Lieutenant Phelps stepped out on deck and searched the men spread out in front of him until he found who he was looking for. ‘Stratton?’ he called out.
Stratton turned to look at the man whom he hardly knew.
‘A brief word, please,’ the officer said.
Stratton left Downs and walked over to him.
The officer stepped away to a more private piece of deck as Stratton arrived and glanced around to ensure they were out of earshot of everyone else.
‘I have a message for you from London,’ Phelps said. ‘The Chinese insist they don’t have an agent in Somalia at this time and have not had in recent months. They have acknowledged the agent you confronted in Yemen. Given that, London is inclined to believe them. Why would they acknowledge one and not the other? They have accounted for all of their known citizens in Somalia and none fit the description of the woman in your report.’
Stratton felt surprised by the revelation. His initial inclination was to believe it but he wasn’t immediately sure why.
‘Good luck,’ the officer said, before walking away and back inside the superstructure.
Stratton’s head started to fill with questions about what the girl could have been doing in Somalia if she wasn’t an agent. Maybe the Chinese were lying. That he could believe. Maybe she was connected to Al-Shabaab and the acquisition of the weapons. If so, something had clearly gone badly wrong for her. But that didn’t explain why she would have been sneaking around the
Despite the possibility that she had duped him, he couldn’t dislike her. He never got the impression she was a bad person. Which was possibly naive of him but he fancied himself a fair judge of character.
He wondered where the girl was at that moment. Had she truly gone back to Somalia to finish whatever it was she had started there, madness though it had to be? Hopefully she had made it safely to another coast. If she wasn’t a Chinese agent, it helped explain why she jumped ship. She knew Stratton would have included her in his report. She would also have expected him to go to the nearest British safe haven and would have expected her to accompany him. The Chinese authorities would also have been informed. She wouldn’t have wanted to be interviewed by the British, and even less by her own people.
Stratton’s thoughts were interrupted by Howel and Winslow stepping out on deck through a door beside him. The two officers headed over to Downs.
‘The old man said you can go ahead and prepare for departure,’ Winslow said. ‘He’s adjusting the ship’s speed and heading to reduce the wind so that you can complete the assembling of the gliders.’
Downs looked into the wind and decided it had indeed grown weaker in the past few minutes. He brought a whistle to his lips and blew it. Everyone looked in his direction. ‘Let’s get the wings on,’ he shouted.
Howel looked around at the preparations as he and Winslow walked back towards the superstructure, where Stratton still stood.
‘God, how I envy you lot,’ Howel said to Stratton.
‘Well, you know where the door to true adventure lies,’ Stratton said. ‘You just have to get through it.’
He winked at Winslow and walked away. Winslow watched him go, his jaw tight.
Stratton stepped to his glider as a couple of the ship’s crew were assembling the wing. The rest of the glider pairs, aided by sailors, were doing the same all over the deck area.
A tall, strongly built SBS operative preparing the glider beside Downs and Stratton’s looked over at Stratton as he arrived. ‘Hey, Stratton,’ he said.
Stratton looked at him, recognising the face but unable to place him right away.
‘Matt,’ he reminded Stratton, aware the operative could not remember his name. ‘We were in Helmand last year at the same time. I was in Blue Team.’
The man fell into place for Stratton. ‘I remember. How’s it going?’
Matt stepped closer. He was a head taller than Stratton with a pair of shoulders to match. ‘So what’s Somalia like?’
‘I found it a tad unfriendly. But it would be unfair to taint the entire country. I only saw a small part of it.’
‘I’m looking forward to punishing those bastards. Hopper was a good friend. Do you know his wife, Helen?’
Stratton had been wondering who would be the first to mention Hopper. ‘Only in passing,’ he said.
‘You met the kids?’
Stratton could sense an edge to the man’s tone. ‘A couple of times.’
Matt nodded. Like he had no real interest in Stratton’s answers to his questions, like he wanted to get to others he had on his mind. ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ he said. ‘There’s a rumour going around that you killed Hopper.’
The hint of confrontation Stratton had detected became suddenly far stronger. Hearing Matt’s voice had improved his memory of the man. Matt had a reputation for being stroppy. He had a bit of the big-man syndrome. He used his size and naturally aggressive nature to intimidate. It worked on most people. Stratton remembered his behaviour during one set of operational orders in Afghanistan. During the questions phase, Matt had been sarcastic to the sergeant running that small op. Stratton suspected it was because he felt like he should have been running it. A childish response but some people were like that.
For Matt’s part, Stratton didn’t overly impress him. He felt he was every bit as good as guys like him. In Matt’s eyes, the only difference between them both was that he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to prove himself.
Stratton appreciated displays of confidence and didn’t mind if it bordered on arrogance or even discourtesy. But he drew the line at blatant disrespect. ‘That’s right,’ he answered, a coldness easing its way into his own tone.
The men nearby who had heard the question and the answer stopped what they were doing to watch and listen. Everyone had heard and discussed the rumours but no one knew the truth.
Matt took a step closer to Stratton. Got close to invading the operative’s personal space, a dangerous place to venture. Stratton would give him a lot of leeway though. Matt was SBS, but also upset about his friend’s death.
‘Was that deliberate or did you shoot him by accident?’ Matt asked.
Stratton didn’t react at all. He looked hard at Matt. He had a dangerous look in his eye. But Matt was afraid of no one. Few members of the service would dare to show disrespect to Stratton. Even fewer would threaten him. Matt believed he had a right to confront Stratton, regardless of the fact the man was the most accomplished operative in the SBS. He knew he was in dangerous territory but suddenly felt confident about it.
There were not many men on that deck who would have questioned Stratton’s operational choices. Most believed that whatever he did was for a good reason. Stratton did have his detractors. There were men in the SBS who didn’t approve of him in general. Most of those numbered among the older operators and officers. They believed London should not have favourites, that one man shouldn’t get so many choice operations and be selected over others. They also disapproved of him dividing his time between the SBS and the SIS. If he wanted to work for the London ghosts, then he should sod off and join them.
Matt didn’t share those feelings. Deep down he wanted to do exactly the same things. But he wanted to be the man they came to, not Stratton. Over the years, that jealousy had twisted inside of him. Instead of doing something about making himself more attractive to the selectors, Matt became resentful. He wasn’t helped in his dilemma by the fact that he didn’t have a clue how to go about getting selected for those special ops. You couldn’t just write in and ask. You couldn’t fill in a form, you couldn’t call a number. He knew, like everyone else, that just about every operator got gauged from time to time when the Secret Intelligence Service needed new recruits. He would never accept the possibility that the reason he hadn’t been selected was because they didn’t consider him good enough. That would have been too large a pill for him to swallow.
Matt would never be able to get away with abusing Stratton for no apparent reason at all. That would instantly be recognised as jealousy. And if he decided to get physical with Stratton and it was suspected he did it out of jealousy, he could find himself out of the SBS and on his way back to his commando unit for such a pathetic display. The unit didn’t tolerate such things. They could ultimately find their way into an operation and negatively
