Sundance was standing by the TV, finishing another call on his mobile. He looked at me and gestured towards the corner.
'Keep it shut, boy.'
The other two gave me a shove to help me on my way. As I slid down the wall I tried my hardest not to push against the cuffs and ratchet them up even tighter than they already were. I finally slumped on to the floor and ended up facing the TV.
SIX
I guessed this place had been just a temporary set-up for the duration of the job and the job, of course, was planning and preparing to kill me. No doubt there was a similar set-up somewhere else in London where a whole lot of the boys and girls had prepared themselves for the hit on the snipers.
Trainers went over to the TV as the other two headed back into the garage. I watched as he crouched down by the brew kit, opening the kettle to check for water. His light brown nylon jacket had ridden up to expose part of a black leather pancake holster sitting on a leather belt, just behind his right hip, and a green T-shirt dark with sweat. Even the back of his belt was soaking, and had turned a much darker brown than the rest.
I could still hear the kids in the background, kicking their ball and yelling at each other. The pitch of their voices changed as one probably mis-kicked and was treated to squeals of derision. My hands, still stuck in the surgical gloves, were pruning up in the heat.
Trainers lined up three not-too-healthy-looking Simpsons mugs, Bart, Marge and Homer, which pissed me off. Maggie was missing. There obviously wasn't going to be any brew for me. He threw a tea bag into each, splashed milk on top, then dug a spoon into a crumpled, half-empty bag of sugar, tipping heaps of it into two of the mugs.
A toilet flushed in the garage area, and the sound got louder then softer as a door opened and closed. I could hear Sundance and the driver mumbling to each other but couldn't make out what was said.
The Merc door slammed, the engine turned over, and there was more squeaking and grinding as the shutter lifted. Thirty seconds later the car backed out into the road and drove away. Maybe one K of the mugs was for me after all.
| Sundance appeared at the office door, his back to us, checking |that the shutter had fully closed. As the steel banged on to the I floor, he walked to the settee and threw his green cotton bomber jacket on to the armrest of the nearest chair, revealing a wet maroon polo shirt and a chunky Sig 9mm, holstered just behind his right hip. On his left hip sat a light brown leather mag-carrier, with three thick pieces of elastic holding a magazine apiece. The first brass round of each glinted in the ceiling's white light. I almost laughed: three full mags, and just for little old me. I'd heard of overkill but this was something out of the last five minutes of Butch Cassidy. It was obvious where this boy had got his best ideas.
He stripped off his polo shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his face, exposing a badly scarred back. Two indentations were clearly gunshot wounds: I recognized them because I had one myself. Someone had also given him the good news with a knife, some of the slashes running the whole length of his back, with stitch marks either side. All in all, it looked quite a lot like an aerial photo of Clapham Junction. I Trainers, who'd just finished squeezing and fishing out the tea bags lifted up a brew for Sundance.
'Still want one?' His accent was 100 per cent Belfast. If the driver turned out to be Welsh we'd be able to put together a joke book.
'Right enough.' Wiping his neck and shoulders, Sundance sat down in the chair nearest the TV, avoiding resting his wet, bare back against the velour by sitting upright on the edge. He took a tentative sip from Bart, the mug without sugar.
He had been hitting the weights, but didn't have the chiselled look of a bodybuilder. He had the physique of a con who'd been pumping iron: the diet in prisons is so bad that when the lads take to the weights they end up barrel-chested and bulked up, rather than well honed.
He glanced at me for the first time and caught me studying his back.
'Belfast when you was just a wee soldier-boy.' He treated himself to a little giggle, then nodded at the third Simpsons mug still on the floor by Trainers.
'D'you want a tea, then, boy?'
Trainers held up Marge.
I nodded. Teah, I would, thanks.'
There was a pause for a couple of seconds while they exchanged a look, then both roared with laughter as Trainers did a bad Cockney accent.
'Gor blimey, guy, I would, fan ks
Trainers sat himself down on the settee with Homer, still laughing as he took the piss.
'Strike a light, guvnor, yeah, I would, cheers. Luv a duck.' At least someone was having fun.
Trainers put his own brew on the cracked tiled floor and took off his jacket.
He'd obviously had a tattoo removed by laser recently; there was the faintest red scar just visible on his forearm, but the outstretched Red Hand of Ulster was still plain to see. He had been, maybe still was, a member of the UDA (Ulster Defence Association). Maybe they'd both pumped their iron in one of the H blocks.
Trainers' triceps rippled under his tanned, freckled skin as he felt behind the cushions and pulled out a packet of Drum. Resting it on his knees, he took out some Rizlas and started to make himself a roll-up.
Sundance didn't like what he saw.
'You know he hates that -just wait.'
'Right enough.' The Drum packet was folded and returned beneath the cushions.
It made me very happy indeed to hear that: the Yes Man must be on his way. Even though I'd never smoked I'd never been a tobacco Nazi, but Frampton certainly was.
My arse was getting numb on the hard floor so I shifted very slowly into another position, trying not to draw attention to myself. Sundance got up, mug in hand, walked the three paces to the TV, and hit the power button then each of the station buttons till he got a decent picture.
Trainers sparked up, 'I like this one. It's a laugh.' Sundance shuffled backwards to his chair, eyes glued to the box. Both were now ignoring me as they watched a woman, whose voice was straight off the Radio Four news, talk to the show's china expert about her collection of Pekinese dog teacups.
I couldn't hear the kids any more over the TV as I waited for the Merc to return. On the screen, the woman tried not to show how pissed off she was when the expert told her the china was only worth fifty quid.
Whoever had christened Frampton the Yes Man was a genius: it was the only word he said to any of his superiors. In the past this had never worried me because I had nothing to do with him directly, but all that changed when he was promoted to run the UK Ks Desk in SIS (Secret Intelligence Service). The Firm used some ex-SAS people like me, in fact anyone, probably even my new friends here, as deniable operators. The Ks Desk had traditionally been run by an IB (member of Intelligence Branch), the senior branch of the service. In fact the whole service is run by IBs for IBs; these are the boys and girls we read about in the papers, recruited from university, working from embassies and using mundane Foreign Office appointments as cover. Their real work, however, starts at six in the evening when the conventional diplomats begin their round of cocktail parties, and the IBs start gathering intelligence, spreading disinformation and recruiting sources.
That's when the low-life like me come into the picture, carrying out, or in some cases cleaning up, the dirty work that they create while throwing the odd crab paste sandwich and After Eight down their necks. I envied them that, at times like this.
The Yes Man did, too. He had been to university, but not one of the right two.
He had never been one of the elite, an IB, yet had probably always wanted to be.
But he just wasn't made of the right stuff. His background was the Directorate of Special Support, a branch of wild-haired technicians and scientists working on electronics, signals, electronic surveillance and explosive devices. He'd run the signals department of the UK Ks, but had never been in the field.
I didn't know why the Firm had suddenly changed the system and let a non-IB take command. Maybe with the change of government they thought they should look a bit more meritocratic, give a tweak or two to the system to make them look good and keep the politicians happy as they skipped back to Whitehall, instead of interfering too much with what really goes on. So, who better to run the Desk than someone who wasn't an IB, arse licked his way from breakfast to dinnertime, and would do whatever he was told?
Whatever, I didn't like him and never would. He certainly wasn't on my speed dial, that was for sure. On the
