op.’
‘Who are the other two?’
‘Sergeant Docherty and…’
‘I thought he’d retired.’
‘He had. He’s been reinstated, presumably just for this one show.’
‘Christ, he must be about forty-five by now. It can’t be anything too strenuous.’
Chris laughed. ‘I shouldn’t say anything like that when he’s around. He didn’t look too decrepit the last time I saw him.’
‘Maybe. Who’s Number Four?’
‘Sergeant Wilkinson. Training Wing.’
‘I know him. At least, I’ve played football with him. He must be about thirty-five…’
‘Hey, I’ve turned thirty, you know. Someone obviously decided they needed experience for this one, and you were just included to provide some mindless energy.’
‘Probably,’ the Dame said equably. ‘Wilkinson always reminds me a bit of Eddie. London to the bone. A joker. He’s even a Tottenham supporter.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Chris said, and both men were silent for a few moments, thinking of their old comrade, who had died in the village by the jungle river in Colombia. Probably with some witty rejoinder frozen on his lips.
‘How was your Christmas?’ the Dame asked eventually.
‘Fine,’ Chris said, though he’d spent most evenings desperately bored. ‘Yours?’
‘It was great. My sister got married yesterday, and I had to give her away. It was great,’ he said again, as if he was trying to convince himself.
Chris looked at his watch as he turned the jeep in through the gates of the Stirling Lines barracks. ‘Time for a brew,’ he said.
The water-buffalo’s head which reigned over ‘the Kremlin’s’ briefing room – a memento of the Regiment’s Malayan days – seemed to be leaning slightly to one side, as if it was trying to hear some distant mating call. Forget it, Docherty thought, you don’t have a body any more.
He knew the feeling, after the previous night’s evening in the pub with old friends. The good news was that he and Isabel couldn’t be drinking as much as they thought they were – not if his head felt like this after only half a dozen pints and chasers.
‘Bad news,’ Barney Davies said, as he came in through the door. ‘Nena Reeve seems to have gone missing. She’s not been to work at the hospital for the last couple of days. Of course, things being the way they are in Sarajevo, she may just be at home with the flu and unable to phone in. Or she may have been wounded by a sniper, or be looking after a friend who was. They’re trying to find out.’
‘MI6?’
‘Presumably. Did Robson get here all right?’
‘Yes, boss,’ a voice with a Wearside accent said from behind him. The Dame and Chris filed in, swiftly followed by Razor Wilkinson.
Docherty got to his feet, shook hands with the new arrivals, and then took up a position half-sitting on the table at the front, while the other four arranged themselves in a semicircle of upright chairs.
He began by introducing everyone. ‘You two have been recommended to me by the CO,’ he told Chris and the Dame. ‘Though you may wish he hadn’t by the time we’re finished. We’re going to Bosnia, gentlemen,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.
He went through the whole story from the beginning, all the while keeping a careful watch on the two new men’s faces. The mere mention of Bosnia seemed to have brought a gleam into the eyes of the lad from Sunderland, and as Docherty talked he could almost feel the Dame’s intense eagerness to get started.
The Essex lad was a different type altogether: very cool and collected, very self-contained, almost as if he was in some sort of reverie. There were a couple of moments when Docherty wasn’t even sure he was listening, but once he’d finished his outline it was Chris who came up with the first question, and one that went straight to the heart of the matter.
‘What are we going in as, boss?’ he asked.
‘That’s a good question,’ Barney Davies said. ‘You’ll be flying into Split on the coast of Croatia, and while you’re there waiting for transport to Sarajevo – which may be a few hours, may be a few days – your cover will be as supervisory staff attached to the Sarajevo civilian supply line. Once you’re in Sarajevo…well, not to put too fine a point on it, you’ll just be one more bunch of irregulars in a situation which is not too far from anarchy.’
‘But we have troops there, right?’ the Dame asked. ‘The Cheshires and the Royal Irish.’
‘One battalion from each,’ Davies confirmed, ‘and a squadron of Lancers, but they’re under UN control, and that means they can only fire off weapons in self-defence. Their own, not yours. You should get some useful intelligence from our people out there, but don’t expect anything more. The whole point of this op, at least as far as our political masters are concerned, is to restore our reputation as peace-keepers, with the least possible publicity…’
‘You make it sound like the Regiment has a different priority, boss,’ Razor said, surprising Docherty.
‘I think it might be fairer to say we have an additional priority,’ Davies said. ‘Looking after our own. John Reeve has been an outstanding soldier for the Regiment, and he deserves whatever help we can give him.’
There was a rap on the door, and an adjutant poked his head around it. ‘The man from the Foreign Office is here, boss,’ he told Davies.
‘Bring him through,’ the CO ordered. ‘He’s going to brief you on the local background,’ he told the four men.
A suited young man, carrying a briefcase in one hand and what appeared to be a large wad of maps in the other, walked confidently into the room. He had longish, curly hair, circular, black-framed spectacles, and the overall look of an anorexic Malcolm Rifkind.
‘This is Mr Castle, from the Foreign Office’s Balkan Section,’ Davies said formally, as he walked across to make sure the door was firmly closed. Docherty suddenly realized how unusual it was for the CO to introduce a briefing. He wondered how many other members of the Regiment knew of this mission. If any.
‘He is going to give you a basic introduction to what the newspapers now like to call “the former Yugoslavia”, the CO went on. ‘I know you all read the Sun voraciously,’ he added with a broad smile, ‘so most of what he has to say may be only too familiar, but just in case you’ve missed the odd page of detailed analysis…Mr Castle.’
The man from the Foreign Office was still struggling to fix his unwieldy pile of maps to the Kremlin’s antique easel. Chris gave him a hand.
‘Good morning,’ Castle said finally, in a voice that was mercifully dissimilar to Malcolm Rifkind’s. ‘Despite your CO’s testimonial to your reading habits, I’m going to assume you know nothing.’
‘Good assumption,’ Razor agreed.
Castle
