Act of Vengeance Read online

  After Lewin’s breakdown, Jack met him to debrief him and assess his case, and concluded his was the clearest example of post-traumatic stress he had seen. Lewin had left England as an athletic thirty-one year-old in 2002, and returned three years later a shattered husk. He smoked constantly, shivered, and had lost the ability to concentrate. The language skills he had once possessed were gone, as though his mind was sub-consciously shutting off the one resource that made him attractive to the Service.

  ‘The Service treated him shabbily,’ Jack said.

  ‘No need to be prim, Jacky. Human Resources did what they had to.’

  ‘They dumped him, poor bastard.’

  ‘He went potty, Jacky, you know that. Started seeing al-Qaeda under his bed. With our budgets we can’t nursemaid tired-out officers.’

  ‘After all he went through, it’s not surprising he was knackered.’

  ‘Others had similar experiences.’

  ‘You think so? Maybe he wasn’t so brainwashed as them, then?’

  ‘No one was brainwashed, Jacky. He had a job to do, and he couldn’t cope.’

  The footpath led along the side of the river, the sound of traffic lost in the roar of the water. Jack looked over at the dogs. One was standing at the water’s edge eating grass, while the other, tail madly wagging, was darting in and out of a patch of dead ferns and brambles nearby. In his mind, he could see Danny Lewin, a gaunt six feet two inches, with sunken eyes and cheeks. He looked older than Jack himself, and there was an unhealthy glimmer in his eyes.

  It was 2005 when Jack had met him in a ground floor briefing room in Vauxhall Cross, the gleaming new centre for the British Secret Service. It had pale green walls, a harsh bottle green carpet, and an incongruous beech desk with metal-framed chairs opposite each other. Dan Lewin had sat huddled, as though feeling the cold, a cigarette gripped like a talisman, one hand cupping the other, his ciggy protruding like a gun.

  ‘I can’t go back,’ he said in a rasping hiss. ‘It’d kill me.’

  Jack had believed him. As he left the room he was enveloped in a claustrophobic self-hatred that wouldn’t leave him until he got home and stood under his shower, as if water could wash away the horror. Danny had an intense self-loathing that others could feel. His revulsion at his work had turned inwards. He didn’t blame others for his orders, or even politicians for taking him to war; he blamed himself for being weak. If he’d been stronger, he would have refused to collude.

  ‘What is it?’ Jack had asked at one point. ‘Don’t you like the work?’

  It was a question he had asked many others, but the implied cowardice didn’t bother Lewin.

  He sat up, both his hand and cigarette shook with anger, and when he spoke his voice was low and ferocious. ‘You think I’m some prick who whines when things go wrong? You think I volunteered because I was too thick to realise what it’d be like? You sit here in your cushy job and look down on me? I tell you, if there was a guaranteed terrorist, I’d rip his fingernails out one by one if it’d help catch his mates before they could blow up bloody London. Fuck you! I just don’t like what I’ve become – a killer myself! They were innocent, almost all of them. I wanted to help the war effort, not create victims to motivate martyrs!’

  It was that which told Jack he was worthless. Lewin was confused; he couldn’t rationally discuss his concerns. He wanted certainty of guilt before he would work on his victims. That wasn’t how it went. They were brought to him with the presumption of guilt, and it was Lewin’s task to force their confessions. But the poor bastard got so confused, he’d killed himself. Pathetic. The ultimate cowardice.

  *

  ‘What’s it got to do with me?’ Jack asked.

  Paul Starck drew on his cigarette and stared at the stub with distaste. ‘Really should give up. You know how much these little death sticks cost? Bloody silly habit. If it wasn’t for the duty free allowances and foreign agents who don’t smoke, I’d stop like a shot.’

  ‘You heard me,’ Jack said.

  He kept his eyes on the dogs, not Starck. Long ago, he had learned that it was easier to hear a lie when you didn’t watch body language. With professionals, it was too easy to be fooled by a gesture or a twitch. They were trained in deceit.

  ‘It’s possible he left a journal.’

  ‘Send someone to clean up.’

  ‘We need a real scavenger, Jack. One who can search through the man’s life. You knew him; you would be better than some young whippersnapper. No matter how keen, these youngsters…’

  ‘I’m out.’

  ‘Well, no, actually. You’re on your way, of course, but you’re not out yet. You’re on gardening leave, old cock – on the payroll. Still an embarrassment, of course. No one really knows what to do with you. Can’t put you in a court for murder, of course, not a fellow like you – that could be even more embarrassing. So we were leaving you to fade away quietly. Case not proven, as the Scottish would say. This little affair in Alaska could end your career with a high. But if you want to leave sooner...’ Paul added mildly.

  Yes, he spoke mildly, but Jack could hear the edge. This was a genuine threat. His pay-off was at risk, maybe his pension too. No one would speak up for him. They all thought he had killed a fellow officer, but there was no proof. They couldn’t kick him out, they couldn’t throw him in gaol, so here he was, a year later, still in limbo –

  untrusted, disliked, but still being paid. But refuse a job, and he’d be out in moments. HR would be delighted to see him off their books.

  ‘You can use one of the others, can’t you? What of Broughton’s Bullies?’

  ‘Stevie Broughton’s fallen under a bit of a cloud recently. His lads have been growing a little over-enthusiastic. They lost a couple of men they were trying to catch. Shootings in rural Surrey don’t go down well with the rozzers; they think they have a monopoly on killing the public. It’s all a little embarrassing. There were several names thrown into the hat, but yours was top. You have experience. And you did meet the fellow. It’s felt you’d understand him better, with your background.’

  ‘I met him for one hour-and-a-half meeting seven years ago, Paul. You know that, you’ve looked at the files. I’ve got nothing to do with him. Why me?’

  Starck sighed.

  ‘He’s been running wild. We had to hush up a nasty incident last year when he was caught trying to buy a pistol. Would’ve been when you were down here. With Claire, I mean. Took a lot to keep it quiet, the bloody fool. The rozzers nobbled him immediately, of course.’

  ‘What did he want with a gun?’ Jack didn’t need to ask. He could guess: the pressing guilt of torture committed against the innocent. A gun would be an easy way out.

  Starck’s answer surprised him.

  ‘He was convinced he was going to be killed – thought the Taliban were coming to get him, or al-Qaeda, or the bloody Women’s Institute. Christ knows what. He’d applied to us, but he wasn’t on the payroll so we couldn’t oblige. Pistols aren’t allowed for the general public. Toys like that are for us alone.’

  There was a sharpness to his tone that spoke of regret. It was rare for Paul Starck to show sympathy for operatives: he tended to the view that the brighter ones would soon ensure that they were promoted out of the field, while those who stayed there deserved all they got. Still, even Starck would have realised that a man like Dan Lewin deserved better treatment. If the Service treated the genuinely unwell shabbily, it wouldn’t bear thinking about how it would treat older officers like Starck. And there were plenty of applicants for all jobs now. The Service had grown popular since 7/7.

  ‘You told the police, though? About his PTS?’

  Starck was silent, considering his reply.

  ‘You did tell them he’d been in Iraq? The sort of work he was involved with?’

  ‘We had no authority. You know how it is, Jack. Deniability. And thank God for it. Can you imagine the fuss if it got out that he’d been an interrogator in Iraq and Diego Garcia? God, the papers
would have had a field day!’

  Jack stopped. The dogs were a distance away in amongst the ferns at the foot of the cliff, and the water here was louder as it rushed along a narrow channel of granite washed into smooth shelves.

  ‘You left him in the cold?’

  ‘What else could we do? He was certifiable, just about. We nearly had him sectioned.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘He saved us the trouble.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘He didn’t top himself here, Jacky. He took himself off to America to do it. Got a one-way ticket to Alaska, to some dreadful sounding place in the middle of nowhere, and blew his brains all over the ceiling. We would like you to go and do your job.’

  ‘The police’ll have been all over the place by now, won’t they? And the FBI, since he’s a Brit.’

  ‘Yes. But there have been no repercussions yet. No Feebies, only the local fellows, and you know what they’ll be like in Hicksville-by-the-Sea. So you are to fly out there under cover of being his lawyer, and find anything you can about this blasted journal. We can’t have things like that lying about.’

  ‘What was this “journal”?’ Jack was walking again.

  Paul Starck muttered something under his breath, lighting a fresh cigarette. ‘Wait a minute, for God’s sake!’

  ‘What was in it, Paul?’

  Paul Starck flipped his Zippo shut again and blew out a long feather of smoke that was snatched away by a short gust of wind.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You’re activating an old git the Service wants rid of, you’re flying me halfway round the world, and you’re risking embarrassment. For what?’

  ‘Oh, there’s no risk there,’ Paul said.

  He smiled, showing grey teeth, two fingers stabbing towards Jack with the cigarette held tight between them. ‘You won’t embarrass us, because that would risk your future. You understand that? Any problems, any cock-ups, and your financial security will be as rosy as a coal miner’s in Nottingham. Yes? Voom – gone.’

  It was tempting to push him. A shove, and Starck could topple into the river so easily. An accident, one of thousands over the years. So many men had died in little rivers like this. For a moment Jack could almost feel his hands thrusting against Paul Starck’s soft woollen jacket, the expression of horror on his face as he felt himself tumbling into the freezing water…

  ‘What did he have, Paul? What’s in the journal?’

  Starck turned away.

  ‘He was seeing a shrink after his arrest and the fucking cretin told Lewin to note his experiences to help his recovery. All Lewin’s memoirs of his time in Iraq and Afghanistan: Terrorists I have Tortured. It’d make a good film. I can see it now. We can’t let the journal out, Jack. You have to retrieve it if it exists. If not, good. Just come back and all’s fine and rosy. You wander down here, and while away your last weeks to retirement. Easy.’

  Jack walked on in silence.

  Lewin had written everything down. He was sure of it. And the thought that UK complicity in torture could be exposed on Wikileaks would be enough to give the Director General of the Secret Service a fit of the vapours.

  ‘Why me, Paul?’

  Starck looked at him and there was a great sadness in his eyes. ‘Because you’re like me, Jacky. Disposable. We’re both going to be put out to grass soon, and that means we don’t matter.’

  *

  09.59

  Claire was in the kitchen when he returned.

  He had left Paul Starck at the car park. The idea of inviting him into Claire’s house was enough to make his stomach churn. He would not invite the snide bastard back here; he couldn’t put Claire through that.

  The house had been a farm a long time ago. Now it was a large building split in half, two bedrooms on this side, another four in the other wing. Quiet and secluded, it lay at the bottom of a half-mile lane, with trees on two sides to screen the place from a steam railway and the noise of the main road. He had been allowed to return here last year when Claire finally agreed to try to repair their marriage.

  Jack walked into the scullery and took the towel, wiping the dogs’ paws in turn until he was sure that the worst of the mud was rubbed off and that their coats were dry, before leaving them to their bed of wood shavings. They sat in their bed with tails still wagging, eyes fixed on him with serious demand until he relented and threw them each a small biscuit. Only then would they settle, curling up in the sawdust together.

  ‘You took your time,’ Claire said. ‘Where did you go?’

  She was taller than Jack, a slim, elegant woman in her mid-forties, with long dark hair that held no trace of grey. Her blue eyes were clear and serious always, as though she was testing him. God knew, she’d tested him often enough in the past.

  ‘The usual – Fatherford.’

  ‘It took a long time today. Did you go up on the moor?’

  He didn’t know how to answer. The wounds of the last year were still sore, and he didn’t want to pick at the scabs.

  She gave a smile that transformed her features and warmth came into her eyes again, just as it had when she was in her twenties, before the coldness, when she realised what he was.

  ‘Come on, Pilgrim, tell me about it. You walked there with a lover, didn’t you? You met her down there and walked with her until you…’

  ‘Paul Starck.’

  He sat at the old pine table, and looked up, pleading with her to understand, to see that he had to obey, but even as he spoke he saw the curtain falling across her eyes.

  Her bantering tone was stilled. She retreated into herself again, just as she had before.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He says there’s a job. Just the one.’

  ‘Doing what?’ she said quietly, then winced and closed her eyes as she turned from him. ‘No! Don’t tell me! You can’t anyway, can you? And it’ll only hurt me more to know you’re lying.’

  It was enough to make him want to run out and jump into the car, hurtle off along the road until he found Starck, beaten his face to a bloody pulp, and then shoved him through the windscreen, and cut his throat on the glass…

  She was already sobbing as he went to her.

  He hated Starck. His job. Himself. There was never any way to explain to her.

  ‘It’s just one last one,’ he said. ‘Not what you think.’

  ‘There’s always going to be just one more, isn’t there? Always,’ she said. Her bitterness made her face twist. ‘And you’ll go when they tell you.’

  ‘No. When I am off the books, I’m free,’ he said. He tentatively lifted his arms to her, but she pulled away.

  ‘No! Not now! You promised me, and I let you come here to make it good again.’

  ‘It will be, Claire. Honest. They want this one last job and then I’m free of them. We both are. They’ll discharge me with a pension and we can forget all about them. The last years will be over, and we can do something new. I’ll get a job in Okehampton, just a part-time thing, and we’ll never have to go to London again.’

  He wanted her to believe him – as though her trust could make it true. A vision of Starck’s face sprang into his mind, and Jack knew in his heart it was a lie. But there was the beginning of a thrill at the thought of another job.

  ‘Yes? Until the next job, you mean? It’s just the same as before: waving you goodbye in the morning, never knowing if you were going to… I hated you for that. The horror, all the time, it wore me out, Jack! I can’t face that again. Not now. I’m too old for this shit! Look at me!’

  ‘You’re lovely, Claire,’ he said, and this time he did put his arms around her. She stiffened, almost pulled away, but then she bent her head and began to sob, her brow resting on his shoulder, crying for the ordinary life she had craved. The one thing he could never give her.

  ‘Just wait for me. I’ll be back,’ he promised. ‘It’s not what you think. A guy’s died. That’s all. And I have to clear up the mess.’

  *

/>   15.02 Lebanon Border; 13.02 London

  Over the southern border of Lebanon, a long-legged buzzard glided quietly through the still air. It soared and rose on the thermals, and Uri Misrachi watched, wishing he was anywhere rather than here on the border.

  Russian by birth, Uri had come out to Israel ten years ago, joyfully embracing the culture of his adopted country. He had thrown himself into his new life, gleeful to be away from the misery of the collapsed Soviet Union and determined to demonstrate his gratitude at every opportunity. He was happy to join the engineers, and glad that he could use his skills to the benefit of the defence forces. But he hadn’t expected to be posted here – forced to stand in the baking heat, carrying a heavy Galil rifle, laden with packs and water, waiting for something to happen, guarding a Black Thunder remote-controlled bulldozer.

  In Russia many had ostracized him because he was a Jew; he was hated. The only people he could meet were other Jews. That was why he had fled, why he had come to the Jewish homeland, changed his name from Yevgeny to Uriel, struggled to make a new life for himself, studied Hebrew, and put his hands to work. Yet, the others in his unit treated him as a stranger because of his accent, because he was different. They were all born in Israel, and he was a foreigner.

  He wondered whether any of them had the same commitment as him. They were born here so it took little effort to buy into the struggle for Israel’s security; but he came here out of conviction. He had invested his all in this land. Yet they considered him the outsider.

  The bird effortlessly rose, a symbol of freedom. It didn’t need a Galil or Black Thunder, it didn’t even need to see the thermal to fly – it just felt the air, that was all. It directed its wings to catch the invisible columns of warmth, climbing rapidly, circling, all the while searching for food down below – the perfect predator.

  But it wasn’t alone. There was another hunter in the sky.