Andy McNab - Payback

Senorita dice: all right. u remember that guy in yor year, todd hammond? he asked me out the other day

A surge of jealousy swept through Danny’s body and he felt his face flush with anger.

Senor dice: look, i might as well go, yor trying to wind me up now

Senrita dice: i am not! u asked me to tell u wots happened. it happened! and anyway i said no, hes a creep. look y does it always end up like this lately? y cant we just be normal???

Normal. Danny longed to be normal again. He wanted to explain to Elena that his life had changed completely since he had last seen her. As his hands hovered over the computer keyboard he pictured the room at Foxcroft where she was sitting.

He missed Foxcroft. The harsh red-brick exterior, the creaking staircases and wheezing central heating system. The huge windows, with their broken sashes and cracked panes. He missed his old room, the posters on the walls, his computer. He missed the garden and the lushness of the emerald-green lawn after a shower of rain. He missed all the things he’d so easily taken for granted, but most of all he missed Elena.

Southern Spain was like another world where one sun-drenched day followed another. In Seville, orange trees lined the wide boulevards and palm trees reached skywards. It was easy to see why the surrounding countryside was known as the dust bowl of Spain: parched brown earth, dust-blown and dry, with never a glimpse of greenery. Mile after mile of barren countryside with small, quiet towns dotted here and there.

But Danny was a city boy, born and brought up amid the noise and pace of a bustling, vibrant capital. And the longer he spent marooned in the Spanish countryside the more he yearned for the London life that already seemed so distant.

The road where Fergus and Danny ran their tea bar was newly built and sat about half a metre above ground level. Like a puckered black scar it meandered between scorched fields of ancient gnarled olive trees towards the coastal city of Huelva. In some places you could see a pair of concrete rendered gateposts with rusting iron gates standing a few metres back from the road. But there were no accompanying fences or driveways. The grand estates once guarded by the gates were long gone.

The gates were old Spain; the road itself was one of the gateways to new Spain, for it snaked its way down to the Costa de la Luz, the latest growth area for holidaymakers and second-home hunters. It was the perfect spot for a snack bar: many of the more intrepid and adventurous Brits had started choosing this route rather than the busier motorway toll roads.

Fergus had never bothered seeking permission for the business venture; he guessed no one would worry about a couple more foreigners making a few euros by the roadside. And he was right. It was too hot for complaints and arguments and filling in forms. An official from the nearest town hall had even become a regular customer; so had couple of the local police. Fergus had operated a roadside tea bar back in Britain before he’d gone on the run with Danny. This one was different: most of the Spanish customers pulled in for coffee and a speciality hot chicken or pork sandwich cooked in garlic-flavoured oil. But the Brits were attracted by the Union flag and the hand-painted sign reading: TEA. They would spill from their hire cars, desperate for a proper cuppa, clutching new home brochures with titles like ‘Live the Dream’.

Danny’s dream was more simple. He wanted to go home. To England. To London. But instead, every evening they returned to Valverde del Camino.

The small white house was mid terrace, identical to all the others in the narrow street. Each had three windows, two up and one down, with exterior shutters protected by ornate wrought-iron bars. Each house had the same carved wooden front door and a roll-down shutter for the integral garage.

Every night when they returned, Fergus would go through his standard anti-surveillance drill: the remains of the matchstick trapped between the door and the frame would inevitably fall to the ground as proof that no one had opened it. Inside, the shutters and interior doors were always in exactly the same position as he had left them. When Fergus was satisfied the house was safe, he would garage the truck, slamming down the rolling door so hard it sparked up every dog in the vicinity. Then their usual evening routine would begin.

Fergus was determined to keep up his fitness levels, so most nights he completed a forty-five-minute routine of aerobic and muscle-toning exercises. Danny would go for a run, partly because he too wanted to stay fit, partly because it reminded him of his former life in England, and partly because he could escape from his grandfather, if only for a while. Then it would be a quick shower, a bite to eat, followed by a couple of hours in front of Spanish television.

Danny hated it. Endless chat shows, Spanish football, badly dubbed movies and soaps. There was even a programme devoted to bullfighting. They watched it together one night and Danny stared in horror as the magnificent bull was tormented, tortured and finally brought to its knees as the matador thrust his sword into the back of its neck.

‘It’s disgusting,’ said Danny as the preening matador took the whistles and applause of the huge crowd. ‘I wish the bull had got him.’

‘It happens sometimes,’ said Fergus with a shrug. ‘And it’s not just about killing. It’s a bit like gladiators in the Roman arena. There’s tradition, and ritual and ceremony.’

‘Yeah? Well, tell that to the bull,’ snarled Danny as he stood up and headed for the stairs. ‘And don’t ask me to watch it again!’

They were not getting on well. After six months together they were still, in many ways, like strangers. Physically, the family resemblance was strong, but the similarity ended there. They were from different generations, different lives, different worlds.

And they argued endlessly. ‘I didn’t ask you to come looking for me,’ Fergus would say when Danny moaned about the boredom and frustration of their life in Spain.

‘I wish I hadn’t! I’m sick to death of making tea. I was doing A levels at school – I should have a proper job!’

‘You’re lucky you’re alive, Danny, remember that. If you’re bored, read a book. Or tell me all the SOPs you can remember. You haven’t done that lately.’

‘I don’t want to know SOPs. I want a life!’

And the arguments would rage on and on. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, Fergus remained focused on safety and security. He was quiet and secretive; it was as though he wore secrecy like a protective suit of armour. Danny was different. He could be impulsive, hot-headed, inclined to act without thinking. It didn’t make for the perfect partnership, especially as Fergus was constantly reminding Danny that he should be more like him.

Danny wanted to tell Elena all about it as he sat in the Internet cafe. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He had his orders. His SOPs. His hands went back to the keyboard.

Senor dice: so wot else is happening

Senorita dice: u sure u want me 2 say

Senor dice: look im sorry 4 being a pain, go on tell me

Senorita dice: u no who is back in court next week. he could go 2 prison 4 a long time.

Senor dice: im sorry, i should have asked b4

Senorita dice: don’t matter, nothing u can do, nothing any1 can do, its his own stupid fault, i dont care.

But she did care. Desperately. And the one person she wanted to talk about it to was Danny. But she couldn’t. Fergus’s rules on online safety applied to them both.

‘U no who’ was Elena’s dad, Joey. Years earlier, when Elena was a small child, he’d cleared off back to his Nigerian homeland, saying he was going to make his fortune. He didn’t; he just didn’t come back, not until eighteen months after Elena’s mum died. She had left a small inheritance for her daughter’s education, and when Elena came into the money, Joey suddenly turned up. He spun Elena a line about investing in a fantastic moneymaking scheme that involved exporting second-hand white goods – old fridges, freezers and washing machines – back to Nigeria.