* * *
‘This, gentlemen, is temporary command headquarters for decontamination,’ Beesely quietly explained, fighting his fatigue. ‘We have kicked out the usual occupants and there are more than enough rooms and beds for you all, showers and a canteen area. Food will be brought in, along with anything else you require. Americans ground floor, Israelis first floor, or sort it out between yourselves. We have five star hotels available for you, but security must be maintained - no one must know you are here. Brief your men, no calls home discussing this place. You are all on exercise ... somewhere else.’
‘Is this a Swiss Army base?’ the American Captain asked, standing in full fatigues, beret and shiny boots, his hands on hips. ‘I mean, you’re British, these guys speak German and we’re in Switzerland?’
‘No, not Swiss Army,’ Beesely explained. ‘We ... are a private security agency with close working links with British Intelligence, CIA and Mossad. Similar work, but shorter hours and better pay. Were you not briefed?’
‘Hah! I’m a soldier. I get briefed on what to do a short time after someone realises that we’re being shot at.’
‘Yes, of course. I was a soldier myself, France and Korea.’
‘France?’ the Captain asked, a slight frown forming. ‘When was there a war in France?’
Beesely’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the Captain. ‘1939 to 1945, old chap.’
‘Oh, yeah, right. That war.’
Beesely gave the man an impatient look. ‘If you’ll take a seat, Johno will brief you. We have photographs, plus a live feed to the contaminated room. It’s the top floor of a very old castle.’
Guards brought in food and drink, the officers settling around a large table. Beesely excused himself, heading for a five-star hotel and Spa that he apparently owned.
Johno rubbed his eyes. ‘OK, listen up, gentlemen. My name is Johno, welcome to Schloss Diane. That’s Castle Diane for those that don’t know. I’m head of security here… and personal bodyguard to Sir Morris Beesely.’
‘Were you hurt in the bomb blast?’ the Captain asked.
Johno did not understand at first, the Captain pointing at his knuckles. ‘No, I killed a man last night,’ he flatly explained.
‘Ya beat him to death?’ the Captain joked.
Johno examined his knuckles. ‘Wish I had. But I wa
s ordered to kill him quickly.’ He stared down at the American.
The man turned to the Israeli Major. ‘He’s joking, right?’
With tired eyes, the Major answered. ‘No, my friend, I believe he is not.’
The Captain stopped smiling.
‘Beesely’s daughter took a full dose of N20. I knew her almost twelve years.’
The Captain looked horrified. ‘His daughter was killed?’
‘And six women who worked here, had children at home in the local town. We on the same page, Captain?’
‘Hey, sorry man.’
‘To business. I’m formerly British Intelligence, formerly SAS, before that Parachute Regiment.’
The Major asked, ‘You studied chemical warfare? They said there was a specialist already here.’
Johno nodded. ‘SAS.’
The Major commented, ‘I saw the piglets.’
‘We have them everywhere, especially all the rooms in the castle.’
‘Any symptoms so far?’ the Major asked.
‘None, not even outside the door. Been fourteen hours odd.’
‘The gel has helped us there,’ the Major commented.
Johno showed them a photo. ‘That’s the bomb.’
‘It’s just a standard deodorant can,’ the Captain commented, his counterpart agreeing.
Johno placed down a photo of the timer. ‘The timer they used.’ Next came a plan of the room. ‘That’s the restaurant. The walls are six feet thick, stone, the windows extra strong and bullet-proof. But there’s wood above, lots of it, empty spaces above that in the spires. Floor is concrete, solid enough. We’ve had the heaters on in there, roughly a hundred Fahrenheit.’
‘Good,’ the Major enthused. ‘It will have oxidised a lot of the N20. But I am surprised the pig outside the door is not showing any symptoms with warm gas in there.’
‘Fire doors. Solid.’
‘The bodies are still inside?’ the Major asked.
Johno slowly nodded, studying the man. ‘Not pleasant, all heads and hands twice as big as normal.’
‘The swelling will go down after death, maybe twelve to twenty-four hours,’ the Major commented.
Johno took a breath. ‘OK, first things first. The corridor outside is large and long, perfect for a tent and stage one decon’. Down the fire stairs and out onto the grass, stage two. Five yards and you are on the tarmac, stage three.’
‘I’d like to see stage three well away from main zone,’ the Captain suggested. ‘No one walking unsuited within a hundred yards. And then upwind.’
‘You’re the experts, you decide. Just move quickly. Please. Your men and your kit will be here in ten minutes, so I’ll show it to you from a distance.’ They stood.
‘You have incinerators close by for the bodies?’ the Major asked, Johno nodding. ‘Can they be used for contaminated materials as well?’ the Major added.
‘There’s an industrial incinerator in the town, we’re clearing a route for trucks. It’s big enough to get furniture in.’
‘Your people have suits?’ the Captain enquired as they stepped out into the dark camp.
‘Yeah, and we can get hold of anything you need.’
The Captain turned his head. ‘Start with a shit load of industrial bleach, fine lime powder and rig up some outdoor shower areas, boot washing areas, hand washing areas on the main gate.’
Johno offered, ‘I’ll assign a senior guard to you. Ask for anything you need, money is no object around here.’
With the American Captain walking towards the castle for a better view, Johno made eye contact with the Israeli Major through the dark. Talking softly he said, ‘This is Switzerland, Major, full of big strapping Aryans – especially within K2. They’re all very disciplined, but… Israelis being here will be an eye-opener for some.’ The Major nodded his understanding. ‘If there are any comments, or problems, you find me – and I’ll shoot the fucker.’
At the small Zug airfield, Senior Technical Sergeant Grey helped unloading equipment, none of his colleagues aware of just who he really was.
2
With a plastic cup of coffee containing a little milk, and a lot of sugar, Johno walked up the compound road, still in the clothes he’d worn the day before - the same black suit. It seemed quiet, none of the usual training going on, a slight mist hanging in the chill air. Dawn was breaking somewhere behind the hills. A group of American soldiers walked by. Johno ambled slowly up to within a hundred yards of the castle and stopped next to the first spaceman.
‘Hey, morning,’ the American Captain called from within his dark orange suit. He stood holding his umbilical as if a tail.
‘How’s it going?’ Johno asked, clearing his throat and fighting to stay awake. The stage-three decontamination tent was so well camouflaged he almost did not spot it in the trees, only brought to his attention by another orange-suited man emerging.
‘We got the bodies out,’ the Captain reported, his words distorted by the suit. ‘Covered in lime and bagged, decon’ one and then hermetically sealed caskets before decon’ two and three.’
Johno nodded, deep in thought. ‘Where are they now?’ he asked, barely above a whisper.
‘Went on the truck two hours ago.’
Johno turned, forcing his eyes open. ‘They’re gone?’
‘Incinerator. No time.’
Johno breathed the cold, misty air, glancing at the dead calm lake surface through a gap in the trees. ‘The remains?’
‘Can’t let you have them, it’s still a risk. You know that.’ The Captain studied the back of Johno’s head. ‘We’ve burnt the air. Tests showed very little gas
. Found high readings in the carpets, so they were ripped up, limed and bagged, been incinerated as well. We’re burning all the surfaces now, working in one hour shifts inside, groups of four.’
Without looking around Johno said, ‘Gut everything. Rip out all the fittings until you’re down to bare stone walls, then burn them.’
‘Should be at that stage by tonight, Israeli boys working like demons in there. Dozen of your boys suited up and helping to lug stuff around, saving us time.’ As the Captain observed him, Johno sipped his coffee and stared ahead. ‘Sorry about Mr Beesely’s daughter, we had to move them out first.’
Johno turned. ‘You didn’t kill her.’ As he walked off he quietly added, ‘And I wasn’t there when she needed me.’
The path down to the lake was now eerily quiet; one guard on duty at a hut, another at the lower gate. Pausing, Johno gazed up at the trees, observing the light mist swirling through the branches, moistening the leaves before drifting down towards the lake. At the lake’s edge he stopped and sat on a log, the sound of small waves rippling against the shore, a beach scene in miniature. Gentle footsteps approached.
Johno forced his head up, to see Ricky walking slowly down. Saying nothing, Ricky stepped to where his shoes were getting lapped, crouching down and running the fingers of one hand through the cold water. He studied the wet fingers for a moment before rubbing them across his forehead. He sat next to Johno without a word, a few seconds passing.
‘Where ya been?’ Johno finally croaked out.
‘Brazil,’ Ricky answered, just above a whisper. ‘Rich client had his kid snatched. We were negotiating with the kidnappers holed up in a villa, couple of dumb ass local boys. When I heard what had happened here I stormed the place by myself, just a pistol. Took ‘em by surprise, killed three. Boy had been long dead. Twelve hours and four flights to get back here.’
Johno nodded, lighting up.
After two drags Ricky took the cigarette out of Johno’s mouth, puffed then returned it. ‘How’s the old man?’
‘Not so good.’
Ricky nodded to himself as he thought. ‘To be expected.’
Johno stared out across the lake. ‘Once ... once I was at the end of an exercise, just walking across the north side of Pen-y-fan, middle of winter, foot of snow. Had to get down the north side to that little camp, Cwmgwdi. I had plenty of time, well ahead of schedule. The top of the snow had frozen, so every footstep was a crunch –’
Ricky smiled and nodded, taking the cigarette again.
‘- and the wind stopped ... and the clouds broke a bit so the moon just suddenly lit this area like a floodlight being switched on. And there I stood, flat area, dead calm all of a sudden. Snow was brilliant grey-white, no noise. I took off my headgear and just stopped. Just stopped and looked around, thinking how beautiful it was and ... and how lucky people like us were to experience stuff that like ... stuff that civvies never get to experience.’
Ricky nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ve seen some strange things in our time. Remember that field in Kosovo, flat open field with knee-high flowers, bathed in the moonlight? And us two stupid sods making our way across, clear as daylight for anyone to see. And that cow, right in the middle, stood fast sleep. We went right past it and it didn’t even see us.’
‘I wanted to stop and tie its legs together with rope before it woke.’
‘Yeah, idiot. Bleeding to death and wanting to play jokes.’
Johno gazed up at the trees and the mist. ‘It’s how we cope - try not to take things too seriously. Otherwise you end up too tight, or going mad. Often wonder how those bomb disposal boys do it. Spent a night in a shed with one in the Falklands. In the morning he got up, took a blanket off the live bomb he had been working on and asked the rest of us to leave. Stupid wanker. But if he had told us about it we would have been sleeping in the wet.’
‘Why did you learn to fly?’
Johno took a drag. ‘When you were a trooper, did you go down to that little civvy airstrip, Shobdon, near Leominster?’
‘Couple of times, parachuted there after work.’
‘So did we, when I was first badged. In fact, I think before that. We used to go down there in a truck after work, bunch of us, early on a Friday. Parachuted with that school run by old Mac’ McCarthy. Anyway, I had this notion that if I was behind enemy lines and needed to get out I’d steal a frigging plane, fly low and Bob’s yer uncle. They had a flying school there, so I used up a chunk of my pay for lessons. Had sod all else to spend it on.’
‘I flew a Cessna across the English Channel once, under the radar,’ Ricky idly commented
Johno turned and stared hard. ‘That was you?’
‘Shhh, ain’t no one supposed to know, especially not the French.’
‘Shit. I heard rumours.’ Johno took a drag. ‘Why ... exactly?’
‘Joint exercise with the Frogs. What I didn’t know was that one of their officers was ex-Foreign Legion. I topped his best buddy in the Congo, plus a few other Frogs - can’t say why. Anyway, this guy recognised me. Let’s just say I had to survive, escape and evade - as it says in the manual. Jumped on a train across France like some Second World War black and white movie, got near Normandy and spotted an airfield.’
‘So you nicked a Cessna?’ Johno puzzled.
‘Not at first, they were all locked or out of fuel and I got spotted. But the idea was there, so I got a map, hunted around for little airfields, found one with a Cessna taxiing for take-off. Not something you expect, being smacked in the mouth and dragged out of your plane. Only way to be sure it was fuelled and not locked. Flew it under several high-voltage power cables, down to fifty feet across the Channel and landed it on a road near Poole.’
‘Crazy bastard...’
They shared another cigarette.
‘Did she suffer?’ Ricky asked.
Johno passed the cigarette as he thought. ‘Worst death you could imagine. Probably tried to claw the skin off her own face.’
Ricky shook his head.
‘Did she tell you the joke?’
Ricky interest was piqued. ‘No?’
‘Well, it made her and the old man laugh. Proud of that joke she was. But like a lot of really good one-liners she probably never even meant it, it just came out - the right words at the right time.’ He took a breath. ‘I was trying to kill moles in the lawn ... with a 9mm pistol.’
Ricky slowly turned his head.
Johno glanced back at him from under his eyebrows. ‘Yeah, OK, not the best of ideas. But the little bastards were doing my head in. We’d tried poison and traps and everything. Anyway, I had a go for an hour, sure they were ready to surrender. Gave them a headache at least. When I came back up to the old house she asked me how I got on. Told her the bad news. Then she just came out with it. Suggested I might do better if I was camouflaged.’
Ricky smiled widely.
Johno gave him an embarrassed look. ‘Well, Beesely laughed so much he fell over. We still don’t know to this day if she knew they were blind, or was just taking the piss out of me. If Beesely had said it you would have known it was a piss-take. She wasn’t known for being the brightest tool in the box, but she adopted that joke as her own after that.’
‘Sharpest … tool in the box,’ Ricky corrected, an eyebrow raised.
Johno frowned as he thought. ‘Sharpest tool?’
‘I’ll be off now.’ Ricky stood, still smiling. ‘Driving to Bavaria.’ Johno stared hard at his friend. ‘Before you ask, your job’s here, making sure Beesely stays in one piece. He’s more valuable than you realise, especially with K2 behind him.’ Ricky put a hand on the back of his friend’s neck, stared into his eyes for a long moment then left.
From a hundred yards away, through the trees, Technical Sergeant ‘Grey’ accepted a cigarette from a guard, watching Ricky walk off as Johno sat smoking.