The Increment (7 page)

Getting out of the bloody country alive, thought Matt.
That's my job.

Up on the screen, Matt could see a large-scale photograph taken from the sky. It had been taken by a low-flying surveillance aircraft covering the territory at about 20,000 feet, he judged, working from the clarity of the picture. At this range, it showed a series of fields and some derelict buildings. Orlena gradually enlarged the photograph, sharpening its focus.

'This is the main factory,' said Orlena. 'It's about sixty kilometres north of Minsk, the capital of Belarus. The outside looks a mess, but the interior is in good working order. That's where the drugs are coming from. We need to get in, destroy it, then get out again.'

Lacrierre looked across at Matt. 'Money is no object,' he said. 'You can have whatever equipment you need. Just tell us what you want, and Orlena will make sure you have it.'

'How well defended is it?' asked Matt.

Orlena shrugged, her hair flicking away from her shoulders as she did so. 'We've identified this as the source of the drugs, but we haven't done detailed surveillance yet. They'll be armed, we can be sure of that. And they'll fight.' She paused, a smile suddenly creasing up her thick red lips. It was the first Matt had seen. 'But you're ex-SAS, right? You can handle anybody.'

Matt pushed back his chair, standing up. He could feel both sets of eyes following him as he walked close to the screen, looking up at the picture. They had money, nobody could deny that. To take pictures this clear from the air required expensive kit: it must be at least ten million pixels per inch on the camera to stand this kind of enlargement. Back in the regiment, you were lucky if the Ruperts nipped round to Waterstone's to buy you a map.

There were two main buildings to the complex, one of them probably a factory, the other probably a warehouse and offices. He could see the blurred outline of two trucks moving down the track towards the gate: their images on the screen were grainy and indistinct, but he could still make out the heavy grey canvas stretched across its roof.

'When was this taken?'

Orlena glanced back at her computer. 'Twelve days ago.'

'What time?'

'Just after five,' she replied carefully, her tone suggesting she was not sure he was meant to be asking so many questions. 'Five twelve, to be precise.'

Matt rested his thumb over the two trucks. 'This isn't carrying cargo, it's men,' he said flatly. 'It's a cargo truck, but they've put some canvas over the frame so guys can sit in the back. Five is close to dusk. I reckon they bring in reinforcements every night to guard the place.' He looked back towards Orlena and Lacrierre. 'This place is well defended,' he said. 'I'm going to need help.'

Lacrierre spread the palms of his hands out across the table. 'I've said, you can have whatever you want.'

'No, not money, a man,' said Matt. 'I'll do it because I have to, but let's do it right. If we're going to blow this place up, we'll need explosives expertise. I know a guy who can help us.'

Matt could see a frown starting to crinkle up the skin of Lacrierre's perfectly moistured and manicured skin. 'No,' he said quietly. 'You're the only Westerner we want on this assignment. Everyone else you can hire locally. Orlena will help you.'

'No help, no mission,' snapped Matt. He walked away from the screen, and stood a few feet from Lacrierre. 'I don't know how you run this business, but in my line, it doesn't matter what kind of kit you have or how much money you have to splash around, it's the quality of the men on the ground that counts. So, either I get my guy, or you can find someone else to burn up your pills.'

Matt paused, watching the cloud drift across Lacrierre's eyes, then slowly lift. From his time as a bodyguard right after he got out of the SAS, he knew what a strange, isolated world the men who ran big companies lived in. They were surrounded by small armies of flunkies, who spent their entire day agreeing with every crazy whim the boss came up with. They were worse than generals: whole years could go by without anyone ever disagreeing with them.

There was a pause, but Matt couldn't read it. Then Lacrierre said: 'Who is he?'

They actually like it when someone stands up to them,
noted Matt.

'Irish fellow,' says Matt. 'Called Ivan. He's blown up more buildings than you've had croissants for breakfast. Don't worry, you'll like him.'

Lacrierre stood up. 'Orlena will check him out, but if it's all right with her then he's on the team.' He stopped, resting his hand on Matt's forearm. 'I've got a busy day, so I'm going to leave you and Orlena to sort out the details. Your friend will be paid, of course, and paid well. Tocah looks after its people.'

Matt nodded. 'In that case, we'll get along just fine.'

Lacrierre started to open the door, then looked back at Matt. 'I'm going to trust you on this, Matt,' he said. 'But I want you to know one thing. This organisation is not so different from your regiment. We are generous with our friends, but ruthless with our enemies.'

Matt could hear the door shutting behind him. He looked around to see Orlena sitting on the edge of the desk, tightening her skirt over her legs so that no knee was revealed. 'OK, when do we start?' he said.

'Right away, of course,' answered Orlena, sliding off the desk. 'We leave for Kiev the day after tomorrow. Once we're there, I can introduce you to the man who will start assembling the team. This factory needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible.'

Matt grinned, noticing for the first time the way her eyelashes flicked as she concentrated, and the way her skin bunched up around her cheeks as she smiled.

'I'll start packing. Let's hope it's a bit cooler in Kiev. I don't think I can take much more of this summer.'

Orlena stepped towards the door. 'Actually, the Ukraine has hot summers. Most Europeans think it snows all the time.'

'Don't worry,' said Matt. 'I can handle whatever heat you throw at me.'

Her expression changed. 'Let me get one thing straight. I never sleep with anyone who works for me. So don't even think about it.'

'I'm freelance,' said Matt coldly. 'I'm not working for you, and I'm not sleeping with you either.'

'You're a proud man, Mr Browning,' said Orlena, walking out into the brightly lit corridor.

SIX

The smell of old papers drifted from the room, mixing with the distinctive aroma of disinfectants and overboiled potatoes that filled the corridors. I can think of nicer places to work, thought Matt as he walked down the corridor of the Charing Cross Hospital. Each room was marked by a stencilled nameplate, and most seemed to be shut. For the twenty yards of corridor that stretched out in front of him, he couldn't see a single person.

'Hi,' said Matt, leaning against the doorway that led into her small, cramped office. 'You home?'

Eleanor looked round, pushing her hair back from her face. At her side, the pile of papers stacked up next to her laptop wobbled precariously, and her elbow only narrowly missed the coffee cup balanced next to it as she swung round in her swivel chair. Maybe it's her mind that's organised, thought Matt.
Something has to be.

'Thanks for coming,' she said, standing up.

She looked different from the last time he'd seen her. The grief had drained out of her, replaced by an iron determination. She was wearing black slacks and a blue blouse, with just enough make-up to take away the rough edge of the morning.

'You wanted to talk,' said Matt, stepping inside.

'Not here,' said Eleanor. 'There's a coffee bar across the street.'

The Café Rouge on the Fulham Palace Road was almost empty at this time of the morning. A waitress was sitting over a coffee in the corner, reading a magazine. Matt could see Eleanor was looking around, her eyes darting over the room, as if scanning for some hidden danger.

Whatever she wants to tell me, it's clearly rattled her.

'I'm sorry,' she said, taking the coffee the waitress put in front of her. 'I've been really on edge since Ken died.'

If my brother turned into a killer, I'd be more than on edge, thought Matt. I'd be over the side of the cliff by now. 'Tell me what you found out.'

Eleanor took a deep breath. 'I'm a psychologist, you know that,' she started. 'Research, in child development. But, you see, Ken was my brother. Something fucked up his brain, and it wasn't . . .' She looked up at Matt. 'Excuse my language.'

'I spent ten years in the British Army,' said Matt.

'That's why I wanted to speak to you. It's about the army.'

Matt took a sip on his coffee. 'You think that might have had something to do with what happened to Ken?'

That look again. As if she was frightened. 'When I got back to my office two days ago, I started checking the case files. That's one of the advantages of working in psychological research. You can access the files on all kinds of different conditions. I wanted to find out if anyone had suffered anything similar to Ken, to see if that might provide some clues.'

'And?'

'There have been two other men who have killed people at random, and then tried to kill themselves. All in the last three weeks. All of them former soldiers.'

Matt took a moment for the information to settle in his mind. Three soldiers go crazy and start murdering people.
Could that be a coincidence?

'The first one was a man called Sam Mentorn, living in Shropshire. He'd been out of the Engineers Corps for two years, working for Orange fixing mobile-phone masts. He gets back to his house one day and kills his wife and stepchild. There had been no known history of psychological problems.'

'Soldier goes crazy,' said Matt, shrugging. 'It does happen, you know.'

'Right,' says Eleanor. 'I know the statistics. Ex-servicemen are twice as prone to mental illness as the average for the population.'

'It's the food.'

Eleanor acknowledged his joke with a smile. 'Listen to the rest of the story,' she said. 'The second was a man called David Helton. He was in the Guards Regiment, but he'd been out for a year. He was working for an estate agent in Coventry. One afternoon, ten days ago, he went crazy at a shopping mall in Solihull. Started ramming people with his car. He killed two people and injured another six. Then he drove his car straight into a wall at high speed, killing himself instantly. Again, there was no history of mental illness with either Helton or any of his family.' She drained her cup of coffee. 'And then there was Ken. Three former soldiers, all in the same month. What do
you
think happened to them?'

'You're the psychologist.'

Eleanor shrugged. 'Well, it's not my area. Maybe it was something that happened to them in the army, some kind of post-combat stress disorder?' Her eyes fluttered up towards Matt. 'Is that possible?'

Matt paused before replying. He wanted to make sure he gave her answers as honest and truthful as possible. That was the least she deserved.

'It happens,' he replied. 'Any soldier who tells you he doesn't always carry the wounds around with him is lying. I have nightmares myself. Not every day, but two, maybe three times a week. Visions of the men who have died. It's the sounds that stay with you. When they know they're dying . . . they lie there in a ditch, the blood seeping out of them, and they weep for their mothers. Always the same, it's their mums they want. It's the most terrifying thing you could ever hear, and it stays with you always.'

'And that might have happened to these men?' asked Eleanor. 'A battlefield experience might have unhinged them?'

Matt shook at 'Many of the guys have those memories. They don't flip out and start shooting people.' He looked out to the queue of snarling, stationary traffic backing up along the Fulham Palace Road. 'Anyway, Ken did a couple of tours over the water, but just routine border patrols, no heavy stuff. His units didn't go to Bosnia, or any of those places. The most stressful thing that happened to him was getting balled out by the sergeant major for leaving his kit in a mess. No,' he continued, looking directly at Eleanor. 'I don't know what happened to those three men, but I doubt it was post-combat stress. It was something else, something we haven't thought of yet.'

Matt looked at Ivan as he put the pint of Guinness down on the table. The wounds, as far as he could tell, had completely healed. The hair was starting to grow back on the left side of his face where the bullet had impacted against him, and the scars it left were almost completely covered. 'You were ugly already,' said Matt. 'Can't say you look any worse.'

'At least I can drink again,' said Ivan, putting the glass to his lips. 'The doctors had me off the old stuff for six months.'

A former IRA man turned Firm informer, Matt hadn't wanted to have anything to do with him at first: he was the enemy, and he was a sarcastic bastard as well. But in the end it was to Ivan that he owed his life. There were several men in the regiment of whom that was also true, but outside there was just Ivan.

'Are you feeling OK?'

'Some headaches, but nothing strange about that. I'm probably just thinking too much.'

'You'd be the first Irishman to have that problem.' Matt took a sip on his orange juice: he'd be driving back to London later tonight, and he needed to keep a clear head. At the end of the last job, Ivan had taken his share of the money, and moved down to the south coast with his wife and two kids. He was living in a village in Dorset, in an old school that had been converted into a house. He had a new name, and a new life: a man of leisure and private means.

'A bit bored, if I'm being honest,' continued Ivan. 'I've been playing a fair bit of bridge, but there are no decent games to be had in England. Nobody's got the money to waste – or the brains. I flew out to Dubai last month for a week-long tournament. That's where all the best action is. It's only the Arabs that still take bridge seriously.'

'There's a job,' interrupted Matt. He knew better than to prevaricate with Ivan. Broaching the issue gently would be a waste of time. The man could see through any conversation like it was a sheet of glass.
That's what I like about him.

Ivan laughed. 'It's your head that needs to be looked at, not mine.'

Matt took another sip of his drink, remaining silent. The pub was a couple of miles from Ivan's house, a quiet country place, with a faded red carpet and pictures of dogs and grouse on the walls. It was quiet this evening: a pair of old guys were chatting at the bar, and a couple were sitting near the entrance, more engrossed in each other than anything happening around them. They were far enough away for nobody to hear them.

'Jesus,' said Ivan slowly. 'You're serious.'

'Like I said, there's a job.'

'We're out of that game, Matt. I thought we agreed that after the last time. We set ourselves up with a nice pile of money, then we get on with the rest of our life. The biggest risk we're meant to be taking is crossing the road without waiting for the green man.'

'Things change, don't they?' said Matt. 'There's a job, and you'd be just right for it.'

Ivan grinned. 'Last time I worked with you, I got half my skull blown out.' He paused. 'There's something else, isn't there? Something you're not telling me?'

'They've come after me, Ivan, just like we always thought they would.'

Matt started to unravel the story: the meeting with Guy Abbott, the freezing of his account, the job for Tocah. 'So you see, it's not that easy,' he finished. 'Of course, I don't want to do the bloody job. Nobody would. They've taken all my money. If I don't do what they say, I'm going to lose everything.'

'And you think it will end here? One job and you'll be off the hook? They'll want this job, then another one.'

Matt stood up. 'You could be right,' he said. 'Believe me, if I had any other options I'd take them. But right now, I'm fresh out of choices. I risked my life for that money, and I plan to keep it.' He took his car keys from the table and turned towards the door. 'I don't really expect you to come along. Christ, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't either. But the Firm aren't going to let it go, and you're the best man for this job.'

Ivan rose from his chair, and walked alongside Matt to the car park. 'Don't you get it, Matt? Once they've got you, they
never
let go.'

'You make your own choices,' said Matt, opening the door of his car. 'All I'm saying is I need somebody along on this job. Somebody I can trust.'

The flat felt stuffy and lifeless as Matt stepped through the door. The fierce heat of the day had collected in the walls of the building, and without any windows open the temperature stuck in the high twenties.

When this job is done, I'm getting back to the Spanish coast. I need some sea air.

The drive back from Dorset had taken him two hours. Another forty-eight hours, he would be on his way to the Ukraine. He needed some sleep. He checked the 1571 service on the phone. One message. Gill, he told himself. It's three days now since I spoke to her.
That woman can sulk, but her tempers rarely stretch past thirty or forty hours.

He pressed one and listened to the message.

It took a moment before he recognised the voice: the muffled hysteria made it hard to make out exactly what she was saying.

'Matt, it's Eleanor here.' The voice broke up, and Matt could hear the sobbing on the line. 'Matt, I'm so angry. There isn't even going to be a proper funeral. We went to collect Ken's body from the hospital. But when we got there, he'd already been cremated. They said they were sorry, they had made a mistake, then they handed me this little pot of ashes.'

Another pause on the line, and Matt wondered if she might have ended the message there. Then it started up again. 'They burned him, Matt. Ken always wanted to be buried, I wanted to give him a proper funeral, but they took his body and they burned it. And all they could give me was this stupid little pot of fucking ashes. That's all I have left of him now.'

Matt put the phone down, and laid his head down on the pillow, not even bothering to take his clothes off.