Cold Blood Read online

  ‘Mate, no problem.’ I downed half my Coke to give us both a break. ‘So what happened with your sponsors? Why did they drop out?’

  For the first time since he’d come over to see me, he couldn’t look me in the eye.

  ‘Why don’t you go the public route, do some kind of charity thing – you know, save the planet? Get sponsorship from a bank or one of the corporates. Get your faces in the papers, raising awareness, cash, that sort of thing.’

  ‘No.’

  I got the message. It wasn’t happening.

  ‘We all decided we’re doing this for us, Nick, on our own terms. We’re not performing monkeys. No hedge fund is going to be able to throw their petty cash our way so they can make themselves look good. Fuck corporate-responsibility funds. No pictures, no publicity, just us, and what we keep in here.’ He tapped the side of his head, then the left side of his chest. ‘And here.’ He glanced across at his team. ‘Whatever, you and I both know this bunch are never going be the stars of anyone’s corporate PR video.’

  So they’d all fallen for the world’s biggest lie. For thousands of years the head-shed had fed their troops on a diet of righteousness, courage, rising to the challenge, all that bollocks that we were all so keen to believe. But once in the fight, we soon discovered that we didn’t rise like the legendary warriors of the past: we sank into a dark, lonely place where we’d do almost anything just to stay alive. Like all the poor fuckers that came before them, those lads thought they were worthless because of that big fat lie. The big fat lie that would live longer than they did. A fuck of a lot longer. It would still be spreading its poison in a thousand years’ time. The next generation in the fight would look at Jack and his mates and see the heroes they’d been told to be. And the next. And the next. How could any of them measure up?

  That was what warrior bullshit did. It made good people think they were worthless. I knew: I’d fallen for it long ago. I also knew I didn’t want this lot to keep making that mistake. I wanted them to discover that they were no different from anyone else who’d been in the fight.

  14

  ‘Fuck the old man, I don’t need his help. I’ve got it in hand. We’re going to get there.’

  He had a couple of goes at getting his glass back on the bar top. It didn’t improve his mood.

  ‘Does he really think I’m going to give up, get a fucking blanket out of the car, wait for him to come along and save the day? Fuck him.’

  Another man joined the group at the table. A few years older than the others, he moved carefully, deliberately, as if his vision was letting him down. When he turned, I saw that his face was shiny down one side. It had the all too familiar snail-trail pattern and drooping eyelid of someone who’d got too close to an inferno.

  Not far behind him came a feisty-looking red-headed woman in a white roll-neck sweater. Her hair was a riot of thick curls, the kind that made their owner look like some kind of Celtic warrior. She told the others to make room for the new arrival, and they did.

  ‘Why did they pull out, Jack?’

  ‘Healthandfuckingsafety. Jobsworths who came up with a list of “issues and considerations”. That’s the whole point of the walk – to overcome the issues, to give two fingers to the considerations.

  ‘They bundled us along to the Institute of Naval Medicine to get tested, all that shit, to cover their arses. We did all right – well, most of us did, except on the fucking stupid psych stuff.’ He pointed at the one with the dreadlocks. ‘Rio’s still on meds. He’s got nothing happening in one arm, and other … stuff he’s dealing with.’

  From where I was standing, they looked like they all were.

  ‘But he’s positive, you know? Optimistic. He saw the Taliban skin one of his mates alive, for fuck’s sake. He does have some issues, but he knew when to play the race card, and they waved him through – grudgingly. They didn’t have much choice.’

  He pointed at the one with the shaved head. ‘Gabriel’s lost his leg below the knee, and has a bit of a short fuse. But then, he does come from Glasgow. They said he was “temperamentally unsuited to functioning in a team”.’

  I couldn’t help smiling. I’d been there, got the T-shirt. And not just the one. A big drawer full of them.

  ‘Will over there,’ he pointed to the new arrival with the snail-trail face, ‘they didn’t have a problem with him. His Puma was on VHR night duty, and taken down by the Taliban. They dragged him out of the burning cockpit and held him for a few weeks. But he knows how to win over those smartarse types because he sounds like they do.’

  I nearly said, So do you. Instead, ‘But you’re OK, right? They didn’t have a problem with you?’

  ‘No, but it’s all of us or none. That’s what being a team means. Stupid fuckwits didn’t get that.’

  ‘And the other two lovebirds?’

  ‘That’s Leila. She’s not part of it. Stedman picked her up in Ukraine or somewhere – I think she’s just along for the ride. Who knows what he gets up to?’

  Who indeed? I glanced across to see Stedman lifting his good arm from Leila’s shoulders so he could give some extra muscle to the punchline of a joke he was telling. But he didn’t take it away for long. Fuck knew why. There was nowhere else for her to go.

  I scanned Stedman’s audience. They seemed pretty cheerful for a bunch of people who’d just had the financial rug pulled out from under their feet. Only Will’s partner, the red-headed woman, wasn’t laughing.

  I nodded in her direction. ‘What’s her role in all this?’

  ‘Jules? She’s Will’s wife and doesn’t have one on the ice. She’ll wait here for Will. She’s a doctor – used to be with Médecins Sans Frontières, in Afghanistan and Syria. She knows all there is to know about stumps and prosthetics. You name it, she’s chopped it off. Or stuck it back on.’

  ‘Handy.’

  ‘Yeah. Or maybe not.’

  I waited.

  ‘Well, I’ve a feeling it was down to her that they failed Stedman. He had a bit of a habit.’ Jack pressed a finger to one nostril and sniffed, in case I wasn’t fully on receive.

  ‘Had?’

  ‘All right, has.’ He bit his upper lip. ‘He’s not too discreet about it, and I reckon she let them know. I thought I might have to drop him in order to hang onto the sponsors. Then the fuckers pulled the plug anyway.’

  ‘That’s tough.’

  ‘She’s here because she invited herself, keeping an eye on Will, giving us the benefit of her wisdom, medical and otherwise. Whether we want it or not.’

  He let out a long sigh. Saying it all out loud had probably made the situation feel worse, not better. ‘And now we’re in danger of losing our window.’

  15

  Now he’d given me chapter and verse on how fucked up everything was, the light came back into his eyes. Either he was a total fantasist, or there was still a chance the trip was greenlit.

  ‘You heard of Barneo? It’s the start line. The Russians build an airstrip on the eighty-ninth degree. Literally. It’s only there for April because the ice thins out and melts. Miss that window and we really are fucked. The floe has already snapped once. Global warming …’

  His brow creased. ‘We’ve got to face facts. If we don’t make it this year, it’s probably never going to happen. The Norwegians are majorly pissed off with the Russian military build-up. They stopped all flights up there for a couple of days last week, after a para division jumped into Barneo.

  ‘There’s a strong possibility that there won’t be anything taking off from here next year. So we’d get fucked about by the Russians, screwing us for visas to go via some remote airstrip in the Motherland. Or they could close down Barneo altogether for people like us. They’ve already said they’re setting up camp this year primarily for military and science purposes.’

  I knew that the 89th degree, commonly known as the ‘last degree’, was about sixty nautical miles – or sixty-nine regular ones – from the geographic North Pole. But that was as the crow f
lew. This lot would have to tab further because of the terrain. They’d have to negotiate their way over or around pressure ridges, and open leads – ice fractures exposing the water – and the shifting sea ice that always headed south. It wouldn’t be any fun if it went in the direction you were going, would it?

  And to make things even more confusing, there were four poles, not just one. The magnetic North Pole was where all compasses pointed to, but it wasn’t, in fact, the top of the world. The Arctic Pole was the point in the Arctic Ocean furthest from land. The geo-magnetic North Pole was the one I couldn’t be arsed to find out about, but I knew it had something to do with positive and negative fields between the North and South Poles. Then there was True North: Jack’s target, the geographic North Pole. Put your finger on top of the world and you’d be touching it.

  I glanced back at the table. More jokes. More laughter. I could tell from his body language that Stedman was everything Jack wasn’t. He was the loud one, the centre of attention – the one who, if Cauldwell was right, had spurred Jack into pursuing the dream. He was what control freaks hate most: a challenge to their authority.

  Jack dredged up a grin. ‘Bit of a reunion.’

  ‘Reunion?’

  ‘Well, Stedman’s back in.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘He’s the one who’s going to get us moving.’ Jack reached for his glass again. ‘Like I said, I’ve got things in hand. I don’t need my old man.’

  ‘Stedman’s going to get you moving? How?’

  The question came out a bit too fast. He turned wary again, and I made a mental note to dial down.

  ‘Because he can.’

  I left my next question hanging, unspoken, in the alcoholic haze between us.

  He was showing a bit of steel now. ‘Let’s just say we’re back in the game.’

  Jack was smarter – and tougher – than his old man realized. Cauldwell’s plan had crashed and burned. And the man he most despised appeared to have come to the rescue.

  16

  My sat phone was vibrating. It was tucked away inside my thermals, along with the passport hanging around my neck and the roll of USD I always kept within reach to buy or bribe my way out of the shit. I didn’t need to fish it out and look at the screen: only Cauldwell had the number.

  Jack picked up a fresh pint, drained it, and set it back down. Then he slid off his stool. ‘I need to piss. See you around, Nick. Thanks for the drink. You can tell the old man when you see him that he can stay out of my life. I’m standing on my own two feet.’

  He smirked at the well-worn gag, then turned to disappear into the smoky darkness.

  ‘Good luck, Jack.’

  There was nothing else to say.

  The match on the TV was over and the audience was surging back towards the bar. I grabbed my day sack and headed into the half-chilled chamber between the inner and outer doors to get at least two bars on my sat phone.

  Cauldwell answered before the third ring.

  ‘He’s got some new funding, from another source.’

  ‘What? Where from? Who, for Chrissake?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say.’

  ‘Well, that’s out of the bloody question,’ he spluttered. ‘The boy’s an idiot. Didn’t you tell him about Rune? What have you been doing all this time? Playing with yourself?’

  I wasn’t going to rise to that. The outer doors opened, blasting me with the Arctic night, and a man in a greasy parka barged past.

  ‘He’s not an idiot. And he’s your son. His first question was about you.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s something to do with one of the team. Stedman. He’s back on board.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The new source of funding. But I don’t know any more than that.’

  Cauldwell exploded. ‘No – no way! For fuck’s sake. The man’s a junkie and a crook. He should be in prison!’

  Typical Cauldwell, always ready to condemn.

  ‘This is a complete and utter disaster. They have got to go with Rune. You have to make it happen. If they don’t, I’ll personally see to it that—’

  ‘That what, exactly? We’re not in the fucking army now.’

  There was a pause while the news sank in.

  ‘I’m very disappointed in you, Stone. You’ve lost your touch. What’s the matter with you? He’s not going with anyone else. End of.’

  I was about to tell him to fuck off when I realized he’d hung up.

  17

  I shoved the sat phone away and got ready to leave. As I zipped and hooded up, I turned towards the inner doors to give the team one more look through the squares of glass and to wish them good luck. But I never got to wish anything. The greasy parka man who had burst in while I was on the phone was looming over Jack’s table and certainly not offering to buy a round. They looked like they were doing their best to ignore him.

  I pushed my way back through. The volume of the sound system had dropped a couple of decibels. Maybe the staff thought it would calm the punters down. Whatever, it wasn’t working. I was too far away to pick up more than the odd word, but I could tell from the rhythms of his speech he was speaking Russian. I could also tell that he was far from happy – and not just because Russians always sounded angry.

  He had long, matted black hair, scraped back in a ponytail, and a thick gold ring in his left ear. A dirty-gloved forefinger stabbed the air in front of Stedman’s nose and globules of spit caught the light as he shouted into his face. He switched his attack to Leila, who wasn’t flapping as much as I would have expected.

  Stedman continued to ignore him, which wound him up further. The football fans had filled the space between the bar and the tables and a few were starting to take an interest in the new excitement. His finger stabbing went a bit too far and connected with Leila’s shoulder. She reeled back and looked furiously at Stedman, but it was Will with the burn-scarred face who got to his feet.

  Jules grabbed his arm and tried to pull him down, but he shook her off. Jack was nowhere to be seen.

  The crowd between me and the table was about five deep. Then it parted and I caught a glimpse of something dull and metallic in Ponytail’s right hand.

  The droid in the leather waistcoat was already out from behind the bar and wading towards them with surprising speed but he still had some way to go. Gabriel was on his feet as well, and Rio with the dreads was about to hit his own personal launch pad.

  I dropped my day sack so both my hands were free as the droid aimed for the shrinking space between Ponytail and Jack’s crew. I reached down into the dark, a few inches above the blade. Rather than making a show of bringing the Russian’s arm up and bending it back for the enjoyment of the growing audience, and probably starting the Third World War, I kept mine straight, elbow locked, gripped his wrist and pressed a thumbnail deep into his flesh.

  He turned in surprise and enveloped me in a cloud of weapons-grade vodka and sauerkraut. It catapulted me straight back to Moscow and everything that went with it, like someone putting on the wrong CD. But instead of taking my eye off the ball, I drilled that bit harder.

  I heard the knife clatter to the floor, but kept on going as I moved my face closer to his. ‘Nice and peaceful. Staryye druz’ya.’

  He gritted his teeth, but his dentistry still allowed a fair amount of spit to dribble out between them.

  It was over in less than a minute. The droid took his other arm and we escorted him to the door. He went quietly, but the look on his face said he wouldn’t forget me. And not in a good way.

  18

  I came back towards the table and picked up the ugly little weapon Ponytail had so carelessly dropped before deciding to leave. Its blade wasn’t much bigger than a Stanley knife’s, designed to slip easily into a pocket and slice through electrical cables and whatever else got in its way.

  I turned my attention to Jack’s crew. Even if they’d all been sober they were in no condition to defend themselves with any degree of efficiency, but
I didn’t need to tell them that.

  Gabriel spoke first: ‘Where did you learn to handle yourself like that? Basra?’ It was broad Jock.

  ‘Nah. Bermondsey.’

  They all laughed and I was one of the gang. Will waved me towards a chair.

  Leila managed a grateful smile, but it was a struggle. She wasn’t amused by Stedman’s under-performance. Worse, she was flapping.

  Stedman was ignoring us both, trying to listen to something on his phone. Then Jack appeared, and glared at me. Will came to the rescue. ‘Hey, Jack, your mate’s a bit handy – why didn’t you introduce us?’

  He was still giving me the evil eye. The droid shuffled by and gave me a big squeeze on the shoulder, pleased to have order restored. Will pulled Jack down and gave him a rapid update on what he had missed.

  Jules beamed her gratitude, presumably for preventing her husband from getting kicked to shit. Then she looked anxiously at Leila, the only one who could enlighten them about the substance of Ponytail’s rant. ‘So, what was all that about?’

  Leila waved at Jules as if she was wafting away a bad smell, but that didn’t do it for Will. He seemed much more bothered by the fact that his partner was being dismissed. My guess was that he was a bit of a Boy Scout, who stood up when ungentlemanly behaviour was in sight.

  ‘He don’t like to see fellow Ukrainian sitting with foreigners.’ She gave a what-can-you-do? shrug. ‘He’s very drunk.’

  Will and Jules seemed convinced by that because they were drunk themselves. I wasn’t. My Russian was only one grade above shite but among the words I had picked out from the tirade were protsent, meaning percentage, and konkurentsiya, competition. Sure, the guy could have been asking where he could get the most kroner for his roubles but, if so, he was taking the exchange rate a bit personally.