Lost Causes

Citation preview

LOST CAUSES v3.0*

Richard Nichols

“This is an upgraded version of the original 2017 novel

© R.H. Nichols 2017

R.H. Nichols has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. First published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd. Second (improved) edition self-published May 2020 This third (even better!) edition published by The Red-Pilled Fiction Factory October 2021

For Tom

TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE PART ONE PART TWO CHAPTERI CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTERIV PART THREE CHAPTERI CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V PART FOUR CHAPTERI CHAPTER II CHAPTER III PART FIVE CHAPTERI CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTERIV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X PART SIX CHAPTERI CHAPTER II PART SEVEN CHAPTERI

CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTERIV PART EIGHT CHAPTERI CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTERIV CHAPTER V EPILOGUE

“No great cause is ever fully lost or fully won, the battle must always be renewed, and the creed restated.” —John Buchan, Montrose, 1928

Author’s Note

In the run-up to D-Day in June 1944, the London Daily Telegraph’s cryptic crossword puzzle was found to contain certain top-secret references to the Normandy landings among its solutions. Although this fact was widely noted and discussed at the time, most people considered it to be a simple, if somewhat bizarre, coincidence. They were wrong. R.N.

PROLOGUE HACIENDA SAN GERONIMO, YUCATAN STATE, MEXICO HURRICANE

SEASON, 2005

The Operator stood motionless in the shadows, his eyes unblinking, his back to the wall. The large semiautomatic rested easily in his hands and there was a thin sprinkling of sweat across his forehead that glistened in the half-light like early morning dew. The strain of constant alertness was beginning to show now, etching fresh cracks in his already weathered skin, and he could feel the usual tension build in the muscles around his neck. An impulse made him want to pretend none of this was happening and he swallowed hard, reminding himself that millions of lives were at stake; that if he hesitated now, he’d let the side down. Worse than that, he’d let himself down.

Tightening his grip on the weapon, he felt the droplets of sweat gather into a fitful, itchy trickle, then fall from his face as a roar of laughter escaped from the closed door beside him. It was followed by the slap of dominoes and he formed a picture of the four men in his mind’s eye; saw them seated at the table, saw the beer bottles and cigars in their hands, the weapons by their sides... He knew there was no alternative. He had the darkness. He had the skills. He had the firepower. He had everything except the vehicle. Then there’d just be the mad dash for freedom and the long drive to Belize. Five, maybe six hours should do it. Once there, he’d have no difficulty making contact with the right people. They’d believe his story. They’d take care of things... And if he failed? A slow grin spread across his features. Very gradually he felt the old calm descend back over him, felt the cold darkness return to fill his being. Now there was no emotion, no excitement or terror, just the job. Nothing but the job, and taking a deep breath, he stepped away from the wall. Then, turning slowly to face the door, he examined it for a moment. He drew a deep breath, and picking a spot a couple of inches to the side of the rusted doorknob, he kicked out with the flat of his right foot. He put the whole of his weight behind it, and the ancient joinery splintered as the lock was ripped from the rotten frame with a dry cracking sound. The noise shattered the relative quiet of the tropical night like the crack of a whip, the door flying inward as if hit by a sudden blast wave. It was still swinging open when the Operator followed it into the blue-grey haze that filled the room. The smoke slowed him down momentarily but didn’t distract him, and a split-second later he acquired his first target. Instinct pulled the trigger, but years of training and countless hours in the ‘Killing House’ at Hereford put the large-caliber, copper-jacketed, hollow-point round exactly where he wanted it to go. With a loud, echoing boom, it crossed the short distance to the man’s left temple at something close to the speed of sound, blowing away most of the right side of the target’s head before embedding itself in the far wall. With one of the four out of the equation, the Operator swung the handgun round. The other three men were frozen to their seats, still trying to make sense of things when he fired again. For one of them, it was his last conscious moment. He died as two rounds entered the back of his skull, soundlessly turning his brain into a thick grey slush that exploded out through his face. He fell forwards on to the table, providing a clear shot of the fat Cuban sitting opposite. He was about to scream something when two more expertly placed rounds tore into his sternum, and he slumped down in his seat mouthing words he’d never get to say.

The Operator was moving easily now and swiveling with reflex speed he turned the weapon on to the fourth man, taking him out with a simple double tap to the head. The back of the target’s skull opened up like a big red flower, seeming to vanish from one instant to the next, and less than three seconds after he’d entered the room, the Operator stepped back into the shadows. He breathed out. So far, so good. He was ahead of the curve, for the time being at least. But he knew he still had his work cut out and, as though on cue, he heard

a shuffling noise in a side-door to his right. He only saw the Arab out of the corner of his eye, and in the time it took him to quantify the threat, he acted. The man came into focus and died as three bullets slammed into his head and chest, flipping his body over backwards on to the floor where it spasmed twice, then lay still. As the sound of the gunshots faded, the noises of the tropical night reclaimed the room, and wasting no time the Operator’s free hand went to the spare magazine. The subsequent quick-release, change and slap home took but an instant. Then he was moving again, frisking his way through the mass of dead, mostly headless bodies for the key to the vehicle. He finally found what he wanted in the fat Cuban’s blood-soaked breast pocket, and clasping it tightly in his free hand he slipped back out into the courtyard. There, the full moon was only a few days old, but there were plenty of clouds in the night sky and the world had been reduced a dull monochrome, with just a noisy chorus of tree frogs and insects filling the warm shadows around him. If you didn’t know any better, he thought, it was almost a pleasant evening. But something told him all that was about to change, and he listened out for the reaction he knew to expect. It wasn’t long in coming, only a matter of seconds, and he watched as a handful of the Arabs spilled from the main building, checking sidearms and safety-catches as they ran. They stopped a short distance away. Clearly confused and in panic mode, they fanned out in an attempt to locate the source of the gunshots. They couldn't see the Operator but seemed to sense his presence. Countless years of experience told him that a confrontation was unavoidable he stepped out of the shadows. A moment of mutual recognition followed. The Arabs seemed to relax, and he walked coolly but quickly into their midst, a quizzical look on his face, as though he too was wondering what the hell was going on. The ruse served its purpose, convincing them just enough to lower their weapons even as he raised his, and he rapid-fired his way through them from left to right, taking each one out in quick succession and at point blank range. It was all simple, straightforward stuff for the Operator, like shooting ducks at the fairground. He barely had to engage his brain. Muscle memory did most of the work, and they didn't stand a chance. To a resonant muzzle-flash accompaniment, five hollow-point bullets found their way into the five skulls, blowing them to pieces in a series of dramatic, gore-filled explosions, and all five men flopped down heavily where they stood, their expressions like caricatures of surprise, their bodies dead before they hit the ground. So many targets, so little time, he mused. The slow grin returned to his face, and with a last look around, he set out to find the pick-up truck. It was a hulking shadow a few dozen yards to his left. He jumped in and was pulling the door shut when the floodlights came on all around with a great blinding flash. Ignoring the subsequent hail of gunfire, he jammed the key into the ignition. He twisted it. The diesel engine rumbled into life with a satisfactory growl, and he pulled away in a cloud of boiling dust, heading straight for the wrought-iron gate as one of the guards stumbled into his path. He looked half asleep and had only just brought his rifle to bear when the front of the truck struck him. Then he was gone from sight, with only a wretched scream and slight bumping motion to indicate his fate. The gate offered slightly more resistance, but nowhere near enough to check the vehicle’s rapidly increasing momentum. It broke away ina tangle of twisted metal, and suddenly he was clear of the hacienda, moving at speed along the dark rutted track to freedom. A final salvo from somewhere over to his right shattered the passenger side window and the windscreen. Shards of flying glass pricked his face. They drew instant beads of blood but did no real damage, and he leaned forward, punching a hole in what remained of the windscreen with his fist. Ahead of him, the track stretched through a long, low tunnel of interlocking branches that scraped the top and sides of the vehicle as it bounced over half-seen potholes, and he sat back, letting the fast-moving air cool his exposed skin. For the first time in almost a week, he felt himself start to relax... It all seemed so incredible, he thought

suddenly, so impossible and so surreal. A few short days ago he’d been dodging rain showers on a cold grey Belfast morning; now he was fleeing for his life through some godforsaken Mexican jungle, thousands of miles from home, thousands of miles from back-up... The realization that the fuel tank had been ruptured was a while in coming. First there was the casual glance down at the gauge. Then the double take and subsequent confusion, and by the time the red warning light came on it was too late to do anything about it. The engine coughed erratically and died a few seconds later, and he was urgently considering his options when the glimmer of distant headlights appeared in the darkness to his rear. A grim sense of unease took hold of him then, and with the handgun firmly in his grip he jumped from the vehicle as it slowed to a halt. The surrounding jungle gave him plenty of cover, but the undergrowth was thick and thorny, and he was still dangerously close to the track when he heard the sound of doors slamming and the issue of shouted instructions. Powerful torches cut bright furrows through the trees as high-velocity rounds slashed the air around him. They were all well aimed, and he was diving sideways when one struck him high in the back, punching the air from his lungs as it burst from his chest. Crashing to the ground, he tumbled for several feet and lay still. Curiously, he didn’t feel anything, only a kind of numbness, as though his whole body had been anaesthetized. For a moment he wondered what had happened. Then his eyes started to lose their focus as the already dark world around him darkened some more. In the background, he thought he could hear voices. They seemed irrelevant now, unreal and far removed, and lying there he felt almost at peace. He tried to remember where he was but that proved surprisingly difficult. Even his name escaped him, and he was struggling to stay conscious when the pain finally brought him round. Then the crack of renewed gunfire reminded him what was happening, and the eyes started to find their focus once more. Inhaling raggedly, he rolled over to check the wound. It seemed to take a lot of effort and it came as no surprise when he saw all the blood. There was so much that it was hard to tell exactly where he'd been hit, and he probed the area with his fingers, watching in horrified disbelief as they disappeared into a hole in his left shoulder. There they found a slick, glistening mess of flesh and bones, and fighting the urge to retch, he tried to establish the extent of the damage. Experience told him it was severe, probably fatal; that if the shock didn’t kill him the loss of blood certainly would. He’d seen other men die in the Falklands from lesser wounds, and they’d had top-flight surgeons and sub-zero temperatures to help them... He sank back into the soft, warm earth and closed his eyes. He felt light-headed, slow and lethargic, and could feel his body consuming whatever strength he still had at an alarming rate. But despite the pain and exhaustion there was no room for despair in the Operator's make-up, no panic, nor any sense that this game was over. If his life as a soldier had taught him anything, it was that he must do his duty or die trying. ‘Carrying the torch’, he called it. It was a simple enough religion; one that had served him well over the years. He saw no need to go changing it now and remembering he still had a message to deliver, he gathered the handgun in his grip and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. The next few minutes passed by in a slow-moving nightmare without beginning or end. More bullets thrashed through the foliage around him, and he fell many times, the thorny undergrowth trapping his legs, the sauna-like heat sapping the last reserves of strength from his body. Time and distance soon became amorphous things, signifying nothing, and he was in a weird trancelike state when he finally stumbled onto the hard asphalt of the main road. It was empty of traffic, and in desperation he looked around. With great relief he saw that the petrol station was not far to his left, exactly where he’d hoped it would be. It had been shut for the night, but it would do, and gritting his teeth he lurched from his position, leaving a long trail of blood as he staggered across the deserted forecourt to reach the main building. A sharp blow with the butt of the gun was enough to shatter a window. Then it was a simple matter to open the door from the inside. He almost fell through it and using the available light he quickly found a telephone. He put the receiver to his ear. The dial tone was steady, and setting the weapon to one side, he punched in Credenhill’s number from memory. He held his breath as the connection was made. It was a poor line full of static, but clear enough for him to hear the woman’s voice at the other end, her soft West Country accent sounding absurdly calm under the circumstances. “Credenhill,” she said, in a warm, almost motherly tone. “Go ahead please...”

“It’s Franchise,” gasped the Operator. “Tell Mainstay I’m aborting. Repeat, aborting...” He was interrupted by a short burst of gunfire. Bullets erupted through the thin wall like a string of miniature volcanoes, and he’d only managed to shout a few more words when another burst filled the room, smashing the telephone to pieces in front of him. He slumped to the floor. This time he knew he’d been hit for sure; once, maybe twice, he couldn’t tell. Screamed instructions to his legs went unanswered and he soon gave up trying. They were fucked. He was fucked. Everything was fucked. Everything except the zero option; the one he’d hoped he’d never get to use... Dropping the receiver, he searched for the gun. It was beyond his grasp now, so he reached for the small plastic capsule he always carried instead. Inside there was a tiny glass vial. It was for ‘emergency use only’, but this seemed like as good a time as any, and he was putting it to his lips when the barest outline of an idea came to him. It was along shot; that much he knew; a lost cause, if ever there was one. But right then it was his only hope of completing his mission, and without a moment's hesitation he threw the vial to one side and searched for something to write with. Pens and pencils lay scattered all around. Grabbing the nearest one he found a scrap of paper and scribbled out the key pieces of intelligence as they came to him. Then, forcing the paper into the hollow capsule, he replaced the lid and had just stuffed the whole thing into his mouth when he heard whispered voices and the crunch of broken glass. Swallowing hard, he looked across to see the giant Basque standing in the doorway. He was staring down at the Operator along the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle, his face covered in sweat, his trigger finger twitching. His eyes flicked around the room several times then, barking an instruction in Spanish, he closed the gap between them and repeated the instruction. The slow grin split the Operator's face for the last time. “Sorry, amigo,” he replied at last. “No speakee the fucking lingo.” The next thing he saw was the rifle’s butt as it flicked towards the side of his face. The blow was delivered with controlled, almost clinical precision, and it connected with a sickening crunch, breaking teeth and bone on the process. The Operator had the brief sensation of falling into a dark abyss, and if he wasn’t already unconscious as he toppled over, he was when the back of his head hit the floor with a resounding thud. None of that mattered very much, however. Not anymore. He had done his duty and that was enough. It was time to pass the torch to somebody else.

PART ONE

HEREFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

The small city of Hereford in the heart of England's cider country is probably best known for its medieval cathedral and the white-faced breed of cattle that bear its name. Allin all, it's a sleepy place, and the same goes for the cluster of charming little villages that surround it, many of which might best be described as bucolic. There are some exceptions to this rule, however, and Credenhill is one of them. It leads a somewhat sinister double-life that has given the place a notoriety that stretches well beyond the apple orchards and low rolling hills in which it sits. In short, Credenhill punches far above its weight, and has done ever since the UK's legendary Special Air Service Regiment decided to relocate there in the late summer of 1999. Things in Credenhill would never be the same again. Today the village is regularly disturbed by the sound of live firing, the strangulated cries of screamed instructions, and the passage - often at high speed - of a wide assortment of helicopters, lorries and unmarked vehicles from the British government's various motor pools. Then there’ s the low-key but palpable presence of the SAS troopers themselves; many of them characterized by deep tans, recently acquired and regularly refreshed; as well as by a casual alertness, an extremely high level of fitness and vaguely menacing air. But the SAS is not the only Special Forces unit headquartered in this strange little village, because in the aftermath of 9/11, a new regiment was born. Called the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, it was based on an existing unit so small and secretive that few people even knew of its existence. Officially known as ‘Joint Communications Unit (Northern Ireland)’ but more commonly known as 'Group', it had been created in the 1970s to penetrate the all but impenetrable defenses of the various terrorist organizations at large in the Province; and its agents, usually referred to as 'Operators', quickly established themselves as an elite within an elite, successfully forging tiny, isolated bridgeheads in the bitterly contested No Man's Land that was Northern Ireland in the latter decades of the 20th century.

Inevitably these men and women lived in the shadows, and many of them would die there. Such - as was now becoming clear - may have been the fate of the Operator known as 'Franchise' whose last communication with his handlers had come in the form of an all too brief telephone call made from parts unknown against a disturbing backdrop of intense gunfire. The call was automatically logged and recorded at 0623 hours local time. It was taken by a pretty young switchboard operator after the first ring, and she spent the next ten seconds or so trying to make sense of the chaotic scene that was unfolding in her earpiece. Then, before she really knew what was happening, the line went dead and she was left listening helplessly to the hollow sound of the dial tone that followed. Although still in her early twenties she had been in the job long enough to understand the significance of what she had just heard. Franchise was clearly down, and for a moment she sat motionless at her desk, her mind a raging battleground of hope and dread. The latter quickly triumphed and fighting a paralyzing sense of shock she went back to work, her fingers a blur of urgent motion as she followed a well-rehearsed emergency drill. Once it was complete, she collapsed

back into her seat, her strength expended. She knew she had performed the small series of tasks with all the speed and competence expected of her but that was little comfort, and she could do nothing to stop the tears that now burst from her eyes and streamed down her pretty face. *

Since Franchise's last known sighting almost a week earlier, all of Britain's major intelligence agencies had been put on the highest alert in an effort to establish his whereabouts; the level of threat he might be facing; and what steps if any should be taken to guarantee his safety. So far, they had failed on every count making this new communication something of a godsend, and news of its reception was immediately circulated throughout the vast network of agencies responsible for the nation's security, including GCHQ - the Government Communications Headquarters - in nearby Cheltenham. With help from at least three geo-stationary satellites and some technical assistance from their counterparts at NSA headquarters in Maryland, it took them less than fifteen minutes to pinpoint the source of the call to an isolated petrol station in south-eastern Mexico. Then, less than an hour later, following a digital analysis of the call's contents, they provided a preliminary report confirming that the voice did indeed belong to Franchise; that the gunfire was both incoming and genuine; and that the telephone had suffered some sort of ‘catastrophic and irreversible damage' before the call could be completed, almost certainly on account of the aforementioned gunfire. While useful on several different levels, the new information raised as many questions as it answered. For one thing, what was Franchise doing in Mexico? For another, had he survived the incident? And last but not least, what were Group and its associated agencies going to do about it, if indeed they could do anything about it? Up until now, the man charged with handling these issues was Franchise's Commanding Officer - codename, 'Mainstay' - a gruff, no-nonsense LieutenantColonel, formerly of the Scots Guards and the SAS and now permanently seconded to the SRR. There is an old saying in the British Army that 'the uglier the man, the better the soldier', and such had proven to be the case with Mainstay. He was one of those awkward looking individuals - jug-eared, bug-eyed and as lanky as a ladder - who, if it weren’t for the officer corps of certain British regiments or, perhaps, the clergy, would have found it difficult to fit into any kind of normal life. But there was no doubting his competence. A Highlander from a long line of Highlanders, he was anything but the distant deskbound caricature of a CO so often portrayed in books and films. His boots had seen a lot of mud and blood in their time his service record read like a compendium of recent British military interventions - and a lot of that blood had been his. And though a strict disciplinarian, he had what is sometimes known as 'the touch’; an instinctive understanding of his men's needs and passionate concern for their wellbeing. This, coupled with a reputation for getting results at almost any cost, made him as popular with those below him in the military hierarchy as it made him unpopular with those above. As he sat alone at his desk reviewing the details of Franchise's call, he was inevitably reminded of the fate of another Operator, Captain Robert Nairac. Nairac had been on his fourth tour in the Province when he had been abducted one night and taken across the border into the Republic of Ireland. There he had been subjected to a series of exceptionally savage assaults before being killed in cold blood. What happened next is still subject to some dispute. Some say he was buried in an unmarked grave; others that his body was fed into the grinders at a meat processing plant. Either way, his remains were never found, and for his ‘exceptional courage and acts of the greatest heroism in circumstances of extreme peril' Captain Nairac was posthumously awarded the United Kingdom's highest civil decoration, the George Cross. George Cross or no George Cross, nobody wanted a repeat of that bloody scenario, thought Mainstay, and with the weariness that comes with great responsibility he turned his thoughts back to Franchise. Although he'd commanded a huge number of men in his time, there were few that had attracted his

admiration and respect as strongly as the man from South London. Cool, cold, deadly and absolutely stuffed with moral fiber, he was as good a soldier as any the Scotsman had ever come across, and as an Operator he was just sublime. Strangely, he recalled now, there’d been little or no indication of this prowess when they’d first met on the parade ground at Credenhill several years earlier. Then, standing amongst a dozen other potential recruits in nothing more than his PT shorts and a white singlet on the first day of his selection, the man had cut a very unassuming figure. There’d been nothing unusual about him, nothing to make him stand out from the crowd, and it wasn’t till the Londoner had passed the course with flying colors that the Scotsman had started to get ‘the feeling’. It was the same feeling a gold prospector gets when he knows he’s about to strike a rich seam, or a boxing scout gets when he stumbles across what he knows is going to be, without any shadow of a doubt, the next undisputed champion of the world. What he’d felt was a sense that this was the man he’d been looking for, a man with bottomless reserves of bottled power, always controlled, always

focused, always ready; that rare individual with the uncanny ability to adapt in an ever-changing world no matter what was thrown at him, no matter how great the challenges involved. Subsequent tests and field trials had borne his suspicions out. In fact, the results had been far better than expected. They quickly confirmed that the ex-SAS man was a prodigy quite unlike anything he'd seen before and perfectly designed for the kind of work the SRR specialized in. Other men might look the same, but they didn't move as fast, think as quick or hit as hard. Nor, he reflected, did they let the side down or bottle out when things turned ugly, as things so often did in their line of work. The Operator had proved that fact time and time again, and the Scotsman’s confidence in him was complete. It seemed inconceivable to him that Franchise would have broken his cover in Mexico but for the most urgent and justifiable reasons, and under normal circumstances Mainstay's response would have been both immediate and uncompromising. He would have called in the Quick Reaction Force of SAS troopers already on standby, and instructed them to go in as hard and as fast as the situation would allow. These, however, were far from normal circumstances. The call had come from Mexico, after all, a neutral country that enjoyed cordial relations with the UK. Then there were the substantial logistical headaches to consider. No matter which way he looked at it, the obstacles involved in a swift military response were insurmountable and he reluctantly came to the conclusion that there was little he could do to secure the Operator's short-term safety. Even more reluctantly, he realized now, any solution would have to lie with the lightweights at the Foreign Office - 'the Light Brigade’, as he sometimes called them, after their habit of charging off in the wrong direction, creating inevitable havoc and still managing to grab all the glory - not to mention their bastard offspring at MI6. Neither inspired him with much confidence, but, on this occasion, it was MI6 that gave him the most cause for concern. It wasn't just a slogging soldier's instinctive mistrust of spy agencies that guided his reasoning, though that in itself was both considerable and constant. It was that, in his eyes, a more over-rated, duplicitous, pusillanimous, self-serving, incompetent, costly and downright useless bunch of time-wasters did not exist in the land - outside of Parliament, at least. He questioned everything about them, right up to and including their agenda and their patriotism, sometimes even their sanity, and their recent wholesale adoption of the pernicious and cancerous doctrines of political correctness and multiculturalism had done nothing to help matters. But even that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that they lacked the killer instinct. They seem to have forgotten that there were real enemies out there - enemies that would destroy them if they weren't destroyed first - as their long list of intelligence failures amply testified. The Falklands conflict was one of the most egregious examples, as was the invasion of Kuwait. Then there was the almost comically inept closure of the 'Arab Desk' - the department charged with monitoring Islamic terrorists - in the nineties, just as the Arabs themselves were preparing to launch their greatest assault on Western interests in over a hundred years. And, of course, the ongoing clusterfuck that was the Iraq War and the stockpile of WMD that never showed up... All of these failures had come at a price, and the price had been the deaths of many a good soldier, dozens of them serving under Mainstay's own command when they were killed, and it was clear to him that the agency - like so much of the political class that ran the country - lived in a completely different world, as

far removed from reality as it was from the lives of those they were paid to protect. It was a flaw made all the more unbearable by that curious combination of character traits so prevalent in so many of today's ‘bright young things': a smug arrogance combined with precious little to be smug or arrogant about. His contact at 'Six' was a classic case in point. To say that he had a low opinion of Simon Carrington was to considerably understate the case. He hated everything about the greasy little shit, from the calculated insult that was his handshake to the dismissive way he talked about Mainstay's men and their capabilities. Asking him for his opinion was like commissioning the Guardian newspaper to do a straw poll of its readership, and his physical presence was so underwhelming that the Scotsman was often tempted to kick him in the balls, if for no other reason than to see if he had any. Allin all, he was not the kind of man you wanted to turn to when the sky was falling. The thought of entrusting Franchise's fate to him was not just anathema to the Scotsman, it made him feel physically sick, and hating himself for what he was about to do he reached for the phone and asked his secretary to put a call though to Carrington.

Simon Carrington was tall, dark and unquestionably handsome, as his reflection in the mirror of his luxuriously appointed bathroom now served to remind him. Even after a late night out and too many glasses of champagne, he looked quite immaculate. His teeth gleamed, his skin glowed, and his hair - thick, glossy, longish, but recently and expensively cut - was pretty much perfect. As ever, there was only one discordant note - his eyes. The color of glacial ice but nowhere near as warm, they had a cold-blooded, almost reptilian quality, suggesting that they were not so much windows on his soul as warnings of its complete and total absence; that the building was empty and had been abandoned years ago, if indeed it had ever been inhabited at all. They were, in other words, the eyes of a person lacking any sense of compassion, self-awareness, humility or anything even remotely resembling a conscience. Needless to say, concepts like duty, honor, loyalty and courage didn't play much of a role in his life either. To him, they were just ridiculous handicaps, well past their sell-by date. Even the concept of reality itself was not immune; his contempt for it was total. To him, reality was just another word for ‘other people', and since he'd long ago learned that other people could be made to think whatever he wanted them to, he really didn't see the point in treating the damned thing like some sort of sacred cow. For him, sacred cows were there to be slaughtered, something at which he'd become quite an expert in his time. No, there was only one thing that mattered to Simon Carrington, and that was his own continued aggrandizement, glorification and gratification. At this he had proved to be remarkably successful. Now approaching his thirty-seventh birthday he could count the Prime Minister amongst his closest friends, as well as a handful of billionaires, film stars, journalists and several members of the not-so-minor aristocracy. He lived in a gorgeous Georgian house in one of the more desirable parts of Belgravia, had a string of eligible girlfriends (and not-so eligible boyfriends), belonged to the best clubs, dined in the finest restaurants, patronized the right charities, and always took his holidays in Tuscany, Gstaad and Barbados, traveling first class all the way naturally enough. His rise through the ranks at ‘Six’ had been no less meteoric or stellar, to use just a few of the astronomical terms that had been used to describe his career. His success in his chosen profession was not, however, reflected in any respect for the office. He saw the intelligence game as just that - a game, with winners and losers - and as long as he came out on the winning side, he didn't much care what happened on the pitch. For him, it was just a useful stepping-stone, a means to an end, and that end always had been and always would be none other than Simon Carrington himself. With a splash of expensive cologne, he made a final adjustment to his hair and walked through into a spacious fitted mahogany-and-glass dressing room. There, he perused the vast array of perfectly pressed and presented clothes for a few moments before making his selection - a selection that included a fitted sea island cotton shirt in baby blue by Charvet; white tailored briefs; a bespoke, dark blue, double-breasted suit of the finest alpaca by Brioni; and a vintage wristwatch of white gold by Patek Philippe.

He dressed unhurriedly, checking himself carefully in a full-length mirror after donning each and every item. He then topped-and-tailed the ensemble with an exquisitely beautiful silk necktie by Hermés, and a delicate pair of slip-on shoes of the finest calf leather by Bruno Magli, so light and delicate their presence on his feet could hardly be felt. He checked himself in the mirror one last time and liked what he saw. The overall effect was every bit as fashionable and flattering as he'd hoped; and slipping into the alpaca jacket, he filled his pockets with various accessories. Then, crossing through his bedroom, he made his way down a long, elegant staircase and stepped out into the bright light of a brand-new day.

It was a twenty-minute walk to Vauxhall Cross; the sprawling tangle of streets, railway tracks, bridges and walkways on the south bank of the River Thames that Pevsner once called, ‘one of the most unpleasant road junctions in South London’. If anything, the revered architectural critic was being kind, and the recent addition of countless bus and cycle lanes has done nothing to improve the area's charm. Nor, for that matter, has that of the cream-and-green-colored office building that fills the five-acre site just north of the junction. A ‘monstrous carbuncle’ if ever there was one, this pompous, postmodern edifice was in appalling taste when built in the mid-eighties, and the intervening decades have done nothing to improve matters. Looking like a cross between a wedding cake and some Babylonian ziggurat it has inevitably and deservedly garnered a host of unflattering nicknames - Legoland, The Vauxhall Trollop, Ceausescu Towers, Babylonon-Thames - none of which do much to reflect its esteemed status as the headquarters of Britain’s world-famous Secret Intelligence Service, aka MI6. Simon Carrington had called it his place of work for over a decade and, having walked up to the main entrance, he passed through multiple layers of security. As usual, he did his best to ignore the polite smiles and general bonhomie of the on-duty personnel as he did so. Then, having picked up a cappuccino from the 24-hour canteen, he made his way to his plush, state-of-the-art office on the seventh floor. There, he took his seat at his desk, sipping at his coffee as he switched on his computer, and began to skim through the many reports, updates and other communications that were awaiting his attention. Much of it was routine. There was trouble in the Middle East, and conditions in Africa weren't looking so lovely either, especially in-and-around the Horn. Northern Ireland, too, had its

fair share of grief. Recent developments included a spate of failed bomb attacks, a string of unsolved beatings, and the attempted shooting of a police officer on the Falls Road - all of them carried out by the Provisional IRA or their proxies. None of these had reached the mainstream media, of course, and if they ever did it would be in such a refined and palatable form that nobody would ever link them to the Peace Process whose status as an ‘unqualified success' was still sacrosanct and would remain that way as long as Simon Carrington and his colleagues in government could keep it so. Despite several references to Group's work in the Province, he reflected only briefly on the fate of the missing Operator whose case he was meant to be following. In part, this was due to his conviction that the whole affair would turn out to be some sort of false alarm. It wouldn't, after all, be the first time that one of them had done something stupid, and in the back of his mind he'd already stamped the file with the words, “NO IMMEDIATE ACTION”, confident that sooner or later the man in question would be found sunning himself on a beach on the Costa Brava or some such. But in part this lack of interest was down to simple apathy. To him, Operators and their country cousins in the SAS were just thugs with guns; hangovers from a darker age, with no real place in the brave new world that he and those around him were working so hard to create. And if the missing man never showed up again, then he for one wouldn't be losing a whole lot of sleep over the matter. Besides, he had other things on his mind, he reflected, not least the little bit of 'rough' he'd met a few days earlier. The good-looking, smooth-talking Tunisian had been full of surprises and he was contemplating a reunion when his secretary announced that his counterpart at Credenhill was on the line... Brought back to reality with a decisive bump, Simon Carrington swore under his breath. He didn't like many people, but even if he did, he would not have liked the gruff Scotsman from Credenhill. He'd hated the man from the moment they'd first met, and the feeling appeared to be more than mutual. As a consequence,

all encounters between them were fraught with the kind of tension and mistrust more usually found in the opening seconds of a cage-fight, and it was with some hesitation and a look of evident distaste that he finally took the call. “Simon Carrington,” he said. Mainstay ignored the younger man's subsequent attempt at pleasantries, and promptly got down to business. “I take it you've seen the update,” he said, the urgency clear in his voice. “Of course, I have...” Carrington lied with the cool, calm assurance of one long practiced in the art. As he spoke his eyes scanned his inbox. In less than a second he had identified the relevant communication, and in less than two seconds he was glancing at the contents. “In Mexico, of all places...” he added, an almost wistful tone in his voice. “Quite horrific. As you can imagine I'm still trying to digest the implications.” Mainstay had a pretty shrewd idea what all that meant and did not hide his frustration. “Well, you'd better get a bloody move on,” he said, a broad Scottish accent breaking through his otherwise clipped English. “I've got a man down. A good man, too. The clock is ticking and if we're going to react it had better be pretty damned soon or there’ Il be hell to pay.” Having finally got to grips with some of the update's more important details, Simon Carrington relaxed a little. He was back on safe ground again and deciding to wrest the initiative from the older man he said, “In that case, you'll be pleased to know that I've already asked for an emergency meeting with the Defense Intelligence Staff and Joint Intelligence Committee. The FO will be represented by their Mexico Desk and, if all goes well, we should have a plan of action by ten o'clock.” A plan of inaction more like, thought Mainstay. The involvement of so many other agencies, while necessary, brought with it the likelihood of lost momentum, and it didn't take much imagination to see the whole thing becoming bogged down in a bureaucratic quagmire. Besides, he didn't need a polygraph test to know that Carrington had been lying through his bright, even, perfectly polished teeth. He knew damned well that the meeting would only be called once their conversation came to an end and needed no better excuse to get off the line. “Well, if that's the case,” he said brusquely, “I'll want a detailed report on my desk by midday at the latest.” With that, Mainstay hung up and Simon Carrington breathed a long sigh of relief. Okay, so he'd been a bit slow out of the blocks, but he'd survived the encounter and bought himself just enough time to play catch-up. All in all, not a bad result, and calling his secretary into the room he shouted a set of angry instructions that soon sent her scurrying. Then, with the Operator all but erased from his mind, Simon Carrington sat back in his chair and smiled, confident that one way or the other he would come out of this smelling of roses the way he always did. *

In any normal working environment, being a self-absorbed, power-crazed maniac tends to be something of a handicap, but modern-day Whitehall is no ordinary working environment. There, such blatant moral failings are seen as positive assets; weapons to be wielded with a certain amount of panache, not to mention pride. Instead of provoking revulsion in others, they provoke respect. That goes double when the maniac in question has a habit of getting away with their petty and not so petty crimes and misdemeanors, as had proven to be the case with Simon Carrington. And so it was that, despite the short notice, he was able to put the meeting together on schedule and complete with all of the promised attendees. It was held, for reasons of speed and convenience, at the offices of the Defense Intelligence Service close to Trafalgar Square, and chaired by Carrington himself. After a brief introductory statement, he was quick to point out that the Deputy Prime Minister was due to lead a long-planned, high profile trade mission to Mexico in the upcoming weeks. This, he explained, inevitably brought several political considerations into the equation; political considerations which would not be well

served by the revelation that a member of Britain's Special Forces had been involved in what was, by all accounts, a very violent incident on Mexican soil without even so much as a tourist visa, let alone the kind of top-level authorization that was demanded by international treaty. Of equal, if not greater concern, he went on, was the continued stability of the Northern Ireland Peace Process. For while it was possible the Operator's cover had already been blown, it was also possible that his true identity remained a secret. If so, any rescue attempt or intervention would risk raising the stakes; alerting the IRA to the fact they'd been infiltrated with political ramifications that didn't bear thinking about. His sober words and the unequivocal message they conveyed were well received. There were no dissenting voices, and it was quickly resolved that whilst MI6 would continue to monitor the situation closely, an ultra-low-key response would be implemented. No formal acknowledgement of the Operator's presence in the country would be made; the local agencies would not be informed of the incident; nor would any other type of intervention be made. In short, the whole episode would be best forgotten, and the meeting concluded shortly afterwards with the file being stamped, 'NO IMMEDIATE ACTION ', just as Simon Carrington had always known it would.

A printed copy of the minutes of the meeting reached Mainstay's desk just before midday, and though his expectations had never been high he was bitterly disappointed by its contents. Any chance of riding to Franchise's rescue had been well and truly scuppered: the Operator was to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency, his body thrown to the wolves that were almost certainly now tearing at his flesh. Bloody lightweights! he thought, turning his attention back to the men responsible. God! How he hated them and everything they stood for! Or - more to the point - didn't stand for. He doubted that between them they had enough vertebrae to make a single human backbone, and much as he yearned to head straight to Whitehall to try to overturn the decision, he knew there was no point. He knew the bureaucratic ranks would already be closing, their shields interlocked in an impenetrable wall, and that any such attempt would be utterly futile. The sense of betrayal the Scotsman felt was so intense as to be almost palpable. His loyalty to his men was as absolute as it was unwavering, and he would willingly have resigned his commission on the spot had it not been for the fact that Franchise was still out there somewhere. There was still a chance - however slim - that he might yet be brought in alive. And, if in the terrible event that the Operator had not survived, then there was another chance - equally slim - that he might bring those responsible to justice, ideally through the tried and trusted methods at which he and his men excelled. In his gut, however, he knew that Franchise was already dead. The man

had a suicide capsule, after all. He would not have hesitated to use it under the

circumstances and, knowing the kind of man he was, would not have begrudged his fate either. And in his gut Mainstay also knew that there would be no followup mission to punish those responsible. In the age in which he was unfortunate enough to live, the idea would never even be contemplated, let alone sanctioned. The days when a British subject could hope to be protected and served by those in authority were all but over. If anything, the reverse was now true and, in that moment, he felt a crushing sense of loss, not just for the Operator but for his country as well. *

Over the next twenty-four hours a steady trickle of intelligence began to filter through to Mainstay's desk. Much of this came from MI6 who, in conjunction with other agencies around the world, had started to piece together elements of the Operator's story from the moment he'd disappeared in Belfast to his dramatic reappearance in the Yucatan almost a week later. Included in this intelligence was a string of articles about the shooting that had appeared in the Mexican press, complete with photographs of the battle-scarred, blood-spattered petrol station. While relatively light on detail, they confirmed that no corpses had been found and no arrests made, and that while the police strongly suspected the drug cartels the identity of those responsible remained unknown.

For a while, it looked like things would stay that way. Then, two days later, Mainstay's worst fears were confirmed by an urgent communication from MI6's Mexico Office. Several newspaper clippings were attached. They told of the bullet-riddled corpse of an adult male that had been recovered by fisherman off the Yucatan coast the night before. Included in the reports was an artist's impression of the unidentified man's face - a face that bore an uncanny resemblance to Franchise's - and Mainstay, for one, was left in no doubt that it was indeed his.

Not far from Credenhill, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, there is an isolated old farmhouse that had served as Mainstay's home ever since he assumed command of the SRR some three years earlier. It is a simple, cozy, wisteria-clad affair with a slate roof, dormer windows and an acre of garden distinguished by a lawn so well maintained that it would put the outfield at Lord's Cricket Ground to shame. The interior layout includes a spacious study on the ground floor that enjoys spectacular views of the Black Mountains to the southwest. That night, however, as the Scotsman sat at his desk with a large glass of Glenmorangie in his hand, the curtains had been drawn and his attention was wholly focused on the signed limited-edition print that hung on the wall above the blazing fireplace in front of him. For the most part, this artwork is characterized by the deep, velvety blue of a cold midwinter night, illuminated in places by white pinpricks of falling snow and the incandescent glare of two magnesium flares as they float gently and sedately down towards the earth. The scene they reveal, however, is anything but gentle or sedate, for hidden within the darker shadows a handful of men dressed in combat fatigues can be seen assaulting an enemy machine gun post, their bayonets fixed, their rifles blazing, the bodies of the dead and the dying strewn across the frozen ground around them. The painting, by renowned British artist Terence Cuneo, is called Battle for Tumbledown Mountain. It commemorates the events of the night of 14th June 1982, when men of the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards were tasked with taking the Argentinian positions there during the Falklands Campaign. The assault started out badly for the Scotsmen after they stumbled into an undetected minefield, immediately sustaining several casualties. Then, inevitably, the exploding mines attracted the unwanted attention of the enemy, and they spent the next four hours pinned down by a relentless barrage of mortar, grenade, machine gun and sniper fire, sustaining many more casualties in the process. For a long while their attack had faltered and it probably would have been abandoned altogether had it not been for the actions of their Company Commander, a young officer of Highland extraction whose ancestors had specialized in fighting hard and dying well. He'd roamed the battlefield ceaselessly, apparently oblivious to the incoming fire, rallying his men, checking the wounded, and eventually leading a counterattack so devastating that it swept the enemy from its position, thereby turning the tide of not just the battle but the war itself. The officer in question could clearly be seen in the picture, and though many years had passed since then he still had the bayonet that had served him so well that night. He kept it as a paperweight on his desk and he picked it up now, running his thumb over its sharpened edge. Then, turning his attention back to the present he thought about the Operator, his death in Mexico and the cynical response by those in authority who'd abandoned him in his hour of need. For most men it would have been the end of the matter. But as his actions on that cold South Atlantic night had shown, Mainstay was not like most men. He was used to taking hard knocks, used to getting up at the count of nine, and as he sipped at his malt whisky he found himself considering many things up to and including the possibility of 'taking the matter into his own hands'. It wasn't just that he wanted to avenge the Operator's death. It was that deep down inside he knew that the terrorists responsible had been up to something, something so big that the Operator had given his life to try and stop it. And he knew he'd be damned if he was going to let the man's sacrifice be in vain. If that meant cutting corners, then so be it. He was tired of playing the game. Tired of obeying the rules. He was tired of all the politics and the diplomacy and the bureaucracy and the bullshit...

Briefly, he toyed with the idea of leaking the story to the press in the hope of embarrassing the government into action, but dismissed it knowing that the authorities would just hide behind the Official Secrets Act and wrap the whole thing up in red tape. Besides, somehow that didn't seem the appropriate route. He needed something more direct, something more resolute and defiant, and recalling a conversation he'd once had with an old friend long ago, he reached for the telephone on his desk. The lightweights had had their chance and blown it. It was time to call in the Heavy Brigade.

PART TWO CHAPTER I FLANDERS, BELGIUM Grunting like some dark primitive beast in its dark primitive lair, Buchan rolled to the side of the bed and groped around in the half-light. There was a clicking sound, the faint whiff of lighter fuel, the rasp of flint on steel. A slender flame appeared, illuminating his rough, grizzled features for a moment. Then the flame disappeared with a decisive snap, and he sat there watching the tobacco glow and fade as he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. He stayed like that for several minutes. Then crushing the cigarette in a nearby ashtray, he switched on the bedside lamp. The low wattage bulb revealed a small bedroom of the well-appointed but functional variety, like that of one of the less discerning hotel chains, and apart from a solitary framed photograph, just as impersonal. This didn’t bother him particularly. He rarely used it for anything but sleep, and it had been a long time since a member of the opposite sex had graced the bed with her presence. Briefly he recalled the girl in question - an MBA whose talents thankfully hadn’t been restricted to business administration. His mind drifted to the long torrid night they’d spent together, then, gradually, it turned to other conquests, flicking back through the calendar of time until it eventually reached Vicky. He glanced down at the photograph. It showed a beautiful, golden-haired woman in her late twenties and had been taken in London some ten years earlier. The colors were beginning to fade, but the memories were as strong as ever and he couldn’t help a sad smile as he rose from the bed. He flexed his neck; heavy muscles rippling as he stretched his back and shoulders. He could almost hear them creak in protest, and yawning like a big cat after a big feed he stumbled with half-open eyes into the small en suite bathroom. There, he fumbled around in the darkness as he searched for the light switch above the sink. It came on after a few seconds and he turned on the cold tap, splashing the sleep from his eyes. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, not much liking the cold, hard face that looked back at him. It was the face of the bad guy in some old black-and-white B-movie, he thought. One of those films about guns and gangsters and girls, in which things were never quite what they seemed, and nothing ever quite went to plan; and having dried his face with a towel, he switched off the tap and the light and went back into the bedroom. At 6’ 2” and an evenly spread sixteen stone, Buchan had the bulky yet muscular physique of a championship oarsman or long-distance swimmer, but there were more than enough rough edges to tell another story. The scars, for instance were as dramatic as they were numerous. Like the markings on some prehistoric monolith, they chronicled a life of violence, hardship and pain, as though he’d lost every fight he’d ever been in and had been ina

lot of fights. Of

these, he rarely spoke, but if questioned he’d explain they were the souvenirs of a misspent youth in a bad neighborhood, knowing there was more than enough truth to make the story credible. There were other signs, too, of one who has journeyed to the very edges of the civilized world and stared out into the ancient chaos of the dark, ugly depths beyond. The eyes, for example, were gunmetal grey and nerveless, and they burned with the flickering light of some stubborn fire that had never quite gone out. Slow-moving and surrounded by thick scar tissue, they peered out from a face that was all angles and hard edges and gave the vague impression of a rock-face that has been blasted with dynamite. He had thick, dark, unruly hair that was cut short at the sides. It was going grey at the temples and had thin scars running through it like delicate streaks of forked lightning. The ears were tending towards cauliflower, and the nose had been broken many times without being properly reset so that it widened slightly at the bridge. His hands were huge, calloused and scarred from years of sustained abuse, and there was something direct and

uncompromising in the way he moved which coupled with his size could prove intimidating. He was as unaware of this fact as he was of every other aspect of his appearance; he dressed strictly according to the job at hand and there were no prizes for style or presentation in his line of work. Besides, he was no great believer in self-analysis. That way lay paralysis and doubt, and there were no prizes for them either. Scratching three days’ worth of thick stubble, he sifted through a pile of dirty clothes on a side-table until he found the heavy claret-and-blue hooped rugby jersey he was looking for. This came complete with holes, stains, patches and a half-torn number six on the back, but it didn’t smell too bad, and he pulled it on. A jockstrap, a pair of black rugby shorts and some old army socks completed the ensemble. Then he made his way down a long corridor, his broad shoulders almost filling the narrow passage, till he reached a low door at the back of the building. There he forced his feet into a muddy black pair of Lowa mountain boots, lacing them tightly before ducking through the door and stepping out into a small garden. Compared to the stuffy confines of the cottage, the cool, pre-dawn air made a refreshing change, and he paused briefly to check his watch, a waterproof Japanese number whose supposedly scratchproof face was very badly scratched. It was almost eight, and without bothering to stretch or otherwise prepare himself, he walked to a narrow wicket-gate, unlatched it, and broke into a nice easy trot. Buchan didn't much enjoy running. His large frame and restless temperament were far better suited to the kind of physical challenges that are found on the rugby field or boxing ring. That said, he recognized the need to keep fit. It was an integral part of his life and an equally integral part of his job. Because in his world you still had to be fit to survive, and with that thought firmly fixed in his mind he started to put one foot in front of the other with the kind of untiring intensity that would have left many a fine athlete trailing in his wake. Following an old farm track, he quickly found a steady rhythm. His breathing was regular, his legs not as stiff as he’d feared, and before long they were eating up the gentle gradient that lay between him and the low-lying ridge about five miles distant. The surrounding countryside soon started to glide by in a dark, seamless, semi-perceived blur, and not for the first time he was reminded of how much he loved this unlovely little corner of Belgium that he now called home. This affection had little to do with the landscape itself - a wholly unremarkable mishmash of fields, woods, villages and farmhouses that would never have won any prizes in a beauty contest. Nor did it have anything to do with the locals. Like many outsiders, he found the Belgians difficult, their officials a bane and their culture bland. The local beers offered some consolation, it had to be said, but he’d take a pint of bitter over the best of them any day, and if there was any

other redeeming feature, he had yet to discover it. No, there was only one reason he’ d come to love the place, and that reason lay in the curious, stubborn, varied and infinitely moving reminders of another age that dotted it as thickly as the poppies which had once blossomed there. For this wasn’t just any old part of rural Belgium; this was the low-lying triangle of land better known as the ‘Salient’. And those weren’t just any old muddy fields that surrounded him; they were Flanders Fields, the scene of one of the greatest battles the earth had ever seen, not to mention the last resting place of almost half a million men who now lay buried in its water-logged soil, a vast number of them with no known grave. Even today, almost one hundred years later, reminders of the fighting were everywhere to be seen. Half-hidden by nature and the passage of time, they included the strangely circular ponds that had once been shell-holes; the ugly concrete blockhouses that burst abruptly from the clay soil; the irregular zigzags that ran through ploughed fields marking old trench-lines; the unexpected and apparently incongruous monuments and floral tributes dedicated to some soldier, battalion or whole army division; the strange green signposts that marked so many road junctions, with their enigmatic names - names like Hellfire Corner, Sanctuary Wood, Maple Copse, Tower Hamlets and Dragoon Camp. And then there were the cemeteries, all one hundred and seventy of them. The cemeteries, perhaps more than anything, distinguished the area from any other place on earth; the gravestones they contained so plentiful they could almost have been just another arable crop. Once you realized what they were and what they stood for, you simply couldn’t miss them; they were everywhere, punctuating the otherwise anonymous vistas like giant white exclamation marks.

And it wasn’t just the visible reminders that fascinated Buchan. Scratch the surface - literally - and you soon found that the earth itself contained as many, if not more surprises. Regimental badges; rifles; unexploded munitions; pieces of fractured rum jars; bones, both animal and human; even whole dugouts, some

complete with their long-buried occupants, all waiting to be discovered whenever the foundations for a new building or road came to be excavated. Back then, of course, the landscape had looked very different; it had been reduced to a barren, hellish moonscape, heavily cratered and without even a blade

of grass or tree leaf to speak of. In fact, there’d been no trees, just shattered, skeletal stumps, the torn ground around them covered with endless miles of barbed wire, like a giant, glinting spider’s web, expertly arranged to catch human beings instead of insects. To die here had been easy. Corpses would have been strewn everywhere, many of them unrecoverable and left to fester in the open air; and those that were lucky enough to receive a proper burial were, as often as not, promptly exhumed by some fresh artillery barrage. Rats, lice, heat, cold, rain and mud had all added to the misery - especially the mud, which was unlike anything the world had ever seen before. It made for a new and terrifying enemy that consumed whatever it came into contact with - humans, tanks, animals, guns. Even the atmosphere poised a new and horrifying threat. Poison gas had periodically filled the air almost from the start, with the net result that over the four years of fighting, an average of five thousand British soldiers died here every single month, equating to one killed for every square foot of ground taken. But take it they did, and after a decade of living in the area Buchan had come to learn the myriad stories attached to their achievements better than most. Straight ahead, for example, hidden within the trees, was the rebuilt chateau of Gheluvelt where, just twelve weeks into the fighting, the Germans broke through the Allied lines threatening to win the war at a stroke. Disaster loomed until 364 battle-hardened men from the Worcestershire Regiment stepped into the breach, losing a third of their number in the next ten minutes but saving the day. And a mile to his right lay Hill 60, a perfectly peaceful if heavily pockmarked piece of land no bigger than Trafalgar Square, containing more dead bodies than many a city cemetery, one of Buchan’s great-uncles amongst them. He’d been killed in the fierce fighting during the Second Battle of Ypres, and Buchan always tried to visit the place on the anniversary of his death. Then, less than a mile to his left, were the ruins of the former Hooge Chateau, where a twenty-year-old Private Patrick Joseph Bugden from New South Wales had earned the Victoria Cross for his ‘Most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty’, and his body now lay in the nearby cemetery, not far from one of the pillboxes he'd helped silence, along with almost six thousand of his comrades-in-arms... And so it went on. Wherever he looked, whatever he saw, somewhere in the back of Buchan’s brain there was an anecdote he could attach, some seemingly trivial fact or association he could recall. And this wasn’t just some cold intellectual exercise to keep him occupied. Ever since he'd first arrived in the area, he ‘d felt a sense of reverence and awe unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Almost religious in its intensity, it was a feeling that had grown ever stronger over the years, so that he’d gradually come to regard the ground over which his feet were now steadily pounding as almost sacred in its status; a kind of holy ground whose sanctity had been consecrated in blood. And while this reverence was solemn and sometimes melancholic in nature, it was by no means morbid or morose. He was not one of those who felt only pity for those who fought and died here. Nor was he the kind to bleat about the futility and senselessness of so much slaughter. Buchan was beyond all that and as far removed from such sensitivities as it was possible to get. Because, like the men who'd fought here, he understood that ultimately the choice was always going to be between dying as a free man on the battlefield; or dying as a slave in captivity. And like them he'd take the battlefield every time. In his heart, he also knew that it was a choice that hadn't gone away; one that would never go away. Because in his heart he knew that whatever rough beast they had been fighting here had not been killed. They may have weakened it, humiliated it and left it close to death. But they had not killed it. Somehow, it had survived. It had, after all, reared its ugly head several times since then, and he couldn't help but feel it was still alive now, out there somewhere biding its time, growing stronger, more vengeful, and waiting for its chance to start the whole sorry saga over again.

CHAPTER II

Dawn came some five minutes later, a thin red line that seeped up over the horizon in front of him. It turned the sky from a deep velvety blue to a shimmering kaleidoscope of pastel shades, so delicate and ephemeral that even the most talented artist would have struggled to capture them. To many people the scene might have conjured up a lyrical stanza from the archive of some long-dead poet; or prompted several carefully thought-out allusions to the slow re-awakening of the world and the fresh optimism that each day brings. Buchan wasn't one of them. To him it was just another sunrise. If pressed, he would probably have said the thin red line resembled the blood welling in a recently slit throat, but then he wasn't exactly the romantic type and his attention was now focused on the regular, repetitive thud of his boots instead. The miles were falling away at a steady pace and despite the slight increase in gradient his limbs felt loose and fluid, his breathing easy. On his right, he passed the village of Broodseinde where no fewer than 9 VCs had been won in a single action, one of them by a private in the Somerset Light Infantry who'd thrown himself on a live grenade; while on his left there was the ‘silent city’ that was Tyne Cot. The largest British war cemetery in the world, Tyne Cot contained almost 12,000 graves, as well as the names of another 35,000 soldiers whose bodies had never been identified, and didn't pull any punches. The impact of seeing it for the first time always left the viewer feeling slightly stunned, and every time you saw it was like seeing it for the first time. He pushed himself harder now, his body going through a succession of pain barriers as the strain on his legs and lungs increased. Stitches, cramps and other assorted aches and pains came and went. Then gradually a sort of numbness spread throughout his being, and he checked his body once again for any signs of weakness or stress. Apart from the miniature pearls of sweat that trickled down his craggy face there were none, and leaning forwards into the slope he increased his pace a little, his expression a blank, his arms and legs pumping as though driven by small but powerful motors that could run all day if that was required of them. Gradually, the fields of beet on either side of him gave way to houses and a few minutes later he reached the small village of Passchendaele, situated on the high ground the British forces had spent so many grueling years trying to reach. By the time they did, the place had been reduced to nothing but a grid reference, an obscene brick-red smear, its existence quite literally wiped off the map. Today, however, having been lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt, it seemed perfectly ordinary, and apart from several memorials, there were few indications of its former ordeal. Slowing to a halt, Buchan put his hands on his hips and spent a few moments recovering his breath. Then turning slowly, he looked back at the patchwork landscape of pastures, ploughed fields and woodland that he’d just passed through. The sun had risen fully now, and the towers and spires of Ypres could be clearly seen in the distance. It had, he reflected, taken him just over half an hour to cover the terrain the British had taken four years to secure, and having rested for afew moments more he followed a muddy track to his right and continued with his run. Before long, the ground began to slope away from him, easing the strain on his legs, and he’d coasted for maybe a mile when his eyes caught the distinctive white flash of Portland Stone over a recently trimmed hedgerow. Dimly, he recalled the small cemetery that lay in a nearby field. He slowed his pace and, deciding to stop and pay his respects, he followed a narrow footpath, splashing through a series of muddy puddles until he reached a black wrought-iron gate set in a low stone wall. Pushing the gate open on squeaky hinges, he stepped onto the close-cropped grass and looked around. Although broadly similar to almost every other British cemetery in the region, the place had its own distinct character and feel. Simultaneously intimate and charming, it had enough ornamental hedges, trees and shrubs to be reminiscent of an English country garden or village churchyard - no mean achievement given its undistinguished setting in the middle of a

potato field and its origins in the bitter heat of battle - and he spent a few minutes walking amongst the headstones. Bright in the early morning sunlight, they cast long shadows, and Buchan was reminded of soldiers standing on parade, forever waiting in vain for the order to be dismissed. A rough calculation told them there were about two hundred in all, each with a little cluster of well-tended flowers at its base, and he read a random selection

of the inscriptions. According to these, the great majority had hailed from the British Isles, but others had come from all over the Empire to fight and die in this place, like young lions coming to the aid of the pack in its time of greatest crisis. South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada were just some of the nationalities represented, and other details were equally hard to miss. Almost all had died young, for example, the average age hovering somewhere in the early twenties, with most of them losing their lives on the same day in the summer of 1918 during the last big push that finally broke German resistance and ended the war once and for all. There was no mention of what their earlier occupations might have been, but Buchan knew with reasonable confidence that they represented a typical crosssection of society. Bus drivers, porters, factory workers, farmhands, shop assistants, teachers, sales reps, clerks, schoolboys... Just ordinary men called upon to do extraordinary things. And while the majority of the inscriptions were complete, others had been left blank except for a large cross and the words: ‘A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR KNOWN

UNTO GOD’

Not a bad epitaph in the grand scheme of things, he thought, and closing the squeaky gate behind him he continued on the long, looping route that would take him back to his home.

CHAPTER III ‘Shrapnel Corner Cottage’ had once been a modest hunting lodge set in the grounds of a nearby chateau. Both buildings were destroyed by German howitzers early in 1915, however, and today the chateau remains an overgrown ruin. The lodge, on the other hand, was rebuilt shortly after the Armistice. The new owner was an elderly Scottish widow whose only son had been killed in the vicinity. His body had never been recovered and she spent the rest of her short, heartbroken life in a futile search for where it might lie. Then, on her death, she had left the cottage to the British nation in the hope that it might be of more use to someone else. It was, and for several years it housed workers of the COmmonwealth War Graves Commission, still fully occupied with the staggering task of creating order out of all the chaos. Inevitably, the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 interrupted that process, and the cottage was abandoned for the duration of the war before being quietly requisitioned by a mysterious and little-known department of Her Majesty’s Government. They were to use it for housing select employees on a long-term basis, of which Buchan was just the latest. He had been informed of his new living arrangements at the end of his training. At first, he'd thought they were joking, and he’d remained stubbornly unconvinced until they'd told him the only alternative was a gamekeeper’s lodge in deepest Lincolnshire. It made Ypres seem positively cosmopolitan by comparison, and three days later he’d unlocked the door to the small, secluded bungalow on the outskirts of the town. The place had been everything Buchan had feared it would be - a dreary, cramped, dark and damp affair, lacking any real aesthetic appeal. In truth, none of this had really bothered him, however, just as it had never really bothered any of the other occupants. The reason for this was simple. From the Scottish widow to the gravediggers of the CWGC to the other men who'd stayed under its grey tiled roof, the inhabitants of Shrapnel Corner Cottage all had one thing in common: a duty to perform that took priority over every other priority, a cause that rendered the rest of their lives almost completely meaningless. For them, as it was for Buchan, Shrapnel Corner Cottage had been more than adequate for their needs. Panting heavily now, and drenched with sweat, Buchan reached the back door of the cottage. There, he removed his muddy boots. Then, making his way to the bedroom, he stripped off his clothing and let the shower run for a while before stepping under the scalding jet. He scrubbed himself clean for several minutes and, having dried himself off in a rudimentary fashion, moved to the sink, briskly removing the stubble from his face with a can of foam and a heavy oldfashioned double-edged razor made of brass. A splash of bay rum lotion completed the ritual. Savouring the sting of alcohol on his raw flesh, he returned to the bedroom and before long he was pulling on a checked work shirt and dark trousers. To these he added an old tweed jacket, and a pair of tan leather desert boots he’d bought for a trip to the Middle East eight years earlier and which had served him well ever since. Then, gathering his keys and some money, he stepped outside again and set off in the direction of Ypres, about two miles distant.

With its high-gabled houses, tree-lined waterways and cobbled streets, Ypres had a timeless, medieval air that resembled that of its better-known neighbors, Ghent and Bruges. Here, though, appearances were being deceptive - modern-day Ypres is no more medieval than the stage set in a King Arthur film. For, with enemy guns on three of its four sides throughout much of the Great War, the town was spared none of the depredations visited on the surrounding countryside. It was, in fact, all but razed to the ground; its destruction so complete that it’s said a man on horseback could easily look from one side of the town to the other

with nothing to interrupt his view. Black and white aerial photographs taken after the war confirm this fact in awful clarity. They show a

flat rubble-strewn

landscape uncommonly reminiscent of post-war Hiroshima, with only the white tracery of the road network still intact. Undeterred by all this, the local citizenry had set about rebuilding the town as soon as the opportunity allowed. It was a task that took almost fifty years to complete, and Buchan was admiring their workmanship as he sought out one of several newsagents close to the main square. It catered to the many international visitors the place attracted and having bought a copy of the London Daily Telegraph he made his way through the milling crowds to a busy little café he sometimes patronized. There, he took a small table at the back. Then, without recourse to the menu, he ordered coffee and a full English breakfast from

the waitress in such fluent Flemish that only an expert in phonetics would have been able to detect the Southern African origins of his accent. His order arrived shortly afterwards. Everything looked to have been cooked to perfection, and he wasted no time in attacking the large serving of bacon, sausages, toast, eggs, mushrooms, and beans in front of him. The food just seemed to disappear from his plate and having polished off the last bit of runny yoke with the last piece of crispy toast, he set the knife and fork down and pushed the plate to one side. Then, reaching for the newspaper, he unfolded it and skimmed his way through the first few dozen pages. They were filled with the usual mishmash of horror stories and non-stories, all intermixed with the absurd, the trivial and the depressing. Most seemed to have been written by people who hated England and the English and they read like a dirge, a lament to what might have been, or, perhaps, a long list of reasons to leave the country and never look back. Amongst other things, he learned that crime, obesity, divorce and immigration rates were all up, while birth rates were well down. Such stories had long since ceased to have any real meaning to Buchan, but then he didn’t buy the paper for its news content, and without bothering to digest the details, he turned to the cryptic crossword on the back page instead. Of all the great British pastimes cryptic crosswords must rank as one of the most eccentric, and like millions of others Buchan had a love-hate relationship with the damned things, with the emphasis firmly on ‘hate’. On the one hand, he enjoyed the satisfaction he sometimes got from solving a particularly devious clue. On the other, anagrams, homophones and abstruse literary references were not exactly ‘his thing’. In years gone by had always avoided the pastime like the plague, seeing it as a form of masochism best left to crusty old colonels in the shires. But his recruitment by the Mill had changed all that and now, much to his dismay, they were as central to his morning routine as getting dressed or brushing his teeth. Plucking a biro from his jacket pocket he looked closely at One Across. ‘Pagan professes to be a procrastinator (8)’. He immediately recognized the play on words and scribbled out the word ‘IDOLATER in the relevant boxes. Three Across. ‘Late returning from feud revolutionaries caused (7)’. Buchan scratched his newly shaved chin and re-examined the clue, only to realize that the solution was staring him in the face - quite literally - and he re-read it, this time in reverse. The adjective ‘OVERDUE’ soon resolved itself in his mind. He wrote it down, thanking the waitress as she refilled his coffee. Then, lighting a cigarette with a battered brass Zippo, he turned his attention back to the puzzle. Five Across. 'Sort of effort needed to push manure around (10).' The word ‘around’ was an instruction to rearrange the letters in the preceding two words. He quickly came up with a whole bunch of ten-letter combinations that didn't have a meaning before stumbling across one that did. He wrote out, ‘SUPERHUMAN ', and worked his way methodically through the clues until he reached Seven Down, several minutes later. Up until that point the crossword had been shaping up to be yet another dud, suggesting that the day itself was shaping up to be another dud; but there was something about Seven Down that indicated otherwise and that changed everything. ‘Keep your promise to be available (5,2)’.

This, he quickly deducted, was a double definition, and he was inhaling on the cigarette when the term ‘STAND BY’ formed slowly but inevitably in his mind. Feeling his pulse quicken slightly, he cracked a cold grin and tried the letters. They matched perfectly, and his eyes flicked to Nine Down. ‘Amateur cross with backward celebrity chops wood (6). The word 'amateur' denoted the letter 'a'. The word 'cross' denoted the letter ‘x'. The term ‘backward celebrity' meant a word for a famous person - in this case, ‘name' - reversed. Adding these together he came up with the solution, which was another term for someone or something that, ‘chops wood’. He scribbled out, ‘AXEMAN”’.

Eleven Down. ‘Study about river, backing required (6)’. The solution, he saw immediately, was ‘needed’ and he wasted no time writing it down. Fourteen Down. ‘Act One must be revised without delay (2,4).

Too easy, thought Buchan as he recognized another anagram, this one concerning the words, 'Act' and 'One'. Quickly he reassembled them into the term, ‘AT ONCE’.

Briefly he reviewed the last four clues to ensure there was no misunderstanding. There wasn't. The message read, 'STAND BY. AXEMAN. NEEDED. AT ONCE. ' It was signed: ‘Yours truly using angry expression to dog (9,6)’. Buchan quickly came up with ‘CROSSWORD

SETTER,

and ignoring the remaining clues he took a long last drag on the cigarette and exhaled slowly,

contemplating the blue-grey smoke as though it were somehow sacred. The waiting was finally over. It was time to go to work.

CHAPTER IV It took Buchan less than twenty minutes to get back to the cottage, pick up the few things he needed and reappear at the front door. This time, though, a black Belstaff biker's jacket had replaced the tweed one, and there was a motorcycle helmet tucked under his left arm looking like some sort of severed head. He walked over to the simple garage in the corner of the small garden. With a little assistance the main door sprang open on well-oiled hinges. Inside, just visible in the shadows, was a 675cc British-made street-bike, its chrome and steel elements gleaming in the half-light. Pulling on the helmet, he expertly fastened the Velcro strap under his chin. Then, swinging himself into the saddle, he hauled the heavy machine off its stand, fiddled with the fuel-cock for a moment, and started the engine with a sudden savage kick from his booted foot. Checking for traffic, he waited for a tourist coach to pass and pulled out onto the street. Almost immediately he felt a sense of relief. Civilian life had been pleasant enough, he thought, but there was no danger of it ever becoming addictive, and now that the Mill had gatecrashed its way back into his world it would soon be forgotten. Before long he would be back in action again, back in the thick of things, just the way he liked it; and as the engine settled into a steady roar, he opened the throttle with his right hand, leaning into the petrol tank as the front wheel left the ground. The distance from the cottage to the Eurostar terminal in nearby Lille was a little under twenty miles and, keeping to the speed limits most of the way, Buchan completed the journey in about as many minutes. Once there, he soon found a space to park, and ten minutes after that he was breathing a sigh of relief as he squeezed his big frame into a rear-facing seat in the cool, air-conditioned, business class section of the 10.35 to London. The train pulled out of the station a few moments later, and Buchan took in the selection of strange faces that shared the crowded carriage with him. It was the usual mix of businessmen, bankers, politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, and administrators. A lot of these were the kind of over-socialized drones that had done

well at school and university, followed orders, ticked boxes, and generally gone on to have successful careers. You wouldn't know it from their attire, though. They were a scruffy looking lot for the most part, more Skid Row than Savile Row, many of them dressed in an odd assortment of ill-fitting, multicolored Lycra outfits, with rucksacks, track shoes, jeans, baseball hats and cycle helmets also featuring prominently. Bring back brollies, briefcases, brogues, and bowler hats, thought Buchan idly as he examined the two people sitting across from him. Both appeared to be slightly younger than he was - somewhere in their mid-thirties, he guessed. The first, a curly-haired woman in a white blouse that was a couple of sizes too small for her chubby torso, had an angry, flustered look on her horsey, well-fed face. She wore no wedding ring, and had dead, flat eyes with false eyelashes that fluttered like a couple of Venus flytraps anticipating their next meal. Her ears were stuffed with headphones, and she was jabbering like a lunatic into an invisible microphone about things like ‘protocols’, ‘blue-sky thinking’ and ‘misogyny’. All this was delivered in an entitled, overly loud, passive-aggressive, and ever-soslightly condescending Ivy League accent that instantly grated on the ear. Buchan knew the type well enough. He didn’t much like it and trying to shut her voice from his mind he turned his attention to the man sitting on her left. He, by contrast, was perfectly silent and still and had his head bowed down as though in some sort of penance. He had good bone structure, with a heavy brow and square jaw, and a big, strong frame that had been designed to carry a lot of muscle. Once upon a time, reflected Buchan, he might have used it to throw a spear through the heart of a charging mammoth, or to plough a field, draw a longbow or swing an axe. Maybe he’d have been a warlord or tribal chieftain fighting off rivals in order to secure the best-looking women for himself. Now, however, whatever muscle he’d once had was slowly turning to sludge and he was studying a variety of spread sheets and presentations, a dull, lifeless expression on his pallid face. Both the man and the woman would, Buchan suspected, be doing well in their respective careers and, in a way, he felt a mild kind of envy for the safe, comfortable, tidy, pre-packaged, air-conditioned lives he imagined they enjoyed. Everything about them, everything he could deduce from their appearance,

from their clothes to their facial features to their physiques, suggested lives of ease, lives of convenience, lives in which anything too demanding, or too unpleasant, could be easily avoided without much cost; lives without consequences, in which the only real decisions they ever had to make was the color of their next company car of their choice of holiday destination, in which the only real risk they ever faced was a parking ticket or reprimand for being late into the office. They could afford to be careless, he reflected, afford to screw things up, safe in the knowledge that any mistakes would soon be forgotten or forgiven and that someone else would always be there to fix things. Not for them the brutal business of watching a friend bleed out or get his head blown off or having to make split-second decisions about life and death. But such creature comforts, opt-outs and safety nets came at a price, he knew, and much as he envied certain aspects of their lives, the prospect of their daily commute, the inevitable office politics, and the weird unreality of the modern workplace all disgusted him and filled him with a kind of dread. He was glad to be out of that kind of world, glad to have left it all behind. So far as he was concerned, the rat-race was over. It had already been won, and it had been won by the rats. After what seemed like an eternity, the woman finished her phone call. Shortly after that, the fast-moving scenery of northern France gave way to darkness as the train entered the thirty-one-mile-long tunnel that would take them under the Channel, and Buchan opened a worn anthology of poems by Yeats he kept with him for just such occasions. He spent the rest of the journey dipping into it as and when he felt the urge. Then, as the journey came to an end, he slipped the book back into his coat pocket and began to wonder where they were sending him this time. The War on Terrorism was well underway, generating a steady stream of work ... Then he remembered a job pending in the Argentine. Not an ex-Nazi, for once, but an Argentinean national - a former intelligence officer who'd executed a couple of Marines during the Falklands War and whose identity had recently been uncovered by Six. Buchan liked the idea. The man deserved all that was coming. As for the Argentineans themselves, he found them a bit arrogant sometimes and their airline was one of the worst he’d ever flown, but the steaks, the Latin spirit and the women more than made up for any shortfalls. And if not Argentina, then he hoped he was going somewhere English was spoken. That way, at least, there was less room for misunderstandings. He didn’t like misunderstandings. They led to fuckups, and he hated fuck-ups almost as much as he hated crossword puzzles.

On the train’s arrival at Saint Pancras, Buchan strode down the long platform before emerging into the not-so-fresh air of modern-day London. There he was forced to run the inevitable gauntlet of charity workers. They were as persistent and irritating as horseflies, and Buchan gave them the same glare he always did. It was a glare that threatened a black eye and some mild concussion, at best, or a long stay in the local hospital followed by months of expensive dental work, at worst, and it did the job. They shrank away and he walked on, the incident only serving to remind him how much he disliked his trips to the city. A country boy, born and bred, he had never lived in a city and, as a general rule, did his best to avoid them. London was no exception. And while there had been a time when he'd enjoyed the city’s many virtues - not to mention a few of its vices - that had been long ago. The place had changed beyond all recognition since then. Of course, there were still glimpses of its former charms to be had, but that's all they were - glimpses - and the way things were going those too would soon be gone. No, he didn't much enjoy his visits to London, but his job, like every other, required sacrifices, and having sought out the nearby taxi rank he joined the long queue of people, waiting patiently until his turn finally came. Then, stepping inside the cab, he took his seat with the simple instruction, “Horse Guards Parade.” The traffic was as heavy as ever and Buchan was forced to watch as the grim grey tapestry of the city unfurled slowly before him. It was its usual frenetic mix of concrete, cars and people, giving the impression of a riot being played out in slow motion by a ragtag army of foreigners, freaks and misfits, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief when they reached their destination twenty minutes later.

Buchan paid. Then with a nod of thanks, he walked down the street towards Parliament Square. With St. James’s Park on his right and the famous expanse of gravel that was Horse Guards Parade on his left, the scenery had improved somewhat, but Buchan didn’t really notice. His mind had turned in on itself the way it always did before a mission, its connections with the outside world temporarily suspended, and it took a near collision with a cyclist on the pavement to bring him back to the present day. Ignoring the subsequent volley of hurled expletives, Buchan walked up to an entrance at the back of the Treasury building. Protected by a corrugated iron roof, it was set into a wall of cement-filled sandbags, and apart from an entry phone and a pane of glass in a narrow loophole, made to look as it might have during the Second World War. A sign above the door said, ‘Cabinet War Rooms - Imperial War Museum’, and he walked inside to join a short queue behind a father and two young sons. When his turn came, he bought a ticket from the attendant before following the other visitors down a long staircase into the basement. There he entered a long corridor where a small group of middle-aged American tourists was peering through the glass front of a large display case. It contained pictures, mementos and headlines from the Blitz, including the iconic black-and-white photograph of London that, except for Saint Paul’s Cathedral, showed the capital totally obscured by smoke. The text described how the threat of heavy bombing led to the basement’s conversion into a secure operations center from which the government could run the war, and he paused by a large window that looked into the former Cabinet Room - the one-time inner sanctum of the British Empire. The decor was authentic to the time, right down to the nicotine-stained walls, and a clock on the wall was stopped at two minutes to five, which, according to the guidebook, was the hour at which the first cabinet meeting was held there on October 15th, 1940. Another display case showed the chromium-plated steel helmet that Churchill used to wear while watching air raids from the roof; the map on which he charted the division of Europe in 1945; and a powerful cartoon sketch by ‘Zec’. It depicted a bedraggled Allied soldier, his features drawn and weary, his head bandaged, his arm in a sling. He was standing against a backdrop of death and devastation and carried a laurel wreath in one hand. There was a handwritten note attached that read, ‘Victory and peace in Europe’. He was passing it to the viewer with the words ‘Here you are - don’t lose it again’. If only we'd listened, thought Buchan as he followed some of the Americans into another corridor. This one was lined with fire-glazed brickwork and locked doors, and watching as the tourists disappeared around a corner, he backtracked to one of the doors. It was marked ‘C - KEEP SHUT’, and listening for a quiet click, he slipped through it into another much narrower corridor that was strip-lit and bare except for a pair of stainless-steel lift doors at the far end. They were stenciled with the words: ‘NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL in large yellow letters, and slid silently open as he approached. He stepped inside, turning to push the lower of two unmarked buttons on the small control panel. The doors closed and the lift started its descent to a second, deeper set of chambers whose construction, he’d once been informed, dated from the end of the war as a result of growing concern over V-weapons. Never officially acknowledged, its existence was known only to a handful of government officials and the select group of people who'd worked with British Military Intelligence, Section Eleven (Justice).

Founded in 1945, MI11, or the ‘Mill’ as it was sometimes called, had been created by the Special Operations Executive with the express purpose of conducting what they called ‘ungentlemanly warfare’. It was a remit that covered a wide multitude of potential sins, but special emphasis was given to the goal of hunting down and assassinating war criminals not prominent enough to warrant a full-blown trial and who would otherwise have escaped any other form of retribution. Known as ‘Axemen’, its operatives were instructed to kill their targets wherever they found them, irrespective of boundaries, laws, jurisdictions or circumstances. In the first few years, they had been kept busy by the enormous, accumulated backlog of six years of world war, and prominent among their targets were members of the SS and Gestapo, Japanese prison staff, and naval captains who’d machine-gunned survivors in the water. Then, as these targets were dispatched or started to die of natural causes, the focus shifted to men and women from the various post-war conflicts, and the list grew to include the likes of terrorists and members of the secret police in various countries.

Buchan was one of three Axemen run by the Mill. He knew nothing of the other two except that, like him, they were both male, ex-services, and had all been recruited after undergoing some traumatic experience involving a close relative or loved one. Apart from that he knew little else about the Section but didn’t let that bother him. They paid him good money to kill the bad guys and that was all that mattered. It had been that way ever since Vicky’s death, and the way things were going it would be that way for many years to come.

PART THREE

CHAPTERI A few seconds later the lift came to an imperceptible halt an indefinite depth below. The doors swished open, and Buchan stepped into a small, cream-colored office. Natasha was seated at her desk, looking as radiant as ever in a powder blue Chanel suit. She was compiling one of her crosswords from scratch, thinking up the clues and filling in the solutions as she went along. She checked a reference in one of several large, well-thumbed dictionaries. Then she looked up slowly, her cool, emerald-green eyes lingering over Buchan’s body before finally reaching his. “Hmmm...” she said. “Looks lascivious.” “Is that a statement or a clue?” he asked. The smile broadened, the eyes glinting. “A clue, of course.” “How many letters?” “Five,” she replied, replacing the book with the others. Natasha was older than Buchan, but not by much, and the years had been very kind to her, transforming what must have been a face of great beauty in her youth into a softer but stronger version of the same. Idly, he wondered if she had ever been married. Almost certainly, he guessed, although he’ d never seen a wedding ring on her finger. Then again, there were times when she could be as cryptic as the crosswords she compiled, and for all he knew she was sworn to celibacy and married to the job. “I'm waiting,” she reminded him. Buchan shrugged and said, “Ogles.” It was a guess and Natasha frowned her disapproval. “Never try to make the solution fit the clue, remember.” “How about leers, then?”

“Good,” she said, filling out the relevant squares. “‘Girl disheartened over love-affair needs excitement’. Seven letters.” “Sounds suspiciously like a lonely-hearts ad to me.” “Stop stalling.” “Glamour,” he answered. “The G and L come from the word ‘girl’ with the central letters removed. The amour comes from the French word for ‘love’. Together they make the word glamour, which is another way of saying ‘excitement’. Don’t the bad guys ever read the Telegraph?” he asked. “That’s the beauty of it,” she replied, writing the solution down. “They don’t. They all read The Guardian, and The New York Times.” “Virtually foolproof,” he admitted. “But what happens if I get stuck on seven across and can’t remember some obscure legal term or the cast list of Troilus and Cressida? Yesterday, for example, the solution to nineteen across was Churri... Churri-grotesque, or something like that. It’s not exactly the kind of word you use with your mates, is it?” “For one thing,” she said, “if we were to reduce the vocabulary down to a level comprehensible to your mates, I suspect we'd be restricted to a few grunts and words of no more than one syllable. I’d probably end up having to draw pictures. For another, if you did your homework like a good boy, the possibility of getting stuck would never arise.”

“Well, how about some extra tuition,” he suggested. “Outside office hours, perhaps. I’ll throw in dinner and a bottle of wine.” Natasha arched a neatly sculptured eyebrow. “And that sounds suspiciously like a date.” “It would give me a chance to find out how a girl like you got to be a girl like you, all that Cary Grant stuff,” he answered with a grin. “Sorry, Buchan. I'd love to go have dinner with you, but we’ve got rules and regulations against that sort of thing, as you well know.” “Come and visit me in Ypres,” he persisted. “There’s this nice little bistro I know. It’s nothing fancy, but the food’s very good. The battlefields can quite beautiful in the moonlight...” “Nice try,” she said. “Your routine’s pretty good. It’s got all the right ingredients - humor, confidence, the promise of a good time with a tall dark mysterious fellow who's fairly handsome in a rugged sort of way, but you need to work on your delivery. A little sincerity wouldn’t go amiss, for starters. Anyway, I’ve seen of your file, remember. I know what you’ re like. ‘Pay for pardon’, she added suddenly. “Five letters.” She got a blank stare. “Pay for pardon’,” she repeated. “Five letters.” “Remit,” he answered after a moment’s thought. “It’s a double definition.” She nodded approvingly and filled in the respective boxes. “So, what else does it say?” asked Buchan. “The file. I’ve often wondered.” Natasha sighed the way she might at a troublesome child. “Well, on the plus side, you're not a pervert - as far as we know, at least - though you did visit some very dodgy bars in Kiev last year.” “That was strictly in the line of duty.” “Whatever you say... You like your women to be tall and slender; your idea of a long-term relationship is about twelve hours; and youre a skillful if somewhat inconsiderate lover.” “Who told you that?” “No one. I can tell by looking at you.” “What about the stuff that doesn ’t involve women?” Natasha put the pen to her lips. “Well, much of it, you already know. You were born Charles Thomas Hook in a small town in Southern Rhodesia. Your parents owned a tobacco farm and bred horses. You were educated at a South African boarding school, but never completed your studies. Instead, you joined the Rhodesian Light Infantry. You had a good war with them, then once it was over you came to Britain. You were commissioned into a Gurkha regiment and went to the Falklands. You then spent the next decade serving in the UK and around the world, including a spell in Jamaica where you nearly had a very nasty accident parachuting onto Blue Mountain peak.” “A beautiful woman was involved, and my honor was at stake.” “According to your file, it was a case of Red Stripe,” she corrected him. “And you did it for a dare. But we’ll let that pass... You are financially secure thanks to your salary and your life savings. Your IQ has been measured at 132, which is considered ‘very superior’ and puts you in the top two per cent of the population, though I personally find that hard to believe at times. Your political views tend towards the reactionary, sometimes alarmingly so, but you’ve never let them get in the way of your work, and, so far as we know, have never voted.”

Warming to her task now, Natasha continued. “You don’t gamble or take any illegal drugs. You’re an outstanding athlete and, despite your advancing age and past injuries, in excellent health. You have amazing powers of resistance, resourcefulness and recovery. You're proficient in six languages apart from English, including Nepali and Ndebele; an excellent marksman; and an efficient, if somewhat overzealous, killer.”

“So far, so good.” She smiled. “Now we come to your weaknesses, which include the fact that you're an inveterate smoker and drinker; that you can be impulsive and impatient; that you have a reputation for recklessness bordering on the suicidal, and ruthlessness to the point of outright cruelty. Should I stop now, or would you like to hear more?” “No, that’ll do. That’s plenty.” Natasha gave him a sympathetic look. “You know, there are times when I wish I hadn’t read your file,” she said. “It’s not always a good idea for a woman to know so much about a man.” “And there are times when I wish I didn’t have a file.” There was a moment’s silence. “So, how are things around here, anyway?” asked Buchan, changing the subject. “All quiet.” “Just like the Western Front?” “Something like that,” she said, suddenly businesslike. “Control will tell you all about it.” And rising from her desk, she crossed the room to the thick wooden door that led into the next room.

CHAPTER II The man they all knew as Control was sitting at the large desk that dominated his office. He was reading a file through a pair of wire-rimmed bifocals, his head bowed, his brow furrowed in concentration. He seemed oblivious to their presence and as Natasha closed the door behind her, Buchan cleared his throat.

“Good morning, sir.” For amoment there was no reply, only the low hum of an air-conditioning unit and the faint rumble of a tube train in one of the nearby tunnels. Then keeping his eyes on the file, Control spoke. “‘Morning, Buchan,” he said, the tone characteristically terse. “Take a seat.” Pulling up a chair, Buchan sat down. He glanced around the dimly lit, windowless room that had been the starting point of so many of his adventures, his eyes finally settling on the mounted crest on the wall above Control’s head. It depicted Nemesis, the Greek goddess of vengeance, carrying the scales of justice in one hand and an axe in the other. Beneath, was the scrolled legend, ‘Delentem deleo’ - ‘I destroy the destroyer’. Apart from an aging, colorized, photographic portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II it was the only decoration, and his eyes moved back to Control. “Mind if I smoke, sir?” he asked, reaching for his cigarettes. “No,” replied Control. “Use my ashtray.” Lighting up, Buchan looked back at the man sitting opposite, studying him with a detached, almost clinical curiosity. Short, bull-necked and barrel-chested, Control was an Ulsterman of the Protestant variety: dour, pragmatic, hardy and proud. Despite seventy-plus years of hard use his body still retained the sense of repressed energy normally found in much younger men, and so far as Buchan could tell his mind had lost none of its edge, being more than capable of processing information and controlling events, no matter how murky or complex they might be. As his codename suggested he was very much the man who gave the orders, the man in charge, and Buchan’s trust in him was total. If the old man said, ‘jump’, then he would jump - off a cliff if necessary. Today he was wearing a dark blue single-breasted suit, a slim silk tie, and a plain white shirt, the cuffs heavily starched and frayed at the well-ironed crease. Apart from the rather severe demeanor and steely blue eyes, reflected Buchan, he could have been everyone's favorite uncle. There was little to suggest a life spent in the front line and not for the first time he was forced to remind himself that he was looking at one of the most decorated soldiers serving in British forces - a Jekyll-and-Hyde character that only really came alive in the thick of battle. There was a Military Medal from Korea that Buchan knew about, as an Ulster Rifleman on the Imjin River, fighting back-to-back with a few hundred men of the Gloucestershire Regiment as part of a battle tactic called Meatgrinder. They’d faced 28,000 Chinese and lasted four days before the ammunition ran out. It had been his first year out of school. He’d spent the next two as a POW, during which time he lost half his bodyweight. Together with a serious bout of tuberculosis, that should have marked the end of his military career but it didn't. He was badged into the SAS eighteen months after his release, going on to earn an MC and two bars in Malaya, Borneo, and Dhofar respectively, not to mention a ‘very good’ DSO in Vietnam while on secondment to the Australians. According to some, it should have been a VC but the politicians hadn't wanted the publicity, and estimates of his final tally ran into double figures - the only confusion arising from the fact that many had never been gazetted for security reasons, and one day, reflected Buchan, his life “ s story would make for an interesting obituary... One day, perhaps, but there was still plenty of life in the old dog yet, and he was lighting a second cigarette when Control finally pushed the file to one side and looked up. “So, how are things over on the Continent?” he asked. “Not bad,” replied Buchan, putting the lighter away. “But I was ready for a break.” “Well, I’m sorry for not getting in touch with you sooner. Things have been a bit busy around here.” He pulled a pipe from his pocket and filled it with a thick pinch of tobacco from a wooden box on the desk, tamping the black mixture down with his thumb. “Besides, I thought you'd need a bit of time to recover after

your last adventure.” He lit a match and continued speaking between puffs on the pipe. “That was quite a beating you took, by all accounts. Still, I don’t suppose it was any worse than some of the rucks you’ve been in. How are the ribs, by the way?” “Not bad,” said Buchan recalling the nightmare he’d endured in the Albanian police cell. “The left shoulder’s still a little sore,” he added. “Otherwise, I’m virtually match-fit.” “Good to hear. That was a hell of a shot, by all accounts.” he said, referring to the sniping of the local warlord Buchan had been sent to kill, at long-distance and under very trying conditions. “Very well executed, you might say... You'll be interested to know the French weren't best pleased when they found out. Luckily for us, they blamed the Germans.” Dropping the match into the ashtray, he let slip a thin smile. It was as near as Buchan had ever seen him get to expressing an emotion. “Very good, sir,” said Buchan. There was a moment’s silence. “What have you got for me this time?” Control lowered his eyes to the file on his desk. He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses clean with his tie before replacing them. “It’s an unusual one to say the least,” he said, almost wistfully. “Not quite run-of-the-mill, if you'll excuse the pun. We don't know much about the plot yet, but it's got a hell of a cast...” He was silent for a moment, then he said, “Have you ever heard of the Battle of Mirbat?”

“Yes, sir. Nasty little skirmish back in the early seventies, if I remember rightly.” “That's the one. Well, suffice to say I was there. Nearly lost my life there, too, and would have except for the actions of some funny-looking Scottish corporal. He took a bullet for me in close-quarter combat towards the end of the engagement. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he phoned me the other night. He said that he wanted to call in the favor; said that he had a little problem that needed solving...” He peered over the bifocals. “And that it involves your old friend O’Neill...” As the words sank in Buchan felt an involuntary spasm somewhere deep in his gut. Putting O’Neill away had been one of the only compensations for Vicky’s death, and news of his release as part of the ‘Peace Process’ had been extremely hard to bear. He didn’t believe in peace processes. And he didn’t believe in letting killers like O’Neill out onto the streets, either. Then again, he reflected sourly, there were a lot of things he didn’t believe in anymore. “Pity I didn’t kill him when I had the chance,” he said. “Yes, itis rather. But don't worry. By the look of things, you might get a second shot, so to speak.” Leaving Buchan to ponder the meaning of those words, Control reached forward and depressed a button on one of two handsets on his desk. Natasha’s voice answered over the speakerphone. “Sir?” “Is Mitchell here yet?” “Yes, sir. He’s just arrived.” “Send him in.” Control released the button and looked back at Buchan. “In view of the circumstances, I’ve got the Special Forces liaison officer to brief you. You may remember him from your days in uniform.” He’d barely spoken the words when there was a quiet knock at the door. A smartly dressed man of similar age to Buchan came in. He had the roguish good looks of a matinee idol, and despite the decade or so since their last meeting Buchan had no trouble in recognizing his old friend and colleague, Colin Mitchell. They’d first met at Sandhurst - the only two officers selected for the Gurkhas that year - and had become close friends in the pressure-cooker environment of the basic training course. Since then, they’d been to the Falklands together, got drunk together, played rugby together, even pulled a couple of good-looking birds together. Then, sometime back in the late eighties, Mitchell had transferred to the SAS and they'd gradually lost contact with each other.

Mitchell was a man’s man; big, heavily built, tough. He was a couple of inches over six feet tall when he was standing to attention, but he would never stand to attention again. A sniper’s bullet in the backstreets of Basra had made sure of that. It had left him paralyzed from the waist down, and as he maneuvered his wheelchair up to the desk Buchan rose from his seat. “Hello, Mitchell,” he said simply. The newcomer looked up at Buchan and froze. Then something seemed to register in his mind and a look of recognition crossed his face. “Charlie Hook!” he said suddenly. He shook his head in disbelief. “They told us you were dead.” “Greatly exaggerated,” replied Buchan as they exchanged handshakes. “I’ve been living in Belgium, that’s all.” “Belgium! They told us you were killed in a climbing accident, out in Nepal. I even had a small wake for you in the mess. Pity you missed it, really...” He grinned as Control interrupted them with a cough. “Sorry to break up the reunion lads, but we don’t have much time and really ought to make a start.” He waited for Buchan to settle back into his seat, then glanced over at Mitchell. “To start with, I want to make it clear that your old friend Charlie Hook remains dead, officially at least. The man in front of you is now known as Buchan. John Buchan - like the author - and in case you hadn’t guessed, this is the man I’m sending to find out what happened to Wyatt. Perhaps you could explain the situation to him. You've got a better idea of what’s going on than I have... Oh, and before you start, there's something else you ought to know. Do you remember the Strabane incident, back in ‘90?” Mitchell nodded uncertainly. “I’ve read the file.” “Well,” continued Control, “You may be interested to hear that the man in front of you was the ex-soldier, Randall.” A look of confusion returned to Mitchell’s face. “Randall? Didn’t he die from his injuries?” “Just about the same time as your friend Hook was killed in the Himalayas, if I remember rightly,” said Control. “And about the same time as this chap Buchan came into existence...” Mitchell grinned, then after a moment’s reflection he asked if the rest of what he’d read on Strabane was true. “Yes,” said Control. “All of it.”

“But isn’t there a danger that O’Neill will recognize him, then?” Control looked to Buchan for an answer. Reluctantly, Buchan searched his memory of the incident. It was like opening a long-sealed tomb. Bleak images of violence and death trickled into his mind, defying his conscious desire to forget them. He remembered the voices, the gunshots and the screams. Then he remembered the period of utter calm in the moments following Vicky’s death. And how time and space became malleable things that only he could understand, only he could control; to be manipulated and exploited according to his whim, and his whim alone. And how, perhaps for the first time in his life, he’d really understood what it was to hate... He shook his head. “No,” he said, coolly. “Several of them got a good look at me. O’Neill wasn’t one of them. He never saw what hit him - literally - and was unconscious, almost from the start. None of the others survived the blast.”

Mitchell persisted. “What about Cochrane?” The very mention of the name struck Buchan like a hammer to the head, and for a brief moment he didn't say anything. “What about him?” he asked at last. “Did he see your face?” Even now Buchan could see Cochrane as his finger tightened on the trigger, his dark eyes hard and implacable as they aligned the handgun with the center of Buchan's heart... He stubbed out his cigarette. “I thought Cochrane was dead.” Mitchell shook his head. “Some say he made it.”

“Even if he did,” said Control, “they found enough of his body parts to fill a large carrier bag. At best, he’s on several different types of life-support machine. They’d never have taken him on something like this.” Mitchell seemed satisfied. He unzipped an attaché case on his lap and pulled out a plain black folder wrapped with a light brown ribbon. It was marked TOP SECRET and stamped IMAXEF - Immediate Maximum Effort - a very rare categorization in Buchan’s experience. With his imagination now racing, he watched as his old friend broke a numbered metal seal with his thumbnail and tore the ribbon off. “We think we’ve lost a man in Mexico,” said Mitchell, pulling a pair of army-issue spectacles from his chest pocket. He slipped them on. “An Operator with Group.” He adjusted the spectacles. “He’s also our highest placed source within the various IRA networks.” Opening the folder, he pulled out a glossy 8-by-10-inch photograph that he passed to Buchan. It showed a man’s face - tough, resolute, unyielding - with small hard eyes and scar tissue in all the usual places. It was the face of a bare-knuckle boxer, built to last, and looked like it could take an awful lot of punishment before it ever quit. “He’s Major Steven Wyatt,” continued Mitchell. “An ex-Para who worked his way up through the ranks before transferring to the SAS and then to Group. He’s forty-six years old and single, never married...” He left the words hanging heavily in the air. Like napalm settling, thought Buchan. Waiting for a spark. He put a cigarette to his lips and lit up. Then, witha terrible inevitability, Control spoke, the pipe clenched between his teeth. “We think he’s dead,” he said simply, his lips hardly moving. Mitchell scratched his forehead. He passed Buchan a newspaper clipping. “Mexico City picked this up the day before yesterday. It’s probably the nearest thing the poor bastard will ever get to an obituary.” Buchan took the clipping. The headline was in Spanish and reported how fishermen had pulled a body from the sea. Beneath it was an artist’s impression of a man’s face, like a poorly drafted version of the picture he’d just seen. The accompanying text, also in Spanish, described the corpse as male and Caucasian. The age was given as somewhere between forty and fifty and was followed by a selection of vital statistics which Buchan automatically memorized. “The statistics match,” said Mitchell. “He didn’t have many distinguishing features to speak of - Operators don’t - but there is a small birth mark that might prove useful.” He passed Buchan another photograph. “It’s on his lower back, in the shape of a crescent about an inch and a half long.” Buchan examined the picture, committing the image to memory. “And there’s a lump on his right shoulder,” he continued. “The result of a broken collarbone.” Buchan passed the photographs back and took a second look at the newspaper clipping. The rest of the article said that anybody recognizing the deceased should report to a Comandante Hernandez at the police station in San Miguel de la Cruz. “Where the hell is San Miguel de la Cruz?” he asked. “It’s a small town on the west coast of the Yucatan peninsula,” replied Mitchell. “What’s there?” “Not much. It was a port once, of some importance a hundred years ago. Now, it’s not much more than an overgrown fishing village. The offshore oil industry brings a little business, and it pulls in the occasional tourist who’s strayed off the beaten track. They mainly go there for the bird-watching. The largest flamingo sanctuary in the Americas is close by, oh, and the local seafood’s highly recommended, especially the crab claws.” “What was Wyatt’s record like?” asked Buchan. “Exemplary,” replied Mitchell. “One of the best.” “Any signs of mental stress,” asked Control. “Anything untoward in his behavior?” “No,” replied Mitchell after some consideration. “Not Wyatt.” Buchan spoke up. “What about O’Neill? What the hell has he got to do with all this?”

“That,” said Mitchell, “is a very good question.” Shuffling through his papers he pulled one of the sheets free. “We think it has something to do with the ceasefire. O’Neill’s been opposed to it from the start. According to statements, he dismisses it as - and I quote - ‘just another phase in the struggle’. And he’s talked openly about ‘going back to what he knows best’; what he calls, ‘unfinished business’. “We also think he’s looking for a way to make his opposition known to a wider audience,” added Control. “Something big.”

CHAPTER III Buchan tapped a quarter of an inch of ash from his cigarette. “So, what’s going on?” he asked. “This is what we know,” said Mitchell. He cleared his throat and started to read from the sheet. “On the second of this month O’Neill booked three first class

tickets from Belfast to Barcelona via Heathrow for travel on the fifteenth. One of them was for Billy Kennedy, his second-in-command...” He passed another mug shot across, this one of a moody-looking individual with beady eyes, a long, crooked nose and lips as thin as scalpels. “Kennedy’s a butcher by trade, and a butcher by reputation,” he continued. “He runs a money lending operation and is known for collecting outstanding debts with a meat cleaver. A bit of a hard man, by all accounts, and one to watch out for.”

He shuffled his papers. “The other ticket was for a known player called Noel McManus. He’s served a

total of five years for a variety of offences under the

Prevention of Terrorism Act, but has been keeping a low profile recently and we thought he’d retired from active service. Until this came up, that is. Then, on the thirteenth, two days before they were due to travel, McManus was involved in a head-on collision with a cement truck on the outskirts of Dublin. He’s off the

critical list now but won’t be going anywhere for some time.” Buchan guessed what was coming next. “And Wyatt took his place on the flight?” “That’s right. We think he was brought in as a late substitute,” said Mitchell. “Did he know he was going?” “We don’t think so. He was in regular contact with Credenhill right up until that morning. I checked with his CO - there’d been no mention of foreign travel, and nothing to indicate the possibility of it. The airline said the ticket wasn’t changed until the last minute and that he didn’t check any luggage, so it’s quite possible.” Mitchell reached for the attaché case. “He did, however, try to make contact with us from Mexico a few days ago.” Pulling out a tape recorder he laid it on the desk. “It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.” He pushed the ‘play’ button. There was a short silence, followed by one short ring and a click. Awoman’s voice came on. “Credenhill. Go ahead, please...” It was a poor connection, but Buchan had no difficulty recognizing the snap and crackle of high-velocity gunfire in the background. It died down gradually and words became suddenly audible. “It’s Franchise...” said a man’s voice, gasping heavily. “Tell Mainstay I’m aborting. Repeat, aborting...” Mitchell paused the tape, his finger hovering over the button. “GCHQ ran a series of tests on the voice. That’s definitely Wyatt speaking. ‘Franchise’ was his codename. 'Mainstay’ is his CO. We analyzed the gunfire; at least two AK-47’s, one M-16, and a 9mm sub-machine gun, probably a Skorpion. We think Wyatt was unarmed, as there was no return of fire, and I think it’s fair to conclude he didn’t have much time to talk.”

He pushed the ‘play’ button again. Wyatt was still panting into the mouthpiece. “Tell him...” More shots crackled over the speaker in three-round bursts. Then the receiver clattered against something solid. “Tell him...” repeated Wyatt, his words all but unintelligible over the staccato noise, and Mitchell paused the tape a second time. “We're not sure about this bit,” he said, scratching his chin. “We think one of the words is ‘Hannah’.”

Buchan stubbed his cigarette out. “Who's that?” asked Buchan uncertainly. “His girlfriend?” “No,” replied Mitchell. “As far as we can make out the only Hannah he ever knew was a maiden aunt. Our best guess is he was referring to the hurricane.” “Hurricane?” queried Buchan. “Hannah,” explained Control. “She’s due in the Caribbean any day now. She’s only a naughty little girl at the moment, but she’s tightly packed and growing all the time. According to the weathermen, she’s showing every indication of becoming a monster.”

“What’s a hurricane got to do with all this?” Mitchell shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” With that he played the next few seconds of tape. There was a muffled sound followed by several loud bangs, then he paused it again. “The backroom boys think he might have said the words ‘Level’ and ‘Five’ there, but we can’t be sure. If so, there are various interpretations relating to levels of security and preparedness for war, and so on, but none of them seem to tally with what’s going on. Again, we think he was referring to the hurricane. They’re measured on something called the Saffir-Simpson scale. It runs from ‘one’ to ‘five’ - ‘five’ being the worst. Hannah’s only a ‘two’ at the moment. ‘Five’ is what they reckon she’ll become.” A short silence followed, then Mitchell released the pause button. There was the sound of breaking glass and what might have been a scream, and a few seconds later the line clicked dead. He stopped the tape. “That’s all there is,” he said. “The call was made at 0023 hours, local time, on the twentieth. We traced it to an office at a petrol station, about twenty miles south of San Miguel.” Opening a map of the Yucatan peninsula onto the desk, he pointed out the town, then ran his finger down a main road to a tiny petrol pump symbol, a few miles from the coast and surrounded by a vast tract of jungle. “As you can see,” he added, “it’s in the middle of nowhere.” Checking the key and scale, Buchan examined that section of the map in detail. There were no other structures for several miles in any direction, the nearest being a collection of buildings a few miles to the south, and a railway track passed close by, running more or less parallel to the main road in a north-south direction. “What’s there?” he asked, pointing to the buildings. “The ruins of an abandoned hacienda called San Geronimo. It ’ s one of hundreds to be found across the peninsula. They were once important in the production of henequen, apparently.” “Heineken?” Mitchell grinned. “No, henequen. What we call ‘sisal’. It’ s one of the best raw materials out there where rope is concerned and demand for it was sky-high in the period after the Industrial Revolution. It was as important to the region as whales were to Nantucket or rubber to Malaysia. We tried to get satellite shots of the place, but the cloud cover has been impenetrable.” “What about the railway?” “It’s single track and connects two of the region’s main cities: Mérida to the north and Campeche to the south. It’s used regularly by freight trains, maybe a dozen times a week.” Buchan looked back at the newspaper clipping, as though hoping to learn something from the artist’s impression. Then, folding it several times, he slipped it into his jacket pocket. “I take it he was too disfigured to be shown in a photograph.” “That was our conclusion,” said Mitchell. “The Mexicans

aren't squeamish when it comes to these things. It could have been the fish, but given the

circumstances, I think it’s reasonable to assume he died the hard way.” “Do you think he talked?” Mitchell shook his head. “No,” he said solemnly. “His kind don’t.” “So, what happened between the fifteenth and the twentieth?” “They were met by two Basques in Barcelona,” replied Mitchell, passing a couple of colour photographs across. “They’re closely associated with the San Sebastian Command and well known to the security forces there.” Buchan examined the photographs. They were from Spanish police archives and showed two heavily bearded men holding prison numbers in front of their chests. Neither would have won any prizes in a beauty contest. Both had the kind of dark Latin features that would have made them shoe-ins to play the

‘bandidos’ in any Spaghetti Western, and were almost indistinguishable but for a scowl engrained into the face of one of them - whether contrived or congenital, Buchan couldn't tell. Mitchell checked his notes. “The one with the scowl is Julen Irigaray. He’s been living in France for the last few years. We don’t know much about him, but he’s believed to have close links with the Palestinians. The other one is called Medina. Fernando Rafael Medina. He’s six-foot-six in his stockings and quite a character, if that’s the right word. He’ s thought to be personally responsible for the deaths of at least seventeen Civil Guards and is considered by many to be a future contender for the ETA leadership. He’s known to be very good with a gun, even better with a knife, and best avoided by all accounts.” “So, they linked up in Barcelona. Then what?” “It turns out they all drove to Madrid the next day and took an Iberia flight to Cuba that night. We lost track of them on landing, but new intelligence suggests they may have spent a few days at a private beach resort on the south coast that doubles as a brothel.” Mitchell reached for another photograph. “At first, we thought it was just another meeting of the clans - an opportunity to compare notes, sleep with girls half their age, that kind of thing. Then, two days later an American intelligence source reported the arrival of this man in Havana.” An accompanying photograph from Mitchell showed a lean, hatchet-faced individual descending the steps from an Aeroflot Ilyushin. Another showed the same man at a restaurant table, the lobby of the Hotel Nacional in the background. “He's Ali Hassan Hussein. Operational Commander of Hezbollah,” continued Mitchell. “A very big fish. He flew there via Moscow, along with about thirty of his best guerrillas from their elite military wing. According to Mossad he's been very active lately and behaving in a way that suggests something unusual might be in the pipeline.” Buchan whistled softly. “So where does Mexico come into all this?” he asked. “We're not sure of that either,” answered Mitchell. “But the Americans tracked three light aircraft flying from the resort on the nineteenth, about six hours before the call was made. All three were return flights to an unknown destination in the Yucatan, at night and in radio silence. It’s thought they used a landing strip as there is no record of any aircraft fitting their flight plan using any of the local airports.” “The only other connection we can make is with the Basques,” added Control. “Mexico’s always been a bolt-hole for the Left. Trotsky used it, so did Guevara and Castro, and a lot of the ETA elite went there when the Spanish started to get tough at the beginning of the eighties. Some have returned to Spain now, or moved on to South America. Others stayed behind and were instrumental in establishing the EZLN.” Buchan lit another cigarette. “The what?” he asked. “The Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, or Zapatista National Liberation Army,” explained Mitchell. “It’s your standard Marxist terrorist organization the kind you find throughout Latin America. They're run by a certain ‘Sub-Comandante Marcos’. He's one of those bearded Che Guevara wannabes, still dreaming about a worldwide Communist revolution and all that. He's currently thought to be holed up in the highlands several hundred miles to the southwest, and while we don’t think he’s directly involved he could almost certainly be relied on to provide arms and logistical support.” “How do you rate them?” “I don’t,” said Mitchell. “There have been a few scuffles with the army and the odd unaccounted massacre, but it’s all very routine. If anything, they’re a bit of a joke. The Mexican press calls Marcos, ‘El Sub-Comediante’ - the Sub-Comedian - and if it wasn’t for the attention he gets in the foreign media, the army would have taken him out long ago.” “What about a drug connection?” asked Buchan. “The IRA and the Palestinians have been making a lot of inroads in Latin America lately and I read somewhere that Mexico recently overtook Colombia as the biggest supplier to the US. Maybe they’re just trying to expand their network. There was mention of somebody called ‘The Eagle’. If my memory serves me right, he was based in the Yucatan and would seem to fit the bill.”

“You're thinking of José Antonio Del Aguila,” said Control, puffing on the pipe as he spoke. “The head of the Gulf Cartel. He’s a nasty piece of work all right, but the Mexicans broke his operation up some time ago, and he’s being held at their equivalent of Her Majesty’s pleasure as we speak. All the same, I haven't discounted his involvement. From what we know about the state of Mexican law enforcement, anything’s possible.” “So, what do you think they’re up to?” asked Buchan. “We don’t know,” replied Control. “Nobody does. But whatever it is, Wyatt was our best hope of finding out.” “Any idea why he aborted?” Mitchell answered. “There are two possibilities. The most likely is that one of the Arabs recognized him. He once spent some time in Saudi on a training mission with the SAS. As luck would have it, he got caught up in an assassination attempt. He killed five of the assailants but the sixth was captured alive. The Saudis assured us he’ d died under interrogation, but we now know that to be a lie as he was travelling with Hussein when they landed in Havana last week. Needless to say, it’s not a situation we could have anticipated.” “What’s the other possibility?” “That he aborted on purpose. That he had to get in touch with us by any means, whatever the cost. That he took a chance and got caught.” “Whatever happened to him,” added Control, “it’s your job to find out. The operation is called 'Payment'.” He sat back in the chair. “I’ve got you on an afternoon flight to Houston. Once there, you'll take a connecting flight to Mérida due to arrive at nine o’clock in the evening. Make sure you don’t miss it - the airlines are expected to start canceling flights in the area from tomorrow on account of the hurricane.” He tapped the ash from his pipe into the ashtray and asked Mitchell if he had anything to add. Mitchell didn’t. He removed his spectacles and started to gather his papers. Control looked over at Buchan. “Any questions?” “Just this, sir. What if, by some strange coincidence, this is a case of mistaken identity? What if it isn’t Wyatt lying on the slab?” “Then you're to proceed as though it is. I know it’s a bit outside your usual remit, but I’ve got a hunch about this one. There’ s a storm brewing over there, that much is clear - and I’ m not just talking about the hurricane. Wyatt got caught up in it and I want to know what it is.” He sat back in his chair. “Anything else?” Buchan shook his head and stubbed his cigarette out. Turning to Mitchell, Control said, “Thank you, Mitchell. That will be all.” Mitchell nodded. He looked back at Buchan. “Well, good luck, then. By the sound of things, you're going to need it.” He passed over his card. “Give mea call when you get back? We can catch up over a pint or two...” “Will do,” said Buchan. Short goodbyes were exchanged, then with a last nod Mitchell left the room.

CHAPTER IV “Was there anything else, sir?” asked Buchan. “Yes. There is one more thing.” “Sir?” “Payment will be your last operation.” Buchan felt like he’d been hit with a low blow. “Sir?” “It’s what we’ve been expecting for some time, I’m afraid. We’re being shut down. It seems the powers that be don’t think we’re relevant anymore.” Riding a rising wave of anger, Buchan put a fresh cigarette to his lips and lit up. “I didn’t think they knew we existed,” he said. “They didn ‘t. Up until last month, that is. It was a bit of bad luck, really. One of your ex-colleagues died recently. A former Royal Marine called Vickers. His younger brother was one of the fifty shot after the Great Escape, and he was amongst our first recruits. A good one too. He’d specifically instructed his family to burn his personal effects, but his granddaughter happened to go through them first. It turns out she’s a human rights activist, with strong CND credentials and all that. Needless to say, what she found appalled her, and a few weeks ago she started a campaign for an official enquiry. Unfortunately for us, her connections go right to the top and it wasn’t long before members of the cabinet were asking a lot of awkward questions. I think we might have got away with it, but for the Chief of the Defense Staff. He told them everything.” Buchan resisted the urge to swear, then gave in to it. Meanwhile Control searched his desk for a sheet of paper. He picked it up. “Hard to believe, I know,” he said, scanning some text for a quote. “But this is the same man who claims the main challenge facing the armed forces is the lack of what he calls, ‘race and gender equity’. Anyway, the PM blew his top when he found out; said he wanted us closed down overnight. I appealed to him directly, and he gave me fifteen minutes a few days ago. It was a formality, really. He’d already made up his mind. But somebody had to say something, if only for the record. He spouted some nonsense about the ‘need for change’; arguing that we were an anachronism that should have been closed down years ago; and that, anyway, the Treasury couldn't afford us.” “They seem to find the money for just about everything else,” said Buchan, through gritted teeth. “Yes,” agreed Control. “They do, don't they. Well, I’ve managed a stay of execution till eighteen hundred GMT on Friday. That’s midday, local time in Mexico, and not a minute later. After that, you'll have to abort.” “Abort?” queried Buchan. He didn’t like the idea. He’d never aborted a mission in his life, and he didn’t intend to start now. “That’s right. That gives you less than four days, I’m afraid, which means there won't be much time for getting to know the lie of the land or fraternizing with the locals, and all that. And there won't be time for any second chances, either.” Crumpling the sheet in his hand, Control tossed it into the wastepaper basket. “If it’s any consolation,” he went on, “we're not alone. They’re axing just about everything else, all at atime when the world situation has hardly been less stable or our resources more stretched. Meanwhile morale, recruitment, retention and combat readiness are plummeting. God only knows what we'd do if there was a real war...” He clamped his jaw shut around the pipe, the bowl black and cold. “Sometimes I think that we're the last of a dying breed,” he said at last. “People like you and me. The Old Breed. The one they said would never die, but now we’re almost extinct. And it’s not just us. It’s the whole country. The whole of the Western world. It’s almost as though we’ve lost the will to survive, as though we're just waiting for someone to put us out of our misery. Some people that I know liken it to suffering from some kind of undiagnosed disease, but that’s doing a disservice to cancer, rabies, cholera and all the other disgusting, life-threatening afflictions.

Whatever it is, it’s something much worse than they ever were; something much more sinister, more insidious. And more ruthless. And no single aspect of our lives, no matter how important, no matter how sacred, seems to be immune.”

He paused to refill his pipe, then reached for a light. The first match broke against the side of the box. He dropped it into the ashtray and fumbled for another. He lit up, sucking the flame deep into the bowl, before continuing. “I spoke to my grandson last week,” he said. “He’s a lovely lad; fifteen years old. Turns out he’s studying the Second World War for his GCSEs. He said he found it all very boring, so I thought I'd spice things up a bit by telling him about his great-grandfather’s experiences in Bomber Command, and his reaction was one of utter disgust. He said he felt ashamed to be related to such a man. After that, he got into an argument with his mother, and the whole thing ended up with him calling me a ‘fascist’...” He paused to puff life into the pipe, a glossy sheen settling over his eyes. “I have served my country now for more than fifty years," he went on. "And in that time, I’ve fought alongside thousands of men; men from all walks of life; men who were hungry, exhausted, and hopelessly outnumbered; men who were shelled and shot at until they were senseless; men who should have surrendered or run, but, who, through it all, laughed and sang and cried and kept on fighting. In exchange, they never asked for very much. Certainly not fame, or money, or power. They never expected any of those things. No, all they asked for was a sense of continuity, an idea of permanence; the promise that what they were dying for wouldn't die with them; that future generations would never forget what they had done; that somehow they, and the values they fought for, would live on, that they would become enshrined in the nation’s consciousness...” His speech slowed now, the tone deepening. “Of course, I can’t claim to know what those values were,” he said. “Every man had his own. But I do know what they didn’t include. And it didn’t include a country that would voluntarily surrender its sovereignty to its historic, long-standing enemies. Nor did they fight for a country that would open the borders they'd shed so much blood to defend; or a society in which criminals and terrorists would be allowed to roam the streets at will. Nor did they fight for a system which would tax, harass and spy on them every minute of every day; in which they couldn't even say a joke - let alone a much-needed home truth - without fear of official reprisal. And they sure as hell didn’t fight and die for Britain in which their grandchildren would grow up to call them fascists...” He paused again, collecting his thoughts. “I never thought I'd say it, but looking back, the ones that died were the lucky ones. They didn’t live to see the great betrayal that was to follow, to see the wasting of all their efforts. We couldn’t have made it a land less fit for heroes to live in if we'd tried...” He took the pipe from his mouth, then looked across at Buchan, his eyes filled with a sudden intensity that shook the younger man. “To be honest I can't say I care what happens anymore,” he said. “I can’t take their hypocrisy, their lies, and their double standards. There’s no room for it, not when it comes to the defense of the realm, not when it comes to matters of life and death. Because, in the end, this is still a Darwinian world and the struggle for resources is still real. Because, in the end, rights and resources that cannot be defended are not worth a damn. Because, in the end, someone has to do the dirty work when they - the politicians

- get it wrong. I know it’s sometimes easy to forget such archaic, unpalatable truths in the modern age of relative peace and hyper-abundance, but if history has taught us anything it’s that groups which fail to remember them have always paid with their prosperity, their freedoms, and their lives. And they always will.” “Don’t worry, sir,” said Buchan. “Britain can take it. We’re past masters at seeing the light just in time. And there’s still time.” “Is there?” asked Control rhetorically, lowering his gaze as his voice trailed away. He blinked twice, then sat back in his chair. He seemed to relax a little. “I’m sorry,” he said. “As you can imagine, it’s been a hell of a week. Events have taken their toll. You'll be paid your pension, of course. And you're eligible for another new identity, if you want one.” “All things being equal, I’ll stick with the one I’ve got, thank you.” Control nodded. “I don’t suppose you've got any ideas of what you'll do next.” “No, sir. Not a clue. I haven’t given it much thought. In a way, I never really expected to reach retirement.” Control cracked a sympathetic smile. “You're past forty now. Shouldn't you be thinking about settling down, getting married, and all that?”

“I’m not really the marrying kind, sir,” replied Buchan. “Well, at least you won't have to worry about finding work,” said Control. “I could put in a quiet word to some of my contacts, if you like. There are a lot of people who'd pay good money for someone with your skills.” Buchan considered the offer. “Thanks, but sometimes I think I’m getting a bit too old for all this. A break probably wouldn't do any harm.” Crushing the cigarette in the ashtray, he checked his watch. It was twenty to twelve. “I probably ought to get going,” he said. “Yes,” replied Control almost absentmindedly. “I suppose you probably should.” He looked over at Buchan, his eyes now empty of expression. “But there is one more thing,” he said, his voice taking on a cold hard edge. He gestured across at the file on his desk. “If any of those bastards should happen to get in the way, make sure you kill them, will you? You might help make an old man’s retirement a little bit more tolerable.” “Yes, sir,” replied Buchan dispassionately. “Don’t mind if I do.”

CHAPTER V Normally, when Buchan and Control met or parted, they didn’t shake hands. But this time they did, and the next thing Buchan knew, he was back in Natasha’s office. She rose from her seat to hand him a buff envelope. “Here’s a copy of the report,” she said without preamble. “Read and destroy. And here are your travel documents.” She passed him another, similar envelope, together with a guidebook on Mexico. “They’re in your name, as usual.” “What about my cover?” Buchan asked. “We haven't prepared one, I’m afraid. Partly due to lack of time; partly because Mexico is such a major tourist destination that even a big lunk like you should escape notice. If you’re looking for suggestions bird-watching springs to mind. You don’t look much like a twitcher, but they tend to be weird bunch and people don’t usually ask too many questions.” She returned to her desk. “Your flight to Houston leaves at ten to four,” she continued. “Once there, you'll take the evening flight to Mérida where you'll be met at the airport by the representative of a local car hire company. Take the Jeep he offers you. A weapon will be hidden under the driver’s seat in the usual manner. And here’s some cash,” she added, passing him a slim wad of banknotes. “US dollars and Mexican pesos equivalent to two thousand pounds. We can provide more if you need it.” “Thanks, Natasha. I don’t know what I'd do without you,” said Buchan, taking the money. “But by the look of things, I’m about to find out.” “You've heard the news, then?”

“Yes,” he replied. “What will you do?” “I don’t know yet. I suppose Ill just take each day as it comes. What about you?” he asked. “Any plans?” “I'm looking forward to a long and peaceful retirement out in the country with my dogs and horses.” “Well, at least it means we can have dinner now.”

“Yes,” she answered. “There is that. You can tell me all about how you get on... that’s if you don’t go and fall in love with some pretty little Mexican girl first.” “It'll have to be love at first sight. I’m only there for a few days and my diary’s already full.” Natasha smiled. “What about O’Neill’s involvement?” she said. “You won’t let it affect your judgment, will you? You won't get carried away and do something stupid?” “Don’t worry. All that happened a long time ago. I’m over it now.” It was a lie, of course. He knew and she knew it. She smiled again. “Well, good luck. ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’, and all that?” She checked her watch. “Speaking of which, you'd better get going. You’ve got a flight to catch. Control would be furious if he knew you were still here.” Attached to Natasha's office was a small flat with three bedrooms, one of which had been assigned to Buchan. More of a barrack room than a bedroom it contained a simple, single, metal-framed bed, a side-table and several large, fitted wardrobes. He opened one of these to reveal a vast array of apparel and accessories. The Yucatan Peninsula, he remembered now, was both tropical and low-lying. It was a combination that spelled heat and humidity and mosquitoes, and with that in mind he reached for a small, battered, blue-grey Globetrotter suitcase and packed it with a selection of lightweight clothing, his wash kit, anda pocket-sized pair of Leica binoculars.

As ever at this stage of the proceedings he felt a stirring in his stomach coupled with a growing sense of the challenges to come. Added to this, was the bitter-sweet knowledge that not only was this going to be his last mision, it was also, without any shadow of a doubt, going to be his most important. O’Neill’s involvement had guaranteed that. And squeezing the case tightly shut, he swapped the Belstaff jacket for a lighter linen one and made his way back into the museum. There, the last room of the exhibition contained a small section detailing Churchill’s career in office, including documents relating to his dismissal at the hands of the electorate on July 25th, 1945 shortly before the end of the war. A photograph showed the famous politician looking up from his desk, his eyes hard and staring, his mouth grimly set. He looked like a contemptuous bulldog, and a typed statement issued by him on the matter expressed only one regret: that he had not been able ‘to finish the work’. Buchan stopped to read it, the way he sometimes did, and hoping that the same fate wouldn’t happen to him, he strode on towards the exit.

PART FOUR CHAPTER I When Buchan emerged onto the street a few minutes later, Big Ben was striking the hour in the distance. After Control’s angry words, it sounded all too much like a death knell and he was grateful for the anonymous Ford saloon that was waiting for him at the curb. He climbed in. An equally anonymous driver was sitting up front, and without greeting or instruction the driver set off through the traffic towards Heathrow Airport. Settling back into his seat, Buchan opened the dossier Natasha had just given him, and read through the brief introduction, the file on Wyatt, and the strange combination of circumstances that led him to being killed in Mexico. Much of it was now familiar to him and before long he reached the section on the drug lord, José Antonio Del Aguila. Until his arrest, Del Aguila’s identity had been Mexico’s best-kept secret, with no photographs of him known to exist. Natasha had, however, included one taken since then. It showed a conspicuously handsome man of medium size, with broad shoulders and a strong neck who in some ways reminded Buchan of a Second World War resistance fighter from one of the Mediterranean countries. He had thick, black hair slicked back at the sides, dark, fiercely intelligent eyes, and a neat black moustache; the mouth beneath it, well-defined - contemptuous even - and without the faintest trace of pity. He had been born in a small mountain village in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, the illegitimate son of a rich hacienda owner and his Indian maid. The date was December 3rd, 1956, 1958, or, 1959, depending on which of several supporting documents you chose to believe, putting the drug lord somewhere in his fifties. In an industry where life expectancies were notoriously short, that was something of an achievement in itself. But Del Aguila was nothing if not a survivor, as the rest of his story would show. Although details of his early life were sketchy, it is thought he enjoyed a normal, if somewhat impoverished childhood. All that came to an end in the midseventies, though, when thousands of federal troops operating under the command of a certain Colonel Adolfo Morales launched a surprise raid on the village as part of a search-and-destroy mission aimed at eradicating the primitive but flourishing marijuana trade there. The ‘War on Drugs’ had officially begun, and Del Aguila’s mother was amongst the first casualties. The official version claimed she accidentally inhaled the defoliating agent used in the operation. The unofficial version told a different story, however. It said she'd been raped by the marauding troops, suffering an internal hemorrhage in the process. Either way, she died within a few days of the army’s arrival and the young Del Aguila left the area soon after, never to return. What happened to him then remained a mystery, but when Morales was brutally murdered in Mexico City a few years later, the dead soldier's participation in the raid was reviewed and it wasn't long before Del Aguila was being sought by the police. It was to prove a fruitless task. No arrest was made and nothing else was heard about him until six months later when a middle-aged housewife was stopped at random by US Customs officers. She was, it transpired, carrying over 250,000 dollars in cash, and during the interrogation that followed she confessed to working for a hitherto unknown drug-running operation known as the Gulf Cartel, and that the head of the Gulf Cartel was a man called José Antonio Del Aguila. If the authorities had been hoping for a breakthrough, they were to be disappointed. Quite simply, they were unable to discover anything else about the man, but before long it became clear that Del Aguila had skillfully positioned himself to take advantage of three endemic, interlocking and apparently irreducible primaries. First and foremost was the massive, growing and unquenchable desire of Americans to snort, smoke, inject and otherwise intoxicate themselves with whatever drugs, legal or illegal, that they could get their hands on - especially cocaine. Led by a veritable Who’s Who of leading celebrities, businessmen,

politicians, journalists and athletes, the drug seemed to hold the nation in a magical spell that ranked alongside alcohol, cigarettes and sex in its universal appeal. Coke was status. Coke was cool. Coke meant that you were Somebody, and, as soon became clear, nothing the government, police, parents or the media said was

ever going to change that simple, hard, indisputable fact. The second was the sheer volume of money involved. This, coupled with Mexico's innate, legendary and seemingly limitless capacity for bribery and corruption, made for a powerful, not to say intractable mix. It was once famously said that 'No Mexican general can resist a cannonade of 50,000 pesos', and what was once true of their generals was now true of their judges, politicians, customs officers and policemen as well. Del Aguila understood this, boasted about it even, claiming to have single-handedly redistributed more income to the poor than any government in the country's history - a claim that was closer to the truth than many liked to admit. None of this, of course, did anything to detract from his growing status as a cult hero amongst the Mexican masses. Like some latter-day Robin Hood, a mythology soon sprang up around him, and before long he could count on a support network that reached into every corner of the land, further consolidating his already formidable position. And the third factor, the report went on, was purely geographical. Mexico's land border with the USA is almost two thousand miles long and largely uninhabited and unprotected, making it a natural choice for smugglers through the ages. So, when the US clamped down on drug trafficking across the Caribbean in the early eighties it didn’t take the Colombian cartels long to look for alternatives in that part of the world. Del Aguila was the first to provide them with one and his timing was immaculate. All the rest was simple arithmetic. Business was as brisk as it was brutal, and by the late eighties, Del Aguila’s activities accounted for approximately eighty per cent of the cocaine reaching the continent, making him in excess of three hundred million dollars a week - or, more than fifteen billion a year - an amount the DEA compared to the annual profits of Chrysler, McDonald’s, AT&T, Texaco and Disney combined, all of it tax-free. An estimate of his personal wealth at the

time conservatively concluded that it lay somewhere between twenty-five and thirty billion dollars. Much of this, it turned out, would be cleverly recycled into a massive, diverse and rapidly expanding business empire that was thought to include armaments factories in Eastern Europe and Central America; chemical and pharmaceutical companies in Asia; a weapons research complex in Argentina, and a telecommunications business that spanned most of Latin America. Then, in 1990, a US intelligence analysis reported that Del Aguila had started to by-pass the Colombians to buy directly from producers in Peru and Bolivia, a development that led to an attempt on his life by one of the country’s larger cartels in the spring of 1991. Del Aguila had been eating at a top Mexico City restaurant along with his wife, his daughter, a few close friends and a twelve-strong bodyguard when nine smartly dressed businessmen entered carrying briefcases. These, it quickly transpired, contained machine pistols, and seventeen people were killed in the ensuing carnage, including his wife, three of the bodyguards and all nine of the assassins. But Del Aguila survived. It seems his policy of not being photographed had paid off - the Colombians were simply unable to identify their target - and in the dam-burst if vengeance that followed key members of the rival cartel started to disappear under mysterious circumstances, or die suddenly in a series of car crashes, random accidents, and explosions, or had their throats slit, or were simply gunned down in a hail of bullets wherever they happened to be standing at the time. Dozens, if not hundreds, were killed. Then, some three months after the incident in the restaurant, the badly mutilated remains of seven men were found in 50-gallon barrels full of acid on the outskirts of Bogota. One of them was subsequently identified by the serial number on his penis implant as the head of the cartel involved, and within twelve months the organization had all but ceased to exist. It proved to be something of a watershed in the Mexican’s career, and he quickly set about establishing himself as the capo di tutti capi by creating his own private army. This, the report made clear, was not to be confused with the ragtag militias that so many crime lords tend to surround themselves with, but was an actual army, a private war machine with no equivalent in the western hemisphere. Known colloquially as ‘Los Zeros’ after their policy of leaving no enemy alive, they were recruited en masse from Mexico's special forces brigades and its paramilitary police. Or perhaps ‘recruited’ wasn’t quite the right word, thought

Buchan. In an act that was to duplicate his purchase of various police forces in the previous decade, the drug lord simply bought whole battalions outright, complete with their support units, equipment and commanding officers. Over the next few years, this army was to prove itself time and time again, clearing the way for the further expansion of Del Aguila’s business interests, and before long he was the owner of the world’s largest fleet of charter jets - earning himself the nickname ‘El Sefor de los Cielos’ or, ‘Lord of the Skies’. He flew them in non-stop rotation to northern Mexico, where they were unloaded by federal police for redistribution to what he called ‘The great white nostril in the North’. It was an operation the director of the DEA was to describe to a congressional committee as ‘the premier law enforcement threat facing the United States’, before denouncing the Mexican as ‘a sadist, a psychopath, and an extremely dangerous individual’. For a while his rise had seemed unstoppable, then the sudden collapse of the Mexican peso in the late nineties gave the US authorities the chance they had been waiting for. They threatened to withhold a much needed twenty billion dollar loan unless Del Aguila was taken into custody, and much to everybody's surprise he was captured without bloodshed in an Acapulco nightclub several weeks later. The trial had been a formality, and the judge sentenced him to seventy-five life terms at the Mexican equivalent of Her Majesty's Pleasure - in this case a newly built maximum-security prison close to Mérida. Called the Reclusorio Preventivo Cinco de Mayo, it was known locally as ‘Las Tumbas’ - or ‘The Tombs’ - and, according to a recent Amnesty International report, had one of the worst human rights records of any institution anywhere on earth. There was nothing in the report to suggest a connection between Del Aguila and the Zapatistas, nor any suggestion that he continued to pose a threat to society. But Natasha ended on a cautionary note. ‘Del Aguila’s drug and drug-related interests’, she’d written, ‘made him Mexico’s largest single exporter, a highly valued source of much-needed foreign revenue, and a central factor in the health of the Mexican economy. So central, in fact, that analysts doubt the country’s ability to withstand his downfall and, given that imports of cocaine to the U.S.A. continue to rise, it shouldn't be assumed that his incarceration has necessarily limited his activities’. Hoping that he wouldn't have anything to do with either Del Aguila or his Zeros during his short stay in Mexico, Buchan moved on to the file on O’Neill which, if somewhat less glamorous, was no less violent. Kevin Sean O’Neill was the archetypal IRA hardman, and a graduate cum laude of slaughterhouse they call West Belfast. His photograph showed him with long brown hair vaguely parted at the center, long bushy sideburns, and a moustache that drooped down to a thickly muscled neck. The eyes were clear, cold and empty, and they stared out from under a low brow and heavy hooded lids, like deep slits in a gun emplacement. O'Neill was born in Dublin in 1959, the unwanted by-product of a brief liaison between a local prostitute and her unknown client. Things went steadily downhill from there, and the young boy was brought up in the gutters of Ballymun Flats, a sort of human dustbin in the north of the city. It was not a happy childhood by all accounts, and O'Neill's descent from gutter to sewer was all but assured when his mother died from a drug overdose fifteen years later. Shortly after, he was sent to live with his uncle, a taxi driver living in the North. There, it didn’t take him long to get caught up in the violence and disorder overtaking the Province, and within weeks he was arrested on a variety of charges that included the destruction of public property, several car thefts, and the assault of a police officer. In another era, such behavior would have received swift retribution in the form of the birch, the gallows or even a one-way trip Australia. But in the wishywashy, touchy-feely world of the seventies, his actions were interpreted as a desperate cry for help and the state was not slow in riding to his rescue. Social workers, psychologists and lawyers soon rallied round, and he escaped prosecution for all but the most serious charge, receiving a short custodial sentence ina juvenile detention center best known for its excellent recreational facilities. He was back on the streets within months, and during the one-man crime-wave that followed he was the chief suspect in a series of car thefts, three cases of aggravated assault and wanted in connection with an armed robbery on a post office. For these, he was eventually sentenced to eighteen months in H.M.P.

Maghaberry, and it was while he was there that he received counseling from a Roman Catholic priest who was to introduce him to the Provisional IRA shortly after his release. According to the organization’s own file on O’Neill, the contents of which had been covertly obtained, he’d been a willing recruit with all of the hallmarks they looked for in a Volunteer, and the young Irishman went on to gain steady promotion for his ‘fearless dedication to the cause’ and ‘acts of unswerving loyalty’. Then, in 1980, O’Neill received an order from the Army Council to transfer to their Special Active Service Unit - an elite force answerable only to the Council itself. The list of crimes he was alleged to have subsequently committed was positively Dostoyevskian in its character, content and length. Some of these had been classified as ‘politically motivated’, others as simply ‘criminal’, though Buchan had difficulty distinguishing between them. After a while he gave up trying and he skipped through to an entry entitled ‘STRABANE - Attempted car bombing— Saturday, August 23rd, 1997’. The text introduced Cochrane to the equation, and somewhere deep within Buchan felt the old familiar sense of rage and frustration start to burn. Gerald Michael Cochrane was born in Belfast, the child of a liberal politician and a high-profile lawyer with strong pro-IRA sympathies. He was born so weak that the doctors declared he would die within hours, but he defied the odds and while he would always be plagued by ill health, he went on to enjoy a loving, comfortable, albeit somewhat spoiled, childhood.

What he lacked in physical fitness, however, he more than made up for with mental prowess. He could talk before he could crawl and read before he could walk. By the age of six his favorite pastime was translating Latin into Ancient Greek; and by the age of ten, he was fluent in half a dozen other languages, a skilled musician and a nationally ranked chess champion known for his deception, subterfuge and absolutely devastating endgame. Quite literally, he was a phenomenon; a child prodigy who lost none of his intellectual abilities with age: and it was no surprise to anyone when he went up to Cambridge to study law. There he would go on to graduate top in his year, achieving one of the university's very rare double-starred firsts with apparent ease, and for a while it seemed certain he'd follow the well-trodden path that led to one of the prestigious law firms, the Inns of Court, and maybe even high political office. But it was not to be. He had other ideas, and within weeks of his graduation he was back in Northern Ireland where, thanks to family connections, he managed to secure a secretarial position in Sinn Fein’s offices on the Falls Road. The cause of this sudden and dramatic change of heart was not given, probably because it wasn’t known. But Buchan was willing to bet it had precious little to do with the IRA’s publicly stated goals of republicanism and a united Ireland. In his time with the Mill, he had read many files on a wide variety of terrorists, studied them in minute detail the way a naturalist studies some rare but dangerous species. And if there was one thing he’d learned, it was this: the official version of their motivation could almost always be discounted.

It simply didn’t pay to waste time trying to figure out the ‘root causes' of their actions.

Inevitably, they were just convenient cover stories, idealistic rationalizations to justify the unjustifiable. The talking heads and bleeding hearts could spin their high-minded theories about 'poverty' and ‘oppression’ all they wanted, but the true motives tended to be much more basic, more selfish and altogether more mundane,

and could be reduced to things like a lust for power, wealth and glory. And then, of course, there was the hatred - an implacable, all-conquering

and uncompromising hatred, which, as far as he could tell, was the unifying feature in all terrorist acts. And in a curious, counter-intuitive way he had always welcomed this hatred, and the extremism that it inevitably bred, because it clarified things and kept them simple, leaving no room for doubt or hesitation, especially when it came to killing the bastards. But, as to what caused the hatred in the first place - that was for people better placed than he was to determine. All he knew was that the hatred always came first. Then came the justifications. And the violence. And the victims... To begin with, the report continued, Cochrane’s new co-workers were more than a little circumspect, not knowing what to make of the gifted young upstart who'd suddenly been thrust into their midst. Before long, however, he was an integral part of the team - an éminence grise, if not noire - and it was at the end of his first year that he asked for a meeting with the Army Council itself. Asked to justify such an unprecedented request, he claimed to have come up with a plan

that would win the long-running war against the Brits with barely a shot being fired. His superiors, hard, uneducated men, more used to employing violence to achieve their ends than anything approaching intellect, were skeptical, but a meeting was scheduled all the same. It took place a few days later and Cochrane was quick to present his theory that the British political elite was utterly fed up with the violence, instability and costs associated with the ongoing war. They were, in short, there for the taking. What was needed, he explained, was for the IRA leadership to offer a preemptive promise of disarmament. This would give the Brits the excuse they needed to withdraw their forces from the Province with their honor more or less intact. Given time, this would see the upper hand pass slowly but incrementally in the IRA’s favor so that within a short while they could break their promise without fear of reprisal. Not only would this leave them with their formidable military capability intact, but it would give them political power as well, andina stunning tribute to his skills as both an orator and strategist the Army Council agreed to his plan. The ‘Peace Process’ had been born and at a stroke the British political scene had been changed forever. Buchan looked up from the file, a scowl on his face. Road works at Heston had slowed the traffic to a crawl. Outside, dark clouds were spitting rain. They reflected his mood, and he reluctantly returned his attention the file, reading on until he reached the part outlining Cochrane's involvement at Strabane. He had been working as a full-time Sinn Fein strategist at the time; basically, a backroom boy who didn't mind getting his hands dirty when the chance arose. Then the text went on to explain how a chronic shortage of manpower in the West Tyrone Brigade coupled with the need to remind the British of the IRA's ability to dispense death and destruction led to just such a chance... The years rolled back and, like a man raising a revolver to his head, Buchan remembered driving down a mazy country lane between dry-stone walls, Vicky laughing at his side. He remembered the rain-blurred landscape of rolling hills and the smell of newly mown hay. Then he remembered flock of sheep that blocked their way and the road sign that finally welcomed them to the small little market town close to the Irish border... After that, things got a little hazy; his recollection of events all but useless. He'd read the public inquiry when it came out, and all of the eyewitness accounts. Some stated he’d acted on his own, a lone trooper gone berserk; others, that he’d been part of some mysterious government conspiracy. Almost all concluded he’d fired first and that no warnings had been given - claims which the press was only too pleased to substantiate. Then, more than a year later, the New Statesman magazine found evidence suggesting a ‘shoot to kill’ policy by the security forces, and questions were asked in the House... Buchan hadn’t really understood the true course of events until Channel 4 broadcast a televised reconstruction some eight months after the incident. In it he was portrayed as a soldier suffering from undiagnosed PTSD; a loose cannon with a poor service record and a grudge against the world who'd inexplicably gone rogue and started shooting everyone on sight. It was incorrect in almost every other detail as well, but the overall impression helped him put some of the missing pieces into place, and he skipped through the text until he reached the casualty list in the appendix. It read, ‘10 dead (including 1 unconfirmed); 7 wounded, 3 seriously,’ and he glanced through the list of fatalities until he came to his own name. ‘Charles Thomas Hook’, read the entry. ‘Age: 34. Loss of blood due to gunshot wounds. Declared dead on arrival, Musgrave Park Hospital, 11.34 am’. Vicky’s name appeared immediately below his. ‘Victoria Elizabeth Ingram. Age 28. Massive organ failure due to gunshot wound. Declared dead at the scene, Strabane, 10.51 am’.

Buchan looked up to see the vehicle was approaching the Heathrow turn-off, then looked back at the file. There was a short paragraph on O'Neill's time in custody. It didn't have much to add and he was about to close the document when he noticed the inclusion of two more photographs. The first showed O’Neill throwing a petrol bomb against a billowing cloud of tear gas and a mural of a peace dove in flight. In the second, he was wearing a suit and tie in a funeral procession in Dundalk. This time he was standing against a backdrop of crooked tombstones and armed men wearing balaclavas. Cochrane was walking in front of him, helping to carry the coffin; his gaunt hollow features just as Buchan remembered them; his eyes, dark and hard, like miniature black holes devouring the light.

For about the thousandth time, he wondered if Cochrane really had survived the car bomb’s blast, and for about the thousandth time he concluded that he

had not; that he was out of the equation and out of it for good. And with that, he flipped the dossier closed, feeding the sheets into a customized shredder in the central armrest as the car finally entered the tunnel at Heathrow.

London, 1996

Nestled within the high-rise office buildings of London’ s financial district is an 8-acre open space that fulfills a variety of different roles. First and foremost, it is the home of the Honorable Artillery Company - or HAC - the British Army’s oldest surviving regiment. Secondly, it serves as a venue for social events, including balls, prizegiving ceremonies and dinners. And last but not least, the site hosts the various sports clubs affiliated to the HAC, so that depending on the time of the year, the grounds are regularly overtaken by cricketers, footballers, hockey and rugby players. Young professionals drawn mostly from the nearby banks, broking and legal firms, they’re an eclectic bunch by any standard. Many enjoy a very high income and even higher profile in their field of expertise, but once they walk through the HAC’s gates, all that tends to be forgotten and the Corinthian spirit predominates, for the most part, at least. Charlie Hook, a major in the Royal Gurkha Rifles, had never heard of the place when, in the late November of 1996, an old friend from Rhodesia called him out of the blue. Andy worked as a merchant banker in the Square Mile and wanted to know if Hook would be interested in dusting off his old rugby boots. His team were short of a blindside flanker, he explained, and recalling Hook’s former prowess in the position he’d been prompted to get in touch. Hook, on leave after three months jungle training and as fit as he’d ever been said he’d be pleased to help out, and duly made his way to Andy’s Fulham flat when the fixture rolled around later that week. After an early lunch of sausages and mash in a local pub, they took the tube to Moorgate. Then, after a short walk, they entered the grounds before making their way to the changing rooms. There, Hook was handed a claret-and-blue hooped jersey and introduced to some of the team. This proved to be a mixed bag that included a Kensington estate agent, a telecoms entrepreneur, and a farmer from Norfolk who, like Hook, was helping fill the ranks. Then, after a few last-minute cigarettes, they’d all trooped out to face their rivals for the day, a Surrey Police side known mainly for their size, fitness and very un-policeman-like behavior on the field. It was very cold, but bright and clear, and if the ground underfoot was a little soft, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been given some heavy rain the day before. A small crowd of friends and family had gathered on the sidelines and the massive office blocks on all sides provided an impressive, if somewhat unusual backdrop. All in all, the stage was nicely set, and after about ten minutes the referee called the captains over for the start of the match.

CHAPTER II The lower rung of hell that was Heathrow Airport was something of a shock to Buchan's system. He hated every minute of the check-in and security procedures and, wondering whatever had happened to the romance of travel, he sought out the quiet refuge of a bookshop. He was not a prolific reader, but there were occasions when having something to pass the time was needed and long-haul flights fell into that category. Thinking a novel might fit the bill, he found the relevant section and started to scan the shelves for a good, old-fashioned thriller, preferably one with exotic locations, pretty damsels in distress, some sparkling dialogue and a few decent explosions. This proved to be a struggle. They seemed to be full of all sorts of politically correct nonsense, and he was reconsidering his options when a children’s primer on the weather caught his eye. It had a diagrammatic representation of a hurricane on the cover, and he picked it up. Inside, the diagram was repeated, this time detailing airflows and wind speeds. The latter, he noticed were greatest in the eyewall, the doughnut-like band of thunderstorms that surround the calm center. This was especially true at lower altitudes where they were believed to reach two hundred miles per hour, though their true speed remained unknown, being too fast to physically measure. He skimmed through some of the text. It told him that hurricanes occurred when high sea temperatures forced evaporating water to combine with the earth’s rotation to create a self-generating vortex; that they travelled at speeds of between ten and thirty miles an hour; dropped enormous amounts of rainfall; and produced pressures strong enough to destroy buildings or lift boats onto the land or rip trees from the soil, as several accompanying photographs clearly illustrated. Digesting these facts, Buchan replaced the book on the shelf. Then, giving up on his quest for a novel, he settled for a military history on the Peninsular War instead, and having paid for it, he made his way to the airline's business lounge. There, he opted for a glass of cold beer and a sandwich, and opening the book, he started to read about Napoleon and Wellington and the epic series of battles that would lead to the French army's eventual defeat. *

The airline was calling the flight when he finally reached the gate, and he was one of the last passengers to board. A middle-aged stewardess greeted him witha warm smile and showed him to a window seat. The seat next to his was unoccupied, and Buchan stowed his things hoping it would stay that way. It wasn’t to be. He’d just sat down when a slim pair of hips appeared in his peripheral vision. He looked across to see a lean midriff, and ran his eyes up over a near perfect upper body to see a twenty-something female looking back at him through mirrored sunglasses. She was quite pretty if you allowed for the stud through her nose, and guessing she was either a model, an actress or a call girl he smiled politely. She didn’t seem to notice, and dropping a series of devices onto her seat reached up to stow her bag. As she did so, she revealed a barbed wire tattoo around her waist. It didn ‘t help her case and after due consideration he decided he wasn’t interested. The truth was that ever since Vicky’s death, his relationships with women had all been cursory, short-lived affairs, with little if any emotional attachment,

and he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever be able to recapture the feelings he’d known in his youth. Somehow, he doubted it. Then there was the small matter of his social skills, or lack of them, and he was only too aware that his best years would soon be behind him - that before long he’d come across as one of life’s confirmed bachelors, out of the marriage loop altogether... The stewardess reappeared carrying a tray of drinks. Grateful for the interruption, Buchan accepted a glass of orange juice and promptly swallowed it with two prescription sleeping pills he’d brought with him. Then, as the plane started to taxi, he opened the guidebook Natasha had supplied. He read the brief introduction, before turning to the chapter on the Yucatan Peninsula. Amongst other things, it confirmed that the temperature would be in the eighties, the

people friendly and that mosquitoes were not altogether unknown. It also told him about the Maya and how the world’s craving for rope in the 1800s led to henequen - the ‘green gold’ - transforming the local economy. Then there was something about Cancun and the advent of mass tourism, and his attention began to wander. Before closing the book, however, he digested the short entry on the town of San Miguel de la Cruz, and checked a scale map of the peninsula to study the road system. He measured the distance from San Miguel to the border with Belize. It was, he estimated, some three hundred miles, and deciding that would be his emergency RV in case of a fuck-up, he made a mental note of the fact. The flight took off on schedule fifteen minutes later. He spent the next hour reading about Sir John Moore’s dramatic retreat to Corunna, and his ‘lunch’ was a reasonably impressive affair, consisting of a perfectly edible steak and a surprisingly good Merlot. Then, as the meal came to an end, the girl sitting next to him turned up the volume on her personal stereo. The resulting thumping noise soon began to irritate Buchan, and once the trays had been collected, he pushed his seat back to the horizontal position and waited for the pills to take effect. He fell asleep shortly afterwards, only waking up when the plane came in to land at Houston eight and a half hours later. He had just over an hour to kill and spent most of the time in a fast food restaurant, eating a large hamburger with all the trimmings. It wasn't great, but that was neither here nor there. Ona mission, Buchan wasn’t particularly fussy about what he ate. Food was simply fuel, nothing more. It was whatever he could shovel down his neck, whatever his stomach could digest. There were few things he couldn't or wouldn ‘t eat and, all things considered, the burger wasn't nearly as bad as some of stuff he’d been forced to swallow in his time. He finished the meal with two cups of black coffee, then wandered the busy concourse until he found a duty free shop, buying a bottle of Whyte and Mackay blended Scotch whisky before setting off again through the crowds to board the 7.06 flight to Mérida. *

The flight had been in the air for twenty-five minutes when the cabin crew came round with drinks. Ordering a Scotch and water to help revive his senses, Buchan started to think about the strange nature of the mission. Control, he now realized, had been considerably understating the case when he’d said it would be ‘outside’ his usual remit. Normally there was a standard operating procedure to be followed; a tried and trusted routine that varied slightly according to the circumstances but was always essentially the same. The targets were tagged in advance; their movements, habits and routines recorded in great detail. All Buchan had to do was select the moment and the method; quick, clean, simple, like on a shooting range. But this mission wasn’t like that. This time he’d have to do all the groundwork himself. All within three days. And in that moment, he felt a crushing burden of responsibility; a burden that the single malt in his hand did very little to shift. By way of distraction, he ordered another and opened his book on the Peninsular War, reaching the Battle of Talavera by the time the ‘Fasten seat belts’ sign came on an hour and a half later. Tilting his head forward, he looked through his reflection out into the surrounding darkness. The bright lights of the city of Mérida were just visible through the clouds and, before long, the runway was sliding under the belly of the aircraft. Closing the book, he sat back in his seat. Well, at least he wasn’t going to Mexico City this time, he reflected. He’d been there once and didn't much like the place. That time, the target had been a Russian - a former assassin in the KGB’s notorious Department V - who'd enjoyed a long and successful career until the fall of the Berlin Wall forced him into early retirement. An ardent Trotskyite, he'd followed his idol into exile in the Mexican capital and probably would have faded into obscurity had it not been for his involvement in the murder of a British diplomatic courier in Hong Kong in the late eighties, an act which was to earn him the undying attention of the Mill. Most of the Mill’s targets didn’t know or even suspect that they had been slated for targeted assassination. They lived ordinary lives and tended to be very easy to kill. Others, however, knew they were marked men and lived their lives accordingly. The Russian was one such, and the scale of the challenge facing Buchan

had become apparent soon after his arrival in the capital. For one thing, the ex-assassin was a virtual recluse, rarely leaving his home, and then only at irregular intervals and under the closest personal protection. For another, his home was more like an armed compound than a residence, designed to be impenetrable to all but the most suicidal of attacks, with dogs, armed guards and one of the most sophisticated alarm systems Buchan had ever come across. None of these factors were to prevent him getting in on the third night, however. Employing a simple diversionary tactic, a modified angle grinder and some suction cups, he’d gained access through a skylight, and recalling his last-minute decision to use an ice pick he allowed himself a brief satisfied grin. Mexico City had been his tenth mission. This, he realized, would be his sixty-seventh, and he recalled past assignments, past challenges, and the dead. The long list of dead. Then, as the lights dimmed in the cabin, his thoughts turned to the days ahead. He knew they would be difficult; knew too that his chances of success were slim. But he also knew that whatever else happened, this was his last mission for the Mill, his last chance of redemption, and that one way or another, he was determined to make it count.

Hook had been expecting a bit of a run-around, the odd bit of argy-bargy, nothing too serious. But the coppers from Surrey had other ideas, as soon became clear. The mood was tense and niggly from the start and knowing he was rusty, Hook decided to stay out of things, until he got his bearings, at least. An intercepted pass quickly put paid to those plans, however, and before he knew it he was face down in the grass, hopelessly trapped at the bottom of a collapsed maul. Moments later, a swinging right fist collided abruptly with the side of his head. The effect was like being at the center of an explosion when a bomb went off. Sparks flew, his ears rang, and, as he struggled groggily to his feet, he tried to remember what it was about the sport that he loved so much. He didn’t have time to come up with an answer. A charging frontrow forward saw to that, and it was all Hook could do to get his shoulder down before the inevitable impact. The maneuver was enough to save him from serious injury, but not enough to stop the big man from knocking him backwards, and he was lying helpless on the ground when the referee's whistle signaled a try a few seconds later. Shaking his head clear Hook made his way disconsolately back for the conversion attempt. The kick missed the uprights by a matter of inches, but the opening minutes had already set the tone for the rest of the first half. He and his teammates spent much of the time on the back foot, soaking up the pressure of one attack after another. It was real backs-to-the-wall, bodies-on-the-line stuff, and on the few occasions when the HAC had possession of the ball, any counterattack was stopped dead in its tracks. Charging the opposition's defensive line was like charging a brick wall. Short of resorting to the heavy weaponry that stood symbolic guard in front of the HAC’s impressive mess-cum-clubhouse, Hook couldn’t see a way through. Then the opposition scored another unconverted try, and the whole thing was threatening to turn into a rout when a well-taken penalty broke the HAC's duck, and they were trailing by seven when the half-time whistle finally blew.

CHAPTER III

Consisting of a vast, flat, largely uninhabited slab of limestone rock, the Yucatan peninsula is best known for its ancient Mayan pyramids, its charming Spanish Colonial architecture, its stunning Caribbean beaches, and a plethora of other natural wonders that includes the world’s second largest tropical forest and its second longest barrier reef. There are two major cities. The first of these, Cancun, needs no introduction. Modern, brash, artificial and Americanized,

it has gained a well-deserved

reputation for ticking all the sun-sea-and-sex boxes commonly associated with famous beach resorts. Mérida, in stark contrast, some two hundred miles to the west, is everything that Cancun isn’t. Quiet, respectable, conservative and authentic, it remains relatively unknown, simultaneously giving the impression of being a sleepy, provincial backwater that’s trapped in time or a sophisticated, bustling mini-metropolis, depending on its mood. In addition to this, it enjoys a reputation as one of the world’s safest cities, being as far removed from the cartel-related violence elsewhere in the country as London is from, say, Athens or Bucharest. All this is reflected in its airport which is a small, clean, slick operation, as Buchan was pleased to discover on disembarking from his flight, and before long he was making his way down the long corridor to the Arrivals Hall. There he found the usual expectant crowd of holiday reps, car hire assistants, taxi drivers and loved ones. They looked at him, then through him, and he scrutinized each in turn until he saw a man in ared uniform. He was holding a clipboard with Buchan’s name on it and, like a boxer en route to the ring, Buchan forced his way through the crowd and introduced himself. There was no secret code word or protocol of any kind, nor any mutual suspicion. The man knew nothing of Buchan’s mission, nor anything about the Browning 9mm that had been hidden in one of his rental vehicles. He was merely the member of staff who happened to be on duty at the time, and as far as he was concerned the tall, craggy-faced customer with the big hands, broad shoulders and slow-moving eyes was just another tourist who needed a Jeep for a few days.

Greeting Buchan in English, he led him to a kiosk where the usual paperwork was presented. Then, once the formalities were complete, he led Buchan out into a large car park in front of the terminal building. Although grateful to be breathing fresh air for the first time in over eighteen hours, Buchan's relief was tempered by the conditions. Despite the late hour, the heat and humidity felt like they were in the hundreds, and he’d broken into a light sweat by the time they reached a dark blue, canvas-topped Jeep parked in the far corner. There, he gave the vehicle a rudimentary once-over, signed a couple more forms and thanked the assistant for his help. Then, having climbed inside the vehicle, he pushed the seat back as far as it would go and turned the key in the ignition. Everything seemed to be working fine and he pulled away. He checked his watch. It was now 3:00 a.m. UK-time, 4:00 a.m. in Belgium, and in an ideal world he’d have driven into Mérida and found a nice hotel for a good night’s rest. But Buchan’s world was a far from ideal place. The clock was already ticking and knowing that he had to hit the ground running, he followed the road signs to San Miguel instead. The tree-lined avenue he found himself on was relatively empty and he drove for a few minutes before pulling into a lay-by to recover the Browning. It was hidden under his seat as Natasha had said it would be, and he held the weapon for a moment, testing its balance, feeling its live weight. It felt like a natural extension of his arm and handling it with a tenderness that belied its deadly purpose, he slipped the magazine out. It was fully loaded with 9mm Parabellum and he tested the action. It was swift and clean, and he shoved the magazine back inside with a slap before replacing it under the seat. Though reasonably satisfied with the model, he would have preferred something larger. The trouble with 9mm rounds was that they didn ‘ t always kill aman when they were meant to, even the well-aimed ones. He was living proof of that. But 'needs must when the devil drives', he reminded himself, and slamming the car back into gear he continued on his way. He switched the radio on soon after, retuning it until the static gave way to a torrent of rapid Spanish. He turned the dial some more. This time the presenter had one of those sleepy, smoky voices that nighttime radio was made for, and a few seconds later some music came on. “Yo no se matar,” sang a lone mariachi, his voice broken with emotion, “Pero quiero aprender para disipar el mal que me has hecho.” He was bemoaning the loss of his woman to another man, but Buchan wasn’t listening. He was smoking a cigarette and thinking about Wyatt, and O’Neill and hurricanes called Hannah. *

The road was flat and straight, an endless black strip that sliced through the surrounding jungle like a never-ending runway. There was almost no traffic, but assorted roadkill, potholes and unmarked speed bumps all conspired to slow his progress. His route took him through a succession of small communities with strange Mayan names, and he stopped at a petrol station just before midnight, stretching his legs while the tank was filled. A short time later the radio lost its signal. He switched it off, leaving the low monotonous rumble of tires on tarmac as the only soundtrack, and jet lag caught up with him soon after. For a while the fatigue threatened to overwhelm him, but a combination of fresh air, cigarettes and stubborn diligence kept him awake at the wheel, and just over two hours after leaving the airport a sodium haze in the far distance heralded the end of his long journey. Bill-boards advertising hotels and restaurants soon sprouted along the roadside, and a few minutes later he found himself entering the town of San Miguel de la Cruz. Tarmac gradually gave way to cobbles and he drove along a narrow, deserted street lined with high, single-story buildings until he reached a small harbor. It was overlooked by the imposing ruins of a fortress, its limestone ramparts bright in the moonlight. According to the guide, it had been built after a ‘particularly brutal massacre by pirates’ at the end of the seventeenth century. It was also, the guide had said, the only feature of historical or any other interest in the town.

Turning left, he entered the main square. There was a bandstand at the center and cloistered walkways on three sides. A large Spanish-style church with twin belltowers dominated the fourth; its massive facade rising in a solid wall above the surrounding rooftops, and Buchan was remembering it had been built on the site of a former pyramid when he caught sight of a hotel in a nearby side street. He pulled up outside and cast his eyes over the building. An unfussy colonial affair, the Hotel Excelente had that quality of decayed elegance and seedy charm that he instinctively liked, and he decided to give it a chance. Maneuvering the Jeep into a parking lot at the rear, he gathered the gun and his belongings and walked into the small lobby, crossing a gleaming tiled floor to the front desk. There an old man with the world’s worst combover was dozing in front of a television set. On the screen a one-armed Spencer Tracy was putting Ernest Borgnine through his paces in a badly dubbed version of Bad Day at Black Rock. Buchan watched for a while, then tapping a brass bell on the counter he waited for the old man’s eyes to open before dusting off his mediocre Spanish and asking for aroom. The old man checked a typed register and yawned. “;Cuantas noches...? How many nights?” he asked. “Tres.” The old man told him the price in pesos. Buchan paid and completed a form on the counter. Without bothering to check the details, the old man unhooked a key from a numbered board on the wall behind him. He passed it to Buchan. “Segundo piso,” he said, yawning again. “Cuarto nueve.” With that, the old man closed his eyes again and he was snoring by the time Buchan turned to look for the lift. Only there wasn’t a lift, so he followed a flight of stairs to the second floor instead. His room was at the end of a short, poorly lit corridor. He stepped into a darkened space and switched the light on to see that it was clean and simply furnished, with an uneven hardwood floor, whitewashed walls and a high, beamed ceiling. A rickety ceiling-fan with a rusting motor hung motionless over a wrought iron double bed. He found the control switch and turned it on. Then closing the door behind him, he dropped his luggage onto a sideboard and opened the bottle of Scotch he’d bought in Houston. He found a glass in the small bathroom and poured himself a large shot. Then he stepped through a set of French windows onto a small balcony. It overlooked a dusty backstreet faintly lit by a flickering neon sign advertising tequila. In the distance he could see the belltowers of the church, and beyond that the high ramparts of the fortress. A cool breeze was blowing out to sea, and except for the random bark of a dog, the town was silent. He swallowed some of the whisky. It left a harsh, astringent taste on his tongue, and he automatically reached for a cigarette. He lit up, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. All in all, he was glad to be back in the tropics, he reflected. Whoever had called them the ‘erogenous zone of the world’ had been onto something. He could do without the extreme heat and humidity, of course. And the mosquitoes. But it definitely made a pleasant change from life in Belgium. And there was another aspect of life in the tropics that he'd missed: the sense of freedom; the freedom to do what you liked when you liked, and to live with the consequences whatever they might be. It was a sense of freedom that had been all but lost in the West and he, like Control, regretted its passing. He took another sip from the glass. Suddenly he felt very tired. Ypres seemed like a million miles away, his early-morning run through the battlefields a forgotten memory: and swallowing the rest of the whisky he flicked the cigarette away. He walked back inside. Then, undressing down to his boxer shorts, he slipped the Browning under his pillow and switched off the light, listening to the click of the fan until he finally fell asleep.

The half-time team talk that followed came in the form of a well-deserved bollocking. The captain, a fair-haired ‘City boy’ called Sam who had played for Wellington and Oxford, was in no mood for sympathy. There was no place to hide from his baleful glare or his scathing criticisms, and no one was spared. Hook, in particular, came in for special attention. “I thought you Rhodesians were meant to be a tough bunch,” he’d screamed into Hook’s face. “I’ve seen tougher fucking schoolgirls. Fuck me, I’ve seen tougher fucking football players... Blindsides are only on the pitch for one reason: to tackle. You might like to give it a go sometime...” And so it went on. Then, as the break came to an end, the captain toned his rhetoric down a little, telling them that though they’d lost the first half, there was still a match to win, and he expected them to do just that. There was a desultory murmur of consent in the ranks, and one by one they slowly made their way back to their positions in nervous anticipation of the restart.

PART FIVE

CHAPTER I Six and a half hours after Buchan fell asleep, a mosquito appeared in the air over his semi-naked body. Grey, shadowy and elusive in the early morning light, it danced an irregular jig in the downdraught of the ceiling-fan. Then after some hesitation it settled on the softly beating skin on the side of his neck, unfurled its proboscis and stabbed at the exposed flesh. Buchan’s eyes blinked open a few seconds later. He smacked the insect away, leaving a black and red smear on the skin, and tried to recall where he was. A thin trickle of information began to flow into his jet-lagged brain and he remembered airline flights, a dark, flat, empty landscape, and the rumble of tires on cobbled streets... Mexico. Unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing he rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. Through the open window the sun was low in a clear sky. He could feel its heat start to saturate the air about him, as tangible and relentless as a rising tide, and forcing himself to his feet he walked through into the bathroom. There he took a cold shower, letting the water reinvigorate his body for several minutes before wrapping a towel around his waist and shaving. Then, returning to the bedroom he dressed in a fresh set of clothes and retrieved the Browning from under the pillow. Sticking it into the back of his waistband, he pulled on his jacket and, checking that the weapon wasn't visible, went in search of something to eat. The hotel's restaurant was situated in a pretty little courtyard on the ground floor. It was busy with local businessmen, but there were a few foreign tourists and he heard several languages being spoken as he took a seat. A waitress materialized soon after with a large mug of black coffee. This Buchan drank while it was still hot before approaching the all-you-can-eat buffet located in a nearby alcove. It was surprisingly well stocked, and he returned half a dozen times until finally reaching his limit. Then, having smoked a cigarette, he slipped on a pair of lightweight sunglasses and stepped out into the heat. It had returned witha vengeance and he wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his face as he checked his watch. It wasn’t even 8:00 a.m. yet, and he grinned. It was going to be a hot one. One of the hottest. And it was still early. He took a long look around at his new surroundings, immediately liking what he saw. The dark, empty streets of the night before were now full of color and alive with activity; the colonial-style buildings, though poorly maintained, retained a certain solemn dignity; and there was a sleepy, easygoing ambience to the place that verged on the seductive. In some ways, it reminded him of the more charming parts of Old Havana, but without the overwhelming sense of despair and degradation endemic in the Cuban capital. The only blot on the landscape was a massive, garishly painted tour bus. Presently, it began to disgorge several dozen Western tourists onto the pavement in front of the church. They were couples mostly, both old and young. Some were badly sunburned, their skin the color of tandoori chicken, while others were pale and pasty. Many were androgynous and most were overweight. With their soft, putty-like features, neon-colored clothing, elasticated waistbands, extravagant tattoos, body piercings, and plastic footwear, he thought them a funny looking bunch. They reminded him of over-pampered pets or teenagers suffering from some sort of arrested development, almost a different species entirely. Apart from the tourists and the inevitable soft drink advertisements and the odd Manchester United shirt, there was little else to connect the town to the outside world. It all seemed very parochial and about as far removed from major tourist meccas like Cancun and Acapulco as it was possible to get. And the locals,

he noticed now, were, almost without exception, short, stocky and dark-skinned, so that Buchan, a big man in most crowds, stood out like Gulliver in Lilliput,

making him feel even more conspicuous than he normally did. He got a few curious looks as a consequence, and taking this into account, he walked up toa newspaper vendor on the corner of the main square. There, he bought a selection of local newspapers, and sitting on a nearby bench he flicked through the pages. All of the headlines concerned the hurricane. Fueled by the warm waters of the eastern Caribbean, she'd continued to grow and strengthen, hitting Jamaica in a way that the place hadn’t been hit in decades. Most storms would have wobbled at that point, shaken by the impact with such a substantial landmass. Not Hannah. It was as if she was on a mission of her own, and within hours she'd smashed through the Cayman Islands on a northwesterly trajectory that, according to all the projections, meant she'd clip the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula on her way into the Gulf. Holidaymakers were already being evacuated from Cancun and, reckoning he had about two days before she reached the area, Buchan searched for any news of Wyatt's death. It seemed to have dropped out of the news cycle, however. That meant he would have to pick up the trail and do the detective work himself. Automatically, he thought of the fictional private eyes he’d always liked and admired, and names like Marlowe and Spade popped into his head. Yucatan was a bit hot and steamy for a trench-coat and fedora, but there were other aspects to the job that appealed to him, and conscious of the need to get started he set off down the admittedly not-very-mean streets of San Miguel in search of the police station. *

The police station was, it turned out, a large baroque mansion with lots of arches and balconets and would have been something to look at but for the airconditioning units that sprouted from its crumbling plasterwork like unnatural growths. Three squad cars were lined up outside its impressive entrance, and uniformed police officers were standing by a food stall comparing notes over tacos filled with something that looked like, smelled like, and probably was tripe. Dropping the newspapers into a dustbin Buchan walked up a wide set of steps to a glass door. It was pulled open by a flak-jacketed guard carrying a pumpaction shotgun and, feeling as though he was walking into a well-laid trap, he stepped into the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere of a small reception area. There, wooden benches lined the walls. They were occupied by a handful of sleepy-looking locals and a solitary tourist; a blonde teenager wearing an orange blouse and not much else. She was texting on a mobile phone and there were streaks on her cheeks where her mascara had run. There didn't seem to be a queuing system and, removing his sunglasses, Buchan crossed to the front desk where an efficient-looking woman wearing a dark blue police uniform was pecking away at a manual typewriter. She had the high cheekbones and dark, almond-shaped eyes that are common to the Maya, and looked up as Buchan approached. “Buenos dias, sefior.” “Buenos dias,” he replied. “Do you speak English?” She nodded, smiling. “A little, yes. How can I help you?” “I'd like to see Comandante Hernandez.” “T’ll see if he's available,” she said reaching for a telephone. “What is your name please?” Buchan told her and the woman punched in a three-digit number. Then she said something in Spanish, repeating the word 'gringo' several times before hanging up. She looked back at Buchan. “Comandante Hernandez will be here shortly,” she said. “Please take a seat?” Buchan nodded his thanks, found a space on one of the benches and sat down. He glanced around at the walls. They had been painted a dull, institutional grey-green, and were decorated with a series of black-and-white prints showing the town in the early twentieth century. The place hadn’t changed much since then, he reflected, and he watched a random selection of people appear and disappear for about a minute until a man with a graying moustache emerged from a corridor to his right. He was big by local standards, almost as big as Buchan, and had strong heavily bronzed features that suggested a blend of European and Indian blood. He was casually dressed in a light blue shirt that had embroidered braids running down the front and was stained with dried sweat at the armpits.

It was open at the neck and loosely cut so that it hung down over his waist, hiding a respectable paunch and the barely perceptible bulge of what Buchan took to be a sidearm on his right hip. The policeman took a shredded matchstick from his mouth and introduced himself. “Comandante Enrique Hernandez,” he said. “How can I be of service?” Rising from his seat, Buchan produced the newspaper cutting Mitchell had provided. “It’s about this man,” he explained. “I think I recognize him.” The comandante glanced down at the piece of paper for a few seconds, then looked back at Buchan. “In that case, please follow me,” he said without change of expression. “We'll be more comfortable in my office.” Buchan followed him back down the corridor until they reached a door on the left-hand side. They stepped into a large room well lit by thick shafts of natural light from windows in two walls. A collection of photographs and diplomas tracking the comandante’s career was displayed along a third, and Buchan paused briefly as if to admire it. Then at the Mexican’s suggestion he took a seat in front of a solidly built mahogany desk. A black, sweat-stained bulletproof jacket stood upright on the seat next to his, and there was a loose pile of maybe a dozen M16 assault rifles on the floor behind the desk. Hernandez switched on a freestanding fan in one corner that started to whir in a graceful arc as he sat down. “Before you say anything, Mister Buchan, I'd like to make it clear that this is a murder investigation. As a consequence, anything you say may be used as evidence.” He smiled, “You understand that, :verdad?” Taking the matchstick from his mouth, he offered Buchan a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros on his desk; then took one for himself and they both lit up. Buchan let the smoke clear. The comandante may have looked the classic Latin stereotype, but there was something shrewd and methodical about him, something almost Teutonic. Perhaps it was his eyes, he thought. Light grey in color, they seemed to take in every detail, and deciding to play his hand accordingly he said that he understood. The comandante leaned back in his chair. “So, tell me, Senor Buchan, just who exactly do you think it is?”

“A friend of mine,” he replied. “A chap called Steve Wyatt. We used to play rugby together, many years ago.” “You weren't travelling with him, then?” Buchan shook his head. “No.” “In that case, perhaps you could tell me what brought you to this part of Mexico?” Buchan had never been one for pretending he was something he wasn’t. He knew he lied badly and was too big and conspicuous not to arouse suspicion of one sort or another. As a result, he also knew that cover stories, no matter how elaborate and contrived, were doomed to be met with skepticism. But there were times

when they were needed, and this was definitely one of them. “I’m ona business trip,” he said flatly. The comandante’s eyes narrowed. “And, what, may I ask, is your business?” “I’m a property developer,” answered Buchan, not missing a beat. “Freelance, mostly.” He leaned forward, making use of an ashtray on the desk. “I'm here to take a look around the place for some clients. They're interested in doing up some of the ruined haciendas, turning them into hotels, that kind of thing. I was having breakfast when I picked up an old newspaper and happened to see the drawing...” Showing no reaction, the comandante spat a piece of broken matchstick into a lightly clenched fist and flicked it away. “When did you arrive in Mexico?” he asked. “Last night. I drove in from Mérida.” “Then what?” “It was late. I found a hotel and went to sleep.” “And are you travelling alone?”

“Yes.”

The comandante made an expression that could have been a smile or just a nervous tic in the muscles around his mouth. “It’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think, Mister Buchan? All this about a friend you used to play rugby with, old newspapers, and buying haciendas.” He paused briefly, as if to emphasize what was to follow. “Personally, I don’t believe in them... Coincidences, I mean. Not here. Not in Mexico. And especially not when men like you are involved.” He grinned through the smoke. “Do you have any identification, by any chance?” Buchan nodded. “Then show it to me,” instructed the comandante. Buchan reached inside his jacket and handed over his passport. The policeman flicked through it. “You travel a lot,” he said, reading out a selection of immigration stamps at random. “India, Albania, South Africa... What’s the name of your hotel?” he asked suddenly. “And what kind of car are you driving?” Buchan told him and Hernandez reached for a telephone on his desk. He tapped in a number. “Alfonso,” he said, speaking in rapid Spanish, “we have a stranger in town. He’s driving a dark blue Jeep and staying at the Excelente. Have some of the boys go through his room and let me know if you find anything.” He read out Buchan’s name as it appeared in his passport, then flipped it back across the desk and hung up. He asked Buchan if he’d understood the conversation. Buchan slipped the document inside his jacket. He nodded. “Every word.” The comandante was unapologetic. “That’s the way we work in this part of the world, Senor Buchan, and the sooner you get to realize it, the better.” He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and stood up. “Now that everything is clear, I suppose we should view the body. It’s here, in the back of the building.”

The second half did not begin well - for the HAC, at least. A fumbled catch by one of the second row deep inside their own territory was ruled a knock-on. The referee signaled a scrum and it was as Hook was binding down that he first laid eyes on a tall girl with golden hair that was standing on the touchline. Her face was half-hidden by a tartan scarf, but there was something about her that caught his attention and he was trying to determine what her body looked like under her bulky woolen overcoat when the ball went in. The opposition made no attempt to hook it. In an impressive display of co-ordination and brute strength they just shoved, all eight of them. Caught unprepared and with his work once more cut out, Hook redirected his attention to shoving back. It was to prove a fruitless task. With momentum now behind them, their rivals proceeded to drive him and his teammates backwards until they collapsed in a foul tangle of steaming, mud-covered bodies. Then, quickly recovering the ball, the opposition spun it wide and Hook was still picking himself up when their winger scored a simple touchdown in the far corner to isolated cheers from the crowd. As luck would have it, the subsequent conversion attempt was a mess, never really rising off the ground. It still left the policemen with a comfortable twelve-point lead, though, and it was just before the restart that Hook happened to glance back at the girl, catching her eye and what might have been the flicker of a smile underneath the scarf. Then, as she pulled the scarf down, he saw just such a smile, as pretty and perfectly formed as the face that framed it. “Come on, Company!” she shouted. It wasn't much but it was enough. Something inside Hook shifted up a gear; so too did his performance on the field. The next time he found himself with the ball he was a man reborn, handing off the first two players that tried to tackle him before simply bulldozing a third. Suddenly a gap appeared in the opposition’s line, and for the first time that day, he stretched his legs. Despite his large size, he was a skilled open-field runner and he reached the halfway line at full sprint. To his left, he could see his opposite number coming in like a guided missile, and to his right another player closing just as fast. Knowing he didn’t have the speed to go all the way, he waited for the inevitable clash of bodies before deftly unleashing the ball to the only other player in sight, the HAC scrum-half. He was promptly gang-tackled by three of the policemen, but not before the ball had been slung wide to the left-wing. The winger had the speed, but he didn’t have the angle. Their fullback swept in with a perfectly timed tackle and for a tense few seconds the attack seemed to stall. Until, that is, Hook broke from the pursuing pack to dive on the ball and make it his own. A small ruck formed over his body, then the ball had been recycled. A chunky, balding prop forward trundling along at full speed was the eager recipient, and with barely time to gather it in his hands, he stumbled under the posts for what was without doubt the try of the match so far. There is nothing quite like a spectacular score to boost the flagging morale of a rugby team, and this one was no exception. An almost tangible sense of relief spread through the HAC ranks, especially when, thirty seconds later, another two points were added as the ball sailed gracefully through the uprights. Hook never got to see the girl’s reaction. He’d all but forgotten about her, and when the game restarted shortly afterwards, he was back in the thick of it. Tackle followed tackle; ruck followed ruck. There were enough desperate moments to keep the tension at the highest level, and for a while the ball seemed as much of an irrelevance as the numbers on their backs, with every man playing his part and giving as good as he got. Before long injured and exhausted players lay scattered all over the pitch, like the wounded on a battlefield. All that was missing was the smell of cordite, and as the clock ticked steadily down it looked as though the team with the most men standing would probably win. A couple of substitutes came on to replace the injured. Others that should have left the field, refused the opportunity point blank, and for one long spell Hook’s team lost ground steadily so that they suddenly found themselves defending their own line again. A massive clearance kick under huge pressure saved the day. It traveled a good forty yards downfield before landing. Then it started bouncing, crossing the half-way line before finally going into touch. The line-out was taken quickly and there were only minutes left on the clock when the opposition outside-center, a big man with an eye for the gap and the pace to get through it, found what he was looking for. A long, looping pass followed and suddenly their winger was sprinting down the touchline at full speed for what seemed like a match-winning try.

Only Hook and the HAC fullback stood any chance of catching him. The fullback was best placed, but slipped as he turned for the chase, and all eyes immediately locked onto Hook. He'd read the situation perfectly, launching himself into a fast-paced sprint. It threatened to intersect the winger’s trajectory just short of the corner flag, and with nobody else in close support the race was on. Finding extra speed, the winger opened the gap between them at an astonishing pace. But Hook wasn't out of it yet. Somehow he managed to close the gap again, and the winger was already leaping for the line when Hook threw himself into a flying tackle. The resulting collision took place in mid-air, and they were both several yards into touch when the two bodies finally slithered to a halt amongst the loudly cheering crowd. Knowing time was short, the HAC quickly lined up for the resulting throw-in. It was cleanly taken. Then a long, menacing punt into space by the scrum-half saw the policemen scrambling desperately backwards. The ball bounced erratically just short of the halfway line. The first man on the scene was their fullback. He’d had a good game so far but the pressure now told and he was still fumbling with the ball when the chasing HAC players tore into him like a pack of hounds. The resulting ruck was quickly over, the ball stolen and suddenly it was flying wide to the inside center’s safe hands. With a single, devastating side-step he threw all of the remaining defenders into such confusion that several of them collided with each other, and looking for support he found it in the charging bulk of his blindside flanker, Hook. Taking the ball cleanly, Hook lined up the only defender in his way. Dropping his left shoulder he aimed straight for the hapless man. The resulting clash of flesh and bone resembled a car crash, and then he was through again, running down the center of the field towards the posts. It wasn’t over yet, however. The police were in full pursuit, converging on him from all sides. Hook didn’t see their faces, only vague shapes and colors and he was forced to jink this way and that in a desperate attempt to shake off them. It slowed the opposition down, but didn't deter them. One by one they caught up with him, their hands like grappling hooks as they tore at his large frame. Hook may not have been the fastest men on the pitch, but he was very hard to stop, and he was carrying three of them on his back when he crashed over the try line several seconds later. The resulting impact crushed the tightly held ball into his chest, and he felt a rib crack as his body bounced off it again. Not that it mattered. The try was a good one. They were now level with of their rivals, the match over except for the conversion attempt. Then, when the HAC fly-half sent the ball spiraling over the crossbar with a casual swipe of his foot, the match was definitely theirs. The final whistle followed shortly afterwards, and the next thing Hook knew he was being helped back to the clubhouse in anticipation of the inevitable drinking session to come.

CHAPTER II Buchan followed the comandante from the office and they walked through a busy network of anonymous

corridors before crossing a large courtyard. It

doubled as a parade ground, and the Mexican flag was being raised in a ceremony performed by policemen dressed like paratroopers to an out-of-tune bugle accompaniment. Then, re-entering the building on the far side, they followed another corridor until they reached a modest anteroom where they paused while the comandante filled out some paperwork. An all-pervading smell of disinfectant and formaldehyde filled the air, and in the background the sound of a circular saw could be heard, rising and falling as it struggled with a particularly stubborn piece of bone. Despite his violent past, Buchan had little personal experience of morgues, and it was with some trepidation that he eventually followed the comandante through a pair of swing-doors into a well-lit room. It was tiled to shoulder height, spotlessly clean, and filled with chrome and steel surfaces, surgical instruments, hanging X-ray plates, sinks and glass-fronted cabinets. In some ways, it reminded him of the operating theatre in a hospital, but without the redeeming features of hope or healing that such places engendered, and there was a coldness to the place that had nothing to do with the artificially low temperature of the air that surrounded them. One wall consisted solely of long shelves stacked with coffins of various sizes, and above them was a small shrine dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the country’s patron saint. She was looking forlornly down on the naked corpse of a young man in his twenties. He was lying on his back on a marble slab. Both of his legs had been badly smashed, as though in a car crash, and the top of his skull was missing. A male attendant in a white coat and green rubber apron was drying his hands by a sink in one corner. Brushing a fly from his face, he nodded at the comandante and asked if he could be of assistance. The policeman pointed to a bank of stainless-steel drawers set in one wall, like an oversized filing cabinet, and asked to see ‘El giiero’ - the blond one. The attendant hesitated momentarily. He looked across at Buchan, then walked over to a drawer marked ‘Desconocido’. He pulled it open. A corpse emerged head-first from the chilled interior. About six foot long, it was covered by a thin white sheet and had an identity tag attached to a big toe at the far end, the nail torn from its roots and hanging loose. The comandante put a fresh matchstick to his lips. “The body was in a severely mutilated condition when we found it,” he advised, “so I urge you to take your time and restrict your view to the face, or to any distinguishing features that you may know about.” Buchan nodded. Stepping forward he pulled the sheet down a few inches to reveal what had once been a person’s head, but which was now nothing more than a pulpy mass of bleached skin and distorted flesh. The blackened eyes were swollen shut, the nose had been crushed inwards so that it held no recognizable shape, and all that was left of the ears were gnarled lumps consistent, Buchan guessed, his stomach tightening, with something akin to a blow torch. A compound fracture of the jaw caused the mouth to hang loosely open and Buchan peered inside. Some of the teeth had been smashed to jagged stumps and there was only an empty space where the tongue should have been. It looked like it had been chewed off. “Recognize him?” asked the comandante, his voice a remote and distant thing in the background. Buchan hesitated. He didn’t. It could have been the face of Major Steve Wyatt, formerly of the Parachute Regiment and the SAS and now an Operator with Group, but then it could have been any man of his size and approximate complexion who'd been viciously tortured and then fed to the fish. “No, I don’t.”

“I didn’t think so,” said the comandante without apparent irony. “It doesn’t get any prettier,” he warned, but Buchan didn’t seem to hear him. He lowered the sheet some more and looked into a glistening exit wound the size of a clenched fist in the left shoulder. The flesh had been blown away in chunks to reveal a grim mosaic of shattered bone and torn ligaments. “We think that was caused by a 7.62-caliber high-velocity round,” said the comandante behind him. “Probably an AK-47.” “Oh,” said Buchan, not looking up. “I didn’t realize they did so much damage,” and swallowing hard, he checked around the wound. There was an awkward bump on the collarbone, just as Mitchell had described it, and he lowered the sheet some more, following a neatly stitched Y-shaped incision down the heavily bruised abdomen to a similar wound in the pelvis. It too had all the hallmarks of inevitable death and he rolled the body over slightly to examine the elliptical entry wound in the lower back. A crescent-shaped birthmark was clearly visible beside it. It was identical to the one he’d seen in the photograph and he let the body fall back into position. Showing no emotion other than a slight tightening of the muscles in his jaw, Buchan once again wondered what it was that had led to Wyatt’s telephone call, not to mention his subsequent capture, torture and death... “Amongst other injuries,” said the comandante, “the pathologist noted six broken ribs, three on each side; a compound fracture of the right femur; fractures to the skull...” He continued to read from a long list, and when Buchan pulled the sheet back up a few seconds later, he swore a solemn oath to himself. The people who'd killed Wyatt were going to die. He was going to kill them. Their lives were effectively over. He choked back a mouthful of bile and swore. “I apologize,” he said. “I seem to be wasting your time.” Dropping the sheet, he pushed the drawer closed. “What happened, anyway?” The comandante chewed thoughtfully on the matchstick. “Facts in this case have been very hard to come by. However, we have good reason to believe that this man's death is related to an incident at a Pemex station not far from here. It took place the day before his body was recovered from the sea. His fingerprints were found at the scene, as was his blood. And there was one other thing...” He turned to the attendant and issued an instruction in Spanish. The attendant went over to a chest of drawers. He opened one and pulled out a small Ziploc bag containing a tiny plastic capsule. Removing the capsule from the bag, he passed it to the comandante who carefully unscrewed the lid. “We found this inside his stomach.” he explained. He pulled out a tightly rolled piece of paper and opened it up. “It’s a message of some sort. We can only presume he swallowed it in the hope that it would be found by someone else. Unfortunately, the seal wasn't perfect. The acids in his stomach seeped in and most of what he wrote is, well, see for yourself...” He handed the torn scrap of paper to Buchan. It was about the size of a business card and badly stained with bodily fluids so that only the odd occasional letter remained visible. They didn't make any sense to Buchan and he flipped the piece of paper over to see that the other side was covered with pre-printed green text from what looked like a business receipt. “We were able to match this piece of paper to another found at the petrol station, but beyond that we're at a loss as to what went on. Nor have we been able to make much sense of the letters. Do they mean anything to you?” “No,” answered Buchan.

“I didn't think so,” said the comandante. “The only additional fact I can give you is that the official cause of death was drowning.” “Drowning?” queried Buchan. The comandante nodded. “Fresh water. His lungs were full of it. My guess is that somebody took him out into the jungle and threw him into a cenote.” “A cenote?” repeated Buchan. “Oh, you mean sinkhole.” He only knew the term because it was one of the thirty-four officially recognized by Bradford’ s - the crossword puzzle solver’s bible - as a synonym for ‘ pool’.

“Yes,” confirmed Hernandez. “A sinkhole. There are thousands of them all over the Yucatan. They’re connected to underground rivers that run to the sea, which is probably how he ended up in a fisherman’s net. The word comes from the Mayan term for ‘abyss’. They believed they were gateways to the world of the gods and sometimes used them for human sacrifice.” “It seems that some things don’t change,” said Buchan. “What about the motive?” he asked, passing the piece of paper back. “Any ideas?” The comandante grinned coldly. He shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same thing.” Buchan ignored him. “Could it be related to those rebels I’ve heard about? I read an article about them in Time magazine.” “You mean the Zapatistas?” Buchan nodded and the comandante shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “But it’s unlikely. They’re based a long way to the southwest, in Chiapas. No, to be honest with you, this has all the characteristics of a drug killing. Unfortunately, we get more than our fair share of them around here.” Handing the capsule back to the attendant he led Buchan from the room. They walked back to the reception area in silence, and when they finally reached it, the comandante spoke. “Tell me something, Mister Buchan. What’s the real reason for your visit?” “It’s just like I said, Hernandez. I came here to look at properties.” “Well, in that case, how long do you think it will take you?” “I hope to be finished by Saturday,” replied Buchan. “I'm due in Panama next week. There's a beach development there that I'm interested in.” “Well, if I were you, Senor Buchan, I’d stick to that deadline. If I see you in town after that, I’ll want to know why you're still here. And if you don’t have a particularly good excuse, I’ll have you thrown out of the country. sComprendes?” He smiled courteously, then not waiting for an answer, he made his way back down the corridor and disappeared from sight.

Back in the crowded changing room, Hook found a spare seat and slumped into it. Someone thrust a can of cold lager into his hands and he lit a cigarette. Gradually the air around him began to fill with steam and smoke, and as he scanned the scene before him he got an idea of what they'd all been through. The place resembled an emergency ward after a particularly bloody brawl, and his reflection in a nearby mirror showed that he'd fared worse than most. His kit was torn and hanging loose; blood and mud streaked his face; and there was a fresh swelling around his right eye that threatened to turn black overnight. Yet he hadn't felt so good in years, and as the alcohol and the nicotine went to work in his system, he remembered why... it wasn’t just the rugby; it was the girl - the girl with the golden hair. He'd known she was different from the moment he'd laid eyes on her. Now there was an outside chance they might meet, and swallowing the rest of the beer he embarked on the process of making himself as presentable as possible. It proved a painful task, but with infinite care and a few well-chosen expletives, he managed to undress before hobbling over to the showers. The scalding jet was just what his mind and body needed. He savored the sting of the water as it began to eat away at the black earth that caked his skin. Then, having lathered and scrubbed, he dried himself off and went in search of his clothes, wishing that he’d brought something slightly smarter than the scruffy outfit he’d worn to the venue. It was too late to worry about that, though, and he was pulling the various items warily on when Andy came over. “Get your things together, mate,” he said with a mischievous grin. “And make sure you’ve got your drinking boots on. We’ve got a long night ahead and woe betide anyone that fails to keep up...”

CHAPTER III When Buchan stepped back into the street the taco stall was still busy. Now, however, the rich, visceral smell made him feel quite nauseous, and giving the place a wide berth he sought out the uncertain shade of a flame tree close to the main square. There, he sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette, his face a cold, hard mask; his eyes dark, narrow things bleak with hatred. He’d seen many

corpses in his time. Mutilated corpses, corpses left to wild animals, rotten corpses that had been eaten by maggots, corpses barely

distinguishable as human. But there was something unsettling about the corpse he’d just seen; something unsettling in a way that was new to him. It wasn’t just the extreme savagery and sadism involved in Wyatt’s death; he’d long since become immune to all that. Nor did it have anything to do with its putrefied condition, or the fact that a good man had been killed in terrible circumstances... He took a

long, slow, restless drag on the cigarette, expelling the smoke down through his nose in a short, vigorous gust. No, he reflected now, there was

something else that was gnawing away at his peace of mind, something niggling at the periphery of his conscience he couldn't quite articulate... Perhaps it was because the crimes he normally avenged were ancient history, often many decades old; the victims nothing more than photos in a manila folder and about as relevant to him as strangers on a bus or names in a telephone directory. But Wyatt wasn’t like that. Not only had Buchan seen his body back there on the slab; it was almost as if he’d known the man personally. He had, after all, spent his whole life amongst men like Wyatt, and knew the type well. You came across them in the stands of places like Twickenham, Murrayfield, Lansdowne Road, the Arms Park, or facing the opening attack on many a cricket pitch. You saw them on polo fields in Jamaica and Argentina and Kenya, or riding to hounds with the Ludlow or the Ledbury, or all dressed up in tweed and polished brogues on a Scottish grouse moor. Sometimes they wore a blazer on the banks of the Thames at Henley during the Season, or attended parades and reunions with old comrades wearing their medals on their chest. And sometimes they could also be found in the wilder parts of the world, ‘Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, across that angry or that glimmering sea’, as the poet put it; or even simply having a quiet pint in a pub, especially in-and-around places like Lympstone, Catterick, Colchester and Aldershot. But wherever they were and whatever they did, they all bore the indelible stamp of the breed. It was a stamp that marked them as a special breed apart - the Old Breed, as Control had called them. It was a stamp that showed in every aspect of their lives, from the clothes they wore and their weather-beaten faces, to the clear look in their eye, their strong handshake, and the way they moved with the easy, flowing gait of a natural athlete. Many played sports or lifted weights or otherwise maintained a high level of physical fitness. Some had cauliflower ears; others, broken noses and calloused hands. And all carried scars, both mental and physical, but rarely referred to them. Quite a lot of them had facial hair of one sort or another. They didn’t have ponytails, dyed hair, or man-buns, and shunned most jewelry other than, perhaps, dog tags. They wore hats and boots and gloves and belts. They ate red meat. They smelled of dirt, woodsmoke, gun oil, motor oil, grease, tobacco, and the sweet-sour smell of sweat. Many smoked - they found the whole hysteria about the pastime unworthy of adults - and those that didn’t, didn’t mind those that did. They were polite and respectable at times; at other times, less so. They could also swear like a trooper - quite a few of them had once been troopers - and drink as well as any sailor on shore leave, but rarely got into fights, and if they did, they tended to end them in short order. They were serious, steady, and unfashionably old-fashioned. They had a quiet confidence, a quick wit, and a direct, uncomplicated manner. They didn’t take fools lightly, rarely gave anyone the benefit of the doubt and spoke little. And on the rare occasions when they did speak it paid to listen, for they knew their subjects well, having learned about them through hard-won experience. They understood, for example, that ideas and actions had consequences, both good and bad, and that it was the unintended ones you had to watch out for. And they respected traditions, knowing they existed for a reason, preferring the tried and trusted over the new and experimental almost every time. They understood that violence was the only real and unanswerable power, that it usually worked

when applied correctly and in sufficient quantities, and that history was a vast early warning system that you ignored at your peril. They were experts at recognizing trends and patterns and other things that most people couldn’t see or chose to ignore. They accepted that hierarchies were natural and normal and inevitable; that equality was a false god, that all men were created unequal, and saw their refusal to accept the official narrative - in this, as in all things - as an intellectual badge of honor. Similarly, they knew, instinctively and without the need for further clarification, that nature - whether in its environmental or human manifestations - could never be significantly altered, or ignored, nor could it ever be defeated, no matter how much blood and treasure you sacrificed on its altar, and that anyone who said otherwise was a scam artist on the make. They were, above all and without exception, practical, intensely alert creatures, intelligent if not always intellectual, that had a healthy suspicion of anything beyond

their first-hand experience,

or anyone

outside their immediate

circle. In particular, they mistrusted the urban,

urbane,

indoor, office types that

manipulated and propagated ideas, words, images and numbers to earn their crust and seemed to rule the world. They were also used to being ridiculed and insulted by such people - especially by those in politics and the media and the entertainment industry - but didn’t pay much attention to what lesser beings thought, and understood, no matter what anyone said to the contrary, that character mattered, that truth and beauty mattered, that glory mattered, that dignity mattered, that self-control mattered, that a sense of humor mattered, that physiognomy was real, that courage was the highest form of morality and that the ultimate test of aman was whether he was any good in a fight. They were also masters of many trades. You could drop them virtually anywhere in the world with nothing but a penknife and a piece of string; within a few hours they’d have a shelter and some food and something to cook it on, and within a few years they’d have a fully functioning society, complete with schools and hospitals and churches, that was the envy of all its neighbors. They didn’t hug trees, they chopped them down, preferring to make things instead of trying to ‘make things better’, and always made sure to plant more so that future generations could do the same. They liked animals, especially dogs and horses, but understood that animals were not humans and that different rules applied. And while women played an important role in their lives, it was only a relatively small one; not because they weren't interested - they were - but because they understood the differences between the sexes and respected them assiduously. Sometimes, usually on sufferance, they attended church, but they knew the words to hymns and were more than happy to sing along to them in a loud if not always tuneful voice. In short, they were the backbone of everything, their value beyond numbers and beyond all reckoning; the kind of strong, hard, unselfish men on whose broad shoulders civilization ultimately rested and upon which the fate of nations lay. Often overlooked and always underestimated, they were masterless men of quiet dignity and indomitable courage who wore their burden lightly and who were ready, without too much fuss or bother, to die for their country if that was required, as a great many of their number had done over the years. And now they were dying out altogether, their proud priceless legacy eradicated, their reputation destroyed, and Buchan’s dark eyes narrowed some more as he recalled the promise that he'd made to himself. That the people responsible for Wyatt’s death were going to die. It was as simple as that. For a few moments he could think of nothing else. Then, abruptly, he flicked the cigarette away. There was a small explosion of sparks, and suddenly he was moving again.

The narrow streets were more crowded now, and the heat had increased noticeably. Shade was at a premium, and despite keeping to it as much as possible Buchan was bathed in sweat by the time he reached the hotel. There, the girl now manning the front desk eyed him suspiciously as he passed by and, guessing that the police had already been to his room, he went up to it to find that he was right.

The place was a mess. It had been turned over in a crude but efficient manner, and his belongings lay strewn around, as though rearranged by a very small, very destructive tornado. Recovering his binoculars from the floor Buchan swore out loud. The comandante was not, by all accounts, a man to be messed with, and he deeply regretted their encounter so early on in the proceedings. That he was now a marked man so far as the forces of law and order were concerned went without saying, and resolving to steer clear of them he left the rest of his things as they were and went back down to the street. There he found a small supermarket on the nearest corner, buying a small green backpack and enough cigarettes, food and bottled water to last him twentyfour hours. Stuffing the latter into the former he made his way to the parking lot at the rear of the hotel. The Jeep was just where he'd left it, and he pulled out behind an overloaded bus belching diesel fumes, following it around the crowded square until he reached the exit south. Then once outside the narrow confines of the town center he went through a few basic procedures to check if anyone was tailing him. No one was. The road widened, the traffic lightening accordingly, and pushing the needle up to the speed limit he watched as the town faded into a bleak twilight world of industrial estates and truck stops. Before long he was out in the open countryside again. The straight, flat road he found himself on offered glimpses of the railway track to his right, and his route took him through a series of small, unremarkable villages. Mostly these consisted of half-finished cinder-block buildings and small thatched stone cottages with rounded corners and white stucco walls, the latter reminding him of the pole-and-dagga huts so familiar to him during his early life in Rhodesia. Glancing through the open doorways, he could just make out the sprawled bodies of people riding out the midday heat in their hammocks. Elsewhere children were flying homemade paper kites or spinning wooden tops on the hard ground, and women in native dress stood around in small groups with babies on their hips. There weren’t many cars about, and the most popular form of transport seemed to be yellow tricycles, some of them jerry-rigged to old motorbikes like Latin versions of the Far Eastern tuk-tuk. He also saw his first hacienda: a large Palladian-style structure that had been remodeled as a five-star hotel. Set within an enormous, well-kept garden, it made an impressive if somewhat incongruous sight, especially given the vast expanse of jungle that surrounded it. This, he noticed now, wasn’t the lush, tropical rainforest he’d been expecting. There were no birds of paradise here, no shiny-looking office plants or half-naked beauties bathing in waterfalls; just the kind of low, dense, dry, vicious scrub that nightmares were made of. It too reminded him of Rhodesia, and memories from

his childhood flickered through his mind. Given Buchan’s career - more than twenty years of killing in both hot and cold blood - some might think his youth had been spent tearing the wings off butterflies, drowning kittens or being abused by close relatives. Nothing could be further from the truth. His had been an idyllic childhood. He enjoyed playing soldiers, stalking game, climbing trees and riding on horseback. While other children were stuck in front of a television set, he was learning how to rope cattle, tie a bowline or throw a tomahawk; while they were listening to pop music, he was learning how to deliver a foal or reset a broken bone. He learned to read on his mother’s knee, and how to swim in the waters of the Zambezi, his father standing by, rifle at the ready, lest any crocodiles turn up. He learned to steal the honey from beehives, how to strip and reassemble motorcycles and find water where there was none to be found... Then came the war. The games of soldiers he’d played as a child suddenly became all too real and he remembered the hardship, fear, death and destruction that had followed. He remembered the sound of gunships and mortars; the small of napalm; the shock of sudden action and even more sudden silences. He remembered fallen warriors and broken bodies left to rot in the sun. Then, inevitably, he found himself recalling Wyatt’s corpse, and incidents and details from the ex-soldier’s service record came to him now. Wyatt was descended from a long line of habitual criminals, alcoholics and underachievers, and all the signs were that he would follow in their inglorious footsteps. He was in trouble with the law from an early age, enjoying several short spells in a reform school before finally dropping out of the local comprehensive to become a Para. Nobody had seriously expected him to pass selection, but before long he'd established himself as one of the most reliable faces in his battalion, reaching the rank of lance corporal before the Falklands War broke out. There, he’d been mentioned in dispatches for saving a man’s life under

fire, and the next few years saw him attached to the SAS for a tour of duty that was to take him to a dozen different countries, including Gibraltar at the time of the shootings. It was his perpetual desire to be tested at the highest level which eventually led to his recruitment by ‘Group’ and, collating what information he had, Buchan formed a composite picture of the dead man in his mind’s eye. He liked what he saw: a man’s man, tough, responsible and competent; the kind of man he’d have just as happily shared a slit-trench with as a beer, and in Buchan’s world there was no higher accolade. He was also, he decided, aman who would probably have gone all the way, given the chance. But he’d given his life instead, and now it was up to him to make sure that the death had not been in vain. It was a heavy burden to bear, and he was trying to think of something else when he made out the shimmering image of the petrol station through the heat haze in the distance. Downshifting through the gears, he drove onto the empty forecourt and pulled up next to one of the pumps. There a young attendant in green overalls was waiting for instructions. Getting out of the vehicle, Buchan asked him to fill the tank, then walked over to a small office building where a couple of workmen were busy re-plastering the heavily pockmarked walls. Splinters of glass crunched under his feet and he looked down. Dry blood, baked hard by the sun, lay splashed around him like carelessly spilled coffee, and he followed a thin trail of it to the edge of the concrete island. Low scrub reached for about a dozen yards in every direction, and beyond that lay an impenetrable wall of green foliage, some twenty feet high and as dense as it was forbidding. He recalled snatches of the recording he’d heard in Control's office - Wyatt's haunting and haunted voice, the almost incessant gunfire, the click of the line going dead - recreating the scene in his head before projecting the mental image onto the stage in front of him. Then, putting himself in Wyatt’s shoes, he tried to understand why the Operator hadn’t simply killed himself... the answer seemed obvious. He had run out of time, plain and simple, and instead of taking his own life, he’d chosen to send a message - the message he’d just seen at the morgue. Too bad it had been illegible, he thought as he walked back to the Jeep. ‘All was mystery, dark impenetrable mystery, and every circumstance increased it,’ he heard himself mutter. It was a quote he’d read in the guidebook, written by one of the first Western explorers to reach the Yucatan. Buchan couldn't have put it better himself. He walked back to the vehicle, paid the attendant and gestured at the damaged building. “:Que paso aqui?” he asked. The boy shrugged as if to say he didn’t know. Then, overcoming his shyness, he made a gun with his fingers and a shooting sound. “Narcos,” he said with a grin. Returning the grin, Buchan climbed back into the vehicle and continued driving, all the while keeping watch for the dirt track he’ d seen on the map. He came across an inauspicious little entrance about half a mile further on. It was unmarked but seemed to fit the bill, and he turned into it, covering another twenty yards before he reached the railway. Recalling it passed close to the hacienda, he slowed the vehicle. There was no other traffic in sight, nor any trains, and he turned onto the tracks, driving along them for about a dozen yards. Then parking in some long grass to one side, he took the backpack with him and set off in the direction of the ruins he'd come all this way to see.

Buchan had long ago come to terms with the fact that much of his life would be spent in hostile environments. Deserts, mountains, jungles, swamps, inner cities - he’d operated in them all without much complaint. But as he walked along the railway tracks, he realized that this place was right up there with the worst of them. For a start, there was the heat and the humidity. No breeze penetrated the dense undergrowth, and the air around him was nothing but a cloying mass so thick and sticky you could almost chew on it. For another, the vegetation seemed to consist entirely of thorns and spikes, all specifically designed to prick, scratch, lacerate and otherwise torment the flesh. Then there was the ground underfoot. Instead of the thick, comforting layer of decaying foliage he might

have hoped for, there was nothing but an unending series of jagged limestone outcrops and exposed tree roots. And that was before you took into account the venemous snakes, scorpions and other creatures that he knew were lying in wait... That human beings didn't really belong here was clear to him. From a strictly tactical point of view, however, he was grateful for the jungle’s harsh embrace. Not only did it provide all the cover he could wish for; it was also a great leveler. Numbers didn’t count for much in places like this. In fact, they often made things worse; the more of you there were, the harder it was to maintain discipline and control events. That meant the advantage usually lay with the smaller, bettertrained unit which, given the circumstances, might prove significant. None of this had been enough to save Wyatt, though, and Buchan reminded himself that things didn’t always work out the way they were supposed to. Fortune didn’t always favor the brave. Those who dared didn’t always win. Sometimes they were killed just like everyone else, and he was hoping to avoid a similar fate when the solid wall of vegetation on his right thinned slightly, revealing the weird sight of an old industrial chimney rising through distant treetops. Slowing to a halt, he stepped off the railway track and moved through the undergrowth at a low crouch until he reached the edge of a large clearing. There, he peered cautiously out to see a primitive landing strip running parallel with the railway. All obstacles and vegetation had been scraped away by earth-moving equipment and the result was a reasonably flat surface that stretched for several hundred yards in both directions. It was lined on either side by a shallow trench, recently blackened by fire, and the surrounding area had been cleared by machete, leaving only tree stumps and the occasional ungainly rock. Allin all, it was exactly what he'd been hoping to see, and he grinned. Mitchell’s research had paid off. The mission was back on track and he was about to move forward when a strange symmetry in his surroundings caused him to freeze. Almost at once, his eyes locked onto a series of tripwires at his feet. They’d been expertly rigged and would have been impossible to spot if it hadn't been for several pieces of dead foliage that had gathered along their length. Feeling his heartbeat quicken slightly he followed one of them to a clump of bushes on his right. Gingerly, he brushed the leaves away to reveal a Claymore antipersonnel mine perched on a knee-high tripod like a miniature green television set, the words, ‘FRONT TOWARDS

ENEMY’ clearly stamped across its

fiberglass face. Words of wisdom, thought Buchan with a wry smile. There was nothing funny about the mines themselves, however. Trip the wire and a jolt of electricity would set off the blasting cap, instantly detonating the small but substantial amount of C-4 explosive packed inside. The result was like the modern equivalent of grapeshot - seven hundred steel pellets would explode outwards in a fan-shaped pattern, shredding flesh and foliage with equanimity and leaving very little alive in their two-hundred-foot wake. Buchan had seen Claymores in action before. The scenes of carnage still haunted his vision and, backing away, he skirted around to the left until he eventually made out the rooftops of the hacienda itself. The main building, he saw now, stood on two levels and was surrounded by a high perimeter wall fortified with watchtowers. Despite the inevitable ravages of time, it was still a magnificent spectacle. For one thing, the place was huge; for another, there was a discernible solidity to the construction that he hadn’t anticipated. Far from being the decrepit ruin of his imagination, it looked to be in pretty good condition, and with a little work could, he guessed, be turned into something quite habitable. Not a bad defensive position either, he noted. All it lacked was a moat and a drawbridge, and pulling the Leicas from his backpack, he carefully swept the area for ground surveillance radar, closed-circuit cameras and movement sensors. To his relief, he saw none, and keeping to dead ground, he circled round until he reached the cool shade of a massive laurel tree not far from a vine-strewn aqueduct that ran from the jungle at one end, to the rear of the main building at the other. Climbing the tree stealthily, he found a comfortable position within its broad branches some fifteen feet above the ground and, well hidden within the dense foliage, he raised the Leicas again. He tightened the focus on the nearest watchtower. Within the shadows he made out the faint pin-prick glow of a cigarette and a wisp of smoke emerged. One of the loopholes had crumbled away and by adjusting his position, he could see the outline of a man’s body. He was wearing an olive-green T-shirt, wraparound shades, and had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

Panning sideways Buchan settled the lenses on a huge arch in the outer wall. Built out of stone in the Moorish style, it was about twenty feet in height, and the gate beneath it had a buckled look, as though recently smashed by a speeding vehicle. A quick glance at the recently re-plastered walls on either side seemed to confirm this conclusion, and slowly a pattern of events began to emerge in his head... Wyatt making a break for it, possibly under fire, possibly taking hits in the process. Somehow, he’d reached the petrol station where he’d scribbled out the message. The torture had come after that. They’d wanted to know who he was and who he worked for; had learned nothing and thrown him into a sinkhole instead... Refocusing, Buchan looked through the gates into the courtyard, searching a collection of outbuildings for signs of life. He saw none and, lowering the binoculars, he opened the rucksack and pulled out one of the water bottles. Then, sipping at the lukewarm liquid inside, he looked back at the hacienda and swore.

When he next checked his watch, it was 2:07 p.m. A man in civilian clothes appeared at the gate, swinging it open briefly to let a pick-up truck pass through. It crossed an open piece of ground before disappearing into the bush, and for an hour and a half nothing else happened. Then the pick-up returned, heavily laden with supplies, and shortly after that Buchan pulled out the food from his backpack. It was just about edible and when he’ d eaten enough he looked back at the hacienda. Nothing had changed, and for old time’ s sake he decided to pass the time by doing what Natasha called his ‘homework’. He began with major English rivers from A

to Z. French and German rivers followed; as did significant poets and philosophers of all nations and ages whose surnames contained five, seven

or nine letters. Then came artists, actors, composers and authors whose surnames began with the letters, ‘D’, ‘K’, ‘R’ and ‘T’; and he finished the exercise with a

list of synonyms for a random selection of words including ‘antelope’, for which he came up with forty-eight, or fifty-three if you allowed variant spellings of certain species of buck... Up until his recruitment by the Mill, Buchan had hardly known crosswords existed, so it had been unnerving to say the least when Natasha had explained that ‘cruciverbalism’ was the Section’s preferred method of communication. Inevitably, his first efforts had been hopelessly inadequate, and for a while he’d been convinced he’d never reach the required standard. The breakthrough had come after two and a half days of intensive instruction. The clue, he still remembered clearly, had been ‘To kill two fools in a note (11)’. Natasha’s patience had been running low and she’d been about to give him the solution when Buchan had stopped her. ‘An ass is a fool,’ he’d explained. ‘Two ‘fools’ means two ‘asses’ or, in this case, ‘ass-ass’. The words ‘in’ and ‘a’ provide the next three letters, and the ‘te’ at the end comes from the last note of the sol-fa scale, as in doh-ray-me-fah-soh-lah-te. The solution is, therefore, ‘assassinate’, a synonym for ‘To kill’, which

is the subsidiary definition.’ Natasha’s praise had been so faint as to be damning, but after that he’d made steady if unspectacular progress, and he’d never really had a problem since. All the same, he looked forward to the day, now fast approaching, when like any normal person he could skip the crossword altogether and go straight to the sports pages instead.

They weren’t the first to arrive in the officer’s mess that doubled as the HAC's clubhouse. The large, wood-paneled room on the first floor was filled with players from both sides and, nodding at a couple of his former sparring partners, Hook made his way to the bar. He ordered two pints of bitter. Then, looking around the room, he casually searched for the girl. She wasn’t there, of course. Girls like her never were, and he had a vision of her being courted by an eager crowd of admirers - more intelligent, better looking and richer than he was - who knew just the right words to say, and were almost certainly saying them to her right at that very moment. Well, there were probably worse ways to spend the evening than getting drunk with the lads, he reflected, and he promptly resigned himself to that task. He and Andy downed two pints in quick succession, exchanging jokes and smoking cigarettes as they did so. Then Sam, the team captain, came over with a jug of lager bought with funds from the match kitty. The session continued, and quite a session it turned out to be. Even Hook, a natural-born drinker, found the going tough. The pint tally increased steadily, and when they finally stumbled out into the street around nine o’ clock an instinct for self-preservation told him to call it a day. The lads were having none of that, however. There was an Indian restaurant nearby and to bail out now, everyone concurred, would be regarded as ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy' anda ‘gross dereliction of duty', not to mention ‘conduct very unbecoming of an officer’. Hook didn't take much convincing and they rolled into a gaudily decorated, windowless basement a few minutes later. There they all had the chicken vindaloo with as much rice and naan bread as they could eat. Having become something of a curry connoisseur during his time with the Gurkhas, Hook thought it ticked all the right boxes, and then they were on the move again, this time via black cab. The journey passed in a bit of a blur, and after about twenty-five minutes they found themselves in a Parsons Green pub, the whole of their attention centered on the shots of vodka that were being handed out with liberal abandon. These they all swallowed without too much ceremony, and after that things went mostly downhill. The empty glasses on the tabletop seemed to multiply of their own accord, and at one point Hook remembered being passed some kind of evil-looking, greenish concoction in a long glass. It tasted as bad as it looked, but he managed to keep it down, and when they were finally kicked out just after closing time, he was feeling downright drunk. Precision, discipline and self-control were no longer a part of his conscious existence, yet weirdly his sense of perception seemed to have expanded. His vision was keener and clearer than it had ever been before; his sense of hearing improved; his sense of smell heightened. And now, suddenly, the world seemed a brighter, cleaner, more beautiful place, so that even London’s fume-filled air smelled fresher and sweeter and more fragrant than even the most exotic tropical paradise, its traffic-clogged, litter-strewn streets were a delight to behold, the deep rumble of impatient exhausts a sound more glorious than even the greatest symphony. His whole being seemed to have plugged itself into a different solar system altogether, seemed to have floated free of the physical world and entered a different realm, one that he'd never known existed. He felt strangely compact, invisible and invulnerable; felt stronger and faster and better-looking than he’d ever thought possible, and filled with a boundless energy sufficient to overcome even the most dangerous and difficult challenges. He felt as if he could walk through walls, leap tall buildings with a single bound, catch bullets with his teeth, or straighten horseshoes with his bare hands. It was almost as though he was no longer human, but had been transformed into some sort of living god, as if his mind had somehow attuned itself to the stars so that the world itself was nothing more than a curious plaything, designed solely for his pleasure and amusement; as though the whole universe was just an extension of his nervous system; as though his thoughts could trigger earthquakes, his merest gestures topple mountains or cause planets to collide. He was Prometheus unbound, Achilles without the heel issues, Icarus in a fully armed F-16, hurtling through the stratosphere at supersonic speed... He was, in short, ready for anything. Anything, that is, except for what actually happened next.

CHAPTER IV Though fairly straightforward, Buchan’s vigil was not wholly without incident. For one thing, there was the occasional patrol by a couple of sentries around the perimeter of the airfield. They’d been dressed in camouflaged fatigues but judging by their sloppy appearance, slouched postures and apparent lack of any sort of military training, he guessed they were either new to the job or that their hearts weren't really in it. Either way, they never came within fifty yards of the tree in which he was hiding, which was probably just as well for all concerned. Once or twice the heavens opened, but the resulting downpours were short-lived, and all the while Buchan enjoyed a pleasant birdsong accompaniment. It was neither too strident nor too mournful and reminded him of the English countryside on a sunny summer ’ s day. Then, gradually, the birdsong, together with the low hum of insects and the heat had a soporific effect. The jet lag didn’t help, and he would have dozed off at one point but for the timely arrival of a droning squadron of hungry mosquitoes. As big and round as any houseflies, they attacked in relentless waves, like miniature biplanes to Buchan’s King Kong, and, before long, he was as wide awake as he’d ever been. More insects came out as night approached, and by sunset the jungle was humming with noise. The weather closed in steadily after that and, when Buchan finally broke cover at half-past six, the sky was a single black cloud the color of a bad bruise, heavily laden and ready to burst. Hiding the rucksack in the crook of a branch, he dropped down from the tree and moved through the darkness to the aqueduct. The nearest arch loomed some fifteen feet over him. During the day he’d marked out a route up the vertical face, and even in the enshrouding darkness the first few footholds were easy to find. The next proved unstable, however, and lacking a ready alternative, he was forced to crab sideways before pulling himself up over the edge. The gully on top was just wide enough to accommodate his broad shoulders and he lowered himself into it. Then testing every piece of ground with probing hands, he started to crawl towards the hacienda. Due to thick, thorny vegetation his progress was agonizingly slow, and after half an hour he stopped for a short rest. It was much needed, and he'd covered another thirty yards when a break in the gully’s wall gave him a chance to take stock of his surroundings. He stopped crawling. Apart from the chirp of a million insects the only sound he could hear was the low, benign rumble of a diesel generator and, lifting his head slightly, he looked down into a dry fountain at the center of a small formal garden long gone to seed. It was partially lit by a lamp in a nearby window and raising the binoculars he zeroed in on a good-looking, dark-haired woman in her twenties. She was getting undressed, her body casting a voluptuous shadow on the far wall and he was tightening the focus when a battery of floodlights came on in the main courtyard. Reluctantly, he panned sideways in an attempt to see what was going on. That proved difficult from where he was lying, and deciding to improve his vantage point, he moved along the gully another fifteen yards and took cover within the overhanging branches of a tree. It helped somewhat and he looked across to see about a dozen people chatting and smoking cigarettes in the shadows. They stayed like that for several minutes. Then one by one the cigarettes went out, and the low murmur of voices came to a gradual halt as the rhythmic thump of helicopter rotors began to penetrate the dense cloud overhead. Buchan looked up as the noise increased to a thunderous roar and watched spellbound as four Russian Mi-24 ‘Hind’ assault helicopters descended through the darkness, their tails turned inward in a defensive formation, their fuselages painted black and unmarked. They carried a full complement of 30mm grenades and anti-aircraft missiles and, judging by the way their nose-mounted rotary machine guns were probing the outbuildings, they weren't there on a goodwill visit. With their stubby wings, hunchback shape and bubble-cockpits, these massive, armor-clad, Soviet-era behemoths, looked more like flying tanks than the delicate and graceful female deer their NATO callsign suggested. But crude as their design may have been, Buchan knew that their ability to dispense death

from above, combined with their virtual indestructibility, made them a very dangerous enemy, and he just hoped he wouldn’t be in their sights if and when the shooting started. They held their formation as the vast bulk of a fifth helicopter appeared through the clouds at their center, its massive fifty-foot rotors pounding the thick air with a steady staccato beat that drowned out all other sounds. With a fuselage over a hundred feet long, Buchan instantly recognized it as a Russian Mi-26 ‘Halo’ - the world’s largest production helicopter. He searched for markings but saw none. Not that it mattered. He knew that none of the aircraft had a range in excess of six hundred miles, and even with auxiliary fuel tanks the chances were that they’d come from Cuba. The Halo was the first to land; the resulting downdraft creating a gigantic swirling dust cloud that obscured much of his view for the next few minutes. By the time it finally cleared, all five helicopters were on the ground, and some twenty to thirty heavily armed combat troops were milling around the courtyard. They high-fived their reception committee as the aircrew completed their post-flight checks, then made their way towards the main building, leaving four armed sentries on each of the Hinds, and twice that number around the Halo.

Reaching for the binoculars Buchan searched the giant helicopter’s four small portholes for an indication of its cargo. They revealed nothing. Then the floodlights went out, and darkness descended over the scene. He checked the luminous dial on his watch. It was twenty to eight, and for a long while nothing happened. Occasionally he would hear the noise of distant laughter, or snatch a glimpse of someone crossing the courtyard, but that was all. Then, at a quarter to nine, he heard the jangle of keys and the sound of approaching voices. A few seconds later, a series of car doors slammed. Two large petrol-driven engines kicked into life, and he watched a pair of late-model Chevrolet Suburbans pull up to the gate, their headlights on. The gate opened. Buchan followed the two large vehicles across the clearing until the taillights disappeared and spent the next few minutes watching for any new developments. There weren’t any, and in due course he retreated along the gully. Then, taking care to avoid the Claymores, he started to retrace his steps back to the Jeep, his mind a chaotic mass of competing theories none of which seemed to make any sense. As anticipated, the hacienda was being used as some sort of forward operations center, and though he hadn’t learned its exact purpose, he now knew that some serious hardware was involved. Hinds, like the ones he’d just seen, were potent killing machines that could do a lot of damage in the right environment. He’d seen some in action in the North Caucasus once, and the destruction they’d wrought would have dignified an earthquake... But why? What for? It didn’t take him long to rule out the potential drug connection. He’d seen nothing so far to suggest anything along those lines, which left him with the terrorist angle. But going to all this trouble just to wipe out San Miguel de la Cruz didn’t stack up, and he racked his brains for any other potential targets in the area. All he could think of were the oil fields to the north, but he quickly discounted their involvement on account of the approaching hurricane... Was that where she came in? he wondered... Wyatt had thought the storm important enough to mention, and its arrival might have prompted some sort of change to their schedule, maybe caused it to be shortened? Was that why he’d broken cover? Buchan played with the possibility for a while but didn’t get very far. Then he had another idea. Perhaps the bad guys had known about the hurricane. Perhaps they’d been waiting for it all along and were depending on it for the fulfilment of their plans. And it occurred to him then that they might use it as some sort of diversion, or as a means of disguising their entry into the US. Large storms played havoc with radar, and he guessed that any well-trained force with the right kind of equipment would stand a pretty good chance of getting through. Then again, if they just wanted to infiltrate the country, there were far easier ways to do it, legal or otherwise, and why not use Cuba as their base? The distances involved were not dissimilar and it had an accommodating government where things like Wyatt’s death would never have been reported in the first place...

At this point, another thought struck him, and this time his blood ran cold. What if the terrorists were indeed working in some sort of loose collaboration with the drug cartels? The Mexicans were, after all, world experts when it came to infiltrating US border security, giving the terrorists a ready-made conveyor belt straight to the heart of every American city... Of all the possible scenarios he’d come up with, this was the only one he felt carried any weight, but even then there were elements that didn’t quite ring true. Why, for example, had they gone to all the trouble to prepare a base at the hacienda? Why not just turn up in the north of the country? The cartels would take care of the rest and neither the US nor the Mexican authorities would be any the wiser... And so it went on, his mind chasing around in circles, going nowhere. He had plenty of time to consider all the possible permutations, and the more he thought about them the more improbable everything got. All he knew was that he’d stumbled across something significant, something fully deserving the importance Control had attached to it. The old man’s eye was as keen as ever, he thought, and he wondered what he’d have made of the fresh intelligence. Not much, he guessed, and after a while he started to plot his next move. Under normal circumstances he’d have gone back to the hotel and slept on what little he’d learned. But time didn't allow for that, and conscious of the fast-approaching deadline he decided to try and shake things up a little, Buchan-style.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the pub, Charlie Hook and his drinking companions found themselves standing outside a Victorian terraced house just off the King’ s Road. Inside, the loud thump of disco music could clearly be heard, and when the door finally swung open the friendly face of the HAC’s fullback was there to greet them. Acan of lager was promptly shoved into Hook’s hand and before long he found himself deep within the crowded hallway. He spent the next few minutes chatting with the fullback about the match. Then drifting into the equally crowded living room, he lit a cigarette and cast his eyes over the scene. The other guests were all of the young, good-looking, prime-of-their-life variety, all with enviable backgrounds, sound educations and bright prospects that would inevitably see them rise to the top of their professions. His own life wasn’t going so badly either, he reflected. After a somewhat rocky start in war-torn Rhodesia, he’d finally begun to settle in his adopted homeland. He was enjoying his time with the Gurkhas and building a solid future with the regiment, should he care to pursue it. Failing that, there were other options. Andy had already mentioned the possibility of a position in the City. The money was good, and the social life wasn’t too shabby either, but Hook was in no hurry, and he was looking for an ashtray when his whole world came to an abrupt, grinding and completely unexpected halt. A flash of golden hair was all it took and the next thing he knew he was weak at the knees and struggling for breath. It was a strange feeling to say the least, and a part of him wished that he’d gone home to his bed when he'd had the chance. That way she would have soon been forgotten, and he would have avoided the enormous steel gauntlet that had just landed with a loud clatter at his feet. He swore softly and looked back at her. She was as beautiful as he'd remembered, and surrounded by a small group of ardent admirers, just as he'd known she would be. Hardly surprising, really. She was the best-looking girl in a room full of very good-looking girls, and unable to help himself, he let his gaze fall to her breasts. Full and firm, they jutted proudly from her chest as though trying to escape the tight black sweater that restrained them. Feeling taunted by their presence he glanced back at her face, only to realize she was staring directly at him. Her eyes darted quickly over his, the corner of her mouth twitching in a half smile. Then she looked away, blushing slightly, and the next thing he knew she laughing at some joke, behaving as though the whole incident had never happened. Embarrassed - but too drunk to be really embarrassed - Hook felt ancient instincts rise within him, and it wasn't long before his mind started to work on his next step. This, he concluded after careful consideration, involved even more alcohol, and forcing the girl from his mind for a moment he finished his beer and went in search of another.

CHAPTER V The rest of Buchan’s walk was relatively straightforward; his path illuminated by the dull gleam of the railway tracks and the intermittent light of fireflies. The local equivalent of the British pheasant wasn’t such good company, however. Startled by his approach they took off in a dramatic explosion of noise and wings, simultaneously startling him in return. This happened on at least a dozen occasions, and by the time he’d reached the Jeep he was ready for a cigarette. Lighting up, he climbed into the vehicle and less than a minute later he was heading back to San Miguel. The roads were as empty as ever, and he drove fast and in silence, watching a host of insects as they died on the windscreen. Bright in the headlights like incoming tracer, they reminded him of a night back in Rhodesia when the bullets had been real, and he recalled a firefight so intense that it had lit up the sky with a great golden glow. He grinned at the memory. In retrospect, those had been good times; times when the enemy was easy to identify, and the rules of engagement had been clear because there weren't any. Back then it was all just point and shoot, the quick and the dead. Now, though, he and his countrymen were fighting a different kind of war. Now the bad guys were almost impossible to spot; most of them didn’t even have a name as such. Now they had a bodyguard of lawyers and politicians to protect them. Now they had ‘rights’. But it was a war all the same. And if there were differences, there were also similarities - far too many for his liking... People, he recalled, used to joke about Rhodesia being about thirty or forty years behind the rest of the rest of the world, but in one respect the opposite was true. In one respect, Rhodesia had been thirty or forty years ahead of everywhere else. The 'Winds of Change' that had swept through Africa then had since moved on, growing and strengthening all the time. Now they had reached into every part of the Western world, and Rhodesia, far from being a backward joke, was looking more and more like the grim future that they all could look forward to. Britain was a good case in point, he reflected. A quick look at the historical context seemed to sum up the situation reasonably enough. Within living memory, she had stood at the center of the largest, most powerful empire the world had ever seen, and having withstood the onslaught of two world wars and one cold one had emerged severely battered but victorious. Today, though, Britain was no longer great; the kingdom no longer united, and those victories were looking more and more Pyrrhic with every passing day. The astonishing little powerhouse which had shaped events all over the world for as long as anyone could remember now seemed to be entirely at their mercy, its glorious past almost magically transformed into the gloomiest of all futures. And perhaps the strangest, most disturbing aspect of the whole affair was the echoing, deafening silence that had accompanied it. Nobody appeared to notice or care; there was no significant outrage, very little dissent, barely even the slightest murmur of concern. Of course, much the same could be said of every Western country; they had all capitulated in turn with barely a voice raised in opposition, let alone a shot fired in anger. No defeat could ever be more complete, more comprehensive or more shameful. Yet, for the life of him, Buchan couldn't tell exactly what had gone wrong. Sometimes he wondered if anybody could - the assault had been so subtle, so protracted, and on such a broad, all-encompassing front that it seemed impossible that any one person could see the whole picture. The consequences were easy enough to spot, though: the madness, the ugliness, the lies, the destruction, the distrust, the sheer unnaturalness of it all. They were every bit as bleak and unsettling as Orwell, Huxley and the others had predicted they would be, with a large dose of Kafka thrown in for good measure. But the cause... The cause was another thing altogether. He sat there, staring into the distance for a long while; then drew heavily on the cigarette. Perhaps it was inevitable, he concluded at last; all a part of some great cosmic cycle - like the seasons, with winter giving way to spring. He thought about forest fires, and how, though superficially destructive, they played an essential role in the life cycle of the forest. Perhaps, a society was like a forest, and the deadwood, the weeds and the rotting matter had to be allowed to accumulate until they started to strangle the very source from which they had sprung. Until eventually they reached a state of such combustibility that the

tiniest spark could trigger a massive fire, thereby purging the forest of its burden and ensuring its continued health and survival. And the only trouble with that, he reflected soberly, was that this time it wouldn’t just be the furry little creatures that died screaming. It never was.

Buchan had no difficulty finding the two Suburbans in the town. They were parked outside a bar on the main square and stood out easily amongst the aged pickups and rusted Volkswagens of the locals. Parking nearby, he lit a cigarette and made his way to a bank of shoeshine stands, taking a seat in one of them. A feral-looking boy wearing a ragged blue Tshirt appeared at his side. Without saying anything, the youth pulled up a plastic stool and sat down. Then, taking a rag from his back pocket he started to wipe Buchan's boots clean of dirt and dust. Buchan inhaled on the cigarette and looked across at the bar. It was set in a cloistered walkway between a bakery and a shop selling Panama hats and didn’t appear to have a name. Two men were sitting outside at a table by the door. Dark and physically big, they had the kind of thickset frames and hard fractured features common to nightclub bouncers, bodyguards, and gangland enforcers the world over. The one on the right was wearing a collarless shirt, blue jeans and square-toed cowboy boots; the one on the left, a lightweight blue shell suit and expensive-looking sneakers. He was sipping from a bottle of Coca-Cola and chainsmoking Marlboro Lights from a packet on the table. Shortly afterwards, a third man joined them. It was Irigaray, the scowling Basque. He addressed them briefly before disappearing back inside. Then the man in the shell suit finished his cigarette and walked over to one of the Chevrolets. Climbing inside, he turned the engine over, letting it rumble idly, and after about a minute Irigaray re-emerged from the bar together with three other men. They climbed into the waiting vehicle and Buchan watched as it pulled away. “Veinte pesos,” said the teenager suddenly, giving the boots a final flourish. Buchan stood up and paid. Then, reaching around under his jacket, he thumbed the Browning’s safety to the ‘off’ position and, ignoring the man in the cowboy boots, he strode purposefully across the road into the bar’s dark, mainly wooden interior. It was busy with locals, most of whom seemed to have a bottle of beer in their hand, and he took a stool at a long counter on the left. A middle-aged barman with a black moustache was polishing brass fittings with a cloth. His grin showed crooked teeth and, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from his brow, he asked Buchan what he wanted to drink. “Cerveza,” said Buchan, lighting another cigarette. He reached for a beaten copper ashtray, watching as the smoke spiraled in the downdraught of a nearby ceiling-fan. The barman pulled out a bottle of Corona Extra from an icebox beneath the counter and flipped the lid off against an opener, letting the cap drop into atin can on the floor with a dull clang. Passing the clear-glass bottle to Buchan, he asked him if he wanted anything else. Buchan scanned a row of bottles lined up in no particular order on the back shelf. He pointed to one of the tequilas. The barman poured a large measure of the silver-colored liquid into a shot glass, placing it on the counter as Buchan pulled out his wallet. He paid and, picking the Corona up, he drank from the neck. It was ice-cold. Perfect. He told the barman to keep the change and drank some more. The barman thanked him with a grunt and busied himself against the backdrop of bottles and a mirror that had in places lost the ability to reflect. Buchan adjusted his position slightly to study the crowd, his eyes finally settling on two men sitting at a table in a far corner. One of them had a goatee beard and Lennonstyle spectacles. He was balding, the remaining hair closely cropped, and wore an expensive suit over ared polo shirt. His colleague was in jeans anda T-shirt that said something about not having any fear. The sleeves had been removed and a crude, prison-quality tattoo of a screaming eagle showed at the top of his right arm. He leaned forwards and told a joke. They both laughed, and the man in the Lennon spectacles was pouring the last of a bottle of Bourbon into his glass when

a third man emerged from a door marked ‘Caballeros’. It was Hussein. He was wearing black trousers, a black jacket that looked silk, and a dark blue shirt that was buttoned to the collar. Adjusting his flies, he sat down at the table, one arm flung casually over the back of the chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. Buchan felt his pulse quicken now. Up until this moment, the mission had been a fairly straightforward affair. He’d tracked down the bad guys, observed their routines and established certain basic facts. All a bit of an adventure really; anyone could have done it. But all that was about to change. Now came the tricky bit, the bit that no-one liked; the bit where the bullets began to fly, and the people to die... It was at moments like this that he sometimes wondered why he did it; why he put himself through the things he put himself through. But the answer was never very far away. He did it because he couldn’t stand not to do it. He did it because he had to, because someone had to, andif that sounded old-fashioned to some people, or like a line from a John Wayne film, then that was all right with him. He didn’t care what they thought. Not anymore. And withdrawing the newspaper clipping from his pocket, he unfolded it onto the counter. Then, calling the barman over, he slid it across to him together with a five-hundred-peso note. There was a short discussion, during which the barman frowned then shrugged, and the next time Buchan looked he was handing the piece of paper to Hussein. Grinning, Buchan took another sip of the beer and inhaled deeply on the cigarette. Maybe it was in his blood, he thought; a part of his destiny, his fate. Like every other Brit, he knew be was descended from some of the hardest bastards to have ever walked the earth. After all, his early ancestors had endured the ravages of an endless ice age, crossed a continent on foot, and thought nothing of hunting down megafauna armed only with a sharpened stick, surviving innumerable wars, raids, famines and plagues in the process. In due course, they had spawned tribes like the Celts, Vikings and Anglo-Saxons, none of which had been known for their pacifist leanings or for backing down in a fight, not when it came to defending their land, their liberty, their gods or their culture; tribes which, in turn, had given rise to the likes of the Crusader knights, the men who'd stood with Harold at Hastings, the men who’d built the Empire and the

generations that had fought in hell-holes such as Malplaquet, Waterloo, Inkerman, Ypres, Burma and Normandy. And in his case, at least, the warrior spirit had been successfully passed down through the ages. Because, like them, he’d lived close enough to reality to understand the immutable and intractable laws which governed the world. Like them, he’d learned that however harmonious things at first appeared, once you scratched the surface it consisted entirely of hardship, fear, pain and violence; that the natural environment, the world itself, was nothing less than a gigantic battleground of brutal unrelenting conflict, where death was inevitable and extinction the rule. And most importantly, most crucially, he’d learned that, out there, when push comes to shove, that which could not

defend itself would not be defended at all. Blowing a lazy smoke ring, he watched it elongate and distort into a Munch-like ‘scream’ before finally disintegrating in the downdraught, and he’d almost finished the beer when the man with no fear appeared in the mirror behind him. He pressed what felt like the muzzle of a gun into the center of Buchan’s back and nodded in the direction of the door. “Vamos,” he instructed curtly, his voice just a whisper, his breath a sour mix of tobacco and Bourbon. Without turning or showing any other reaction, Buchan reached for the shot glass and raised it to his lips. He swallowed the contents in a single gulp. Then, replacing the glass on the counter, he stubbed out what was left of the cigarette. “Your place or mine?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mine,” said the man with no fear. “Now, let’s go.”

So far, so good, thought Buchan. His plan was working exactly as he had hoped it would and, wondering what the hell he had let himself in for, he made his way from the room.

The house shared a floor plan with just about every other terraced house in London’s Victorian suburbs and Hook had no difficulty finding the kitchen towards the back. It was as crowded as the rest of the building but the music wasn’t so loud, and after grabbing another beer from the ad hoc bar he stumbled across Sam and Andy drinking wine. Andy, it seemed, was dispensing pearls of wisdom on the art of seduction. “Do you know the best way to get a girl to stay with you?” he said, slurring his words. “It’s easy. The first few times you have sex with her, make sure you tear all her clothes off. I mean, literally tear them off. Rip them to pieces so they can never be worn again. Women absolutely love it...” He sipped at his drink. “And, if you want to get rid of her, do the exact same thing. Tear all her clothes off every single time. They absolutely hate it...” At this point, he hiccupped loudly, then abruptly excused himself on the grounds that he was about to throw up. Exchanging grins, Sam and Hook watched as he staggered from the room. A few minutes of small talk followed during which they discussed Sam’s job as a stock broker in the City and his passion for restoring classic cars, and gradually the conversation moved on to rugby. “So, who’s the next on the fixture list?” asked Hook.

“Rosslyn Park,” said Sam. “You should come along. They’re a good side and we could use you on the team,” and he was explaining how the last match they’d played had ended up in a massive thirty-man brawl (thirty-one if you included the referee) when he glanced over Hook’ s shoulder, his eyes widening suddenly. “Hey, Vicky,” he called out. “Come and say hello.” Hook looked around to see the tall, shapely, eminently graceful form of the girl with the golden hair walking towards them through the crowd. “Hello, Sam,” she said in a beautifully modulated voice that had the prim inflection of an English public school, so smooth and husky that even the usual clichéd references to warm molasses and melting ice didn’t do it justice. Sam turned to introduce Hook. “I’ve got a new friend you should meet. Name’ s Charlie. Talk to him while I go and check on young Andrew. He’s not feeling very well.” And with that, he turned and left Hook alone with Vicky. “Nothing serious, I hope,” she said, examining him closely between puffs on a cigarette. At this point, a part of Hook’s brain was telling him to forget ever trying to seduce her; that she was way out of his league and that he didn’t stand a chance. Another part, however, was urging him on. It was telling him that fools got away with the impossible because they were the only ones to try, and he quickly decided that the only way to save the day was to assault her position at the double, see how close he could get before he finally took a bullet... “No,” he managed at last. “He just needs to get something out of his system.” She smiled again. It was a big, broad, natural smile with lots of perfect teeth showing between glossy lips. She looked quizzically at him. “South African?” she asked. “No, Rhodesian.”

“Same sort of thing, right?” “Not really,” he replied with a grin. “How about you? English. Public school. Working in PR and...” He glanced down at her left hand to check if there was a wedding ring. There wasn’t. “Not married.” “Three out of four isn’t bad,” she said. “I work in an auction house, as it happens, in the West End. I’m a numismatist.” Hook, who had no idea what that meant, decided to keep the fact to himself and stayed silent. “It’s all a bit dry,” she continued, “but I enjoy the work.” She inhaled on the cigarette, letting the smoke trickle from the glossy lips of her partially open mouth. “Speaking of medals, that was very courageous what you did on the pitch today; the try-saving tackle in the corner. I even found myself composing a citation for you, something along the lines of, ‘carrying out his duty when all seemed lost, and with no regard for his own personal safety’, and all that.”

“Allin a day’s work,” said Hook with a wry grin. “So how come you know Sam?” he asked. He was half-dreading the answer, but it was a matter that needed clearing up before things went any further, and, as it turned out, he needn’t have worried. “He’s my brother,” Vicky replied. “Brother?” “Yes.” She paused to sip at her drink. “And what do you do, Charlie? Apart from play rugby and stumble around parties drunk.” Hook grinned. “I’m a soldier,” came the reply. “An officer, I presume?” “Yes.” “Which regiment?” “The Gurkhas,” he said. “The Royal Gurkha Rifles, to be precise.” “Ah, yes. The Gurkhas. What a privilege. They’re wonderful soldiers.” “You’re not wrong. Their only fault is that they’re so good they make me look rather ordinary, butI wouldn’t wish to go into battle with anyone else.” She nodded. “Very brave, too. Lots of medals.” “Fearless. They don’t seem to have a properly developed sense of pain or danger. For them, losinga limb or two in battle is just a minor inconvenience.” Vicky laughed, a deep, throaty laugh that stayed in his mind long after the sound had died away. “One of their VCs came across my desk the other day for a valuation. A lance corporal, I believe. He charged a couple of pillboxes before clearing them with his kukri.” “We specialize in that sort of thing,” said Hook. “We can’t resist charging a well-fortified position, no matter what the risks.” She smiled, then brushing a loose strand of hair from her face she stubbed out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray. It gave Hook's eyes a chance to linger over her features and he took in the finely sculpted cheekbones and pale skin flecked with light freckles; the slender, sculpted jaw and generous mouth. And her eyes, he noticed now, were large, widely set and deep blue in color. Diamond bright, they looked calmly back at his with a tenderness and curiosity he found utterly beguiling... “And you, Charlie...” she asked, breaking the spell. “Are you single?” “Very,” came the prompt reply. “What about you?” “As it happens, I recently split up with my boyfriend,” she said. Hook felt his hopes surge on the news. “Well,” he replied with a playful grin, “if you promise to be strong and follow instructions, I'll see what I can do to see you through this difficult time.” She laughed. “And just how do you propose to do that?” “With alcohol,” he said. “Alcohol usually does the trick.” “Good idea. You soldiers are a resourceful lot, aren’ t you. I’ll have a vodka and tonic... Better make it a double, just to be safe.” “Double vodka and tonic it is then,” replied Hook. With that he set off in search of the bar, returning shortly afterwards with a large measure of the stuff. “What shall we drink to?” she asked, raising her glass. “Let’s just drink,” said Hook. “We can sort out the details later.” Smiling, she complied, downing the contents in three or four large gulps. “There,” she said, her bright eyes sparkling. “I’m starting to feel better already?” “Unfortunately, the effects aren’t permanent,” he replied. “But if taken regularly they should get you through the night.”

And so the conversation continued. At times, the dialogue could have been scripted, so perfect was the interplay between them; at others, it crackled and exploded with all the unpredictability of a fireworks display. There were plenty of well-chosen jokes; anecdotes emerged effortlessly; and throughout there was the delicious sexual tension that occurs when two attractive individuals with distinct but overlapping interests suddenly find themselves in each other’s company. They chatted about their respective jobs, and how her degree in history at Durham had led to an interest in the British Empire, which in turn had led to the job at the auction house. He learned that she had grown up in a small village in Oxfordshire on the southern edge of the Cotswolds, not far from the River Thames; that she was twenty-seven years old, liked black-and-white films and rode with one of the Wiltshire hunts. For a short while they talked about rugby, of which she showed an unusually firm grasp, and then about the relationship she’d been in. Apparently, the boyfriend's only fault was that he'd been ‘far too nice’... “He didn't understand,” she explained, “that I wasn’t some fragile thing to be treated with kid gloves; that I wasn’t made of glass and that I wouldn’t break.” It was all light-hearted and well-intended and interrupted only by the steady flow of drinks they consumed. Then, as midnight rolled around a large influx of new guests arrived, filling the kitchen to its capacity. This gave Hook the chance to change the angle of attack. He needed to get her alone, he realized now. And he needed to do it soon, before they were distracted and the momentum lost.

“Let ’ s get out of here,” he said. Vicky weighed her options carefully for a moment, then nodded her assent. “Very well, so long as you promise to behave like an officer and a gentleman.” No chance of that, thought Hook, as he swallowed the rest of his drink in a single gulp, and the next thing he knew he was ushering her back through the house, hardly able to believe his good luck.

CHAPTER VI The man in the cowboy boots was still there when they stepped outside of the bar. A nod from Hussein sent him scurrying over to the Suburban, now looking more like a long black hearse in the half-light, and a nudge with the gun urged Buchan to follow. At first, he didn’t move. Then the nudge became a shove, and he was bundled into the middle of the vehicle's expansive back seat, the man in the Lennon spectacles on his left and the man with no fear on his right. The latter was holding a 9mm SIG-Sauer. It had integrated laser sights and the little red dot was playing over Buchan’s jacket at the shoulder. Hussein was the last to get in. He sat up front, next to the driver. There was a solid clunking sound as all four doors slammed shut more or less simultaneously, then the driver turned the key in the ignition sparking the V8 engine into life. He jammed the automatic gear stick into ‘Drive’ and they pulled away with a lurch, making the first set of traffic lights as it turned to amber, jumping the next as it turned red. Wasting no time, the man with no fear found the Browning in Buchan’s waistband a few seconds later. He removed it with a yank and without applying the safety shoved it into the front of his jeans. Next, he found Buchan’s wallet. He removed one of the credit cards and read out Buchan’s name in the headlights of a passing car. “Is that you?” he asked in heavily accented English. Buchan said that it was. “And who are you, Mister Buchan?” asked Hussein, twisting in his seat, the outline of a small semi-automatic in his hand. He was tightening a silencer to the barrel. “And what are you doing here in San Miguel?” “I’m the one they sent to find out who killed Wyatt,” said Buchan simply. “And why they killed him.” There was amoment’s uneasy silence, then Hussein pulled out a cigarette and put it to his lips. “Really,” he said, a lighter flaring briefly. “That’s very honest of you. And who sent you to do that?” “That part’s classified.” Hussein laughed. “It may be classified, but you will tell me sooner or later. I have personally interrogated hundreds of men over the years, and they all talked in the end. Sometimes it was hard to shut them up...” Buchan nodded thoughtfully, as if he'd expected the threat and was taking it seriously. Then he grinned. “Forget it,” he said. “I don't do deals.” Hussein laughed. “It's all very funny, isn't it? Until someone gets hurt, that is.” “Yeah,” said Buchan coolly. “Then it's hilarious.” Hussein took a long drag on his cigarette. “You are very brave, Mister Buchan... or very stupid,” He exhaled the smoke. “And so what do you intend to do?” he asked. “When you find out who killed this man... ‘Wyatt’?” “That depends,” Buchan replied. “I get a lot of latitude, but usually it involves shooting people.” This time they all laughed. Then the questions stopped, and they travelled in silence for a while. They were in the jungle now, heading south at speed. Glancing at the speedometer, Buchan guessed that it would take about fifteen minutes before they reached the track that led to the hacienda, and he was making a few quick calculations when Hussein spoke again. “So, who was this man Wyatt, anyway?” he asked. “We never did find out.” “Just a man doing his duty,” said Buchan. “Well, he caused a lot of trouble, if that’s any consolation. Fortunately for us the damage does not seem to have been permanent.” “We'll see,” came the laconic reply.

Hussein grinned again. “Did anyone ever tell you that you've got a very inflated sense of your own abilities? Must have been that tequila you were drinking. You ought to be more careful. People who drink that stuff always get over-confident. They start thinking all sorts of stupid things and the hangovers can be terrible. But from the look of things, a hangover is going to be the last of your problems...” There was a ripple of laughter. After that a deep silence took over the vehicle. Buchan watched the world pass by for a while, then for no particular reason he found himself remembering a meaningless dream he’d had the night before. It had featured men he’d once served with in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, all of them good men, all of them now dead. They’d been sitting around a campfire drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and telling Buchan about how death wasn’t such a bad thing after all. He’d listened attentively, not saying very much. Then, just before the dream ended, one of them had leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Buchan couldn’t remember what it was now, only that it had seemed important at the time and had made him want to laugh. He wasn’t laughing now, however. Quite the opposite. Now he was neck-deep in Shit Creek without anything even remotely resembling a paddle. It was at times like this that he wished the Mill had a department dedicated to those fancy gadgets he’d seen fictional secret agents use in films. Right now, for example, he could have really done with some ray-gun eye implants, or a wristwatch filled with nano-bots that could selectively disable the bad guys, perhaps even a pocketsized helicopter to transport him straight to Mérida, where he could promptly seduce one of the city’s many lovelies over oysters and champagne, and complete the mission from the comfort of her bed. Unfortunately, the real world wasn’t like that, as he knew all too well. In the end, all the gadgets in the world weren’t worth a damn; in the end, a man’s wits

and abilities were the only thing that really counted, and the notion brought to mind memories of one of his former instructors, one of the never-ending stream of men and women that had trained him in preparation for his service with the Mill. The man in question, a Chief Petty Officer called Jones, was an ex-member of the Special Boat Service who'd gone on to train the Royal Navy’s Field Gun team at Portsmouth. He was a Welshman from the Valleys who liked his rugby and his rum, and had been a useful scrum-half for Neath in his youth. A short, wiry chap with long sideburns, a small, greying moustache and a hard, Neolithic glint in his eye, he’d been in his early fifties when Buchan had passed through his capable hands, and, despite his age he was, pound for pound, probably the strongest man Buchan had ever known and definitely one of the hardest. Amongst other responsibilities, Jones had been charged with running a course the Mill had nicknamed, ‘Murder made easy’. It involved the fine art of killing people using whatever was at hand - everything from kitchen utensils and office supplies to the sort of things you’d find in an average garden shed or garage and the little Welshman’s favorite expression, one he used all the time, was, “All you have is all you need, boyo, and that’s what you use.” This he always said in the resonant baritone for which the Welsh are famous, and it was with those words ringing in his mind that Buchan started to plan his next move. By the time the Suburban turned onto the dirt track some five minutes later, he had it all worked out, choreographed down to the finest detail. Success would depend - as it usually does in such matters - on a cool head, split second timing, lightning reflexes and a ruthless determination to see things through; and what happened next met all those requirements. Closing both of his eyes, he took a deep breath and held it, forcing all extraneous thoughts from his mind. Gradually, he became aware of every sound, every movement and every smell in the small, enclosed world he now inhabited, and even more gradually a cold darkness descended over him. He waited until it filled his being to bursting point. Then, without any kind of warning, one eye sprang open and he leaned abruptly forwards, shoving the SIG back with his right hand as he reached for the Browning with his left. Both guns boomed simultaneously, a massive orange flash filling Buchan’s peripheral vision as the SIG’s blast scorched the back of his neck. The damage to his night vision was significant, but nothing compared to the damage done by the Browning. It bucked twice in quick succession, bringing the man with no fear’s sex life to a sudden, dramatic and catastrophic end, and he died screaming a split second later as Buchan pulled the blood-soaked weapon from his waistband and put a third round into his chest. Now Buchan’s other eye popped open, and with his night vision restored, he raised the Browning in front of him and squeezed the trigger again. This time Hussein was the target. The 9mm round burst through the ample car seat to hit him squarely in the right shoulder. There was a yelp of pain and the silenced

semi-automatic fell with a clatter as Buchan turned the gun on the man in the Lennon specs. He needn’t have bothered. The little red dot had been hovering over his chest when the man with no fear fired and he was gasping unsteadily, the blood spilling through his fingers in a dark torrent as he tried to come to terms with his fate. A bullet into the roof of his mouth ensured he never did. It lit up his face like a pumpkin at Hallowe’en, complete with a jagged set of broken teeth, then Buchan was swinging the sights onto the back of the driver’s head. There was another loud explosion as the Parabellum penetrated the cerebellum at point blank range and, having ploughed its way through the man’s brainstem, it erupted from his left cheekbone, shattering the side-window on its way out into the night. Death, as they say, was instantaneous. The head lolled forwards, and with the body now slumped over the steering wheel, the vehicle slewed unsteadily into a shallow ditch. The powerful engine roared momentarily before shuddering to a stall, and Buchan breathed out, letting the noise of the explosions subside as he took a few seconds to assess the damage. Everything seemed to be as it should be, and with the smell of blood and cordite in his nostrils and a high-pitched ringing in his ears, he reached forward to flick on the interior light. Hussein was huddled against the door, his shoulder blown to pieces, his arm hanging uselessly by his side, and leveling the Browning at the Arab’s uncomprehending face Buchan instructed him not to move. Recovering his scattered belongings from the back seat, he climbed over the man with no fear’s bloody corpse and stepped onto the dirt track. He stopped to light a cigarette. The flickering flame revealed his features. They showed no emotion, just a vague sense of satisfaction at a job well done and, once the tobacco was alight, he opened the passenger side door to find Hussein fumbling for the semi-automatic. “I told you not to move,” he said, grabbing the Arab by the hair. He pointed the Browning at the man’s good shoulder, pausing briefly before pulling the trigger. There was a muffled explosion and an inhuman scream as flesh and bone disintegrated in the blast. “Get out,” he instructed, dragging the Arab’s uncomplaining body from the vehicle. He pushed it into the harsh glare of the headlights, returning briefly to the cab for the semi-automatic. He found it in the foot well; a .32-caliber Beretta Tomcat with five rounds in the box magazine. It was a small, dangerously underpowered sidearm by Buchan's standards, but just about perfect for what he had in mind and shoving the Browning into his belt, he walked back to where Hussein lay squinting in the bright lights, his dark skin suddenly pale, his eyes full of shock. In common with most people in his line of work Buchan had been taught two principal ways of extracting information. The first was long and tedious and involved a subtle combination of humiliation and hardship. It usually yielded the desired results and was the preferred method of those who had time on their hands or were bound by rules and regulations and consideration for human rights and all that stuff. The second involved the threat of extreme and immediate violence, with the condition that such action might be withheld if the subject co-operates by giving up the necessary information, which probably wasn’t so important anyway. This method tended to save a lot of time but was overly dependent on the subject’s strength of character and his ability to endure whatever suffering was involved. Then there was a

third option; one which Buchan had never been taught but which he’d developed at his own initiative. It involved inflicting massive

and overwhelming amounts of pain without the promise or hope of salvation, offering death as the only means of escape - and the provision of the required information as the only means to achieve death. Given the circumstances he had no hesitation in choosing it. “As I was saying,” he reminded the Arab, his tone almost conversational, “my work involves shooting people. And you're next in line. But not until I know what you're doing here...” He cocked the Beretta. “You can start by telling me who killed Wyatt.” A look of fear mixed with hatred flashed across the wounded man’s face. Then the look changed to one of defiance. He muttered something in Arabic and spat, and without a moment’s thought Buchan leveled the weapon at his right kneecap and fired. There was a whispered thwack, and the patella exploded silently, splattering the dusty track with a crimson arc of fresh blood.

Hussein screamed. He looked down at the new wound then up at Buchan, horror writ large across his face as though somehow Buchan wasn ‘t following the script, as though these things weren ‘t meant to happen. He appeared to have aged about a dozen years in as many seconds, and sensing that his resistance was crumbling Buchan waited for a look of comprehension to return to the man’s eyes. Then, raising the handgun, he repeated the question... “Or the other leg’s next.”

“T’ll make a bargain with you,” whispered Hussein feebly. “A deal... just let me live.” Buchan drew on the cigarette, simultaneously cocking the weapon. “Like I said, Hussein, I don’t do deals.” The Arab’s confusion deepened. “How do you know my name?” he asked. “That’s not important.” Hussein drew a few short gasps of breath, then screamed something unintelligible. Buchan waited until he finished, then stepped closer. “I didn’t get that.” “The Irishmen,” whispered the Arab, his voice thin with terror. “O’Neill killed Wyatt. Kennedy helped him do it. They took it in turns. They said it was ‘personal’... They said he was a traitor, a British spy. That he wanted to sabotage the mission...” “And what is the mission? Why are you here, Hussein?” This time there was no reply. Buchan shrugged, then aiming the Beretta at the Arab’s good knee, he fired again. The joint burst like ripe fruit, spraying blood, bone and cartilage in all directions. Hussein screamed again, his body writhing with the renewed onslaught of pain. Buchan let him writhe, raising the silenced barrel as the screams came to a gradual halt. Hussein was ready to talk now. He knew it and Buchan knew it too. “T’ll tell you what,” said Buchan, “I’ll make it easy for you. Just tell me what’s in the helicopter?”

The reply was whispered. “A weapon...” “Keep talking. I want to know what it is and what you intend to do with it.” “The hurricane...” “Get to the point,” said Buchan, starting to lose his patience. He lowered the gun until it was aligned with the Arab’s groin, his finger tightening on the trigger. Hussein's eyes were white round things, ready to pop, and when he tried to back away there was an awkward crunching sound. Grimacing with pain, he started to speak but the words fell silently from his mouth. Then he uttered a strangled moan and lay suddenly still. Flicking the cigarette away, Buchan looked down at the motionless body, a puzzled look in his eyes. The Arab's face had undergone a sudden, strange yet all too familiar transformation and Buchan reached down to check for a pulse but stopped himself. He’d seen enough corpses to know that Ali Hassan Hussein was dead, and relaxing his grip on the handgun’s trigger, he swore. His anger flared momentarily, then focused, and stepping forwards he frisked Hussein's body from jacket collar to trouser cuffs with fast, efficient hands. There were no identity papers, no incriminating maps, no top-secret documents explaining their mission in the finest detail. But he did find a small bottle of pills in one of the jacket pockets. These, it turned out, were for a heart condition, and, realising that he’d screwed up badly, he swore again. There was no room for slip-ups like that. Slip-ups led to fuck-ups, and this wasn’t some stupid video game he was playing, where you could just push the ‘restart’ button and everything would be all right. This was reality and this was now, and if Wyatt’s body was anything to go by, the price of any further mistakes was going to be a high one. He stopped to compose himself a second time, his eyes becoming deep slits of intense concentration as he harnessed his thoughts. Bit by bit, he set about eliminating whatever fear, self-pity or doubt he might have been feeling. Instead, he recalled his training. According to this, when one plan went wrong you simply took stock of any new developments and came up with another one. That, inevitably, was easier said than done. The more he thought about his chances of completing the mission, the less appealing and more appalling they seemed, especially when you took the fast-approaching deadline into consideration. It loomed over him like a vulture circling its next meal... He needed a breakthrough, and he needed it fast. That meant going back to the hacienda, and the

trouble with that was he didn’t think he’d get out alive. If he did survive, he only hoped his next mission would be some cushy affair involving dancing girls or something. Then he remembered there wasn’t going to be another mission and swore some more.

Having left the party, Hook and Vicky found themselves walking along the backstreets of Fulham with no particular place to go. Wondering what to do next, Hook was considering his limited options when he recalled a conversation that he’d had a few weeks earlier. It was a conversation he’d had with a fellow officer called Greenlees in the mess one evening. Greenlees was renowned for his success with women and he’ d pronounced Chelsea Embankment to be the best place in London for a romantic stroll, especially at night. “In terms of getting a girl's panties off,” he’d declared between sips from a snifter full of brandy, “it’s easily as good as a bottle of Krug, and a damn sight cheaper”. Happily, Hook now found himself in a position to put that theory to the test, and within a few minutes they were walking along the tree-lined bank of the River Thames. The traffic on the road beside them was very light, the moon full, and the hustle and bustle of a Saturday night in the city seemed absurdly remote and distant. It was almost as though they'd been magically transported to some hidden urban oasis, a kind of secret garden, unknown to everybody but themselves. “What a brilliant idea, Charlie!” exclaimed Vicky. “The river, the lights - they’re all just perfect. It’s almost as if we were in the countryside. It’s like something from a film set.” Hook, who had been making a mental note buy Greenlees a beer, said, “I'm glad you like it.” They walked on in silence for a while. The absence of any conversation coupled with the fresh air gave Hook a chance to take stock of his situation. He was still gloriously drunk, but the worst seemed to be over and he was enjoying the long downhill glide back to sobriety. Added to that, there was the sense of barely contained ecstasy he felt having Vicky by his side, away from the crowd and all to himself. No longer was this just another throwaway Saturday night doomed to end in some meaningless fling, or with him sleeping alone on Andy’s sofa with a bucket by his head. Instead, he was on top of the world with the girl of his dreams, and he felt a real sense of giddiness at the possibilities that might be in store. Life, he mused, could be a great deal worse. A broad grin spread suddenly and unconsciously across his battered features. Then, as if checking to see that Vicky was real and not the figment of some drunken hallucination, he looked across at her. To his surprise, she was doing the same thing, gazing intently and steadily up into his face. The cool, night air had given her pale cheeks a rosy glow that only emphasized her beauty, and he held her gaze for along moment, watching as her bright eyes widened then slowly narrowed again. There was nothing overly flirtatious about her manner; and certainly nothing blatantly sexual; but it did involve an undeniable intimacy and warmth that hit Hook hard. Then, as an added bonus, he felt her hand slip into his. He gave her cold fingers a reassuring squeeze. They squeezed his back and for a few short, silent seconds he felt like he was floating on air. Then, abruptly, she laughed, her teeth flashing in the headlights of a passing car, and looked away. Painfully aware that he’d missed a great chance to kiss her, Hook resolved to do better next time, and they continued walking, reaching one of several benches that lined the path a minute or so later. There, they sat down. The bench overlooked Battersea Park and Hook took in the broad reach of the river, the water’s smooth surface reflecting the many lights of Albert Bridge to his right. Apart from the low rumble of the occasional passing car, the only sound was that of the water slapping the ancient Cornish granite that lined the watercourse, and in the distance, far to the south, fireworks were exploding in a brilliant but mute display. While the view didn’t compare with some of the great cityscapes he’d seen in his time - he thought of New York’s soaring skyline and Edinburgh’s proud, snow-laden castle; of Hong Kong’s crowded harbor and the unqualified masterpiece that was Cape Town - it did have a charm of its own, and right then he wouldn’t have swapped it for any of them. His thoughts returned to Vicky and, figuring there was no time like the present, he put his arm around her, protectively at first. Then realizing there was no resistance, he hugged her body closer to his. “When was your last relationship, Charlie?”she asked out of the blue. Hook thought back, recalling the brief liaison with a divorcee about a month before, but knowing that was the last thing she wanted to hear, he just answered, “A long time ago.” “Do you miss her?”

“Sometimes,” he lied, and turning his head he looked long and hard into her shining eyes. They searched his in return. She was breathing heavily, and for a desperate moment the two of them fought a silent battle of wills. It didn't last. Grabbing her by the back of her head, Hook kissed her firmly on the mouth. Her warm, wet lips met his with an urgency that surprised him. They parted on contact, her tongue a living thing, darting and restless, and the two of them stayed like that, kissing each other hard and without restraint for what seemed like an eternity. Then, just as were getting really interesting, she withdrew her tongue, turned her face from his and pulled away from his body slightly. She took a moment to catch her breath and her voice was a husky whisper when she eventually spoke. “Thank you,” she said. “What for?” asked Hook, his own voice noticeably lower in tone. “For not treating me like glass. There’s nothing worse.” And releasing herself from his embrace she jumped up. “I’m going to go home now,” she said. It was an instruction, not an invitation. “I’ll see you tomorrow, if you like?” Hook stood up. The development was not completely unexpected and a small part of him respected her for it. All the same, his sense of disappointment was palpable. “Where?” he asked dully. “And when?” “The Windsor Castle,” she said. “It’s a nice little pub in Notting Hill. How about six o’clock?” With that she gave him a short, sweet peck on the cheek. It was way too short and sweet for Hook’s tastes, and before he knew it, she was hailing a passing taxi. The orange ‘For Hire’ light went off as the vehicle slowed to a halt beside them. Then, with a last wave she was gone, and he was left standing on his own, still very drunk and vaguely aware that his life would never be the same again.

CHAPTER VII Working quickly, Buchan checked to see if the dead were carrying anything that might prove useful. There weren ‘t; and making a mental note not to kill all the leads he came across, he went to recover the shapeless pile of bloody clothes that was Hussein from the track. Dragging it back to the vehicle he threw it across the rear seat. Then pushing the driver’s slumped figure from the steering wheel, he climbed inside, adjusting the seat to make room for his long legs. He lit another cigarette and left it on his lips. He was still angry with himself for killing Hussein. A quick clean conclusion to the operation seemed out of the question now. Plan A hadn’t worked out quite as well as he’d hoped. It was time for Plan B, which was a lot like Plan A, but with higher risks, worse odds, and a shitload more violence. As stupid, insane and suicidal ideas go, it probably wasn ‘t the most stupid, insane and suicidal he “d ever come up with, but that wasnt saying very much, and wiping the windscreen clear of human remains, he maneuvered the Suburban out of the ditch and pulled away. The SUVs strange name had always puzzled Buchan, lacking as it did the caché, romance and flair signified by most car names. After all, the suburbs of a city were hardly anyone’s idea of a fun, fast time. In fact, it was hard to imagine anything more dull or boring, and the only explanation he could think of was that the vehicle was the approximate size and shape of the average suburban house. It also handled more like a house than a car, it occurred to him now, which, given his intentions for it, probably wasn’t such a bad thing... All things considered, the plan he’d formulated in his mind’s eye was a simple one that contained the element of surprise but had little else going for it. If everything went well, he’d get the information he needed and be out of the hacienda within the hour, ready to take things to the next stage, whatever that was. If it didn’t go well, he’d be dead. He put the odds of success at fifty-fifty, but knew they were nowhere near that good, and he was picturing his body being torn to pieces in a variety of spectacularly unpleasant ways when the lights of the hacienda suddenly appeared in the distance. Flicking the cigarette through the broken side-window, he slowed the Suburban to a halt. About a hundred yards further along the track he made out the gate in the outer wall. Directly beyond it he could see the vague silhouette of one of the assault helicopters, and leaving the engine to idle, he tore a sleeve from the driver’s shirt. Then, stepping from the vehicle, he found and removed the petrol cap and stuffed the sleeve into the hole. Once satisfied that it was soaked through, he reached for his lighter and flicked it alight. The cloth burst into sudden flame, and jumping back inside, he shoved the engine into gear. His foot hit the floor a split second later and the Suburban surged forward, rapidly gathering speed until it had a momentum all its own. The gate loomed ever larger, and beyond it Buchan could see desultory figures caught up in a rising tide of panic. He waited until the iron bars filled his field of vision, then grabbing the Beretta, he shoved the side door open and threw himself through it. He didn’t expect the landing to be perfect or painless, and it wasn’t either of those things. First, there was a long, timeless moment when he was hanging in the air; then there was the sudden, jarring impact of landing. It was accompanied by all kinds of pain and discomfort as his body bounced from one solid, immovable object to another, and the next thing he knew he was rolling sideways over what felt like a bed of nails. More by accident than design, he finally ended up in a low crouch. He’d survived, but only just, and he watched as the vehicle struck the gates ahead of him at something like thirty miles per hour. It crashed through into the courtyard beyond, hitting the Hind head-on with all the inevitable consequences. There was a loud rending sound of metal being torn to pieces, and a sudden, gigantic fireball erupted over the scene, sending shards of shrapnel and glass flying high into the air. The screams were instantaneous. Then came the cries for help and the random snap of gunfire. Ignoring them all, Buchan scrambled to his feet and, taking the usual precautions to avoid being easily spotted, he made his way through the undergrowth towards the aqueduct.

He found it a few minutes later with the aid of the distant firelight. Breathing and sweating heavily now, he crouched down and surveyed the moonlit scene around him through some long grass. The hacienda’s high wall was a short distance away, and while his route over it was clear in his mind, it was what came next that concerned him. The place had a definite, ‘abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here’ feel about it, and knowing he’d reached the point of no return he rose from his position and started to scale the first arch he came to, working his way stealthily along the gully until he reached the outer wall. ‘Goodbye frying pan, hello fire’, he thought as he crossed over it, and shuffling further along he came to the point where the sidewall had fallen away slightly. He looked around. Here, there was no sign of the panic and disorder elsewhere, nor any no flames to lighten the darkness, and knowing he had to move fast, Buchan rolled out over the edge of the aqueduct. Then, taking care not to dislodge any rocks, he dropped to the ground. For several seconds, he didn’t move. No one blew his head off with a shotgun or emptied a sidearm into his chest. No one screamed a warning or shone a torch in his face. No alarms sounded and no dogs barked. All he heard were the normal sounds of the tropical night, the regular hum of the generator, and the rapid pounding of his heart as his body stepped up a gear in reaction to the myriad dangers that now surrounded him. So far, so good, he thought. Switching his mental safety catch from ‘Safe’ to ‘Fire’, he waited until a thick bank of cloud had covered the moon. Then, letting the .32 lead the way, he moved from one shadow to another, covering about a dozen yards in as many seconds, before crouching down by the dry fountain that was the centerpiece of the small, overgrown garden. There, he took a moment to catch his breath, wipe the sweat from his face and hands, and get his bearings. Everything was pretty much as he remembered it, and rising from his position, he moved cautiously forward, his eyes continually sweeping the scene like twin searchlights, mapping and remapping every aspect of the three-dimensional battlespace as it evolved around him. The precise location, position and orientation of every building, window, door and obstacle was duly noted and logged. So too was any potential cover, certain fields of fire, and a variety of possible escape routes. Simultaneously, he drew on a

lifetime’s knowledge and experience to cross-check any changes in the natural rhythms of the night, carefully vetting every

shadow, noise or movement, no matter how small or seemingly irrelevant. Meanwhile, his imagination played a multitude of cruel tricks on him, turning even the most innocuous of shrubs into a crouching enemy, tree branches into rifles, and the rustle of the wind through the undergrowth into the movement of a stealthy adversary ready to slit his throat... All in all, he felt like a man walking on a wobbly tightrope over a fiery cauldron, and it was with a palpable sense of relief that he finally reached the back of the main building. There, he quickly sought out the deepest, darkest shadows, his body all but disappearing from view. He rested for another few moments, checking and double-checking his surroundings. Then, edging along the wall, he peered through a broken window veiled with cobwebs into what turned out to be a makeshift dormitory. It was dimly lit by a Coleman lamp and lined with army surplus camp beds. A couple of mosquito coils smoldered on a small table in one corner and clothes and other personal items lay strewn about. But apart from low murmur of birds roosting in the high ceiling, there was no sign of life, and he was wondering what his next step should be when he heard the indistinct murmur of voices. These, it transpired, were coming from an open window halfhidden by bushes about fifteen yards from where he was standing. He moved in slow motion toward them. Gradually, the voices became clearer. They belonged to two men talking urgently in a language he took to be Basque, but which could have been Navajo or Welsh for all he knew. He understood nothing, and rather than waste time trying to interrogate someone who might not speak English, he resolved to find someone who did. Dropping to a low crouch, he gave the window a wide berth and continued along the wall until he’d almost reached the end of the main building. There, he entered a dark passage, taking great care to avoid making any noise or sudden movement, and generally trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. In this, he was very successful. Despite his large size, his body seemed to float silently through the darkness, and he hadn’t gone very far when some disturbance at the very edge of his perception, some sixth sense, stopped him dead in his tracks.

Over the years, Buchan had learned to obey his sixth sense every time, understanding that it was really just all the other senses working together to provide information that they couldn't provide individually. As a consequence, he’d also learned that those who ignored it tended to find themselves removed from the gene pool in fairly short order. And so, without much in the way of conscious thought he stayed like that, not moving and barely breathing for almost a full minute. His ultra-cautious strategy paid off when, gradually, two things finally revealed the presence of the man standing in a doorway a few yards to his right. The first was the body odor that hung sour and heavy in the still air. The second was a slight glint of moonlight off the chrome-plated handgun he was holding. It was sweeping the ground between them, as though trying to get a fix on Buchan's position... Knowing that a confrontation was both inevitable and imminent, Buchan didn't hesitate. The silenced Beretta had three rounds left in it and, firing from the

hip, he used them all to punch a tight cluster of holes in the center of the man’s shadowy mass. The silencer ensured that the reports were all but muted, more like wet plops than ear-splitting cracks, and while the small caliber rounds made loud slapping noises as they penetrated the target’s clothing, they did little to disturb the relative tranquility of the night. The man just stood there, as if nothing had happened, and for a terrifying moment Buchan began to doubt the accuracy and lethality of his shooting. He needn't have worried. The lack of any scream or other reaction, together with the sound of blood splashing onto the ground in front of him told another story, and after a few more seconds the man let out a long sigh-like sound and collapsed into an untidy heap at Buchan’s feet. There was no time for condolences, and, breathing a sigh of relief, Buchan discarded the empty Beretta and switched to the Browning. For better or for worse, it was time to go ‘loud’, and leaving the fallen body behind him, he continued down the passage until he came to the foot of a short stone staircase. Sticking close to the left-hand wall, he crept upwards, one slow step at a time, the Browning held high in both hands and in front of his narrowed, sweat-filled eyes, his upper body swiveling this way and that as he moved. The stone steps were in good condition and relatively free of vegetation, but a pile of unseen rubble caused him to stumble slightly. As a consequence, he emerged onto a raised terrace at the far end rather more abruptly than he should have. Luckily, there was no one around to witness the episode and having recovered his footing he wiped his eyes and melted back into the protective shadows of some nearby bushes. He scanned the area, simultaneously cocking his head to catch any untoward sounds. The floodlights had come on in the main courtyard, about a hundred yards to his left. There he made out the burning wreckage of the Hind, now hopelessly entangled with that of the Suburban. Live rounds could be heard cooking off in the heat, and a largish crowd was silhouetted against the flames as they fought the fire, while others tended to the wounded that lay scattered around it. As Buchan watched the proceedings, the moon came out again. It was far from full, but strong enough to illuminate the details of the silvery world around him. This was a part of the hacienda which, until now, had remained mostly hidden from view, and his eyes, like concealed cameras, immediately mapped and memorized an eclectic assortment of structures. These included the industrial chimney he’s seen earlier. It thickened in stages towards the base, so that it resembled a giant howitzer pointing at the night sky. Next to that was an enormous factory-like building on two stories from whose roof and walls all kinds of shrubbery and trees now sprouted. It was solidly built and well-proportioned, with high windows and doors tall enough to ride through on horseback. Despite its utilitarian purpose it had obviously been designed to impress, and even in its poor condition it still managed to maintain the kind of timeless dignity and elegance that many a modern building can only dream of. Meanwhile, to his right, lay what looked like the remains of a small, long-abandoned village. This came complete with an impressive church, and a handful of cottages that had once been thatched. In addition to these, he made out a couple of flimsy tin-roofed shacks and a selection of other outbuildings, some of which were cloistered within crumbling Roman arches. Running between everything was an extensive network of interlocking drystone walls. They enclosed tennis-court-sized spaces that were full of long grass, shrubs, and small trees. Together they provided much-needed cover in an otherwise open expanse of ground and deciding to check out the factory first, he

dropped stealthily down from the raised terrace. Then, moving like a panther on the prowl, he took a rough, zig-zagging path right up to the large building’s outer wall. The place looked abandoned. The first window he came to seemed to confirm this. It revealed nothing other than a huge roofless space filled with the shadowy bulk of industrial machinery from another age. He recognized giant flywheels, connecting rods, pulleys, even the rusted remains of a massive, ancient steam engine. It was all much as he’d expected it to be and, guessing the machinery had more to do with the processing of henequen than anything else, he moved on, checking several more rooms in quick succession. All were filled with the detritus of prolonged neglect. Bats flitted in and out of the shadows. The dank air was rancid with the smell of their droppings and Buchan could feel the whispered vibration of their wings on his face and eardrums as they moved through the darkness around him. It was then that he noticed a light in one of the cloistered outbuildings and, treading carefully, he crossed a small clearing and passed under the first arch he came to. Cobwebs broke against his face as he did so, and he promptly wiped them away as moved up to an open door. The room beyond was illuminated by another Coleman lamp. Its glow created a warm pool of yellow light, revealing a selection of wooden cases stacked to chest height and a man standing with his back turned. He had a hooked crowbar in his hand and was prizing the lid from one of the cases when Buchan caught sight of his face... it was Billy Kennedy, the butcher, and wasting no more time Buchan stepped silently into the room. Raising the handgun, he crossed the floor, and the blow that followed caught the Irishman squarely on the back of the neck. Buchan watched as the now lifeless body crumpled to the ground, then rolled it over to get a look at Kennedy's face. Even unconscious, the man looked every inch a killer. He wore no jewelry, had no visible scars or tattoos, or any of the other usual trademarks, but there was a hardness about him, nevertheless. It came through in the blackness of his hair, the cold pallor of his skin, the calculated, almost brutal harshness of his features; and knowing he’d have his work cut out to make him talk, Buchan eased the

crowbar from the Irishman’s grip. Stepping away, he closed the door behind him and checked a

series of stenciled labels on the nearest cases. They contained a wide array of arms and

ammunition, and he spent a brief moment contemplating the deadly arsenal. His brow furrowed, his grey eyes narrowing as ideas bounced and ricocheted around his skull like a score of demented pinballs. Slowly, a plan began to formulate in his mind, and finding a case marked ‘GRENADES - HIGH EXPLOSIVE’, he prized it open. Inside, the cache of green, pineapple-shaped devices lay carefully packed within a thick bed of straw, looking as fragile and vulnerable as the eggs in an unprotected nest. Putting the crowbar to the side, Buchan primed one to explode after a four second delay. Then, using one of Kennedy's shoelaces, he attached the grenade by its cotter pin to the door handle and looked around. The only other exit was a broken window in the opposite wall, and he glanced through it into a partially overgrown passage. It ran to scrub at the far end and, reckoning that it would serve as an emergency exit, he turned his attention back to Kennedy. The Irishman was still out cold and, reaching for a handful of straw, Buchan stuffed it into the unconscious man's mouth before recovering the crowbar. He tested its weight, for a moment, then brought it sharply down on Kennedy’s right forearm. There was a sharp crack, and the Irishman’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the procedure repeated to his left arm. This time Kennedy uttered a smothered moan, and he looked up at Buchan, his pupils distended and filled with agonizing pain. He didn’t look so tough now, Buchan thought. He looked scared and lonely and pitiful, just like all the others did when the tables were turned. He grinned, flicking the Browning's barrel across the Irishman’s face twice in quick succession. Kennedy’s head reeled with the force, blood bursting from the bridge of his nose, and Buchan watched dispassionately as he rolled onto his side, his screams choked, almost distant. Placing the crowbar on a box at his feet, Buchan reached for a cigarette. “Hello, Billy,” he said as he lit up. “You don’t know me, but let’s just say I'm one of Wyatt's mates...”

He hauled the Irishman to his feet and hit him in the chest with his left fist. A rib broke with an audible crack. Kennedy doubled-up and made a grunting sound as he collapsed to the floor. Giving him no time to recover, Buchan kicked him into an upright position. “How does it taste, Billy?” he asked. “Your own medicine, that is. What’s it like to be the one at the receiving end?” The Irishman tried to speak through the straw. His words were muffled, but their meaning was clear enough and Buchan ignored them. “Apparently, you're a bit of a hard man,” he continued. “A tough nut to crack. Personally, I’m not convinced. I think youre just another lightweight and I intend to prove it. But first I’m going to remove the straw and you're going to tell me what you're doing here.” He gestured towards the door. “Oh, and by the way, that grenade will detonate if anyone comes in. And given that you’re sitting in the middle of an ammunition dump, I wouldn’t go screaming for any help, if I were you.” He pulled a blood-soaked ball of straw from Kennedy’s mouth. The Irishman spat the last few pieces out by himself, along with fragments of broken tooth, and he was cracking a wise grin when Buchan smashed the Browning across his face, knocking him back into unconsciousness. Hubris meet Nemesis, thought Buchan as he refilled the man’s mouth with straw. Then, with the help of the crowbar, he shattered both of the Irishman’s shins,

just above the ankles. Kennedy flinched both times but stayed unconscious, and Buchan puffed on the cigarette before applying the burning tip to the Irishman’s forehead. There was a hissing sound as the skin liquefied in the five-hundred-degree heat. The air filled with the stench of burning flesh, and a few seconds later the lifeless body jolted sharply upright, the eyes alive and staring wildly. “Hello, Billy,” repeated Buchan, withdrawing his hand. “Remember me?” He started to remove the straw for the second time. “Wyatt’s mate...” Kennedy coughed blood, his shoulders hunched and suddenly narrow, and sensing he was close to his much-needed breakthrough, Buchan spoke. “What are you doing in Mexico, Kennedy?” “I d-d-don’t know...” stammered the Irishman. “I swear I don’t... O’Neill’s in charge. He hasn’t told me. He hasn’t told anyone. He said it was just another job...” He coughed again, his body tightening as a fresh wave of pain and nausea engulfed him. Buchan was uncompromising. “If you don't tell me I'll kill you.” “I swear - I'm telling you the truth.” “Me too, Billy.” There was a long silence, and Buchan was about to repeat the question when hurried footsteps sounded nearby. A moment later, he saw the beam of a torch flicker across the gap beneath the door, and the footsteps came to a halt a short distance away. He had a vision of three, maybe four people standing there, speaking in urgent whispers, wondering what to do next, and reaching for the Browning he looked back at Kennedy, a finger at his lips. A look of sheer terror had filled the Irishman’s face. He was sweating heavily but stayed silent, and a few seconds later Buchan thought he heard the footsteps move on. Then, just when the danger seemed to have passed, the Irishman's nerve broke. He started to scream, and Buchan leapt for the window, just clearing the sill as the door burst open behind him. With the unstoppable chain reaction now in motion, he landed in the narrow passage and started to run, covering about twenty yards before the quick succession of events finally came. First there was the sound of the door being kicked in. Some excited chatter followed, then came the panicked shouts as the realization of what was about to happen dawned on the occupants of the room. These were closely followed by a short-lived chorus of hysterical screams and the muffled whump! of the grenade’s detonation. Short, flat and unimpressive, it sounded about as lethal as a stifled cough, but the sudden silence that filled the air in that moment told another story. Then there was a massive secondary explosion as the rest of the room’s contents went up with a noise like a gigantic thunderclap. It ripped a savage hole in the darkness of the night, illuminating the scene like sheet lightning, and the building’s walls seemed to just separate

from themselves. The roof went next, the ground heaving beneath Buchan’s feet as he ran, and he was in the middle of a flying leap when the first of a series of searing blast waves knocked him sharply to the ground. What followed was like a fire in a fireworks factory as hundreds of subsidiary explosions rocked the world around him. Then came a vicious hailstorm of bricks and pieces of red-hot red-hot metal and god knows what else. It seemed to last for ages, and covering his head with his arms as best he could, he let the debris settle before crawling to the cover of a nearby wall. Fuck me! he thought. That was close, and brushing his eyes clear of dust and dirt, he checked his body for injuries. Apart from a few minor scratches and more loud ringing in his ears there weren't any, and reminding himself to be more careful next time, he looked over to see a large pile of smoking rubble, illuminated in places by small patches of fire. There were no survivors. All he saw were pieces of broken bodies sticking out of the wreckage, many of them nothing more than unrecognizable chunks of scorched flesh. Meanwhile, around him, the compound was a scene of utter pandemonium, the panic now widespread. Gunshots could be heard with increasing regularity, screams and shouting, too. A harsh grin flickered across his face, like some kind of weird electrical discharge, and in a strange way he realized he was enjoying himself. He hadn't taken out so many bad guys in such quick succession since a particularly bad night in Bombay six years earlier. The only trouble was that dead men were no good to him, they couldn't tell him what he needed to know. He needed someone still living, and feeling curiously cool and relaxed, he put the incident behind him and moved on through the shadows until he came to a door in the side wall of the church. It opened suddenly from within, and he flattened himself into the shadows as half a dozen black-clad men clattered past carrying sidearms. They soon disappeared in the direction of the explosion. He waited a moment to see if anyone else followed. No one did, and with cold rivulets of sweat trickling down his torso, he stepped through into the building’s spacious but empty interior. It was poorly lit by a hurricane lamp on a wooden tea-chest in one corner and was cool and smelled of mildew. Bats inhabited the high, beamed ceiling, and the walls had been spattered with their shit, so they looked like some sort of giant abstract by Jackson Pollock, only with more artistic merit. He also noted that there were puddles of rainwater on the red-tiled floor, and a series of pillared arches formed a shadowy backdrop on either side. But it was the murmur of low voices was coming from a door at the far side of the space that really caught Buchan’s attention. A light was showing underneath, and he was approaching it when the door swung open. A woman emerged. It was the woman he’d watched undress through the window; the good-looking one with the curves. She was carrying a sub-machine gun slung over her right shoulder. She looked across at him, a look of stunned confusion on her face, and had started to raise the weapon when he hit her with a short, sharp punch to the jaw. It broke with a loud snap, and he caught the unconscious body as it fell, gently easing it to the ground. “Big boys’ games,” he muttered by way of apology, “big boys’ rules.” Then, stepping over her prostrate mass, he edged up to the door. Through a crack in the woodwork, he could see something he’d never expected to see. It was a bank of screens and monitors mounted on a metal frame. They looked like the kind of things you'd see in a hospital’s ICU and were attached by tubes and wires to the remains of what, he presumed, had once been a human being - the head and body so grievously mutilated that it was hard to tell. Propped up against a cushioned headboard and partially covered by a sheet, it was shriveled and limbless but for the right arm; with only a jagged patch of scar tissue where the left shoulder used to be, and two short stumps for legs, one of which almost reached the knee. With his heart beating ever faster, Buchan looked back at the face. Like some medieval gargoyle it was bleached of all colour and almost devoid of form, so that it bore only the faintest resemblance to its original design. Then he looked into the eyes. They were like liquid mirrors of darkness, as deep and dark as an abyssal plain... It was Cochrane. And according to the machines he was alive!

Memories of Strabane flooded Buchan’s mind, and a cold emptiness gripped his heart, temporarily depriving him of the ability to breathe. His face registered neither shock nor exhilaration, but suddenly everything had changed; everything was different. The moment he’d been afraid to hope for had come. After all these years vengeance would finally be his. Instantly, all thoughts of the mission vanished, and he was about to kick the door from its hinges when he felt the cold steel of a gun barrel on the back of his neck. “IT wouldn't do that if I were you,” said a quiet voice in a soft Irish brogue. It was the kind of voice Buchan had learned to respect, the kind he’d learned to obey, and he froze. “Good,” said the voice. “Now drop the gun.” Buchan didn’t respond and the muzzle nudged upwards. “Big boys’ games, big boys’ rules... ;Comprendes, amigo?” Still Buchan hesitated, his mind racing. After Vicky’s death he’d promised himself never to put down his gun. Not for anyone. And he never had. But something in the Irishman’s voice made him break that promise, and knowing he’d regret it, he dropped the weapon. Then he heard the voice again; low and slow and plenty tough. It said something about him being a fucking Brit bastard. No regrets there. He hardly felt the subsequent blow to the back of his head, and thought he had things pretty much under control when his legs went from under him and the world disappeared from sight.

Following Vicky’s departure, Hook made his way back to the party. It was still going strong, and he eventually found Andy fully clothed and fast asleep in one of the bedrooms. It took a while to rouse him, then there was the long walk back to the flat, and it was almost two o'clock when he finally collapsed onto the sitting room couch. Exhausted by the day's exertions he was asleep within seconds, and he awoke some nine hours later to the sound of Andy throwing up in the bathroom. Hook wasn't feeling much better. He was something of a connoisseur where hangovers were concerned and the one he had now fell squarely into the Class-A, copper-bottomed, oceangoing bastard category. His injuries from the rugby match didn't help matters, and he consoled himself that it had all been in a good cause. Gradually he recalled other snippets and details from the night before. They brought a creaky smile to his face and, moving carefully, he steered himself towards the kitchen. There, he put the kettle on and he was in the process of making a pot of tea when Andy stumbled in to join him. Any conversation was naturally limited, and they spent some time sorting themselves out with showers, cigarettes and aspirins before going for a full English breakfast in a greasy spoon just off the King’s Road. After that, Andy went back to bed. Hook, on the other hand, visited the nearby National Army Museum where he killed time amongst the various displays, brushing up on the history of the British Empire and its medals, lest either topic came up later in the day. The hours passed easily enough. Gradually his hangover faded, and on leaving the museum he went back to the flat. Andy was awake now. They watched some rugby on TV, enjoying a couple of beers in the process. Then, having washed and brushed and generally made himself as presentable as possible, he left Andy in front of the TV and went in search of a taxi.

CHAPTER VIII An indeterminate length of time later, Buchan rolled over and groaned. He came back to consciousness slowly, like a diver nearing the water’s surface, and with great effort opened his eyes. They felt as if they’d been sealed with an exceptionally strong glue, and he watched the fuzzy glowing image above him sharpen into the shape of a light bulb. Moths were flying in busy patterns around it. They were being watched by a handful of geckos clinging to the nearby ceiling, waiting patiently for their chance to strike. The back of his head hurt and when he touched it, the scalp was raw and tender. Recalling the events in the church, he muttered a quiet oath and checked for the effects of concussion. His breathing was regular, his heartbeat steady, and though still slightly blurred, his vision functional. He rubbed his eyes in a vain attempt to improve it and looked around. He was lying on the concrete floor of a small square room that was bare of all furnishings and had the chill dank atmosphere of a cellar. It had a single small window at head height, crisscrossed with iron bars an inch thick and set deep into a cracked adobe wall. His feet and hands had been left unbound, and forcing himself from the ground, he looked through it into the main courtyard. There he made out the still smoking frame of the Hind, but the floodlights had been turned off and except for the occasional star, the rest was in darkness. As a matter of routine, he crossed the floor to check the door. It was a heavy wooden affair, solidly built and reinforced by a series of wrought iron brackets. He didn’t expect to find it unlocked, and it wasn’t. Applying his shoulder, he gave it a hard shove. It didn’t give, and leaning back against the wall, he slumped dejectedly to the floor. It came to him then - the unholy image that had been Cochrane’s face. So, he thought, the speculation had been right. Despite losing whole body parts in the explosion, the bastard was still alive. Somehow, against all the odds, he’d survived. And suddenly Buchan had the weird sensation that the mission was much more important than even Control had suspected. That he’d stumbled on to something bigger. Much bigger... and the way things were going, he’d be dead long before he ever got a chance to find out what it was. They had, he guessed, left him to recover consciousness. In the meantime, they’d be assessing the damage and trying to determine whether he’d been acting as part of a team. Then once they realized he wasn’t, they’d come for him. Land on him like a ton of bricks. Flatten him in an all-out attempt to break him, the same way they’d flattened Wyatt. He couldn't blame them, really, not given all the trouble he’d caused. He thought about the number of men he’d already killed that night. There were the four in the vehicle, then the man in the shadows and Kennedy. That made six. Then there were the ones killed in the explosion when the grenade had detonated - two, maybe three, maybe more. Not to forget the odd sentry that had been standing too close to the helicopter when the Suburban hit it. But that still left Cochrane and O’Neill unaccounted for, and they were the only ones that really mattered. The knowledge that he’d never get to kill them now was a bitter pill to swallow. It did nothing to lift his spirits, and he checked to see if they’d taken his watch. They hadn't. It was almost midnight and he searched his pockets. His wallet had gone, but he still had his cigarettes and the lighter. As he reached for them, his thoughts turned to mounting some sort of daring escape attempt. It didn’t take him long to decide he was wasting his time, and he lit up instead. Then taking a long slow drag on the cigarette, he grinned at his fate and thought about what might have been. *

It was two-nil to the geckos and Buchan was on his third cigarette when the door was unbolted suddenly from the outside. It swung open with a sigh-like creak and he watched as O’Neill's big frame filled the doorway, his shadow looming in the half-light like a blunt threat. He was wearing black jeans held up by a brown leather belt, a white shirt smudged with dirt, and heavy work boots. A lit cigar smoldered in his left hand and he took a long drag on it as Irigaray followed him in still scowling. Somewhat shorter than O’Neill, he had the squat compact physique of a front-row forward and the kind of crazed look in his eye that said he might kill you for no good reason at all. He reminded Buchan of a brain-damaged bulldog, and he was under no illusions about the man’s capacity to play Anvil to O’Neill’s Hammer in the horror show that was sure to follow. Despite everything Buchan felt no fear. His thinking was clear and his emotions frozen. He knew there would be more pain, almost certainly the risk of severe and permanent injury, all inevitably followed by an inglorious death. But these were factors long since anticipated and accounted for, and he would face them with the same cynical detachment and dogged resilience he’d faced every other challenge in his life. They would not be allowed to influence his thoughts or his actions - they would change nothing - so fear in any meaningful sense could not be said to exist. “You ready to talk yet, Mister Buchan?” The soft brogue again. Buchan didn’t answer and the Irishman shrugged. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Stepping forward, he swung his boot into Buchan’s side, catching him under the ribcage like a wrecking ball at the bottom of its downswing. Buchan grunted with the force and rolled away, fighting the sudden pain and a desperate urge to retch. “You know the routine,” continued O’Neill, not giving him time to recover. “We want to know who you are and what you're doing here, and we're going to take it in turns to beat the shit out of you until you tell us.” Pulling him up by the hair, O’Neill hit him in the face with a fist. It came out of nowhere and Buchan staggered backwards a few paces before finally collapsing. “Big boys’ games, remember,” muttered the Irishman, the cigar wedged firmly in the corner of his mouth. “Big boys’ rules.” Buchan just lay where he landed; his body paralyzed by the sudden onslaught of pain. Blood clogged his throat and O’Neill’s boots filled his field of vision like blurred CinemaScope. They were scuffed and soiled and the leather toecap on one was torn to reveal a shiny metallic surface underneath. Either it was reinforced, he concluded hazily, or else the Irishman was made of steel. He found himself wishing he had something to believe in, but right then, he didn’t. All

he had was the vague certainty that he’d never let himself down before. “Just ask the questions,” whispered Buchan in return. “I’ll answer them if I want to.” “You know what I like about Brits?” said O'Neill hauling Buchan to his feet again, his face a solemn mask. “Fuck all!” Then, grinning suddenly, he lifted his knee sharply and savagely into Buchan’s groin. Buchan wouldn’t recall much of what followed, only that it was brutal and relentless in its intensity. He floated in and out of consciousness for a while, in and out of pain, until gradually the noise and the blows began to subside. Then the nausea took over. And the pain. And the retching. And forcing himself onto his hands and knees, he wiped blood from his eyes and looked back at the two men, the image a red-stained blur. For a few seconds he couldn’t even remember who they were. Then one of them said something and he recognized the soft Irish brogue, no longer as soft as it once was, and suddenly the images tightened, and the words became easier to understand. “It doesn’t get any better than this, Mister Buchan,” continued the Irishman at last. “You might as well start talking.” He puffed on the cigar before examining it coldly. “And if you give me any of that ‘name, rank and serial number’ shit, I’ll personally make sure that you live long enough to regret it. Understood?” Buchan’s answer took an age to form and even longer to deliver. “I’m a friend of Wyatt’ s,” he managed, struggling to make the words intelligible through blood-smeared lips numb with pain. “I was looking for the men who killed him when I came across your lot in a bar. They stuck a gun in my back and wanted to bring me here.” “What happened then?”

“I killed them.” “And just how did you manage to overpower and kill four armed men?” “They were drunk and stupid. They didn’t stand much of a chance.” “That’s not good enough, Buchan. They must have had a gun on you.” “They did,” said Buchan evenly. He stared into the cigar’s bright fire and breathed in. He could hardly wait to hear what he was going to say next. Then he said it. “I’m good at killing people. Let’s just say I specialize in that sort of thing.” There was no reaction from the Irishman. No reaction from the Basque either. Then O’Neill spoke, “Not a bad tally, Mister Buchan. All in all, that makes more than a dozen you've killed so far. Just as well we stopped you, isn’t it? Another twenty minutes and we’d all be dead.” “That was the general intention,” said Buchan. He got a kick in the small of the back for that. The resulting pain made him want to scream and it was a long minute before he was able to open his eyes again. When he finally managed it, Irigaray was standing over him. “And the Browning?” asked the Basque. “Where did you get that?” Buchan coughed up some blood and spat. He thought about the question. He didn’t have an answer. Hoping for a change of subject, he swore. “Don’t fuck with us,” warned O’Neill, dragging Buchan up. “We don’t like being fucked with.” His fist rose slowly; then snapped down in a repetitive blur that never seemed to end, and when it finally did, Buchan’s body was just a bloody heap on the floor at his feet. Uttering an involuntary groan, he opened his eyes. He was aware of a blinding pain in his head and something warm and viscous in his mouth. Every instinct told him to lay perfectly still, and he was fighting to stay conscious when O’Neill spoke. “This is your last chance, Mister Buchan,” he warned solemnly. “After this, it gets ugly.” Buchan shook his head loose. He was definitely too old for this kind of shit. Realistically, he knew the end was close. He just hoped it would be quick. He looked up at the Irishman, his bloody mouth turned down at the sides, his eyes defiant. The words came slowly. He was surprised they came at all. “Fuck you, O’Neill. Need to know basis only.” He'd just about managed a grin when the Irishman kicked him in the side of the head. Then the world faded from sight and he fell into a deep unconsciousness. It was a welcome relief.

The Windsor Castle was, it turned out, a quaint little pub located in a quiet neighborhood close to Holland Park. Stepping through the doors was like stepping into another world - a world that had stopped sometime in the 1830s if the oak paneling, wooden settles, fireplace and decor were anything to go by. It even came with a surly, mutton-chopped barman who might have stepped straight from the pages of a Dickens novel, and having ordered a pint of bitter Hook found a seat in a cozy little snug close to the log fire. He lit a cigarette and watched as the place started to fill with a pleasant mix of locals and tourists. Before long it had reached bursting point, but if Hook thought he might not see Vicky in the crowd he needn't have worried. Her appearance was announced in no uncertain terms by a gradual but distinct drop in the level of noise. Heads swiveled, smiles froze, hearts skipped a beat and beer was spilled. Men forgot what they were talking about; while women looked around in puzzlement, then chastised their husbands and boyfriends in short-lived annoyance. It was an intoxicating moment for the young officer, bringing back memories of their brief encounter the night before, and he felt his soul fill with a kind of joy as she moved through the crowd towards him. For the second time in twenty-four hours, simple activities like controlling his limbs and breathing suddenly became extremely difficult, and he had to gather himself as he rose to meet her. Kissing her firmly on the cheek, he took her coat and asked what she’d like to drink. “A whisky mac would be nice,” she said, as she took her seat.

Hook went to the bar, returning a couple of minutes later to place the whisky and ginger wine concoction on the table between them. Then he grinned at her and she grinned back at him. “What's the matter?” she asked, still grinning. “Nothing. It’s just that it’s very nice to see you again.” “It’s nice to see you, too,” she said. “How was your day?” “Good,” he said. “But Andy and I were both feeling a bit under the weather, if the truth be told.” “And now?” “Feeling groovy again,” he said. “Ready to wrestle koala bears or leap very narrow canyons.” She laughed, her eyes shining brightly in the firelight. “Not many of them in Notting Hill, but you might have to watch out for the odd cyclist. I almost had a collision with one on the way here.” “They're a menace,” agreed Hook. “I’ll make sure it never happens again.” She smiled. “How very gallant.” “Cigarette?” he offered. “Thanks.” She took one and he lit it. She inhaled the smoke between sips of her drink, and gradually they fell into conversation about his days at Sandhurst and how he'd passed out just in time to join the British Task Force on its way to the South Atlantic where he and his men had played a disappointingly small role. “No medals for bravery, then?” “No. Never really got the chance. The Argies kept retreating whenever they heard the Gurkhas were in the area.” “Given their reputation, I'm not sure I blame them.” “Me neither,” agreed Hook.

“What about Rhodesia?” “Rhodesia?” “Any medals?”

Hook’ s answer came hesitantly. “Just the one,” he said, tapping the ash from his cigarette. “For stupidity far and above the call of duty... It was late in the war. The quartermaster had overstocked on the bloody things, and they were virtually giving them away...” “I'm sorry,” interrupted Vicky. “I should know better than anyone how men don't like to talk about their gongs.” Hook smiled. “The fact is there wasn't much to it. You could say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “But you did the right thing?’ “More or less. I did what I had to do, that's all. Sometimes, when you’ re cornered like that, you don’ t have much choice. It didn’ t have much to do with bravery, the

way people think. I just got mad at seeing my mates getting shot all around me. One of them happened to get in my way, so I picked him up and carried him to safety. That “s all. Next thing you know the adjutant wanted a word and my face was on the front page of the local newspaper...” She examined him closely, as though seeing him in a new light. “You're quite old-fashioned in a way, aren't you?” she said at last. “It's almost as if you'd just stepped from the pages of a John Buchan novel, or something.” Hook grinned. He liked the association. "You can blame it on my upbringing," he said. "I grew up in virtual isolation from the rest of the world. My parents lived on a farm that was a two-hour drive from the nearest town. We didn't have TV, and about the only reading material I had was an incomplete set of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. As a result, I've always been a bit weak on all the stuff that's happened since then, or anything beginning with, 'B', 'G', ‘L’ and 'T', for that matter." Vicky laughed. "You're not missing very much," she said. "It's pretty much been downhill since then. Anyway, topics beginning with those letters are grossly overrated and get much more attention than they deserve." She sipped at her drink. "So, what about a formal education?" "For the first twelve years I didn't have one. I spent my life out in the bush, learning about the world at close quarters. Basically, it was one big adventure. It reached the point where my parents thought I needed a bit of discipline and refinement. They sent me to a boarding school in Natal where I learned which way to pass the port, and how to speak the Queen's English and wear a jacket and tie. I hated it, of course, but it did give me the chance to discover rugby and women, so it wasn't a complete waste of time..." Little by little the subject matter shifted to Vicky’s formative years, her education, and her career, touching on other subjects along the way. She loved riding the city’s Routemaster buses, for example, and expressed dismay that anyone should ever think of replacing them, quoting an obscure 17‘ century viscount to justify her position: ‘When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.’ In fact, she had a stubborn streak when it came to all things modern or post-modern, up to and including the arts, which she unapologetically proclaimed to be, almost without exception, ‘pretentious, self-indulgent, talentless, tat.’ She also refused to use the metric system in any way, shape or form on purely aesthetic grounds; and had a habit of only ever referring to cities, countries and regions by the names they’d been known by in centuries past. In her world, for example, Myanmar, where she'd recently holidayed, would always be called Burma; Beijing was still Peking; and Istanbul would never be known as anything but Constantinople as long as she had her way. And as for the changes to England’s historic county names in the mid-sixties - well, that, he learned, was a topic best not addressed in polite society, or even a Notting Hill pub. Then there was the way she littered her sentences with terms Buchan had never heard before, but which he instantly liked and understood; terms like ‘grace notes’, ‘moolah’, and ‘crapulent’, all of which had entered his vocabulary before the night was through. As she talked, Hook noticed several things about her that had previously escaped him. She wore, for example, clothes that were simple, stylish and feminine. What little Jewelry she had on was of the inexpensive yet tasteful variety. And there was hardly any make-up to speak of, probably because she didn’t need it. She was, in short, just as he’d supposed her to be - a delightfully normal, confident girl, who was easy to talk to and attractive in every way. None of this did anything to detract from her appeal, and coming to the end of their third drink, he asked if she was hungry. She said that she was and suggested a little place in a nearby side street. There, they ate fish and chips with mushy peas, downing a couple of Cypriot beers in the process. Hook was on his best behavior throughout. Then, as they left the restaurant, he decided to make his move and following a kiss and some gentle cajoling they took a taxi back to her flat just off Brook Green.

This was a modest, clean, one-bedroom affair, nicely softened by plants and possessions, and decorated with that delicate simplicity of touch many aspire to but few achieve. Hook wasn't much interested in the decor, however. He had other things on his mind and after the best part of a bottle of wine and the whole of a Louis Armstrong CD, there was a moment when she touched her hair and laughed just a little bit louder than she ordinarily would have. It wasn’t much of a cue, but it was plenty, and knowing he’d never get a better chance, Hook made his move. Grabbing her by the shoulders he kissed her fiercely on the lips. It wasn't the smoothest maneuver he'd ever made, but it seemed to do the trick. A seemingly endless kiss followed, their tongues like two writhing snakes as they explored each other’s mouth, and when it was over he reached for the buttons of her shirt only to find that her hands were already busy down there. Some of the buttons went flying, as did her shoes as she flicked them onto the floor, and after that, things moved quickly. The next thing he knew they were in her bedroom, their clothes flying this way and that as if of their own accord, while other items just seemed to disappear altogether. Then the only obstacle between Hook and his goal of getting her naked was a particularly stubborn bra clasp, whose diabolical complexity would have challenged the Great Houdini himself. There were a few anxious moments, but he hadn’t come this far just to come this far. Drawing on all his previous knowledge and experience, he persisted. His fingers finally prevailed, and the next thing he knew he was in bed with her thinking - insofar as he was thinking at all - that his every dream had now come true.

CHAPTER IX When Buchan came round everything hurt. His body was a mass of broken nerve endings screaming urgent messages to a brain already overloaded with problems of its own. Dust and mucus clogged his throat, and the inside of his mouth was filled with the taste of fresh blood, fragments of broken tooth and loose shreds of torn flesh. None of this, he knew, was meant to matter to a hardened professional killer like himself. But it did. The fact that he was sprawled on the metal flatbed of a fast-moving pick-up truck didn’t help. He tried to move his arms only to find that his hands were bound, so he just lay there and took the knocks as they came; hundreds of them, one after the other.

It was a while before he noticed the pair of boots a few feet from his face. They belonged to a man perched on the tailgate, riding shotgun with an M-16

across

his knees. Buchan craned his neck and looked back along the track. Another pick-up followed at a distance, and beyond it he could see the lights of the hacienda fading into the gloom. He slumped back down onto the flatbed. What they planned to do with him he didn’ t know, but he doubted it included a visit to the doctor or a slap-up meal in some fancy restaurant. Dimly he recalled what had happened to Wyatt, and he was staring bleakly up into the high wind-torn canopy when the heavens opened. Within seconds he was soaked to the skin. The shock of the cold water helped remind him of the stark reality of his situation. Time was running out, and knowing he had to make a move sooner rather than later he tested the rope that bound his wrists. There was an inch or two of wriggle room, raising the slim possibility of escape, and as the truck was slowing to navigate a deep pothole, he saw his chance. It was only a small one, but knowing it might be his last, he overrode his body’s reluctance to get involved and kicked out with his left foot. The blow caught the guard in the chest. He fell backwards, disappearing from sight, and as the vehicle pulled away Buchan threw himself out over the side, landing in a clumsy heap beside him. He was the first to his feet, and maintaining the advantage of surprise, he promptly kicked his stricken opponent in the side of the head before staggering away into the dense vegetation. He reached the shelter of a large, buttressed root some ten yards in and dropped exhausted to the ground in its lee. There were shouts from the road. Then torch lights and the sound of weapons being cocked. Ignoring them all, Buchan caught his breath, and summoning his remaining strength he broke from his position. He continued to run, his heart pounding, his legs pumping, his body crashing through the dense undergrowth the way he’ d once crashed through the opposition ’ s defenses on the rugby pitch. The torches zeroed in almost immediately, throwing his fast-moving shadow onto the wet green curtain in front of him. Then came the gunfire. It was instantaneous, automatic and high-velocity, and he dived for the cover of a fallen tree as the foliage was stripped from the branches around him like some kind of exotic ticker tape. Letting them get on with it, Buchan passed his bound hands under his feet. Thanks to the rain, the rope was wet through, making the knot impossible to undo. Under normal circumstances, that would have been a deal breaker, but the rain had also made his hands slippery. The blood helped. Which part of his body the blood came from, he didn’t know, but there was lots of it and within a few seconds he’d tossed the rope aside and was leopard-crawling hurriedly from the scene. It took them half a minute to empty their magazines. By then, the combat-conditioned part of Buchan’s mind had kicked into gear. His situation had improved, but not by much. He was unarmed, half-conscious, physically exhausted, and an unknown number of men carrying automatic weapons were just yards away. Any moment now, they would start a systematic sweep towards his position, their fingers on their triggers, and unless he came up with some sort of plan in short order, they were going to take him down, no questions asked.

He considered jumping up and making a break for it, but knew he’d never get more than a few yards. Besides, they’d been hitting him for long enough and he was tired of it. He’d taken all the punishment he was going to take. It was time to start hitting back. And if he was going to die, he’d rather do it fighting, with his front to the enemy. He had the night and the jungle on his side, two old friends he knew he could rely on. Then there was the rain. Incredibly, it had intensified. He felt like he was crawling through a waterfall, so that now all other sounds had been drowned out and the undergrowth was even more impenetrable than it had been, all of which played into his (now free) hands... Field-craft was a skill Buchan had acquired at the earliest of ages, one which he’d long since perfected, and coming to a halt, he grabbed a handful of wet earth and started to smear the black mud onto his clothing and exposed skin. As he did so, he felt the cold emptiness return, tightening the lines around his mouth and eyes. The pain and exhaustion were still there, but they were numb and distant now, as if they belonged to someone else. Gradually even the sound of the rain faded out of perception, and then all that was left was the soft footfalls of boots on decomposing leaf mould, the slight rustle of foliage, and the nervous adjustment of weapons as the men extended into line. A small animal took sudden fright, darting from its position somewhere to his left. Instantly the movement attracted crossed beams of harsh light and a prolonged storm of raking fire, and when the guns and the torches finally moved on, all they left was a mangled carcass of blood and fur. If Buchan had had any doubts about his likely fate, they were gone now. He looked up into the surrounding trees. Choosing one of the larger specimens, he crawled up to it, and half hidden by hanging creepers, started to climb its trunk, reaching a height of about a dozen feet before locking his legs around a slender branch. Then uncoiling his body lengthways, he hung there, upside down and motionless, until lightning flashes revealed a man’s shape approaching through the darkness. The man’s gaze was tightly focused on the ground in front of him. He was completely unaware of Buchan’s presence, and when a muscled forearm snaked around his neck simultaneously squeezing and lifting, no sound escaped from his throat. The windpipe offered little resistance, and once the thrashing had come to a halt half a minute later, Buchan lowered the lifeless body to the ground. Flipping himself back into an upright position, he dropped silently to the corpse’s side and searched the darkness for the man’s weapon. It was pitch black down there, and he spread out his hands, patting the earth around the body in an effort to find it. They felt rock, mud, twigs and wet leaves before touching the smooth, cool, stamped sheet metal, pins and rivets of a weapon. Quickly, they found their way to the pistol grip. From the wooden stock and distinctive bananashaped magazine he immediately recognized it as an AK-47, and with a practiced motion he checked to see if the magazine was loaded. It was. From experience he guessed it held twenty-eight or twenty-nine rounds, and yanking the charging handle back, he dropped to one knee, the stock at his shoulder, a tight grin forming on his lips. The torches made

easy targets and he fired a carefully aimed burst at three of them. The muzzle flashes acted like a strobe light, creating snatched

microseconds of visibility, and he watched two men die outright. The third just stood there, screaming. He brought everything to a sudden standstill; then someone mistook him for the fugitive and killed him out of hand. This triggered a renewed bout of shooting. Total chaos ensued, and deciding to leave them to it, Buchan backed away at a half-run, plunging through the dense vegetation until he emerged into a long narrow clearing. The vague map in his head had served him well. With the help of distant lightning flashes, he clearly made out two parallel steel rails that stretched off into the night. He’d reached the railway track, and turning onto it, he started to run. The sudden massive punch of a high-velocity bullet between the shoulder blades never came, and once confident he’d lost them, he slowed to a steadier pace. His ribs were on fire, his lungs burning up precious reserves, and he badly wanted to stop and rest. Not yet, he told himself. He was still too close to the hacienda. Besides, there were always the Hind helicopters to consider. With their night-vision capabilities he’d stand out in the jungle like a great glowing bullseye, and he knew his only chance against them lay in finding a cave or building in which to hole up. Then, once the threat had passed, he’d go back to the hacienda and finish what he’d started. Kill everyone in sight, like they did in the movies...

At this point in the proceedings Buchan was, to say the least, a mess. Rain splashed off the freshly re-broken bridge of his nose, his wet hair was plastered across his forehead, his clothes were torn and soaked through, and the laces of his boots were flapping uselessly around his ankles as he ran. Added to this, his skin had suffered multiple cuts and abrasions, some of which were still bleeding, while the various bruises and swellings that adorned his body were simply too numerous to count. The exact same thing could be said of the many aches and pains that racked his large frame, with every little movement setting off a chain reaction of new and different pains. All the while he did his best to keep a forward momentum, knowing things would get much worse if the bad guys ever caught up with him. It was a long, hard-fought battle, but somehow his booted feet maintained a lumbering, unsteady rhythm that owed nothing to style or grace and everything to the desperate will - duty, even - to stay alive. Mentally, things weren’t much better. Confusion clouded what little thinking he was capable of. He had no idea of how far he’d run, in what direction he was heading, or where exactly he was running to. All he knew was that distance was his friend right now, and the more of it he put between himself and the hacienda the better. Other than that, his mind was a complete blank, and he’d been running for about fifteen minutes when the heavy rain stopped almost as abruptly as it had started. Soon after, he clouds above started to thin and part, and though still heavy, the air was noticeably cooler. Before long, a pale moon came out, highlighting the wispy strands of mist that had begun to rise from the ground around him. They looked like ghostly spirits rising up from the dead, and shortly after their appearance he noticed a distinct change in the noises of the night. The insects and tree frogs were still chirruping, and fat drops of water still fell from leaves with loud plops, but there was something else going on, something that even his dulled senses couldn’t ignore. Gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, he slowed his pace, then halted, standing absolutely still; and in the next second the vast bulk of one of the Hinds swept low over his position with an earth-shattering roar, so close that Buchan could actually feel the vibrations of its massive engines in his chest. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground, and the next thing he knew he was lying facedown in a muddy puddle. Feeling kind of stupid, he pushed himself wearily to his feet. Then, with an echoing groan, he wiped the water from his eyes and looked around. There was no sign of the Hind. It seemed to have disappeared into the night, and he was hoping they’d missed him when he felt rather than heard the sinister beat of its rotors pounding through the air a long way to his right. The beat became clearly audible a few seconds later and he span round, looking along the tracks to see a searchlight hovering low over the tree line about half a mile away. Following the steel rails, it started to close with him, then jerked sharply in his direction, suddenly catching him in the powerful glare. Buchan felt so exposed as to be luminous, and in the next instant he saw flames spurt from the helicopter’s nose as its Gatling-style machine gun opened up with a quiet roar. He watched spellbound as the heavy-caliber rounds started to churn through the wooden sleepers in his path, the red tracers like long threads of liquid fire, and dropping the Kalashnikov from a nerveless hand, he dodged sideways, stumbling through the undergrowth until he finally tripped and fell. A few seconds later, the helicopter swooped low overhead before banking sharply away, and he was on the point of breathing a sigh of relief when he saw a dozen dark shadows falling in its wake. He watched them land with almost idle curiosity and looked around. There was an enormous, steep-sided depression in the ground a few yards to his right. It was his only chance of cover and he was scrambling for it when a series of stunning blasts rocked the ground behind him. Riding the shock waves, he was blown him clear of the lip and he’d just made out the silvery-black surface below when he hit it headfirst. The impact left him half-concussed, but the water was cool and refreshing and for a brief moment he didn’t feel any pain. Then the bubbles began to clear, and he looked up to see the searchlight settle on the ripples overhead. Simultaneously bullets started to slice through the opaque waters around him, and feeling like the proverbial fish in a barrel, he kicked his legs, forcing his exhausted body down into the dark depths. His lungs, already tight from lack of oxygen, began to ache almost at once, as did his eardrums. They started to scream with pain as the depth increased, but there was no time to equalize the pressure and he thought he’d almost reached

the bottom of the aforementioned barrel when more grenades splashed through the surface above him, detonating a few seconds later like miniature depth charges...

The relationship that followed was a whirlwind affair that never seemed to fade in intensity. It was a completely new experience for Buchan, and for the first time in his career soldiering seemed like a chore. He spent every spare minute with Vicky, and the months passed in a dreamy, blissful daze. At times he simply couldn't believe his incredible luck in being her friend, let alone her lover, and the sex they had together was everything he'd ever hoped for. On some occasions it was slow, stylized, selfless and incredibly tender. On others, there was no question of technique, nor any finesse; just the kind of hard, selfish sex that Hook preferred; so fast, furious and uninhibited that it bordered on rape. The relationship was to prove a revelation in other ways as well. For a start, there was the way he came to see the world through her eyes. All at once it seemed to be a different place from the one he'd previously inhabited. Instead of seeing landscapes in terms of choke points, fields of fire, lines of approach, defensive positions, bridgeheads and killing grounds, for example, he learned to appreciate the hidden beauty that lay within. In fact, being with her was like taking a crash course in matters of sophistication. Food was no longer simply fuel to be consumed, irrespective of the contents. Instead, he began to value the freshness, quality and preparation that went into makinga meal worth eating, and he even began to pay attention to the clothes he wore, generally favoring natural materials over artificial ones, the classic over the ephemeral and the traditional over the modern. Certain cultural pursuits also began to take on anew meaning. Until he met Vicky, the only arts he’d been interested in were the martial ones. With her patient guidance, however, he discovered classical music, opera, great works of literature and old masters; so that over time pieces by the likes of Charles Sargeant Jagger, Felicia Hemans, Robert Service, Lady Elizabeth Butler, Sir Frederic Leighton, and Sir Henry Newbolt assumed an importance and

significance in his life he'd never imagined possible. Perhaps most important, though, was the way in which he came to see his adopted homeland. His commission in Her Majesty's armed forces notwithstanding, Hook's perception of the United Kingdom had always been tainted by its treatment of Rhodesia in the seventies. Then, with savage enemies massing on almost every front and the diplomatic world ranged against them, the British government had not just turned its back on the country, it had gone out of its way to ensure Rhodesia's defeat. And all this after Rhodesia had rallied to the UK’ s aid in both world wars, sending men, money and materiel on a scale which, per capita, was unmatched by any other nation in the Empire. But somehow, against all the odds, Vicky was to change that perception, and in the same way that she taught him to appreciate the merits of a symphony or the beauty of a seascape, she introduced him to another side of the country and its peoples. ‘The Britain that dare not speak its name,’ as she called it. It was a Britain of small, tightknit, self-reliant communities and old-fashioned, down-to-earth values; a Britain of ancient traditions, cherished institutions, deeply held beliefs, proud histories and hard-earned rights. It was a Britain of delayed gratification, stiff upper lips, fair play, straight talk and a sense of humor. A Britain of family farms and small businesses, smoke-filled pubs and well-kept gardens, of high streets and village greens, medieval churches and bobbies on the beat. A Britain of free speech, independent thought, earthshaking genius, steadfast resolve, gallant deeds, and valiant heroes. All in all, it was a simpler, slower, gentler, kinder, more decent country that he'd occasionally

glimpsed at times but never really known, and it was one that he grew to love with the passion of the convert. And, in a similar way, he grew to love Vicky as well. Their stolen moments together were as precious as anything he'd ever known. Before long, the prospect of marriage loomed. To his surprise, he felt totally unable to resist its appeal, and he sneaked off one afternoon to buy an engagement ring in the West End. Then it was only a matter of waiting for the right opportunity to pop the question. For several weeks their schedules clashed, however. Dates were postponed, then cancelled altogether, and he was beginning to wonder if he'd ever get the chance when, out of the blue, she told him about an elderly relative who'd died recently. He'd left her a small holiday cottage in the Sperrin Hills in Northern Ireland, and a trip to visit the place was suggested. Several of Hook’s close friends had served in the Province and he was only too aware of the security situation there. But reckoning that the benefits of a few days alone in her company far outweighed any potential risks, he'd agreed. That was his first mistake. His second was his decision to visit the sleepy little border town of Strabane. And his third was to get involved when the shooting started.

CHAPTER X Buchan came round in the dark, soaking wet and shivering with cold. The surface beneath his body was made of rock, worn silky smooth and covered by a thin layer of slime. The air around him was cool and damp, and the only noise came from the steady plink-plink-plink of water dripping into more water. None of that explained the aches and the pains that racked his body or the complete absence of any light. He dredged his memory in a struggle to recall just how he’d reached this strange subterranean world, but all he could come up with was a weird dreamlike sequence, not unlike a nightmare, in which he’d tumbled through a wonderfully refreshing blood-thick darkness, filled with noise and rage yet curiously silent and calm. His mind was too numb to make any sense of it and he checked the luminous dial of his watch. It was 5:35. - in the morning, he presumed, though he had no way of knowing for sure - and he reached for his lighter. It lit first time, but the resulting flame was weak, and when his eyes finally adjusted to the light he wished they hadn't... Whatever nightmare he'd been through, he realized now, was as nothing compared to the one that was to come. He was lying on a small island in the middle of a stagnant pool in some sort of cave. Glistening walls gave him its rough dimensions. Perhaps thirty feet at its widest, it had a low roof covered with gleaming stalactites, like melted wax, some of which almost reached the water's surface.

From what he could see, there were no bats flitting in and out of the shadows, no cobwebs, no smell of guano, nor any other sign that might indicate animal life. Nor was there any visible means of escape, and trying not to dwell on the implications he turned his attention to his body instead. It was a hideous, painful mess, and it was then that he recalled the series of events that led him to dive into the sinkhole - the cenote... He ransacked his brain for what the comandante

had said about them. Underground rivers that ran to the sea. Gateways to the gods. Not much else. Perhaps there wasn’t much else to know, but somehow his body had washed up in this cavern, and now all that mattered was that he found a way out. And he knew there had to be one... Still shivering, he flicked the lighter closed and lay back down on the slimy surface. It would be daylight soon, and there was always a chance it would reveal another means of escape, ideally one that didn’t involve underwater tunnels. He had about half an hour to wait, and, despite the cold and his condition, he

slipped slowly and imperceptibly into a deep untroubled sleep.

He might have slept forever but for the fact that just as slowly, just as imperceptibly, the water level started to rise around him. Gradually it reached his legs, then the underside of his body, and it was creeping up to his mouth when the realization finally jolted him awake. It took him a while to remember where he was and why he was there. Then he remembered the rain. It had been falling heavily when he’d made his escape and given that a hurricane was in the vicinity, there was no reason to believe it would stop any time soon. He checked his watch. Fifty minutes had passed since he’d closed his eyes and a quick calculation told him that the chamber would soon be full. He looked around for signs of daylight. None had appeared and reluctantly he considered his options. They were straightforward enough. Either he stayed where he was and went slowly mad before drowning; or he tried to swim through the dark, three-dimensional maze that surrounded him and went slowly mad before drowning... There didn’t seem to be much to choose between them, and he began to regret his decision not to shoot it out with the Hind. That way, at least, his death would have been quick. He waited a few seconds to settle any doubts in his mind and, ignoring the resulting stabs of pain, he forced himself from the rock. The cold water acted like a soothing balm on his raw skin, and he savored the experience, treading water for a few seconds before navigating his way through the stalactites to the wall.

Once there, he wasted no time in taking a deep breath and dropped vertically down the rock face, equalizing the pressure on his eardrums several times as the depth increased. When his feet finally touched the bottom, it was firm and reasonably flat and he used it to work his way sideways, his outstretched hands probing the darkness for any sign of an opening. There didn’t seem to be one; just a solid mass of rock, its once-jagged edges worn smooth over the centuries and slippery to the touch, and he was about to resurface when the wall gave way suddenly. A passage of some sort opened up in front of him, and with just enough air in his lungs, he checked the approximate dimensions. From what he could tell it was big enough to take his body, and best of all, a faint but distinct current was flowing into its mouth. Rising slowly, he expelled the air out through his nose in one long steady trickle of bubbles. So, this was it, he told himself as he reached the surface. He was going to risk everything on one last throw of the dice, knowing full well that his luck couldn’t last much longer. The exploration of underground tunnels was for experts; people who knew what they were doing, equipped with ropes and torches and maps and things. Even under ideal conditions and when the water table was low, it was a hazardous business, and once again his thoughts turned to the very real prospect of his imminent death. Like any man, Buchan had always known he would die one day, but somehow this was the first time he understood what that really meant. It meant drowning in a subterranean tunnel in Mexico, terrified and alone. Then, a few days from now, some fisherman would find something repulsive in his nets and before long Hernandez would have another case to solve. That’s if they ever found the body. More likely, his fate would never be known, and after a suitable period of time had elapsed, he’d be declared missing, presumed dead, his name finally ‘blotted from the book’, as Kipling had so aptly put it. The only emotion he felt was anger. Anger at himself. Anger at having missed his chance to kill Cochrane and O’Neill, of finally laying Vicky’s ghost to rest, and he struggled to find a bright side. He couldn't, and turning his thoughts to his next move, he resolved that once committed his first attempt would be his only attempt. Not ideal, he knew, but he also knew that with each renewed bid he’d just get colder, more tired and more confused. Then there was the claustrophobia to think about. Buchan liked dark, confined spaces about as much as the next person, especially when they were deep underground and filled with water... Feeling suddenly very cold and alone, he swore out loud. His words echoed crazily around the chamber before gradually fading away; and knowing there was nothing to gain by postponing the inevitable, he took a quick series of deep breaths, hyperventilating until dizzy from the overdose of oxygen to his brain. Then, starting a mental clock, he took a final gasp and dropped beneath the water’s surface, the sound of his heartbeat pumping loudly in his ears. He soon reached the tunnel’s mouth, hesitating momentarily, and then only briefly to equalize the pressure on his ears, before kicking himself inside. Almost immediately, he felt the presence of the walls lining the narrow passage, as though they were exerting an unseen pressure of their own. He thought of the thousands of tons of rock that surrounded him, felt their weight, and a sense of claustrophobia immediately gripped his mind. It was so intense that it threatened to doom his plan before it had even started and, knowing there was no surer way to get himself killed, he clamped down on it ruthlessly. A sense of composure slowly returned, and he moved forward a few feet at a time, tentatively at first, then with greater confidence. He found he could touch both sides of the passage simultaneously, and the ceiling was so low in places he had to crawl on his hands and knees to get through it. The drag caused by his boots and clothes didn’t help; they felt like they’d been made out of chain mail. But the current acted as a guide, and though he took a few knocks along the way, the water cushioned the blows, and the cold numbed any pain. Moving with the clumsy yet deliberate gait of a determined drunk, he ploughed steadily on, and a sense of futility only started to develop after he’d reached the one-minute mark without seeing the slightest hint of daylight. It felt like he'd reached the very center of the earth, and he was rapidly losing hope when, much to his relief and amazement, his head bobbed up into an unseen pocket of air. Gratefully he filled his lungs with the stuff. It wasn’t the sweetest or freshest air he’d ever breathed, but right then it seemed positively alpine, and he muttered a silent prayer of thanks. As a rule, he wasn’t a particularly religious man, preferring to put his faith in more tangible things like belt-fed weapons, Krugerrands

and whisky. But one thing he’d learned was that you threw God away at your peril and right now he was more than willing to give the Old Man the benefit of the doubt, for the time being at least... Securing his grip on a rocky outcrop with one hand, he wiped the water from his eyes with the other and scoured the darkness for any clues as to what else the chamber might hold. It revealed nothing and, once his vital signs had stabilized, he reconsidered his options. It was largely an idle gesture. They hadn't changed in the slightest and, finding a narrow ledge for his feet, he allowed himself a brief moment of rest before continuing. The ledge, it transpired, ran horizontally along the wall, and keeping his head above the water he shuffled sideways along it. He would never know how far he traveled, nor how much time it took. A part of him hated every second of the journey, while another part wished it would never end. Then, after what seemed like an age, the inevitable happened; the ceiling began a slow decline so that eventually his chin was forced back down below the surface. Reaching out with his hand he found that the tunnel continued in front of him, and he paused again, a dark sense of unease returning to fill his being. Lowering his head, he let some of the water enter his mouth, testing it with his tongue. It was noticeably saltier than it had been, almost brackish, perhaps indicating the sea was closer now. He was under no illusion about his chances of survival, however, and knowing he would have to beat the odds the hard way, he shook off his doubts and primed himself for what would surely be his last gasp, both literally and metaphorically. This time he hyperventilated to the point of hypoxia, and his vision was full of coloured stars as he took his final enormous breath. Then the water closed solemnly and silently over his head. It felt like the lid of a coffin being sealed and, hoping his air supply would last longer than the distance remaining, he pushed himself forwards into the liquid darkness. Touching the wall with one hand, he gingerly put the other out in front of him. He felt nothing. Water gave way to more water, and before long he was back in his stride, groping a path through the darkness like a blind man without the benefit of his cane. His progress was steady if unspectacular and he was starting to regain his confidence when, without any warning, the floor fell abruptly away. It was as though he’d stepped off an invisible cliff, so that he was now floating helplessly in a dark void; so that he no longer had any sense of direction, no idea of which way was up or down, nor any idea of which way he should be heading. Meanwhile, the current had strengthened ominously. It took sudden control of his body, pushing it through the tunnel like some enormous insistent hand. Now it was as if he was swimming inside a giant firehose, and he kicked and thrashed to try and regain some sense of control, but it was futile gesture. The sheer weight of the water was too great, his own strength too weak, and he had all but given up the struggle when his head and chest smashed into a piece of unseen rock. Lightning flashes filled his field of vision as the shock of the blow punched the air from his lungs in an explosive gush. They started to pump with involuntary spasms, sucking water deep into his chest, screaming in agony as he renewed his search for a way out. He needn’t have bothered. Far above him a light had already appeared in the darkness, as though it had been there all the time. It was only a small, dim, blurry thing, but it was getting bigger and brighter all the time. It seemed to be beckoning to him, drawing him inexorably upwards, and he was filled with a kind of inner peace as he ascended into its warm, shimmering embrace.

The cottage Vicky had inherited sat in the middle of a small, heavily overgrown garden. It had low, whitewashed walls and a slate roof that was missing about a dozen tiles. Inside, it was cold, damp and draughty. It lacked any form of central heating, and the aging decor could have been an outrageous pastiche of a 1950's interior but wasn't. Then there was the small matter of the wiring, which blew so many light bulbs so quickly that they soon resorted to candles instead. It was, in other words, quite perfect, especially when you took into account the bedroom which was surprisingly cozy, and came complete with an enormous, antique featherbed. Taking Hook’ s convertible VW Golf, they‘ d crossed the Irish Sea by ferry arriving just before midday, and after a light luncht they donned Barbours and boots and set off on a walk in the surrounding hills. The landscape was a stunning patchwork of green fields, streams and isolated farmsteads and by the time they found their way back to the cottage three hours later they were ready for a long hot bath and a bottle of South African Pinotage that Hook had brought specially for the occasion. They ate a simple but hearty meal of lamb chops for dinner, before settling down in front of a burning log fire in the living room. Then, as the level of red wine in the bottle dropped, so too did Hook’s inhibitions, and by the time it was empty he’d asked Vicky to marry him. There was some hesitation, but only because of the tears that sprang from her eyes, and after gathering herself she'd wiped her face dry and accepted. Hook had never felt happier in his life, and they spent the rest of the week in a delicious dream-world of food and drink, sex and sleep. The Sperrins played their role to perfection, too, and the daylight hours were filled with long walks, horseback rides and occasional attempts to catch fish. In short, the holiday was everything he had hoped it would be, letting them get to know each other in a way that had been difficult until now. Time passed quickly, as it tends to on such occasions, and on the morning of the last day Vicky suggested they visit the nearby town of Strabane. Hook had no objections, and after a long and leisurely breakfast, they took the roof off the Golf and set off towards the town. The day was warm and sunny, and the drive like a television advert extolling the virtues of the Northern Irish countryside. Fluffy white clouds filled the deep blue sky, sparkling streams gurgled under old stone bridges, grazing sheep dotted the green fields, and a small flock of them blocked their way temporarily on one of the narrow lanes. Not for the first time Hook found it all but impossible to reconcile the loveliness of the region with the barbarity for which it was equally, if not more famous. For this, he knew, was a place of ancient animosities and lasting suspicions; a place where long-held hatreds simmered and seethed, ready to explode at the slightest provocation, or even when there was no provocation at all. This was a place of tribal warfare, of warfare at its most personal and most primitive; of shootings, burnedout buildings, petrol bombs, Semtex, broken kneecaps, army patrols, checkpoints, ambushes, tear gas and torture; a place of kidnappings, where men died screaming in

garages, barns and lockups, often at the hands of their neighbors, their bodies spirited away into the surrounding landscape, often disappearing into boggy fields, never to be seen again... It was this tragic state of affairs that the Peace Process was supposed to resolve, no matter what the greater cost. Appeasement was back in style, and no concession was too great. All the IRA had to do was apply a little pressure now and then to get their way. Usually, the mere threat of violence was enough, but the ‘negotiations’ had stalled recently over the fate of their precious stockpile of arms and the leadership was looking for something a little more dramatic. A ‘spectacular’ was needed, they decided, and they finally settled on carrying out a car bombing similar to that in Enniskillen a decade earlier. This time, however, a different town would be used, and that town, for reasons of convenience, was the unassuming little market town of Strabane.

PART SIX

CHAPTER I Buchan had a vision. In it he saw a face. The face was floating above his and seemed to be haloed by a bright light. It was a girls face; a beautiful face, full of warmth and pity and concern. The girl was trying to say something, her voice strangely distant. Her words didn’t seem to have any meaning, but they reassured him and made him feel safe, and after a few moments, the face dropped down to meet his, the lips parting. Then the darkness descended like an iron curtain, and the vision disappeared from sight.

The next time Buchan opened his eyes, he found he was lying on a large bed in the half-light of a timber-framed bedroom. A storm was raging outside, rattling the structure with every renewed onslaught. He blinked several times and looked up into a mosquito net that was hanging from a brass hook on a whitewashed ceiling before looking down at his body. He was lying under a white cotton sheet. He was also naked. Lightning cracked through the room and as his focus tightened, he noticed a slight movement in one corner. It was the girl he’d seen in the vision. She was sitting in a wicker armchair, staring out of a window into the storm, poised like an artist’s muse and apparently lost in thought. Then the thunder rolled, and she turned to look at Buchan. She was, he guessed, in her late twenties, with shoulder length hair that hung loose and was a

glossy chestnut brown in color. It framed a pretty face of

incorruptible, almost indecent innocence, and bold sharply defined features that looked both European and Mexican. She had blood red lips that turned down slightly at the sides to form an exquisite, if rather severe mouth, and her eyes were the color of dark chocolate. They were the eyes of an unbroken colt, large and warm and trusting, and they glowed softly in the flickering light of a hurricane lamp beside the bed, like hot coals ready to burst into flame. The rather severe mouth broke into a melancholy smile, two perfectly even rows of teeth shining brightly but briefly against the honey-colored skin if her face. “Good evening,” she said in perfect English, her voice smoky and with a slight American accent. She crossed over to the bed. She was on the tall side, with a slender athletic body, her breasts high and firm, and she was wearing a white cotton shirt undone at the neck. It was un-tucked and hung loosely over slim hips and a faded pair of blue jeans. “How are you feeling?” she asked, brushing the mosquito net aside. “I’ve been worried about you.” “Not too bad,” he croaked. It was far from the truth. He felt like hell. “Where am I?” he asked.

“This is a house I'm renting for a few months. It’s on the coast, not far from San Miguel de la Cruz... do you know the town?” “Yes,” he replied uncertainly. “I’m meant to be staying there. How did I get here?” “That’s a good question. I was out beachcombing just after sunrise. You seemed to just appear in the water from one moment to the next, and I pulled you out thinking you were dead. Then, when I realized you weren't, I gave you the kiss of life and got some of the locals to help carry you back here.” As an afterthought, she added, “You're very lucky. I don’t normally kiss strangers.” She smiled as more thunder rumbled in the distance. “I’m Cari, by the way. It’s short for Carmen.” “Buchan,” he said, gathering his thoughts. “John Buchan... You’re Mexican?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied. “Well, it’s a great pleasure to meet you, Cari. I only wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

He checked his body, lifting the sheet slightly to inspect the damage. All the wounds had been cleaned and expertly dressed so that his skin was a patchwork of gauze, flesh-colored tape, angry insect bites, and bruises. The rest wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. Dropping the sheet, he examined his hands. They were crisscrossed with small scratches, and several of the fingertips were wrapped in plasters. All but one of the knuckles carried a freshly formed scab. He looked back at the girl. “Thanks,” he said. “You saved my life... How do you say that in Spanish?” “Eres mi salvavidas,” she answered, a broad, attractive smile dancing across her face.

“Well, in that case, eres mi salvavidas,” he repeated somewhat clumsily. “I just hope you didn ’ t have to go to too much trouble.” “It was no trouble at all,” she said with a lively but unconscious sparkle in her eye. “Unfortunately, fallen trees have closed the roads, so I couldn't take you to a hospital.” “Don’t worry. A doctor couldn’t have done a better job.” She smiled again. “Is there anything I can get you, by the way? You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat or drink?” “Any chance of a cigarette?” “Of course,” she said with a wry grin. “They’re in another room. I'll just get them.” Letting the mosquito net drop, she turned to leave, giving Buchan a chance to check out her body from a different angle. It was nicely put together, with long legs and soft round curves in all the appropriate places, and every bit as pleasing as he’ d hoped it would be. He grinned at his luck. Then, moving gingerly, he sat up to check his reflection in a nearby mirror. The slow-moving grey eyes examined themselves critically for several seconds. Once reassured by what they saw, they moved on, searching the rest of his face with an almost mechanical thoroughness. He winced at the sight. It looked like a used pinata, but the swelling had subsided slightly, and although the bridge of his nose and both of his lips had been split, the cuts were minor and would heal before long. There was also, he noted, a fresh scar to add to his already substantial collection. Sickle-shaped and narrow, it started behind

his left eye and ran the length of the cheek down to his chin. Not that pretty, he concluded after a while. Not that pretty at all. Still, he reflected soberly, it could have been worse. A lot worse. And he was checking the damage to a chipped tooth when Cari walked back into the room. She was carrying a box of matches and a pack of full-strength Marlboros. She lit one and passed it to him along with a scallop shell ashtray. Thanking her, Buchan placed the ashtray on the bed and inhaled, savoring the sour taste of the tobacco as the fog inside his head began to get a little clearer. “This is where you tell me there’s a whole tribe of women just like you and you've never seen a man before, right?” Laughing, Cari sat back down on the wicker armchair. “Sorry to disappoint you; there’s only me.” She put her finger to her lips. “And let me guess. This is where you tell me you're on a top-secret mission for the British government... You are British, aren't you?” Buchan cracked a smile. “Yes,” he replied. “I'm British. But I don't work for the government. I'm a boring property developer, that's all. I was drinking in a bar in San Miguel when I got into an argument with a bunch of men. At some point the argument developed into a fight. I was knocked unconscious, and they ended up throwing me into one of those sinkholes out in the jungle.” “You mean a cenote. I think I know the one you're talking about. Tourists sometimes go there on diving trips. But it must have been quite an argument for them to want to do that.” “You should have seen what I did to them.” She smiled. “Well, you were extremely lucky to survive. My father has very good connections in the local police. If you'd like to press charges, I’ll make sure your case receives the highest level of attention.”

“That’s all right,” replied Buchan hurriedly. “I can’t be bothered with all that. Besides, I’m a long way behind schedule as it is. The last thing I need is to get caught up in a police investigation.” He looked down to check his watch, only to see a pale band of bare skin and red welts where the rope had been tied. “You don’t know the time, by any chance?” “Your watch is here,” she said, reaching for it on a nearby side-table. Buchan slipped the watch onto his wrist. It was still working, and he checked the time and date through the badly scratched glass. It was almost five o’clock. On Thursday, according to the little window displaying the date. A whole day had been lost. In less than twenty hours, the Mill would cease to exist. So too would his license to operate. He thought about making a move there and then, only to ditch the idea. Despite the fast-approaching deadline, he needed time - time to recover from his ordeal, time to think things through. And overriding Control’s stricture against ‘fraternizing with the locals’, it didn’t take him long to decide he’d much rather spend it in the company of a beautiful woman than anywhere else. “I can’t thank you enough for what you've done for me.” “Don’t even think about it,” Cari replied, her tone almost reproving. “Anyone would have done the same.” She rose from her seat. “Your boots survived your ordeal pretty well,” she explained. “They're beside the bed. But the rest of your clothes were torn to shreds, I'm afraid.” She placed a pile of neatly pressed clothes on the corner of the bed. “These belong to my landlord, a Canadian who only comes down here during the winter months. Luckily, he's about your size so they should fit.” Buchan thanked her again. “T’ll leave you to get dressed now, if you like,” she went on. “There are aspirins in the bathroom, and the water’s safe to drink. Oh, and the power’s out, so I’m afraid you'll have to use the hurricane lamps.” Walking towards the door, she added, “In the meantime, I’ll fix dinner. Just join me when you're ready.” Thanking her again, Buchan stubbed the cigarette out and grinned at his good fortune. Even now he felt transfixed by her looks, and the prospect of spending time with her filled him with a sense of nervous anticipation he’d long thought extinct. But first there were more important things to consider, and flinching with the pain that accompanied every movement, he forced himself to his feet and went in search of the aspirins. *

The bathroom yielded few insights into the girl’s character, other than the fact that she was well traveled, having acquired a small collection of freebies from a variety of hotels and airlines around the world. There wasn’t much make-up, which made sense given her natural good looks, and he opened a cabinet over the sink to see the usual array of medicines. Amongst the various bottles and boxes, he found some aspirins, and having swallowed a handful he looked down at his body. There was no question of showering, not with all the bandages, and he examined the pile of clothes she'd left for him instead. This consisted of some blue jeans, a pair of boxer shorts, tennis socks, and an embroidered cotton shirt like the one Hernandez had been wearing. They weren't exactly to his taste but lacking a better option he pulled them on. They were a close fit. He told himself they would do and walked over to the bathroom sink. There he took another moment to review the damage to his face. If anything, it looked worse close up, and he flinched once or twice as he gingerly explored the individual wounds with his fingertips. Then swearing quietly under his breath he splashed himself with cold water, gently dabbing his features dry with a towel before using his fingers to rake his thick, unruly hair into some sort of temporary submission. It didn’t work, and with a resigned sigh he winked at the haggard, disheveled, somewhat forlorn man in the mirror and went in search of the girl. Following the scent of food being cooked, he found her in a spacious kitchen dimly lit by hurricane lamps. The walls were decorated with hand-painted tiles depicting sunflowers, and there were sideboards crowded with earthenware bowls containing a wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. Copper pans hung from the beamed ceiling over a wooden table set for two, and at the center was a bowl full of freshly cut lilies. Conspicuous by their absence were the expensive

appliances he was used to seeing, and it occurred to him that this was no showpiece kitchen, but a workshop in which food was prepared with good oldfashioned skill and devotion. Cari was standing at a well-worn butcher’s block by a gas-fired stove, and he watched her perform a

series of small tasks, her hands a blur of motion. Then,

noticing his presence, she threw a handful of finely chopped chilies into a cast iron skillet and flashed him a glance. “Wow! Que guapo!” she said, with a grin. Buchan grinned back. “What are you cooking?” he asked. “It smells delicious.” “You'll soon find out,” she said as she rinsed a bunch of fresh coriander at the sink. “Why don’t you wait for me in the living room? I put some beers in a bucket of ice. Just help yourself.” The offer sounded too good to refuse, and taking one of the lamps with him, Buchan made his way along a corridor into a decent-sized living room, its windows tightly shuttered against the gale. It was tastefully decorated in the tropical style with white wooden walls, a high raftered ceiling and a polished hardwood floor scattered with outsize pot plants. A piece of driftwood, about six feet long and finely sanded by the sea, lay across the floor in one corner like a reclining nude, and an antique brass telescope on a wooden tripod stood expectantly by a tall set of French windows. The overall impression was one of warmth and simplicity. It immediately made Buchan feel at ease, and he crossed a mosaic of frayed rugs to the ice bucket full of beer on a mahogany dresser against one wall, its shelves dotted with little clay artifacts that looked Pre-Hispanic. Placing the lamp on a nearby table, he reached for a bottle, prizing the lid off with his lighter. Then he took a long slow drink from the neck and walked over to one of the windows, peering through a broken shutter into the bleak twilight world beyond. The storm was still in full swing, and heaving gusts of rain were slashing at the doors and windows like the claws of some rabid animal. Beyond, through shifting grey curtains of water and wind-driven spume, he could just make out the dark, angry sea, its white-capped waves exploding onto the rocks below the house in a never-ending barrage of sullen booms. Buchan hadn’t experienced weather this bad since being stuck in Kathmandu during the monsoon season about a dozen years earlier, and he watched for a while before turning his attention to a collection of framed photographs on the wall to his left. Some showed the girl in a selection of more-or-less recognizable locations from around the world - Cari amongst the pigeons at Trafalgar Square, Cari walking through Manhattan at night, Cari in hiking gear at Machu Picchu, Cari laughing in ski-gear in front of a snow-covered chalet... They were good quality holiday snaps for the most part, while others were more professional in style and execution and might have come from modeling shoots. One in particular took his interest. It was a close-up in black and white. She was seated at a table in what he guessed to be a restaurant under soft light, her head tipped slightly forward. She was looking into the camera, her lips widening into a smile that lit up her whole face. It was, he reflected, the kind of smile that most women had lost by the time they reached puberty, and he checked a rosewood barometer to the right. The needle was almost off the scale, and he stepped briefly into a smaller room that served as a study. Books and journals on archaeology and anthropology lined the walls, and he went back into the living room. There was no television set, and the only piece of electronic equipment he could see was a portable compact disc player attached to a small pair of speakers. He flicked through her collection of CDs but recognized few of the artists and settled on pushing the ‘play’ button instead. A mellow, almost mournful piece of guitar music came on. It sounded Mexican and was accompanied by a soft, slow harmonica. Deciding he liked it, he left it playing and took a seat at a glass-topped coffee table with a bamboo base. A pack of Cari’s cigarettes was lying open in front of him. Lighting one, he sat back to see the girl’s picture staring back at him from the wall, and automatically his mind began to plan her seduction. It was an instinct now, one that kicked in whenever he met the right kind of girl in the right kind of place, but this time he stopped himself. It just didn’t feel right. Not after what

she’d done for him. Besides, women and work didn’t mix. It was virtually a law as far as he was concerned and, sipping at his beer, he gave the matter no further thought.

As the alcohol and aspirins went to work on his system, Buchan felt the pain and discomfort he’d been feeling start to ease. The mauling he’d got at O’Neill’s hands had been one of the worst he’d ever endured, and he knew it would be several days before he’d be anywhere near match fit again. Not that it mattered, he reflected bitterly, given his lack of progress so far. He was hardly any closer to finding out what the terrorists were up to than when he’d arrived. Whatever it was, they were doing it on a far larger scale than he'd thought possible. That meant planning and co-ordination, which meant skills and expertise. And lots of money. And all for what? And why the Yucatan? And what did the hurricane have to do with anything? Hussein had made a specific reference to it just before he died...? Questions chased answers in his mind, never quite catching up, and he was relieved when Cari emerged from the shadows a few minutes later. “Would you like a beer?” he asked, rising from his seat. “T’d love one, thank you.” Buchan opened a bottle and passed it to her. “So, what's your story, Mister Buchan?” she asked. “Where are you from exactly?” “I was brought up in Rhodesia,” he replied. “I moved to the UK in the early eighties and that's where I live now. What about you?” he asked. “You don’t look very Mexican.” “I am Mexican,” she stressed. “Very Mexican. But descended in part from French and Spanish stock - something to do with pirates in the eighteenth century apparently.” Taking a cigarette for herself, she replaced the pack on the table. Buchan offered her a light and she took it. “So, tell me about the fight,” she said. “How did that happen?” “Oh, it was just one of those stupid incidents. I made some remark - I don’t even remember what it was now. Someone took offence and things got out of hand.” “You don’t think it was somehow drug-related? This area’s renowned for that sort of thing.” “Alcohol-related more like,” answered Buchan. “Too much beer and cactus juice. On my part and theirs.” “Well, just be careful. Around here it doesn’t pay to get into fights with strangers. There are too many guns and too many people willing to use them. Last week one of the local fishermen pulled a man’s body from the sea a few miles from here. He was a foreigner, by all accounts. Just like you. The word is he’d been very badly tortured before he was killed.” Buchan played ignorant. “Who was he?” “I don’t know. I don’t think the police have even identified him yet. From what I heard, it’s unlikely they ever will.” “Sounds terrible,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson.” He puffed on his cigarette and stubbed it out. “So, what about you?” he asked. “What do you do here? This isn’t exactly the center of the universe.” “I’m an archeologist,” she replied. “I’m doing my masters in the United States but came down here to carry out some research on a Mayan site along the coast. It’s for my thesis.” She leant forward to tap the ash from her cigarette. As she did so, Buchan couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of her bra and, in that moment, he had a kind of revelation of what it would be like to be in bed with her; to play out the age-old ritual of resistance, then inevitable surrender... He forced himself to refocus. “Well, there are worse places to be stuck,” he said.

She grinned. “I suppose there are, but that’s the beauty of archaeology; the sites are nearly always in some exotic location, and that’s especially true where the Maya are concerned.”

Buchan sipped at his beer. “So, what’s your thesis on?” he asked. “I’m looking into the reasons for the collapse of their civilization. Most think it was caused by famine, or drought, or some other lack of vital resources. But I’ve discovered some hieroglyphs there that suggest a different explanation; that it wasn’t due to a shortage of resources, but to an excess of them. Basically, their success made them so soft and weak, so complacent and feeble-minded, that this led to a kind of cultural decay. Slowly, they lost the skills and attributes that led to their success in the first place, and over the course of a few generations their society became so corrupt, so decadent and so dysgenic that it imploded.” “Sounds all too familiar,” commented Buchan drily. “Yes,” he said. “It does, doesn't it? What about you? Did you ever go to university? You don’t really look the type.” “I’m not,” he replied. “I joined the Rhodesian army at the age of sixteen.” “Is that where the scars come from? I couldn't help noticing them when I was dressing your wounds.” “Travel souvenirs,” joked Buchan. She laughed. “You must visit some interesting places. Luckily for you, I like a man with scars. They show that he’s really lived.” Brushing away a lock of hair that had fallen across her face, she inhaled on her cigarette, then exhaled casually, watching the cloud of smoke until it disappeared. “I do have one question,” she said. “That small round scar in the center of your chest, the one over your heart... It looks like it was made by a bullet...” “It was,” said Buchan.

“So, how come it didn ‘t kill you?” Buchan shrugged. “I guess you could say I’ m hard to kill,” he said evenly. Cari smiled. She crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray with a curious air of finality. A last wisp of smoke drifted up from the crushed butt, then that too disappeared. “How about some food?” she said at last. “Are you ready to eat yet?” *

They finished their drinks and once back in the kitchen they sat down to a fiery lobster ceviche. It was followed by chicken cooked in mole sauce - or ‘chocolate chicken’ as Cari called it - with refried beans and rice. All the dishes were expertly prepared and presented and Buchan had second helpings of each. The conversation came easily. At times it was provocative, lively and full of good humor. At other times, it was deep, penetrating and thoughtful. It all seemed very familiar, yet it wasn’t. In his mind, Buchan likened it to an evenly matched game of chess, with pieces being actively traded and no particular interest paid to the eventual outcome. For all this, he was thankful. His work didn’t usually involve dining out. And when he did occasionally come across women in the course of his work, they tended to fall into one of two categories. Either they were irrelevant to the mission, and he ignored them; or else they were part of it, and he dealt with them accordingly. Neither situation lent itself to intimate contact, and as a consequence whatever social skills he’d once laid claim to had more or less rusted away from lack of use. They covered a variety of topics, including Cari’s passion for her work, her beachcombing, Buchan’s days as a soldier, the Mexican economy and the weather. According to the latest report, the worst was almost over as far as Hannah was concerned, “Now there’s just the clearing up to do,” explained Cari. “But they say she'll be the biggest ever by the time she makes landfall in Texas.” The ensuing silence was interrupted by a bolt of lightning, followed almost instantaneously by the longest and loudest roll of thunder that Buchan had ever heard. It exploded like a bomb going off and shook the structure to its foundations.

“Sounds like there's still some life in the old girl yet,” said Buchan. Cari smiled. “Time for another drink,” she said, sliding from her seat. She reached for a liquor bottle on the sideboard. Twisting the lid off, she poured out two

measures and passed one to him. “What is it?” he asked. “Tequila,” she said. “One of the better ones. I was saving it for a special occasion.” “Well, if you insist. But remember, this is what got me into so much trouble last night.” “Don't worry. I’ll keep a watchful eye on you.” She raised her glass. “Salud!” she said. Buchan followed suit, then they both sipped at their drink. “Delicious,” he said at last, the liquid slipping easily down his throat. “Just like the food. The lobster ceviche, in particular, was spectacular.” “Thank you,” said Cari, making a self-deprecating gesture with her hand. “It’s from a secret family recipe,” she added, a twinkle in her eye. “I could tell you what’s in it but my grandmother would have to kill you.” Buchan smiled. “Being attacked by irate grandmothers has always been one of my greatest fears,” he said. “After mice. Mice terrify me.” “Somehow, I find that hard to believe,” answered Cari, returning the smile. “Would you like some dessert, by the way? It’s a fruit salad and I’ve got some ice cream that’s melted thanks to the power cut.” “Sounds good.” “Tell me something,” she said as she rose from her seat. “Do you have any regrets about becoming a soldier?” Buchan shook his head. He’d enjoyed his time as a soldier, whether as a trooper in Rhodesia or as an officer with the Gurkhas. He’d liked the way it reduced people and things to their bare essentials; the way that one’s ability to do one’s job was the only measure against which one was judged; the way loyalty, courage, discipline and honor were accorded the highest status; and the way it had taught him to find solutions to problems where no solutions seemed to exist. And then, of course, there was the combat - the vicious, brutal, ugly, no-holds-barred, filthy, stinking combat. He’d loved the combat more than anything else; loved it the way other people loved football, French wines or the works of some great composer. He’d loved every aspect of it, from the smell of cordite and gun oil to the sound of rapid fire or the low rumble of distant artillery. He’d loved the way it had of removing even the most carefully concealed pretensions, of exposing a man for what he really was rather than what he liked to think he was. He’d loved the simplicity and the urgency and the lack of rules; the way that mistakes were punished, permanently and unequivocally. He’d even relished the fear that sometimes came with the prospect of sudden death. The way it threatened to paralyze him both physically and mentally; the way it tested him to the very core of his being. Then he thought back to the time before he joined the army - it seemed like a million years ago - a time when his abilities had been only half developed, like those of a newborn infant, and he felt a slight sense of revulsion. No, he decided. He had no regrets. None at all. The hardship, pain and despair had all been prices worth paying. “No,” he said, at last. “No regrets. None at all.”

“Do you miss it?” “Sometimes.” “You sound quite sentimental about it,” said Cari. She spooned a lump of gloopy ice cream onto a bowl of sliced fruit and passed it to him. “I try not to be,” Buchan replied. “It’s a luxury, one that we men can’t afford. It clogs up the works, interferes with mechanisms.” Cari smiled. “You make it sound like you're a machine of some sort, constructed out of metal parts and without any human instincts.” “That’s a pretty good way of describing it,” he said, pouring himself another shot. “That’s the price that has to be paid.”

The bottle was half empty when they walked out onto a wooden balcony thirty minutes later and Buchan was no longer feeling any pain. There was a faint chill in the air, the first that he’d felt since his arrival. The storm had finally passed, and a serene calm had settled over the place. He gazed up into a moonless sky. A thin veil of cirrostratus covered most of it, and only a handful of the brightest stars were visible. Then a flash of sheet lightning turned night into day momentarily, and he turned to see Cari examining him inquisitively through the shadows. “What do you look for in a woman?” she asked suddenly, adding, “You look like the type who knows what he wants, and then gets it.” Buchan grinned. “Lack of commitment probably comes highest on my list. Good looks are a bonus, though. So are a robust sense of humor, and an insatiable...” He left the word hanging in the air as he examined the silvery liquid in his glass. “Yes?” she prompted him. “Curiosity,” he said at last. “An insatiable curiosity is a definite plus.” Cari laughed. They exchanged glances momentarily. “Were you ever married?” she asked. Buchan shook his head. “No. Marriage seems to have eluded me so far.” “Has it eluded you, or have you eluded it?” “A bit of both, I suppose. I’m something of a lost cause in that respect.” “Nonsense,” said Cari firmly. “There’s no such thing.” She smiled. “Surely, beneath that harsh exterior there is at least a spark of passion and romance?” “Don’t count on it,” replied Buchan without hint of sarcasm. “Let’s just say I took the decision to have my heart surgically removed years ago, which is why that bullet didn’t kill me.” “Somehow I don’t think that’s completely true.” “It is, though. And after it was removed, I had it buried in an unmarked grave deep beneath the Arctic icecap. It’s watched over twenty-four hours a day by a particularly mean pack of Doberman pinschers armed with machine guns, just in case anyone ever gets any ideas about trying to find it.” “I still don’t believe you. For a start, Dobermans would never survive in the Arctic.” “They’ve been crossbred with huskies.” She giggled. “Well maybe, but you seem very... how would you say it? Bueno, muy simpatico. The French might say, serviable. You don’t have a word for it in English, but it means ‘nice guy’. A real, old-fashioned gentleman. And you can say that as one word or two.” Buchan laughed at the idea. He ‘ d always seen himself as something of a thug; a cultured thug maybe, but a thug, nonetheless. “What about you?” he asked. “What’s your story? Were you ever married?” “No,” she answered, after some hesitation. “I’ve never been married. In fact, I’ve almost given up looking. Let’s just say I haven’t found a bar high enough... Thinking about it, I suppose you could say that I’m a bit of a lost cause, myself.” “It seems that these days, all the good causes are lost causes.” “Well, here’s to them,” she replied, raising her glass. “Lost causes!” She swallowed the remaining contents. Buchan did the same, and their eyes locked briefly. Something passed between them and he knew then that he would kiss her. Knew too that she would kiss him back, and he felt his earlier reservations about getting involved with her start to crumble. “You know,” she whispered after a long silence, “I can think of a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t sleep with you tonight, but right now none of them seem to matter.”

“I can’t think of any,” he whispered in return, and grasping her by the hair he kissed her roughly on lips that tasted of tobacco and tequila. There was a soft guttural moan as a shudder ran through her body and a brief moment of token resistance. Then she was kissing him back, her mouth a hungry thing, moist and eager to please.

According to the public inquiry into the events that day, the IRA's plan had been a simple one. A Vauxhall Cavalier was to be parked on the high street just before eleven o'clock in the morning. It would be carrying an improvised explosive device that would then be detonated from a safe distance by remote control. In total, four men had been charged with this task. The first was O'Neill, the driver of the car. He would deliver the bomb to its pre-assigned position, then await collection by two men who would be following in a blue Ford Escort, one of them driving, the other riding shotgun. Last but not least, Cochrane, half-hidden in a doorway close to the scene, would act as a lookout, and it was hoped that if all went well, they would be safely across the border by eleven, just in time for the pubs to open. Needless to say, Hook was unaware of all this, and having found a place to park, he and Vicky walked the short distance to the town center. It was a Saturday. This, together with the fine weather, had drawn out the locals, and the high street was busy with shoppers; housewives, mainly, some dragging reluctant children, others pushing prams. They were interspersed with grey-haired pensioners as well as the usual sprinkling of unemployed youth, council workers, and others going about their daily business. The couple’s first stop was a small, French-style café where Vicky ordered a cappuccino and Hook an espresso. The espresso had the oily viscous look and consistency of undiluted creosote, but it tasted divine, and he rated it as good as anything that had ever come out of Milan. They chatted about nothing very much - the weather, his dislike of culottes, early Bruce Springsteen versus late Bruce Springsteen, their shared dislike of rap music, the ongoing decline in good manners, the letters Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son, the best recipe for Irish stew. Then Hook told a short story about a drunken brawl he’d once had in a Glasgow backstreet, and, as the last sip of coffee slid down his throat, he reached for his cigarettes. It was then that he realized he’d left them back at the cottage. Noticing his disappointment, Vicky offered to remedy the situation. She jumped up and having visited a tobacconist’s shop next door, she quickly returned to her seat. In her hands were a pack of Marlboros, a brand-new brass Zippo lighter, and a small bottle of lighter fluid, which she passed to him. "A little gift,” she explained with a smile. Hook picked up the lighter, hefting it in his hand. He’d never owned a Zippo but had always admired them from afar and was grateful to have one to call his own. He spent the next few minutes learning how to charge it with the fluid before finally lighting up. Then, once the cigarette came to an end, they walked back out into the open air. A second-hand bookshop caught their eye, and a short walk later they stepped through the open door into the shop’s cozy, crowded interior. An old man ina green cardigan and reading glasses was talking on a telephone behind the counter. He greeted them with a nod, while in the background Hook recognized Enrico Caruso’s dark, almost baritonal voice coming from a Roberts radio on the countertop. Enrico was singing Handel’s Largo, a solemn but strangely compelling piece that Vicky had introduced him to only a few weeks earlier, and they exchanged knowing glances as they went their separate ways. Before long, Vicky was half-lost amongst the steep-sided maze of passageways examininga volume on the British Raj. Meanwhile, Hook lingered at a display table close to the entrance, and spotting an anthology of poems by Yeats he picked it up. It was reasonably priced, and he flicked through the pages. 'The Second Coming’ jumped out at him and, as he scanned through the famous stanzas, he noticed the silver Cavalier slow to a halt just outside the shop. There was only one occupant, a man in his thirties, and Hook happened to watch as he got out of the vehicle, closing the door behind him. It might have been his experiences as a soldier, or just his sixth sense working overtime, but somehow Hook knew something wasn't quite right. For one thing, the car's suspension sagged heavily for no apparent reason. For another, the driver was sweating profusely on what was a warm but by no means hot day. Then there was the fact that he kept looking round, as though expecting trouble... According to the inquiry, it was 10:46 a.m. and what happened next would be forever be burned into Hook’ s memory like some sort of surreal, slow-motion, high-definition replay. It all started when there was a loud bang further down the street. The cause would never be determined with any degree of certainty, but the inquiry concluded it was probably nothing more sinister than a young child’ s balloon bursting. Unfortunately for all concerned, however, O’Neill thought it was a gunshot. He was sufficiently rattled to pull out Smith & Wesson semi-automatic just as a man in civilian clothes stepped out of a bank on the other side of the street. His identity would later be confirmed as a sergeant in the Royal Ulster Constabulary called William Paul Dobson. It only took Dobson a moment to size up the situation, and though he was off duty

and unarmed he barely hesitated before identifying himself as a police officer in a loud, clear voice. He then ordered O’Neill to put down his weapon, but O’Neill just laughed. The distance between them was no more than five yards and a trio of bullets from the semi-automatic tore into the police officer. Two of them struck him in the chest. Then the third tore out the best part of his throat, and he toppled sideways onto the pavement, twitching and convulsing and spilling dark arterial blood from all three holes. In that instant Hook's training kicked in, and dropping the book, he ran from the shop's doorway, launching himself into a headlong tackle aimed squarely at the back of O’Neill’s legs. The Irishman, still focused on the dying policeman, never saw him coming, and in the resulting collision he was sent sprawling onto the pavement. Then, giving the stricken man no time to recover, Hook got to his feet and swiftly kicked him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious for the duration of the incident. A macabre stillness filled the air now, and Hook took the opportunity to assess the situation. His first glance was towards the fallen policeman, his inert body showing no signs of life. There was the odd, isolated scream or shout from bystanders, but the enormity of the situation hadn’t yet sunk in, and while rest of the street had emptied somewhat, the remaining people stood frozen to the spot like waxwork dummies, or spectators at an exciting sporting event. In quick succession, Hook took note of a young boy in red shorts looking terrified besides a fallen bicycle, and a plump, middle-aged woman who was crouched behind a lamppost, her head in her hands. Further along the street he could see that the approaching cars had stopped, forming an impromptu traffic jam, and having checked for any further threat, he went to pick up O'Neill's handgun and what looked like a remote-control device from the middle of the road. It was only then that he noticed that a blue Ford Escort had peeled away from the line of waiting vehicles and was accelerating towards him... He instinctively knew what would happen next and was rolling out of the way when the stubby barrel of a gun appeared in the passenger side window. This, it turned out, was a notorious model of 9mm machine pistol known as a MAC-10. With a cyclic rate of sixteen rounds per second, these are capable of delivering an immense amount of damage in an incredibly short amount of time. They are, however, extremely inaccurate and very difficult to control. The fact that the man wielding it was travelling in a fast-moving vehicle did nothing to improve his aim, and instead of hitting Hook, he shot a sixty-three-year-old widow called Gladys Miriam Davis instead. She'd been in the town to do some shopping and was killed outright when the first volley of shots struck her in the sternum, all but blowing her chest to smithereens. Then, beyond her, a man riding a large motorbike clasped at his helmet suddenly as the visor filled with blood. He fell from the bike almost immediately and it continued riderless for a few more yards before colliding with a nearby wall. There was still another second’s worth of bullets in the MAC-10’s 32-round magazine, and the vast majority of them struck the window of a small newsagent's shop where the customers were to live or die according to the grim and unforgiving laws of ballistics and fate. One man, a ninety-two-year-old pensioner called Barry Carmichael who had survived three years on Arctic convoy duty in the Second World War had a narrow escape when two of the rounds struck the wall a few inches from his head, but his eight-year-old great-grand-daughter was not so lucky. One bullet shattered her right elbow; another blew off two fingers on her right hand; and a third lodged itself deep within her spine, leaving her with injuries that would later take her life. Three other customers were also killed outright in the carnage: two middle-aged sisters, both of them lifelong Sinn Fein activists; and a fifteen-year-old boy, a promising Gaelic football player who had dreams of playing for Donegal. And everybody else in the shop suffered injuries of one sort or another, including the shop assistant - a young woman of twenty-two - who was permanently blinded in both eyes by pieces of flying debris from an exploding jar containing gobstoppers. After that, all hell broke loose again. The screams came thick and fast now as hysteria swept through the remaining bystanders like wildfire. Only Hook seemed to be unaffected and swinging the handgun in a tight arc he put a burst of rapidly executed shots into the Escort as it sped past. One of these, it was later confirmed, struck the gunman in the side of the chest, travelling through his heart and lungs and killing him instantly. Another wounded the driver in the left shoulder, causing him to lose control of the vehicle, and it crashed into a building about a dozen yards further on. Immediately steam started to pour from the bonnet and Hook was lowering the weapon when incoming rounds from the shadows of a nearby doorway spattered the tarmac around him like a sudden heavy downpour...

Caught unawares and out in the open, he made an easy target. The third or fourth bullet caught him in the lower back with a loud slap, causing a red blotch to blossom across his shirt like some kind of exotic flower. The physical impact seemed to go right through his body, and for a few seconds he was conscious of nothing else. Then, time slowed down. The objects around him seemed to recede to a great distance, and he grimaced suddenly as a jolt of pain shot through his torso. Everything seemed to require an awful lot of energy, energy he didn’t have, and his only thought was a kind of bitter relief that Vicky wasn’t involved; that she wouldn’t be there for whatever happened next. Collapsing to the ground, he looked back along the street to see a tall, lean man with a dark, cadaverous face step from the shadows and walk towards him through the fleeing crowd. There was a 9mm semi-automatic in his hands. A thin trickle of blue-grey smoke trailed from the short barrel, and he was raising it to deliver what would surely be the coup de grace when Vicky appeared in the shop's doorway. She let out an ear-piercing scream that distracted the gunman, before launching herself at him. Together they half-tumbled, and she scratched at his face briefly before grasping the pistol. For an instant, she came close to wrenching it from his grip, but then a lucky strike from Cochrane’s elbow caught her in the side of the head, momentarily stunning her. Wasting no time, he slashed her viciously across the face with the weapon’s barrel, opening a three-inch gash in her cheek. This gave him the chance to grab her forcefully by the hair, and thrusting her body in front of his he turned the 9mm on Hook. “The gun,” he said simply. “Put it down or she dies.” Battling pain and nausea, Hook weighed his options. Under the circumstances, the chances of hitting the terrorist with a clean shot were close to non-existent. That only left surrender. If he surrendered without a fight then maybe, just maybe, Vicky would be released. And though it went against every fiber in his being, he placed the handgun on the tarmac beside him. “Push it away,” instructed Cochrane.

Hoping against hope, Hook did as he was told, but any chance of a peaceful resolution was immediately dashed when Cochrane pushed the 9mm’s barrel firmly in the middle of Vicky's back. She started to scream, but the noise of the gunshot drowned out the sound, and by the time the echo had died, she was coughing blood, her hands clutched tightly to her chest. Helpless, Hook could only watch as she collapsed to the ground, and for the first time in his adult life tears came to his eyes. Through them, he could see her face. She was staring listlessly, as though at some distant horizon, and he watched with cold dispassion as Cochrane swung the gun around until it was aligned with the center of his heart... For Hook, those fractional seconds seemed to last a lifetime, playing out in his mind like an everlasting series of snapshots. Then there was a bright, yellow-blue flash. It filled his vision, searing his eyes as something that felt much heavier and larger than a bullet hit him, knocking him back onto the ground. Abruptly, he felt the life he’d once known begin to vanish and fade. There was no fear or any pain, just a strange sense of weariness and revulsion, revulsion with the world and with himself, and the next thing he remembered Cochrane and the wounded driver were trying to lift O'Neill's heavy body from the ground. The sudden whelp of distant sirens soon put paid to that idea, however, and abandoning their colleague they hurried over to the Cavalier. It was still parked where O’Neill had left it, and they jumped in, pulling away with a screech of rubber, heading down the street at speed. Feeling evermore faint, Hook turned his attention back to Vicky. Her bloody face looked cold and colorless with shock. With great effort, he crawled over to her side, cradling her head in his arms. She was still alive, but only just, and he heard an obscene gurgling sound as she struggled to speak and breathe at the same time. At first, he thought she was trying to say his name. But she wasn’t. Then, as though realizing that she was out of time, she uttered the last three words she would ever speak. “How dare they...” she whispered. Her words were barely audible, and they were followed by a rasping, liquid sound that would forever be stuck in Hook’s brain.

CHAPTER II Buchan didn’t remember falling asleep, and the sun had already risen when the dream finally came. In it, he saw faces. Faces of the dead. Faces of the men and women

he’d killed during his time with the Mill; men and women

who, but for him, would have continued to walk the earth. He recognized them all;

remembered who they were and why he’d killed them. An East German border guard appeared, a star-shaped hole in his right temple; then he watched a Chinese assassin suffocate, and an Indonesian arms dealer get his throat cut. A Swiss banker followed, killed when his car exploded, then came a Turkish prostitute, a

Syrian playboy, and a Belgian diplomat who'd all died in suspicious circumstances... It was a long and motley procession, and when it came to an end only one face remained. It was Cochrane’s, shattered and scarred from the bomb blast, his dark eyes glinting like chipped anthracite. He was laughing at Buchan, laughing till the tears dropped from his face, laughing like there was no tomorrow... Buchan awoke with a start and, shaking the image from his mind, he looked up into the mosquito net. It seemed very familiar, as did the pain he could feel throughout his body. And in the background, he thought he could hear the sound of the sea... Gradually the missing pieces fell into place and he rolled over to see a shallow depression in the mattress where Cari had been lying. Catching the faint trace of her scent on the pillow, he lay there for a short while recalling the loose jumble of memories he’d retained from the previous evening, and how, once it was all over, he’d lain beside her, admiring her body in the half-light like some sort of exquisite art form. Clothed, Cari’s body had been a pretty impressive sight. Naked, it was magnificent. Blissfully it had also been free of any tattoos, implants or piercings; and she’d been quite unconscious of her nakedness, he remembered then. And it was in the next moment that he'd had an insight that had hitherto escaped him. It was something he’d seen in her eyes. It was a look of pain and sadness and longing, and something else that had surprised him... Danger? Yes, danger; definitely an element of danger. Strange, he reflected. He’d never met a less dangerous person in his life, and remembering he still had a mission to complete, he checked the time. It was almost eight, and brushing the net aside, he forced himself from the bed and got to his feet. *

Buchan found Cari on a balcony adjacent to the living room. She was wearing a white towel robe and typing on a laptop computer in the shade of a bright red bougainvillea. In the fresh light of a new day, she looked even more stunning than he remembered, and it took a moment for the full effect of her beauty to sink in. She finished what she was typing, looking up at him as he emerged from the French windows. She smiled brightly. “Buenos dias, Mister Buchan. How’s the wounded soldier feeling today?” “Not great,” he replied. “But thanks to you, I think I'll survive.” Crossing over, he kissed her lightly on the top of her head, then continued on to the edge of the balcony. In stark contrast to the view the night before, he found himself looking out over a scene of utter peace and tranquility. Everything was perfectly still. There were no high winds, no big waves breaking on the rocks below, and, except for a lot of fallen leaves, nothing to show that a storm had just passed. Instead, the only sound came from the gentle lapping of the waves, the soft whir of a hummingbird’s wings close to his head, and the lively chatter of larger birds in the lush foliage that surrounded him. It was also pleasantly cool, and he looked out along a crescent-shaped cove to see a narrow strip of glittering white sand. It was backed by patches of sea grape and a row of arching coconut palms, and lined a vast and empty expanse of ocean that was jade-colored in the shallows, turning an ever-deeper blue as he lifted

his gaze. The ocean sparkled intermittently in the early morning sunlight with just the odd tiny whitecap to interrupt the otherwise calm surface. The water looked warm and inviting, and while it didn’t quite match the translucent aquamarine brilliance of its near neighbor, the Caribbean, it did hold a certain moody, soul-soothing charm of its own. His eyes tracked a flock of a dozen brown pelicans as they crossed from left to right, patrolling the shallow waters in front of his position. They flew in the classic V-shaped formation, slow, ponderous, and ungainly, like a squadron of miniature A-10s out on the prowl. Every now and then one of them would peel off, fold its wings, and fall from the sky to disappear beneath the water with a heavy splash. Then, its mission accomplished, it would return to the surface and toss the doomed fish in its beak back into its gullet with the practiced ease of a hardened drinker knocking back a shot of whisky. Meanwhile, further out, his keen eyes spotted a solitary frigate bird, aloof and almost motionless as it rode the thermals on its forked tail and scimitar-shaped wings. In contrast to the clumsy-looking pelicans, it exuded a solemn dignity and grace, like some sort of preternatural, radar-defying, stealth aircraft, and seemed to look down on the world below as though meditating deeply on the majesty and mystery of it all. As with the girl a moment earlier, it took a while for the full beauty of the scene to sink in - the sugar-white sand, the sparkling sea, the exotic seabirds, the sheer serenity... It all reminded him of the kind of glossy images you saw in expensive travel magazines, and for a moment he felt like he was on holiday in some exclusive hotel somewhere, taking in the view on the first morning of a long stay. If only, he thought. “It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day,” said Cari behind him. “Yes,” he agreed. He wondered how long it would last and turned to face her. “Would you like a coffee?” she asked, rising from her seat. “It should be ready by now.” “T’d love one,” he replied. “It might help clear my head a little. I feel like an extra in a zombie movie.” “I’m not surprised judging by the amount you drank.” “You didn’t do so badly either,” he reminded her as they walked back into the house. “Anyway, where I come from, anything less than a total alcoholic stupor is considered impolite behavior, for a gentleman at least.” They reached the kitchen where Cari removed a bubbling percolator from the stove. “So, how do you like it?” she asked, pouring the coffee into a mug. “Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved...”

She laughed. “That has to be a quotation.” “It is. Raymond Chandler. It’s from The Long Good-Bye.” Still laughing, she filled another mug and passed him one. “I take it you don’t have milk or sugar, then.” “No, thanks. Tough guys don’t.” Cari laughed again as Buchan sipped at the coffee. It went down his throat with a satisfactory burn and he drank some more. “Delicious,” he said. “Where’s it from?” “Chiapas. I bought it when I was on a dig there last year. Up in the highlands.” “Isn't that where they have all the trouble with the rebels?” “The Zapatistas, you mean?” “They’re the ones.” “Oh, you don’t have to worry about them. They get a lot more publicity than they deserve so people tend to imagine the situation’s worse than it actually is.” “Shouldn't a nice girl like you be a little bit more careful, though? You never know what might happen out there in the big bad world.”

“That sounds good coming from you.” “Seriously,” Buchan insisted. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that either,” she said between sips of coffee. “I can take care of myself. Now how about some breakfast?” *

Buchan was starving and secretly hoped that breakfast wouldn't disappoint him. It didn't. The feast that Cari conjured up seemingly out of nowhere was simple and superbly presented. He didn't recognize all of the dishes, but that didn't slow him down. Every bite was better than the last, and by the end he'd eaten so much that his ribs, badly bruised from his various misadventures, started to ache with a renewed intensity. “Is there anything that you're not good at?” he asked, with a grin. Cari laughed, blushing slightly. “Don’t go putting me on some kind of pedestal. Trust me, there are lots of things. My musical skills, for example. They’re almost non-existent. I can’t sing and my tennis serve is a joke. I consider cigarettes to be one of the highest achievements of mankind and suffer withdrawal symptoms if I go without alcohol or red meat for more than a couple of days. I’m as stubborn as a mule and about as patient as a starving hyena. Also, I’m allergic to modern technology, or anything modern for that matter.” “I like you more all the time,” quipped Buchan, realizing suddenly that it was uncomfortably close to the truth. Cari smiled. “You're too polite. You see, I knew you were a gentleman all along. And there was I thinking that the age of chivalry was dead.” “Not as long as there’s a dragon left unslain and I’ve got blood in my veins.” She laughed. “I'll bet you’ve even been known to help old ladies across the street from time to time.” “Only when nobody’s looking.” She laughed again and sipped at her coffee. “So, what do you think you'll do with the rest of the day?” The question caught Buchan off guard. He hadn't given the topic much thought. He wasn’t sure what he could do, except maybe go back to the hacienda, and on the whole he’d prefer to avoid that. One thing he did know was that with every minute that passed, his chances of completing the mission grew more remote. In fact, if he was honest with himself, it was probably too late already. The realization unleashed a mounting wave of despair that had been building since he’d regained consciousness the evening before. Then he’d been able to drown his concerns in the tequila and Cari’s body. Now, in the fresh light of a new day, those wotries caught up and engulfed him. He felt like a boxer being counted out of the fight. He knew that the referee wanted him to stay down, but he still wanted to finish it. End it the way he’d set out to. And one way or another, that’s exactly what he was going to do. “T'll head back to town. I've got a long list of properties I'd like to see and it's high time I made a start,” he said, irritated by the need to lie. It was almost as though something had changed between them, and in some ways, he reflected, it had. “Is there a chance we could meet for dinner?” she asked. “There’s a great little seafood restaurant I know on the waterfront. You see, there are still a lot of things I don’t know about you, lots of questions I’d like to ask.” “What sort of questions?” asked Buchan. “Just the usual ones. What interests you have? What films you like to watch? Whether you ever cry on hearing the news? That kind of thing.” “All right,” he said, knowing full well he’d never make it. “That sounds good. And no, I have never cried on hearing the news. Not even when John Wayne died, which should give you a clue to the kind of films I like. My interests will have to wait. They’re all a bit extreme and I don’t want to scare you away just yet.” Cari laughed. “I ought to warn you, I don’t scare easily.” “Yeah, well we'll see about that when the time comes.”

Buchan was waiting in the living room when Cari joined him there some fifteen minutes later. Now she was wearing a red-and-black checked shirt, creamcolored chinos and a pair of tan Timberland boots. The faintest hint of some delightful perfume hung in the air around her, and her chestnut-colored hair had been drawn back, emphasizing her cheekbones, the size of her eyes, and the lovely lines of her long slim neck. It was exactly the kind of casual offhand look that Buchan tended to go for, and though the overall effect was stunning, she showed no awareness of the fact. “You look great,” he said simply. “Thank you,” said Cari with a smile. “You don’t look too bad yourself. All things considered.” “IT used to be quite handsome, you know.” “Is that right?” she said, checking the contents of a doeskin handbag with slim, delicate fingers. “It’s just as well you told me as I’d never have guessed.” Closing the handbag, she slung it over her shoulder. “You know, I'd probably like you more if you weren’t so open and honest with me,” said Buchan, grinning. “T’ll try to remember,” she said solemnly. Then, with a giggle, she linked her arm through his and led him out of the house onto the balcony. “I’ve decided that we're going to take the boat. It’s just as quick as the car, and the route is much more scenic. Besides, if past storms are anything to go by the roads will still be closed due to fallen trees and telegraph poles.” They crossed the balcony and descended a twisting flight of stone steps that had been carved out of the limestone rock. It led to a rickety, sun-bleached wooden jetty that was missing the odd plank and protruded some forty feet out into the sea. They walked along it. Hanging from twin davits at the far end was a large fiberglass fisherman’s canoe with an outboard motor. By releasing of a couple of ropes it settled onto the lapping water and they both climbed aboard. Cari opened the fuel line and yanked on the motor's cord. It spluttered into life after the third attempt, coughing up a cloud of blue smoke. Then, opening the throttle, she steered the craft out into the open sea. Buchan sat back in the seat, his legs absorbing the faint shocks that periodically shook the narrow hull, his exposed skin refreshed by the light spray that rose from the bow, and gradually his thoughts returned to the mission. The pleasant interlude with Cari was coming to an end. He was going back to the real world now, the one where people tried to kill you and nothing ever quite went to plan, and he was working on his next move when she tapped him on the shoulder. “You're missing the best part,” she said, pointing at the shoreline. Looking across a large inlet, he saw that the vegetation had changed. Now the coast was fringed with mangroves, and small clusters of flamingos crowded the shallower waters, their plumage shimmering in the heat haze like a bright pink mirage. He looked back at Cari. She was perched on the edge of the boat, sitting in profile against the deep blue sky. Her hand was resting casually on the tiller as the vessel pitched and tossed on the gentle waves, her features coated with fine droplets of silvery spray. She had loosened her hair so that the warm wind whipped long strands of it around her shoulders. The same wind was pressing the checked shirt tightly against her firm, well-rounded breasts, and it occurred to Buchan that he could get very fond of her if he wasn't careful. The prospect was a tantalizing one but not without risks of its own, and he reminded himself that he’d known her for less than a day, which was nowhere near long enough, and that holiday romances almost never worked anyway. They built up unrealistic expectations, and once life settled back into its normal dull routine as it invariably did, they rarely had the momentum to last. And there was another thing, he reflected. He couldn’t help but think she was a little too fragile for him. A little too innocent and too far removed from the world of cold facts and harsh realities that he lived in. The things he’d learned, the things he knew; the violence, the cruelty and the killing; didn’t belong in her

world. His world and her world were at opposite ends of the earth, and while they might be spinning on the same axis, the distance between them was just too large to ever be bridged. He knew it was asking a lot of a woman - to be feminine and tough, all at the same time - but he also knew that any other combination wouldn't work. Opposites might sometimes attract, but they seldom stayed together. Not in his experience. Better to make a clean break now, he concluded. Call a halt to proceedings, as soon as the opportunity presented itself... He decided to keep it simple. “I won’t be at the restaurant tonight,” he said. “I should have said something earlier but didn’t want to disappoint you. I’m sorry.” Cari suppressed a smile. “Don’t apologize. It doesn’t suit you. Besides, I knew you wouldn’t be there... I know you didn’t come here to look at properties, that you're not a developer. I knew exactly what you were the very moment I laid eyes on you.” Buchan hesitated for a moment, then asked, “And what’s that?”

“A killer, Mister Buchan. A good man, but a killer all the same. I'm an archaeologist remember. We're detectives at heart. We're very good at sifting through the dirt, putting little the pieces together and uncovering hidden secrets. And, I have to say, in your case, it wasn't very difficult t.” He tensed slightly. Then, without confirming or denying her words, he said, “Appearances can be deceptive.” “Not yours. You're an open book, easy to read, and the fact that you lie about as convincingly as a three-year-old with jam all over his face doesn’t help.” Buchan stayed silent for a moment. There didn’t seem any point in denying the facts any longer. “Let’s just say I do bad things to bad people,” he said. “Let’s just say I don’t believe in giving them a second chance.” “An eye for an eye, and all that?” “You could put it that way. For every action, there is a reaction.” “But you can’t just run around the world killing people,” she said, somewhat aghast. “What about the law and everything?” “You can if you know what you're doing,” said Buchan coolly and indifferently. “And if you have the right kind of back-up.” “Okay. Maybe,” she conceded, a slight sigh of exasperation escaping from her throat. “But two wrongs don’t make a right...” “Says who?” answered Buchan. “The bad guys make the rules. I just play by them. Happens all the time in war.” Cari’s eyes flicked towards his. Her body language and the hint of impatience in her voice spoke of a growing frustration. “But we're not at war.” “Aren't wee” She brushed some loose hair from her face. “What about understanding and forgiveness?” she asked after a while. “Don’t they have a part to play?” Buchan shook his head. He didn’t believe in trying to ‘understand’ anybody, or trying to get to the root cause of their ‘disaffection’. Everyone had their excuses and he’d heard them all. “Not in my book,” he said. “Things like that are overrated. They just complicate matters unnecessarily.” Cari laughed, suddenly breaking the tension. Buchan had expected many reactions, but not that one. “What’s funny?” he asked. “You are,” she said. “You're big, and you're strong, and you're dangerous, yet there’s something almost childlike about your belief in justice and the triumph of good over evil, about the way you see everything in black-and-white. You're like a relic from a bygone age; the man that time forgot.” “Some things don’t change,” he said by way of explanation. “I’m one of them.” “What about the grey?” “What grey?” “The grey between the black and the white.”

“There isn’t any,” he countered. “That’s just the black getting closer.” Then, looking her in the eye, he said. “So now you know the truth, what happens next?” Cari gave a casual shrug. “That’s up to you, isn’t it? You’re the one with a mission. I’d say it was your call... what will you do, kill me here and throw me overboard?” The standard operating procedure that served as the Mill’s unofficial rulebook was, Buchan now recalled, unusually vague and opaque on this question perhaps deliberately so. It stated something to the effect that anyone obstructing or in any way impeding the successful completion of a mission was to be dealt with as the situation dictated, with special regard for the Axeman’s safety and wellbeing, as well as that of the public at large. It was, in other words, not very helpful, and Buchan had learned to ignore it, preferring to rely on his gut instinct instead. And that’s what he did this time. “Only if I have to,” he said with a grin. “Well, what if I promise not to say anything to anyone? I’ll give you my word.” Buchan had been about to suggest something along those lines and was quick to accept. “Very well,” he said. “You've got a deal.” “Good,” said Cari, clearly relieved. “It must be very exciting?” she went on. “The life you lead.” “It has its moments. The last twenty-four hours weren’t entirely representative though. Some nights I even sleep alone.” Cari smiled and they travelled in a silence for a while. “Look on the bright side,” said Buchan. “It could have been worse. I could have been a lawyer, or a government bureaucrat or something like that.” The canoe lurched as it hit a particularly stubborn wave. The spray flew high and wide, and Cari wiped away a thin sheen of it from her face. She smiled again. “There is that,” she said. The smile lingered, but didn’t convince, and after a while Buchan looked away. To the north, he could just make out a cargo ship in the distance, and a handful of oil rigs dotted the horizon. Beyond, lay the United States of America. That’s where everything was heading, he thought. He could feel it in his gut. Something terrible was going to happen, something unlike anything ever seen before, and he had a vision of a coming apocalypse sweeping across the world that only he could stop... “So, how many were there?” asked Cari behind him. “How many people have you killed? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?” “That’s enough questions for now,” he said turning to look at her. “You know too much already. Let’s talk about something else.” Cari looked down at the water. “I guess all this pretty much rules out the possibility of ever seeing you again, doesn’t it?” He nodded. “It’ll be better for both of us that way.” There was a long silence, then Cari spoke again. “Just tell me one more thing...” she said, raising her gaze. “The people you've killed - they all deserved to die, right?” He looked her in the eye. “That all depends on whose word you take.” Cari didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take yours.” “Then they deserved it,” said Buchan firmly. “Every last one of them.”

It was 10:48 a.m., a mere two minutes since O’Neill had shot and killed the policeman. Vicky would be pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterwards by the first team of paramedics to answer the many emergency calls that were now clogging the local phone system. In many ways the whole affair was over, and at this point nobody would have been surprised if Hook had just given up and died as well. But for some strange reason death didn’t come. He just lay there staring into Vicky’s face, and slowly his hands moved down her back, as though to embrace her. There they found the entry wound. He felt the fading pulse of her heart, and all at once something inside him changed. He didn’t know what it was, but suddenly he felt his whole being shrink down into a very small, very black, very hard core before it finally disappeared altogether. Wiping the tears from his face with blood-covered hands, he rolled away from her body and, gathering all his remaining strength, he recovered the Smith & Wesson. Then, pushing his badly damaged body to its feet, he staggered over to the fallen motorcycle. It was too heavy for him to lift, but with the help of an unknown bystander he was finally able to climb into the saddle. Then, with a grunt, he turned the key in the ignition and set off unsteadily in pursuit of the Cavalier. The bike, a 500cc Kawasaki, was unfamiliar to him, but he had no trouble working out the various controls, and within a few seconds he felt confident enough to open her up. The Cavalier had a good head start, but it was still heavily laden with its deadly cargo and hindered by the traffic and parked cars in a way that the Kawasaki wasn’t. As a consequence, he had halved the distance between them by the time they reached the outskirts of the town, and soon after he was close enough to try a shot with the handgun. It went high and wide, as did his second attempt. The third shattered the Cavalier’s rear windshield, but didn’t seem to hit anyone inside, and when he squeezed the trigger the fourth time, there was nothing but a loud click. The gun was empty, and critically weak from loss of blood Hook tossed it away knowing he wouldn't last much longer, that his time was running out. The four-mile road to the border crossing was straight and empty, and the Cavalier’s speed increased accordingly. The Kawasaki kept pace easily, but the loss of blood was beginning to tell. Hook could feel himself losing consciousness and it soon became clear that the whole exercise was one in futility. Before long the bridge to the Republic could be seen in the distance. There was no official presence there, not even a barrier, and knowing the game was up he let the Cavalier pull away. Then, as the bike coasted to standstill, he toppled sideways with it onto the soft, grassy verge, listening to the getaway car as it roared triumphantly away. His eyes, now very heavy, closed and he just lay there, spent and broken, his mind filled with terrible visions of Vicky’s death. He had no idea of how long he stayed like that. The official report said it was no more than a minute, but it seemed much longer to him, and he vaguely remembered hearing the sound of water in the nearby river. His eyes fluttered open to see a weak sun shining through thin clouds, and a flock of small birds crossed the sky overhead. Quite what it was that made him think of the remote-control device in his pocket he would never understand, but the next thing he knew it was tight in his grip. Then, not really knowing how or why, his blood-soaked fingers were pushing the little red button at its center... There was only a momentary delay before he heard the sound of a very large explosion in the distance, and he immediately felt a great sense of relief. The pain he’d been feeling faded now. Instead, he felt a delicious, tranquilizing numbness that spread throughout his upper body and down through his legs. And that’s when he saw Vicky somewhere up above him, her face haloed by her golden hair. She was looking down at him, calling out his name; saying everything would be all right. He knew it was just a hallucination; knew too that he was dying; but those things didn’t seem to matter anymore. In many ways he'd never felt more alive and there was the slightest suggestion of a smile on his face when his heart finally stopped beating.

PART SEVEN

CHAPTER I The town of San Miguel came into view a few minutes later. From the sea, it was just a sleepy cluster of red-tiled roofs and bell towers, hemmed in on three sides by the flat expanse of jungle. Gradually Buchan made out the proud, crenellated outline of the fortress. The snouts of its rusted cannons seemed to follow their progress like so many watchful eyes, and shortly afterwards they passed through a gap in the sea wall. The small harbor was crowded with fishing vessels and the occasional yacht; the quayside, empty except for a handful of fishermen repairing nets and a pelican perched on a wooden stump. The bird took off as they approached, and Cari cut the engine, letting the craft drift gently towards the stone quay. “Where are you staying?” she asked. “The Excelente,” answered Buchan, rising from his seat. He jumped the narrowing gap and secured the boat to a mooring post. “Do you know it?” “Yes. I'll walk with you, if you like. It “s close to the post office. It’s been several days since I collected my mail.” Buchan didn’t like the idea, and he was about to reject the offer as tactfully as he could when something in her eyes made him stop. For the first time in many years, he felt an impending sense of emotional confusion. Hesitation inevitably followed and, before he knew it, they were walking down a narrow, cobbled street towards the main square. He swore under his breath. He knew he’d missed his best chance of a clean, easy break, of keeping her out of things, and in an attempt to limit any damage he turned his mind to what might lay ahead... The bad guys thought he was dead, but there was always a chance he’d run into them. Then there were the forces of law and order to think about. Despite the hacienda’s isolated location, the explosions might have been heard by someone and reported. If so, then it wouldn’t take long for Hernandez to link them to Wyatt’s death, and by association, directly to Buchan. And with his face all banged up, he was even less inconspicuous than normal... Cari seemed to read his mind. “You're not in trouble with the police as well, are you?” she asked. “Hopefully not, but after what happened the other night it’s not impossible.” “Well, try to avoid them if you can. They have a bit of reputation for all the wrong things, especially when it comes to extracting confessions, and setting people up for crimes they didn’t do, and all that.” “I thought there were laws against that sort of thing.” “There are. But remember, this is Mexico. Things are different here. None of the usual laws apply.” The street widened, becoming more of a boulevard. It was lined with towering plane trees that gave much-needed shade, and they passed several of the impressive Spanish colonial houses that together constituted the greater part of the old town center. Concealed by massive stone walls and heavy wooden doors, and with only small windows over the street, they looked austere and forbidding, like miniature versions of the fortress. But with the doors open, as some of them now were, he got to see into the lush gardens and fountains of the spacious courtyards set within; private, almost secret, havens from the hustle and bustle of the streets outside. They reached the main square to find the market was in full swing. There were hundreds of stalls, selling everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to cowboy boots and car parts, and before long the two of them were totally immersed in the riot of sights and sounds that surrounded them. One stand was entirely devoted to selling skulls and skeletons made out of papier-maché, and Buchan stopped to examine them momentarily before catching up with Cari. She was

paying for a bottle of mineral water and they stopped to share it in the shade of the bandstand. A small group of schoolgirls was sitting on a nearby bench. One of them whispered something to her friend. They both giggled excitedly, and when Buchan grinned back, hysteria broke out. “My!” said Cari, “You certainly know how to make an impression.” “It’s one of my gifts.” “Well, just remember that around here, if you kiss a girl, you virtually have to marry her...” She stopped herself, blushing slightly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” “Forget it,” said Buchan. “I didn’t even make the connection.” Smiling, she dropped the empty bottle into a dustbin, and they were about to move on when a barefoot girl in pigtails and native dress approached. No more than ten years old, she was carrying a tray piled high with cigarettes, chewing gum and sugared skulls the size of golf balls. Some of these wore sombreros, others top hats or baseball caps. “What’s with all the skeletons and skulls?” asked Buchan. “El Dia de los Muertos,” replied Cari as she paid for a pack of cigarettes. “The Day of the Dead’ - the day the gates open to the ‘other world’. It’s one of our most important festivals.” “Sounds a bit like Hallowe’en.” “Yes,” she said as they walked on. “It’s based on the belief that bad things can happen if we ignore our ancestors, but it’s meant to be a happy time as the Mayans believe the human spirit is indestructible. The church bells ring all day, and they have picnics on the graves. In some places they even open the tombs up, inviting the dead as guests.” Buchan laughed as they turned off the square. Simultaneously he scanned the street ahead, systematically checking the doorways and windows and rooftops for any signs of trouble. There were none - just the usual mix of locals going about their business - but a lifelong habit of thoroughness told him to look again. This time, as though guided by some primordial radar, his eyes quickly locked on to a mud-spattered pick-up truck parked along the curb. It was empty, but seemed strangely familiar, and there was a sudden dryness in his throat as he caught Cari by the arm. He nodded towards the hotel. “It’s probably best if we split up here. My friends might be waiting for me and I wouldn’t want you to get involved in any way.” “But what if they are? What will you do?” “Tl be all right,” he reassured her. “I’m hard to kill, remember.”

“Another one of your gifts?” He smiled. “Something like that.” There didn’t seem to be anything left to say, and he was leaning forward to kiss her goodbye when a movement in the hotel's entrance triggered his attention. He lifted his head, looking across as a group of men spilled out into the street. One of them was wearing a lightweight blue shell suit and expensive sneakers. He glanced over at Buchan, their eyes locking momentarily, and he was reaching into his jacket when Buchan’s reaction finally came. Stepping sharply sideways, he shoved Cari into a recessed doorway, kicking the door from its hinges as a burst of automatic fire bit deep into the brickwork above their heads. More shots echoed, and thunderous booms chased them down a narrow passageway to a dusty alley at the end. Cari reached it first. She ducked out of sight, and when he caught up with her a split second later, the slim, delicate fingers were withdrawing a Glock semi-automatic pistol from her handbag. Hurriedly, she snapped into a practiced combat stance, her body slightly crouched, her legs well-spaced, the pistol in a two-handed grip, hands and gun and eyes all aligned in the classic killing position. The dark hole of the barrel was pointing directly at Buchan and he froze, staring straight into the fierce slits that

were now her eyes. Her face had darkened, her beauty hardening suddenly, and his head was reeling with unwelcome possibilities when, just as suddenly, she traversed the barrel a few inches to the right and squeezed the trigger. The gun barked three times, the shots echoing loudly in Buchan’s ears as he followed the rounds the rounds on their way to their target. He watched as the man in the shell suit buckled forwards, then toppled to the ground, and looked back at Cari, his eyes full of questions. “Just one of my gifts,” she shouted over the ringing in his ears. There was the faintest flicker of a smile and before he could speak, she adjusted her aim and fired again, killing another man with a single headshot and winging a third as he dived for cover. “Follow me,” she called. Then, turning, she raced down another alley. Buchan did. Their long legs quickly ate up the ground, and they soon burst into a car park half-filled with vehicles at the far end. This was clearly the oldest part of town and the maze of narrow streets and alleys that surrounded them had a dangerous feel. Buchan didn’t like his options, and he was assessing them a second time when Cari turned to give covering fire. The maneuver was perfectly judged and executed, and he watched something that was red and irregular in shape fly from the shoulder of one of the pursuers. “This way,” she said, snapping off a last burst, and ducking under a low archway she disappeared from sight. Buchan followed her through it and up a long, steep flight of stone steps. They led to a high rampart on the northern side of the fortress. They ran along it for a while, snatching glimpses of the sea below, before descending another flight of steps, and when he finally caught up with Cari she was edging up to a blind corner, the handgun poised in her hands. Looking beyond her, Buchan saw a cemetery crowded with tombstones, old and vast and very easy to get lost in. “The harbor is on the other side,” she whispered back at him. “It's probably our best chance. If we can get back to the boat, they’1l have a hard time following us.” Buchan stopped her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked directly into her face. He’d expected to see fear and trembling and shock, but apart from the fact that she was breathing heavily and sweating lightly, she seemed perfectly relaxed, excited even, maybe a little curious. She was tougher than she looked, he thought. “I don’t know where you learned to shoot like that,” he said, between breaths, “and I’m not sure I want to find out. But you’ ve done enough already. Let me take over from here. Once we're out of this mess, I promise I’ll explain everything.” “You don’t have to explain anything,” she whispered. “I knew I was taking a chance with you the moment I first saw you. I also knew I’d never regret it. No matter what.” She offered him the gun. “Here, take this. You might need it.” “No,” said Buchan firmly. “You keep it.” Then gesturing her to stay where she was, he edged away. “I’ll check ahead and see if it’s clear.” Using the crosses and carved emblems for cover, he made his forward, but he had only gone a few dozen yards when he heard a noise. It wasn’t anything as definite as a footfall or a weapon being cocked, but it was enough to trigger all kinds of alarms in his head and he froze. Less than a second later a man’s figure appeared between the tombstones to his right. He had a pump-action shotgun in his hands. It was swinging towards Buchan and he dived left as the weapon barked. An angel saved him this time, its outspread wings acting like a ballistic shield. They shattered in the blast, showering him with shrapnel, and he was crawling between two graves when a second, then a third shot rang out. They seemed to be tracking him, getting closer all the time. Then there was another ch-chunk as the gunman racked the slide again, and Buchan was ready for the worst when Cari stepped from her position to unleash a quick succession of well-aimed rounds. They just missed their target, but distracted the gunman sufficiently for Buchan to counterattack. In the next moment he was leaping from the roof of a miniature mausoleum onto the man's back. They collapsed together in a tangled heap, rolling around on some forgotten grave to see who would come out on top. Over the decades, Buchan had been rigorously schooled in great depth in just about every type of close-quarter combat known to man, whether armed or unarmed. Drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds and professions his instructors had all, without exception, been experts in their chosen fields, and a meaner bunch of bastards it would be hard to find. They accepted nothing but the very best from him, no matter what the personal, psychological or physical

cost. Buchan had more than met their demands and, as a consequence, there was barely a move or countermove he hadn’t been trained to anticipate, neutralize or otherwise negate. This, together with his natural strengths and abilities, not to mention a frightening amount of real-world experience and a never-say-die attitude, meant there were few people on the planet who could survive more than a few minutes with him in a real fight. This guy wasn’t one of them. For the briefest of moments, it looked like he might take control of things, but Buchan was as adept at wrestling as he was with every other fighting style and the moment didn ‘t last. Shifting his weight, he made a simple readjustment to his body’ s position, and that’ s when the other guy made his first mistake. It was only a tiny error on his part, nothing more than the slightest of slight oversights. But it was enough. It gave Buchan the break he needed, and wriggling one arm free he used it to jam one of his thumbs deep into the man’s right eye. Eye gouging is never a pleasant thing to watch or experience and is rightly banned in all contact sports, including even the most extreme martial arts. This, however, was a

real fight, a fight to the death. And, as Buchan’s many instructors had told him many times, in fights to the death there were no niceties, no

Queensbury Rules, no holds barred, and no quarter given. Putting the other guy out of action as quickly and efficiently as possible was all that mattered. That meant hitting him as early as you could, as fast as you could, as hard as you could, and as many times as you could, ideally when he was still unprepared or least expecting it. It meant cheating, fighting unfairly and doing the kind of ugly, distasteful things you might not want to talk about afterwards. It meant using teeth and elbows and knees and anything else that might get the job done, and if pushing your thumb into the other man’s eye served that purpose, then so be it. It’s not as if they’d need it once they were dead. Driving his thumb in up to the first knuckle, Buchan now forced it sideways, feeling the eyeball shift in the wet socket, then pop from it. His opponent reacted exactly as expected, letting out a long, shrill shriek as his head jolted back. He’d completely lost control of his body, let alone the fight, and suddenly the fight wasn’t a fight anymore; it was a one-sided demolition job. Combining lightning speed with massive amounts of unstoppable force, this involved Buchan abusing all kinds of pressure points not used to being abused. There was very little resistance, and no attempt at a counterattack, and it ended with him straddling his opponent’s back. Then, grabbing the man’s hair with both hands, he raised the head a few inches before smashing it back down with all his might. This caused the man’s face to collide sharply with the edge of a low stone wall and, judging by the resulting sound, it did some sort of permanent damage to the skull. Instantly, the body went limp, but Buchan wasn ‘t taking any chances. In his line of work there was no such thing as overkill, and slithering into a new position, he adjusted his grip slightly, locking the man’s neck in his powerful arms. Then, twisting his upper body, he gave it a short, sharp, vicious jerk, simultaneously forcing the head upwards, backwards and sideways. There was a moment of brief resistance as the vertebrae snapped with a short series of satisfying cracks, and suddenly the whole thing was over before it had really started. Letting the limp body go, Buchan used a nearby tombstone to pull himself to his feet. He glanced over to check on Cari. She was standing about twenty yards away amidst a sea of statuettes. She looked shaken and out of breath but seemed to be alright, and he turned his attention back to the gunman. He was lying on his back, his arms by his side. He looked perfectly normal except for the fact that his head was on the wrong way round. Buchan flipped the body over with the toe of his boot and was pleased to see Irigaray's lifeless, bloody, one-eyed face staring up at him, the scowl finally erased from his face. Regretting that the Basque’s death had been so quick and clean, Buchan bent down to pick up the shotgun. It was a Mossberg loaded with twelve gauge, which was fine by him. He liked pump-action shotguns, especially Mossbergs, and he walked on towards the edge of the cemetery. It overlooked a road that led to the harbor, and the pick-up he’d seen earlier was parked at an angle alongside the nearby curb. He checked for any sign of the police. They had yet to arrive, and looking back, he called for Cari to join him. All he heard was silence. It was the wrong kind of silence, and he called again, his eyes scouring the graveyard without success. He swore, wondering what had happened, and was going back for her when a second pick-up appeared. It skidded to a halt beside the first. Three men jumped down, all of them armed, and

guessing it would take them about ten seconds to reach his position, Buchan gave them seven. Then he stepped out again, his finger tightening repeatedly on the Mossberg’s trigger as his left hand pumped the slide. Ch-chunk, BANG! Ch-chunk, BANG! Ch-chunk, BANG!

The three explosions came so fast that they blurred into one, and he watched as their shattered bodies disintegrated backwards in the semi-sustained blast. Then, pumping a fourth cartridge into the chamber, walked through the resulting carnage. Two of them were dead, their faces all but unrecognizable. The third, a man in his twenties, was clutching at a gaping hole in his stomach and muttering something about his mother in Spanish. He looked up at Buchan, his eyes bright and glassy, his face racked with pain and shock. “Ayudame,” he pleaded, holding out a cupped hand dripping with blood. “Help me... No me mate... Please don’t kill me.” Buchan showed no mercy. He’d been around too long and seen too much, and dropping the shotgun’s barrel, he casually aligned it with the wounded man’s head and squeezed the trigger again.

At first, there was nothing. No noise, no light, no fear, no pain, nor any sense of urgency or alarm. In fact, there was no sensory experience at all. Just a kind of emptiness filled with a peaceful, otherworldly calm that seemed to stretch forever into an immense, unknown darkness. Then, at some point, there were noises. Some of them he thought he recognized. They could have been voices, but they sounded echoey and muffled to Hook, as if he was hearing them from the bottom of a very deep well. He thought they were calling to him. He wanted to respond but there was something wrong with his body. No sounds came from his throat, nor could he move his limbs no matter how hard he tried, and he didn’ t have the energy to keep trying. Strong hands gripped his body then, handling it roughly, and that’ s when the pain came back. It seemed to be centered somewhere deep inside his chest, but it spread throughout his body, like an explosion of molten fire. It was a screaming, scorching, searing pain, unlike any he’d ever known, and it flowed into every part of his being, twisting it out of shape, disfiguring and deforming it. Then, he felt something like a bee sting one of his arms. Almost immediately the pain started to fade, and in seconds it had gone altogether, leaving only a vague afterglow. Then that too disappeared, and he felt suddenly weightless, as if floating across the surface of some vast unseen ocean. During brief moments of lucidity, he saw bright lights, some of them colored and flashing. There were blurs and shadows and other noises, too. Memories and images drifted through his mind, and as if hurled backwards through time he remembered dead tribesmen and falling through the sky with a rifle in his hands. He remembered chasing an oddly shaped ball, and laughing with short, dark-skinned, almond-eyed friends all dressed in green. For amoment he almost felt happy and relaxed. Then, in amoment stolen from hell, he remembered a girl with golden hair. She had blood on her clothes, and before he knew it the darkness and the pain and the fire had returned with a vengeance, greedily devouring everything in their path.

CHAPTER II The shotgun’ s

blast was still reverberating amongst the tombstones when Buchan jacked another cartridge into the breach and turned to look for Cari. There

was still no sign of her, but in the distance, he could hear the wail of a police siren as it rose sullenly from the rooftops. Mission or girl? he asked himself. The answer was automatic. Mission. The mission always took priority, always came first. You never let your personal life interfere with your professional life. There could be no distractions. From this moment on he must be like a machine, a freight train on fixed tracks, lethal, unstoppable, remorseless. Anything else was unthinkable... Mission or girl? he asked again. Mission! screamed a voice inside his head. Always the mission! Even if she’d saved his life. Even if her capture meant death or worse. She was just another casualty of the low-intensity war called ‘peace’, another statistic for the record books. Ultimately, her life meant nothing... It was the siren’s wail that finally decided the matter. It was much louder now, seeming to fill the surrounding air, and shutting the girl from his mind he crossed over to the first of the pick-ups. The key was in the ignition and he jumped inside, dropping the shotgun onto the passenger seat, and he was pulling away as a black and gold patrol car skidded into his rear-view mirror. Seconds later, another police car appeared on the street a couple of hundred yards ahead. It turned in his direction and was closing rapidly when a narrow turning opened up on Buchan’s right. He flung the pick-up into a tight, screeching turn. He felt the rear end start to slide, then bounce off the curb as he straightened the wheel. The road widened after a couple of hundred yards, the traffic thickening slightly, and adding power he drove the next three blocks without stopping, just catching the lights each time as they changed to red. His luck ran out as he approached the fourth set. They’d been on red for several seconds, and he was forced to steer the vehicle through a moving chicane of cars and trucks. There were several near misses. All around him he could hear the sound of screeching tires and crunching metal, but the pick-up remained unscathed, and he accelerated away, passing a row of warehouses, a cinema complex and a supermarket in quick succession. They went by in a blur, and he stood on the brakes as he came to a busy junction. The street to the left was seized with traffic. The one to the right wasn't. It led onto a dual carriageway and he took it, rapidly gaining speed again. He was heading east now. The sea lay to his rear. The jungle was only a few miles distant, and weaving through the thinning traffic, he checked his rear-view mirror. The two patrol cars were still on his tail, looming like sharks in the reflection. They grew ever larger in size, gaining on him all the time, and before long the lead vehicle was so close he could just about make out the faces of the men inside. They looked like they meant business and the guns came out a few seconds later. Buchan saw muzzles flash, then heard the muted roar of subsonic rounds as they tore through the nearby air. A wing mirror went first, then the rear window dissolved in a falling wall of glass granules, and he felt the truck vibrate as two more rounds struck the bodywork. Buchan flinched each time, knowing their aim would be improving with every shot, and was half-expecting the hammerlike blow of a bullet in the back when two more rounds ripped holes in the passenger seat headrest right beside him. They punched neat holes in the windscreen on their way out of the vehicle, and with the writing on the wall he pushed his foot to the floor in a last desperate bid to increase his speed. It didn’t seem to help, and he flicked his eyes down at the dashboard. The speedometer was stuck stubbornly at seventy-five miles per hour. It wouldn’t budge no matter how much he pumped the pedal and knowing he’d never outrun his pursuers, he quickly calculated his best hope lay in doing something unpredictable, something they wouldn't expect...

Executing a handbrake turn at speed is no easy task even at the best of times, and almost impossible without a good deal of practice and training. Most people attempting the maneuver quickly lose control and end up upside down in a ditch by the side of the road or else stalled in the middle of it. Anticipating all this and anticipating that Buchan might need to use such a maneuver from time to time, the Mill had gone to great lengths to ensure his expertise in it. As a result, the tactic had been incorporated into intensive six-week course in defensive and offensive driving that he‘ d taken towards the end of his long training program. And as with every other aspect of his training, his instructor had been amongst the best in his or her respective field, which in this case meant the involvement of a genial unassuming old Scotsman with a plumbing business whose skill and dexterity at the wheel had won him the British Rally Championship no less than five times. Because of this, and because Buchan was a

fast learner, especially where his survival was concerned, the high-risk technique held little fear for him, and

jamming his foot down on the brakes, he watched the speedometer needle unwind steadily down to around the fifty miles per hour mark. The front end dipped accordingly. Then, placing his right hand flat on the bottom of the steering wheel, he spun it viciously round one and a half times. Simultaneously he yanked hard on the handbrake, causing the pick-up to swing through a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, and for a long hanging moment he had the sensation of being suspended in a kind of frozen tableau as the world slewed past his line of sight. Trees, buildings, billboards, trucks, and cars all came and went. Then the vehicle was fishtailing backwards suddenly, decelerating sharply as it did so, and he found himself facing backwards. Meanwhile, a loud squeal of outraged protest came from the locked tires as they struggled to find traction, and for a short version of eternity he feared the pick-up would hit the curb and roll; that he’d end up upside down in the by the side of the road like the worst kind of boy racer. He could almost hear his old instructor’s Lowland Scottish voice screaming at him, and fighting to regain control, he corrected the drift with opposite lock and forced the engine into gear. A split second later, he released the handbrake and slammed his right foot to the floor once more. With wheels now spinning and the engine screaming with sudden power, the pick-up finally straightened itself, the tires finding their grip, and the next thing he knew it had lurched forward in the direction in which he’d just come. The whole complicated maneuver took less than seven seconds to complete. It was executed with a deftness and authority that would have brought a satisfied smile to the old Scotsman’s face, or so Buchan hoped, and he was still accelerating when the first patrol car streaked past in a black-and-gold blur. Its colored barlights lit up the tight, hard-set features of his face. Small flashes of fire flickered in his eyes and wiping away the droplets of sweat that had sprung from his brow, he turned his attention on the second patrol car. This, he saw now, was heading straight for him. With a closing speed of well over a hundred miles per hour, it was getting dramatically closer with every passing second. After a quick calculation of the odds, Buchan held his course, reckoning that the policeman had a lot more to lose than he did. He called it right, and at the last moment the other vehicle swerved away, screeching off the road in a boiling cloud of dirt. But Buchan’s problems were far from over. The road was busy with traffic and all of it was now heading his way. The next thirty seconds or so were like one long game of chicken. Horns sounded all around him as one car after another took evasive action, but Buchan hardly heard them, and narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck he finally veered down the off ramp before swerving awkwardly back into two-way traffic. The part of town he now found himself in was filled with shops and restaurants and seemed completely unaffected by the violent events elsewhere. The pickup’s bullet-scarred appearance earned a few unusual looks, but there was no outcry, nor any sign of pursuit, and Buchan quickly slowed his speed to match that of the surrounding traffic. It was moving freely enough, and two turns later he was heading back towards the outskirts of town. The sirens could still be Heard through the broken windows, but they were getting fainter all the time, and he checked his two remaining mirrors. There were no police cars in them, and he breathed a sigh of relief. All he had to do now was steal another vehicle, ideally a motorbike, and his heartbeat had begun to settle when a policeman jumped out into the road in front of him, something big and gun-like in his hands...

There was no warning shot, just a sudden volley of fire, the bullets smashing into the vehicle’s chassis with a succession of jarring thuds. Reacting instinctively, Buchan slammed his foot on the brakes. The vehicle went into a long sideways skid, but it was too little too late, and he could only watch helplessly as the nearside skidded into the rear of a parked beer truck. There was an ominous crunching sound and the crash of splintering glass. Then the engine coughed twice and stalled, and he was still gathering his senses when the policeman appeared at the window by his head. He was holding a large-caliber Beretta in his hands. It was only inches away from Buchan’s face and he looked into the barrel as the hammer was cocked. The policeman screamed something in Spanish and for a moment Buchan didn’t react. The Mossberg was still on the seat to his right, and in the back of his mind he entertained a scenario in which he deftly knocked the Beretta aside with one hand while reaching for the shotgun with the other, thereby making good his escape. It was fanciful stuff, and he knew it. Besides, even if he did manage to pull something off, shootouts with the cops were a mug’s game. They never ended well. That was bound to be as true in Mexico as it was anywhere else, and with cold certainty he understood that any sudden move now would have serious and permanent repercussions so far as his future wellbeing was concerned. His bid for freedom had come to an end; the mission was over, as were his chances of ever saving Cari. And with the eyes of a cornered animal that knows its time has come, he raised his hands slowly from the steering wheel and did as he was told.

When the paramedics reached Hook just moments later, there’d been some doubt as to the merit of trying to revive him. But that’s what they did, and through the diligent efforts of several medical teams, a hastily arranged helicopter flight and the miracle of modern trauma treatment, he was to surprise everyone and survive. He came round after two days to find himself in the sterile, antiseptic and blindingly white world of a hospital room. He was half-lying on his back on a machineoperated bed, lost amidst all the tubes, wires and electronic monitoring equipment that enveloped his heavily bandaged body. It wasn’t until he caught a glimpse of his face in a nearby mirror, however, that the harsh reality of his condition really began to sink in. His so called ‘likeness’ was anything but, and he was shocked by the grotesque visage that peered back at him over the oxygen mask, its eyes so heavily encircled by black rings that they were almost shut. Rough stubble covered the rest of his face, and the few areas of skin that were still visible had assumed all sorts of spectacular colors not normally associated with the human body. Despite all this, there was no pain as such, just a general sense of discomfort, and when he tried to move his body it proved impossible. All of his strength had gone, and with his thinking clouded by drugs he closed his eyes, longing to fall back into the relative charms of unconsciousness. But something tugged at his mind - some urgent question that demanded an answer - and he opened them again, running through an automatic checklist of possible explanations... Car crash...? Training accident...? Punch-up...? None of them seemed to ring any bells. Then he remembered hearing anxious voices, the gradual swell of sirens and the throb of a helicopter’s rotors. He had a vague recollection of movement at great speed, the repeated sting of needles piercing his skin and the crackle of radio communications. Then... Then nothing. All he felt was an aching expanse of emptiness that seemed to fill his being. Out of desperation he took another look around the room, aspects of which had started to puzzle him. Why, for example, was it so full of cards and flowers? Why were there so many bottles of whisky? And what did that anthology of poems by Yeats have to do with anything? Were all these things for him, or had he been mistakenly placed in someone else’s bed? Gradually, he focused his eyes on a large bottle of Whyte and Mackay whisky on a nearby sideboard. It had a maroon ribbon around its neck attached to a small, square piece of card, formally printed with the winged emblem of The Parachute Regiment. On it, he could make out the words, ‘With compliments for a job well done from all the lads at 2 Para’, hand-written in black ink.

Hook wondered what the message referred to, and then it hit him between the eyes - the cozy bookshop; the sudden explosion of gunfire; the cadaverous face; and the way, in a matter of a few short seconds, his whole world had come to an end... Grief and guilt combined to deliver a single devastating blow, and the long loud cry of animal pain that came from his throat could be heard throughout the surrounding corridors. As the echoes died away, there was the sound of hurried footsteps and a few seconds later a middle-aged nurse in a blue uniform burst into the room. Her startled look was quickly replaced by one of professional curiosity and having quickly reviewed Hook’s condition against the various monitors, she turned her attention to him. “Good afternoon,” she said in a soft Northern Irish accent, her voice calm and controlled and designed to reassure. “My name’s Corinne O’Connor,” she added with a half-smile. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here. If you’ll just lie still a minute, the doctor will be along to have a word with you. He will explain everything.” With that, she readjusted the pillow behind Hook’s head and repeated the half-smile, albeit somewhat nervously. “There,” she said. “Now try not to move. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal and need to save your energy.” As she finished speaking, another person walked in, this one a male in his late twenties or early thirties. He was wearing a white coat over civilian clothes and Hook recognized his tie as that of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was clean-cut, close-shaved and wearing wire-rimmed glasses that gave him an intellectual air. He stopped at the end of the bed and looked across at Hook, smiling sympathetically. “Back from the dead, then?” When Hook tried to reply, he found that there was a kind of satellite delay between his brain and his mouth, and he had to concentrate hard just to manage a simple grunt.

“Well, don’t try to speak. I’ll do the talking for now, if that’s all right.” He moved to the side of the bed. “My name is Captain Tim Blake. I’m the surgeon that treated you on your arrival here two days ago. Needless to say, you were in a very bad way. You’d been shot twice: once in the stomach and once in the chest. The stomach wound wasn’t too serious, as it happens. The bullet passed clean through without damaging any vital organs. The one in your chest, however, appeared to be much more serious. It should have ended your life, but it seems the gods were smiling on you. You see, it turns out you have a congenital condition called dextrocardia situs inversus. In English, that means each of your major visceral organs is on the opposite side to the one it should be on, believe it or not. Your heart, for example, is on the right-hand side of your chest, not the left, and the same is true of your spleen and liver and so on. It’s an extremely rare condition, one that only affects about zero-point-one per cent of the population, or one person in ten thousand. Because of this, and because it’s largely benign, it’s not uncommon for it to go unnoticed and undiagnosed. Until something like this happens, that is, which probably explains why there’s no mention of it in your medical records. Even so, I’m amazed the shock of the bullet’s impact didn’t kill you outright. You actually died at the scene and twice more on the operating table, but you’re obviously a tough bugger and the good news is you should make a full recovery. If all goes well, you'll be able to start eating normally again in a few days. In the meantime, I’m going to keep you on a cocktail of drugs and feed you intravenously. You probably won’t enjoy the experience but there’s not a lotI can do about that, so the best thing is to try and sleep.” Hook nodded his head slightly by way of thanks. The doctor had a short discussion with the nurse, and then with a nod, he left the room, quietly closing the door behind him. The nurse stayed with Hook, busying herself with the drips for a few moments before gesturing at all the flowers. “Looks like you’ve got some secret admirers,” she said. “And these are just the ones we could fit in here. There’s plenty more outside and more arriving all the time.” Hook didn’t respond, but inside his head he was wondering who all these ‘admirers’ were and why they were ‘admirers’ in the first place. So far as he could see, he’d thwarted a bombing only to bring about the deaths of quite a few other people. And though he imagined the final toll could have been a lot higher, he had a hard time reconciling this with his conscience. As far as he could see, the whole thing had been a spectacular fuck-up from start to finish. But even that wasn't the worst of it. Deep inside, he knew there was a whole world of misery and pain still looking for a way out. For the time being it was being held at bay by all the drugs and sheer physical exhaustion. But before long that would change. Then the misery and the pain would be back to devour him, and for the next few moments he fell into a state of such utter helplessness that it bordered on a death wish. Only he knew he wouldn’t kill himself. That was for other people, and he was abruptly filled with a fierce desire to live instead. And not just live for the sake of living, he realized with terrifying clarity. That was no longer going to be enough.... Others were going to have to die.

CHAPTER III The next thing Buchan knew, he was lying face down on the hot tarmac. The policeman’s knee was in the small of his back, and steel handcuffs snapped closed around his wrists as a squad car screeched to halt a few feet away. Uniformed men piled out, their side arms leveled in his direction, and removing his knee, the first policeman hauled him to his feet. Without much ceremony, he threw Buchan into the back of the waiting vehicle. Then there was a loud slamming of doors, and it pulled away to the even louder scream and screech of tires and sirens. Buchan closed his eyes, his face empty of expression. He was conscious of only one thing. His failure. Everything had turned to rat-shit in the space of a few minutes, and all because he’d let his emotions for the girl override his duty to the job. Now he’d lost her and blown the mission to boot, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. ‘Operation Payment’ was turning out to be a bitch. Fuck-ups didn’t come any bigger, and it didn’t take long for a sense of utter despair to overwhelm him. The journey to the police station took less than five minutes, and when he finally opened his eyes again, the vehicle had come to a halt at the back of the building. Thirty seconds later, he’d been bundled into a prisoner reception area and the handcuffs had been removed. A uniformed clerk told him to put any belongings into a metal box and, shaking his hands loose to improve the circulation, Buchan did as he was told, lifting his arms as the clerk frisked him for a second time. He found nothing and led Buchan past a row of empty cells into a small, interrogation room. Harshly-lit, echoing and airless, it had all the warmth and charm of a public urinal, and despite having been recently scrubbed with disinfectant held the ineffable, ineradicable stench of bodily fluids, fear and rank despair that is common to all such places the world over. The concrete walls had been painted a rare shade of yellowish-brown that Buchan associated with bile, and the only furniture consisted of a badly scratched wooden table and two sturdy chairs made of tubular steel. Conspicuous by their absence were a microphone or a tape machine or any kind of camera equipment to record the proceedings. Not that it mattered, he reflected sourly. They had him bang to rights whichever way you spun it, and the only question now was whether he’d ever see the outside world again. They didn’t have the death penalty in Mexico, so far as he knew, which probably meant the best he could hope for was that his many multiple life sentences would run concurrently, meaning he’d be out in a few decades at the earliest, just in time to die of old age. The thought didn’t provide much consolation, and taking a seat in one of the chairs he looked forlornly up into a one-way mirror. The wound on the side of his face had reopened, and wiping the blood away with his sleeve, he looked over at a clock on the wall to his left. It was 10:46 a.m. His thoughts returned to Cari and the handgun she’d produced, as if by magic. There were two simple explanations, he decided. The first was that she was licensed to carry a sidearm for personal protection and did. It sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation and he was tempted to stick with it but didn’t. There was only one conclusion. The bitch had lied to him, and he immediately rebuked himself for ever having cared about her, and for falling for her bullshit story in the first place. She wasn’t an archeologist at all. That was just a cover for her presence in this part of the Yucatan. And since she didn’t seem to be connected with the terrorists, she had to be with one of the national agencies... Mexico’s, he guessed. Then it occurred to him that she might not even be Mexican at all... A little girl she might have been, it suddenly struck him, but sugar and spice and all things nice, she clearly wasn't. It all seemed so obvious now, and he felt his world rocked to its very foundations. He was used to being a good judge of character, used to making fast, on-the-spot judgments about people and getting them right; it was an essential tool of his trade, and he was proud of his record to date. But, in her case, he faced the hard reality that he’d fucked things up again, this time beyond all recognition, and he was wondering how he could have been so easily played when Comandante Hernandez walked into the room.

The policeman closed the door behind him with a loud, decisive click, before sitting down in the chair opposite. He looked across at Buchan, his light grey eyes flicking up and down as he took in the many fresh swellings, cuts and bruises that dotted the captive’s face and hands. The lips beneath the grey moustache pursed themselves into a silent whistle of appreciation. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched two or three times, and he spoke. “So, Mister Buchan, we meet again... It looks as though you've been busy since our last meeting. Very busy, indeed.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table’s edge. “I’ve just been informed that the morgue is about to receive several new arrivals, including a couple of high-profile Zapatistas, and I have about a dozen witnesses that say you killed them. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, but it’s probably fair to conclude that you're going to spend the rest of your life in a Mexican prison. And believe me when I tell you, there are better places to spend the rest of your life. The food alone is enough to break the spirit of the strongest man, and then there’s all the nasty stuff that the rapists, murderers and gang-bangers get up to. You have no idea of the unimaginable horrors involved. And don’t get me started on the guards themselves...” He pulled a face. “The only plus side I can come up with,” he continued, “is that you probably won't be there for very long, since the average life expectancy of a foreigner inside one of our prisons is only a couple of years.” He paused briefly, cracking a thin, weary, been-there-done-that smile. “I ought to warn you at this point that there is no easy way out. If you’re expecting me to be gentlemanly and civilized about all this, then you’re doomed to be disappointed. We’re not in London now. Nor are we in Geneva or the Hague or any of those fancy places you’re no doubt familiar with. You’re in Mexico. Bandido country. We don’t put much faith in documents here, or legalities or loopholes. The rule book was thrown out the window the moment you started killing people, and if you don’t understand that yet then let’s just say that you're about to go on a long and fascinating voyage of discovery. It’s a voyage that, I regret to say, will not be without some pain and discomfort, but such is life.” He settled back into his chair and grinned again. “So why don't we get started? Perhaps you could start by telling me what you're really doing here, and about this man Wyatt - if that’s his real name.” Buchan’s mouth stayed resolutely shut. He looked around the small room for a moment, not really seeing it. Then resting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head and looked down at the grubby floor. Finally, he spoke. “How about a lawyer?” Hernandez almost laughed. “Let’s keep the lawyers out of this, shall we. This is clearly an open-and-shut case. One of my assistants is already typing out your confession. In a few minutes you'll be able sign it and then we can move on to the next stage. Any lawyers, well, you know what they’re like. They tend to... how you Ssay....” he made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “They tend to get in the way.” “Listen, Hernandez, I dislike lawyers as much as the next guy, but they do have their moments and from where I’m sitting it looks like this might be one of them.” “Well, I'm sorry, Mister Buchan. We tried to get one for you, but it turns out all the lawyers in San Miguel are busy at the moment. We'll keep trying, of course...” “What about the British Embassy? Maybe they can help in some way?” “The lines are busy.” “But you'll keep trying, right?” The comandante grinned. “That’s right, Mister Buchan. We'll keep trying. Meanwhile, why don’t you tell me the real reason you came to San Miguel?” Buchan sat back in his chair, a look of exasperation on his face. “The cool mountain air,” he said at last. “Just like everyone else. The off-piste skiing’s not bad, either.” This time Hernandez did laugh. Then, abruptly, he stopped laughing. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, one after the other, scratched his forehead and coughed. “Perhaps you don’t understand where I’m coming from,” he said. “Perhaps I should explain. You see, Mister Buchan, to you San Miguel may appear to be nothing but a quiet little backwater in the middle of the jungle. But like any backwater it’s ultimately connected to a much larger body of water, and if you throw even the smallest pebble into the water here, it causes ripples. They might not be very big ripples, but they’re big enough to be felt far and wide. In fact,

sometimes they’re even big enough to rock the boats of people who don’t much like having their boats rocked, if you see what I mean. Rich people. Powerful people. Maybe it causes them to spill a few drops of the martini they’re drinking, or interrupts their mistress’s birthday party, or makes them miss a payment on their latest Ferrari, or something. And when that happens all sorts of other things tend to happen as well. Unpleasant things; frightening things. Things that make the headlines around the world, or which are hushed up by the authorities for being just too grotesque for public consumption; things that affect all kinds of people: lawyers, journalists, politicians, judges, juries... Sometimes even policemen and their families...” He paused now, letting the full impact of the words sink in. Then, confident his message had been received and understood, he went on. “And that’s just pebbles and ripples I’m talking about, Mister Buchan. What you've done is drop some huge boulders into the water round here. Lots of them. And boulders that size don’t just cause ripples, they cause tidal waves; tidal waves that won’t simply rock their boats but might even capsize them ...” He steepled his fingers in front of him. “Do you see where I’m going with this, Mister Buchan?” “Yes,” said Buchan. “I do.”

“Good. I suppose that’s a start. But in order to remove any doubt, I’m going to spell things out. This is how it works down here: I’m going to ask you questions and you're going to answer them. If you lie or hold anything back or try to deceive or mislead me in any way there will be consequences. Bad consequences. Really bad consequences. Do you understand me?” Buchan sat back in his chair. “How about a cigarette?” he asked. “I could probably use one.” The comandante obliged him, proffering both a cigarette and a light. Buchan took a long drag before exhaling through tight lips. His mind was in meltdown; the utter hopelessness of his position all too clear. The long and short of it was that he faced the rest of his life inside, and though he knew the British authorities would do what they could, he didn’t have much faith in them. At least two men from the Section had done time in some hellhole or other, and both had ended up dying in captivity... “Wyatt’s his real name, all right,” he said after a long silence. “I was sent to find out why he’d gone missing. I ran into his killers at my hotel earlier today. If I hadn’t killed them, they’d have killed me.” “Is that it?” “More or less.” The comandante tapped another cigarette from the pack and lit one for himself. “Now, start again,” he instructed. “And, this time, try including some of the little things that you seem to have overlooked. Things like, who Wyatt was. And what he was doing here, in the first place. Like, who sent you, and under what authority, if any? Then you can tell me about the girl.” Mention of Cari caught Buchan by surprise. He didn’t want to bring her into this any more than he already had. “Yes, Mister Buchan,” continued the comandante. “Several people saw you with a girl.” “What about her?” “Who was she? How did you meet her?” “Her first name’s Carmen. I don’t know her last name.” “Where does she live?” Buchan drew stubbornly on the cigarette. “She had nothing to do with anything.” “Maybe so, but that's for me to decide.” Tapping the ash from the cigarette, Buchan considered his options. It didn’t take very long, and he was about to go over them again when there was a sudden knock at the door. Excusing himself, Hernandez rose abruptly from his chair and left the room. Buchan heard a short exchange in the corridor outside, two

maybe three people talking quite loudly. Their voices carried a certain urgency and when the comandante walked back into the room, he was accompanied by two men in civilian clothes. They both wore earpieces, mirrored shades, and identical expressions of contemptuous indifference, which, Buchan reflected, probably had something to do with the Heckler & Koch MP5K sub-machine guns they carried on loose slings by their sides. “You'd better finish your cigarette,” said the comandante. “I’ve been informed that the Federal Police are taking over the investigation. I have just signed papers for your release into their hands, with immediate effect.” Feeling his spirits sink even further, Buchan looked down at the cigarette, examining the burning tip as though it contained all his greatest hopes and all his greatest fears. “I never thought I'd get to say this, Hernandez,” he said, taking a last drag, “but I think I’m going to miss you.” Then exhaling unhurriedly through the side of his mouth, he dropped the spent butt to the floor and crushed it under his boot. *

Less than a minute later, he was sitting alone in the back of an unmarked police car that smelled of coffee, stale sweat and cigarettes. It was travelling at high speed and escorted by two wide-bodied olive-green Humvees, their cargo beds crowded with heavily armed troops. The two men with the earpieces were sitting up front, and when Buchan asked them where they were heading, they ignored him. A request for a cigarette was similarly denied and, following the lead Humvee through a set of red lights, the driver turned onto the main highway out of the town. Buchan spent the next few minutes trying to assess his position in the light of this new development but eventually gave up. The truth was he didn’t care what happened anymore. The injuries, the heat, and the near-death experiences had all taken their toll. The strain didn’t show on his face, but inside all his systems had collapsed. He felt hollow and empty, the way he had in the days following Vicky’s death, and seriously considered the possibility of suicide. A short, sharp death, with little or no pain, was not without its merits, not compared with what lay in store, and he was going to repeat his request for a cigarette when the convoy took a left fork onto a newly constructed concrete road. Almost immediately it pulled up at a military checkpoint overlooked by a series of sandbag emplacements. The surrounding scrub had been razed for several hundred yards in every direction to ensure open fields of fire and when Buchan raised his eyes, he saw a vast, modern, fortress-like complex set within a high concrete wall. There were mirrored-glass watchtowers spaced along it at regular intervals and a wind-torn Mexican flag hung limply over a central turret. Underneath was a large sign that read, ‘Reclusorio Preventivo Cinco de Mayo’, and he was trying to remember where he’d heard the name when the driver prompted him. “Welcome to Las Tumbas, Senor Buchan,” he said in heavily accented English. Then, once the soldiers had waved them through, he added, “We hope you'll enjoy your stay.” As the escorts peeled away, the vehicle entered a short tunnel, stopping as a large steel gate clanged shut behind them. At the far end, the exit was barred and overlooked a large interior courtyard, the bare earth covered with litter and baked hard by the heat. So much for the facilities, thought Buchan. He wished the same could be said of the prison’s security arrangements. From what he saw they were state of the art. Escape didn’t seem to be an option here, and he felt the walls around him start to contract as a deep electronic buzz sounded on the other side of a heavy metal door. It clanked open and he found himself being manhandled from the vehicle into a concrete corridor. The lighting was harsh and if there was an airconditioning system, it wasn’t working. The heat and humidity hit him like an invisible wall; the stench that accompanied it scorching the back of his throat like battery acid, so that breathing suddenly required a conscious effort.

They turned into another corridor, this one with a series of barred gates along the right-hand side. As he was marched past the first one, Buchan looked through into a galleried cellblock some five stories high. Heavily tattooed prisoners were just visible, packed tightly within their cells, and somewhere in the background, a man was screaming hysterically like a child having a nightmare. They passed three more wings, all identical in design, all equally depressing. In the last one, two prisoners were arm-wrestling across a table on the ground floor. One of them, a stocky Latino with green tattoos on his face and neck, returned Buchan’s stare with a wolf whistle. A long volley of abuse followed, and it was with some relief that he followed his escort into a windowless antechamber at the far end. Together, they stood facing a second set of doors as the first set slid shut behind them. The stench and the screaming faded away, and for a brief, confusing moment Buchan thought he heard classical music. Something smooth and relaxing. By Mozart, if he had to guess, but he was no expert and he looked around. The walls of the antechamber were featureless except for two discreet speakers. Then he noticed the air around him was being recycled by a powerful fan in the ceiling, and he was about to ask the guards where exactly they were going when the second set of doors opened in front of them.

The formal public inquiry into the events in Strabane had all the honesty, integrity and dedication to the truth that the public has come to expect from such things. Wary of Republican and international criticism and unwilling to do anything which might derail the Peace Process, it was a polite charade designed to satisfy political, legal and social sensibilities on its way to a foregone conclusion. And that conclusion, after many months, hundreds of thousands of man hours, several million pounds in fees and much high-sounding rhetoric, was that the deaths were nobody’s fault, least of all that of the IRA terrorists who planned and perpetrated the attack in the first place. It was, in short, a complete whitewash of such innate gutlessness that even the politicians and the press found it hard to take seriously. It was, however, not without its uses. For while the conclusions may have bordered on the farcical, the facts collated in its compilation shed some much-needed light on the events themselves, as least as far as Buchan was concerned. He learned, for example, that after crossing the border, the Vauxhall Cavalier had reached a pre-arranged rendezvous with a second getaway car; and that both occupants - Cochrane and the driver of the Escort - had been in the process of switching vehicles when he'd pushed the red button, detonating the bomb and killing the driver outright. The report's insight into Cochrane’s fate was less conclusive, however. Though his left hand, much of his left leg and his right foot were found in a nearby hedge, the rest of his body had not been recovered. Inevitably there was speculation that, somehow, he might have survived. Rumors within IRA circles seemed to support this theory, but either way he was never heard of or seen again, and the report went on to proclaim that he had almost certainly died of his injuries. Photographs taken at the site of the blast were included in the report, copies of which Buchan had seen. They showed a pretty stretch of country road strewn with body parts of both the vehicular and human variety. At the center of all this lay the charred and twisted shell of the Cavalier, sitting over a shallow crater surrounded by a wide black scorch mark. All of its four doors and roof had been blown completely off, and there was a chalk outline on the tarmac about five yards away to show where the driver’s corpse had been found. Meanwhile, back in Strabane, O’Neill had regained consciousness, only to be set upon by a small group of locals. They quickly beat him unconscious again, and it was only the timely of arrival of the security services that kept him from being kicked to death. He recovered in a local hospital while under police protection, and after a lengthy legal process he was eventually put on trial in Belfast Crown Court where he was found guilty on all charges, including four counts of engaging in the preparation of terrorist attacks and one count of murderinga police officer. Ten days later, he was solemnly sentenced by the Chief Justice to 67 years in prison, at which point he laughed out loud and told the judge he could ‘go fuck’ himself. And, well he might have laughed, for he was to serve only six years, and having been released along with more than two hundred other terrorists as a part of the ongoing political process he was received back into the IRA’s arms as a hero, quickly earning further promotion within its ranks.

CHAPTER IV Over the years, Buchan had come to believe that he was shockproof - that he’d seen everything the world had to offer and there were no surprises left. But what he saw now caused him to rethink that supposition. As with the other wings, this one had been constructed around a central gallery and on five stories, but that’s where the similarities ended. This time, instead of stuffy, overcrowded cells, the floors were filled with air-conditioned, open-plan offices; the gallery itself, liberally decorated with hanging plants that spilled down in a lush cascade to a gurgling fountain on the ground floor. Clerical staff of both sexes were going about their business, and he was convinced his guards had made some sort of weird mistake when they ushered him through a set of oak paneled doors into a large lavishly appointed reception area that wouldn’t, he reflected, have looked out of place in some fancy hotel or the headquarters of a multinational corporation. Slightly dazed by all this, Buchan glanced around, taking in an elegant pair of antique armchairs, several colorful displays of freshly-cut flowers, and a half a dozen stone pedestals surmounted by marble busts that looked Roman. A

series of carefully lit desert landscape paintings in oil hung along the wall to his

left. Together with the antiques and the flowers, their light, pastel tones and subject matter gave the place an almost supernatural sense of calm, at least when compared with the hustle and bustle of the last few minutes, and, at the insistence of his escort, he crossed an open expanse of thick carpet to a high wall surmounted by a stylized eagle’s head, a snake clutched grimly in its unforgiving beak. About six feet across, it appeared to be made of solid gold, and beneath it there was a large reception desk where a pretty secretary with a beauty-queen smile was watching him with bright blinking eyes. “Good morning, Mister Buchan,” she said with a pleasant smile. “You can go right in,” and pushing a button on her desk, she gestured to another set of doors. They opened from within, and a man appeared. He had the slick, irrepressible look of a street fighter who’d got lucky, very lucky indeed, and Buchan was matching his face with the file shots he’d seen back in London when the man introduced himself. “José Antonio Mendoza Del Aguila,” he said, putting out his hand. Buchan didn’t respond, and after a moment’s hesitation the hand was withdrawn. “As you please, Mister Buchan. But please come in. Whether you like it or not, we have certain things in common, and they need to be discussed.” Still trying to make sense of everything, Buchan left his escort and followed Del Aguila into the next room. It was decorated in a similar style to the last one, except that one wall consisted entirely of tall windows some twenty feet high. They overlooked a courtyard garden complete with Jacuzzi and kidney-shaped swimming pool, and Buchan was wondering if that was where he kept the sharks when he turned to see Del Aguila examining him the way a zoologist might study some recently discovered species. “What are you?” he asked. “A soldier?” “T used to be,” said Buchan.

“Well, you look like a soldier,” said Del Aguila, closing the door. He crossed over to a large mahogany desk and they both sat down. Then pushing a button on one of the telephones on his desk, Del Aguila asked the switchboard to put him through to Comandante Hernandez. He was connected a few seconds later and picked up the receiver. The conversation that followed was conducted in Spanish, one-sided, and to the point. Del Aguila was, he said, very grateful for the comandante's assistance and would, he went on, ensure that it didn’t go unrecognized. He finished by instructing that the file on Buchan, and any trace of his arrest, be destroyed without delay. Then, without saying goodbye, he rang off. Picking up a silver cigarette box, he invited Buchan to help himself. Buchan did so, firing up with an antique Dunhill lighter on the desk. Now it was his turn to examine Del Aguila. His immediate reaction was identical to the one he’d gleaned from the file, and he vaguely recalled another Raymond Chandler quote, this one about there being nothing tougher than a tough Mexican. He hadn’t believed it at the time. Now he wasn’t so sure.

As he sat back in his chair, he noticed closed circuit television cameras perched high in each corner. They were tracking his every movement, and closer inspection soon revealed tiny black apertures beneath each lense, all, he guessed, approximately .45 inches in diameter. “Nice place,” he said, not sure that he meant it.

“I’m glad you like it,” replied Del Aguila. “The guns are manned by marksmen, by the way. One false move and your head will pop like a balloon. The last man that tried something never even made it to his feet.” Then without pausing for breath, he offered Buchan a drink. Buchan declined. Now was not the time to cloud his thinking with alcohol. There were too many factors to be taken into account, too many unknowns. “Go on,” countered the Mexican. He rose from his seat, walking over to a well-stocked drinks cabinet. “You look like you need one. And if you don’t need one now, believe me, you will in afew minutes.” He spent a moment pondering the selection, before pouring a large measure of what looked like whisky into a crystal tumbler. He passed it to Buchan. Then, pouring one for himself, he sat down again. “Why the prison?” asked Buchan, placing the glass on the desk. “Prison?” replied Del Aguila. “This isn’t a prison. This is a fortress - a fortress to protect me and my interests from other people. This,” he said gesturing at his surroundings, “these walls, these guards, these guns; they’re the price I have to pay for my freedom” He grinned and sipped at his drink. “On the plus side, it’s purpose-built for my every need, and it means I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, the way I want. There are no rules here, no bureaucrats, no politicians, and no lawyers. Basically, it’s a bullshit free zone, and that’s the way I like it. The Mexican government likes it, too. It means they don’t have to waste their time trying to catch me; and since the Americans think I’m already in custody, they leave me alone and give my country billions of dollars in aid instead. All very convenient, really.” The grin faded gradually. “Now, returning to business,” he continued, “there’s something I ought to explain to you. When you landed at the airport three days ago, you not only entered a new country you entered a new world, completely independent of the other world outside - my world. And in my world, Iam the head of the army, the chief of police, the judge, the jury and, from time to time, when the situation requires it, the chief executioner.” He stopped, his dark eyes hardening like gloved fists clenching. Then, reaching for the silver box he lit a cigarette for himself. “So, Mister Buchan, it came as a bit of a surprise when people started dropping dead on my own doorstep. And I don’t like surprises. So, now you're going to tell me the whole story from beginning to end. Any bullshit, and I’m going to personally ensure you leave this building in a body bag, maybe today, or maybe at the end of your natural life, many years from now. ¢Entiendes?” Buchan was uncompromising. “Threats don’t work on me, Del Aguila. So, don’t waste your time with them. The circumstances that brought me here don’t matter. The men I killed deserved to die. My only regret is that I didn’t kill more of them.” “And who were they, Mister Buchan, these men?”

Buchan considered his response. “Terrorists,” he said. “Arabs from Hezbollah, Irish Provisionals, Spanish Basques. The Zapatistas are involved, and the Cubans have provided some of the hardware. I don’t know what they’re up to, but it looks like they may have their hands on a weapon of some sort. And the target is probably the United States. It usually is.” Del Aguila looked confused. “I don’t get it,” he said. “If they want to attack the United States, why come here - to the Yucatan?” “I don’t know that either. It might have something to do with the hurricane.” “The hurricane? Why? What for?” Buchan shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” Del Aguila swore, calling the terrorists every name he could think of, concluding that they were, “nothing but old-fashioned gangsters in disguise.” Buchan was scornful. “Come off it, Del Aguila. You're no better than they are.”

The Mexican grinned. “Aren’t I? Is that what you really think?” Buchan shrugged again. “Why?” he asked. “Because I happen to be the head of one of the largest and most successful criminal organizations in the world.” “Something like that.” “You disappoint me, Mister Buchan. You see, I am very different from them. I am, in fact, their diametric opposite.” “Come off it, Del Aguila. I know all about you. You're just better paid.” “Exactly, Mister Buchan. And that makes all the difference.” He tapped ash from his cigarette. “You see, there are only two ways of surviving on this planet. The first is by your own effort. The second is by the effort of someone else. By doing things for yourself, or by making other people do them for you. There is no alternative. And, for my sins, I chose the first route, the honest route. I made my money the old-fashioned way. I earned it. And if 1am to be damned for that, then

so be it.” He put the butt of the cigarette to his lips and left it there, so that it bounced vigorously when he spoke. “The only law I obey is the law of supply and demand, and I only resort to force when others use it against me first, in which case I resort to another law - the law of the jungle. Any man calling himself a man would do the same. The only difference is that they don’t have my resources, or my firepower.” He removed the cigarette, a broad but unconscious grin on his face. “These terrorists, on the other hand,” he almost spat the words, “like so many people these days, have chosen the second option. They want something for nothing and have chosen violence as their means of achieving it.” “What about the deaths, disease and crime caused by drugs?” “What about them, Mister Buchan? Men have always had to choose their own paths in this world. Sometimes, some of them choose those that lead to disaster. Drink, drugs, gambling and sex are just some of the more common ones, but there are all sorts of others I can name, whether it’s the friends they keep, the politicians they elect, the food they eat, or the drugs they take - both legal and illegal, prescribed and unprescribed. The threats are innumerable, omnipresent and never-ending. They’re a necessary consequence of being alive. And while you can try and legislate against each and every possibility, if you want to, you'll find that the costs - both financial and social - almost always outweigh the supposed benefits. The best you can hope for is come to some sort of sensible, adult compromise, like they used to do in the old days. And, anyone who believes otherwise, is a sucker - a sucker for believing in the perfectibility of human nature; a sucker for believing that politicians can provide solutions when none exist; and a sucker for believing that governments - no matter how derived - have a right to dictate on such personal issues in the first place. And, if he’s not a sucker, then he’s a conman, with an agenda all his own - one that you're not likely to hear anything about. And, if that’s the case, Mister Buchan, then I’m sorry to say that the sucker is you.” His mind seemed to wander for an instant. “Then again,” he went on with a tone of thinly veiled contempt, “what do I know? I never went to university; nobody ever voted for me; I never starred in a film or recorded a pop song; I’m no intellectual ... I’m just a humble businessman trying to walk a straight line in this crazy crooked world of ours...” “All right,” interjected Buchan. “Enough of the sales pitch. I’ve told you who they are. What are you going to do about them?” “Ordinarily,” replied Del Aguila, “it would have been easy. They'd be dead by now. You, too, in all likelihood. But this time that will be quite impossible. You see, there’s one thing you might not know...” He paused again, as if to compose himself for what he was about to say. “I am Cari’s father,” he continued, the muscles twitching spasmodically in his thick neck. “She is my only child, the most important thing in my world, and she was abducted at gunpoint about an hour ago.” Buchan hardly heard the words. He felt like he’d been hit by a well-aimed punch and his mind was totally numb but for a subconscious instinct to challenge the assertion, to somehow try to refute it. Then he realized that wasn't necessary. The proof was, quite literally, staring him in the face. It was in Del Aguila’s eyes, in his complexion, and most particularly in the set of his mouth. The similarities were unmistakable.

“I know you weren't directly involved for two reasons,” continued Del Aguila. “Firstly, because you were involved in a car chase with the police at the time; and secondly, because the people who took her don’t seem to like you very much. You see, in Exchange for Cari’s safe return, they’ve asked for your body. By midday. Dead or alive. Obviously, I don’t have much of a choice.” Buchan lifted the glass in his hand and swallowed a large gulp. It was a Scotch. A single malt, a very good one. It was, in fact, one of Speyside’s finest, having been aged for almost fifty years in old oak sherry barrels specially imported from northern Spain. It had won countless prizes in its time and came in a limitededition hand-cut Murano crystal decanter with a price tag to match, but it might just as well have been honey-colored turpentine for all Buchan cared and he hardly tasted it. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked. Del Aguila was businesslike. “You will be taken to the hacienda by helicopter accompanied by a team of my best men. Their instructions are to hand you over and return with Cari. Needless to say, her safety will be their sole priority. Should you do anything to interfere with that goal, they ‘ll deliver your corpse instead.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve already drawn up plans for the hacienda’s annihilation. A massive air strike will be launched the moment my daughter is secure, closely followed by an elite anti-terrorist squad on loan to me from the government for the duration. Theirs will be a mopping up operation. Unfortunately, your chances of survival are negligible, but at least any suffering you experience will not be prolonged.” Gathering his thoughts, Buchan quickly decided he didn’t like the plan, and he said so. “There are two major problems. The first is that you risk the detonation of the weapon, whatever it is, with potentially catastrophic consequences for your daughter, yourself, and perhaps the rest of Central America. The second is that you're underestimating your opponent. It’s the oldest mistake in the book, and short of marching on Moscow it’s about the biggest you can make. Trust me, they’re going all the way on this one, and you can be sure that your daughter will be going with them. At least until it’s all over. And by then, it will probably be too late.” Del Aguila shook his head. “No, senior, you are wrong. They wouldn't dare to cross me like that. Nobody would. Not in my own backyard.” “These guys aren’t scared of you,” said Buchan, spelling it out. “They’re experts in this sort of thing. They’re not scared of anybody.” The Mexican asked him what else he could do. Buchan didn’t respond. Del Aguila cleared his throat and repeated the question. Buchan stayed silent. He stubbed out his cigarette; then he spoke, his voice deliberate and steady. “Nothing. Not yet. You don’t have enough information. Give me a couple of hours in the hacienda. I’ll see if I can learn more about their plans. If you haven't heard from me by two o'clock, you might as well call in the air strike and send in the ground troops. In the meantime, if I'm not already dead, I’ll do what I can for your daughter.” Another long silence ensued. “Very well,” replied Del Aguila. “But I’ll only give you one hour. After that, you'll just have to look out for yourself.” Checking his watch, he rose from his seat. “You'd better finish your drink. It’s almost midday and we don’t want to keep our friends waiting.” Buchan remained seated, as though frozen on place. Too many things had happened too fast, and his brain still had a lot of catching up to do. But he also knew that there would be little point to it; that the dice were loaded and had already been thrown. At no time had his spirits been lower, and he consoled himself with the fact that he was going back to the hacienda. Right now, that was the only thing that seemed to matter, and raising his glass he flung the last of the whisky down his throat and rose reluctantly to his feet.

Leaving the office by a side door, Del Aguila escorted Buchan down a short corridor to a lift. The doors opened at the touch of a button and they stepped into a glass compartment high on the side of an enormous underground cavern. Below, the floor was filled with men, munitions and enough military hardware to start a small war, up to and including helicopters and fighter jets. It reminded Buchan of the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier. He whistled his appreciation as Del Aguila pushed one of the buttons on an illuminated panel. The doors slid shut and they descended silently and smoothly to the lower level. Then, once they’d come to a halt, the doors slid open again to reveal a scene of cacophonous noise and controlled chaos, all suffused with a sense of urgency that Buchan was familiar with; one that he had only ever come across in times of war. You could almost smell the sweat and testosterone over the potent mix of avgas and jet fuel that filled the air, and pausing to let a heavily-laden forklift truck pass, they made their way past a team of oil-smeared technicians that was crawling over a second-generation Harrier jump jet. It looked huge and hulking from where they were standing, and was one of six identical models, all of them painted with United States Marine Corps markings. Each carried a whole payload of hurt and despite its fairly ancient design, still looked every inch the killing machine. Buchan - who had a fondness for the aircraft that went back to the Falklands where they’d been just about all that stood between him and his men and the full wrath of the Argentine air force - shouted over the noise to ask what they were for. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t answer that,” answered Del Aguila, also shouting. “But under the circumstances I'll tell you. Their main purpose is to provide a way out of here. In case los gringos ever find out about all this; in case they decide to come and get me. Today, however, they’ll just be giving covering fire during the ground assault.” Buchan noticed they were all single-seaters and asked Del Aguila where he’d learned to fly them. “Oh, I don’t fly them,” replied the Mexican as they walked on. “They’ve been adapted to carry specially designed pods under the wing.” He pointed at two matt black, torpedo-shaped capsules on a rack against one wall. “They’re armored, pressurized and stealthy, and can be deployed anywhere within fifty miles of the target. All the pilot has to do is punch in the target co-ordinates. The on-board computer does the rest. It’s based on the system they used on the Mars Pathfinder expedition and is accurate to within a few yards.” “So what?” said Buchan. “Where would you go? Harriers have a very limited range, and the airspace around here would be crawling with Americans. Even with false markings they’d soon catch up with you.” Del Aguila laughed. “That, Mister Buchan, is where the submarines come in.” “Submarines?” “Yes. Chinese and Russian, mostly. You see, I’ve relinquished my claim to the title of Lord of the Skies. Submarines are much harder to track than planes and they can carry just as much cargo. I made the transition to them soon after my arrival here, thereby completing the illusion that my empire had ceased to exist. Once on board any one of them, I can go wherever I like. And, as it happens, I’ve got a selection of more than seventy safe houses dotted around the world, in seventeen different maritime countries, none of which is particularly noted for its enthusiastic co-operation with Western authorities.” They continued past a large stockpile of arms and ammunition before reaching a Black Hawk helicopter perched on a hydraulic platform. It had US Coast Guard markings and was in the process of being re-sprayed, a thick coat of matt black paint obliterating the rich primary colors underneath. Beside the helicopter, a small group of squat, brown-skinned men had assembled in two short ranks. They were a tough-looking bunch of hombres, thought Buchan, and he noted they were all in their early twenties and that all had the easy arrogance that comes from having looked death in the face on a regular basis and surviving to tell the tale. All wore identical black flying suits, black leather gloves, black coal-scuttle helmets and black combat boots. All had a throat mike at their neck, an earpiece and a black chest harness that bulged with ammunition and equipment. Strapped low on every man’s thigh was a holstered Glock semiautomatic pistol; and in their hands they carried a selection of larger sidearms, mostly of Canadian or German manufacture.

The men in black snapped crisply to attention as Del Aguila approached, and Buchan listened in as he gave them a short address in Spanish that ended with a Patton-esque quote about not coming back alive. Then, dismissing them, the drug lord turned to Buchan. “Those are the men who'll be accompanying you,” he said. “They come from the slums of Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, the backstreets of Tijuana and Mexicali, the deserts of Durango, the barrios of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Houston, and the jungles of the Yucatan. Most grew up with a machete or a switchblade in their hand and had graduated to guns by puberty. They have lived with violence ever since they were born and know how to look after themselves in a fight. They’re some of my best and they won't let you down.” “Have they ever been in a real firefight before?” queried Buchan. “You know, where the enemy has its shit together and fires back.” Del Aguila grinned. “More than you'd think, Mister Buchan. Much more than you'd think. Many have received Special Forces training, either here and in the USA. They’re all volunteers and proud patriots, and they are quite willing to die for their god and their country.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “The fact that I have insured their lives for millions of dollars probably doesn’t hurt.” Abruptly, the grin faded. “On arrival, their instructions are to land in the main courtyard of the hacienda. Once on the ground, you're to disembark and walk across to the main building, at which point Cari will be released.” “And if she isn’t, what then?”

“Then my men will withdraw.” “If they get the chance,” added Buchan bitterly. “As I mentioned, I don’t have much choice. Basically, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. The men know what’s involved.” “Well, it looks like a lot of families around here are about to get very rich in the next few hours,” said Buchan sardonically. Showing no reaction, Del Aguila put out his hand. This time Buchan shook it. The Mexican’s clasp was firm and dry, like that of an old friend. Control had been right, he thought. The mission included a hell of a cast, and none was more intriguing or more contradictory than the tough little Mexican standing in front of him. And suddenly Buchan realized he had warmed to the man - the man who, for all intents and purposes, was sending him to his death. He grinned at the irony. “You seem to be taking things very calmly, Mister Buchan,” said Del Aguila, releasing his grip. “That’s what I like about you Brits. You may be arrogant bastards sometimes, but you’ve always known how to die.” “Who said anything about dying?” Buchan answered solemnly, his words almost drowned out by the Black Hawk’s twin turboshafts as they shrieked into life behind him. Suddenly sunlight started to flood the huge room, and he looked up to see the ceiling above them part along the middle to reveal a bright midday sun against clear blue skies. The space between the two receding doors widened steadily until it was larger than a tennis court in size, and, with a last nod to Del Aguila, Buchan climbed aboard the helicopter. The stripped-down interior offered little in the way of comfort or luxury. It was filled with the sickly-sweet smell of avgas exhaust fumes, a smell he’d always associated with impending violence; and the only seating was a basic plastic bench by the rear bulkhead. Crouching, he moved over to it, strapping himself into a safety harness as the vast hydraulic platform beneath them began to rise. Meanwhile, the shriek became a thunderous roar, and before long the pilot had engaged the 54-foot rotors. They stiffened and blurred as their speed increased, and within seconds they were nothing more than a shimmering grey disc. Buchan watched them spin for a while, before turning to look at the four men that formed his escort. With their compact muscular physiques, dark rounded features and stoic countenances, they brought to mind the Gurkhas he’d served with; and somewhere in the back of his head he hoped he wouldn't have to go up against them. Under the circumstances he knew he wouldn't stand a chance.

Another two men were standing in the open doorways on either side. They wore green Nomex flight suits, any vestige of their humanity obscured by oversized ceramic flak jackets, and flying helmets with tinted face shields and bulging earpieces. They were strapped into a pair of 12.7mm miniguns that trailed long belts of ammunition, and were testing the arcs of fire as the helicopter emerged into the prison yard. Now the rotors had reached their maximum speed. The big machine was itching to leap upwards and a few seconds later it got its chance. Lurching abruptly, it clawed its way into the air, emerging through the bare earth of the prison’s interior courtyard and into the outside world. Overhead, four Apache gunships were waiting in a square, and when the Black Hawk finally joined them at the center, all five helicopters tipped sharply forwards and accelerated away, adjusting their altitude slightly as they reached the surrounding jungle. Stretching to the horizon, the vast carpet of treetops below looked like an endless green expanse of ocean and Buchan watched the aircrafts’ shadows warp and flit as they gained speed. The experience brought to mind his time as a young soldier with the RLI, and while most of his memories from that period remained deep within his subconscious, one stirred from its long slumber. It was a moment trapped in time, the moment before his first contact with the enemy; and he remembered the all-powerful feeling of invincibility he’d felt then, as though nothing could stand in his way, and nothing ever stop him... It all seemed like a very long time ago, he reflected grimly. He felt about as all-powerful and invincible as a paper cup, and a growing sense of doom and gloom filled his being as he contemplated what was coming next. He knew that the bad guys wouldn’t honor their deal with Del Aguila; knew that he was flying directly into the middle of a gunfight without even so much as a knife. On the Baldrick Scale of cunning plans, it rated a solid ten out of ten, maybe more, only this time the outcome wouldn't be half so entertaining, and with slumped shoulders he put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. His thoughts returned to Cari. She’d saved his life twice now and in exchange she’d been kidnapped by some of the planet’s most notorious psychopaths. It wasn’t exactly a fair swap and he felt weighed down by the guilt of having abandoned her in the cemetery. Now the best she could hope for was a quick bullet to the back of the head, and he knew his own fate would be just as unpleasant. Cochrane had about a decade’s worth of pent-up hatred waiting to be released, so did O’Neill. From here on it was all going to be about pain and death, and he felt his heart beat faster as a cold trickle of fear crept into his system. Tension started to build in the muscles around his neck and shoulders, and feeling suddenly restless he opened his eyes and looked up and out of one of the doorways. They were still a couple of miles out, but he could see the Pemex station where Wyatt had made the phone call in the near distance, and a few seconds later they were crossing the railway tracks and following the white limestone scar that was the long narrow track that led to the hacienda. It seemed like ages since he’d last been there, but it was only a day he realized now, and a few seconds later one of the guards tapped him on the shoulder. Buchan looked around as the man passed him his belongings. Nodding his thanks, he slipped the watch onto his wrist and he was shoving the lighter into his pocket, when a sudden shudder ran through the helicopter. The engines revved abruptly down, and with its forward momentum all but eliminated, the helicopter slowed to a steady hover just short of the hacienda’s outer wall. Buchan knew all too well what that meant, and peering out through the starboard door, he saw the huge chimney looming out of the treetops. Then, as the Black Hawk advanced cautiously forward, the various buildings of the hacienda came into view. He looked down into the courtyard. It was empty, the Halo and its escort conspicuous by their absence. He wondered where they’d gone, but knowing he’d never find out, he dismissed the thought from his head and watched as the Apaches took up defensive positions over the outbuildings. Nothing happened for the next thirty to forty seconds. The tension built steadily with every moment that passed. Buchan could feel it clenching in his guts like a giant fist; feel the fine hairs on the back of his hands and neck bristle like hackles rising. His heart was pounding to some primordial drumbeat and despite being in the cool, wind-blown interior of the helicopter, his sweat glands had started to work overtime so that he had to wipe the stuff from his eyes. Then, after a brief radio exchange with the other helicopters, the pilot pushed the Black Hawk slowly forwards, so that they were now about fifty feet above the center of

the main courtyard. Cari was clearly visible in an open doorway a short distance to his right. Her top was bloodstained and torn, strands of hair were plastered across her forehead with sweat, and as he looked down on her, the muzzle of a chrome-plated handgun was pressed hard into her right breast. Her dark eyes flashed upwards, flaring angrily. Perhaps, she had never looked more beautiful, thought Buchan. Perhaps no woman ever had. Random moments from their time together flicked through his mind, and he felt a deep longing to be with her again, as intense and powerful as any he’d ever experienced. The effect was like pouring petrol onto a dying flame, and he felt the old anger flare up inside, the old certainties return... In the next instance the Black Hawk started its descent. Abruptly, the hacienda disappeared in the vast cloud of dust that climbed through the air to meet them. It was still settling some thirty seconds later when one of the guards crossed himself in the Catholic style and rose from his seat. He jerked his head towards the exit, his gloved right hand resting casually on the butt of his holstered Glock. Without further encouragement, Buchan released the buckle on his safety-harness and jumped down from the aircraft, covering his eyes as he crossed through the rotor wash. He knew something was wrong the moment he emerged into the open. Cari had disappeared from sight and the place looked completely deserted. Buchan, who knew what it was like to walk into an ambush, knew with absolute certainty he was walking onto one now. Added to that, there was no cover. He was completely exposed. He’d never felt so vulnerable in all his life, and scenes from several of his favorite Westerns, all of them set in Mexico, flickered through his mind. Films like The Wild Bunch and The Magnificent Seven, in which the good guys are outnumbered and outgunned and make a defiant last stand in a series of stylized shootouts towards the end of the film... Where were Pike and Dutch and the Gorch brothers when you needed them? he wondered now. Where were Coburn, Bronson and McQueen? And where the hell was Clint bloody Eastwood? A thrilling soundtrack by Bernstein or Morricone wouldn't have gone amiss, either. That way he might have gone down fighting, in a blaze of glory, the way he’d always hoped to... As it was, he was unarmed and helpless and alone, destined to be shot down like a dog, and he could only watch in horror as the muzzles of a dozen weapons appeared in nearby doors and windows. The wall of small arms fire was instantaneous. It came from everywhere and nowhere, like an invisible firing squad. None of the bullets came close to striking him, however. They were all aimed at the men in the helicopter to his rear. The door gunners managed to fire off a few rounds, but were killed before they did any real damage, slumping where they stood, and Buchan looked up to see an impressive salvo of ground-launched missiles fly from the rooftops around him. Rising fast on squat red pillars of fire, they trailed white smoke as they leapt from their launchers to meet the Apaches overhead. The helicopters took evasive measures, firing chaff and flares as they banked urgently sideways in a desperate attempt to get away. But it was all in vain. They didn’t stand a chance. One by one, the missiles vectored in on their targets and within moments the helicopters’ exploding hulks were falling heavily to earth as fast-rotating fireballs. There was absolutely no return of fire, nor any hope of survivors, and Buchan was beginning to think it was all over when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the Black Hawk’s fuel tank and it was.

Hook slept the rest of that day and most of the night. But, in the small hours before the dawn, he found himself lying awake in his bed, his eyes staring vacantly into the darkness. His mood had not improved, and as the nightmare of what had happened played itself out in his mind it got significantly worse. Then, for reasons not immediately clear to him he found himself recalling the punishment battalions that had fought on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. As an alternative to prison or the death penalty, the men of these units were officially classified as cannon fodder and given only the hardest, most dangerous tasks as a way to redeem themselves. Usually this involved charging machine gun posts without the benefit of weapons, in the hope that the enemy would run out of bullets or that their barrels would melt from overuse. And if not machine gun posts, then they were assigned mine clearance duties; told to just keep moving forward until they eventually triggered an explosion. And even if they did by some stroke of good luck manage to survive, their only reward was to be sent on another similarly insane and suicidal mission, meaning that their chances of survival were virtually nil. Understandably enough, nobody had ever volunteered for such a unit, but that’s exactly what Hook felt like doing now. However irrational it might seem he wanted the Job. Suddenly he saw himself as a one-man punishment battalion, ready to take on suicidal missions against impossible odds in the vague hope that he could find some sort of redemption, some kind of salvation, or, failing that, death... All he lacked, he reflected as sleep eventually reclaimed him, was an enemy and someone to point him in their direction, a ruthless but dedicated commanding officer to issue him with his orders and make sure he was in a position to carry them out...

PART EIGHT

CHAPTERI Buchan was brought around by the stench of death. It lay thick in the air like a fetid shroud, and when he opened his eyes, he was staring into a high cracked ceiling, his body restrained by thick nylon straps so that only a sideways movement of the head was possible. To his right was a large window that overlooked the courtyard. A heavy pall of black smoke lay over the smoldering wreck of the Blackhawk, and that's when the details of the ambush came back to him. “Welcome to my nightmare,” said a disembodied metallic voice that seemed to come from all parts of the room at once. For a moment, Buchan thought he was imagining things, and he twisted his head to see Cochrane propped up on his bed in front of him; his dilapidated features forced into an ugly grin, his black eyes empty of light but for a glistening tear nestled in the corner of one of them. The tear filled to bursting point and spilled down an almost skinless cheek, and Buchan gagged. It was one of the most revolting sights he had ever seen. And one of the most pathetic. “Take a good, long look,” said Cochrane, returning his stare. “Disgusting, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “And all your own work, too. Or have you, perhaps, forgotten our previous encounter in Strabane?” Attempting to make sense of the situation, Buchan was dismissive. “I don’t know what you're talking about.” “Don’t you, Mister Buchan? Or perhaps I should call you Randall? Because, if my memory serves me correctly, you were there. In fact, you were the star of the show. Of course, you probably don’t recognize me. I looked very different then - what’s left is all they could save. They didn’t give me very long to live but somehow, like you, I’ve managed to cling on.” Buchan tried to check his watch. It was hidden from view by one of straps, but a digital clock on one of the monitors read, ‘12.29’. It would be half an hour before the Mexicans arrived - if they arrived at all - and from what he’d heard about Mexicans, punctuality was not one of their greatest strengths. “A tragic waste of a life,” he said. Cochrane chuckled hoarsely. “Not really, Mister Buchan. Not when you hear how I’ve spent my time since then. Your timing, by the way, is impeccable. You see, as of today, my life’s work is done.” “Get to the point, will you. You're already boring me.” “But this is the point,” protested Cochrane. “In perhaps the greatest of all the innumerable ironies and insanities of our age, this tortured wreck of a human being that you’re looking at is what this has all been about; the grotesque goal that millions have suffered, fought and died for. The nightmare that was sold asa dream. This is what it means to have everybody reduced to the lowest common denominator, to enjoy cradle to grave security with no responsibility for the self, to enjoy provision for one’s every basic need, and to have every little detail of one’s life planned and coordinated by others, whether one wants it or not, day in and day out, for all eternity ...” Buchan wasn’t listening. He was too busy trying to put the broken pieces in his head back together. Nothing seemed to fit. And yet everything made perfect sense... Then he remembered Cari. “What happened to the girl?”

“The girl?” said Cochrane, almost absentmindedly. “Oh, she’s gone, I’m afraid. They’ve all gone. This was just a temporary operations center. It’s served its purpose now. I don’t know what they plan to do with her, but I expect she'll be killed. Pretty thing, wasn’t she? Just your type probably. Never mind. She won't be missing very much.” He grinned as Buchan grimaced. “Why? Are you missing her? Or is it the concussion? Or the loss of blood?” The last comment confused Buchan. As far as he knew, he hadn’t lost any blood, and he strained his neck to check his body for signs of any injury. Apart froma small gash above his left knee and his earlier cuts and bruises, he couldn't see any. Then he noticed a hypodermic needle had been inserted into his right forearm. Embedded up to the hilt, it had been crudely strapped into place with surgical tape and was draining blood from a vein into a transparent plastic tube that ran to a small electric pump. This was attached to a dialysis machine and the blood flowed directly from it into a vein in Cochrane’s one good arm... Buchan looked sharply back at the machine. On the floor beneath it, a large, dark red puddle had formed. Already more than a foot across, it was growing all the time. “Yes,” said the Irishman, “I’m afraid my kidneys were all but destroyed in the explosion, and since my blood type is compatible with all others, it seemed too good an opportunity to waste, what with the symbolism and all that. By my estimation, that gives you about fifteen minutes before you fall back into unconsciousness. Then, shortly afterwards, I too will inevitably succumb. Not with a whimper like you, though. But with a bang. A very big bang. You see, the whole place has been rigged to explode the moment my heart stops beating... Oh,” he added, holding up a remote-control device, “in case anyone decides to interrupt the proceedings, I can always detonate them manually.” Buchan struggled violently against the straps. They held firm and he soon gave up. He relaxed back onto the hard surface, suddenly exhausted by his efforts. So, he thought, this was it. Just a long painless glide into unconsciousness, the life sucked slowly out of his body. Then nothing. It wasn’t the kind of death he’d expected, or the kind he’d hoped for. And while there were probably worse ways to go, he reflected sourly, right then, he couldn’t think of one. “That’s the trouble with being a martyr, Mister Buchan,” continued Cochrane, “it means you have to suffer. It means you have to die. As I know only too well. And I, for one, have suffered enough. Still, to paraphrase Johnson, the knowledge does so wonderfully concentrate the mind, doesn’t it. And, given what I’m about to tell you, that can’t be all bad. Because if what Iam about to tell you is really a confession, it’s not just my confession, it’s a confession on behalf of millions - if not tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions - of others. Like a suicide note admitting guilt for all the sins, insanities and crimes of the modern age. A note which will remain unread by all but you. So, it’s very important that you understand everything - we won't have a second chance to clarify things, and there almost certainly won't be time for questions and answers at the end.” “Since we've only got a short while to live, a little silence would be appreciated.” Cochrane chuckled again. “Sorry to disappoint you, but silence isn’t an option. The occasion is far too great for that...” He let slip a wry grin. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes, Strabane. That fateful day that changed everything... But to understand that, we'll have to go back to the beginning; back to the beginning of my life, back to the fateful world I was born into. You see, I was a Baby Boomer; a part of the first generation in history to be born into a world of unprecedented peace and immense prosperity; a world in which all of the major battles had been won and all the dragons slain. A weird kind of fantasyland in which the laws of survival could be suspended and in which all the essential truths in life became optional. A world in which all the key relationships, such as those between effort and achievement, ability and reward, courage and success, virtue and happiness, words and meanings, reason and reality, rights and responsibilities - to name but a few - could be completely ignored, confident in the knowledge that someone would always be there to pick up the pieces and fix things when they went wrong. A world in which everyone is always free to take the easiest, least demanding route - the path of least resistance, both physically and mentally - not really knowing why, or where it’s taking them. A world of self-evident untruths and contradictions in which anything goes and to hell with the consequences. In short, a world in which everything is provided and nothing demanded, not even the key skill that made the human survival possible in the first place - the key skill without which it cannot be sustained - the need to think, Mister Buchan. To think freely and critically and deeply, so that today most people don’t even know what thinking is.

“Now, in many ways, and in the grand scheme of things, that probably doesn’t sound like such a bad deal. But that’s rarely true because, human beings are very finely tuned mechanisms that were designed over millions of years to perform certain specific roles. In particular, their primary role is to identify and extract resources from the world around it in as efficient and proficient a manner as possible, with the overriding goal of reproduction, thereby keeping the genetic legacy of the individual and group it belongs to alive. If denied that role for an extended period, if everything is simply handed to the individual on a plate rendering the body and brain more or less redundant, then they start to atrophy from lack of use. They start to malfunction. Physical changes actually occur, exacerbating and consolidating the condition. “With the body, those changes are obvious to the eye in the form of weight change, poor health and general dissipation. But what happens to the brain is much less obvious and much easier to disguise, often remaining all but invisible to the outside observer. The damage and negative consequences, however, are every bit as grievous as those that happen to the body. Because once freed of those anchors to reality - without a reality-based structure to guide, inspire and limit it, without the balance the real world provides, without those day-to-day demands and challenges to toughen, discipline, occupy it, preoccupy it, give it purpose and keep it sharp, without that essential element of hardship and struggle - the brain’s capacity to do its job deteriorates. The person to whom it belongs becomes like a spoiled child, unable to face facts, let alone process data objectively or act upon it in a rational, constructive and meaningful way. Inevitably, this creates failure, instability and tension in that person’s personal and public life, and soon a negative feedback loop is established, with each new bout of failure, instability and tension further weakening its ability to do its job. “For a small but significant percentage of the population - the stronger, more capable and more mentally robust, people like you, perhaps - all this is just about tolerable. Implicitly or explicitly, they understand what has happened to their world and take active measures to counteract its malign forces, perhaps by living in relative isolation from society, by maintaining a close contact with nature, by abstaining from the temptations of ease, luxury and excess, by forging strong bonds with other likeminded people, by keeping physically fit and eating healthily, by thinking rationally, deeply and critically, by questioning authority at all times and disobeying it when appropriate, by constantly seeking to expand their knowledge and understanding of things, by adhering to ancient wisdoms and teachings, and by doing their best to ignore and distance themselves from almost every aspect of modern culture. In this way, they just about manage to ride out the chaos, confusion, disillusion and frustration that would otherwise dominate their lives, and despite all the challenges they face, some even manage to make a success of things. “Most people, however, succumb to one degree or another, and become servile drones within the nonsense that surrounds them. While basically decent, these people tend to be over-socialized to the point of being half-brainwashed, and acutely aware that their income, status and wellbeing depend on their conforming to the new orthodoxy, frequently find themselves forced to regurgitate inane platitudes and demonstrable falsehoods to signal their allegiance to it, as well as jump through all kinds of irrational hoops in a never-ending ritual of self-humiliation. But overall they find just enough meaning and purpose to make something of themselves. And while their lives are far from as productive, successful and smooth-running as they would otherwise have been, they muddle their way through and scramble around to make the best of a bad deal, often with the help of drugs, drink, shrinks and other supposed crutches to make it all bearable. “Then there are others who are not as strong. They are unable to cope with it all and simply drop out of the system altogether, by opting out of the workplace, opting out of marriage and by not reproducing, which helps explain the surging homelessness, drug overdoses and suicide rates in many Western countries, not to mention the precipitously falling birth rates. “But then there are yet others who aren't brave or strong or honest or brave enough to withstand the onslaught of insanity that surrounds them; people who don’t have the strength of character even to drop out or end it all. I’m talking about the very weakest amongst us, the least independently minded, especially those that have been damaged in one way or another, usually in childhood, or feel guilty about their unearned status, or have failed to live up to expectations or

achieve their life’s goals. Sooner or later these people buckle under the strain. Outwardly they may pretend to maintain some semblance of being normal human beings, but inwardly they have all but collapsed and are broken beyond repair. They quickly lose all hope and give up on the very idea of living a normal, healthy, natural, civilized human life.

“Now, at this stage, normal, healthy human beings would take objective stock of their position and try to rebuild their lives according to the time-tested, reality-based principles that have always worked in the past. Instead, being the spoiled, over-indulged brats that they are, these people resort to the only tactic they know and double-down. They resort to the only tactic that has ever worked for them, and throw a kind of tantrum, directing their ire and frustration against reality itself, effectively declaring war on it, half-expecting that it will back down and accommodate them. “But, of course, it’s a fight they can never win. Because reality doesn’t back down. It doesn’t accommodate. It doesn’t play games or negotiate or make allowances

or make

exceptions or indulge whims

and fantasies. It doesn’t put up with their lies, their idiocies, their sob stories, their excuses, their

rationalizations and their nonsense. Reality doesn’t do any of those things. Simply put, it’s an implacable force that’s completely indifferent to their needs, emotions and desires, even their existence, and so, in the process, they effectively doom themselves to inevitable self-destruction... He chuckled softly, as though enjoying some private joke. “It goes without saying” he said at last, “that such a life is not the kind of life that I nor any man would truly care for. Rather it’s a dysfunctional existence, incompatible with reason, security, duty, love, tolerance, industry, compassion, and all the other things that really define a man. A shallow, superficial, lonely, infantile, narcissistic life, prone to a sense of self-entitlement, to despair, suspicion, superstition,

and sentiment; wholly at odds with the successful human life, and the attributes that make it worth living. A hedonistic, degenerate, unfulfilling, soulless life, utterly devoid of spiritual purpose, self-confidence, self-respect, or self-discipline. A life without the need for backbone, or character, or courage - moral courage - that is, the ability to give oneself an order and then carry it out according to reason and high principle, no matter what other people say or what the consequences might be. Indeed, it is a life essentially characterized by a kind of a moral cowardice. It takes possession of them, consumes them, and after a while, it comes to define them. “But it also goes without saying that people suffering from this condition hardly ever try to analyze, interpret or understand their thoughts and actions, not wishing to know what lies at their core; not wishing to know the truth about themselves, terrified of what they might find. Their cowardice simply won't allow it, and as their condition deteriorates, as it inevitably will, these people almost always take the easy route, the one they’ve become accustomed to, and ignore their own obvious culpability. Instead, they use things like denial, projection and self-delusion to make excuses and rationalizations for their misfortune, and tell themselves that they are really one of the good guys in the hope that these things will paper over the real causes and buy them some time, buy them some peace of mind. But, of course, things like denial, projection and self-delusion are just short-term panaceas. They do nothing to resolve the core, long-term issues, which in turn creates an even greater sense of inferiority, inadequacy and insecurity. It never really goes away, haunting us day and night, so that before long such people resort to blaming other factors instead. In particular, they tend to blame other people, especially the more ambitious, balanced, competent and successful ones. Quite simply, they can’t stand to be compared to them, to be reminded of who they really are; they can’t stand the way their weaknesses, failures, misery and general inferiority are shown up by them. The reality is just too much for them to bear. And, in time a sort of bitter, malicious, seething resentment for other people builds up inside them. It’s like a fire burning away in their soul. And after a while, that resentment, that fire, has nothing left to feed on, so it remains smoldering, held back, waiting to be released...” He took a deep breath, releasing it in the form of a long, audible sigh. “You see, Mister Buchan, I wasn’t going to kill you that day. It’s not as though you were a threat to me. Besides, I was never really brave enough for the frontline stuff, I’d always tried to keep to the fringes, outside of the action - campaigning, writing articles, attending riots and demonstrations when the chance arose. Basically, I relied on getting others to do the dirty work for me. And, up until that day I had certainly never shot a man, nor did I ever intend to. Not in cold blood, with me actually holding the gun, actually pulling the trigger. And, the truth be told, never

thought I would. I could see you lying on the ground, badly injured. But then I saw something when I looked in your eyes. It was a look of defiance - a look of heroic defiance in the face of overwhelming adversity - in the face of certain death. It was a defiance born of an immense strength; a strength to endure anything, whatever the context and whatever the competition. And, whatever the cost... It was the abstraction of mental and moral strength made visible. And it was like a gigantic damning reproach, not just to me, but to every man like me. It was the first time in my life that I’d seen it. The first time I ever even learned of its existence. And it was the finest, most noble, most beautiful thing I had ever seen...” Cochrane paused, the blips on the cardiograph racing momentarily before settling back into a steady rhythm. “And it changed everything,” he went on. “Because, in that instant I suddenly understood what it really means to be a human being, to be truly alive - to love life and the possibilities that it holds, to take responsibility for one’s actions and to live with the consequences. To be a man, and the moral courage that being a man ultimately requires... And, in that very same instant, I knew that I wasn’t equal to that task, and that I never would be...” The voice faded almost to nothing. “And in that same moment I saw everything,” he continued weakly. “Everything that I was, all my hopes and dreams, everything that I had ever secretly loved or desired, everything I’d ever believed in but never dared acknowledge, cruelly shattered in front of me. You see, it wasn’t until I looked into your eyes that I was forced to face the truth; that all the excuses, rationalizations I’d made for my behavior over the years, were just that — excuses and rationalizations. All of them indefensible. Or, to put it another way, they were lies... And it was as though a bottomless abyss of darkness had opened suddenly at my feet. I will never forget the feeling. It was a terrible feeling of limitless hatred, a limitless rage powerful enough to make me want to drag the whole world down with me. A rage so great and so real that the urge to destroy its source became instantly, frighteningly, overwhelmingly irresistible. But, of course, that would have meant suicide - destroying myself - and I wasn’t nearly brave or honorable enough to do that. Not directly at least, not by my own hand. And certainly not without taking you with me, Mister Buchan... Not without taking you with me... “You see, in that moment, I also saw a way out, a way to escape my pain - if only temporarily. And that release from total self-annihilation, I suddenly understood, could only come from your destruction, and the destruction of others like you. From the destruction of your values, your laws, your wealth, your institutions, your freedoms, your traditions, your heroes, your morale, your families, your happiness, your souls and your lives. And if whole cities must be razed, whole countries destroyed, whole continents devastated; if millions of men, women and children must be enslaved, raped, mutilated and murdered, or

left to die of starvation and disease, then so be it. To people like me, those are all prices worth paying. We have nothing therefore we have nothing to lose... “Yes, Mister Buchan,” he seethed suddenly. “In your eyes I’d seen the terrible truth. The truth about what I really was. And about how farI had fallen and how far I had yet to fall. And that, Mister Buchan, is a crime for which I could never forgive you. And that’s why I pulled the trigger. And that’s why I shot the girl you were with.” “Big deal?” said Buchan tersely. Composing himself, Cochrane cracked a grin. “Big deal, indeed, Mister Buchan. I didn’t think much of it at the time, either. Just a vague sense of release. It didn’t last long. Only a few moments. Then the terrible feeling of inferiority, inadequacy and insecurity swept through me again, this time with a renewed intensity. Ordinarily, I suppose, I’d have sought to block it out by going back to my old lifestyle of denial and self-delusion - by telling myself that I was really just one of the good guys and it was all for a good cause and all that, in the hope that one day, maybe, just maybe, it would eventually go away. But in the event, of course, things took a terrible turn for the worse. You detonated the car bomb, and as a result I didn’t get the chance to forget you, or the look in your eyes. Or the feeling. They’ve stayed with me, frozen in time and in my mind ever since. Sometimes, I don’t think I could have survived without them. Sometimes they were the only things that kept me going, that kept me alive long enough to complete my mission in life...” He laughed again, only it didn’t sound like a laugh - it sounded like a drowning man’s last breath. Then there was a long pause before he continued speaking. “And, forced to dwell on it as I was,” he said at last, “for the first time in my life I started to think. To really think. To analyze, interpret and dissect the world and

the people in it, in order to understand the terrible, overwhelming passions that had driven me to pull the trigger. To understand the psychology that lay behind that action. And I came up with some surprising conclusions... “The first was that I wasn't by any means alone, and while our exact numbers are hard to quantify, we are much more numerous than you could ever imagine. We exist in every society, in every race, in every country and we come from all walks of life. And while we don’t have a name as such, nor any formal means of identification, we know who we are, and we know how to recognize others who share our guilty secret. And we know that if one of us goes, we all go... “That’s right, Mister Buchan. There really are two different types of people in this world. Two tribes, if you like. Your tribe and mine. And the trouble for people like you is that if you don’t know what to look for, you can’t tell us apart. Because we've had to adapt to survive in this new environment, and these days many of are no longer tribal according to race, or nation, or religion, or class, or sex or any of the more obvious traits, the way we used to be. No, nowadays we are more likely to be tribal according to our spirit, to our soul, which, in our case, at least, means the more dysfunctional, bitter, twisted, broken and empty the better. Basically, we’re a huge army of nobodies, a vast death cult drawn together by our weakness and moral cowardice, and united in our hatred for the good, the true, the beautiful, and the heroic, and in our hatred in ourselves for being unable or unwilling to achieve any of those things.” He paused briefly, as if to gather his thoughts. “And the second thing I realized,” he went on, “was that this wasn’t the first time this psychology has emerged to dominate the political landscape; that it has emerged every time a society has managed to reach a modicum of peace and prosperity. And the more peaceful and more prosperous that society becomes, the easier life becomes for its inhabitants, the more of us it spawns, thereby weakening itself and bringing about its own downfall, like some kind of great supranatural cycle endlessly repeating itself through the ages. “Indeed, I learned that this was same psychology that in one form or another has, except for a few brief intervals, dominated the political map since time began; the only psychology that the greater part of humanity has ever known, even to this day. A psychology which, if left unchecked, leads to societies characterized by mob rule, gang and tribal warfare, religious and racial persecution, superstition, hysteria and tyranny. Societies in which slavery, feudalism and serfdom are the rule. Societies in which the unscrupulous roam the land, free to loot and pillage; to rape and enslave; to murder and maim; to scam, cheat

and lie. Societies in which most people suffer more or less equally, and in which your success or failure in life can to a very large extent be blamed on someone or something else. Societies in which frustrations and resentments are repressed and reserved for the next revolution, inquisition, witch-hunt, coup d’état,

massacre or war to present itself, as they inevitably will. “Nowadays we associate such systems with what we call the ‘Third World’. But it’s really just the old world, the ancient world - the world as it always has been. It’s a world that people like you are glad to have left behind, but to people like me, incredible as it may seem, such a world represents a glorious kind of heyday, a golden age to be resurrected at any price. And the trouble for people like me is that several hundred years ago, people like you began messing around with the status quo. They came up with a new system of individual liberty balanced by things like the rule of law, sound money, strong self-defence provisions and property rights. And in those places where this new system prevailed, civilization prevailed; and it prevailed because unlike any other system it allowed man to explore his full potential in as natural, as spontaneous, as flexible, as efficient, as human a manner as possible. Because it freed him from people like me, depriving us of our spurious claims to his life and to the product of his work. Because it enabled him to fully realize his initiative, industry and resourcefulness; to make his own mistakes and learn from them. And because it worked, it brought peace and prosperity and happiness and all the other things that make a human life worth living. “And so, for the first time in history every man faced a choice as to the system of values he would live by. And, ever since then, every man sooner or later faces that same choice. It’s a choice he has to make for himself, then keep making millions of times throughout his life - either to be guided by his respect for freedom and the rule of law and the rights of others and all that, or by his fear and hatred of those things. He might not even realize he’s doing it on any given occasion,

but sooner or later a pattern emerges, and before long it becomes clear which path he has taken. And it is that path which ultimately defines him, his character, and his destiny...” He paused again, his face showing no emotion. “So, while people like you had celebrated these massive developments in human progress, people like me grieved. Because we instinctively understood that this was nothing less than the realization of our greatest fears; that this development would inevitably condemn us to a lifetime of failure and obscurity. And, needless to say, it didn’t take us long to mount a counterattack; an all-out war that’s been raging fiercely ever since...” The ugly grin reappeared on his face. “Yes, Mister Buchan. Your worst nightmares are all true. The last battle of the greatest war in history is now well underway. It started in earnest in the ashes of the Second World War, when unprecedented peace coupled with unprecedented prosperity created the perfect environment for us to flourish in unprecedented numbers. It was to prove a fateful and fatal combination, as became clear when we started to reach adulthood in the early sixties, and the bad news for you and your kind is that it’s almost over. We're already into injury time. Sudden death. And I regret to inform you that your side is about to lose..." “Welcome to World War Three, Mister Buchan. The greatest, most destructive conflict in the history of the world, and its best kept secret...” Buchan looked

away, a deep, resigned skepticism settling over his weary, battered features. “That’s right,” continued Cochrane unperturbed. “You heard correctly. The fact that you don’t believe a word I’m saying is merely a measure of its success. Incredible, isn’t it? The greatest threat to modern civilization in its history, a war which was raging around you every single day of your life, on every single street, in every single country, a war in which you personally fought in as a frontline soldier, a war which will shortly cost you your life - and you’ve never even heard of it. “Of course, it differed from the other wars in some respects. For a start, we didn’t declare war as such. No, that would have given the game away - we'd never have stood a chance. It probably didn’t help that we never gave ourselves a firm identity either. Even to this day, we don’t have one. Sure, we invented a few when we had to, or when they advanced our cause, but we never stuck with any one of them for very long - communists, Marxists, socialists, greens, social democrats, progressives, feminists, globalists, liberals, neo-cons... All aliases. All flags of convenience. All variations on a theme... Amazing, isn’t it? The biggest single destroyer of mankind in history, and it doesn’t even have a respectable name. Maybe that’s because they weren’t able to find a word to suitably encompass so terrible a concept of evil. Maybe it will remain nameless for all time. A nameless, black, empty, nothing..." “You're talking nonsense,” said Buchan, without much conviction.

“Nonsense, Mister Buchan? Are you sure?” Buchan didn’t answer. “I shouldn’t be surprised at your confusion, of course. To the pure, all things are pure. Besides, the war was well underway when you were born. To you, it was just a part of the scenery. Just another part of the increasingly senseless world you lived in, of the confusing messages you kept receiving wherever you turned. The effects after a lifetime’s exposure can, I’m sorry to have to tell you, be devastating. You’re not alone, of course. Far from it. Hardly anyone escaped. They fell by the millions. Pitiful, really. Just like sheep... No, on second thoughts, that’s unfair on sheep. Dumb, docile, and easily led as they are, even sheep have yet to voluntarily demand, pay for and build their own abattoirs, then insist on their own slaughter, jostling each other to get to the front of the queue, while shouting, ‘Me first, me first’, and praising the slaughterman for his good work... Beginning to make sense yet, Mister Buchan? Any flicker of recognition inside that hard head of yours; a cold shudder running down your back, perhaps? Or a wrenching feeling in your gut?” Slowly, sullenly, Buchan shook his head. “Oh well. I suppose I'd better try and debrief you.” He paused. “I don’t think it’s ever been done before. This will be a world first - never, in all likelihood, to be repeated. Try to clear your head, try to relax. It might help. Then try and recall all those incidents that you used to read in the paper or see on TV or hear on the radio. Some of them will have made the headlines, others will have been deliberately tucked away, out of sight, but all of which made you feel a sense of irritation,

almost a sense of indignation or even outright anger. A sense that the incredible civilization your forefathers built, the civilization which you inherited, was unworthy of such treatment and somehow deserved better; that this wasn’t the way things were meant to be... “I’m talking about things like the constant terrorist attacks; the politicians and bureaucrats who preach equality and self-sacrifice yet practice self-indulgence on an outrageous scale; the billions sent abroad or squandered on idiotic projects while the nation’s essential infrastructure crumbles; the criminals who are allowed to roam the streets at will; the scroungers who are always demanding more and getting it; the migrant hordes flooding the borders and helping themselves to whatever they want, women and children included; the women who scream to be treated like men then scream even louder when they are; the

children who can’t read or write or even form a coherent sentence after a lifetime spent in schools; the businesses forced into bankruptcy by taxes, regulation, or the whim of some apparatchik; the media reports themselves, lying and obfuscating and conspicuously and consistently failing to acknowledge the true causes of almost every single issue they approach; the arbitrary restrictions that stop you enjoying your favorite pastimes; the way that the needs and wishes of the silent majority are ignored or overridden in favor of those of vocal minorities; the way that values and virtues that have held good for generations and proven their worth are always challenged, ridiculed and misrepresented; the relentless corruption of innocence, truth and beauty coupled with the equally relentless celebration and sanctification of the inane, the insane, the unnatural and the obscene; the never-ending decline in standards in every walk of life; the writers and

filmmakers who present true heroes as lower than vermin and vermin as gods; the way that man is always presented as doomed and helpless, lost and lonely in a world where everything is unknowable and real achievement unattainable... “Those stories, Mister Buchan... Millions and millions of them. Like sick jokes. Do you remember them? Do you remember thinking sometimes, that in some weird, supernatural, good-versus-evil sort of way, all of those seemingly unrelated incidents might in fact be connected? Then thinking that that was impossible because they couldn’t be, could they? Because, if that’s what you thought, you were wrong. They were, in fact, all part of a vast unspoken conspiracy of demoralization, subversion and sabotage, a systematic and well-orchestrated war on a scale the world has never seen before, with but one goal in mind - the destruction of Western civilization from the inside. Every single one of them was a miniature offensive in an endless battle of attrition, on an invisible front line to be held or taken at all costs. Every schoolroom and university campus became a beachhead, strewn with the mangled brains of innocent conscripts, mown

down on the wire. Every government institution became a No Man’s Land of legislation, restrictions, and red tape. Every court case, business practice,

and interpersonal relationship a potential minefield. Every high street a free-fire zone. Every protest group an advance guard, singing loud hymns of selfrighteousness to drown out the tortured cries of those they trampled over... “Making sense yet, Mister Buchan?” Buchan remained silent, and Cochrane continued. “It wasn’t easy to pull off, of course. We had many factors stacked against us. But there was also one key factor in our favor. For one thing, we looked like you. Like all traitors and collaborators, we had the incalculable benefit of being able to blend in at every level - of being able to infiltrate your ranks and exploit your trust and naivete at will. “In ancient times and in primitive societies, this meant we became witchdoctors, charlatans, swindlers, snake oil salesmen, highwaymen, coin-clippers, usurers, shysters, quacks, alchemists, gurus, beggars, vagrants, and warlords, to give a few examples. Of course, in such societies, with limited resources, our

scope for activity was severely restricted, with the result that there were only a small handful of us per community. In the modern world, however, and especially in the West, the resources are almost infinite, as is the scope for looting, pillaging and destruction. But obviously we weren't going to get away with being witchdoctors and stuff, so we invented and re-invented a whole bunch of twentieth century equivalents, instead. “The useless ones amongst us became scavengers, depending on the welfare state for our every want and need. What we’ve come to know as the underclass; millions of them, unemployed and all but unemployable, living miserable empty lives, made tolerable by fleeting moments of meaningless sexual release, druginduced highs, drunkenness, all interspersed with occasional bouts of senseless violence.

“Others, more sophisticated, became parasites. They simply found roles for themselves within the system we'd created and fed directly from it; roles in which style could easily be passed off as substance; roles in which products, excellence and profits would be the responsibility of someone else - usually the taxpayer or ill-informed dupes. For the most part, this meant the invention of millions of non-jobs and pseudo-jobs, many of them in government or government-related projects, none of which are directly connected to the creation of wealth, but which are explicitly designed to siphon it off, to extract it from the hard, productive work of others, spheres in which the manipulation of words, ideas, numbers and images are the end product, spheres in which even complete nonentities wholly devoid of talent, skill, accomplishment, or practical ability, can be made to look serious and important. All it takes is a little stage management and a little publicity, as any fashion show, or film premiere, or pop concert, or diplomatic conference, or political rally, will prove... Getting through yet, Mister Buchan, or should I go on?” Buchan let the question pass and Cochrane continued. “And a certain type amongst our number, Mister Buchan, the most ruthless - the ones like me who can’t face the prospect of a lifetime in a ghetto, or the daily grind of a mundane nine-to-five job; we cut out the middleman and did the killing and thieving for ourselves. We became predators. We became thieves, armed robbers, gangsters and terrorists, backing up the rhetoric with sheer brute force. “Between us - whether scavenger, parasite or predator - we reached into every single strand of your lives, from the food you ate to the education you received to the wars you fought to the heroes you worshipped to the thoughts you thought and the decisions you made. And once in position, the rest was academic. That’s the beauty of destruction; it doesn’t require any special skills, other than those that we’d already acquired along the way. Anyone can do it. Anyone can break their word, or lie, or betray their principles, or evade a question, or boss people around. Anyone can issue fines, or manipulate statistics, or waste money, or destroy jobs, or ignore their responsibilities, or fail at a task. Anyone can abuse a child, or rob a pensioner, or place a bomb, or pull a trigger... There’s no particular training involved, nor any hard work. And, of course, it’s also unlimited in its scope and intensity. “Creativity, of course, is another matter. It can take years, decades, centuries or even millennia of dedicated hard work to create an institution, or an industry, or aregiment, or a farm, or a business, or a work of art, or a school, or a city, or a reputation, but it only takes seconds, minutes, weeks, or months to destroy them.

And so, inevitably, we also had time on our side, like a gigantic noose slowly tightening around your collective throat. He paused, breathing heavily for a few seconds. “That’s right, Mister Buchan, civilization itself was the target, and it's a pretty big target. Basically, we couldn’t miss. We each just selected a little piece for ourselves, and set about destroying it, and if you look at the Western world in the light of what I’ve just said, you'll see that our successes far outweigh our losses. And I'm afraid Britain is no exception. Just try naming one thing that the British people of today have in common with the British people of fifty years ago. I’ll bet you can’t. “We're still the same people,” came the slow, grinding response. Cochrane laughed scornfully. “Bullshit, Mister Buchan, and you know it. Our task there is as good as complete. Now there are only a few small pockets of resistance left. And they won't last much longer. Then there’ll just be the cleaning up to do. That’s when we’ll reveal our true colors. That’s where the death squads and extermination camps come in. They’re the logical and natural conclusion of everything we believe in - only this time the traditional scapegoats will have changed. This time they’ll all be people just like you... We’ve already done all the groundwork. Our forces are already in position, the defenses have all been weakened, the battle lines drawn. All we need is an excuse. And sooner or later we'll find one. Then we'll provoke you into a reaction; dress you up as the bad guys; get the media to blow it out of all proportion; and declare a state of emergency, branding you as violent extremists, bigots and fascists; and next thing you know, we'll be rounding you up for public safety or shooting you on sight. “The army will stop you,” growled Buchan, his strength weakening by the moment.

Cochrane laughed feebly. “Oh no they won't, Mister Buchan. Some of them will try, of course, but our plans for them are already well advanced. The Thin Red Line has never been thinner. How long before it breaks altogether? And if things get really sticky, we can always call in a ‘peacekeeping force’... Beginning to get the idea now, Mister Buchan?”

Buchan was silent. He was beginning to get the idea all right. “And, this time, you won't be able to get the Americans to save you the way you have in the past. Because, unlike those times, there’ll be no US Cavalry to come to your rescue. In fact, this time, there’ll be no U.S. anything... You see, hugely successful as our strategy has been, it contains a potentially fatal flaw: as long as there is a single free society in the world, as long as civilization exists anywhere on earth, there will always be a standard against which our system can be compared, and against which it can be condemned. And, in the worst-case scenario, that civilization might inspire people elsewhere to resist or even fight a war of liberation against us. As a consequence, we can’t be satisfied with control of three-quarters of the globe, or even nine-tenths. No, for us, it is all or nothing. And we have to be quick about it, too. Time is running out. People everywhere know something’s gone seriously wrong; they just can’t quite put their finger on what it is. And that’s where our old enemy America comes in again. You see, the problem with America is that she’s still got too many people who still believe they have a fundamental right to live their own lives as they see fit, and to protect themselves and their property when the government fails to do so. And unfortunately for us, they also constitute the strongest armed force on earth by far, and that’s before you even include their military. And sooner or later they’re going to discover our motives and realize the scale of the destruction we've caused. Sooner or later, they’re going to wake up to the fact that it’s them or us. And sooner or later Mister Buchan, they’ll fight back. It will be very messy, of course, but, in the end, they’ll win the way they always do... Unless, that is, we manage to destroy their ability to fight without them ever realizing they’re under attack. And that's where this mission comes in... Still confused, Mister Buchan? Want to know what that mission was?” “Go ahead. Scare me.” Cochrane let slip a mischievous chuckle. “Oh, it’s not very scary, Mister Buchan. Not unless you consider something equivalent to a bad case of the flu scary, that is. Because that’s what we’re talking about here. Sure, this particular version is a bioweapon that has been tweaked to make it more interesting than regular flu, but the death toll isn’t going to be anything out of the ordinary for a sickness of that kind. Still, you know the old saying, ‘When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold’... Well, in this case, America will be sneezing like it’s never sneezed before... Oh, and in case you’re wondering, we’re going to use the hurricane to disperse it. Thanks to her size and trajectory, she’s perfect for the job. All we have to do is select the right point to release it and you ensure nearperfect dispersal over almost all of North America. And it just so happens that we’ve found the right point in the form of an oil rig out in the Gulf. After that, it’s only a matter of time... Sort of an ill wind, if you like, blowing nobody any good,” continued Cochrane with a low chuckle. Buchan’s forehead creased with confusion. “Come on, Cochrane,” he said at last. “You haven’t gone to all this trouble just to cause an outbreak of the flu.” This time Cochrane laughed out loud. It was a harsh, rattling sound and it made the hairs on the back of Buchan’s neck stand upright, his spine tingle. Then the laughter faded away, and there was a moment’s silence before Cochrane spoke again. “Maybe I should explain,” he said. “But it will have to be brief, as we both have an urgent appointment with You-Know-Who, and I'd hate to keep him waiting.” He chuckled again, then coughing to clear his throat, he continued. ‘You see, for all its undoubted military and economic strength, the United States is incredibly weak. The country is, in fact, rotten to the core and there for the taking, just as you’d expect of a place whose founding stock - tough, resourceful, uncompromising and all-conquering as they once were - have been relentlessly manipulated, conditioned, gas-lighted, domesticated, emasculated, fattened, poisoned, feminized, infantilized, dumbed down, deceived, corrupted, betrayed, humiliated, insulted, vilified, ridiculed, micro-managed, undermined,

criminalized, colonized, deracinated, marginalized, replaced, or simply eliminated without any significant resistance for almost a century, all of it done deliberately and systematically and on an unimaginable scale and from cradle to grave by people like me.

“I probably don’t have to tell you that after so much abuse on such a massive scale, on so many fronts and over such a long period of time, very few people remained unscathed, especially since hardly anyone realized they were under attack in the first place. Inevitably, most broke under the pressure. Consequently, huge numbers of the population are now so demoralized, their brains so muddled and desensitized, that we have full control of the way they perceive, process, and react to new information. Quite simply, their critical thinking skills are all but non-existent. In fact, we control their reality to such an extent that they’re now effectively incapable of rational independent thought. In short, I can assure you that the vast majority of them will believe what we tell them to believe and do exactly what we say, no matter how ridiculous, insane, unnatural, destructive, evil or suicidal. What’s even more amusing is that, in a desperate bid to avoid further ostracization, they’ll say and do anything they can come up with, no matter how irrelevant or irrational, to justify their madness. And, if that fails, having no further arguments, cognitive dissonance and Stockholm syndrome automatically kick in and they’ll quickly become hysterical, or try to censor their critics, even resorting to outright violence to silence them. “In other words, there’s no saving them and any attempts to do so will be met with failure, no matter how coherent and convincing your argument is, no matter how strong your evidence. They’re simply too broken, too far gone... Of course, it helps that we infiltrated, occupied and captured every single institution long ago, at local, national and international levels, whether in the private, non-profit or public sector, including every major political party and most of the smaller ones. They are all firmly in our hands, and have been absolutely crucial to our success so far. And shortly they will play an equally crucial role in what comes next. You see, the people that run these institutions have been given a pretty good idea of what’s coming. So once the first few cases of sickness are reported they can be counted on to execute a plan of action, a tried-and-trusted formula we’ve used on a smaller scale in dry runs and training scenarios many times before. “The mainstream media, for example, will start the proceedings, shamelessly fanning the flames of fear and hysteria to levels never seen before, whilst simultaneously ostracizing and shutting down all dissenting voices. They will be ably assisted by our old allies in the PR and advertising industries which will ramp up the propaganda to saturation levels. Then the medical establishment will do their bit by confirming dire predictions of mass casualties, and artificially pumping up the numbers as much possible. They'll be closely followed by academics, scientists, politicians and other supposed experts who will immediately ridicule and reject all practical, common-sense precautions. Instead, they’ll demand sterner measures are taken; measures that happen to include a kind of modified house arrest and the suspension of even the most basic civil liberties. Emergency legislation will inevitably follow, allowing us to strengthen our lock on the levers of power to a degree previously undreamed of. Then we'll unveil plans for travel restrictions, internment camps, a total clampdown on free speech and a mass vaccination program that doesn’t really involve vaccines... you get the idea. And all the while the churches will endorse it, the police will enforce it, the courts will punish anyone who doesn’t comply, the normally vociferous human rights lobby will remain silent, celebrities will play their usual moronic cheerleading role, and perhaps most bizarrely, the vast majority of people will call us heroes and applaud our actions.” He chuckled softly, as though to himself. “And all this despite the fact that by the time things have settled, we will have stolen their wealth, bankrupted their businesses, saddled them with unpayable debts, broken their supply chains, crippled their economy, crashed their stock market, eviscerated their currency, closed their churches and destroyed what’s left of their morale. Then, once total collapse seems all but complete, we’ll simply unleash the migrant hordes that we've flooded the place with. Along with the massive underclass that we’ve diligently cultivated there over the years, they’ll do the raping and the pillaging, the burning and the slaughtering, and generally finish the job.” He sighed wearily. “By the time it’s all over the USA as we know it will have ceased to exist; it will be no threat to anyone. It will be like the fall of Rome on steroids... Funny old world, isn’t it? Mister Buchan.” He grinned feebly; then added, “It was all my idea, of course. Think of it as my legacy...” He chuckled again. “I shouldn’t take all the credit, of course. Bioweapons and operations on this scale don’t come cheap, and I had a lot of help behind the scenes from some of the most respectable and well-known people and institutions on earth, not to mention the good old taxpayer in a wide variety of Western nations. And as for

the involvement of the Basques, the Cubans and all the others - once I told them what I had in mind, they were only too pleased to provide the means and the manpower.” “They’ll never make it,” said Buchan stubbornly. “They’ll never survive the high winds of the hurricane.” “Wrong again, Mister Buchan. They’ve already rehearsed this part several times on other hurricanes. At maximum

altitude they can be fairly certain of

avoiding the worst.” He cleared his throat. “And that, Mister Buchan, or Randall, or whatever your name happens to be, is basically it.” A sudden thought struck Buchan, a question that had he’d been nagging him, eating away at his conscience ever since he’d read Cochrane’s file in the car on the way to Heathrow. “What happened to you, Cochrane?” he asked out of the blue. “What happened to you at Cambridge to turn you into the monster you became?” “Hah! Now there’s a question...” came the reply. It was accompanied by an easy chuckle. “The short answer, which is all we really have time for, is that nothing happened to make me into a monster. If you'd been listening closely, you’d understand I was already a monster when I went up to Cambridge. All university did was ratify my mental sickness and give it the kind of pseudo-moral and pseudo-intellectual justification it needed to become real and dangerous. I suppose you could say my years there gave me the time and space needed to give it shape and substance, to weaponize it and turn it into the fully fledged force for evil that it subsequently became.” “That’s not good enough, Cochrane. Millions of young people go to university and get indoctrinated. It seems that’s pretty much what universities are for these days. But not all of them go on to join a terrorist organization and murder people in cold blood. What was it that happened?” Cochrane laughed out loud. “You really are naive, aren’t you, Buchan? Ask yourself: what famously happens to people like me when they go up to Cambridge?” Buchan shrugged. “They get drunk and lose their virginity?” Cochrane laughed easily, as though amongst friends and showing no sign of his impending fate. “Yes, Mister Buchan. I certainly did that, and a very nice young man he was too. He’s a cabinet minister now if I’m not mistaken. But that’d not what I’m talking about. Maybe if I say the names, Burgess and Maclean and Philby, it will give you a clue?” “You were recruited?” uttered Buchan, scarcely believing what he was hearing. “Yes, of course I was recruited. And don’t sound so surprised. Apart from serving as indoctrination centers, that’s pretty much why places like Cambridge exist these days - any supposed educational benefits are strictly secondary. Basically, they act as recruitment centers for those that the powers that be think can be useful to them. And I’m proud to say they spotted my talent early on and didn’t hesitate to make their intentions plain.” “Who are we talking about?” asked Buchan, his blood turning to ice in is veins. Cochrane laughed some more. “Oh, come on, Mister Buchan. Surely even you can guess the answer to that... Britain’s’ highly esteemed and trusted Secret Intelligence Service, that’s who. MI6 along with their sidekicks at MI5. Let’s just say, they don’t quite live up to the carefully cultivated and promoted, clean-cut, patriotic image you probably have of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like all the other institutions, they were captured by us long ago. In fact, they were amongst the first to fall into our hands and have been working hard on our behalf ever since. You see, the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement was really their idea all along. It was all part of a long-term plan to break the back of the United Kingdom, to destroy its structural integrity once and for all, to divide and conquer the country itself, thereby eliminating the threat of a populist backlash to our long-term plans for the place. But they could never admit to that, of course. They needed to make it look as if it was the IRA's idea, and that’s where I came in... I’d love to be able to explain the role of the secret services in this and other things in more detail, but I’m pretty sure we’re out of time. How are you feeling, by the way?” Buchan ignored him. He was down to his last reserves and fading fast. The urge to sleep became suddenly overwhelming and in desperation he looked out over the courtyard. A slight movement in one of the outbuildings triggered his attention. He strained his eyes to make out the hessian-covered barrel of a sniper rifle

protruding from a broken window. It was leveled at his chest. Then, it shifted slightly, and he looked across to see the red dot of a laser sight appear at the center of Cochrane’s forehead. Moments later, a second dot appeared, then a third... The Irishman seemed to sense their presence on his skin. “Looks like your Mexican friends have come back to get you,” he said. “Yes,” replied Buchan evenly. “You might as well give it up.” Cochrane shook his head. “Not without taking you with me, remember. Not without taking you with me. You and anybody else who happens to be around.” “Every man has the chance to redeem himself, Cochrane. This is yours. You won’t get another...” “You still don’t get it, do you, Mister Buchan. Redemption is for people like you. For people like me... Let’s just say it’s not my scene.” A cruel grin spread across his face, and he was about to trigger the remote control when the windows crashed, inwards and Buchan heard himself scream.

It was ten-thirty in the morning when Hook’s eyelids finally fluttered open again. Still groggy with drugs and sleep, his eyes were slow to focus. When they did, he made out a short, bull-necked, barrel-chested man in his sixties sitting in a chair against the far wall. The man was smartly dressed in plain clothes and could have been a doctor or consultant, but there was something about him that spoke of another world, one far removed from the sanitary, antiseptic environment of hospitals and healing. Thinking he must be a detective come to start the long process of interviews he knew awaited him, Hook groaned. Going over the events was the last thing he needed. He thought about closing his eyes again and feigning sleep, but then the man rose from his seat. “Good morning,” he said, in a classic Ulster brogue that was as smooth as the whiskey for which the region was famous. “Slept well, I hope.” Hook didn’t even try to reply. Instead, he found himself studying the man’s face. It was a good face, an open face, a friendly face, but most of all it was a strong face, practical, resolute, and fierce, and he found himself questioning if the man was in fact a detective, after all. Maybe a spy? he thought. MI5 would be all over the case by now... only the man didn’t look like a spy either. The smart clothes made for a useful camouflage, that much he’d admit, but there was no disguising his true profession. And his true profession, Hook now understood, was that of a soldier... “You don’t know me,” the older man continued, as he leant against the wall by the window, “but I know all about you.” He didn’t wait for a response. “You were born on December 23", 1963, to Arthur and Mary Hook. You had no formal education until the age of twelve when you were sent to a boarding school in Natal. There you excelled on the playing field if not in the classroom, representing the school and your country at rugby and cricket. Then, when you were sixteen, ZIPRA terrorists massacred the workers on your family's farm. On hearing this news, you immediately dropped out of school and enlisted as a Trooper in the RLI. You spent the rest of the war with One Commando, parachuting into contacts as often as three times a day, against forces up to twenty times your own strength. It was following one of those contacts that you were to be awarded the Bronze Cross of Rhodesia - one of the nation’s highest gallantry awards. The official citation makes it sound like a miniature re-enactment of the last stand at Rorke’ s Drift, and at the end of the war you made your way to the UK where you applied to join the Gurkhas. You were accepted. You passed out of Sandhurst just in time to be sent to the Falklands, and spent the next decade serving in a variety of locations around the world. Regular assessments by your various commanding officers all seem to highlight a strong sense of personal and professional responsibility, as well as a high level of competence in all aspects of training and performance, and you reached the rank of major a little over two years ago.” He paused for breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Your British Army ID number is 1673542; your stated religion is Protestant; and your blood group is A Rh positive. You smoke high-tar cigarettes and drink heavily on occasion, but your physical and mental health are said to be excellent. You hold a British passport by virtue of descent. And last but not least, you were in a relationship with Victoria Elizabeth Ingram until she was killed just a few days ago, which is the reason I am here to see you now... There’s more, of course,” he added. “Lots more. ButI think you get the gist.” Hook nodded but still didn’t speak. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.” Hook stayed silent. “Well,” continued the man, “I’ll tell you. I’m a headhunter - in both senses of the word - and I’ve come to offer you a job. ‘Special employment’, as we call it.” With nonchalant ease, he reached for an apple in a nearby fruit bowl, polished it on his trouser leg once or twice then took a deep bite. There was aloud crunching sound, and having removed the oxygen mask from his face, Hook finally spoke. “What kind of special employment?” The man swallowed. “I represent a small, little known department of the government. We were founded during the last world war out of a recognition that there are some crimes that, for one reason or another, the law cannot touch. It is our belief that such crimes should not go unpunished.” He took another bite from the apple and

chewed it slowly. Then, when he’d finished chewing, he said, “You see, we don’t like to weep for our dead. We prefer to avenge them. Basically, we believe in direct personal retribution; the more direct and personal the better.”

“What about the law?” “‘Have you ever heard of ‘Letters of Marque and Reprisal?’” he asked. Hook shook his head. “No.” “Well, to give you the official definition, they’re warrants or commissions from a national government authorizing a designated agent to ‘search, seize, or destroy specified assets or personnel belonging to a party which has committed some offense under the laws of nations against the assets or citizens of the issuing nation’.” “That’s quite a mouthful. What’s the unofficial definition?” “A license to kill,” said the man simply. “Oh,” said Hook.

The man continued. “They were quite common a couple of centuries ago. Usually, they authorized private parties to raid and capture the merchant shipping of an enemy nation and were considered a retaliatory measure short of a full declaration of war. In their time, they were issued to, amongst others, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Henry Morgan, and William Kidd.”

“Pirates.” “One man’s pirate is another man’s national hero, wouldn’t you agree?” “I’m all for keeping up our traditions, but I'm still not convinced.” “Well, in truth, they were formally banned by the Declaration of Paris in 1856, but one of our former leaders - Churchill, as it happens - noticed the United States still had the authority to issue them under Article 1 of the Constitution and managed to find a ‘legal loophole’ in our own laws.” “A legal loophole? Is that enough for this kind of thing?” “Yes. It’s enough. We’ve been operating for fifty years now and because no-one knows we exist no-one is seeking to challenge or change the arrangement.” Hook stayed silent for a while, letting the information sink in. Meanwhile, the man took another few bites out of the apple. Finally Hook broke the silence. “Why me?” he asked. “And why now?” “That’s a very valid question,” the man said. “The answer is simple enough. We don’t recruit many people - very few, in fact. As a consequence, we can afford to be extremely selective, and while there are many who have the qualifications, skills and abilities we require, we’ve learned that qualifications, skills and abilities are not, in themselves, enough. Therefore, we’ve made it a point only to recruit people who combine those attributes with... how can I put this...? A certain attitude.” “Attitude?” “Yes, attitude. The kind of attitude that comes from seeing a loved one shot down in cold blood, for example. The kind of attitude that comes from a deep, personal understanding of the nature of evil, and of just how evil that evil can be. In short, we look for mean bastards with a grudge; men who can handle themselves and who won’t let us down when things get tough.” He was interrupted by the loud, piercing wail of siren from a passing ambulance in a nearby street. He waited for it to fade away. “You see, we’ve learned that such men understand that there’s a debt that has to be paid for what has happened to them, and that someone has to pay it. It’s a debt that cannot be forgotten or forgiven. It obsesses them. It messes with them. Finally, it possesses them, and inevitably they undergo a kind of change inside, so that they no longer value their own lives. Now they are no longer human beings, as such. Instead, they become like machines - killing machines - and they will kill and keep on killing, no matter what the risks, until they can no longer function. It becomes their mission in life, their raison d'étre, feeding them and fueling them and giving them strength. They do not need money. They don’t need medals. They don’t need recognition or titles. In fact, they don’t need very much at all. All they need is the chance for revenge...”

There was a long, lingering silence. “What if I say no?”asked Hook. “Nothing will happen. I’ll walk away and you’ll get on with your life. No doubt the police will want to have a long chat, and you will almost certainly be required to serve as a witness at any upcoming trials. Other than that, I imagine you'll be free to return to your unit. In other words, you are under no obligation whatsoever.” “And if I accept?” “Then you will officially be declared to have died from your injuries. Your old life will be over. The medical team in charge of your case will make the announcement just before midday. In the meantime, you will be smuggled out of here in the back of a hearse, and taken to a place where you can make a full recovery. Once that’s complete, you'll be issued with a new identity and begin your training with a team that includes some of the finest instructors in the world. It will be very intense and very extensive and take at least two years to complete.” He took a last bite out of the apple. “I ought to warn you now,” he went on, the ghost of a smile on his face, “that it won’t be easy. The instructors I’m talking about are some of the meanest, hardest bastards I’ve ever come across, and I don’t exactly move in polite circles. They don’t take failure or any kind of weakness lightly and will test you to your very limits; break you down into your component parts. Then, if they still like what they see, they’ll rebuild you into something else, something not quite human.” He tossed the apple core into a wastepaper basket by the door and wiped his hand on his trouser leg. “I have no doubt there will be times when you'll wish you’d takena different route, but at the end of it you'll be capable of things you never dreamed you were capable of, and you'll come out knowing you can handle anything that anyone throws at you.” “And after that?” “After that, we'll expect you to work for us for at least a decade or until you are caught or killed or otherwise put out of action. After that, we’ll see how things look.” “What's the pay like?” “Standard civil service stuff. In other words, it’ s shit.”

“Pension?” “Nothing special.” “Perks?” “You get to travel the world and kill bad people.” Hook thought for a few seconds, just long enough to make a reasoned judgment. Then, as the silence threatened to become permanent, he said, “Where do I sign?”

CHAPTER II It took Buchan several seconds to realize he was still alive. Blinking in surprise, he looked over to see Cochrane’s one remaining arm severed at the elbow, gushing blood. The remote-control device was lying shattered on the floor, and he was just able to make out the shape of flying canisters when a great white flash and simultaneous explosion utterly devastated his senses. By the time he’d recovered them the doors had gone. They’d been blasted from their frames, and Del Aguila’s black-clad men filled the room, their laser sights still flickering over Cochrane’s upper body, their fire withheld. One of them walked through the broken glass and settling dust to Buchan’s side. Withdrawing a combat knife, he used it to cut through the nylon straps, and very gradually Buchan began to get used to the idea that he wasn’t going to die. Not yet at least. “Hold your fire,” he managed weakly, raising an open hand. “Hold your fire... the whole place is rigged to explode. Kill him and we all die...” He tried to sit up, but his strength failed him then, and he fell back against the hard surface exhausted. A few seconds later he tried again, this time assisted by steadying hands. They helped him stand, and pushing himself from the table, he staggered over to the Irishman’s side, an angry glint in his eye. It danced impatiently at the center of each pupil, like an evil specter waiting for release. “Where are they, Cochrane?” he hissed. “Where’s O’Neill? Where’s the girl?” Despite being in obvious pain, Cochrane managed to grin. “If you think I’m going to tell you that, Mister Buchan, you're sadly mistaken. You can try to beat it out of me, if you like, but the longer you take, the more vicious your techniques... well, you figure it out.” The grin faded. “Face it. It’s over. It’s all over.” “Bullshit,” said Buchan, reaching for the needle in his arm. “I haven't even started yet.” Then signaling for Del Aguila’s men to withdraw, he tore it sharply from the vein. Almost immediately an alarm began to sound in the background, and Buchan was about to follow the others when he heard Cochrane’s voice behind him, its tone measurably softer. “Watch your thoughts, Mister Buchan...” the Irishman whispered, laboring between breaths, his heartbeat erratic and fading. “Because they become your words... and your words become your actions... your character... your destiny...” He wheezed painfully as another alarm was suddenly triggered, and without looking back, Buchan started to run. *

He was the last man to reach the waiting Black Hawk. It was hovering a few feet from the ground and rose sharply as he was hauled on board. Within seconds it had cleared the outbuildings, and it was accelerating away when the compound disappeared behind them in a series of massive explosions. They buffeted the aircraft but didn't damage it, and Buchan passed out soon after. When he came round, they were still airborne and there was another needle in his arm; this time a drip hooked up to a bag of steadily draining plasma. He lay back as Del Aguila appeared at his side, the Mexican’s dark eyes narrowed and tightly focused. Showing no concern for Buchan’s recent ordeal, the Mexican was quick to get down to business. “What happened to Cari?” he shouted over the low scream of the turboshafts. “Where is she?” It took Buchan a while to make sense of the questions. Then he remembered Cochrane’s words. “The hurricane,” he breathed. “They’ve taken her into the hurricane.” “The what?” “The hurricane,” repeated Buchan. “It’s a long story.”

“Where in the hurricane?” “The eye.” Del Aguila launched into a string of expletives that started with the word, ‘Hijo’ and finished with the word ‘madre’ many seconds later. Then, gradually regaining his composure, he repeated the phrase, word for word, this time more slowly. Buchan waited for him to finish. “I’m going after them,” he said evenly. “I’ll need one of your Harriers and a sidearm...” “No way,” interrupted Del Aguila. “They’ve still got my daughter, remember. It will be dangerous enough for her as it is. I can’t take any more risks.” He didn’t give Buchan time to answer. “No, Mister Buchan, if you want to kill yourself, there are far less complex and less expensive procedures. Whatever they intend to do, however terrible, I can live with the consequences so long as there is a chance, just a chance, of saving Cariin the aftermath. I'll just wait until things die down a little, then offer them whatever they want. Every man has his price, and with my bank account, it’s a buyer’s market.” “There won't be any aftermath,” said Buchan, forcing himself up onto his elbows. “Not this time.” “What do you mean?” “Exactly what I said. They’re going to release some kind of biological weapon into the eye,” replied Buchan, sounding weary. “They're using an oil rig; the high winds will do the rest. The effects will be catastrophic, and not just on the population, but the whole balance of world power. By the time this is finished, there won't be anything left to negotiate about; your dollars and your empire will be in ruins, along with just about everything else.” As Buchan spoke, Del Aguila’s expression grew steadily more grave. Then after about a minute of silent contemplation he looked up. “OK, Mister Buchan. You'll get your wish. You can follow them into the eye, but on one condition. That I go with you.” Buchan quickly discounted the idea. “I work better alone, Del Aguila. I’ve got enough to think about already and you'd only get in the way. Besides, you're out of shape and out of practice. You won't stand a chance with these guys.” Del Aguila stopped him. “Forgive me, Mister Buchan, but you don’t have any choice. Like I told you earlier, this is my world and things are done my way. éComprende?” This time Buchan was silent. He knew he didn’t have any choice. Without the drug lord’s co-operation, the mission's failure was guaranteed. The bioweapon would be released, and Cari would die. If she was lucky, they wouldn’t rape her first, but he didn’t hold much hope of that, and he pictured her ragged body being pitched from a helicopter thousands of feet above the ocean... Then there was the fate of North America to think of, the fate of countless millions of people... “All right,” he conceded at last. “Maybe I could use the help. But you'll have to do whatever I tell you.” “Whatever you say, senor.” “And there’s another thing,” added Buchan. “If I survive, I don’t intend to go to prison for what I’ve done here. I want all the charges against me dropped. I want your word that I’ll walk away a free man.” “Very well,” agreed the Mexican impatiently. “You have my word.”

Ateam of paramedics was waiting for them as they landed at the prison. Buchan rejected offers of further medical treatment but accepted a large bottle of water, drinking most of it with barely a pause for breath. The rest he emptied over his head and shoulders in an attempt to revive his senses. Then, letting one of the paramedics detach him from the drip, he waited as the hydraulic platform descended to the lower level before following Del Aguila from it. The cavernous space that surrounded them was not as busy as it had been, but there were still plenty of people around as Del Aguila led him through a maze of olive-drab crates marked with names like ‘SIG Sauer’, ‘Kalashnikov’ and ‘Browning’ into an adjoining corridor. A few seconds later they reached a thick steel

door at the far end. An armed guard wearing military fatigues hauled the door open on massive steel hinges, saluting as the two men stepped through it. Now the smell of gun oil and cordite replaced that of fuel, and Buchan took a moment to scan the vast, dimly-lit space he had just entered. To his right, behind a glass wall, a shooting gallery with six firing lanes, each maybe a hundred yards in length, stretched off into the darkness; while to his left there was a separate room containing a large, open-plan workshop. It came complete with a small team of armorers, an industrial-sized armorer’s bench and enough tools and spare parts to withstand a longish siege. But it was what lay in front of him that really caught his attention, and he gazed in silent awe at an array of firearms, so comprehensive it made him drool with anticipation. All of his old favorites were present, not to mention a few he didn’t recognize. Knives, too. And hand grenades. And all sorts of other bits and pieces, none of them conducive to the good health of human beings. If it had been designed to hurt you, it was there, and there was a tone of mild envy in his voice when he spoke. “You're full of surprises, Del Aguila.” The drug lord grinned. “My gear has already been loaded,” he said. “So, help yourself. What’s mine is yours, as we say in Mexico.” Buchan needed no further invitation. Accompanied by two of the armorers, he walked on, passing a rack of battle rifles that included a few dozen of the big, bulky, brutal FN FALs he’d used and grown to love in Rhodesia. Of all the weapons ever made, none was closer to Buchan ‘s heart than the Belgian-made beauty. Like the wheel, the Zippo lighter, the Supermarine Spitfire or the Cuban cigar, he considered it one of those man-made products which were hard, if not impossible, to improve on (once you'd removed the carry handle and rear sling swivel, at least), but knowing the weapon was too large and unwieldy for his current needs he continued until he reached a large selection of sub-machine guns and pistols. There, he paused, scouring the display with his eyes. He already knew which type he wanted and few seconds later a Colt M1911 combat pistol filled his fist. He grinned. Twenty minutes ago, he’d been close to death and without hope of ever completing the mission. Now, he had a proper gun in his hand. Now, anything seemed possible... Snatching a magazine pre-loaded with fat, ugly, .45-inch hollow-point rounds, he slid it smoothly into the Colt. He grabbed a couple more and put them into the pouches of a black tactical vest handed to him by one of the armorers. After that, he found a silencer and attached it to the Colt. He checked the handgun’s balance and grip. They were more than satisfactory and he placed it on the counter as he was issued with a combat belt complete with holster. Buchan wrapped the belt around his hips, adjusting it several times for a perfect fit. Then, picking up the Colt again, he slid a round into the chamber, locking it closed before securing the safety. He looked down at the large, somewhat clunky-looking weapon. Many people, he knew, would frown at his selection, preferring one of the newer, sleeker European models instead, citing their better looks, simpler mechanisms, lighter weight, and superior magazine capacity to justify their decision. But in Buchan’s world, those considerations didn’t play much part. In his world, form only ever followed function, and since the main function of a handgun was to knock the bad guys down and make sure they stayed down - something the Colt excelled at - he was more than happy with his choice. He dropped the weapon into the holster. It was a snug fit and he moved along the racks until he came across an array of combat knives, reaching for a US Marine Corps Ka-Bar combat knife the moment he saw it. Closing his hand around the grip, he pulled it from its sheath. The blade had been recently sharpened and, when he tested it with his thumb, he drew a tiny bead of blood. He re-sheathed the weapon and attached it to the combat belt. As an afterthought, one of the armorers approached carrying a bullet-proof vest in Buchan’s size and presented it to him. Buchan declined the offer, reckoning he’d almost certainly have to do some swimming at some point, and took a long last look around the room. “I’ve got everything I need,” he said. He nodded towards the door. “Let’s go.” Issuing a stream of instructions to his assistants, Del Aguila led Buchan into a smaller room where they were both issued with mirrored-visor flying-helmets. The Mexican’s had his name stenciled across the front in capital letters, and the eagle’s head motif emblazoned on either side.

Buchan tried his for size. It was a near fit, and he tucked it under his arm as one of the assistants intercepted them with a map and some fresh information. A short discussion ensued at the end of which Del Aguila turned to Buchan. “My sources tell me that all the rigs in the area were abandoned by their crews a few days ago in anticipation of the storm. That should simplify matters as it means you can kill everyone you see without too much concern.” “Except for Cari, of course.” “Yes. Except for Cari.” “Very good,” said Buchan. “I’ll do my best to oblige. What about the position of the eye? Any updates?” “Yes,” said the drug lord. “According to the latest reports, it’s about three-hundred-and-fifty miles due north of here. That's about thirty minutes flying time.” A rough calculation told Buchan that O'Neill and his men would reach the eye some fifteen minutes before them, giving the terrorists one hell of a head start. But there was nothing he could do about that and he followed Del Aguila from the room across to where one of the Harriers was undergoing pre-flight inspection, its huge air intakes looking like an elephant’s ears either side of the pointed snout. The black pods he’d seen earlier hung suspended on short pylons midway under each wing, their canopies hanging open. “This is yours,” said Del Aguila, pointing to the nearest one. “The pilot’s instructions are to drop us as close to the rig as he can. Failing that,” he pointed toa striped metal handle inside the cockpit, “pull this back sharply for manual release.” “What’s the minimum altitude for a safe descent?” asked Buchan. “Over water, about two hundred feet.”

Buchan looked doubtful. “That’s too high. We’ll be sitting ducks once the chutes deploy. Tell the pilot to drop us at half that.” Del Aguila nodded in reluctant agreement and put out his hand. Buchan took it and they shook. “Vaya con Dios,” said the Mexican, as a couple of the ground crew stepped forward. They were carrying matt black immersion suits and both men pulled them on. Then, with a last nod towards Del Aguila, Buchan climbed a waiting stepladder and slipped into the body-shaped cavity, legs first. He strapped himself in as the plexiglass canopy was lowered over him. It sealed itself to the rest of the pod with a hydraulic kiss, drowning out all background noise. The tight space he found himself in was cramped but reasonably comfortable, and he lay there in the semi-dark silence thinking about the Cari and the hurricane and matters of life and death. Mostly death.

Having been smuggled out of the Belfast hospital in the back of a hearse, Charlie Hook was promptly whisked away to a small private hospital in the forests around Windsor, just west of London. There, he underwent all sorts of operations, therapies and treatments, and some two months after his admission to the facility he was deemed fit for release. On the day of his discharge, he was issued with a new set of clothes, a small, blue-grey Globetrotter suitcase, and a railway warrant that would see him arrive in the City of York four-and-a-half hours later. There, he was met by a taxi driver who drove him to a former RAF base on the outer fringes of the North York Moors. Despite a pretty setting within some of England’ s most beautiful countryside, this had a bleak, decaying, almost ghostly feel, as if it were lost to time, so that Hook half-expected to see a lumbering Lancaster bomber or Flying Fortress loom out of the skies at any moment, perhaps returning from a raid on Hamburg or the Ruhr, smoke trailing from its engines as it tried to make an emergency landing on what remained of the original WWII runway. Apart from the runway, there was a green, cube-shaped control tower, a single enormous aircraft hangar, and, set within long grass, about a dozen Nissen huts that lay in a haphazard pattern alongside a badly potholed service road. There was also a small car park containing a handful of small-to-mid-range vehicles and a couple of motorbikes - about the only indication the place was still in use. The taxi driver dropped him off in front of the control tower, where he was met by a short, wiry Welshman called Jones who had long sideburns, a small greying moustache and a hard, neolithic glint in his eye. He was dressed in a dark blue tracksuit that did little to disguise the powerful body concealed beneath it. His handshake further removed any doubts that he was a man of colossal physical strength, and after some small talk Jones explained that he was a Chief Petty Officer in Her Majesty “s Royal Navy responsible for training the Field Gun Team at Portsmouth, but that in his current incarnation he would be the man in charge of turning Hook into the bespoke killing machine that the Mill expected him to become. After a quick cup of tea, he introduced the new recruit to the key members of staff and gave him a short tour of the facilities. These were extensive but very basic, and the tour concluded with Hook being escorted to one of the Nissen Huts. Inside, he followed the Welshman down a short corridor until they reached a lightweight wooden door. A sign on it said, ‘Knock, then wait to be admitted’. Jones didn’ t bother to follow either of the instructions, and they entered a cramped windowless office that smelled musty and seemed to be filled with a perpetual form of twilight. There was a calendar on one wall that was sixteen years out of date, an Ordnance Survey map of the local area on another, and a simple wooden desk with two chairs filled the center of the space. The Welshman invited Hook to take a seat, which he did. Meanwhile, Jones pulled open one of the desk drawers, shuffling through the contents before withdrawing a thick grey ring-binder. This he placed on the desk in front of Hook, along with a pencil and a few sheets of blank paper. “Before we go any further,” he said in a deep rolling baritone infused with a thick Welsh accent, “there's a little bit of housekeeping we need to take care of, see.” He sat down at the desk and looked across at Hook, studying him coolly for a moment. Then, leaning forward slightly, he continued. “As you will be aware, your lifelong alter ego, Charlie Hook, is no longer with us, having been killed in particularly nasty mountaineering accident in the Himalayas a few weeks ago, poor sod. The good news, though, is that you’ re still here, which means we need to find you a new name. A nom de guerre, as it were.” Hook, who up until now hadn't given this aspect of his new life any thought, was vaguely daunted by the prospect of being called anything other than the name he’ d been born with. Besides, what did any self-respecting, state-sanctioned hitman call himself these days? Where to even start? “Tricky one, isn’ tit?” said Jones. He gestured towards the binder. “Luckily, the old boys that founded this operation, in their infinite wisdom, made it a little easier for you. They decided that all headhunters should be named after a winner of the Victoria Cross. I think the idea is that some of the courage and dedication that was shown in the field by such men will rub off on you; that you’ Il always strive to live up to their example, and not let the side down, and all that.” He reached for the ring-binder and flipped the cover open to show a photocopied image of the famous medal, Britain’ s highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy. “Obviously,” he went on, “names that stand out or that are of clear foreign origin are not permitted for the simple reason that they might draw unwanted attention. So, for example, unless you can convince me otherwise, your new surname is very unlikely to be Carton De Wiart, Grimbaldeston, Gurung, Ngarimu, Khan

or Singh. But don’t worry, the vast majority of the awards went to men with solid, straightforward Celtic or Anglo-Saxon names, so you’ ve got well over a thousand possibilities to choose from.” “No problem,” said Hook. Drawing the binder closer, he opened it at random, and found himself staring into the youthful features of a Sergeant in the 2"4 Battalion, The Wiltshire Regiment, by the name of Maurice Rogers. He read the accompanying entry. Rogers, he learned, had charged across a minefield during the latter stages of the battle of Anzio, taking out two machine gun posts in the process, and had been killed while assaulting a third, his courage and sacrifice enabling his men to carry the objective. Hook flicked through a couple of dozen more entries, studying each one closely. A few of the names he recognized, especially the Gurkha ones, and those that had been awarded in the Falklands War, while other names like Mick Mannock and Billy Bishop and Charles Upham he vaguely recalled from the comics he’ d read as a child. Most were completely new to him, however, as was the official record of their heroics. And even though the language used in the citations was deliberately dry and cold, it was hard not to feel a sense of high emotion reading through them, so that within minutes he was mesmerized, his imagination captivated in a way that caught him completely by surprise. The ‘old boys’, as Jones had called them, had known what they were doing by having recruits pass through this unusual yet curiously effective rite of passage. He read about a pilot who’ d returned his ailing Catalina flying-boat back to base with no less than 72 separate wounds. He read about a sergeant in the RAF who’ d climbed out onto the wing of a Lancaster bomber to extinguish an engine fire with his bare hands, all while flying at 220 miles per hour, at 20,000 feet and under attack by German fighters. He read about a four-foot-eleven Gurkha rifleman who’ d been the sole survivor of a small, isolated post when it was attacked by more than two hundred Japanese soldiers. He’ d hurled back the first two grenades that landed in his trench and was throwing back a third when it exploded in his hand, blowing off his fingers, shattering his arm and severely wounding him in several other places. Nevertheless, he’ d remained at his post for the next four hours, accounting for some 31 of the enemy before finally being relieved. Then he read about another rifleman, this one a twenty-three-year-old Punjabi who was run through the chest by a Japanese officer’ s sword while clearing bunkers in Burma. Undeterred, he’ d wrestled the sword from the officer, using it to kill him and two other men before succumbing to his wounds. He read about a sixteen-year-old boy from the East End who’ d remained at his post at the Battle of Jutland, despite being the only one of his gun crew still alive and having steel shards protruding from his chest throughout the action. And he read about a sixty-one-year-old who, along with eight fellow soldiers, blew up the Delhi magazine with themselves in it, rather than let it fall into the hands of the enemy. He read about soldiers charging pillboxes, about captains going down with their ships, and about pilots holding their course as their aircraft disintegrated around them. He read about men who’ d jumped on exploding grenades or cleared trench-lines, and other men that had defended hilltops, saved the regimental colors, stood by their guns or stayed behind to cover their comrades’ retreat. He read about desperate last stands, valiant counterattacks, and victories against impossible odds. The stories were many and varied, repeatedly stretching Hook’ s ability to appreciate what ordinary men are capable of when the chips were really down, and although those involved didn’t seem to have much in common in terms of their physique or background, one thing was abundantly clear: to a man, they were all tough, tenacious bastards who’ d understood the threats they’ d faced, and were still prepared to meet them head-on, no matter what the cost. Every now and then, Hook paused to light a cigarette, expelling the smoke up at the curved ceiling before continuing with his reading, and as he read, he scribbled out those names that, for one reason or another, appealed to him. Engrossed as he was with the project, time flew, and he was in a sort of daze when he finally looked up again to see the Welshman still sitting there in front of him. “Nearly done,” he said.

“Take your time, boyo,” said Jones. “This is one of those decisions that will last you the rest of your life.” Hook nodded. He looked across at the shortlist. There were ten names on it. Charles Sharpe, Henry D’Arcy, David Hawkes, Robert Cain, Thomas Hunter, John Buchan,

John Ripley, Archie White, Richard West and William Savage. It proved difficult to choose between them, but gradually he narrowed the list down to three: Sharpe, Cain

and Savage, and he was on the point of making his decision when he recalled something Vicky had once said to him, early on in their relationship. They’ d been sitting in a pub in Notting Hill, still getting to know each other, when she’ d described him as being like a character out of a John Buchan novel... Reaching forwards, he shuffled through the binder’ s pages once again until he found the entry on John Buchan. Buchan’ s photo showed a fresh-faced, fine-featured young man with dark, pensive eyes, and he scanned the background details... Born on 10 October 1892 in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, the third son of a local newspaper editor.... Keen rugby player... Second lieutenant, 7“ Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders...

Killed during the Spring Offensive, Marteville, the

Somme Valley, France... He read the citation. It was from The London Gazette and dated 21 May, 1918. For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. When fighting with his platoon in the forward position of the battle zone, 2nd Lt. Buchan, although wounded early in the day, insisted on remaining with his men, and continually visited all his posts, encouraging and cheering his men in spite of most severe shell fire, from which his platoon was suffering heavy casualties. Later, when the enemy were creeping closer, and heavy machine-gun fire was raking his position, 2nd Lt. Buchan, with utter disregard of his personal safety, continued to visit his posts, and though still further injured accidentally, he continued to encourage his men and visit his posts. Eventually, when he saw the enemy had practically surrounded his command, he collected his platoon and prepared to fight his way back to the supporting line. At this point the enemy, who had crept round his right flank, rushed towards him, shouting out "Surrender." "To hell with surrender," he replied, and shooting the foremost of the enemy, he finally repelled this advance with his platoon. He then fought his way back to the supporting line of the forward position, where he held out till dusk. At dusk he fell back as ordered, but in spite of his injuries again refused to go to the aid post, saying his place was beside his men. Owing to the unexpected withdrawal of troops on the left flank it was impossible to send orders to 2nd Lt. Buchan to withdraw, as he was already cut off, and he was last seen holding out against overwhelming odds. The gallantry, self-sacrifice, and utter disregard of personal safety displayed by this officer during these two days of most severe fighting is in keeping with the highest traditions of the British Army. For the briefest of moments, Hook felt tears threaten. He blinked them away quickly and sat motionless for a few seconds. There was a noticeable hardening of the lines about his chin and brow, a tightening of his lips, and for the first time since the incident in Strabane, the tiny flame that burned deep within his eyes seemed to flicker and flare. And in that very same instant, he knew that fate had played its fickle hand in the proceedings and that the decision had already been made for him. “Buchan,” he said at last. “John Buchan... Like the author.” After a short pause, Jones nodded. “An excellent choice, if I may say so,” he said. “Now, how about another cup of tea?”

CHAPTER III The catastrophic Category Five hurricane named Hannah, now marching relentlessly northwards across the Gulf of Mexico, had started life as nothing more than a localized trough of low pressure somewhere off the Cape Verde islands. At first, this trough had meandered aimlessly through the warm waters of the Western Atlantic, sucking in the moist, hot air, and forming small, isolated thunderstorms as it went. Individually, these storms hadn't really amounted to

much, but once they came together and combined with the earth’s rotation, they formed a single, much more formidable storm system. This, in turn, drew in even more moisture and hot air, and so the process went on. Vicious circles don’t get any more vicious, and with the whole of the Atlantic to draw on, Hannah’s continued growth was guaranteed. She rose rapidly through the ranks of the Saffir-Simpson scale, so that by the time she’d crossed the Atlantic she was a fully grown monster generating sixty-foot waves, maximum sustained winds of over 170 miles an hour, and as much energy as half of the world’s power stations combined, all whilst dropping over half a million tons of water on every square mile of over which she passed. It was into this furious maelstrom of unconstrained violence that Buchan was about to be hurled at a speed close to 700 miles per hour. He didn’t know the exact details, of course, but he did have the rough idea that, however bad things had been so far, they were about to get a whole lot worse. He felt a hollow pit in his stomach, one that only grew once the Harrier started to rise vertically clear of the prison. The whole aircraft trembled like a living thing around him, and in a matter of seconds he was floating on a churning cloud of dust and debris that obscured the complex from sight. Then there was the faintest wobble of the nose and wings, followed by a slight forwards tilt of the fuselage, and suddenly he’d been thrust back against the bulkhead behind him as the aircraft surged forwards at a dizzying speed. The pilot tested the intercom a few moments later. Both passengers received him loud and clear, but no one was in the mood for conversation and, except for periodic updates on their progress from the cockpit, they travelled in a empty, echoing silence. The experience was completely absurd and unreal, so far as Buchan was concerned, and, lying there cocooned and immobile within the pressurized confines of the capsule, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he was - to quote a phrase - going to hell in a handbasket, albeit a technologically advanced, very aerodynamic and rather cozy handbasket. After a few minutes, the sensation of unreality faded and he felt his body start to relax; felt the tension work itself out of his system, until only a small part of his mind remained active. It was busy reviewing and reassessing the events of the past four days, as if for a report or debrief. And while he was reasonably satisfied with his performance so far, he had no illusions about the scale of the challenge ahead. Assaulting an oil rig was no easy matter, combining the skills of a diver, a mountaineer and a Special Forces soldier all in one. Success, he knew, usually depended on meticulous planning, the element of surprise, the use of specialized equipment, and teamwork - none of which would be available on this occasion. Then there was his physical condition to consider. He knew that his body couldn’t be counted on for much longer. But if he had doubts about his own ability to complete the task, his doubts regarding Del Aguila went even deeper. For all his undoubted courage and gangster cunning, the Mexican could hardly be relied on for help. If anything, and especially given the harsh environment in which they would be operating, Buchan knew that the drug lord’s presence was more likely to be a liability than an asset. Last but not least, there was the small matter of the hurricane. He didn’t fancy his chances with her either. She was on the warpath now, and he knew that the slightest delay in the schedule could doom the operation before it even started... All in all, the outlook was pretty bleak, and he spent the rest of the journey recalling the chain of events that had led to his present predicament - not just the events of the last four days, but the events of his whole life, up to and including Vicky’s death and his subsequent recruitment by the Mill. As though it had all somehow been ordained and could not have happened otherwise. And gradually he became conscious of a profound sense of relief. As though it had all been but

preparation for this moment. As though a long wait was about to come to an end, and by the time the pilot eventually interrupted his thoughts, he was ready to take on the gods. “Five minutes from target,” crackled the voice over the intercom. A few seconds later, the aircraft experienced its first faint tremor of turbulence. It was barely noticeable at the time, but Buchan knew it was an ominous portent of what was to come, and he checked his watch. They were bang on schedule and he raised his head, straining his eyes to get a better view. Through fastmoving patches of cloud, he snatched glimpses of the immense white carpet below. It was lit from within by random flashes of lightning, and by twisting his neck he made out the rapidly approaching eye, like an enormous whirlpool drawing them inexorably down into its slow-turning vortex. Many miles in diameter, it stretched away beneath the aircraft like an enormous rotating funnel. The dimensions were simply astonishing, dwarfing anything he’d ever imagined possible, and no matter how much he hated to admit it, he could see now how Cochrane’s crazy plan might work; could also see the potential destruction the bioweapon might wreak across all of North America. Then there'd be the knock-on effects to think of - and with the USA out of the equation, all bets were off. Anything could happen and probably would... The aircraft trembled suddenly, dramatically, as though it had hit some sort of invisible wall. It dropped several hundred feet in a couple of seconds, promptly hitting an updraught of similar magnitude, and Buchan was struggling to hold on to the contents of his stomach when the pilot spoke. “Two minutes to target,” he advised, his tone reassuringly calm and steady. The aircraft bucked and shuddered as it crested the cyclone’s rim a few moments later, and for a short while Buchan’s body felt completely weightless. Then gravity reasserted itself with a magnified intensity and he felt himself forced back up against the bulkhead by sudden G-forces as the pilot shoved the Harrier into a near vertical descent. He let the worst of the effects fade and searched for sign of the Hinds until his eyes settled on three tiny dots at the far side of the vast amphitheater. With the sun glinting off their whirling rotors, they looked like disturbed insects as they turned to close with the Harrier, and he watched dispassionately as missiles flared angrily from their sides. There was no comment from the pilot, but within seconds a pattern of bright magnesium flares punched out in all directions and the Harrier had been flung into a tight starboard roll. The maneuver caused Buchan’s body to be thrown sideways, pressing the air from his chest, and he was close to blacking out when the aircraft finally steadied. By then, the incoming missiles had flashed harmlessly past, and he’d broken out in a cold sweat when the pilot released three Sidewinders whilst simultaneously resuming his predetermined course. These American-made missiles, named after the venomous snakes that strike at their prey with astonishing swiftness, disappeared in wispy trails of smoke as they homed in on their targets at almost three times the speed of sound. They took less than five seconds to cover the distance and the subsequent destruction of the slow-moving Hinds was a formality. They disappeared in three red-orange balls of fire and Buchan let his eyes linger a while on the resulting devastation, grateful they were out of the equation at last. “Sixty seconds,” said the pilot as the aircraft leveled off just above sea level. Buchan shifted his gaze accordingly to make out the oil rig. Still many miles away, it rose implausibly through a dense mist like some brightly lit magical castle. The main deck he saw now was about a hundred feet above the water’s surface, and similar in size to a football field. It had a huge derrick at its center and knowing the moment of truth had finally arrived he reached for the striped handle Del Aguila had shown him. “Fifteen seconds...” said the pilot. Simultaneously the flash and sparkle of heavy-caliber gunfire appeared along the rig’s main deck. It was all aimed directly at the Harrier. An iridescent stream of red-and-green tracer fire wove interlacing patterns through the air around them, and banking sharply, the aircraft slewed one way, then the other. Buchan fought the G-forces as best he could and was struggling against an impending blackness a second time when it finally flattened out to make its final approach. “Ten seconds...” called the pilot, a rising sense of urgency in his voice, “Stand by... Stand by...”

Buchan looked ahead to see the rig’s profile loom suddenly over them. The gunfire had intensified, the muzzle flashes so close that they seared his eyeballs, and a series of rapid thuds along the fuselage told him it had found its mark. All at once, he felt his world turn upside down as chunks of flame and scorched metal flew past the canopy, and he was pulling on the handle with all his might when there was a sudden savage blast that seemed to engulf the aircraft, and the distant roar of an enormous explosion.

The man formerly called Charlie Hook and now known as John Buchan re-emerged into the wider world just over two years later. His first stop was a small village in Oxfordshire, located on the southern edge of the Cotswolds not far from the River Thames. There, he sought out the village church, a pretty little medieval edifice overlooking the village green, parking his brand-new, 675cc British-made street-bike outside. It was early in the afternoon on a glorious October day. The churchyard was deserted, and he wandered through it until he found Vicky’s grave at the foot of an ancient yew tree. More recent than most, the gleaming granite headstone stood out easily from the older, lichen- and moss-covered ones that surrounded it, and bore a simple inscription, giving her full name and the dates of her birth and death. Stone-faced, Buchan looked down at bunch of dried-out flowers that was lying at the center of the grave, and he stood there for a few minutes as memories of their relationship flicked through his mind, like bleached snapshots being shown on a rickety, old slide projector. Despite the years that had passed since her death, he found his need for her was still as strong as ever. Time, everyone said, was a great healer, and maybe they were right, but the heart’s dead were never truly buried. You never got over the loss; you just got used to it, learned to deal with it as best you could. Some people turned inwards to fill the newly found hole in their life, seeking solace in solitary pursuits like prayer or gardening or the creative arts; while others turned outwards, to other people, for their salvation, by socializing and having meaningless sexual relations or by dedicating themselves to things like their work, or sports, or simply the business of always being ‘busy’. There was no correct solution, Buchan mused. Everybody had to find their own way. And while the route he’d chosen was somewhat less orthodox, he knew that clipping the heads of dead petunias for the next forty years or collecting stamps just wasn’t going to cut it. He needed something more stimulating, more interactive, and challenging, something altogether more satisfying, and after placing a fresh bunch of flowers next to the dry ones, he wiped a growing tear from his eye and went back to his bike.

CHAPTERIV Buchan didn’t recall hitting the surface, just the vague sensation of cold water creeping up his legs and a dull ache in his head. His mouth was full of the taste of blood and when he tried to move his body, his limbs felt leaden and remote. He opened his eyes to see silvery bubbles rise through a shifting darkness. Slowly the interior of the canopy came into focus. Beyond it, through badly fractured plexiglass, he could see an aircraft’s wing. He looked up. The water’s surface could still be seen, but it was getting distant and the capsule’s interior correspondingly dark. The realization that he was sinking came gradually, then suddenly. He tried to move his body again, but there was no chance of that. He was trapped and the small volume of air around him was getting smaller all the time. He felt the water level rise to his chest. Rapidly it reached his neck, then there was an abrupt rush and the whole of his body was immersed. The sense of claustrophobia he felt in that moment was overwhelming, and just as the panic began to take hold, he fumbled for the safety-harness around his chest. The buckle snapped free, and yanking the helmet off, he kicked a hole in the broken plexiglass and forced his way out into the dark swirling waters. The immersion suit’s buoyancy made his ascent to the surface relatively swift and uncomplicated, and he trod water for a few seconds in an attempt to get his bearings. Then, snatching a glimpse of the rig some fifty yards to his right, he ducked under a rising whitecap and tried to swim towards it, making little headway before an unseen wave crashed over him, and when he came up a second time the structure had completely disappeared from sight. With barely a chance to catch his breath he was driven back under, this time deeper than before. He was powerless to resist the forces involved and he felt his body plunge downwards, tossed wildly in the conflicting currents. Unpleasant memories of the underwater tunnel filled his mind, and he was wondering if he’d ever see the surface again when his upper body slammed into something solid. The impact drove all the remaining air from his lungs, and he grasped blindly until his right hand smashed into a barnacle-encrusted anchor chain. Knowing it provided his only chance survival, he seized it with all his remaining strength, and passing one hand over the other, hauled himself upwards. He broke through a surging white froth a few seconds later and, securing his grip on a nearby ladder, he retched savagely until his stomach was clear of seawater. Only then was he able to refill his lungs with much-needed oxygen, swallowing it in great, gasping mouthfuls. It tasted delicious, like some kind of exotic elixir, and scrambling upwards, he pulled himself clear of the waves. Clinging to the ladder, he stopped to reorientate. Despite the raging sea, the air was perfectly still, and he looked up to see an enormous steel column that stretched up into the mist. A complex matrix of walkways and staircases reached into every corner of the rest of the superstructure, but there didn’t seem to be any sentries or security devices, and he turned his attention to the surrounding waters. There was no sign of the Harrier’s wreckage to speak of, nor was there any sign of the two Mexicans, and spitting a residue of saltwater from his mouth, he pulled off the tight-fitting immersion suit, cutting his legs free with the KaBar. As he did so, he took a moment to look into the fast-approaching eyewall. Streaked with long narrow rainbands, it had the fierce intensity of a living creature and seemed to be chewing its way systematically through everything in its path. The lightning was continuous now, casting an eerie glow into the surrounding atmosphere, and he looked down to where the cyclonic winds met the water’s surface. The sea was darker there, the high winds whipping the waves into vast black peaks, and the noise he heard was like one continuous roll of thunder.

Guessing that he had less than ten minutes before the wall hit them, he re-sheathed the knife and continued with his climb. He was tired even before he started, and the vertical ascent through the hot humid air soon began to exhaust him. Rivulets of sweat burst from his exposed skin, and he was still a good distance from the top when he heard the sound of footsteps on metal, above and to his right. Slowly, his head swiveled on his shoulders, like the gun turrets on a battleship, his grey eyes reduced to narrow slits as they probed the dark spaces that surrounded him. At first, the source of the noise was indistinct, but he soon narrowed it down to a suspended walkway some thirty feet away. Two men carrying side arms were searching the waters, their backs turned, and he had plenty of time to draw the Colt. Then casually, as though on a practice range, he lined up one of them, firing three times before traversing the weapon and firing again. The Colt did its job, the repeated coughs all but inaudible over the roar of the hurricane, and both men dropped silently as another man appeared through a doorway at the far end. He looked across at his fallen colleagues and was backing away when Buchan squeezed off a three-shot burst, missing with the first, but making sure with the second and third. He watched as the man toppled over the walkway’s railing, a sour grin cracking his glistening, wet features. He was three-nil up and the match had only just started. The trials and tribulations of the last few days - the anger and frustration, the pain and suffering, the emotional rollercoaster of his encounter with Cari - all seemed to fall away, as if lost to time. Even the thrill and excitement normally associated with combat seemed alien to him. Instead, he felt filled with the kind of cold competence of a master craftsman or surgeon doing a routine job with the tools of his trade, all underpinned by the certain knowledge that it was a task he had done many times before, and that there was no way in hell he’d come this far or lasted this long just to fuck things up in the final moments. The mag-drop, mag-insertion and slide release that followed were fast and flawless, and having re-holstered the Colt he continued his climb until he emerged onto the main deck some thirty seconds later. The storm had done its worst and the rig was a tangled mess, strewn with collapsed structures, smashed oil drums and misshapen steel plates. Only the raised landing pad was clear of debris. On it squatted the enormous bulk of the Halo. It was being refueled, and he counted a dozen men in a tight circle around it, all of them heavily armed. He searched for Cari. There was no sign of her, and he skirted to the right, negotiating a mass of broken pipes and collapsed antennae until the main derrick came into view. It was being guarded by two men carrying AK-47s. They hadn't seen Buchan, and he was raising the Colt when there was a distant shout. Instantaneously, a subsonic round tore into his left shoulder from the rear, and he was still reeling from the impact when another shot screamed off the surrounding metalwork, narrowly missing his head. Overriding the shock of being hit, he swung round and sprayed bullets in a random pattern. For a short moment, nothing happened. Then a figure crumpled in the shadows about thirty feet away, and rolling sideways, Buchan turned and put two rounds into the first guard, killing the second as he returned fire with an efficient double tap to the head. Even over the roar of the encroaching eyewall, he knew the shots had been heard, and a response was not long in coming. The air became alive with bullets, the rounds ricocheting off the steel superstructure in a furious whirlwind of hot lead. Dropping to a crouch, he took immediate cover, swearing as he struggled to reload the Colt with hands greasy with sweat and blood. The pain that flared from the wound in his shoulder wasn’t much help, and all the while he could hear the enemy closing in on all sides. It didn’t take a military genius to know that he was in deep trouble. He swore again, and was preparing to make his last stand when he heard someone call his name over all the noise. Slapping the magazine home at last, he racked the slide with a satisfying crunch and turned to see Del Aguila standing fully exposed on a raised gantry at the edge of the platform. He was manning a pair of the Browning M2 fifty-caliber heavy machine guns that had helped bring down the Harrier. They’d been specially adapted for anti-aircraft work, and were mounted on a gimbal at chest height, the barrels now pointing inwards, and two enormously long ammunition belts trailed away on either side of him.

The Mexican winked at Buchan, then spat. Then, with a casual squeeze of the trigger, he proceeded to put down a deadly arc of fire, the whole of his upper body shuddering from the weapons’ mighty recoil. In the same split second, a noise like rolling thunder filled the air as a cascade of hot metal spewed from the two ejection ports, showering the floor around him with spent brass. It reminded Buchan of the winning jackpot spilling from a slot machine in more ways than one. He couldn't have hoped for a better break, and he watched in mute awe as a solid stream of red-and-green tracer rounds swept the deck, travelling at over twice the speed of sound and at a combined rate of about a thousand rounds per minute. There are very few things that can withstand the effects of a Browning M2 - or ‘Ma Deuce’, as she is sometimes known - and even fewer that can withstand the effect of two of them firing simultaneously side-by-side and at point blank range. The oil rig, evidently, wasn’t one of them. It started to fall apart almost at once as hundreds of the enormous rounds perforated walls, shattered windows, chewed up pipes and vent stacks, and generally laid waste to anything and everything in their way, O’Neill’s men included. He saw one of them take half a dozen hits, his torso jerking in a macabre dance of death as it disintegrated before his eyes. Another one’s head just seemed to explode into nothingness. And high up on the derrick, he saw a broken body torn limb from limb as it smashed into a series of wire stanchions on its way down to the deck. Moments later, several of the supersonic incendiary tracer rounds, originally designed to penetrate armor plating and smash engine blocks over a mile distant, struck the relatively thin skin of a large, pressurized gas tank at a range of about forty yards. They tore right through it, instantly igniting the highly flammable contents within, and the resulting explosion ripped into the surrounding infrastructure with a blinding orange flash. It was closely followed by an ominous flat roar. Together these shook the rig to its subaquatic foundations, amplifying the chaos tenfold before dropping an unholy downpour of burning body parts and blood in their wake. Everywhere, panic-stricken men were rushing around or taking cover, dazed and confused by the sudden tidal wave of raw, unrelenting brutality that was engulfing them. All were oblivious to Buchan’s presence or the threat he posed, and he wasn’t slow to take advantage. He was in his element now, his senses alive to the sights and sounds of battle, his body fueled by a volatile cocktail of adrenalin and pain. A red mist had descended over his eyes, clouding his vision, so that now he didn’t see faces, only vague shapes and colors. If they bore any human resemblance, they died. He lived solely for the purpose of killing, without compunction or constraint; like the main character in some sort of insane, out-of-focus, interactive video game in which the body count is all too real. Then, when the Colt finally ran out of ammunition, he quickly switched it for a dead man’s Uzi, complete with spare magazine, and went in search of someone else to kill. He found three men cowering behind a mass of cables. They didn’t see him until it was too late. He fired a raking burst across their backs, as simultaneously another man emerged from a hatch in the floor. Buchan shot him in the chest. The man staggered backwards, fell to one knee, and was trying to raise a shotgun when a second burst hit him in the head. He dropped, revealing a man in a bullet-proof vest in the corridor below, and Buchan took him out in textbook fashion, a fast double tap to the head that left no room for doubt. The relentless, staccato pounding of Del Aguila’s twin-fifties seemed to go on forever, as did Buchan’s killing spree, and he’d added another couple of bodies to the death toll when the insane noise came to an abrupt and jarring halt. Stopping in his tracks, he wiped the build-up of sweat from his eyes and surveyed the scene. Blood-soaked corpses lay strewn about the devastated structure, like carcasses in some surreal slaughterhouse and, in the background, he could hear the sounds of the dying as they struggled to come to terms with their fate. The air crackled with live tension, like in the moments before a lightning strike, and fearing the worst he looked back at Del Aguila. The Mexican was still standing, but only just. He’d taken multiple hits to the body, but if he knew it, he didn’t show it, and a crazy gleam in his eye said he didn’t care. Buchan could see he was beyond saving, and a fresh burst of gunfire forced him to scramble for the nearby hatch. Rolling down a metal staircase, he found himself in a large corridor dimly lit by emergency lighting. It was empty in both directions and he stopped for a few seconds to check his wound. Nothing vital

had been hit and he was thinking about how to staunch the flow of blood when a figure appeared in the hatch above. Outlined against the light, he made an easy target and Buchan squeezed the Uzi’s trigger until the hammer finally clicked ‘empty’. The figure remained standing, spouting thick gouts of crimson blood, then fell stiffly backwards, as Buchan fumbled for the spare magazine. The changeover only took a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime, and deciding the wound would have to wait he followed one of the corridors in the general direction of the helicopter. There was no one else around and he was feeling like he was back in control of the situation when he heard a slight creak in the roof above and they came at him from three sides at once. The first was in the shadows a few feet to his left. Buchan sensed rather than saw the shape of the sub-machine gun, knocking it away as the bullets flew. A roundhouse kick followed, whilst simultaneously he spun round, firing three times in less than half a second. He watched a man fall a few yards to his rear, before turning his attention back to the first assailant, killing him with a single shot to the head. Now two were dead. But the growing shaft of daylight in the ceiling had assumed a dreadful urgency, and there was nothing he could do to stop the falling mass that landed on his shoulders a split second later. The Uzi went flying as the two bodies fell together, hopelessly entangled, and Buchan was struggling to get clear when the other man’s hands found their way to his throat. Quickly securing their hold, they began to squeeze, and in desperation he reached for the KaBar, yanking it clear of its sheath. His opponent sensed the move and his grip weakened as Buchan lashed out with the blade. He was quick, but the repeated demands on his body had taken their toll, and his opponent was quicker. Much quicker. The intended strikes were easily blocked and all he felt was a blinding surge of pain as the knife was smashed from his fingers. Rolling into a crouch, he looked back to see Fernando Rafael Medina, the big Basque, looming over him like some latter-day khaki-clad Goliath. The term ‘monstrous’ didn’t quite encapsulate the sheer scale and menace of the man. He was one of the biggest and quite possibly one of the ugliest men Buchan had ever laid eyes on. With its outsized ears, long beaky nose, dark beady eyes, and large distended loose-lipped mouth, his face alone made Buchan want to cut and run. He actually flinched when looking into it. And then there was the rest of the man to consider. With a good four inches and maybe a hundred pounds on Buchan, his body looked like the product of centuries of unnatural selection, or the result of some grotesque scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. His shoulders were massive, his chest barrel-like and his neck the same shape and size of the average tree-stump. He also looked to be in peak physical condition. You could almost see the oversized muscles rippling underneath his clothing, like tectonic plates shifting deep below the earth’s surface. Even on a good day the idea of defeating him in mortal combat would have seemed like an outrageous joke to Buchan, and that was before you allowed for the semi-automatic in his right hand... The weapon belched flame as Buchan sprang forward. The bullet creased his temple but didn't stop him, and he hit the Basque with the full force of his shoulder, driving him backwards into the wall. He followed up with four or five short jabs to the midriff, then a sharp uppercut that connected with the big man’s chin. They seemed to have no effect but gave Buchan the chance of clasping his hands over the handgun’s slide. He wrenched it sideways, twisting until the fingers gave way, and was securing his grip when he suddenly saw the Spaniard’s huge, tightly-bunched fist up close. The subsequent blow struck truck him square on the side of his head like a cannonball in midflight. It sent him reeling, and in the scramble to stay on his feet, he dropped the weapon, sending it skidding across the floor. Droplets of blood and sweat flew from Buchan’s head as he tried to shake it clear. This just made things worse. He wanted to give up, throw up, break down, pass out, and beg for mercy all at the same time. But somewhere deep inside he knew those weren’t real options. Instead, he forced his eyes to focus on Medina. The Basque hadn’t got any smaller. If anything, he seemed to have increased in size. And he hadn’t got any prettier either, his beady eyes gleaming with latent savagery as they catalogued Buchan’s smaller stature and his badly injured condition. The giant’s ugly lips drew back into a wolfish sort of grin.

It was the kind of grin a glutton reserves for a big, fat, juicy steak he’s about to tuck into. And, as though on cue, a knife appeared low in his right hand, its fourinch double-edged blade held flat and pointing forward. Glinting menacingly in the half-light, it looked tiny in the man’s huge, ham-like fist, more like a nailfile than a knife. But Buchan knew it was plenty big enough to gut him six ways from Sunday. He’d once used a similar knife on a Chicago mobster and the results had been very far from pretty... With Buchan’s eyes fixed intently on the blade, the two men circled each other warily for a few seconds, as though held apart by some invisible force. Then, the giant bared his teeth and stepped towards him, closing for the kill, the blade slashing figures of eight in the air between them. For aman of his immense size, he moved with astonishing speed and agility. He was too fast for Buchan, way too fast, and the blade beat his feeble attempts to deflect it before sinking deftly into his left side. There, with surgical precision, the sharpened piece of steel buried itself up to the hilt, generating enormous amounts of pain but meeting no resistance as it went up under the ribs and pierced the exact spot where Buchan’s heart should have been. The strike, both men knew, was accurate enough and deep enough to be a fatal one, and for a moment, they remained like that, utterly motionless, their faces

only inches apart. The Basque was grinning expectantly; his eyes searching Buchan’s, probing them for the telltale signs of pain and weakness, for the signals of death and defeat. Only they weren’t there. All he saw was a pair of tight hard pupils staring back at him, looking through him, like little drills mercilessly boring their way into the back of his skull. Heaving on the knife, the Basque forced the blade further up into Buchan’s flesh, feeling it tear through hard muscle to strike bone. Still the metal grey eyes showed no sign of weakening. They were as cold and hard and empty as arctic tundra, and in that same moment, something changed in the Basque’s face. A look of confusion spread over his features and he heaved again. Still no reaction, and very gradually the look of confusion turned to one of fear, as though he suddenly understood he was never going to be able to kill this man, no matter what he did... and that his own death was only a matter of time. The head butt seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no warning, as such, just a sudden massive jolt of pure energy that started low down in Buchan’s legs and erupted up through his hips and abdomen before bursting out through the front of his head. It caught the bigger man right between the eyes, his face seeming to come apart with the force. Blood gushed from the flat red smear that had once been his nose. Shock, pain, and the effects of concussion were etched across the rest of his features, and a strange gurgling sound came from his throat as he took a hesitant, unsteady step back. Simultaneously he released his grip on the knife, so that the two men were now a

yard apart. Time seemed to slow, then stall, and for a long, frozen second

Buchan didn’t move. Then, calmly, as if he had all the time in the world, he looked down at the weapon buried deep in his chest. He examined it quizzically for a moment, as though mildly amused by its presence in his body. A slight smile creased his battered features, and securing his grip on the bloody handle, withdrew it from his body in a single slow movement. Finally, the tip was revealed. Buchan grimaced as it emerged, but showed no other reaction, as if he’d suffered nothing more than a random scratch, and that this was all perfectly normal. Even the steady pulse of dark blood from the open wound didn’t seem to concern him. And tossing the knife onto the floor at his feet he looked across at the Basque, the same stone-cold look in his eye, a tight grin forming on his blood-streaked face. The Basque took another step back, then another, almost stumbling in his hurry to escape. He was too slow. Buchan had already launched himself in a flying tackle and the rest occurred so fast that neither man really knew it was happening. There was a brief struggle involving fists and a lot of blunt force trauma. Still severely concussed and with his throat clogged with blood, the Basque put up some resistance, but it was mostly of the token variety, as though he was resigned to his fate. Even in his much-weakened state, Buchan knew how to deal with it and did. Then there was a short, strangled cry. This was closely followed by a loud crack, and when it was all over Buchan was the only one left standing.

Four hours after his visit to the churchyard, Buchan sat alone at a small table in the relatively empty bar of the Dover-to-Dunkirk ferry. One hour of the two-hour crossing was complete and he was nursing a pint of bitter that was less than half full. He wore a black Belstaff biker’s jacket, unzipped to the waist, black jeans and black boots, and a copy of that day’s Daily Telegraph lay folded on the tabletop next to him. Its cryptic crossword puzzle had been neatly completed in black ink, and down below, in the ferry’s car deck, his new motorbike was parked amongst the other vehicles, its twin leather panniers packed with all his worldly belongings. He looked different these days. The intense, two-year-long training course had taken an inevitable toll, removing any last vestiges of the sparkly-eyed, fresh-faced innocence of his youth. In his current iteration he looked older, more grizzled, leaner and a good deal meaner. There were also a few new scars, some of them visible, that stood in mute testament to the rigors he’d undergone, so that he that he now bore little resemblance to the man that had been recruited in the aftermath of the incident in Strabane. Indeed, the original plan to have him undergo plastic surgery to hide his identity had been quietly shelved about halfway through the course. Quite simply, his physical appearance had changed so much that even some of his close relatives would have been hard-pressed to recognize him, and as a result the procedure was deemed to be no longer necessary. Other, less apparent, changes had also taken place. He had, for example, become stronger, faster, more wary, more suspicious, more cunning and altogether more ruthless. Indeed, he’d developed a positively feral instinct for survival that, together with a steadfast resolve to overcome even the most insane and impossible challenges, had shocked and impressed both him and the few people that had happened to witness it first-hand. Added to this, his mind was sharper and more capable than it had been. His English vocabulary had improved by orders of magnitude, and amongst other skills, he’d acquired the ability to speak three new languages to an advanced level, transmit a message in Morse code at a rate of twenty words a minute, pick sophisticated locks, make, plant and detonate a variety of bombs, and complete cryptic crossword puzzles with the apparent ease of a professor of English at one of the Oxbridge colleges. Buchan took another sip from the glass in front of him, the room around him listing slightly. The horizon through the salt-stained windows heaved out of sight momentarily, something that had more to do with the conditions outside rather than the amount he’d consumed. Or so he hoped. Either way, it was the first real drink he’d had in a very long time and the alcohol had gone straight to his head. His temples were humming quietly, and he’d just about reached the point where the hard edges of the surrounding world had softened and blurred, becoming a little bit more bearable in the process. Despite this, he felt a maudlin streak stir uneasily within him. He tried to shrug it off but couldn’t stop the misgivings that cascaded over him then. Suddenly, he felt a desperate urge to return to the past, before all this had started, to a much simpler time when he’d been a happy-go-lucky, rugby-playing junior officer called Charlie Hook, a young man with an eye for the girls and his whole life ahead of him. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Charlie Hook was dead. He’d been killed and wouldn’t be coming back. And now, he, Buchan, had taken his place.

But for how long? he wondered. He didn’t know the answer to that. No one did. But given that ‘the field’ in which he’d now be operating was really just shorthand for ‘the battlefield’, and given that the world he was about to enter was a brutal one, cruel and unforgiving, with no mercy shown, and given that he’d be going up against some of the meanest, hardest bastards on the planet, and given that an Axeman’s life expectancy was measured in missions, and given that many of them never even made it into double figures, and given that that he’d signed up for the duration... Well, he didn’t need a bookie or statistician with a spreadsheet and a calculator to know that there were no good outcomes. Not in the long run. Nor was there much chance of him ever getting married, having children, and all that. Not for him the patter of tiny feet, eating Sunday lunches together, school runs, family holidays or opening presents under the Christmas tree, and a part of him told him to get out now, while he still had the chance. He reached for his lighter and his cigarettes and lit one. He didn’t like the taste of it. It tasted as sour as his mood and feeling suddenly nauseous he stubbed it out. He needed some air, he decided, and abandoning the beer he made his way from the bar out onto the main deck.

There, he was immediately buffeted by strong winds. Clean, cold and salty, they whipped his hair into a tangle and tore at his clothes, passing right through his body as though he was a ghost. The experience was nothing if not refreshing, and pulling the zipper on his jacket up, he brushed the hair from his face and staggered across to the ship’s outer guardrail. He looked out over the grey-green sea. A millpond it wasn’t. Lashed by the strong winds, it had been turned into a confused and restless mass of white horses. The color of crushed chalk, these marched in serried ranks and in battalion strength across the surface, as though mounting an endless assault on the ferry’s broadside. Squinting into the wind, Buchan looked along the guardrail to the ferry’s destination. The dunes of Dunkirk could just be seen through a milky white froth, as could the low, grey buildings, towers and spires that made up the little Flemish seaport. It looked utterly unremarkable, a little ugly even, and gave no sign of the epic, somewhat heroic role it had played in the opening stages of the last world war, when almost 350,00 of the British Expeditionary Force were trapped on its beaches for nine long days, all without any cover whatsoever and at the mercy of the rampant German war machine throughout. A more target rich environment was hard to imagine, and Buchan tried to envisage the place as it had been back then... The great columns of smoke rising from the rooftops. The Stuka dive bombers delivering death from above with their sadistic, ear-piercing, spine-chilling wails. The Hurricanes and the Spitfires that hurried onto the scene to engage them. The sky blotched and smudged, seemingly at random, with the airbursts of ack-ack guns. The sinking ships packed tight with panicked troops. The screams of the wounded and dying. The stench of burnt flesh, gun-smoke and blood. The steady, deadly, rhythmic pom-pompom of 20mm and 40mm automatic cannons as they ejected long streams of brass casings onto the steel decks. The countless, endlessly-long, snaking lines of barely moving men stretching over the vast expanse of sand, waiting with a self-discipline and patience that strained credibility for their chance of evacuation. The hundreds of warships, ferries, tugboats, fishing vessels, yachts, and pleasure craft filling the waters around him, many of which were crewed by civilians who’d never even been to sea before, let alone under fire, waiting with equal patience for a chance to do their bit... Since those dark days the town had, of course, become famous, a byword for coolness under fire, for stoicism and fortitude when times are tough, and for the way apparent defeat can be turned into stunning victory. And a quote from TS Eliot that he’d once taken the time to memorize came to him then. ‘We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successor’s victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph’. That seemed to sum things up fairly well, he thought, and he looked past Dunkirk to a place that he knew lay another thirty miles beyond. It was another small Flemish town that had played an outsized role in British and world history. Ypres. The place that was to be his home from now on. He’d never been there before, never really thought about it very much, and he wondered what it was like. He’d find out soon enough, he told himself. Then, once he’d settled in, it would just be a matter of waiting to hear the details of his first target. There was a strong rumor it involved an Israeli arms dealer, and that the hit would take place in Macau... He reached for another cigarette. Then, cupping his face with his large hands, he flicked the lid off the lighter and spun the flint with his thumb. Thanks to some judicious timing and a little luck, the tobacco caught fire. He sucked on it hungrily, as though his life somehow depended on it, and inhaled deeply. For some reason, this one tasted just fine, and he exhaled down through his nose, his nostrils flaring slightly as the smoke disappeared sideways with the wind. There were moments in a man’s life that come to define him, Buchan reflected solemnly. He instinctively knew that this was one of them. The thought of backing out now after all he’d been through was the very definition of unthinkable. And feeling his heart start to beat alittle faster, he also knew he would take the job in Macau, and God help anyone that got in his way.

CHAPTER V Buchan managed to stagger a few paces before slumping to the floor, barely conscious. Time seemed to have slowed, almost to a halt. In the distance, he could hear a helicopter’s engines and the roar of the ever-encroaching storm, but somehow those things didn’t seem so important now. Blood flowed freely from his wounds, all color had drained from his face, his shoulders sagged ominously and his body could have been a corpse but for the eyes. They blinked open and seemed to be staring at some faraway point, as though trying to understand something of great significance. Somewhere, deep within them, a tiny flame flickered and flared, and that’s when he remembered the girl. And O’Neill. And the canister... Unfinished business. In that moment, an eerie clarity filled his mind. Now was a time to get tough or die, he realized. It was as simple as that. Either he pulled himself together, got back on his feet and took the fight to the enemy. Or he took the easy way out and stayed where he was and let the blood flow from his wounds, knowing that before long all the pain would be gone, and all his problems would finally be over. Almost immediately, a small, exquisitely gentle, coaxing, almost feminine voice appeared inside his head. It told him to stay down; told him to take it easy; told him to rest. It told him that failure was acceptable and all but unavoidable. It told told him that it was okay to quit, that some challenges were just too great for any one man to overcome, and that he might as well embrace his fate. It told him that an individual human life meant nothing; that hundreds of thousands of people died every day and that this was as good a time to die as any. It told him that he had evolved from nothing more than amoebas, plankton and apes to live on the fragile crust of a hostile, unforgiving and wholly insignificant speck of dirt, floating in a fathomless void amidst a million billion other hostile, unforgiving and wholly insignificant specks of dirt. It told him that the universe was too complex and vast for one individual to ever make a difference; that the world would carry on just fine without him, that it wouldn’t even notice his absence. It told him that all human life was temporary, that it was an unequal struggle that everyone was doomed to lose; and that his death was inevitable no matter what he did now. It told him that all his desires and ambitions and beliefs were nothing more than absurd conceits; that, in the great scheme of things, his existence was no more significant or meaningful than that of a bug, a grain of sand or a snowflake drifting in the wind. It told him that everything was relative; that there was no such thing as good or evil, no right and no wrong, and that nothing really mattered very much anyway, and that very few things mattered at all... Then another voice chimed in, louder than the first. It said, Bollocks to all that! It was shouting at him. Screaming. Yelling all kinds of vile abuse mixed and vulgar expletives with hard truths, the way his many instructors once had; first during his days in the military, then at the Mill. In no uncertain terms, it told him that pain didn’t matter, that bullets didn’t matter, that wounds didn’t matter, that exhaustion didn’t matter. It told him that to stay down was to lose; to die;

to become extinct; that survival was the only thing that really counted in the long run, whether of the individual or the kind. It told him that that was the only morality of any consequence - that it was the ultimate morality - and that it required no excuses, no explanation, no apology, and no guilt. It told him that the bad guys still had the girl; and that she didn’t deserve her likely fate and that only the worst kind of bastard would abandon her now, wounds or no wounds. It told him that he still had his mission to complete; that the destiny of the world hung in the balance and that everything depended on what he did in the next few minutes; that he might as well make the most of them and go out like a soldier, standing up with some kind of weapon in his hand. It told him to keep fighting, no matter what. It told him that he was a progeny of violence; that fighting was in his blood, that it was in his DNA, that he was hard-wired for shit like this. It told him that fighting to the death against overwhelming odds was a matter of identity as well as principle; that it was an article of faith in his book, virtually a religion. It told him that he was one of the lucky ones; that death came to every man, but the chance for glory only to a few; that it beat old age, disease or senility, and that he should be grateful, honored even, to have such a chance. It told him that he came from a long line of men and women who had faced challenges far

worse than this and had never given up or given in. It told him that in large part they had suffered for his sake, suffered so that he could be born free and enjoy a relatively civilized existence in a relatively civilized world. And that while the debt he owed them could never be repaid, they lived on through him and that he’d be damned forever if he let them down now... For a long moment, he felt the two voices struggle for supremacy within him, and very gradually the latter one prevailed. The decision had been made. If he was going to die, then it might as well be the hard way, and in the next few seconds a change came over his face, a kind of hardening that tightened the lines around his features. His nerveless, grey eyes narrowed suddenly, glinting as though lit by a fire somewhere deep within his skull, and his mouth set itself in a thin, hard line. Then the training took over, endless agonizing years of it, and in the next moment he did something he didn’t think possible: he began to crawl. At first, his limbs were like alien things far beyond his control. But, slowly, as if by a supreme act of will, they slowly began to respond as one, and without really realizing it he started to climb the stairs, one step at a time, each like a major peak in a massive mountain range. He had no concept of how long it took him to reach the main deck, but when he did the helicopter was still there. Its giant rotors were revolving slowly, slicing huge ponderous circles through the heavy air as its equally massive turbines whined in anticipation of its imminent departure for parts unknown. To the left, on the edge of the landing pad, he could now see an enormous, metallic canister lying horizontally on the deck. About the size of a sea container, it was being secured to the deck by two men using chains, and Buchan was weighing his limited options when O’Neill emerged from the aircraft’s cargo bay dragging Cari behind him. Suppressing a sudden, strong urge to protect her, he forced them from his mind and looked back at the Halo. The flight crew was signaling for the few remaining sentries to board. They high-fived each other as they did so, knowing their mission was all but complete. The thought left Buchan feeling nauseous, and he was wondering how he could change that when the resonant baritone voice of a wiry little Welsh Chief Petty Officer came back to him. ‘All you have is all you need, boyo,’ it said simply, ‘and that’s what you use.’ His face became a frozen mask of concentration, and it was then that one of the many ‘No Smoking’ signs on the surrounding walls gave him an idea. Reaching for his trusty Zippo, he pulled it from his pocket, and with vague memories of Vicky and a small Frenchstyle café in Strabane flitting through his mind, he tore the lid off at the hinge and looked around for something to set fire to. Due to the extent of the damage, he was spoilt for choice, and he flicked the little wheel with a blood-soaked thumb. Lacking any grip, it slipped the first time, and the second. Then there was a shower of tiny sparks and the wick burst into life. Mounting panic gave way to a relief so great he could have wept and wasting no more time Buchan sent the lighter skidding towards a puddle of spilled aviation fuel. This ignited instantaneously and a vapor-thin blue flame spread quickly over the oily surface, rapidly engulfing the whole area in flames and a thick black greasy smoke. The chain of explosions started almost at once. Then there were distant screams and Buchan watched as two men ran through the resulting blaze, their arms held out by their sides, their clothes alight. One of them stumbled awkwardly for a few seconds, as though in slow motion, before dropping silently to the deck. The other managed to reach the edge of the platform and was still screaming when he launched himself over the side. The smoke gave Buchan plenty of cover, and he was staggering towards the canister when the wind changed direction suddenly and he made out O’Neill’s figure through the thick haze. The Irishman was armed with a sub-machine gun and, using Cari as a shield, he fired a three-shot burst. Buchan dived for the cover of some exposed tubing. The bullets all missed by the narrowest of margins, and he rolled into a crouch. He looked back at the canister. He was closer now and could clearly see a large valve at one end and, next to that, a digital clock counting the seconds down to zero. He watched helplessly as it passed the three-minute barrier and glanced back at the eyewall. Its distance from the rig had more than halved since his arrival and he was searching for some sort of weapon when he saw a two-foot fire axe fixed to a nearby wall. Reaching for it with a bloody fist, he snatched it from its bracket, hefting it for a moment in his hand. It was a primitive weapon, by any measure, but it would do, and without bothering to weigh up the risks - he knew he was a dead man whatever happened next - he stepped back into O’Neill’s view.

The Irishman eyed Buchan coolly, his obvious curiosity matched by an equally obvious contempt. “Come to bury the hatchet, have we now?” asked the Irishman at last. Feeling like some decrepit old carthorse being given a last, cursory inspection before being dispatched to the knacker’s yard, Buchan didn’t respond. Instead, he took a couple of unsteady steps forward in an attempt to close the gap between them. “Yeah, well that’s far enough,” added O’Neill. Buchan stopped. He knew the end would come any second now, and though outwardly calm, his mind was working at warp speed. He needed a distraction, and knowing he had no choice, he decided to play for time and hope for the best. “Let the girl go, O’Neill,” he said, his voice a low growl. “This is between you and me. Let’s finish it without her.” O’Neill laughed. “Sorry, Buchan. I’ve never believed in giving a sucker an even break, and I’m definitely not going to start with you - not now that I know who you are. You've caused me more than enough trouble already. It’s time you paid the price.” “That’s my line,” said Buchan, tightening his fingers around the axe's grip. “You’re the bad guy, remember. I’m the good guy. We always get to win.” O’Neill laughed again. “Not anymore. You're talking about the old days, or haven’t you heard? This is the beginning of a new century, a new era, and the future has already been written. The bad guys are back and we’re on a winning streak. Nothing can stop us this time. Not once that gas gets in those clouds.” “Let her go,” repeated Buchan solemnly. The Irishman grinned. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you, Mister Buchan? Normally, I like that in a man, but you’ve taken things too far this time and I’ve got a flight to catch. So, if you don’t mind, I'll keep it brief.” Raising the gun with deliberate precision, he aimed it directly at Buchan’s chest and was about to squeeze the trigger when Del Aguila appeared through the smoke, his body covered with burns and open wounds that should have killed him long ago. He had a weapon in his hand but was struggling with his aim, and everyone froze. Then O’Neill swung the gun onto the Mexican, Cari broke free, and Buchan got the chance he’d been waiting for. The axe whipped from his grip, spinning once before the razor edge embedded itself deep in the Irishman’s right shoulder. Dropping the gun, the Irishman remained standing, his hands now clutching at the axe itself in an attempt to pry it loose. The attempt was to prove futile; the blade remained stubbornly in place until Buchan stepped forward and yanked it free. A second later it flashed upwards, swiftly and savagely. It intercepted O’Neill’s neck just below the jawline and didn’t stop until it emerged on the other side. But there was no time to savor the moment. Before O'Neill's head had even hit the floor, Buchan had turned his attention to the clock. There were just seven seconds left when he used the last of his failing strength to bury the axe deep into its face. Instantly the mechanism froze, and barely able to stand now he shuffled over to Cari’s side. Del Aguila was clearly dead, his body a lifeless, bloody mess, and she was in the process of laying his arms across his chest. Buchan saw tears threatening in her eyes, but she blinked them away, and knowing there were no words or anything he could do to lessen the pain, he put a protective arm around her shoulders and helped her to her feet. “Let’s go,” he said simply. His eyes scanned the chaotic scene around him. It looked like something from a Viking funeral, which was nothing less than the drug lord deserved, and hoping it wouldn't prove to be theirs as well he searched for a means to escape the growing inferno. The only lifeboat he could see was already engulfed in flames. It wasn’t going to save anybody, and he was searching for an alternative when the rig was rocked by a

series of muffled blasts. The entire platform creaked,

shuddered, and groaned, then tilted sharply, sickeningly sideways. This triggered another set of unseen explosions deep within the structure itself. The scream of steel on steel filled the air, like a great keening wail of pain, as gravity and the rig’s gargantuan weight began to show their hand. Girders and bolts, designed never to break or buckle, suddenly did. Giant hawsers snapped, whip-cracking their way through gas pipes whose spilled contents added fuel to the already immense fire, and then the derrick itself started to tremble and tilt.

For a moment, Buchan just stood there, his mind paralyzed by indecision, his body frozen to the spot. He found he couldn’t speak, couldn't even think, and it wasn’t until a swinging six-ton travelling block narrowly missed his head that he finally reacted. Grabbing Cari by the hand, he dragged her bodily towards the side of the rig, charging through a surging tide of blue and orange flames as more blasts consumed the structure around them. A massive pressure wave carried them clear of the edge and then they were falling towards the frothing water, about a hundred feet below. They hit it a few seconds later. The impact was colossal, and Buchan was still half-stunned when he finally resurfaced between patches of burning oil and thick black smoke. Wearily, he trod water as he searched the rig for signs of the Halo. There was nothing to suggest it had survived the conflagration and he was turning away when it gradually emerged from the black smoke, its undercarriage fully ablaze. It soon started to spin out of control, and he watched in silence as it began a long sideways drift towards the eyewall. Then it was gone; nothing but a grey-orange blur disintegrating sideways in the high winds. Turning his attention to his own survival, Buchan understood that if he didn’t receive medical attention within a few minutes, he’d die, and given that the

nearest hospital was hundreds of miles away and he was in the middle of a massive hurricane, he didn’t rate his chances. He’d dared to take on the gods, and now, in the time-honored fashion, the inevitable price had to be paid. After so many years of prevarication and hesitation, they had finally come for him. And while a part of him was resigned to his fate, another part felt cheated at having endured so much and survived so long, just to be killed off at the end of the closing act. He consoled himself with the fact that he’d lasted longer than he ever thought possible. He only wished Cari didn’t have to share his fate... He caught a fleeting glimpse of her through the smoke. She was clinging to a piece of floating debris a few yards away. She looked exhausted but otherwise okay, and he tried to swim over to her. It was no good. The waves were too high, the current too strong. With each feeble stroke he grew weaker, more exhausted. Instead of getting closer, she seemed to be receding. He was out of his depth in more ways than one, and it wasn ‘t long before he gave up the struggle. Gradually, he began to sink below the surface, swallowing water as he did so. Then, little by little, piece by piece, the various parts of his brain began to shut down, and a strange calm settled over him. He knew he was dying, only it didn ’ t seem to matter very much, and within moments his unconscious body had disappeared into the dark, welcoming depths below.

EPILOGUE With his left arm in a sling, Buchan splashed the sleep from his eyes and checked his face in the bathroom mirror. It was still a ghastly mess and he examined the numerous surgical dressings that still covered his body. Satisfied they didn’t need changing he wrapped a towel around his waist and walked through the bedroom out onto the balcony. The sun was high and bright; the sky perfectly clear; and an intermittent breeze helped to keep the heat within the bounds of comfort, for the time being at least. He stretched cautiously, wary of his wounds. The sun felt good on his bare skin, and he looked out over the pale green sea. Cari was just visible in the distance, her head bobbing between the gentle swells, and he sat down at the table. Her laptop was lying open, and he accessed the Telegraph on the Internet. Then, putting a cigarette to his lips, he reached for a brass Zippo he’d bought in the town to replace the old one. He flicked the lid off and spun the wheel with his thumb. A dancing orange flame appeared. He touched the tip of the cigarette with it, enjoying the sensation as the nicotine flooded his being. For a moment, his head was wreathed in a thin cloud of cool, blue smoke, like something ghostly half-hidden in a mist, then it emerged, and he leaned back in the chair, a relaxed, pensive look on his face.

It had been two weeks since the events in the eye of the hurricane and he recalled them now, up to and including his last moments in the storm-tossed waters beside the rig, his body sinking down into the depths; and how, in those final seconds he’ d felt an enormous sense of release, of absolution. Of course, that should have been the end of things, but it wasn’t, and he vaguely recalled being hauled from the sea by a team of Del Aguila’ s men in a rigid-hull inflatable. They‘ d swiftly transferred him to one of two submarines that had been sent by the drug lord to their rescue, and he wasn ‘t to regain consciousness until he came out of surgery deep beneath the waves some five and a half hours later. He’d been unaware of almost all of this until he came around once and for all in the ICU of one of Mérida’s top hospitals after a brutal life-and-death struggle lasting almost three days. There, his condition had improved steadily, and he’d finally been released a weak later after a couple of minor operations. At that point, he’d been some twenty pounds lighter and as weak as a kitten, something Cari had been quick to rectify with an endless procession of slap-up meals, none of which had left anything to be desired. He was also off the morphine and sleeping through the night again. Now all that remained was a return trip to the hospital so that a bunch of stitches could be removed, and an appointment with an orthodontist probably wouldn’t go amiss either. One thing he’d learned from the ordeal was that the only hurricanes he ever wanted to see from now on were the winged ones with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines; the ones made by Hawker Siddeley that you saw in old war films or at air shows; and puffing on the cigarette, he let slip a slow grin. Looking back at the computer, he checked for news of Hannah among the headlines. She’d finally blown herself out over the Midwest. There’d been some substantial damage and a handful of deaths, but nothing as bad as had been feared and she'd soon be forgotten. The crisis had been averted, but only for the time being. He knew that the bad guys hadn’t gone away; Cochrane had put him straight on that score. Yeats’s ‘gyre’ was being stretched to breaking point yet again; things were falling apart, and the centre wouldn't hold for much longer. But he also remembered his words to Control about the British being past masters at seeing the light in time, and, in his bones, he knew he was right. An almighty backlash was inevitable, and he knew that the takedown, when it finally came, would be epic. But for that to happen, he reflected now, a whole new generation of warriors - anew Old Breed - would be needed to fill the ranks of those that had gone before. Strong, competent, cool-headed men who understood the scale of the threat they faced and were prepared to meet it head-on, no matter what the cost. Men of discipline and courage who were prepared to forgo the comforts, conveniences, and luxuries of the modern world for a while and cast off the taboos and selfimposed limitations that such a world usually demanded. Men who were prepared to roll up their sleeves and do the hard grafting and dirty work that were

needed if Western civilization was to survive. Men like those that had fought and died at Ypres; men like Mitchell and Wyatt and, in his own way, Del Aguila. That such men still existed, he knew without doubt. Their numbers were few, the hour late and the challenge immense, but he knew those things wouldn’t change the final outcome. They would just make the odds more interesting and the victory that much sweeter. The age of tolerance, the age of playing by the rules, of stepping aside, bending over and backing down was over. The gloves were coming off, and if the bad guys wanted a war, he was pretty sure they’d get it, good and hard, just like they did in the old days. He would do his bit, of course. He still had a few good years left in him, and now that he knew that the Secret Intelligence Service had played a key role in Vicky’s death, he had a new grudge to settle, anew enemy in his sights, a new target to take down. He grinned a sour grin as he conjured with the possibilities... MI11 versus MI6... Buchan versus Bond... Fancy gadgets, fancy clothes, fancy cocktails and fancy cars versus good old-fashioned guns, grit and guts. He had to admit, it had a nice ring to it, and in his mind’s eye he could almost see the blockbuster film that might follow. It was the kind of film he’d pay good money to see, and drawing on the cigarette, he grinned again. First, though, he’d already resolved that he was going to take a break, get the rest of his life back on track, and gradually his thoughts turned to Cari. She had recovered well from the loss of her father, her grief tempered by the fact that he’d died with his boots on, the way he would have wanted, saving both of their lives in the process. Despite his vast criminal legacy, Buchan found it hard not to admire the man, and would be forever grateful for the role he’d played during the final hours of his final mission. He didn’t know if there was such thing as an afterlife, but if there was, he hoped the drug lord was up there somewhere enjoying a Latin version of Valhalla, seated well above the salt. And speaking of salt, Buchan imagined him drinking tequila instead of mead, with mariachis playing in the background as he flirted with pretty, young, brown-eyed Valkyries. It had, inevitably and understandably, taken Cari a few days to come to terms with all that had happened, days when she had kept to herself for the most part and been hard to reach. There’d been a few tears, of course, but that was to be expected, and since then things had returned to normal, their relationship quickly resuming its previous intensity. Overall, she seemed to have slipped seamlessly into his life, the way Vicky once had, and he wondered whether Vicky would have approved of her. He liked to think so. They shared many characteristics, including all of the important ones and, in some respects, it was hard to tell them apart. One thing was for sure. She was a class act - the kind you missed at your peril, and he found himself considering the possibility of a long-term relationship, maybe even marriage. He had to acknowledge the prospect wasn’t inconceivable. She had no obvious faults he could think of. Her face was as pretty as he could possibly want it to be, her body, outstanding and likely to age well. She was intelligent and inquisitive and, although considerably younger than he was, she was mature beyond her years without being stuffy or boring about it. She was also a survivor. She had guts. She’d known hardship and violence but had taken the knocks well. And, no, he decided after careful reflection, she wasn’t the kind to slow him down or haul him over hot coals for minor misdemeanors. On the

contrary she was more likely to free him from some of the more restrictive conventions that had been the hallmarks of his life. Money wouldn't be a problem either. He had his savings and his pension, and as the sole heir to her father’ s fortune - which, it turned out, was considerably larger than Natasha's estimate - Cari wasn’t exactly broke; and it occurred to him that they could live in Mexico. Before this mission, he‘ d shared the commonly held, clichéd view of Mexico that he’ d got from movies and the mass media, seeing it as a fairly backward country, characterized by afternoon siestas, dusty streets, drunken tourists, donkeys pulling wooden carts, hairless dogs, hairy women and Montezuma’s oh-so-sweet Revenge. But the place was a lot more charming and sophisticated than that, he’d learned, and not without its merits. The cigarettes and beer were cheap, the food good, and the weather wasn’t bad if you liked it hot and sunny all year round... Maybe he and Cari could buy an old hacienda and restore it? he thought. He grinned. He liked the idea. He liked it a lot. And turning his attention back to the computer, he downloaded the crossword puzzle and looked back at the beach. Cari was rising naked from the surf, the water dripping from her soft even-flowing

curves. It gleamed like oil in the sunlight, and he watched as she pulled on a white towel robe, tying it loosely at the waist before making her way up to where he was sitting. “So, how’s the wounded soldier feeling today?” she asked as she finally reached him. “Not bad,” replied Buchan. For once, he reflected, it was the truth. “How about you?” “Not bad... not bad...” She looked over his shoulder at the laptop's screen. “A crossword puzzle,” she said. “How very British.” “I suppose so. It’s something of an old habit, I’m afraid.” Cari read out one of the clues at random. “Nine across. ‘Not done!’ Two, two, nine.” She played with the words for a moment; then shrugged. “Rather you than me,” she said with a smile. “I’ll stick to my hieroglyphs. They look easy by comparison.” She made her way back towards the bedroom, turning as she reached the door. “I’m going to take a shower. Give me a few minutes, then we’ll have some coffee.” With a flash of inner thigh, she was gone, and moments later Buchan heard her squeal under a jet of cold water. He laughed at the sound and, turning his attention back at the crossword, he reread ‘nine across’. “Not done!” he repeated to himself. “Two, two, nine...”

The phrase, ‘To be continued’ emerged in his mind, and taking a long last drag on the cigarette, he exhaled the smoke in a long cool stream, and checked the next clue.

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