Gerald Seymour - Heart of Danger

An hour later he said, "I'll work out what it would cost, how many days I estimate it will take. Goodbye, Mrs. Braddock. You'll hear from me."

The pub was down the road from the launderette, and round the corner, "You know what you are, Penn? You are a jam my bastard." The pub, Basil's 'watering hole', was mean and dirty and dark. There was a table beyond the bar that was his, out of danger from the darts board. Basil, one-time detective sergeant, had made the table his own since retirement from the Metropolitan Police nineteen years back. Most lunch times, Basil was at the table with Deirdre. "You milk that one, my son, because it's cream for the cat. You spin it out, my son." Jim didn't use the pub at lunch time, left Basil clear with Deirdre, but he came by at five most evenings. Jim, one-time detective constable in the Fraud Squad, liked a game of pool in the bar and a swift pint, or three, with Basil. It was where the hard business of Alpha Security was talked through. "They don'c come on trees, young fellow, they're gifts from heaven. You fell on your feet, young fellow." Henry, one-time Telecom engineer, came to the pub only at Christmas, birthday, or celebration time, and nursed orange juice. Henry was valuable, always sober, and spent his drinks money on bug equipment and the gear for tapping hard lines, and the new pride and joy was a UHF room transmitter built into a thirteen-amp wall socket. "Milk it

…" "Run it…" "Enjoy it…" It wasn't talked about, but Penn assumed that Basil and Jim and Henry did odd-job work for Five. Work that was boring and work that was illegal would be farmed out, Penn assumed. It had to be a good assumption because when he had been working out his notice at Gower Street, when he was getting all the flak from Jane as to where the mortgage money was going to come from, there had been the quiet call from the fourth floor and the request that he attend the office of Senior Executive Officer Arnold Browne. A soft word of sympathy, a frowned nod of understanding, and a suggestion that Alpha Security, SW19, might be looking for an able man. He guessed a little empire had been built, the tentacles spread, and Henry never seemed short of gear that cost, and plenty more than he saved by drinking only orange juice. They were a good little team: give Basil three phone calls, he could find a burglar, a mugger, a safe-breaker; give Jim half a day, he could get an Inland Revenue annual statement print-out; Henry could fix, in twenty-four hours, best quality audio and. visual surveillance. They were a good little team, but needing young legs and young eyes and a guy prepared to sit through the bread-and-butter crap.. But it wasn't bread-and-butter crap they were celebrating in the pub, with Penn buying the drinks, it was a hell of a good overseas contract, with money going half share to the partners… Penn felt quiet satisfaction, because Basil was almost jealous, and Jim couldn't quite hide the envy, and Henry didn't seem too cheerful. Penn was reaching for their glasses, and none of them was shouting that it was his round. Penn said, "Actually, she's quite a decent woman…" "Bollocks, she's a punter." "Daily rate, plus per them expenses, plus Club-class flights." "Half the daily rate up front, per them expenses in your greasy hand for a clear week before you go, and that doesn't include the hotel of your choice." Penn said, "Pity is that her daughter was a right little tosser…" He scooped up the glasses and headed for the bar. Two pints of best bitter, an orange juice, and Penn was taking low alcohol because when he was shot of them he would be going back to the office over the launderette and he would be typing up the finances and faxing them down to the Manor House on the Surrey/ Sussex border, and then he would be going home to Jane, and hoping to God, some hope, that the baby slept hard… and hoping to God, some hope, that Jane wasn't flat on her back with exhaustion… It was going sour with Jane, not solicitors and courts stage, just going stale, and he did not know what to do about it, nor whether it mattered if he did nothing about it. He brought the drinks back, shouldered his way through the shop people and the mechanics in their overalls and the building site workers who were all on the 'black'. Wouldn't have been seen in there, not seen dead in there, when he had been at Gower Street. It still seared him, and it would do so for a goddamn long time, the memory of when he had come back home to Raynes Park off the train from Waterloo, and told Jane that he was washed up, working out his notice, gone. Jane, seven months pregnant, and hysterical, and him not able to staunch the screaming. She'd done it, Jane, she had wound him up when she had packed her job in because the baby was coming. She had done the sums of the household accounts, told him they couldn't survive, not with the baby coming, not without her money, unless he had himself promoted. She had told him he should have been made up from executive officer to higher executive officer, and like a bloody fool… Basil took his drink. "Cheers… I'm going to give you advice, you jam my bastard. Don't go sentimental on it, don't get yourself involved." Jim grasped the pint glass and nodded his agreement. Henry sipped at the orange juice. "Good trip… Just pile the paper up, reports, analysis, interview transcripts, like you've been a busy boy." "I hear you." He made his excuses and left them still talking, debating, arguing, what the rate of per them expenses should be. He walked out onto the street. They were closing the shutters down on the fruit and vegetable shop, and locking up the jeans and denim store, and the launderette was packed full. Gary bloody Brennard, Personnel, wouldn't be unlocking a paint-peeled door beside a launderette and going back to work at 6.33pm, and Gary bloody Brennard, Personnel, wouldn't even remember his little talk with Bill Penn, executive officer. His own fault, because he had not copped on to the new scene at Five. Too dumb, too stupid, to have evaluated the new mood at Five. Entry to General Intelligence Group was restricted to higher executive officers, new scene, didn't he know? Entry to General Intelligence Group was restricted to university graduates, there was a new mood, didn't he know? They didn't want watchers, nor leg-men, nor ditch-men

… they wanted analysts and information control management, and they wanted graduates. "Don't have a degree, do you, Bill?" Gary Brennard's sneer. "Didn't make university, did you, Bill?" His feet hammered the linoleum above the launderette. He snatched the cover off the typewriter. "Without a degree, without a university education, you've reached your plateau, haven't you, Bill?" He began to type. He accepted the assignment. He listed the daily rate and a half to be paid in advance, and the per them expenses rate… He pounded the keys of the typewriter. "If that's the way you feel then you should consider transferring your talents to the private sector. We wouldn't want disaffected junior officers, would we, Bill?" He read through the paper. No, he wouldn't be sentimental. No, he wouldn't get himself involved. He dialled the number. He watched the fax sheet go. There was not enough light for him to make a clean job of the sewing. He did it as best he could, and it was poor work because he could barely see where he pushed the thick needle, and his hands shook. His hands shook in fear. Ham sewed strips of black elastic onto the arms and the body of the tunic. The others watched him and waited their turn with the one needle and the reel of heavy cotton. He tried hard to hide the shaking because each of the other five men who would go across with him believed in his professionalism. It was what he was paid for, what he was there for, to communicate professionalism. There were eight lengths of black elastic now on his tunic, and he had already sewn five lengths onto his combat fatigue trousers, and when they were down at the river, when they were ready to slip into the inflatable, then they would collect old grass and they would tuck the grass lengths in behind the elastic straps. They were important, Shape and Silhouette. He passed on the needle and the cotton reel and the roll of black elastic tape. He set himself to work on Shine. He spat into the palms of his hands and then scooped the cream from the jar and worried the mess together, and made the sweeping smears across his eyebrows and nose and cheeks and chin, and his ears and throat and wrists and hands. He handed the jar to those who were waiting to use the needle and the cotton roll. He had told them about Smell, and he had bloody lectured them that there should have been no smoking since the middle of the day, and he had checked that the tinfoil was in his own battle pack for their shit and the burying of it. He had lectured them about Sound, and he had shaken each of the webbing harnesses they would wear for the rattle of loose ammunition magazines, and he had made them all walk round him in a circle until he was certain that their boots were quiet.