‘Do you have a gun?’ she asked. ‘I bet you’re well armed.’
Stratton studied her eyes and all he could see was a rich tart.
She prodded his chest close to where his gun would have been holstered if he were left-handed.
‘Can I see it?’
‘No.’
‘You probably don’t need a gun though, do you? I expect you know all that kung fu business.’
Stratton was looking for a polite way out of this conversation and the kitchen. She was cute but not enough to have to listen to her crap.
‘What would you do if a dozen terrorists came over the wall right now and attacked us?’ she went on, moving closer still, her ardour obvious. Stratton was uncomfortable being hit on so aggressively at a professional venue and unsure quite how to handle it in a polite manner. The watchword for jobs such as this was diplomacy in all matters.
‘I’d hide in the cellar.’
‘Really? I know where that is if you’d like me to show you.’
The waitress behind the woman glanced at Stratton and rolled her eyes before leaving with a tray of sandwiches.
‘Isabelle,’ a man called out from inside the house as footsteps came down the corridor. She frowned at the interruption.Two smartly dressed men came into the kitchen. Stratton noticed the tiny army badges both had pinned to their lapels. He couldn’t tell which regiment they indicated but considering the calibre of people at the function, the cut of their suits and their bearing, they were not only officers - a non-commissioned officer had a snowball’s chance in hell of being invited to a gig like this unless he was titled.
‘Ah, there you are,’ the taller one said on seeing the girl, then paused as his eyes fell on Stratton who was far too close to her to be considered polite. His smile was replaced by the kind of cold expression a male displays on seeing another coveting his female property. ‘We’re going into London for lunch,’ he continued, talking to her but eyeing Stratton warily. ‘Where’s your coat?’
She rolled her eyes for only Stratton to see before turning to face her boyfriend. ‘Do we have to go now? I’m enjoying myself.’
‘It’s a bit of a bore, darling, and we’ve shown our faces,’ he said. ‘What are you doing in here anyway? Annoying the staff?’
‘This nice man was telling me how he is prepared to lay down his life to protect us all if terrorists should come over the walls in their hundreds. I’d introduce him to you but he won’t tell me his name - the strong secretive type, don’t you know?’
Stratton finished his drink and put the glass down. ‘Nice talking to you,’ he said as he turned to leave.
‘Yes, why don’t you run along,’ the boyfriend said with an attitude.
Stratton stopped and looked back at the man whose tone he found offensive. The other man was also staring at Stratton in support of his friend, like a pair of elegant wolves.
‘You’re not here to hang around the kitchen chatting up ladies,’ the friend added.
Both men saw a flicker of danger behind Stratton’s grey eyes, but they were too well bred to heed any warning from a mere ranker.
‘I’m Captain Brigstock, Life Guards, and this is Captain Boyston. I know you’re not an officer so why don’t you consider it an order. Off you go,’ he said, and topped it off with a chin-jutting, superior smirk.
The girl put her arm through her captain’s, switching allegiance like the fickle wind. ‘Ooh, you do excite me when you get bossy, Charlie.’
Stratton sighed, turned about and continued to the door. They were not worth the effort.
‘I don’t know why we have to have these mindless thugs as security,’ Brigstock said to his friends but intentionally loud enough for Stratton to hear.
Stratton paused in the doorway without looking back. The officers were beginning to test his self control. He raised his eyes to the skies as if looking for divine help and stepped outside. As he walked away laughter came from the kitchen.
He folded them from his mind and paused on the green to survey the area wondering how much longer this party was going to go on for.
‘Stratton? I say. Is that you?’ a man called out.
Stratton saw a stout, grey-haired gentleman in his sixties the other side of the green heading towards him with his hands in his jacket pockets, a classic affectation of the upper class that the man wore comfortably.
The woman and her two young officers walked out of the kitchen. ‘Isn’t that your uncle?’ Boyston asked Brigstock.
‘Yes,’ Brigstock said, suddenly fluffing up and putting on a broad smile as he waved. ‘Hello, Uncle.’
The old man noticed him as he approached and looked immediately disjointed on recognising his nephew. ‘Oh, Brigstock. How you doing, lad?’ he said blandly.
‘Fine, sir,’ Brigstock beamed while Boyston, also smiling broadly, took a large step forward to stand beside his friend. The old man was obviously very important and it wasn’t what you knew but who you, or your closest friends, were related to. ‘This is my friend—’
‘Excuse me a moment, would you?’ the old man interrupted easily. ‘On my way to see an old friend.’ He breezed past them and headed for Stratton.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said to Stratton as he stopped in front of him.
‘Hello, Ambassador,’ Stratton said, genuinely pleased to see the man, and they shook hands warmly. He was the former British ambassador to Algiers. Three years before, Stratton turned up at the embassy on his own to propose an evacuation plan for the staff during an uprising in the country by Islamic fundamentalists that threatened their safety. An SAS contingent had arrived the day before and was pushing a proposal to cut down all the trees in the embassy grounds so that helicopters could land and evacuate everyone to the airport where a military transport aircraft would take them out of the country. But since the embassy was near the sea, Stratton had been sent from the SBS headquarters with an alternative plan. His idea was to take a short drive to the beach under heavy guard where fast attack boats could ferry the staff to a waiting Royal Navy frigate.
The ambassador’s wife happened to love the trees in the garden and was horrified at the thought of seeing them cut down but had conceded them as an unavoidable price one had to pay for the safety of the embassy staff. When she heard Stratton’s proposal she nudged the ambassador and whispered in his ear that she would divorce him if he didn’t go with the boat idea. The ambassador liked the waterborne option anyway since he happened to be an ex-Navy man and fancied stepping aboard a war ship once again after so many years. However, the four SAS men were officers and Stratton was only an SBS colour sergeant; diplomacy was required so as not to ruffle SAS feathers. As the ambassador fumbled through the pros and cons, racking his brains for a justifiable way out of the air option, Stratton had interrupted politely, informing them that recently the Algerians had acquired some Stingers - hand-held ground-to-air missiles - and that using aircraft to evacuate the area might not be a wise option.
The SAS officers knew Stratton had outmanoeuvred them, and the ambassador was pleased with Stratton’s timely advice which gave him the room to close the matter.
‘How have you been?’ the ambassador asked Stratton, genuinely interested. He had never been impressed with rank alone and was far more inclined towards people of substance. Brigstock and Boyston were within earshot and horrified that the security man had a higher priority than them.
‘Fine, sir,’ Stratton said shaking his hand. He liked the old man who had filed a most complimentary report on his return to England about the SBS’s handling of the embassy situation.
‘You must say hello to Angela. She’s over there and would love to see you. You know she often mentions that time in the embassy, and not only her trees that you saved. You outflanked the SAS in one other area.You were the only military chap thoughtful enough to bring some English newspapers and tea.’ He laughed heartily bringing a broad grin to Stratton’s face. ‘So what are you doing here? Must be god-awful boring for the likes of you. What idiot put people of your calibre on duty at a garden party?’