For Valour (35 page)

‘Puzzles were always Trev’s big thing, not mine. But I’ve got quite far with this one. I know about Kajaki. I know the mad thing that Guy did to get his VC. To start with, I thought Chris Matlock’s death pushed him over the edge. Now I’m ninety-nine per cent sure it was something else. Something else happened between those two actions that none of you guys, or the Head Shed, want to go public.’

He went absolutely still. He looked like I was malleting him with a lump of four by four, and he had no choice but to take the pain. But he didn’t disagree.

‘I saw Scott Braxton’s letter to you. I saw Jack Grant in Cyprus, and I know he was in the Green Dragon the night Scott shot his mouth off. Whatever he overheard, it scared him enough to kill your mate. Then he topped himself because he was a decent guy who’d done a very bad thing in the name of loyalty to some cause. Maybe he tried to put himself in harm’s way in Afghan first. Who knows?’

I paused to let this stuff sink in. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made a speech like this, if ever. Maybe my Inner Temple dress-down Sunday kit was to blame.

‘So here’s where I figure we are, Sam. Jack wasn’t the only one who couldn’t live with what he’d done. I’m guessing Guy couldn’t either. He just chose a different route. So, I need to know what happened out there, after the dam and before the fort, to fuck him up so badly – and fuck you and Scott up too. Because then I’ll have a better idea who’s got Ella, and we can sort this shit out.’

He didn’t say anything at all. He sat there like I’d fixed a red dot on his forehead and all he could do was count the seconds before I pulled the trigger. I wasn’t sure whether he’d get up and leave – hoping that his continuing silence would keep Ella safe – or start to realize that we had to grip this thing once and for all before it throttled us.

‘It wasn’t Kajaki that Guy couldn’t handle, was it, Sam?’

He finally straightened his back, found himself a lungful or two of air, planted his forearms on the table and narrowed the gap between us.

‘Kajaki was where it began …’

His shoulders crumpled for a moment. Then he steadied himself.

‘After Kajaki … I … we … we would hear Chris’s screams and see his tortured body every time we closed our eyes. I’ll never forget those things for as long as I live …’

He struggled to keep his voice even.

‘But you’re right. Kajaki wasn’t what Guy had to escape from. Kajaki wasn’t what Scott couldn’t keep quiet about. Kajaki wasn’t why I have to keep reaching for the happy pills.’

He raised a hand to cover his eyes and held it there, massaging his temples with thumb and forefinger. When he lowered it to the table again, he was having difficulty blinking back the tears.

‘He couldn’t live with what happened … to the girl … The pregnant woman and the girl …’

‘Koshtay?’

He nodded. ‘Koshtay.’

7

To begin with, the story came out in fits and starts, not always making sense. But once he’d hit his stride, there was no stopping him.

The Three Amigos had made their dead mate a promise at Kajaki: however long it took, they would avenge him. They sent out a signal via the few guys they could trust in the Afghan National Army: they needed to know who had been responsible for skinning Chris Matlock alive.

A handful of days later, word came back. Razaq, one of the Taliban players they’d been trying to lift, had given the order to two warriors from his compound. His compound in Koshtay.

Then he had supervised what happened next.

The crucifixion. The flaying. These things were never simple. They couldn’t be rushed. Razaq had taken care of the unbeliever’s face – and his eyelids – personally.

‘We knew immediately what we had to do. I don’t think any of us questioned it. It wasn’t legal. We didn’t kid ourselves about that. But it was just.

‘Guy tells the boss we’ve had a tip-off about one of the players, tells him we’re going to check it out. No drama. Only the three of us, on a CTR. If there’s any truth in it, we’ll come back mob-handed.

‘We take a Jackal. Scott drives. Guy’s in the passenger seat. I man the GPMG. We somehow dodge the IEDs and get within reach of the compound at last light. We lie up behind the treeline, on some high ground. Not Kajaki-type high ground, just high enough to give us a vantage-point, to get eyes on the enemy through our NVGs.

‘We know we’re outnumbered, but we have the advantage of surprise.’

He saw the look on my face.

‘And, yes, at that moment, as long as we kill those fuckers, none of us really cares if we come out alive.’

They’d pinged seven occupants in the compound, all male, all carrying. Ammunition belts slung across their chests, AK-47s either on their shoulders or close to hand. The Amigos reckoned they were preparing to move out.

‘We don’t need to take a vote. It’s now or never. Immediate Action. We advance through the trees, across a small stretch of open ground. Razaq’s place is surrounded by a baked-mud wall, but it’s barely above chest height. We vault it and take down three of the enemy with our first burst. They’ve no idea we’re there. Two more appear in the doorway to the living quarters, and we take them down as well.

‘Guy’s in the lead. It had become a habit of his, since school, probably. Leading was important to him, but winning was everything. That’s why he felt he couldn’t share the blame …’

He was finding it difficult to swallow.

‘His blood’s up, you see? He disappears inside the building, firing as he goes. Then there’s silence.

‘Scott and I push back the curtain hanging across the entrance. There are two rooms, lit by candles. The whitewashed wall directly ahead of us is covered with blood. Razaq has been thrown back against it by the force of Guy’s blast. The seventh Taliban warrior lies inside the archway to the sleeping area.

‘Guy’s kneeling beside the body. He raises his head as we follow him in. He’s cradling something in his arms. All he can say is “God forgive me …” over and over again.

‘That’s when we realize what he’s done.’

The seventh body was that of a young, pregnant woman. And the eighth was a child’s. Four years old, maybe. Five, max. It was difficult to tell. She’d caught a round that had taken away part of her jaw.

God never did forgive him. Or that’s what he thought. Guy Chastain couldn’t forgive himself either. By killing the woman and the child, he believed he had become no better than the men who had tortured his friend to death.

8

‘It’s a thin line, isn’t it, Nick? The line that separates the things you can justify to yourself, and the things you can’t. And once you’ve crossed it, there’s no going back. I’ve had plenty of time to think about that, lately. Too much time.’

A small part of me envied his idealism. The rest wondered how he’d got this far without realizing that justice and truth were luxuries most of us couldn’t afford. We just did our best to keep ourselves and our mates from sinking too deep into the shit. This boy needed a session or two with Father Mart.

‘How much does DSF know about this?’

He raised his hands, palms upwards. ‘When we came back from the compound we were so strung out that the slightest glance bored into us. The most routine exchange seemed loaded. And after Guy’s citation went public, every single one of Steele’s speeches about regimental pride and the need to honour the medal and its traditions sounded like a dire warning.’

‘Ella said that Scott was unravelling well before Christmas. She seemed to think the VC ceremony didn’t help.’

‘That’s the understatement of the century. It was mid-November. We were sitting in one of those huge rooms at the Palace, surrounded by
Who’s Who
in the military, and Scott started crying like a baby. I managed to shepherd him out to a toilet. I didn’t think anyone heard him break down, but I couldn’t be sure. It was a total nightmare.’

‘DSF there?’

‘Sure. The place was heaving with uniforms. That was when I really started shitting myself that the whole Koshtay thing would come out into the open. I knew they’d do pretty much anything to keep the lid on it.

‘The last time a VC had to be handed back was in 1908. You can imagine the headlines … And you know how the Head Shed have been since Abu Ghraib and Baha Mousa. Like cats on a hot tin roof.’

He wasn’t wrong. One minute they awarded a colonel in the Royal Lancashires the DSO for leading from the front during the Basra gangfuck and putting himself in harm’s way. The next, they were so badly rattled by an innocent Iraqi being killed in custody by men under his command that they charged him with presiding over war crimes.

‘When Scott went into meltdown again at the Green Dragon, I saw the expression on Jack Grant’s face. I knew he and the general were close. I don’t know who gave the order for Scott to take a round in the head in the CQB Rooms, but when it happened, I figured there was nothing to stop me being next.

‘It’s why I thought this place would be my safest option, until I had the chance to blow the whistle in the courtroom. But now I’ve got to get out of here.’

His eyes were burning as brightly as his dad’s had when he saw Koureh’s happy snap.

I shook my head. ‘Staying here is still your safest option, mate. The people behind this might have been able to send in a grey man, but that looks like it’s as far as they can go. You haven’t been found hanging from your belt strap. You haven’t even slipped on a bar of soap. You’re still here to tell the tale.’

He bunched his fists so tightly his knuckles whitened. I’d definitely made the right decision. Even if I could get him out of there, the last thing I needed was another member of the Callard family trying to club people to death with a tree branch.

‘What about Ella?’

I gave him full eye to eye. ‘You’re going to have to leave Ella to me.’

9

The rain had eased by the time I went back through the barrier, but it still wasn’t the kind of night you wanted to mince around in an overcoat, blazer and chinos. I took a couple of back doubles through the residential area at the northern edge of the camp. The tarmac glistened under the street lamps and TV screens flickered through curtained windows.

When I was confident I had no one on my tail, I headed east into the darkness. I still wanted to stay in cover as I approached the end of the berm where I’d left my weapon.

I crossed the road and pictured the smile on Al’s face again as I felt the mud on the tank track ooze over the top of my left deck shoe. I wiped it on a baby’s head and moved into the trees. This wasn’t great overcoat, blazer and chinos territory either, but at least the canopy kept the rain off.

I reclaimed my package from behind the bush three strides behind the line of targets, and slid the Browning into my waistband, the spare mag into the left pocket of the coat. It wouldn’t flick back quite as well as the bomber if I had to draw down, but it’d be better than nothing.

I retraced the route I’d taken earlier, and checked the parking area for movement. There wasn’t any. I tucked the slipcase under my arm, gripped the car keys in my left hand, leaving my right free, and crossed the stretch of pitted tarmac. When I had the wagon door half open, three torch beams sparked up at ten-metre intervals along the curve of the treeline and caught me in their glare.

I ducked beneath the cover of the vehicle and spun in the direction of the range. A fourth beam advanced towards me from the covered firing position. It dipped for long enough to show me the pistol in its owner’s right hand, then a heavily accented voice instructed me to turn around, put my hands on the roof of my vehicle and spread my legs.

10

I did as I was told. The metal of the Skoda’s lid was cold to the touch. Maybe I’d be able to save my weapon for later. If I went for it now the story could have only one ending.

I was facing the wrong way to ping the lad who’d done the talking, but as his three mates got closer, I could see it was just like old times. These guys had all come off the same production line. Zastava EZ9 shorts, jeans, leather jackets, cropped hair and, on the neck of the one I could see most clearly in the torchlight, a rose-coloured tattoo.

The lad who’d come up from the range was now behind me, far enough out of reach to make sure he could put a round in me before I got anywhere near him. The others joined him in a semicircle, facing the car. Shooting each other wasn’t something they wanted to risk.

‘Tell your friend to come out now.’

I kept looking straight ahead. The rain was starting to fall more heavily again, and peppered the roof between my fingers. ‘I don’t have any friends.’

There was a burst of Serbian waffle. This was obviously a bit of a turn-up for them. ‘Do not lie to us.’

‘I tell you what. Why don’t we all come back here tomorrow night? I’ll see what I can do for you then.’

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He took three steps forward and ground the muzzle of his pistol into the back of my head. I guessed it was more out of frustration than anything else. I didn’t think he expected my ‘friend’ to materialize on the strength of it. But the fact that he knew lifting Sam was on the cards told me all I needed to know.

I’d been set up for the Barford mission since my Bermondsey trip. That was why they’d chased me around a lot, but never put a round in me when they’d got the chance. If I’d done my job tonight, these lads would have left our bodies somewhere on the ranges. I’d have taken the blame for springing a plainly guilty man, the court martial would have been avoided, and Sam’s secret would have died with him.

The pistol was removed, and as I heard the boss of the Crvena Davo team step back, I realized I’d set myself up for a fall years ago, when I hadn’t bothered to become a member of the Good Lads Club.

There’d have been a few questions asked when our bodies were found. But not many. The Head Shed wouldn’t broadcast a break-out from the Military Court Centre. And while they might be a bit sad about a heroic young sergeant sliding off the rails, they wouldn’t mourn me.

There was another staccato exchange. I could guess what it was about. I hadn’t brought them the goods. Maybe they should kill me anyway. Look at the damage I’d done. One of their mates had got a crampon in the head in the Black Mountains. Another had taken a nosedive into a car park on the Tabard Gardens Estate. It was time to stop fucking about.