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Seaview - Jack Devon

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165 pages

English

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You've lost everything - your home, your partner, even your self-respect. You've hit rock bottom, living rough on London's unforgiving streets. Out of the blue someone from your past offers you a second chance and more money than you ever dreamed of. All you have to do is what you're best at: killing perfect strangers.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Seaview
Date de parution	10 mai 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781908886613
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

To Kill A Stranger
A novel by Jack Devon
jackdevon@riseup.net
You ve lost everything - your home, your partner, even your self-respect. You ve hit rock bottom, living rough on London s unforgiving streets.
Out of the blue someone from your past offers you a second chance and more money than you ever dreamed of.
All you have to do is what you re best at: killing perfect strangers.
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jack Devon is the pen name of a former British intelligence agent and subsequently a Reuters correspondent and editor. He has lived and worked in 40 countries, and covered a dozen wars, including the Soviet and U.S. occupations of Afghanistan. He has an MA in Buddhist Studies spends most of his time in south-east Asia where he teaches English.
PROLOGUE
No prisoners.
The Word spread. It swept through the forward companies, leaping like a spark from one squad to the next.
Who started it?
Harry thought it was spontaneous combustion: twenty-four hours without a kip, a thirty mile hike, the cold and wet, the lack of cover, the shelling, the air strikes, his mates going down, the dry-mouth fear that he too will join them and not get up again.
He considered his options with his face in the mud, keeping his head down, pinned in a shallow depression of slush and gorse and trying hard not to die.
The Word was an ill wind.
No prisoners.
Then the section, the platoon, the company - yes, the entire battalion or what was left of it - clambered to their feet as one.
And launched an assault.
No-one gave the order.
They leaned forward into the enemy fire, hunching shoulders, heads lowered, as if pushing their way into a gale.
Harry slapped a fresh magazine into his sub-machinegun and broke into a shambling run, staggering over tussocks and splashing through muddy pools. The paratroops gave a ragged shout though whatever it was, it was whipped away and scattered by explosions of gunfire.
Mad Maguire was next to him, cursing, a stream of obscenity from lips curled back from teeth in a crazed half-snarl, half-laugh, hands pumping out M79 grenades, oblivious of the Argentine 105s hurtling overhead with the noise of express trains and the crackle of automatic fire spitting at them like a horizontal sleet of steel.
They d hiked all the previous day up to the 02:00 start line and then they d fought the rest of the night, the platoon somehow sticking together, stumbling into enemy positions they didn t know were there until they came across them. They clawed their way on through, leaving the foe behind in some places, bypassing them. Only that morning, just after dawn at 07:30, Harry had seen the CO cut down. The Colonel - leading from the front - had taken a round between the shoulder blades from just such a foxhole still occupied by the enemy that they d left behind as the battalion advanced.
A burst of radio static and the TAC operator s voice: Sunray down.
I repeat. Sunray is down.
There were more of the Argies than they d ever imagined, and they kept reinforcing, bringing forward more artillery, taking up positions that weren t on any map.
The battalion was in the open, and there wasn t any cover worth the name. Bare as a baby s arse, was Maguire s description. Momentum was everything. The CO had emphasised it in his orders, and he d led by example until he copped it. They just had to keep going, cracking on, blasting their way through whatever was in their way. Slow down or hesitate, grind to a halt and they d lose the initiative. Lose the initiative and they d count the cost in lives lost and men crippled.
They d already lost seventeen of their number, and they were slowing.
Then, in full daylight, limbs like lead, panting, sweat running down his face, Harry blinked it away and saw white flags break out on two hillocks. He heard the lieutenant volunteer to accept the surrender, and saw him and two NCOs go forward.
He heard what happened next. Automatic fire from the flank - one of our own, he thought - then an answering burst from an enemy position - a machinegun nest they hadn t spotted and one with no white flag.
Companies B, C and D must have seen the lieutenant and his companions bowled over, knocked flat. The three didn t get up again. They didn t move.
That did it.
Anger, bright and diamond hard, took over. A growl of rage from five hundred parched throats, five hundred men in drab camouflage spread across the hill rising from their knees and bellies in the sodden turf and launching themselves up the slope at the enemy, lurching forward.
The Word was wildfire.
No prisoners.
The first was right in front of Harry. He didn t have to think about it. He didn t aim. He didn t need to. Harry had the metal stock in his shoulder. He swung the foresight and fired instinctively, like pointing a finger. A three-round burst and the pinched conscript s face, surprise written across it, helmet and raised fingerless gloved hands weren t there.
Two more, a pair of them, buddies most likely, homeboys, rising from their shellscrape, cold and petrified and hungry and wanting just to go home.
Double-tapped - two rounds each.
Keep moving.
One to the left.
More over there on the right, waving a white towel.
Now a trench, and Maguire slipped a grenade into it as smoothly as posting a letter.
They both stepped aside and waited for the detonation, then Harry dropped down into it and made sure with two more bursts. Maguire helped pull him back out again.
Harry and Maguire worked well as a team. So did the entire section, ranged on either side, a ragged line working uphill and through, an exhausted yet balletic performance of fire and movement, carried out in slow motion by figures clumsy with exhaustion.
No prisoners.
Harry and Maguire never spoke of it. Not even when it was over and the Union Jack flew once again over Port Stanley.
Not when they sailed home in the QE2 and wrecked the luxury liner in running battles between the Paras and Guards, using furniture, bathroom fitting, deckchairs and bottles as weapons this time.
No-one knew why.
Why does anyone fight?
After they were through, these conquering heroes, the refit cost the taxpayer millions in compensation.
Not even when they were too drunk or seasick even to fight did they mention it.
Not ever.
ONE
Harry jerked awake.
Someone had leaned close - far too close - and tapped him on the shoulder.
Mister, you all right?
A heavy-set man in uniform, moustache, pistol at his waist, stepping back smartly because Harry was off his plastic chair, crouched, hands open, the expression on his face not at all friendly.
The Iraqi s right hand rested on his holster.
You were calling out, sir. Anything I can do?
Prozac, maybe. A bottle of scotch.
Correction. Forget the pills. Make that two bottles.
You need a doctor?
Harry sank back on the moulded seat. It took him a moment to figure out where he was, what he was doing. He d been dreaming again of Darwin, but this wasn t L/Corp Harry Stirling, aged 17, and the Falklands in 1982. This was real. This was a quarter century later. This was here and now. This was Baghdad airport, and he was alone, awaiting the flight that would take him to Germany and from there a British Airways plane for the final leg to Heathrow.
No, there was nothing anyone could do.
He d dropped off while waiting. He looked up at the Iraqi and saw uncertainty on the man s face. He meant well. Harry smiled. Thank you, he said. I m fine.
Ahlan, the Iraqi security officer said, turning away. You re welcome.
In a few hours he d be back in London. It would be pissing down, no doubt. After the desert heat Harry wouldn t mind one bit. He d splash out on a black cab to take him back to Vauxhall. He would shower and shave and pull on clean civvies and stroll out again with Jenny holding his arm. They d have a civilised drink at a quiet pub on the river and maybe a pizza and he d watch normal people living normal lives.
He d believed this little fantasy, made it real by wanting.
Would she be there, waiting at the barrier in the arrivals hall, waving and smiling? He d heard nothing in weeks, and she never picked up when he called. He d left three messages on the landline and her mobile with his flight number and ETA.
Of course she would. Stop worrying.
He smiled to himself at the thought of Jenny.
***
Harry was not a man to dwell on things. He wasn t the reflective type. At least he didn t think so. He did know - and accepted - that he was past it. Running about in war zones and getting shot at by kids fuelled by the high octane of patriotism and religious zeal and only too happy to meet their Maker was for younger blokes still innocent enough to believe they were immortal and that those who got killed had only themselves to blame. He d been like that once: arrogant. He d lasted a long time, twenty-six years to be precise. He d weathered well. He d done his bit, put something aside these last couple of years working in the security sector. Now it was over. It was time to move on, to settle for what he had.
The flight attendant who offered him champagne in business class gave him her best smile. She thought him attractive and the broken nose did nothing to detract from that impression. She put him at about forty (he was forty-two), and very fit, which he was. She thought he looked like a tennis pro or footballer, only tougher. He was a shortish man with powerful shoulders, back and arms. He had a compressed energy, a catlike economy of movement, an aggressive competitor s self-restraint. With his short hair and clean appearance - he wore well-pressed khakis, desert boots, a steel diver s wristwatch and a blue, short-sleeved shirt, open at the collar - she thought he must be one of the oil condottieri or a banker working hard at not standing out. He had a countryman s open face, without guile, though there was something oddly cruel about the mouth. She thought his clipped manner of speech hid an Edinburgh accent, but she couldn t