She rolled her eyes for only Stratton to see before turning to face her boyfriend. ‘Do we have to go now? I’m enjoying myself.’
‘It’s a bit of a bore, darling, and we’ve shown our faces,’ he said. ‘What are you doing in here anyway? Annoying the staff?’
‘This nice man was telling me how he is prepared to lay down his life to protect us all if terrorists should come over the walls in their hundreds. I’d introduce him to you but he won’t tell me his name - the strong secretive type, don’t you know?’
Stratton finished his drink and put the glass down. ‘Nice talking to you,’ he said as he turned to leave.
‘Yes, why don’t you run along,’ the boyfriend said with an attitude.
Stratton stopped and looked back at the man whose tone he found offensive. The other man was also staring at Stratton in support of his friend, like a pair of elegant wolves.
‘You’re not here to hang around the kitchen chatting up ladies,’ the friend added.
Both men saw a flicker of danger behind Stratton’s grey eyes, but they were too well bred to heed any warning from a mere ranker.
‘I’m Captain Brigstock, Life Guards, and this is Captain Boyston. I know you’re not an officer so why don’t you consider it an order. Off you go,’ he said, and topped it off with a chin-jutting, superior smirk.
The girl put her arm through her captain’s, switching allegiance like the fickle wind. ‘Ooh, you do excite me when you get bossy, Charlie.’
Stratton sighed, turned about and continued to the door. They were not worth the effort.
‘I don’t know why we have to have these mindless thugs as security,’ Brigstock said to his friends but intentionally loud enough for Stratton to hear.
Stratton paused in the doorway without looking back. The officers were beginning to test his self control. He raised his eyes to the skies as if looking for divine help and stepped outside. As he walked away laughter came from the kitchen.
He folded them from his mind and paused on the green to survey the area wondering how much longer this party was going to go on for.
‘Stratton? I say. Is that you?’ a man called out.
Stratton saw a stout, grey-haired gentleman in his sixties the other side of the green heading towards him with his hands in his jacket pockets, a classic affectation of the upper class that the man wore comfortably.
The woman and her two young officers walked out of the kitchen. ‘Isn’t that your uncle?’ Boyston asked Brigstock.
‘Yes,’ Brigstock said, suddenly fluffing up and putting on a broad smile as he waved. ‘Hello, Uncle.’
The old man noticed him as he approached and looked immediately disjointed on recognising his nephew. ‘Oh, Brigstock. How you doing, lad?’ he said blandly.
‘Fine, sir,’ Brigstock beamed while Boyston, also smiling broadly, took a large step forward to stand beside his friend. The old man was obviously very important and it wasn’t what you knew but who you, or your closest friends, were related to. ‘This is my friend—’
‘Excuse me a moment, would you?’ the old man interrupted easily. ‘On my way to see an old friend.’ He breezed past them and headed for Stratton.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said to Stratton as he stopped in front of him.
‘Hello, Ambassador,’ Stratton said, genuinely pleased to see the man, and they shook hands warmly. He was the former British ambassador to Algiers. Three years before, Stratton turned up at the embassy on his own to propose an evacuation plan for the staff during an uprising in the country by Islamic fundamentalists that threatened their safety. An SAS contingent had arrived the day before and was pushing a proposal to cut down all the trees in the embassy grounds so that helicopters could land and evacuate everyone to the airport where a military transport aircraft would take them out of the country. But since the embassy was near the sea, Stratton had been sent from the SBS headquarters with an alternative plan. His idea was to take a short drive to the beach under heavy guard where fast attack boats could ferry the staff to a waiting Royal Navy frigate.
The ambassador’s wife happened to love the trees in the garden and was horrified at the thought of seeing them cut down but had conceded them as an unavoidable price one had to pay for the safety of the embassy staff. When she heard Stratton’s proposal she nudged the ambassador and whispered in his ear that she would divorce him if he didn’t go with the boat idea. The ambassador liked the waterborne option anyway since he happened to be an ex-Navy man and fancied stepping aboard a war ship once again after so many years. However, the four SAS men were officers and Stratton was only an SBS colour sergeant; diplomacy was required so as not to ruffle SAS feathers. As the ambassador fumbled through the pros and cons, racking his brains for a justifiable way out of the air option, Stratton had interrupted politely, informing them that recently the Algerians had acquired some Stingers - hand-held ground-to-air missiles - and that using aircraft to evacuate the area might not be a wise option.
The SAS officers knew Stratton had outmanoeuvred them, and the ambassador was pleased with Stratton’s timely advice which gave him the room to close the matter.
‘How have you been?’ the ambassador asked Stratton, genuinely interested. He had never been impressed with rank alone and was far more inclined towards people of substance. Brigstock and Boyston were within earshot and horrified that the security man had a higher priority than them.
‘Fine, sir,’ Stratton said shaking his hand. He liked the old man who had filed a most complimentary report on his return to England about the SBS’s handling of the embassy situation.
‘You must say hello to Angela. She’s over there and would love to see you. You know she often mentions that time in the embassy, and not only her trees that you saved. You outflanked the SAS in one other area.You were the only military chap thoughtful enough to bring some English newspapers and tea.’ He laughed heartily bringing a broad grin to Stratton’s face. ‘So what are you doing here? Must be god-awful boring for the likes of you. What idiot put people of your calibre on duty at a garden party?’
‘We have to take the rough with the smooth, sir.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
The ambassador caught his nephew hovering over his shoulder and reluctantly acknowledged his presence. ‘Brigstock.You met Stratton?’The old man didn’t want to share Stratton with his nephew but these parties were all about meeting people of influence.
‘’Em, not exactly sir,’ Brigstock stammered.
‘Special Boat Service. One of the top operatives in the country, and that’s not just my opinion.’
Stratton ignored the two men who started to offer their hands but changed their minds when they realised they would not be taken. Brigstock’s girlfriend smiled at Stratton as if she had always been on his side.
Stratton’s phone vibrated in his pocket.‘Excuse me a moment, sir,’ he said as he took it out, checked the screen, pushed a button and put it to his ear. He heard a loud noise that sounded like interference. ‘Scouse.That you?’ he said loudly, trying to compensate for the noise.
‘Stratton,’ a voice shouted.
‘You in a chopper?’ Stratton asked.
‘Yes. Where are you?’
‘Lord Balmore’s estate. We’re covering a garden party.’
‘I know that. I’m towards your location. This isn’t a social call.’
Stratton then heard the throb of a helicopter and looked to the skies. It sounded like it was coming from the south but a wood bordering that side of the estate concealed anything flying low from view.
‘Get your arse into the open,’ Scouse shouted. ‘We’re coming to pick you up.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Something big.’
The helicopter suddenly roared out from the tree-tops, right over the lawn, putting an abrupt halt to every conversation, and banked low over the estate. It was an SBS Super Lynx, a nine-seat jet assault helicopter.
‘Get yourself a marker,’ Scouse said.
‘I’m on it,’ Stratton said, then to the ambassador. ‘Gotta go, sir.’
‘Something come up?’
‘Looks like it,’ Stratton said.
‘That’s more like it, eh?’
Stratton scanned around for something bright and saw it draped over the shoulders of Brigstock’s girlfriend.
‘May I?’ he said to her as he took her pink jacket.
‘Oh. Yes . . . um . . .’
Then Stratton was off, jogging to a clear part of the lawn.
‘Look after yourself,’ the ambassador called out to him.
The man in the white suit stepped out of the building as Stratton went past. ‘I say. Where’s my Buck’s Fizz?’ he said, then noticed the circling helicopter. ‘Oh, my word.’
Stratton held the phone to his ear as he swung the pink coat around his head. ‘Scouse, I’m waving pink.’
‘Seen,’ Scouse replied, and the Lynx continued its spiral back to the lawn. It headed directly for Stratton rapidly losing height and then a few metres from him tipped its nose up to halt its forward movement, levelled out and dropped rapidly on to its trolley wheels as Stratton ran towards it. The marquee took a pounding from the rotors, as did the nearby guests, tables and ladies’ hats, which went flying.
The side door was already open and Stratton jumped in. The Lynx rose quickly, nose dipped dramatically, and accelerated forward and up, engines screaming and the blades carving hungrily into the air as it gained height. The pink jacket came flying out of the door and landed not far from the two officers. Brigstock’s girlfriend ran to pick it up and then waved farewell with it as the Lynx thundered over the house and was out of sight and sound in seconds.
Morgan and Smudge came running on to the lawn amid the whirling debris in time to see the helicopter go.
‘Lucky bastard,’ Morgan said looking thoroughly pissed off.
Scouse slid the door shut, closing out the wind and some of the noise, and Stratton regarded the five SBS operatives who shared the cab behind the cockpit. They were all dressed in black assault clothing, with bulging chest harnesses filled with various pieces of equipment and ordnance, leather gloves, helmets on laps, throat mics, MPK5 sub-machine guns and P226 semi-automatic pistols strapped to their thighs. Scouse, sat beside Stratton, slid a heavy-duty black holdall along the floor and dumped it on top of a large coil of heavy thick rope at Stratton’s feet, one end of which was shackled to a strong point in the ceiling near Stratton’s door.
‘Here’s your kit,’ Scouse shouted over the shrill of the engines.
Stratton took his jacket off and started pulling at his tie. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Possible hijacked supertanker. Sometime before dawn. It’s way off course and doesn’t respond to any radio calls.The coastguard’s alongside but it’s too high for them to climb on deck. They have a chopper in the area but they’ve been told not to board her. The bad news is it’s heading for the coast at top speed, towards the Torquay area, and it’s full to the gunwales with oil.’
‘How long’ve we got?’
‘It’s gonna be tight. By the time we get there I reckon we’ll have about fifteen, twenty minutes to take it.’
‘Anything on the bad guys?’ Stratton asked as he pulled off his shoes and trousers and dug his one-piece fire-retardant assault suit out of the bag.
‘Helicopter reports no sign of life on deck and the bridge looks empty.’
‘Where’s it from?’
‘It’s an Aralco oil company boat. One of their big ones. Last stop was Sidi Kerir oil terminal off the coast of Egypt in the Med where it took on its load. It was on its way to Rotterdam. Last known contact was with its headquarters in Dubai one a.m. this morning.’
‘What’s the plan?’
‘Two under-slung VSVs are on their way by Chinook. We’ll take the bridge as the lads hit the main deck. A bunch of bio-chem and nuclear specialists are on their way.’
‘Who’s in the VSVs?’
‘Jacko’s got Alpha in VSV one, Stevens has Echo in two. And you’ve got us.’
Stratton looked at the other faces: Fred, Nick, Tip and Foster. ‘All right, lads?’ he asked. They gave him a thumbs up. Stratton didn’t know them very well though he had worked with Tip a couple of times. Because Stratton had spent so much time away from the squadrons he hadn’t rotated through the various teams as much as other seniors such as Scouse. Now that he had been back almost a year he was getting to know most of the guys again and meeting the new ones. Everyone knew him, of course, even the new operatives who had just joined. It was generally considered, although it was not a subject particularly discussed, that Stratton was the SBS’s top operative, and often other operatives’ first choice of team commander if an operation was going down.That was influenced by the fact that Stratton was often the operations room’s first choice for the more difficult tasks. Senior officers acknowledged he had the gift of inspiring those he worked with.
‘Hey, Stratton,’ Foster said, leaning towards him. ‘Morgan ’asn’t fucked up my jacket by any chance?’
‘Why’d you lend it to ’im if you’re so worried?’ Tip asked.
‘Either ’e went with the jacket or I did,’ Foster stated.
‘He said something about trimming the sleeves a bit,’ Stratton said poker faced.
Foster studied Stratton, wondering if this was a bite, but he didn’t know him well enough to call him on it.
‘Did that to a pair of trousers I lent him,’ Tip added.
Foster looked at Tip, still unsure, and sat back to mull over the future of his jacket.
Stratton struggled to pull the suit on over his torso, pushed his arms into the sleeves and zipped up the front to his throat. He strapped up his boots, pulled on his harness, sorted out his weapons, put his helmet on his lap and clipped his throat mic around his neck. The final piece of clothing was a pair of leather gloves, which he pulled on tightly, sealing the Velcro around his wrists. He was ready.
He leaned forward to zip his civvies inside the bag when he thought of something. Remembering Scouse’s great appetite he took the sandwich out of his jacket pocket and offered it to him. Scouse took it, looked inside and stuffed the entire thing in his mouth.