Zero Option

'And your commanding officer,' Fraser prompted.

'And the CO, of course. I'm due to see him in a minute, for a wash-up on our operation. Once that's over, maybe you and he can get together.'

'You're going to propose Plan Zulu to him, then?'

'Most certainly.'

'Well… I wish you luck.'

'Thanks.'

I got up to go, feeling that Fraser was still with me and willing to have a go — but only just. 'By the way, what's become of your assistant? Karen whatever?'

'Oh.' The Commander looked suddenly uncom fortable. 'She's… she's gone on a couple of days' leave.'

At the time I didn't challenge his statement, but there was something about Fraser's manner which made me doubt if it was tree.

On the flight back from Cyprus Pat had been given priority and put on board a TriStar, so that within an hour of touch-down at Lyneham he was in the operating theatre of the tri-service hospital at RAF Wroughton, south of Swindon. The rest of us had lumbered back in a Here, but because our departure was delayed we'd come in so late at night that our debrief had to be postponed until the morning.

Now, in Yorky Rose's office in the Subversive Action Wing, members of the head-shed had gathered to welcome us back.

Apart from Yorky himself there was Mac, the ops officer, the int officer, Gilbert the Filbert from the Firm, and above all the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Brampton — commonly known as 'Wingnut', because of his ears, but liked and respected none the less. A fitness fanatic, he was glowing with good health; he looked like he'd been for a ten-mile run (which he probably Had) and then had a big breakfast of vitamins.

The lads in our team were well spruced up, shaved and showered, but it wasn't surprising that we all looked a bit hollow-eyed, and yawns were two a penny.

If it hadn't been for the death of Norm, the atmosphere would have been positively euphoric. As it was, the CO was on a kind of muted high. He shook each of us by the hand, exclaiming 'Well done!', 'Great effort!', 'Tremendous!' and suchlike, but behind his laughing and joking sadness hung like a dark cloud.

He addressed us all. 'The Regiment's going to get a lot more work as a result of this. We're going to be run off our feet by the demand for our services.' l knew that our success would increase his own credit rating as well — he might even end up with a gong — yet I could tell that he was feeling our loss as much as we were.

When the initial hubbub had subsided, the ruperts took a row of chairs behind Yorky's desk and we sat in a semi-circle facing them. The prize exhibits were the mug-shots I'd taken of Khadduri, full-face and profile.

(The film had been whipped off me the moment we reached base and developed in the middle of the night.) The photos weren't a pretty sight, but they were technically spot-on, and proved that Tony and I hadn't been exaggerating. You could even see the tattoo of an eagle on the back of Tony's left hand as he held the dead man's head up by the hair, with the blood-spattered door of the office in the background.

The CO led offhis formal spiel by saying a few words about Norm. He confirmed that the families officer was going to contact the next of kin, and said he would let us know the date of the funeral. More cheerful news was that Pat had come through his operation fine, and that the surgeons were pleased by the way things had gone.

Then the CO asked me to run through Operation Ostrich, which I did, with the int officer's gofer taking notes on a laptop. As I went along, the ruperts asked quite a few questions, and we took it in turns to answer.

Their main concern was whether the defenders had seen any of us well enough to pick us out at an identity parade. To that the answer was 'Definitely not.' I reassured the int officer in particular that, with the exception of Khadduri, we hadn't met anyone face to face; in fact, I doubted whether the Libyans had actually got eyes on any of us. The fact that Norm and Pat had been hit was purely a fluke: first somebody must have seen the flashes as Pat put bursts into the camp, and sprayed rounds randomly in his direction; then we'd got caught in the searchlight.

At the end of the debriefing the CO told us again that we'd done exceptionally well, were a credit to the Regiment, had performed a service to humanity, and sundry crap of that kind. Then he added, 'You'll be glad to hear that Gadaffi's blaming the Israelis — off the record, of course. No public announcement has been made — Khadduri wasn't supposed to be in Libya at all — but in private Gadaffi's claiming that one of his own senior officers has been killed, and saying he has evidence that Mossad carried out the assassination.'

'Maybe somebody dropped something after all,' I said, giving Whinger an exaggerated look.

'What's that?' The CO turned his long, narrow face in my direction, so that I got his sticking-out ears in profile against the light.

'It was just a joke we had. Before the operation went down, Whinger suggested we should scatter a few Uzis around — or anything with “Israel” written on it — to lay a false scent.'

'But you didn't, I hope?'

'Of course not. As far as I know we didn't leave anything.behind except a few shreds of anonymous metal and… and Whatever remained of poor old Norm.'

'What about the body?' asked the CO.

I gestured at Tony.

'I doubled him up on the ground with five pounds of Semtex in his midriff,' he said. 'There can't have been anything left.'

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then the CO cleared his throat and said, 'OK. That was the right thing to do.'

Again there was a moment's silence. Then the CO adroitly changed the subject. 'You'll be glad to hear you have a fan at Number Ten. I found this fax waiting for me when I came in.'

He handed me a sheet of paper, which had 'FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER' embossed at the top, and, in the middle, the brief message:

Delighted with your ornithological success.

Congratulations, and my personal thanks.

'Where's the champagne, then?' I demanded as I handed the note on to Tony. 'I thought the bugger would have sent a few bottles in this direction by now.'

'We'll have a drink in the mess tonight,' said the CO.

'Make up for lost time then.'

The atmosphere was so good that I was tempted to press straight on to the subject of my own predicament.

With everyone in such a genial mood this seemed the ideal moment to broach the idea of Plan Zulu. But then I thought, No — not in front of this crowd. I'd rather get the CO on his own. So, as the meeting broke up, I said to him, 'Could I grab five minutes with you, Boss?'

'Sure.' He took a quick look at his watch. 'Ten o'clock?'

'Fine.'

I was outside his office a couple of minutes early, bolstered by the knowledge that, for the moment at any rate, the sun seemed to be shining out of my arse. I wasn't naive enough to suppose that our success on Ostrich would warp the Boss's judgement or make him any more inclined to take rash decisions, but the fact that I'd just done a good job would at least encourage him to give me a fair hearing. Apart from anything else, he had two boys of his own, and could hopefully understand how I felt about Tim. Also he had a good sense of humour, and a reputation for taking the occasional risk when he thought it was justified.

Inside, I perched on one of the bog-standard chairs and looked around the room while he closed down his laptop. His bergen sat in one corner, and in another, cuffed up on a dark-blue bean-bag, lay his black Labrador, Ben, fast asleep as usual. No doubt he'd been on the ten-mile run as well, and that was him settled for the day.