Sir Angus leant forward, straight into Porter’s face. ‘I’ve sent a lot of men into the field since I started working for this outfit, and I’ve always given them one piece of advice,’ he said. ‘Don’t play the bloody hero. It isn’t worth it. You’ll probably end up dead, and get us all in the shit. But you know what, Mr Porter. This time round I might just suspend that. If it comes to Saturday morning, and nothing else is working, then play the hero. It’s a last resort, remember that, but if everything else fails, use your Regiment training to try and take the buggers out and get the girl out of there.’
‘And if I die trying?’
‘Then at least you’ll have been well paid.’
‘Someone tried to kill me,’ said Porter, as Sir Angus got up to leave.
‘Just wait until you get out to the bloody Lebanon, man,’ said Sir Angus. ‘Everyone will want to kill you out there.’
‘I’m not joking,’ snapped Porter. ‘A guy tried to run me over.’
‘We’re investigating,’ said Layla.
‘And what have you found out?’
Layla hesitated. There was a flicker of indecision in her expression, and for a moment Porter suspected she was holding something back from him.
‘So far, not much,’ she said, tossing a lock of hair away from her face.
‘There’s a mole,’ said Porter. ‘Someone in this organisation knows what I’m doing and wants to stop it.’
‘A Hezbollah spy within the Firm?’ said Sir Angus. ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous, man.’
Porter got up. ‘I’m telling you, it’s true,’ he growled.
Sir Angus turned and started walking from the room. ‘You just concentrate on doing your job,’ he said. ‘There are no spies in this organisation.’
TWELVE
Porter adjusted the sound on the TV set. Sky News was sticking to its round-the-clock coverage of the Katie Dartmouth story, and so were CNN and BBC News. He flicked through the other channels: there was a celebrity show on ITV, a detective programme on BBC, and a rerun of Friends on Channel 4, but it was so long now since Porter had had a TV set he no longer had much idea what was on, or what he liked to watch.
He propped his head back on the pillow, and went back to Sky. There wasn’t much new for them to say. It was Wednesday evening now, and Katie had been captured late on Sunday night. There was some fresh footage that had been released of her captivity. All you could see was a woman tied to a stake. Her arms and legs were both bound, and there were three hooded and armed men standing behind her. As the camera zoomed in closer, you could see the cuts and bruises on her cheeks. A gag was stuffed crudely into her mouth, but her eyes were exposed. And as the camera tracked towards them, you could see the despair that had overwhelmed her.
‘Shit,’ muttered Porter. In less than twenty-four hours I’m going to be there as well.
On the news, the Liberal Democrat leader had called today for troops to be brought home from Iraq, and even the Conservatives were calling for a debate. Sky switched to some footage from Prime Minister’s Questions at the House of Commons earlier that day. The PM had looked rattled as he repeated his earlier line that everything humanly possible was being done to secure Katie Dartmouth’s release, but that they could not negotiate directly on the kidnappers’ main demand. ‘All I say to people is this,’ he repeated, the strain showing in his face. ‘There can be no turning back, nor can there be any surrendering to the forces of terror.’ The words, however, were met by a stony silence from his own side of the house, and by barracking from the opposition.
On the viewers’ poll, Sky was reporting that 72 per cent of people wanted British troops taken out of Iraq if there was a chance that it might save Katie’s life. They switched briefly to the launch of a new government initiative to encourage more teenagers to go to the gym. Their political editor came on the screen to dismiss it as an ‘eye-catching initiative, designed to deflect attention from the kidnapping story’, and within minutes Sky had gone back to the Katie Dartmouth saga. The website showing pictures of Katie’s captivity had already received twenty million visitors from around the world. In Trafalgar Square, the ‘Vigil for Katie’s Release’ had grown overnight, and the police now estimated there were five thousand people camping out overnight in the square, and they had pledged to remain there until the PM started negotiating directly for Katie Dartmouth’s release. The Sky reporter started interviewing one of them, pointing out that the forecast was for sweeping rains and gales across London tonight. ‘We don’t care,’ said a young woman dressed in a blue overcoat. ‘We’re staying here until the war is finished, and Katie Dartmouth is brought back from the Lebanon alive.’
Then the coverage switched to some breaking news. Sir Elton John had just announced that he was recording a special version of ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ with reworked lyrics, designed to appeal for Katie’s release. The song was being recorded tomorrow, and would be available as a download on iTunes by Friday morning. Already there were predictions that it would eclipse the massive sales of his reworked version of ‘Candle in the Wind’ composed for Princess Diana’s funeral.
Christ, thought Porter to himself. The whole country is going nuts. And I’m the only man with any chance of bringing it back to its senses.
There was a knock on the door. Porter glanced up. Danni was coming into the room, with her bag of medical kit under her arm. He had already dimmed the lights in his small bedroom, so the room was mainly lit by the glow of the TV screen. He killed the sound, and looked back up towards her, noticing the way the fuzzy light from the tube caught the blonde streaks dyed into her hair, creating a golden glow around her shapely face. ‘My medicine,’ he said with a smile.
She nodded, kneeling down beside him. ‘Roll up your sleeves,’ she said.
Porter planted his feet on the floor. He was wearing just a sweatshirt and black jeans, and he pushed up the sleeve on his left arm to expose the bare flesh underneath. Danni had already taken a swab of cotton wool, and was smearing some disinfectant across the skin. Porter closed his eyes as the needle pierced him, wondering if he was about to be put to sleep: he didn’t mind injections too much, but didn’t like to watch them. ‘All done,’ she said, within a fraction of a second.
‘There’s another kind of medicine I need,’ said Porter. ‘The kind you find in a bottle.’
‘You’re going tomorrow,’ said Danni.
Porter nodded.
‘To where Katie Dartmouth is being held?’
‘That’s why I need a drink.’
Danni flashed a smile. ‘Christ, I’d need a drink too if I was going there,’ she said. She reached in her bag, pulling out a half-bottle of white wine. ‘This do?’
Porter reached for the bottle. It was one of the Australian whites you buy at Tesco to take home with you when you pick up a ready-meal on the way home from work. It wasn’t what he usually liked to drink, but right now he was desperate for anything. This was the first alcohol he’d seen since he’d set foot in the place thirty-six hours ago, and he wasn’t about to turn it down. ‘Care to join me?’
Danni shrugged. ‘OK,’ she said.
Porter unscrewed the cap, pouring the wine into two tumblers he’d grabbed from the washbasin. He took a sip, allowing a moment for the alcohol to hit his bloodstream. It was hard for him to remember the last time he’d gone this long without a drink. Living on the streets, he was almost always too short of cash to put a roof over his head, and often too short to get anything to eat either. But he always found money for a drink.
‘What happened to you?’ asked Danni.
She took a sip of the wine, and sat down just a few feet from him on the end of his bed. As she crossed her legs, Porter noticed the seam of her black tights, running up the side of her shapely legs, and disappearing into the tempting folds of her crisp white skirt. Suddenly, he was aware she was noticing the way he was casting his eyes up her legs, and snapped them away. Stop kidding yourself, he reminded himself. She can’t be more than twenty-four or — five. Young enough to be your daughter. And let’s face it, mate, even the women your own age aren’t interested in you. Don’t even think about the young ones.