LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I didn’t mean that.’

      ‘What did you mean?’

      ‘How are we going to get our hands on the bastards who got away?’

      Carr looked out and down to the sea, a mile or so distant, and the lights of Marbella twinkling merrily and incongruously in the black water, from which death had emerged so suddenly, and into which it had retreated just as quickly.

      ‘Not our problem.’

      George finished his beer and went to fetch two more.

      ‘Maybe I’ll get a chance if I pass Selection,’ he said, when he came back.

      ‘Maybe,’ said Carr. ‘But that’s a big if.’

      George turned away, looking dejected.

      ‘Hey, son,’ said Carr, reaching over and punching him on the shoulder. ‘Nothing against you, you’re as good a candidate as any I’ve seen. But it’s tough, and shit happens. I’ve seen good guys go down with injuries, or lose it in the jungle, or on combat survival, or just purely can’t hack it. There’s no guarantees.’

      George Carr nodded.

      ‘Remember what I said when you told me you were trying for the Paras?’ said Carr.

      George looked at him, grinning slightly. ‘Not to come home if I failed, because no son of yours was failing.’

      Carr threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Go and join the Foreign Legion. But I knew you’d pass. And I know you’ve got what it takes to pass Selection, too.’

      A smile spread across George’s face.

      ‘But if you do fucking fail,’ said Carr, finishing his beer, ‘you can go and join the fucking Foreign Legion.’

37.

      LIAM HAD INPUTTED the information he’d gleaned from the surviving couple, and Justin Nicholls picked it up on MI6’s confidential feed just after midnight UK time.

      There was varying levels of background on each of the eight members of the party.

      All under thirty years of age.

      A Times journalist – Charlotte Morgan’s boyfriend, Edward Hanson.

      Two lawyers, Charlie herself and a trustafarian solicitor called Emily Souster.

      An investment banker called Nick Chandler who had travelled with Souster.

      Jeremy Percival, who was a director at Percival Wareham, the London estate agency, and his wife, Martha.

      Finally, the two lucky ones: financial adviser Thomas, and his nursery teacher girlfriend, Jemima.

      Much of the focus would be on the three women who had been taken, but there was a decent new lead – the young guy in the Manchester United shirt who had followed them from Málaga arrivals, and then been seen on the beach. Some decent CCTV imagery of him had been found, and was being distributed.

      And then there were the two who’d been shot dead; the results of DNA tests and fingerprint lifts from those bodies would be available soon.

      If any or all of the men could be identified in some way, this would be a major start in working out where they were from and, most importantly, where they had gone.

      It was early days, but they had a thread to pick at.

      On the muted TV in the corner, tuned to the rolling twenty-four-hour Sky News channel, they were showing pictures of grieving family members starting to arrive at Málaga airport.

      It was alternating with looped footage from Whitehall, showing people climbing into cars after the Civil Contingencies Committee meeting in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room.

      Truth was, that wasn’t much more than theatre: the media loved COBRA, but the real work was being done elsewhere.

      He looked at his watch.

      Nicholls had developed the ability to work for long stretches without sleep, but he was also long past any macho need to prove himself by staying longer, working harder, sticking at it.

      There would be days ahead when he needed to pull longer hours, and he had to save his strength for those.

      He switched his work station off, pulled on his jacket, and left the office.

38.

      JOHN CARR WOKE with a start in the cool morning light, feeling damp and gritty-eyed.

      It took him a moment to realise that he’d fallen asleep outside, on one of Konstantin’s sun loungers.

      He looked at his watch.

      05:45 hrs.

      He rubbed his eyes, stood up from the lounger, and padded into the villa through the open glass doors.

      A security guy was asleep on the sofa.

      Carr walked past him into the kitchen.

      Made himself a cup of tea, and walked back out to the poolside with that in one hand and a stale chocolate brioche in the other.

      Thought for a second, went back inside and prodded the security guard with his foot.

      The man awoke with a start and a gasp.

      ‘Morning, pal,’ said Carr, cheerily. ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Yuri,’ said the guard, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in shock. ‘I…’

      ‘You report to Oleg, right?’

      Oleg Kovalev was Konstantin Avilov’s head of security, a former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spook and a good friend to Carr.

      ‘Yes.’

      Carr bit into the brioche, started chewing.

      He wiped a smear of chocolate from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and looked down at the Russian.

      Early fifties, he guessed, and thickset, with that hard, Eastern European look about him.

      ‘Spetznaz?’ he said.

      ‘No,’ said Yuri. ‘VDV.’

      ‘Airborne,’ said Carr, with an appreciative nod. ‘Me too. Afghanistan?’

      ‘Yes, for two year,’ said Yuri, proudly. ‘Also, First Chechen War.’

      ‘That’s some bad ju-ju,’ said Carr, with a grin.

      He took another bite of the brioche.

      The Russian security man relaxed, and smiled back at him.

      ‘You know my wee daughter’s asleep upstairs?’ said Carr.

      The smile faded slightly, shading into confusion.

      ‘So answer me this, Yuri,’ said Carr. ‘When you were on stag – you know, sentry duty – in Afghanistan, or Chechnya, did you fall asleep?’

      Now the smile well and truly fell from the Russian’s face. ‘No,’ he said.

      ‘No,’ said Carr. ‘I bet you didn’t. Because the Muj didn’t fuck about, did they?’

      Yuri said nothing, but Carr knew he’d understood. On more than a few occasions, Soviet sentries had dozed off, and had awoken to find their camp overrun, and themselves and their muckers about to be skinned alive by gleeful mujahideen.

      Carr finished off the sweet bread, and washed it down with a mouthful of too-hot tea.

      He paused.

      Trying to decide whether to bollock the fucker, or punch him.

      The

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