few hours’ work washing up or sweeping steps.

I might never see this place again, he thought. And so what? I won’t miss a single street of it.

He’d come down to London after Diana had thrown him out. They had a house they’d bought together soon after Sandy was born on the outskirts of Nottingham: Diana liked it because she’d grown up there, but Porter had come from
Luton, and had never really felt at home that far up into the Midlands. Without Diana, there hadn’t been much reason to stay, and, if he was being honest with himself, if you were a heavy drinker, it wasn’t a great place to hang around: the pubs all got to know you, and wouldn’t serve you any more after your first ten or twelve drinks. He’d come down to London to try his hand on the security circuit, and he’d managed to get a couple of bodyguard jobs, but after they caught him with alcohol on his breath that work had all dried up. Nobody wanted some drunk bastard looking after them. He’d stayed in London, though, even as his life gradually fell apart. You could always get a drink, so long as you had a few pounds in your pocket, and sometimes even when you didn’t.

‘Sleep OK?’ said Layla, sitting by his side in the back of the BMW.

He glanced at her. She was dressed more casually today, in jeans, and a white blouse and blue jacket, and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She had brought an overnight bag with her, even though she was planning on getting the afternoon flight back to London, because anyone who turned up at airport without any luggage automatically made themselves look suspicious.

‘Pretty good,’ said Porter gruffly.

That just about described it, he reflected. After making love to Danni for the second time, he’d fallen fast asleep in her arms, and slept probably better and more deeply than he had done for years. By the time he’d been woken up by the ringing of the alarm clock, she was gone, with just the lingering smell of her perfume, and a thin trace of lipstick on the pillow to remind him that she’d ever been there at all. I’ll probably never see her again, and might not even want to, he’d thought as he stepped into the shower. She was way too young for their relationship to be anything more than brief or physical, but the few hours they’d stolen together
had been memorable all the same.
Something to cheer myself up with when the ragheads are about to put a bullet through my head or a sword through my heart
.

‘Medical treatment help you sleep?’ said Layla.

Porter looked at her again. There was just a trace of a smile around her lips, and suddenly it was clear to him exactly what had happened.

‘How much did you pay her?’

‘Pay who?’ said Layla lightly.

‘The nurse,’ said Porter.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I might have had too much to drink over the last few years,’ growled Porter. ‘But the alcohol hasn’t rotted all my brain cells, not yet anyway. I’ve still got enough going on upstairs to know that young girls don’t go to bed with guys old enough to be their father unless somebody is making it worth their while.’

‘Maybe she likes you,’ said Layla with a shrug.