Going Grey

  "Tell Livvie. Call her."

  "Louder. Can't hear you."

  "Livvie."

  "Who's Livvie? Your missus?" Rob glanced away for a moment. A brief frown creased the bridge of his nose. Mike felt a sudden pressure on his guts as if everything was squeezing out somewhere like a ruptured tube of toothpaste. "Yeah, I'll tell her you'll be late for dinner."

  "Bad?"

  "Don't worry. You've still got all your limbs and your dick. How's the pain? Need a shot?"

  Rob held a saline bag in his left hand, and his watch — the watch he was going to add to the ransom — seemed very detailed and hypnotically important. Mike had lost track of how long he'd been lying there. He could hear the helicopter.

  Rob gestured up with his forefinger. "Hear that? Helo inbound. Just like MASH. You must owe them money."

  "It's Dad."

  Rob leaned over him, frowning. "Dead? No, you're not dead. You wouldn't be talking to me if you were browners, would you? Not unless you're a zombie."

  "Dad. Don't tell him." It was too much effort to explain. If the casevac had turned out from the nearest US base, then they might have found out who his father was. He might actually survive this. He'd see Livvie again. The thought was almost a religious experience. "Thanks, buddy. Thanks."

  "Yeah, just put in a good word for me at my court martial."

  Then Rob was gone, sudden as a camera shutter snapping from light to total blackness. The next face that leaned over Mike, seconds later, surely no more than that, was female and topped with a US issue helmet.

  "We got you, Mike," she said. "Just got to load you on the gurney. It'll hurt. Hang in there."

  Something else hurt him instead, a white-hot searing pain in the crook of his elbow. After that came a rapid slide into an odd bliss as if he'd been launched into bright blue space. The last thing he remembered was asking someone to get Rob, but he wasn't sure if any sound came out.

  Damn, I hope I don't ramble. I always ramble with anaesthesia.

  I'm not dead yet. I'm really not.

  What was his name? Rob? Rob what? I can't remember.

  Mike let himself drift, reassured that he'd open his eyes again. From time to time he was aware of lights being shone in his face, but it was brief and sporadic. Eventually, someone tapped the back of his hand, and kept tapping, saying, "Mike, Mike, Mike," over and over. Everywhere was brightly lit and quiet. It took him a few moments to work out that a nurse in green scrubs was trying to wake him.

  "You're okay, Mike." It was hard to tell what she looked like. Her features didn't make sense to him, a recognisable face but somehow also a random jumble like a Picasso painting. He was desperate for a mouthful of water. As he fumbled to wipe his nose, the nurse caught his hand. "That's a feeding tube. You've had surgery. Do you know where you are? Camp Shaughnessy. You're Michael Brayne, right?"

  Rational thought was returning in chunks, like bricks appearing in a wall that had been nothing but mist seconds before.

  "Livvie?" Mike felt for his wedding band. There was surgical tape around it. "Has anyone told her?"

  "Your wife? The Esselby guy's taking care of that. The company's contacted her."

  "And where's Rob?"

  "Who's he?"

  "The Brit who brought me in. He patched me up."

  The nurse shook her head. "Our dustoff casevacked you here. No Brits."

  "No, Rob. He saved me. Where's my phone? I need to call Livvie."

  "Okay, take it easy. Are you Senator Brayne's son?"

  The whole event gradually uncoiled in Mike's head, a strip of frames from a movie, from getting pulled over at Pelayi to squeezing the trigger to when he felt as if his spine had exploded through his back. And he could see Rob's face looming over him – lean and efficient, the kind of face that said everything was under control.

  "Yes. Yes, I am." He had to call Livvie. "Can you get me a phone, please?"

  The nurse walked away and spoke to someone. Mike caught the magic phrase that opened all doors in officialdom: "Tell them it's for the senator's son."

  The senator's son. It was the last label Mike wanted. He had to justify himself all over again.

  "Phone, please?"

  "We'll get you one, Mike. Now rest."

  Livvie would be quietly angry that her worst fears had almost come to pass. And his father would never yell at him, but he'd have that look, that sad disappointment that asked why Mike had to do this goddamned job instead of accepting his political heritage like his sister Charlotte. I said not to join that outfit, Micko. I know better than anyone. We spend people like you. It was bad enough when you joined the Guard. There: he didn't even need Dad to be present. He could have the argument entirely on his own.

  There was no clock on the wall. What time was it? Which day? Now he was in a different room, dimly lit and quieter, and vaguely aware that he'd lost hours or even days. He reached for the bedside cabinet, hoping to find a phone or at least some notes to tell him what day it was, but tubes seemed to be plugged in everywhere. He accepted defeat.

  Damn, he needed to find Rob, too. He couldn't recall the guy's surname, but an incident like that would have been logged. There weren't that many Royal Marines over here to check out. They'd be based in Nairobi or the local AU camp.

  I remembered all that. I'm lucid. I know I am.

  That was the last thought he had before a noise woke him with a start. Another nurse leaned over him. She held a cell phone where he could see it and made an exaggerated gesture to indicate she'd put it on the bed by his hand.

  "Do you need more painkillers?"

  "Can I have a glass of milk, please?" Suddenly Mike craved an ice-cold glass. He didn't even like milk. "Or juice."

  "Sorry, nil by mouth until the tube comes out tomorrow."

  The nurse vanished again. Mike reached for the phone and tried to focus on the display. How long had he been here? Damn, not quite twenty-four hours. There were already messages for him from Livvie and Dad, and from Brad, the program manager at Esselby.

  Livvie's simply read: 'Whenever you're ready. Just glad I've still got you.' He was desperate to hear her voice. If he called, though, he'd sound drugged and hoarse. She'd be upset. He decided to wait until he sounded like his old self, and settled for a text in the meantime.

  The painkiller was much more powerful than he'd realised. He tapped out his reply like a man struggling with a new language, but there was no better excuse for being brief. He didn't need to tell her how close a call he'd had, at least not yet.

  'Livvie honey – doing fine. Sorry to scare you. Love you.'

  And Dad, as always, got right to the point: 'Micko, your guardian angel is Robert Rennie. I called in a favour from the DoD to bypass all the BS. Stand by for a visit. We'll reward him properly in due course. You're coming home. We love you.'

  Mike felt the relief of something achieved. He typed THANKS DAD, LOVE YOU because he'd fumbled the caps lock, then hit send. The effort left him sweating.

  Dad was upset. Mike could understand that. He didn't have to be here, and he wasn't defending his country. It was just a compulsion. He didn't know how to settle for doing anything less for the rest of his life.

  The nasogastric tube came out the next day. With the tube gone, he felt whole enough to call Livvie and chat for a few minutes until he ran out of energy. He told her everything positive he could remember about the rescue. The grisly detail could wait.

  "I'll be home for months," he said, trying to be casual. "We can take all those trips we promised ourselves."

  "So this Rob guy. Have you invited him to visit?"

  "I haven't seen him yet. But I will, honey. You sure you're not angry with me?"

  "No. Upset, naturally." Livvie paused. "But you've got your quest, and if I stop you, then you won't be Mike any more, will you?"

  Mike pondered that after she rang off. It wasn't the first time she'd said it, and she was right. He was looking for something. Every time he thought he'd found it, he'd turn it
over and it would transform itself from a right and decent thing to a tainted grey area — wars supporting the wrong allies, training foreigners who turned on you in the end, and guarding aid programs that didn't solve a damn thing. It was simple; Mike just wanted to do good. But it was getting harder to pin down what good meant in the real world.

  He still couldn't think of anything cleaner than being a soldier, whether in national uniform or as a contractor. It was a difference he could see with his own eyes and make with his own hands. The worst thing about wealth was that it left him with no excuses for what he hadn't done with his life, and at thirty-five he still felt he'd done absolutely nothing.

  Mike was starting to worry that he'd be flown home before he got to see Rob and thank him, but the guy showed up the next day. He walked in clutching a plastic carrier bag as if it was a routine visit. He looked dauntingly fit in a khaki T-shirt instead of Kevlar plates, and it was now clear how much of Rob was Rob and how much had been armour.

  "So there I am, in the boss's tent, getting a bollocking about all the paperwork I've caused," Rob said, launching straight in without an opening hello. "And then he gets a call, and suddenly I'm the man of the match. Any ideas?"

  Mike wasn't sure what to say. Thanks seemed remarkably slight. He held out his hand while he tried to think of something appropriate. Rob shook it with the grip of a boa constrictor.

  "Ah," Mike said. "That'd be down to Dad. He knows people."

  "I was having a nice beer with the AU lads at the base when your lot showed up. I thought I was going to end up with a bag over my head en route to a CIA jail in Shittistan."

  "Sorry. It's probably because I kept asking for you."

  "Well, here I am." Rob gave him a conspiratorial wink. "Why didn't you tell me you were just an ordinary, average billionaire with an ordinary, average billionaire senator dad who's got government ministers on his speed dial?"

  "I was kind of disembowelled at the time. It slipped my mind." Mike felt suddenly emotional, a backslapping, tearful kind of relief. "Rob, thank you doesn't begin to cover it. But anyway, thank you."

  "So you hung around just to see me? You mad bugger."

  "I wouldn't have made it out alive without you." It sounded lame, but anything Mike said that summed up what had happened would sound feeble. You saved my life. You saved me from being taken hostage. I owe you. "And I even know what a bollocking is. I lived in England for a while. I read history and politics at Oxford."

  "So we civilized you, did we?"

  "You sound like you come from somewhere down west."

  "Bristol. Oh-ahh. And you sound like Katherine Hepburn."

  "New Hampshire. Fairly close."

  Rob pulled up a chair and sat down at the bedside, unfazed. Up close, his dark hair was flecked with a trace of grey. "So what's Septic nobility like you doing in a mucky job like this? Bored with crashing Ferraris into swimming pools?"

  "I spent a few years in the National Guard. I like the life."

  "No offense to the Guard, mate, but your knife skills seem a bit too hardcore for that. I bet you could kill a bloke with a teaspoon, couldn't you?"

  "I got myself trained privately." Mike made it a rule never to bitch about the Guard, however frustrated he'd been with it. He knew he was talking to a seasoned commando who wouldn't brook any whining. "I joined Esselby as a contractor. You learn a lot there. Not spoons, though."

  Rob didn't blink. "Never wanted to join the regular Army? No, I suppose they'd beat the shit out of you for being the crown prince. That's what the lads on the flight over here called you. Very fairy-tale."

  "I keep the family connection quiet. People think I'm playing at soldiers because I'm bored. My sister calls me Marie Antoinette."

  Rob didn't ask why, but maybe he understood the reference. Mike felt totally and inexplicably at ease with him. Maybe it was because he exuded a solid sense of his own worth, a certainty about his place and purpose in the world. All the revelations that made people fawn over Mike or want to pick a fight — his dynastic wealth, his education, even his service — didn't even make Rob blink. Mike didn't have to wonder whether to trust him. Rob had pulled him to safety under fire and shielded him, and that told him everything he needed to know.

  "Well, you're not shovelling the thankless shit for the money, obviously," Rob said.

  "It's a compromise. My wife sees more of me and I still get to do the kind of things I'm good at."

  "Yeah. I didn't quite get my compromise right. Kids?"

  It was a far bigger question than Rob could have realised. "Still trying," Mike said. "We've been married fifteen years."

  "Stick with it. My mate and his missus had twins two years after they'd given up." Rob rummaged in the grocery bag and fished out a couple of cans of beer carefully wrapped in a T-shirt, presumably to muffle the telltale clanking. "Nurse Ratchett's going to go mental if she sees this, so hide it for later, okay? And Sam retrieved your kit. Phone, wallet, the works." He tossed the items onto the bed. "I hope you didn't leave your contacts on your mobile."

  "No, I always wipe it." Mike checked his wallet for Livvie's picture first. He hated the idea of some stranger dumping it. Yes, it was still there. "Thanks, Rob. And thank Sam for me. No watch?"

  "Missing something diamond-studded?"

  "No. Just a service issue timepiece. Three hundred bucks. My lucky watch."

  Rob took something out of his pocket and tossed it onto the bedcover. It was the black diver-style watch he'd offered Tariq as an extra bribe. "You better have that instead, then. Ten quid in Argos. Glows in the dark, too. Great story to tell the grandkids."

  It was unlikely Mike would ever have any, but it was a kind thought. He strapped on the watch next to his hospital ID bracelet.

  "That's lucky enough for me. Thanks."

  Rob took out his cell, tapped it a few times, then handed it to Mike with a big grin that completely transformed him. "Look. This is my boy, Tom. I love him to bits and he's going to university next year. Computer science and linguistics."

  Tom looked like a teenage version of his father. Rob started chatting, and in minutes Mike was sure he'd known him all his life. They were still talking like long-lost buddies — family, how much England had changed since Mike had been at Oxford, politics, the price of gas — when the nurse interrupted them. She walked in with a diagnostic trolley and an expression that said it was high time that Rob left. Mike checked his new lucky watch. They'd been talking for nearly two hours.

  "Rob, give me your contact details," he said. "We've got to stay in touch. There has to be something I can do for you besides shake your damn hand."

  Maybe Rob thought Mike was one of those guys who thrust his business card at people he met on vacation and insisted they look him up sometime without really meaning it. For a moment, Rob hesitated. Then he rummaged in his pockets and produced a pen and a few dog-eared business cards. One was a taxi company's. Mike flipped it over and started writing.

  "You hang on to this." Mike handed back the card. "Now you give me yours. You saved my life."

  "I think the surgeon did that."

  "Yes, but he didn't patch me up under fire when he could have walked away."

  "Bugger it, Mike, you're making me sound even more amazing than I already am." Rob glanced at the nurse, who was waiting with silent impatience, and wrote on another card. He got a faint smile from her, though. "Yeah. Let's stay in touch."

  "Seriously. What can I give you? What can I do for you?"

  Rob shrugged. "If you ever need someone to clean the toilets, let me know."

  "Sorry?"

  "More bloody defence cuts. Got to get a proper job soon."

  Mike panicked for him. "Hey, I can definitely help with that."

  "Thanks." Rob looked awkward, breaking eye contact for a moment. "I appreciate it."

  "You've got my number. Call me next week. Understand?"

  "Thanks."

  "I mean it. I'll call you if you don't." Mike was already trying
to formulate a rescue plan. It just took money, and that would never be a problem. "That's the kind of thing I'm good at fixing."

  Rob finally surrendered to the nurse's time-to-leave stare. "I better be going." Perhaps he didn't want his future fixed for him. "Look after yourself, Mike."

  "You too, buddy," Mike said. "Keep in touch. Whatever you need, I'm there."

  "Three wishes, too, eh?" Rob winked conspiratorially. "Keep your head down. I won't be around the next time."

  Mike watched him go as the nurse moved in with the blood pressure cuff, and felt oddly cheated. But what was his display of gratitude for, to convince the guy that he'd done something life-changing that would never be forgotten, or to make himself feel like a better human being? No, Mike liked Rob. It was the same as that instant connection he'd had with Nick nearly thirty years before. Plucked from the river a second time, Mike was determined to value this extra lease of life and the man who had given it to him.

  It looked like it was going to be hard to give Rob anything, though. He was visibly self-reliant, the kind of man who'd finish a race on a broken leg rather than ask for help. But Mike had his own stubborn streak. He could do good, and he would do it for Rob Rennie.

  LOCKSWAY SUPERMARKET, BRISTOL, ENGLAND

  DECEMBER, ONE YEAR LATER.

  In the aisle between the display of eddoes and the stacked boxes of karela, Rob felt like the last Englishman alive.

  The store was busy with chattering shoppers. Some conversations made themselves heard above the public address system pushing today's special offers, but none of the languages were his. He thought he could pick out Bengali and Thai, but he couldn't understand any of it.

  No, that wasn't strictly true. Sometimes a word that sounded like Pashto jumped out at him. Instantly, he was back on patrol in Helmand, waiting for the worst to happen in a suddenly-deserted street, or wishing he knew more Dari or whatever, so that he could work out whether the dodgy-looking locals were discussing how far the infidel bastard's legs would get blown when he hit the IED at the next corner, or if they were just griping about the price of carrots.