Military vehicles – Humvees, mostly – were driving all over the place, as well as large SUVs that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the New Jersey Turnpike. Joe knew that the drivers of half these SUVs were only moving around because the air con in their vehicles was better than that in their bunkhouses. The Chinook flew out of earshot; the grind of its motors was immediately replaced by the ear-splitting din of an F-16, flying low, probably on its way to put the shits up the locals – a not-too-subtle warning of what they could expect if they messed with the stars and stripes.
Nobody approached to help the unit with their gear, and the unit wouldn’t have wanted anyone to. They worked alone. Everybody knew that. Joe and his mate JJ – whose brown beard was longer than the rest of the unit’s because he’d worn it for years – lifted a crate of weaponry in the direction of a large hangar situated 100 metres from the LZ, just beyond a two-metre-high HESCO wall over the top of which an array of satellite receivers and other signalling apparatus was visible. A couple of Paras stood guard at a gap in the wall, next to a green and white sign stating: ‘No Unauthorized Entry’. There were thousands of signs, plastering every inch of Bagram. Even the thunderboxes had a notice telling you not to piss on the seat.
One of the Paras was lazily scraping the Afghan dust from the inside of his nostril with a rolled-up piece of Kleenex. Both had expectant looks on their faces. Word of bin Laden’s death had obviously got out, and anyone who knew that Joe’s unit had been on ops in Pakistan at the same time would have put two and two together.
Joe looked over his shoulder. Ricky and the rest of the unit were walking towards the hangar, their bodies appearing to waver in the heat haze. Beyond them, three guys whom Joe recognized as American DOD personnel had surrounded the Doctor’s family, and five black SUVs were driving up towards them. Fuck knows what was going to happen to them. A new name and a safe house in a faceless North American suburb, he supposed.
‘Been busy, lads?’ one of the Paras asked.
‘Aye,’ JJ replied. ‘Shagged out, me. Never knew your sister was such a goer.’
The Para grinned. ‘She told me you had a dick like a maggot, JJ.’
JJ gave a look of mock acceptance. ‘Aye, it’s true,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s why she got her rocks off with the rest of the unit as well. I’m telling you – she was walking like Charlie Chaplin by the end, and Joe here has been grinning like the Cheshire fucking cat ever since…’
‘Yeah, looks like it.’ The Para nodded at Joe. Joe glowered back.
The hangar housed the Regiment’s operations base at Bagram. A third guard standing outside and armed with an M16 slid open the huge metal doors that remained closed as a matter of course, to reveal the cavernous space bustling with activity. The hangar itself was about eighty by forty metres. There were windows along both sides, but these had been covered up against curious eyes with sheets of plastic tarpaulin. The space was lit by twelve portable floodlights aimed up at the flat metal ceiling to stop them dazzling the people inside, of whom there were thirty or so. The combination of the metal walls and the powerful lights could easily turn the hangar, big as it was, into an oven in this climate and so, evenly spaced along both walls, were six air-conditioning units. Out of sight, on the other side of the far wall, Joe knew there was a large petrol-operated generator, which added to the general noise.
The hangar was divided into four quadrants. Closest to Joe and on his left was a bank of computer screens. A mess of wires on the floor trailed through the wall towards the signalling area and the Genny, and a handful of the guys, as well as two female ’terps, were leaning over the screens examining maps and other imagery. Joe counted seven men and one woman he didn’t recognize. They were standing in a group by themselves and watched Joe and the others with interest as they entered. To the right was a weapons store: crates of hardware piled high, manned by a grizzled member of L Detachment. He nodded at Joe and JJ to indicate that they should dump their own crate just next to him.
In the far-left quadrant was an R & R zone: a television mounted on the wall, a few old sofas and a kettle for anybody wanting to make a brew. This area was deserted. No rest. No recuperation. Not out here. The fourth quadrant in the far right-hand corner of the hangar was blocked off by a series of large screens. This was the briefing area – the place where Joe and the unit had first been informed about the nature of their operation. Now a tall, gangly rupert with a lean face and a two-day-old beard was walking out of it. Major Dom Fletcher, OC E Squadron, looked and sounded like the prince of public-school twats. To hear him talk, nobody would guess he’d come up through the ranks, or that his rough London accent and squaddie turn of phrase had miraculously disappeared the day he got his commission. Overnight, Dom had become Dominic. But the guys had learned the hard way not to test his patience, and just called him ‘boss’. Fletcher wasn’t beyond issuing an RTU for anyone who took the piss. He nodded in Joe and JJ’s direction, jabbed his thumb towards the briefing area and turned on his heel to walk back into it.
‘You know,’ said JJ, ‘what I really love about this place is the warm welcomes. I could murder a Mr Kipling…’
Joe glanced behind him. Ricky was walking alone, about ten metres back. His eyes were fixed on the floor.
The briefing area was nothing to look at. Twenty or thirty plastic stackable brown chairs in rows; a long table at the front; a whiteboard with clips on the top to hold mapping sheets. Fletcher stood next to it, his arms folded, his face unreadable. Within thirty seconds all eight members of the unit were there.
‘Sit down,’ Fletcher said. It wasn’t a polite offer. Joe took a seat in the back row, the others all sat forward of him.
Fletcher spoke sufficiently loudly that they could hear him over the noise of the hangar, but not so loudly that anybody outside of the briefing room could eavesdrop. ‘You’ve all seen the news?’
‘We stopped off at a Travelodge just outside Abbottabad,’ JJ cut in. ‘Jerked off over Kirsty Young on the telly while she told us all about it.’
‘JJ, shut up. Target Geronimo was KIA and extracted at 0110 local time. The Americans dumped him in the Indian Ocean just before dawn. “Burial at sea” is the phrase they’re using. The President made the announcement this morning. We’ve got CIA swarming round the base with fucking hard-ons. They’ll assist with the debriefs later. My guess is they’ll want to know why you came home without the Doctor in tow. Which is a pretty good fucking question.’
‘The Doctor wasn’t there,’ Jacko growled.
‘Right,’ Fletcher said. ‘Now remind me, are you a specialist unit under the command of E Squadron, or a bunch of fucking Girl Guides?’
A pause. Fletcher looked at each member of the unit in turn. A question was coming. Joe could sense it.
‘Anyone care to tell me why the CO took a call from our American cousins asking if we were aware of anyone breaching SOPs during the raid?’
Silence. Joe found himself staring not at Fletcher, but at the back of Ricky’s head. Once more the OC directed his gaze at each of them. Was it Joe’s imagination, or did he linger on him slightly longer than the others?
Thirty seconds passed. They seemed a lot longer. Finally Fletcher inclined his head, plainly aware that nobody was going to give him an answer.