Reeve aimed his rifle at the boat, and two of the men onboard aimed their rifles back at him. When the two vessels were twenty feet apart, the man steering the dinghy asked a question in Spanish.
“What are you doing here?”
“Fishing,” the old man said simply. He had rolled and lit himself a cigarette. It bobbed in his mouth as he spoke.
“Who are you?” the man on the dinghy demanded.
“Fishermen,” the old man said.
Now the man commanding the dinghy stared at Reeve. Reeve held the stare. The man smiled.
“You look like hell,” he said in English. “Let’s get you back to the ship.”
The debriefing took place while the Argentine garrison formally surrendered on the night of June 14. Reeve had been given a thorough physical by a doctor, then was allowed to eat, sleep, and clean up-in any order he liked. Mike Rose, 22 Battalion’s CO, was not on the ship. Reeve was debriefed initially by three of his own officers, and again later by a couple of spooks. There would be a further debriefing next day.
They asked about Jay, and he told them the truth. They didn’t like that. They made him go over the story several times, probing at various details like dentists seeking a pinprick of decay. Reeve just kept telling them the truth. It didn’t go any further. A senior officer came to see him, one on one.
“You’ll be up for a commendation,” the officer said, “probably a medal.”
“Yes, sir.” Reeve didn’t care a damn.
“But the regiment doesn’t air its dirty linen in public.”
“No, sir.”
“No one’s to know about Jay.”
“Understood, sir.”
The officer smiled and nodded, unable to keep the relief off his face. “You’ll be looking forward to a bit of R & R, Gordon.”
“I want out altogether,” Reeve told the officer, quietly but firmly. “Out of the regiment and out of the army.”
The officer stared at him, then blinked. “Well, we’ll see about that. Maybe you should take some time to think about it, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
But Reeve knew he wouldn’t change his mind.
Days and weeks passed. Jay never appeared-in Chile or anyplace else. He was eventually presumed dead, though the Argentine military authorities denied capturing him or killing him. It was as if he really had vanished in that puff of smoke, leaving nothing behind but a snatch of a badly whistled children’s song.
A song Reeve had hated ever since.
And a man he’d hated with it.
TWENTY-TWO
JAY WORE HIS ARMANI-LOOK-ALIKE SUIT to LAX. He liked the way it was roomy: you could strap a holster to your ankle, tape a knife to your leg, and nobody would know. You could carry a small semiautomatic beneath your jacket, an Ingram or one of the folding-butt Kalashnikovs, especially if you had a special pocket and release strap sewn into the lining, as Jay had. The tailor in Singapore had made the alterations after Jay had been measured for the suit. Jay had drawn a picture of what he wanted, and what he wanted it for. The tailor had been bug-eyed, and had knocked a few dollars off his original estimate. It was a tactic Jay had tried since, with similar success.
He toted a Heckler & Koch MP5 to the airport, its stock fully retracted. He had a little snub-nosed revolver around his ankle, and ammo in his pocket. He was chewing gum and wearing Harley-Davidson sunglasses. He wore brown loafers and ice-blue socks with the yellow suit. He fitted right in.
He didn’t carry his two-way radio or a telephone of any kind, but he was wearing a wire. He had three men in the terminal building and two more outside. Not that he was expecting trouble. He was grinning, the way he often did these days, though nobody but him got the joke. He tried to blow a bubble, but it was the wrong kind of gum. It was hard to find the right kind of gum these days. Jay whistled a little tune, knowing the guys listening in wouldn’t appreciate it. He was wondering what kind of stunt Gordon Reeve would pull. Should have finished the fucker off in France. Funny the way fate threw old shadows in your face, blotting out the sun. In-where was it? Yes, Singapore, same trip he bought the suit-in Singapore he’d bumped into a guy he’d known in 2 Para, before he’d joined Special Forces. Jay had been sinking dark rums at some bar, maybe three in the morning, and this guy had literally bumped into him. They’d sized each other up, both keening for a fight; then the man took a step back and dropped his arms.
“Jay,” he’d said. “Fuck me, it is you.”
So they’d had a drink-a few drinks actually-then Jay had taken the guy, whose name was Bolter or Boulter or something like that, to a brothel he knew. It was just a small apartment of two bedrooms above an electrical shop, but it did such good business they had to wait in the rank hallway, plied with beer laced with Christ knew what, for twenty minutes, until Jay kicked down a door and dragged a weary punter off one of the girls. The service got better after that; they had a bloody good time after that. Then Jay and his pal went for a walk down by the docks. You’d never seen so many little boats bobbing on the water. It was getting on for six in the morning, and though both men were bushed, neither wanted to go to sleep.
“Here, this’ll help,” Jay had said, sliding a narrow-bladed knife into the back of his old colleague’s neck. He dragged the body behind some trash cans, took a wristwatch and all the cash on the body, plus any papers he had with his name on them. He got rid of the stuff on his way back to his own hotel. Thing was, he couldn’t have anyone from the old days knowing he was still around-the SAS would want to talk to him about desertion. They’d be terrifically keen to talk to him, and not just to catch up on the good old days. He didn’t know what story Reeve had given, whether he’d told the truth or not; he hoped he’d never have to know.
Funny thing was, next time he was in Singapore and went back to the brothel, one of the girls complained that his friend had given her herpes. So Bolter or Boulter had left something behind. Everybody did.
Jay liked the life he had now, a life he’d carved out for himself-sometimes literally-in America. It hadn’t been easy. In fact, it had been fucking hard-especially those first weeks in South America. On the run, a one-man slaughterhouse. He’d killed three Argentine soldiers that first night, one for each man who’d died on the glacier, but it hadn’t been enough to erase the memory of that doomed mission. Jay had seen something on that glacier, his eyes peering into the whiteout. He’d seen the bland white face of Death. It was an absence, an uncaring void, and the more chilling for that, the more hypnotic. He’d stared at it for a long time, not bothering with goggles. When they’d lifted him onto the helicopter, he’d been snow-blind. But when the blindness receded, there was a clearer vision in its place, a knowledge of helplessness and the will to power. It had taken him all the way through Tierra del Fuego and into Chile.
He’d killed one poor bastard because he needed civvy clothes, and another for his motorcycle, which duly packed up after thirty miles, forcing him to walk for a while. Big fucking country Chile -north to south anyway. He’d stuck to the west coast, killing some bearded Australian backpacker for his passport. Jesus, backpacking in fucking Chile: that was asking for trouble.
He’d crossed into Peru, smiling for the border guards like the man in the picture in the passport, rubbing his chin and laughing, to show he’d shaved a lot of his beard off since the photo had been taken. They stayed somber throughout but let him go. The backpacker’s body would never be found, not while it had skin on it, though one day the skeleton might be found. He bypassed Ecuador and went into Colombia. People in Peru had told him not to do it, but he didn’t see why not-and it was lucky he didn’t heed their warnings, because Colombia turned out to be a great place, and the site of his first civilian job. He’d met up with some hard cases in Cali and ran a few errands for them. He got to know the kingpin, Edouard, and Edouard told him there was always work for those willing to undertake personal risk.