Mark Dawson - Sleepers

The memories rushed over him and, even though he closed his eyes, he couldn’t stop them. He had broken into the man’s flat and waited for him to return from work. He had found a bottle of gin in a kitchen cupboard and had had his first drink then, two fingers to silence the spectres in his head, the wails and shrieks of the phantoms who were hungry for another to join their number. Callaghan had arrived. Milton had hidden behind the door and met him with his Sig pressed to the back of his head. Callaghan had confessed to everything, had answered Milton’s questions and then gone beyond them. He had volunteered information on his recruitment, on the intelligence that he had supplied, on the intelligence the SVR had requested of him. There was no need for what the CIA euphemistically described as ‘enhanced’ techniques; Callaghan had spilled his guts as soon as Milton had sat him down and told him how it was going to play out. Milton had recorded his mea culpa on a digital recorder and then, with the wailing pounding in his head, he had pressed the suppressor against the back of Callaghan’s crown and put a 9mm round into his brain. He had called it in, requested clean-up, and left.

After that? He could remember fragments, and then nothing: he had taken a taxi to Chelsea and had started drinking properly. He remembered The Crown, The Pig’s Ear and Riley’s. He remembered the dream, vivid and real: Callaghan visiting him while he was on his hands and knees in a filthy toilet cubicle. Milton saw the hole in his head and the blood still dripping down onto his face. After that, though, there was nothing. Milton had woken up with a black eye, a vicious bruise all the way down his ribcage, scraped and bruised knuckles and someone else’s blood on his shirt. He couldn’t remember how it had got there.

“Hello?”

Milton looked up. It was one of the men who had been smoking outside the building. The man was in his forties, dressed in clothes that suggested a reasonable income and a care for his appearance, with skin that bore all the hallmarks of a fake tan.

“Hello,” Milton said.

“Are you here for the meeting?” The man’s teeth were a little jagged, and Milton could smell stale smoke on his breath when he spoke.

“I’m fine,” Milton said, suddenly wanting to be left alone again.

“Is it your first?” The man had an effeminate quality. He didn’t wait for Milton to answer his question and, instead, he sat down next to him on the bench. “I remember my first, too. Nervous as hell. My throat was so dry I could barely speak. I still get nervous now, so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and volunteered to be secretary here. My name’s Michael.”

He put out his hand for Milton to shake, but, instead of taking it, Milton stood up. “I’m just enjoying the sunshine,” he said. “I’m not here for a meeting.”

“Of course,” the man said gently. “But if you were, and if you changed your mind, you could just come and sit at the back and listen. You might find that’s what you need.”

Milton found himself conflicted: his head was shouting that he should walk away and never come back, while his heart told him that Michael was right, that this was what he needed, that he had come here for a reason, that he could take a seat at the back of the room and just soak it all in, get a feel for the meeting so that he could decide whether it was for him. He was caught there, pinned by wariness and indecision, but, just as Michael was about to speak again, Milton’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

He turned away from the bench, took out the phone and looked down at the screen. The caller was Global Logistics.

Milton tapped to accept the call and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Smith?” The caller was using Milton’s usual legend for when he was in the United Kingdom: John Smith, a sales rep for the company.

“Yes,” he said. “Tanner?”

Tanner was Control’s private secretary: ex-army, infantry, like Control and all of the other operatives in the Group. He sounded nonplussed and a little annoyed.

“Where are you?” Tanner asked.

“In the city,” Milton said.

“Something’s happened. We need you.”

Milton gritted his teeth.

“I’m sending a car to pick you up now. Where are you?”

Milton reached a brick wall and sat down on it. “Mile End.”

“What are you doing in Mile End?”

Milton had no interest in answering that. “I can be at the Tube station in fifteen minutes.”

“Very good. The car is on its way.”

There was no point in arguing. Milton looked back at the building. Michael was just going inside, with the other two smokers following him. A wedge was removed from underneath the door and it swung closed.

“And Smith?” Tanner was still on the line.

“What?”

“You’re going to need to be sharp. We have a situation. You’ll be briefed en route.”

Jessie Ross woke up to the sound of her phone buzzing in her handbag.

She had been out in Camden last night. It had been a typical Saturday: they had started in the Good Mixer, staggered up Parkway to the Dublin Castle, watched a terrible band and then danced to the same music they always danced to until the late lock-in finally came to an end at three. She had told herself that she wouldn’t stay out all night but, already half cut, her resistance had been pathetic. They had picked up a greasy kebab from Woody’s Grill and taken it back to Fuzz’s house to eat it.

The phone.

She sat up and found that she wasn’t alone in bed. She remembered. There was a man next to her. He was lying on his front, his head angled away so that she couldn’t see his face. The sheets had been dragged all the way down to his knees and she could see that he was naked. She knew who he was: his name was Peter and he was one of Izzy’s friends from Fort Monckton, the facility that served as the SIS field operations training centre.

She got out of bed, took her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door and put it on. She found her handbag beneath the piled clothes on the floor and took out her phone. She looked at the display and saw that the call was from Raj Shah and that, much worse, she had already missed four calls from him. She groaned. He was calling on a Sunday? It must be serious.

She took the call and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she said quietly as she stepped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen diner of her flat.

“I’ve been calling you for the last thirty minutes,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The phone was on silent.”

“Where are you?”

“At home. What’s happening?”

“I need you to get to Southwold as quickly as you can.”

“Southwold?” She wrinkled her brow as she tried to remember where that was. “Norfolk?”

“Suffolk. I’m sending a car to pick you up. There’ll be a briefing in the back—you need to be up to speed by the time you get there.”

She looked down at the dirty dressing gown and then at her reflection in the window. Her hair was a disaster and she was still wearing last night’s make-up. She was a mess. “Give me half an hour,” she said.

“Can’t do that. The car will be with you in five minutes. Don’t fuck about, Jessie. This has the potential to be very serious.”

Jessie thought about her son; Lucas was with her parents, and she was supposed to be going over to pick him up later. She was going to have to call them to see if they could keep him for a little longer. She went back into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe, hoping against hope that she had something suitable to wear.

“Jessie?” Shah said curtly.

“Yes, sir,” she said, taking down a skirt that would just about do the trick. “It’s fine. Can you give me an idea what this is about?”