The Operative
| The Operative | |
| Stratton [3] | |
| Falconer, Duncan | |
| Hachette Digital (2010) | |
| Tags: | General Fiction General Fictionttt |
In war-torn Iraq, Stratton’s closest friend is killed whilst on operation, leaving behind a grieving wife and child – Stratton’s godson. When the widow moves to Los Angeles she is brutally murdered and her child placed in state custody. Stratton, rocked to his foundations by the killing, uncovers a FBI plot to hide the crime and sets off on a private operation of revenge that eventually pits him against one of the most powerful East European crime syndicates in America. Hunted by the CIA and FBI as well as a brutal army of Albanian mobsters and armed only with his wits and an extraordinary skill with explosives, Stratton relentlessly pursues his private war; a fight he suspects could be his last. Yet another enjoyable Falconer weave of thrill and action wrapped in the rich authenticity that defined his previous novels, taking the reader on a roller–coaster ride across half the globe to a nail–biting climax.
The Hostage
The Hijack
The Protector
Undersea Prison
Mercenary
Traitor
Non-fiction
First Into Action
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12227-1
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 Duncan Falconer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
To Tristan and Barty
In a work of fiction it will be no surprise to anyone that none of the characters in this book are other than the product of my imagination. If there are any resemblances to any living persons, they are entirely accidental and unintended. Equally readers will appreciate that for obvious reasons I have deliberately disguised a number of technical details of the composition of the explosives.
Stratton climbed from a local taxi outside a row of detached homes just off the Wareham road in Poole, Dorset, paid the driver, and headed along a gravel track towards the front door of the largest house. His battered old leather jacket was draped over an arm in the crook of which he held a bottle of inexpensive wine. A large present splendidly finished off with a red-ribbon bow rested in the other. Stratton owned a car, an eight-year-old Jeep that he’d had for several years, but he had been away on an assignment for the past three months and when he’d tried to start it that morning for the first time since his return the engine wouldn’t turn over. He wasted little time with it, refusing to squander his first day home tinkering with his ride, so he called a mate in the camp’s motor transport department who said he would take a look at it the following day. Then Stratton spent the morning shopping for a new pair of trousers, a shirt and a pair of shoes, getting a trim for his tussled dark hair, and generally being self-indulgent.
Spending a day shopping in Bournemouth, or anywhere for that matter, was not normal for Stratton, and devoting that amount of time to his personal attire and appearance was downright unusual. This man could never be accused of hedonism by anyone who knew him: in fact, in higher circles, specifically among his bosses in the SBS and Military Intelligence, he was considered unkempt. That was not a complaint, of course, not from those he worked for directly. It was an unkempt world he
operated in and Stratton could often be found in its darkest and most dingy parts.
Stratton could not say for sure why he had woken up that morning feeling entitled to a day of decad ence. But he assumed it had a lot to do with having spent the last phase of a boring operation holed up in a camouflaged observation position in a pile of large, unstable boulders on the side of a mountain overlooking the summit of a ski lift a few miles outside the town of Almaty, Kazakhstan. He’d been waiting for a caravan bringing a supply of heroin over the mountain range from Afghanistan.
Drug smuggling was not Stratton’s usual area of operation but it was true to say that anyone who worked in anti-terrorism ops was by default connected with the drug-smuggling business. Finally, after three weeks of eating American MREs (meals ready to eat), getting a hot drink only during daylight hours for tactical reasons and breathing air with a markedly reduced oxygen content due to the altitude, the caravan had finally arrived and Stratton had carried out his task – which was to do nothing more than film it. He was glad that the task had not gone on any longer and that he had made it back home, and on this day in particular. It was Josh Penton’s birthday, a six-year-old boy whom Stratton had known since the day the kid had been born, son to one of his oldest friends in the SBS – and Stratton’s godson.
There were a number of cars jammed along the usually quiet gravel drive and as Stratton approached the front door he could see several people in the large kitchen. As he raised the hand with the wine in it to push the front doorbell the door opened. Jack was standing in the hallway looking somewhat sombre and holding a bottle of beer, which he immediately thrust at Stratton.
‘You’re adrift,’ Jack said accusingly.
‘Car wouldn’t start,’ replied Stratton with equal gravity.
‘We don’t accept excuses in this business. Take the bottle and drink the contents.’
‘You’re a beer behind, laddy,’ a voice barked behind Jack. It was Smiv, a tall, red-headed Scotsman with a bull neck and a build to match.
Jack pushed the beer closer to Stratton, frowning. ‘Refusing will not help your case,’ he said.
‘It’s not even one o’clock,’ Stratton pleaded.
Jock and Smiv were joined by Bracken, a dark-haired
hombre
-moustachioed brute whom many called Turk because of his highly suspect ancestry, a heritage which he flatly denied. ‘How’s it going, Stratton?’ he asked.
‘He’s a beer behind,’ Smiv told Bracken.
‘That right?’ Bracken said as he put a bottle to his lips and took a swig. ‘Who does he think he is?’
Stratton rolled his eyes, took the bottle and put it to his lips.
‘You don’t get in this door until that’s emptied,’ Jack added.
Stratton sighed, tipped back his head, and slowly emptied the glass container, not as adept as most at divesting a bottle of its contents in one go. He handed it back to Jack who beamed as if all negative issues had been suddenly resolved.
‘Come inside,’ Jack said, stepping back to allow Stratton entry. As he closed the door he gave Stratton a bear-hug, then stepped back to look him over. ‘Everything in order? No bits missing?’
‘No. The most boring job I think I’ve ever done. I had piles from sitting on cold, damp rocks for a couple of weeks, but other -wise no complaints.’
‘Always take a packet of Anusols with you on ops,’ Smiv advised like an old sage.
‘Might as well shove ’em up your arse, all the good they do,’ Bracken chimed in as he took another swig from his bottle.
‘Sad thing is he’s serious,’ Smiv confided to the others.
‘Go say hello to Sally,’ Jack said, nodding towards the kitchen
and taking Stratton’s wine. ‘And then go see Josh. He’s been going on at me all week about when you’re coming home and if you’ll be in time for his party.’
‘’E ’asn’t gotta beer again,’ Bracken noted and one was immediately held out to Stratton.
‘I haven’t had a drink in a month. I’ll be trashed on another of those.’
The other men remained unmoved by his plea, as did the bottle. Stratton took it, rolled his eyes again and went into the kitchen where several wives were helping to prepare food.
‘Stratton!’ Sally yelled on seeing him. She quickly put down the tray of sausages that she had just removed from the oven, tossed her gloves onto the kitchen counter and hurried over with outstretched arms. ‘Come ’ere, you handsome bastard,’ she said, a northern twang discernible even after more than a decade living in the south of the country. ‘We’ve missed yer.’
She gave him a bear-hug. Stratton wrapped his laden arms around her, and gave her a fat kiss on the lips.
‘Doesn’t greet me like that when I come home,’ Jack said, feigning hurt.
‘’Im or ’er?’ Bracken asked.
‘Oh, shot op, Jack. ’E gets the same,’ she said to Stratton. ‘Except in lace underwear.’
‘Ooooh,’ the men cooed in chorus.
‘I’ll ’ave to try that,’ Bracken said.
‘She wears the lace underwear,’ Smiv explained.
‘Oh.’ Bracken nodded, understanding.
‘Let me take a look at you,’ Sally said, standing back. ‘All in one piece?’
‘We’ve been through that,’ Jack said, stepping forward and taking over. ‘Now get yourself down and see Josh before she starts checking for herself.’
Sally gave Jack a little smack on the arm. ‘Go on,’ she said to
Stratton. ‘Get down to the garden. I’ll talk to you later. And take that rabble with yer.’
Stratton headed through the kitchen to a set of double doors that led out on to a balcony overlooking a large back garden surrounded by leylandii. A barbecue was smoking away in a corner where some two dozen adults stood chatting, drinks in their hands, and a dozen children. Stratton picked out Josh. The boy was wearing a set of oversized military- camouflage clothes and leading several of the children in an attack against an enemy position with his plastic M16 assault rifle.
Stratton made his way down a flight of steps to the bottom where a man turning chicken legs on the barbecue saw him. ‘Stratton,’ he called out.
‘Seaton,’ Stratton replied. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Fallujah,’ Seaton reminded him, his accent south-east-coast American. ‘What happened to you? You left right after.’
‘Our job was only to lift Maqari for you guys. Interrogations bore me,’ Stratton said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well,’ Seaton said, lowering his voice and looking to make sure that no one was within earshot. ‘The job you just came back off – you were working for us. Great footage, by the way. Sorry it wasn’t more exciting for you.’
‘That’s how it goes sometimes.’
‘I’ll make it up to you soon,’ Seaton said.