"But not a security guard, eh?"
"That's not what I mean and you know it. I'll always be proud of you, whatever you do. But you should call Mike and see what's on offer."
Sometimes talking to Tom was like role reversal. The kid was going to make a great dad one day. He was doing a pretty good job of it right now. "What if I did?"
"I could brag that my dad was a mercenary. Offend the wannabe Che Guevaras on my course and impress women. Okay, I know mercenary isn't accurate. But you know what I mean."
"I don't think Esselby does the full-on dogs of war rent-a-coup shit."
"Yeah, but I don't have to tell women that." Tom forced a smile. "Just come to my graduation ceremony with two days' stubble and a bandolier."
"It's all polo shirts and baseball caps now. How about a gold-plated AK-forty-seven and a sweaty Bruce Willis vest?"
Tom laughed. "Yeah, you could carry that off. Look, Dad, it's more or less the same work. You'll still be yourself."
Rob felt something prick at his eyes. It wasn't the curry. Tom was giving him permission to do what he'd really wanted, trying to make the decision easy for him. It should have been the other way around. If anyone had asked Rob what he was, his instant answer had always been Royal Marine, but there was another identity that defined him just as much: he was Tom's dad, and he was even more proud of that.
"Okay. I'll talk to Mike."
He had no illusions. A dead Rob in a Royal Marines uniform would have had a nice funeral with some media coverage of roses being thrown onto his hearse, but a dead Rob on the payroll of Mercs-R-Us would be completely invisible, with no poppies, no Legion standard-bearers, and no angry voters complaining about Our Boys dying for nothing. He knew that. He wasn't stupid. Neither was the government. This was their plan, the chinless lying fuckers, one of the very few they seemed to actually have.
"I wouldn't see any less of you, would I?" Tom said. "I just want a happy dad again."
Rob felt like he'd been recharged after months on fading batteries. Back at the flat, while Tom was out buying groceries from the all-night supermarket, he stared at the phone and felt almost excited, not whoopee excited, but the things-might-go-horribly-wrong variety, that fear of having to swim out of his depth but doing it anyway. It was the challenge he needed. That, and having the money to do right by Tom. It was an honest job. He wasn't leeching off Mike's generosity.
He tapped Mike's number and waited. "Hi, mate. Merry Christmas. So, this job."
"Brad's always got contracts to fill, buddy, you know that," Mike said. "And there's always Nazani. Come on, we'd make a terrific team."
"Are you going back?"
"Sure. It'd be great to work with you, Rob. We'd be awesome."
Rob had missed it. He missed doing proper work and he'd missed the company of blokes like himself. Tom had already made up his mind for him, but the prospect of working with Mike gave him a brief sensation of being a lad again, up for climbing over security fences and KEEP OUT signs with his mates.
"Yeah, that sounds like a bloody good idea," Rob said. "I'm in."
TWO
I can assure the House that there are no plans to send British troops back to East Africa. In answer to my honourable friend's question, there are no British troops on the ground. This is line with the stance of our allies in the USA, Europe, and the Commonwealth. The security situation is being managed adequately by local forces with support from its advisers.
The Rt. Hon. J. M. Allen, Secretary of State for Defence, in response to Parliamentary questions
KAJO AIRPORT, NAZANI, EAST AFRICA
JUNE, EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER.
The workers' bus was late again.
Mike occupied himself by trying to read the news over Rob's shoulder. The company had started changing schedules at the last minute to thwart insider leaks to local gangs about vehicle movements. The recent spate of ambushes wasn't just bad luck.
"Twat," Rob said, not looking up from his phone. One hand rested on the steering wheel as if he couldn't bear to relinquish control of the Chevy Suburban even when it was parked. "Lying twat."
He didn't say who was guilty of twattery today, but it was almost certainly a politician. "I give up," Mike said, turning down the aircon. "Who's a twat?"
Rob handed over the phone to show Mike the headlines. There were no plans to send troops back to Nazani, some British defence minister had said. It was official. Private contractors didn't count, even if most of them had come straight from American or UK forces. That was the way of the world now; invisible, tidy little wars with as few official casualties as possible.
Mike could live with that. He was playing his part to bring water to a region that sorely needed it, which fell under his clear-cut heading of Doing Good. He was with his best buddy. And they'd be heading home in two weeks on extended leave. Life was almost the way he wanted it.
The only thing missing was kids, but he and Livvie hadn't given up on treatment yet. He just needed to hear that she was willing to try one more IVF cycle.
"We're nobody's boys, Rob. No yellow ribbons for us." Mike reached across to flick the peak of Rob's baseball cap. "Chin up. The canteen's getting a resupply of pistachio ice cream today."
"So where's this sodding bus? There'll only be vanilla left by the time we get back."
"Yeah. War sure is hell."
They giggled like schoolboys. Rob went on reading the headlines while Mike checked for e-mails, still looking for a message from Livvie. He found nothing and reset his phone to purge his data.
Kajo wasn't so much an airport yet as an airstrip with a growing collection of buildings, razor wire, and Hesco barriers. A few yards away in the security parking area, Teetotal Mackenzie and Jake the Saffa sat in their own Suburban, escorts for the same bus. Teetotal shrugged at Mike and tapped his ear to indicate he was still waiting for someone to radio him.
Mike nudged Rob with his elbow. "Taken your mefloquine today?"
"Yes, Mum." It was part of their buddy routine, the list of daily health checks that a country like this made necessary. "Hydration. Drink some water."
"Okay, glugging now."
Rob went on reading his phone. Mike thought he was catching up with the sports headlines, but he sat back and made a grumbling noise.
"Shit."
"Problem?" Mike asked.
Rob handed over his phone. "Look. Tom's got a summer job. He's not coming to stay."
The message was succinct: 'Dad, I've got a few weeks' work lined up when the term ends but maybe we can get together later. How does that sound?'
Mike was already calculating. If Tom felt the need to earn money, then there was an instant solution to the problem, even if Rob wouldn't like it.
"He hasn't told you what it is, then."
"No. I bet it's some shit job in a factory or something. I'll make him take some cash. He's bloody stubborn about paying his way."
"Funny. I wonder who he gets that from."
"I'll sort him out."
"Might be a girlfriend involved."
"No, he'd tell me. He always does." Rob had been excited about having Tom to stay. Mike could see his disappointment. "He knows I'll be pissed off, whatever it is."
"His fall term doesn't start until late September. We'll be home for months, at least. Plenty of time to visit."
Mike took out his cell again and mailed his accountant. It really was only money. What was the point of having it if he couldn't spend it on the people he cared about? Fifty thousand in sterling would probably be about right, ample for Tom's needs but just short of Rob's melt-down level. He still hadn't come to terms with the scale of Mike's resources.
"You're not up to anything, are you, Zombie?" Rob asked.
Mike took a mouthful from his water bottle. "Hell, no, Royal."
Rob sat drumming his fingers. A couple of minutes later, airport security radioed to say that the bus – callsign Blue One — was finally moving. Rob hung back to let Teetotal pull out in front of him
as the lead car. It was the kind of escort duty they did week in, week out, mostly without incident, but it was always a time to be extra vigilant. The gates opened and a sixty-seat bus rolled out, packed with anxious-looking foreign workers, mostly white and Asian.
"No ladies. Bugger." Rob watched it pass and then pulled in behind it. "I'm going to have to be nicer to Carolyn."
"She'll chew you up and spit out the gristle," Mike said. he thought it was telling that out of four female security operators, Rob picked the one who'd break something if he pushed his luck with her. "She used to be a line MP, remember."
"It's a price worth paying."
Mike had never met Rob's ex-wife. He'd looked for traces of her in Tom, the part that didn't seem to have come from Rob, but it was hard to tell. Tom was the stealth version of his dad, quiet and self-possessed. It was hard for Mike to look at him without imagining what a son of his own would be like.
"You okay, Zombie?" Rob asked.
"Still waiting for Livvie's answer."
"Right." Rob knew what he was talking about and didn't press him. "Stay sharp."
The twenty-mile road to Dibeg was a flat, straight route across a scrubby plain with no cover either side and no choke points. It was safer than a winding route through ambush-friendly terrain, and a combination of mini-drone patrols and tele-controlled unmanned ground vehicles reduced the risk of IEDs. But Mike had known enterprising locals plant explosives again on exactly the same spot within thirty minutes of the first one being cleared. The TUGV couldn't stop mobile attacks on the road itself, either.
Mike could rely on Rob to spot trouble, though. He knew they were looking for the same indicators: disturbed soil, breakdowns minus drivers, odd litter, and even dead animals, anything vaguely off-key. Five miles out, the bus approached the first side road. Teetotal's voice came on the radio.
"Red One to Red Two, blocking. All yours, Royal."
That was Rob's cue to overtake the bus and move into the lead position while Teetotal pulled across the junction to stop any other vehicles separating the bus from its escort. As soon as the bus cleared the junction, Teetotal pulled out again and moved in close behind. The bounding overwatch system was repeated at each junction.
"See, I'd be fine doing close protection if it was all driving," Rob said. "But I'm not carrying shopping for some celeb or picking up their snotty brats from school."
"You just want to do screeching J-turns, don't you?"
"It's my hormones, Zombie."
Small motorcycles passed them in the opposite direction, wobbling under the load of baskets or pillion passengers. Mike watched them carefully with his H&K 416 by his leg and one hand resting on his sidearm. A bike, side panniers overflowing with vegetables, puttered slowly ahead them. Mike couldn't tell if it was going as fast as it could or trying to make them pass, but it wasn't low enough on its suspension to be laden with explosives. Rob checked the mirror.
"Red Two, passing, clear ahead."
He pulled out to overtake. Mike glanced at the bike just as something green flew into the air and bounced back towards them.
"Shit — "
Rob didn't even have time to swerve. Mike braced for an explosion before the thing splattered on the road in a spray of seeds and juice. It was still a bowel-loosening moment. Rob sucked in a breath.
"Nearly needed a change of boxers there, mate," he said.
"Red One to Red Two -- you okay, Royal?"
"Red One, no problem. I just shat myself. Flying fruit." Rob drove on, checking the rear-view with a big grin on his face. "Sorry, Zombie."
Mike did this run so often that he could almost set his watch by it – half an hour, maybe forty minutes if there was a slow freight convoy or a stray goat on the road. It wasn't urban-busy, but it wasn't deserted, either.
It was starting to look that way now, though. The traffic thinned out. Then he couldn't see anything coming towards them. If an attack was planned, locals were often warned to stay clear.
Mike got on the radio. "Red One, anything behind you?"
"Sweet FA," Teetotal said. "Let's start worrying."
Rob's scan pattern — rear-view, left mirror, right mirror, rear — speeded up. It didn't matter that Dibeg was just minutes away. It only took seconds to get hit.
Teetotal sounded relaxed, but he always did. "Red One to Red two, still nothing behind."
Mike was looking for something mobile like a parked truck with a command wire. They were now seven miles from Dibeg. If anything was going to happen, it'd be in the next few minutes.
Then he saw it. It wasn't a truck, and it wasn't parked. It was a small object coming towards them. It hadn't been there a moment ago. It must have turned onto the road from a track further ahead.
Mike reacted even before he'd processed the thought. Rider and pillion. "Red One, Blue One, bike, at speed, approaching from Dibeg. Stand by."
Rob jerked his head around, looking for a path into the scrub either side of the road. "Here we go. Might be nothing. Red One, Blue One — get ready to put your foot down."
Mike's eye caught a lateral movement.
"RPG," he said. "RPG."
It might just have been the pillion passenger's arm. But he'd seen the movement a hundred times, and his reflexes reacted to anything that looked like it. Was it a tube? Yes. At fifty miles an hour there was no time to debate. The bus was now in rocket range whether it kept going or veered off. The only option was to block the bike and take it out, or hope the guy missed. A rocket had a fifty-fifty chance of missing a fast-moving target over 200 yards. Mike lowered the window, steadied himself against the door, and prepared to fire.
If he was wrong, he'd be in deep shit. But he couldn't afford to wait. They were closing at twenty-five yards a second.
Do it.
He fired a long burst. The bike snaked off onto the dirt for a few yards but carried on. Rob floored the Suburban to swerve into its path and Mike lost his shot. The last thing he saw as they hit the motorcycle was a long green tube and a yellow flash that he was sure was coming straight through the windshield. Bang. It was an explosion or the impact or both.
The Suburban did a squealing one-eighty turn and stopped dead, throwing Mike against the seat belt. It took him a couple of seconds to unbuckle, jump out, and take cover behind the open door. Smoke rose from a point some way out in the scrubby bush.
"Over there." Rob crouched behind the driver's door, trying to get Mike's attention across the front seats. "Look."
Mike risked sticking his head out. He could see the bike on its side and a mound of debris. "Red Two to Red One, we've hit a bike. Possible RPG. We're checking it out."
Teetotal's vehicle and the bus were long gone. That was the drill – foot to the floor and get out of the kill zone without stopping. There was always the chance of a secondary attack following up behind. But nothing was moving out there. Mike could hear the chatter on his radio.
"Red Two, we've called it in. Naz army and police on their way." That was Jake, Teetotal's South African co-driver. "Fok it, man, you okay?"
"Red One, no injuries." Rob edged out of cover. "Well, not us, anyway. We're checking now. Wait, out."
If they'd shot and rammed some unlucky repairman carrying a length of drainage pipe, there'd be hell to pay. War, or whatever fine legal distinction Mike was allowed to use these days, had become a maze of attorneys and office-bound second-guessers. It stopped him firing when he needed to. It got guys killed.
And maybe sixty civilian engineers killed with them. No thanks. Go ahead. Arrest me.
The bike lay at the end of a trail of tyre marks and fluid that turned out to be oil and blood. One guy lay on the ground with his head caved in, limbs bent. Rob covered Mike while he checked the body. The other Nazani guy lay yards away in the dirt. Mike squatted to check for a pulse. Either Rob had rammed the bike harder than Mike had thought or some rounds had hit their mark.
"So where's the rocket?" Mike asked. He'd seen the flash. It had to be an RPG.
"Where's the tube?"
It took Rob a few minutes to find some debris scattered in the scrub. He brandished a launching tube like a trophy.
"You called it, Zombie. Good effort."
It was a massive relief. Mike had started to doubt himself. They walked back to the Suburban and inspected the damage, noting dents, gouges in the bumper guard, and scratched paint.
"Not bad." Rob nodded approvingly. "Better put some warning triangles down. There'll be traffic through soon."
Rob took out his phone and grabbed some images of the vehicle and the positions of the bodies as if it was just a routine accident that he was going to report to his insurer. By the time the army vehicle arrived, traffic had started again and a small jam had built up. Less patient or curious drivers just drove off the tarmac and skirted the obstruction. A Nazani Defence Force lieutenant poked around in the debris, slung the bodies on the back of their truck, and took Mike's and Rob's details before driving off. He didn't seem all that bothered. It definitely wasn't like a car wreck in Maine.
Mike drove back to the security compound next to the airport while Rob gazed out of the window, apparently content to be a passenger for once.
"Hoofing," he said absently. There was only one higher rank of approval on his Richter scale of excellence, and that was fucking hoofing. "I'm glad we disabled the airbags on this bugger."
They dissolved into nervous, shaky laughter. "I must have hit at least one of them," Mike said. "I put down enough fire."
"Either way, it bought a second or two, and that's all you need, isn't it? Shit, that was satisfying. I've never rammed a vehicle for real. Just on the CP course." Rob patted Mike's arm. "Sorry, mate. I could have got you killed."
"What were we going to do, take a vote?"
"You okay?"
Mike tilted his neck left then right to try to ease the pulled muscles. "My neck's screwed. I hope Livvie doesn't notice. If I don't do a video call, she'll know something's happened."
"Just tell her I beat you at arm wrestling."
The security compound housed contractors from other PSCs as well as Esselby, and word of the contact had already gotten around by the time they arrived. They were greeted with good-natured barracking from a few Brits standing outside the admin office.