clear?’
Gardner didn’t wait for an answer. He gave his back to the three fucked-up pricks and walked down the road, past the construction site. He had reached a crossroads in his life. Lately he’d been getting into a lot of scraps. And deep down he was afraid of admitting to himself that fighting was all he was good for. The problem was, he was no longer an operator. His injury had reduced him to cleaning rifles and hauling HESCO blocks around Hereford, and the suit did not fit a fucking inch.
He was a couple of hundred metres from the site when his mobile sparked up. A shitty old Nokia. Gardner could afford an iPhone 4, but only in his dreams. The number on the screen wasn’t one he recognized. An 0207 number. London. He tapped the answer key.
‘Is that Mr Joseph Gardner?’
The voice was female and corporate. The kind of tone that belonged in airport announcements. Pressing the phone closer to his ear, Gardner said, ‘Who’s this?’
‘Nancy Rayner here. I’m calling from Talisman International.’
Gardner rubbed his temples, trying to clear the fog of booze behind his eyeballs. The name sounded vaguely familiar.
‘The security consultancy?’ the woman went on. ‘You submitted a job application . . . let me see . . .’ Gardner heard the shuffle of papers ‘. . . two weeks ago.’
Her words jolted his mind. Fucking yes. He did recall applying for a job. He also recalled thinking he had next to no hope of getting it. Talisman were one of the new boys on the security circuit. He’d not heard anything, and figured it was the same better-luck-elsewhere story.
‘We’d like to invite you for an interview.’
Gardner fell silent.
‘Mr Gardner?’
‘Yes?’
‘How does tomorrow sound? One o’clock at our offices?’
It sounded better than good. It was fucking great.
He said simply, ‘OK.’
‘Excellent. So we’ll see you tomorrow at one.’
Click.
Gardner was left listening to dead air. Suddenly the drunken mist behind his eyes was lifting. He tucked the mobile away, dug his hands into his jacket pockets and quickened his pace.
Maybe he wouldn’t be hauling gravel around Hereford for the rest of his miserable life.
Also by Chris Ryan
Review
‘Nobody takes you to the action better than Ryan, because he’s the real deal, and this muscle-and-bone thriller will have fans’ blood pumping.’
‘Chris Ryan is as hard as nails.’
‘The books are masterpieces of social realism. [Chris Ryan] has lived the virtual life he writes about – and that makes him the right kind of war novelist for this generation. These storylines are dependent on a bustle of verbs that lead in every instance to blood and explosions, desperate screams and increasing levels of difficulty: it is never long before we find things and people being zapped, fried, crunched, toasted and skewered, as the bad deeds of the world are comprehensively avenged’
‘Relentless pace and gritty brutal realism… accurate descriptions of modern warfare… this is a book that could only have been there by someone who has been there, done that and got the T-shirt.’
‘Chris Ryan has always been underrated as a novelist of ideas… a welter of treachery and mayhem.’
‘A shockingly authentic tale to keep your adrenaline pumping as fast as the blood on the pages.’
