To save him any further embarrassment, Quartano suggested that Cunzer and Nazar show the Mandarin Telecom directors around the rest of the garage. The Chinese gentlemen nodded enthusiastically, not least with so much to see going on all around them.
After they moved off, Quartano turned and said: ‘Remy, you won’t have met Matt Straker — who works with me in London.’
Sabatino turned and, looking up to Straker’s six-feet-two frame, shook hands politely. ‘So you’re the army guy Tahm was talking about?’
Straker smiled back less than fully, slightly unsure why she had chosen to pick up on his military background. ‘Was … with the Royal Marines.’
‘That’s just what we want,’ Sabatino said looking at him intently, ‘more testosterone around here.’
‘Matt’s a colleague of Charlie’s,’ Quartano chipped in.
Sabatino’s expression palled slightly. ‘I was sorry to hear the news. Tragic. It’s been hard to imagine such an accident. Easier here, maybe,’ she said with a flourish of her hand indicating Formula One, ‘but not out on the road.’
Straker must have looked momentarily nonplussed as Quartano quickly volunteered: ‘Such a waste to be killed by a drunk driver.’
So that was the line, thought Straker. Whatever the deceit, it had to be easier — and quicker — than the truth.
‘We all liked her. She seemed very popular,’ said Sabatino with the flick of an eyebrow.
‘So I gather,’ said Straker. ‘I’m hoping to pick up where she left off.’
Sabatino studied his expression with exaggerated curiosity, before giving him a look that indicated they both really ought to know that was going to be unlikely.
Andy Backhouse reappeared. ‘Mr Quartano?’ he said as an apology for butting in. ‘Remy — the tyre people are doing some more work for us. Meantime, they’re happy with your idea of dropping two PSI on the fronts, and we’ll combine that with your suggestion of a click on the front wing.’
Sabatino nodded her approval. ‘Great. We’ll give it a try in a mo’,’ and, nodding her exit from Quartano and Straker, disappeared into the back of the garage.
Once Backhouse had called out the adjustments to his mechanics around Sabatino’s car, Quartano introduced him to Straker as Ptarmigan’s new Competition Intelligence and Security officer — the replacement for Charlie.
‘So you’re the company spook?’ said Backhouse in his Brummie accent.
‘I expect to feel right at home here,’ Straker said with a smile, ‘given how much you all spy on each other already.’
‘Ah, yes. On the back of things like the Spygate scandal, perhaps, it’s not difficult to see why you might think that!’
Straker accepted the concession with a smile.
‘Well, I’m glad to have you with us,’ said Backhouse genuinely. ‘I’ve heard great things about what you do. When do you want to get started?’
FOUR
It was vivid — so vivid. It always was. Cold — freezing, blustering air. He could feel it cut his skin — could hear it whistling all around him.
Then came the blinding lights. Thunderous — body-shaking — sounds. Screaming people. People dying. His lights, his sounds. His doing.
The scream of ground-attack aircraft — four Tornado — howling into the valley below. Condensation clouds and vortices flowed along their wings — as they rolled and skimmed between the craggy mountains — flying between the narrow valley walls towards the tented camp. Seconds later there was a series of brilliant flashes and explosions. The tented camp on the hillside plateau, the suspension bridge, were destroyed, collapsing down into the furious river hundreds of feet below. The air strike was working — the Taliban resupply caravan, strung out for several miles along the pass, was strafed. Taken out. Only a handful of surviving Afghans attempting to flee, desperately trying to scramble away up the steep sides of the valley.
The aircraft and their noise soon faded into the distance.
Then a different sound.
A deep thumping beat — echoing, bouncing off the mountains — the unmistakable thump of helicopter blades. He could even feel them now. Only one kind of aircraft made that sound: the awesome double-rotored Chinook. Three dark, sinister shapes swooped in along the Pakistani valley, noses up, looking to put down. Snow and sand swirled up as they hovered above the small plateau and remnants of the Taliban’s camp. Doors opened. Sticks of the 506th Infantry Regiment — part of the 101st Airborne Division — debussed, fanned out and laid down fire at the fleeing Afghans.
The Screaming Eagles set about taking the valley floor.
Now his mission was over, extraction by helicopter had to be a whole lot quicker and easier than his planned two-hundred-mile yomp down through the foothills.
He felt his hands rising above his head. He gingerly broke cover — indicating his presence to the US fighting patrol.
No! he screamed, as if to try and stop it all — now that he knew what was coming.
It was no use.
He felt he was looking down on himself, from somewhere above. A figure dressed in native Afghan clothes — with twenty days of beard and rank body smell — was approaching the US soldiers. Shouting heatedly, four of the Americans kept him covered — rifles aimed directly at his head and chest — while the figure, as he now saw himself, was cajoled and manhandled down off the mountain side.
He heard the first of the deep southern accents. The 506th company commander didn’t buy his identity, role — as a Forward Air Controller — or even his dog tags, dismissing such “props” as to-be-expected fakes, with a tone of do-you-think-we-were-born-yesterday. He then saw himself roughly hooded, bound, and thrown up and onto the floor of a Chinook.
Water — now there was water — gushing water. He fought to breathe. Cold water filling his mouth, hitting the back of his throat, flowing up his nose. He started to choke. He coughed violently. Couldn’t clear it.
How and why? The water stopped. The coughing was all-consuming. He still couldn’t breathe properly. He was gasping. Gagging.
That southern accent came back to haunt him: ‘You look Taliban. You talk Taliban. You were picked up near a Taliban patrol. Mister, if something looks like an elephant, moves like an elephant, and shits like an elephant — hey, it’s probably an elephant.’
Water gushed again. Then came the horrific cycle: water, gasping, barked questions, protest; water, gasping, barked questions, protest. How long was this going to go on?
Matt Straker lurched bolt upright. His heart pounding, thumping in his chest, neck and ears. His chest was also heaving, heavily and quickly, his breath rasping through his nose, mouth and teeth.
Why did he keep reliving this? Why the fuck couldn’t he shake it off?
Any torture was bad — bad enough. But his torture seemed worse.
Tortured by his own side.
The intelligence-equivalent of friendly fire.
Cretinous stupidity.
He opened his eyes.
Darkness. Looking into the blackness, he saw a hint of light bleeding round the edges of the curtains — it was plainly night time. Over the throbbing in his ears, he couldn’t hear anything. Straker breathed in hard, held his breath, trying to hear better. Nothing. There seemed to be nothing to hear. If anything, he thought he detected a low gentle hum — the hum of a building asleep. His breathing started again, back up to rapid.
Straker’s circumstances and location began to dawn on him. He looked across at the glow from the electric alarm clock by his bed. Three forty-two a.m.