He needn’t have worried. They were attentive, leaning forward to listen and laughing in all the right places, as he took them through a few highlights of his life in the SAS. And when he moved on to describing the men he had met on the Invicta campus, whose lives had been turned around by Rolt and his programme, there was a reverent hush. From there, he pulled no punches in his description of the hostel bombing. If this was what it took for Rolt to get his money, then why not go for it? If there was one thing that would surely clinch it, it was this. It almost alarmed him how easily it came to him, finding the words that could mesmerize the audience. Was this how the politicians did it? The hate preachers? And all the time in another part of his brain he was asking himself what any of this had to do with Invicta. The questions were piling up. And as his eyes drifted from face to face he caught sight of a figure at the back of the room, leaning against a pillar: just the man who might have some of the answers.
46
‘Hey, partner.’ Kyle Pope eased himself away from the pillar and stepped forward. ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns…’
‘Who does that make me, Ingrid Bergman? And, by the way, you’re no Bogart.’
‘Didn’t think you’d recognize me.’
Tom punched his shoulder and was enveloped in a big man-hug. ‘I’d smell you a mile off.’
Even with the mirror Aviators and the chin-muffler beard, there was no disguising Kyle Pope. Six feet four in his bare feet, he had towered over his adversaries in Iraq. Yet his black eyes and olive complexion, from Tartar stock somewhere on his mother’s side, gave him a look of the universal citizen, and an almost legendary capacity to blend in. When you were in a minivan stuck in the middle of a traffic jam in Baghdad, he was the one you wanted to keep close to. The man led a charmed life, a major reason Tom was still alive.
‘Nine years — Jeez, where did they go?’
The joint SAS-Delta Force assault had been on a compound in Ramadi, about a hundred klicks west of Baghdad. Local resistance was anticipated, so Delta operators in tracked and turreted Bradleys had mounted over-watch. The intelligence had told them the house was occupied by a large extended family so casualties had to be minimized. House clearing was second nature in the Regiment. Tom had practised this sort of drill ad nauseam with live-fire exercises in the Killing House back at Stirling Lines. The trick was to be confident enough to fire without hesitation, yet spare the innocent. Flimsy, rusted metal gates protected the entrance. But before they were through they were met with a hail of fire from the upstairs windows and he was hit in the thigh.
The wound itself wasn’t life-threatening, but he was pinned under one of the gates and part of the wall that had exploded with an RPG fired from the house. Trapped, without help, he could have bled out. They couldn’t call in the Bradleys as he knew that others firing from neighbouring buildings couldn’t see him. In a brief lull, Kyle had run forward, but as he bore down on Tom another volley of AK opened up. Kyle wheeled round and sprayed the windows, while hauling Tom out of their arcs to safety. It had been the first day of the rest of his life.
‘Good to see a friendly face out there tonight.’
They moved a couple of steps away from the crowd.
‘Yeah, these dudes ain’t exactly top of my list of drinking buddies. They lapped up your spiel, though. You sure hit the high notes.’
A couple of well-wishers headed towards Tom but backed off when they saw Kyle.
Tom noted the Glock holstered on his friend’s hip. ‘Who are you expecting?’
‘Comes with the territory. I help Mr Stutz with his security.’
‘That a full-time job?’
‘Twenty-four seven.’ Kyle nodded at the men in black, chests straining at their suit jackets. ‘Yep, that’s my team.’
‘How’re the kids?’
Tom remembered he had twin boys and a baby girl.
‘Good, I guess.’ Something in his tone indicated that that was as far as he wanted to go on that subject.
‘How about we get some beers? Take a break from all this flag-waving.’
Tom looked round and saw Stutz deep in conversation, Skip fiddling with his phone and Beth smiling relentlessly. Maybe he should have been working the crowd, flying the flag for Invicta, but getting an inside track on Stutz’s operation from an old buddy was too good an opportunity to pass up. Kyle gripped his arm.
‘C’mon. Those guys seem to have it covered.’
Tom saw him catch Stutz’s eye. Stutz looked up from the group he was talking to and nodded. Tom grinned. ‘Okay, partner, let’s ride!’
47
Tom did a swift change into jeans, T-shirt and bomber jacket. On his way out he waved at Beth and, for the first time since he had set eyes on her, thought he saw the smile fade. Was that wistfulness he detected? Maybe she had been hoping babysitting him would be a respite from Skip. Maybe she had been thinking more than that. Yeah, and maybe he was kidding himself.
The hot night air was full of the sound of cicadas and the aroma of barbecuing meat laced with traffic fumes.
‘Ah, the sweet smell of Texas.’
Parked on the hotel forecourt was Kyle’s Harley, a classic early sixties Panhead but straight, no ridiculous Easy Rider forks or crazy chrome. A workmanlike machine.
‘Still tearing up the Badlands?’
‘You wanna take it? I gotta bring the van anyhows. No helmet needed here. You get to feel the wind in your hair.’
Tom zipped his jacket and climbed aboard. He kicked it over and the pushrod twin exploded into life. He hauled it off the stand and eased out behind Kyle’s Chevy van. The height of the gas tank raised the centre of gravity, which was only somewhat counteracted by the low seat. The riding position, feet forward, made for a distinctly laid-back driving style, which was fine since the machine was in no hurry to climb up the revs. After the BMW he was used to, it was monstrously heavy. But there were upsides to the design, which had barely changed in more than a century. This was a bike on which you could cruise all day across America.
After ten minutes the city fell away and they were in open country. Kyle veered off the freeway onto increasingly smaller and rougher back roads where the Harley came into its own, soaking up the rough surface and floating through ruts, like the dirt roads it had originally been built to conquer. It was a mean slug of a machine, which would only grow old grudgingly, like its owner.
At the end of a long wooded track stood a weathered-looking ranch-style house. There were several other vehicles pulled up in front: a pick-up with a gun rack, a dusty Chrysler 300C with a bullet-hole in the windscreen, and a van with tinted windows that said Bob’s Pool Maintenance on the side. Tom didn’t know if there was a Bob. But he was pretty sure that pool-maintenance vans didn’t need tinted windows.
Kyle was waiting, a six-pack of Southern Star dangling from each hand as Tom pulled the Harley to a halt beside him. ‘As time passes, the more I find love in inanimate objects. Less complicated.’ Tom killed the engine. ‘They also find me more reliable.’
Tom heaved the bike onto its stand and stared into the darkness. In the yard he could see the ghostly shapes of a swing, a slide and a large wooden climbing-frame; the weeds around them suggested they hadn’t seen too much action lately.
From inside the house came the sound of an American football game, a crowd roaring and a hysterical commentator.
‘Some of the boys are home. Come and say hi.’ Kyle waved him in.