Level Two. The code was one he'd learned from a commando in South Africa during a training seminar there some years ago. For direct physical violence not involving guns or knives, there were five operational levels:
Level One was the mildest, consisting mainly of threats or shoves, intimidation, without physical injury to the subject.
Level Two was mild to moderate damage, bruises, perhaps a broken bone or two, equivalent to a good bar-fight thrashing. A few stitches in the local doctor's surgery, some pain pills, and day or two to rest up at home, and you'd be right as rain.
Level Three was damaging enough to require a stay in hospital, and you'd be weeks or months recovering. A serious encounter.
Level Four meant you would carry reminders of the attack with you for the rest of your life: You'd be crippled with a torn-out knee or ankle, or perhaps crushed hands; you might lose your hearing or an eye, or be otherwise maimed. Recovery would be slow and painful, and you'd never be as complete as you had been before.
Level Five was terminal. A subject was to be made to suffer much pain, to know what he had done, and to have time enough to regret having done it before passing away.
The South Africans would deny having such codes, of course. They hadn't been used officially since apartheid days, but used they still were. Many military and intelligence services around the world had similar operational codes still in place, officially or not. One simply did not talk about such things where unfriendly ears might lurk. Peel recalled an Israeli official some years back, blabbing on in public about their official policy on torture. How it was, under some extreme circumstances, justified. Oh, but the Jews had been lambasted for that when it had hit the media. Of course they used torture when they needed it. Some raghead ready to join Allah in paradise plants a bomb and they catch him before it goes off? Only a fool would sit and politely inquire about it: Excuse me, Abdul, old boy, would you mind awfully telling us where the bomb is so we might disarm it? Some more tea?
Whatever else you had to say about the Jews, they were survivors. If you kicked dirt on their shoes, they would drop a mountain on you in return. Such things didn't bother fanatics ready to die at the drop of a Koran, but more reasonable governments kept that in mind before sending sorties against Israel. Getting hit back thrice as hard as you hit somebody was still a deterrent in some quarters. And the Jews never let it pass, never. You spit on them and sooner or later — likely sooner — you'd have a fire hose blasting you in the face to think about.
If you wanted your country to survive its enemies, you did what you had to do. No one needed to run to CNN and talk about having to shove a few needles under a terrorist's fingernails to save decent men and women from being killed, now did they? It was all part of the game. You got caught, you suffered the consequences. Unfortunately, that was how Peel had been forced to resign, being… overzealous with Irish terrorists — which, as far as he was concerned, was redundant. Whatever peace decrees were signed, the bloody Irish were never going to settle down and be civil. But some of them had died under his interrogations, word had gotten back to the rear echelons, and that was that.
Ah, well. Water under the bridge. That was when he had been a major in good standing, serving king and country. Now, he catered to another master, one who understood the reality of things, and he was already rich as a result. Not a bad trade, all in all.
The target emerged from the pub in a cloud of alcohol-fueled noise and good cheer. BC wanted him bent but not broken, just enough to put him out of active service for a few days, after which it wouldn't matter. It ought not to be too difficult to manage one old college professor.
"Here we go, boys. Move sharp — and be careful."
The target, a rotund man of sixty in a twenty-year-old tweed suit and matching Irish rain hat, sported a mostly white beard and carried a furled umbrella.
"Right, Major," Lewis said, grinning. He was the leader of the attack team. "Here's a fierce old beaky. We'll keep our heads in."
Huard and Doolittle laughed. They exited the car.
The plan was for them to amble to the professor and, once close enough, jump him. A few good thumps and they'd be away, taking his wallet. The police would see it as no more than another sad example of youth gone bad and tell the professor he was lucky to get off as easy as he did. They'd look for the trio of skinheads, but since those three wouldn't exist in an hour, their disguises burned and gone, it would be a fruitless search. A pickup vehicle waited around the corner for Peel's men, a stolen lorry with the license plates switched with those of a van parked at a nearby cinema. A simple operation, and untraceable.
The major cranked the Dodge Ram's engine to depart, which he intended to do as soon as he was sure the assault was proceeding as planned.
The three skinhead slackabouts, laughing and talking too loudly, moved to intersect the professor's path. Lewis held an unlit cigarette, and he was first to reach the target. He waved the cigarette and said something to the older man. Too far away for Peel to hear, but he knew the gist: "Allo, Gramps, gottuh match, have ye?"
Huard and Doolittle drifted out to the sides, to encircle the old man.
Peel put the truck in gear to drive off. It was going by the numbers, one, two, three—
Then, of a moment, the operation leaped past three to seventeen: The professor lunged like bloody Zorro, jabbed at Lewis with the tip of the umbrella, and caught him a hard stab in the solar plexus. The team leader lost his cigarette prop and his wind as he backed off and clutched at his belly. The professor twisted to his left, swung the umbrella like an ax, and whacked Huard across the face. The shock and surprise drove him backward, too.
"Help!" the white-bearded old boy yelled in a voice to wake the dead. "Assassins! Help!"
Doolittle lunged and bounced a fist off the old man's shoulder, and the old fellow spun and slashed at him with the umbrella, missing only because the fake skinhead leaped back like he was bloody Nijinsky doing steps from bloody Swan Lake.
"Help! Help, I say!"
Several men rushed out of the pub and saw the goings-on.
Wonderful. Bloody wonderful!
Lewis recovered, stepped in, dodged another rapier-like thrust from the umbrella, and managed to land a solid punch to the old man's nose. The professor stumbled and sat down hard on the sidewalk but did not release his hold on his weapon. He swung at Doolittle's legs, caught a shin with a whack Peel heard thirty meters away, and flailed his weapon back and forth, missing only because Doolittle did another quick little nancy-boy ballet step to get out of the way.
What a bloody cock up!
The party was over. The three troops took to their heels as the growing mob from the pub rushed them. The boys were young and fit, didn't smoke, contrary to the faggot prop, and should be able to outrun a bunch of middle-aged men who'd had a pint or two. If they couldn't, they deserved what they got. Idiots.
Peel pulled away from the curb, made a turn, and glanced at the professor. Peel did not intend to relate exactly how the attack had gone, nor how it had slipped downhill. The old man probably had a broken nose, that should be enough — though it was likely he was less damaged than the three who had set upon him.
Peel watched in his rearview mirror as the first of the pub-goers reached the professor and helped him to his feet.
Hello all. Meet my friend, Corporal Disaster.