Bald’s upper lip curled in disgust as he got comfortable with the AK-47. ‘One week on this course and you still haven’t got the basics nailed down. If you can’t shoot a weapon, you won’t last ten minutes in Kabul.’

  Mohican bristled at the insult. Bald glanced at the other candidates as he stepped forward with his own weapon.

  ‘This is how you fire a gun,’ he said.

  Adopting the firing stance he’d been taught in the Regiment, Bald kept his shoulder and arm muscles firm but not too tense, a posture engrained in his muscle memory. Now he relaxed his neck, allowing his cheek to fall naturally onto the stock, so the stock weld provided a line of sight through the rear aperture. His eyes focused on the front sight post as he aligned its tip with a bullseye target three hundred metres from his position. Then he exhaled, stilling the air in his throat. As he squeezed the trigger he consciously worked to avoid tensing his muscles, because too much tension would disturb the lay of the rifle. Many inexperienced operators instinctively became rigid at the expectation of a round being discharged, but Bald had fired a tool so many times in his life that it was second nature to him. A simple depression of the trigger, lasting less than a second. Then a tongue of flame lashed out of the snout of the AK-47, accompanied by a deafening roar that boomeranged through the surrounding woodland. A single round of 7.62x39mm lead fizzed downrange, the spent brass jacket spitting out of the ejector in a metallic flash. A faint chink as the round hammered into the centre of the bullseye, the spent jacket dinking on the hard ground. From start to finish, the demonstration of perfect aiming and firing technique had taken twelve seconds. Bald thumbed the fire selector up to the safety setting and thrust the assault rifle back at Mohican.

  ‘That’s how a real soldier shoots,’ he said. ‘A prick like you will never be as good as that.’

  ‘You gonna let him talk to you like that, Derek?’ the guy next to Mohican piped up. He also had a Geordie accent, along with the all-over orange tan that only comes out of a spray can.

  Spray-Tan and Mohican were best mates. Or maybe lovers, thought Bald. They had been thick as thieves since rocking up at the compound, training together, spotting each other in the gym, mouthing off about how they were going to buy Rolexes and Porsches with the shekels they would be earning on a contract in the Afghan. They were the only two Brits on the course. The rest were Russian, with a few Saffas and Aussies who possessed rudimentary knowledge of how to fire a gun and needed to blow away the cobwebs. At the start of the course Bald had announced a system of fines whereby the trainees were penalized for leaving their rifle beyond arm’s reach, even when they went to grab some scoff or make a brew. Ten euros for the first offence, straight into Bald’s beer kitty, with the amount increasing for every repeat offence. Mohican and Spray-Tan were joint top of the list.

  Now Bald rounded on Spray-Tan, fixing his piercing gaze on the guy.

  ‘I’ll talk to you two however I want. I’m the instructor on this course. I’ve got the credentials. You’ve got nothing. The fucking Chuckle Brothers have got more skill with a weapon than you.’

  Spray-Tan went from orange to red. He took a step towards Bald. ‘Show us some fucking respect, man. We used to be in the Paras.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Bald made a peculiar face at Spray-Tan. His throat tickled with intrigue. ‘Which battalion?’

  Spray-Tan glanced at his Geordie mucker. There was a definite twitching of his lips as he replied, ‘Two Para.’

  Bald grinned, smelling blood. ‘Is that a fact? I spent three years in Aldershot with the Mob myself, back in the days before I passed Selection.’ He paused, grinned, said, ‘Jeff Daniels is still the RCM there, isn’t he?’

  Spray-Tan shifted uneasily. ‘Oh, aye, Daniels, that’s the guy.’

  Bald kept a straight face as he looked at Spray-Tan. Inside him, his blood was bubbling. The Geordies were lying through their teeth and the Scot knew it. But he kept the truth of it to himself. He was sick of the sight of them and needed a beer. Turning away from Spray-Tan, he grunted, ‘Class over!’

  He nodded at the barracks, some two hundred metres north of the firing range.

  ‘Right, lads. That’s the end of the course. I’ll be transporting the lot of you back to the train station at 1700 hours. Return to the dorms, pack your shit up and present yourselves for inspection. If I find anyone leaving their digs in a mess, it’ll come straight out of your deposit.’

  Grumbles all round from the candidates.

  Mohican said, ‘What about our certificates?’

  ‘Too fucking right,’ Spray-Tan chimed. ‘We need them to tick the health and safety boxes on our insurance paperwork.’

  Bald grinned cruelly at both of them in turn, his ice-cold eyes glinting.

  ‘Waiting for you at the admin office. There’s a surprise waiting for you two.’

  The Geordies looked quizzically at Bald. Then they trudged off with the other candidates. Bald remained behind to stash the weapons at the adjacent indoor firing range. There were a lot of guns to clear away, all of them the type of weapons candidates would typically encounter on the Circuit: AK-47s, mass-produced, durable and easy to use, and Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic handguns, the standard-issue secondary weapon for most private military companies.

  He set to work. The training compound was roughly the size of an out-of-town retail park and had previously been a Polish Army barracks. Talisman, registered in Hereford and running the course, leased it from the Lower Silesian government for a knockdown price. The company had given the buildings a lick of paint but in every other way the compound betrayed signs of its Soviet past, with its uneven brickwork, leaking roofs and gaps where metal downpipes had been ripped out by looters. Bald paid no rent on his digs, but in the winter the dormitory block was freezing and the shower had two settings: boiling hot or ice cold. Jagged mountains squatted on the horizon, a permanent reminder to Bald that he was in the middle of nowhere.

  At least he’d compensated for the boredom by getting bang on it with the phys. Long, early-morning runs through the woods enveloping the compound. Afternoon sessions in the gym doing deadlifts, squats and stomach crunches. Giving it maximum effort, Bald had rehabilitated himself. He had also weaned himself off the bottle. From necking a flagon of Johnnie Walker daily, he was now down to nine or ten jars of Tyskie on a Friday night on the piss in Legnica.

  That was what Bald called progress.

  He worked quickly to stow the weapons in the indoor range. Ran through his plans for the evening. As soon as he’d ferried the candidates back to the train station in the compound minibus, he’d head over to Flannery’s expat bar. There was a cold glass of the local brew waiting there for him and a bit of blonde action in the form of a Polish waitress called Danuta. Bald had met her while she was working the tables one night. She was svelte and sweet-voiced and had an arse that could make an Arab burn a Koran. Christ, thought Bald – the things she could do in the sack. He couldn’t wait to have another crack at her.

  He was still grinning as he stashed away the last AK-47. Then he switched off the lights, turned around and opened the door.

  Then Bald froze.

  The two Geordies were standing there.

  Thirteen

  1609 hours.

  The two of them were silent for a long beat. They just stood crowbarred in the doorway, glowering at Bald, their bulky frames blocking out the pale dregs of sunlight. Bald quickly weighed up the situation. They hadn’t come to shake his hand and wish him all the best. Their arms were folded across their chests, forearms thick as shotgun chokes, black eyes narrowed in their large faces like slashes in the sides of bulging grain sacks. They looked angry.

  Then Mohican stepped forward. Bald noticed that he was gripping a sheet of paper in his right hand. His knuckles were white as chalk and his neck muscles tense as rope. He waved the sheet at Bald.

  ‘Is this some kind of fucking joke, man?’

  Bald didn’t move. He looked Mohican hard in the eye. The Geordie bristled with savage intent. If he was hoping to intimidate Bald, he was doomed to fail. The Scot had fought raghead terrorists, Chinese militants, Russian hitmen and Israeli assassins. So he wasn’t about to be fazed by a couple of Geordies whose concept of extreme violence extended only as far as nutting drunks and dropping minor-league scum in the street.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  Mohican grunted and thrust the sheet of paper into Bald’s face. A checklist ran down the length of the page, listing items like weapon safety, zeroing and cleaning. Next to each item was a score out of ten, with the scores totalled at the bottom of the page. The Geordie tapped this figure.

  ‘Twenty-one out of a hundred, it says here. The bird at the admin office said we’ve both failed. She wouldn’t give us our certificates.’

  Bald chuckled easily, enjoying this. ‘You should have done better on the tests.’

  ‘Fuck right off.’ Mohican’s lips twisted like barbed wire. ‘You know we need our certificates. The contractors won’t let us deploy without having them stamped and signed off.’

  Bald flashed a look of fake concern. ‘That’s too bad.’

  Mohican shook his head. ‘You know how much those contracts in the Afghan are worth, man? A hundred grand each. Now, we paid good money to come out here. Don’t pull this crap on us.’

  Bald stared at Mohican and then Spray-Tan, a cold gleam in his steel-grey eyes. ‘I failed the pair of you because you’re shit. Shooting, cleaning, disassembly, weapon safety, immediate action drills,’ he said, ticking off the items on the fingers of his right hand. ‘The day I pass a pair of tossers like you is a sad day for humanity. Now piss off out of my sight.’

  Mohican chuckled somewhere deep down inside. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to us like that?’

  ‘I’m an SAS hero,’ said Bald, puffing out his chest with pride.

  Mohican laughed again. ‘Ex-SAS. Aye, you might have been a decent soldier back in the days of black-and-white TV and Dad’s Army. But now you’re just a washed-up old bastard. Face it. The only reason you won’t pass us is because you’re jealous of us scoring it big-time in the Afghan.’

  Bald teased a smile out of his thin lips. His eyes were so narrow they could have sharpened a knife.

  ‘At least I’ve been there and done it,’ he said.

  Mohican’s features folded in the middle of his face. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, man?’

  ‘You were never in the Mob,’ Bald said firmly. ‘There was no Jeff Daniels RCM in 2 Para. I made it up. You’re lying through your fucking teeth. You’re a couple of amateur thugs playing at soldiers.’

  Mohican was rumbled and the look on his face told Bald he knew it. ‘Fuck it, what difference does it make? We worked the doors on Quayside for ten years. Hard work, that. We’ve got the skills for the job.’

  Bald laughed again. ‘You’re pub bouncers. I’m the real deal.’

  Spray-Tan stepped into his face and said, ‘I’ve had enough of listening to this bag of bollocks. We’re not leaving till you give us our certificates. You’re not going to stop us. We’re going to fill our boots.’

  ‘The only thing you’ll be filling, mate, is dole applications at your local Jobcentre Plus. So long, sunshine. Tell those Geordie slappers up north that John Bald says hello, won’t you.’

  As Bald shaped to move past the two men, Spray-Tan blocked the door. Mohican stepped closer to the Scot, his face bursting at the seams with rage. ‘Don’t make me ask you again. Pass us.’

  Bald glared at the Geordies. Mentally steeling himself for the fight. He took in a sharp draw of breath, flooding his chest with oxygen and tensing his core muscles. He saw Mohican balling his shovel-like hands into fists. Knew what was coming next.

  Bald was ready for the punch even before Mohican threw it.

  The Geordie pushed forward on his right foot, dropping his shoulder and launching his fist at Bald in a wide arc somewhere between a hook and an uppercut. But the punch was slow and heavy. All that extra timber Mohican was carrying slowed him down. The guy had the classic body shape of someone who’d spent years bulking up in the gym without ever developing his speed of movement. He wasn’t exactly fleet of foot. Bald had been trained to react fast and hard, and now he parried the blow with a quick outward jerk of his left arm, swiping the arm aside with his solid forearm. Bald was fast, effective, surgical. Mohican snarled as his fist collided with thin air.

  The Geordie frantically tried to adjust his stance by twisting at the waist. He moved with all the grace and speed of an oil tanker on the turn. By the time Mohican had unloaded his left hook, Bald had already ducked low and avoided the blow. There was just enough time for Mohican to register a look of dumb surprise. Then Bald slugged him in the guts with a quick one-two combo, six months of hard work in the gym paying off as he struck with clinical speed and precision, winding the guy. He unloaded a third punch into the side of his guts, striking him bang on the kidneys. Air rushed out of Mohican’s stunned mouth and he reflexively lowered his arms, exposing his face. Bald smelled blood. He struck Mohican clean on the jaw. The Geordie grunted. His head snapped back and Bald landed a devastating blow on the bridge of his nose. Mohican stumbled backwards, his legs wobbling, as if disconnected from his brain. His eyes doing a dance in their sockets. He lost his footing and crashed to the ground just outside the door.

  Now Bald spotted Spray-Tan in his peripheral vision. His bowels tightened into a knot as he spied the Geordie gripping something black in his right hand. Spinning fully around, he saw that Spray-Tan had managed to grab a Browning Hi-Power from the weapons cabinet to the left of the door. Spray-Tan trained the handgun on Bald. The Scot stood rooted to the spot. He glimpsed Mohican scrambling away on all fours, groaning nasally.

  Then Spray-Tan pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. There was no shot. Bald grinned. Spray-Tan frowned at the weapon, failing to grasp that he had made a fatal error. The Browning Hi-Power, unlike newer handgun models such as the Glock 19 or the Sig Pro series, featured an external safety catch that locked the trigger seat and the slide. Bald saw the safety latch was in the locked position above the walnut pistol grip. True to his form as the second-worst candidate on the course after his mate, Spray-Tan had forgotten to manually release the safety catch before pointing the gun at the Scot. Now Bald charged at him, intent on punishing him for his mistake.

  Spray-Tan ditched the gun, then shaped to block the punch coming his way. Bald got in there first and delivered a brutal fist to the guts, drawing a throated gasp from Spray-Tan. The guy stumbled backwards, clutching his guts, disorientated. In a blur of motion Bald stooped low, scooped up the discarded Browning and let Spray-Tan have it, whipping the pistol at his face. The stainless-steel slider crashed into the Geordie’s lower jaw. Spray-Tan shuddered with the impact. Like someone had plugged him into the mains and flicked the switch. He dropped to his knees. Bald whacked him on the side of his skull with the barrel of the Browning. The gun was loaded, the extra weight adding to the impact as the weapon clattered against the guy’s temple. Another solid crack with the barrel and now Spray-Tan’s legs buckled and he fell sideways, his mouth slackening, his eyes rolling upwards. Bald definitely heard the crunch of his spine as the guy landed on his back.

  Bald was about to congratulate himself on a good job when he clocked movement on the edge of his vision. He turned. Mohican had scraped himself off the floor, and threw his entire weight behind a huge right hook. Bald tried to block the punch. It was like trying to block a two-ton truck with a paper towel. The blow struck Bald in his abdomen. Nausea surged in his chest, constricting his throat. He doubled up in agony, lungs snatching at the air, his brain feeling as if it was swelling inside his skull. Mohican launched a brutal left hook that connected with his jaw. Bald saw white. Pain seared through his skull, stabbing at the backs of his eyeballs. He shook off the grogginess, his Regiment survival instincts kicking in, the lizard part of his brain taking over. He bit back on the pain, smashing the Browning into Mohican’s face before he could launch another punch. Then Bald went for a low attack, booting Mohican in the groin. The guy dropped, grunting, his face looking like the arse end of a pig.

  Now Bald gave the floored Geordie another boot to the balls for good measure. Then one to the kidneys. Then another. Mohican curled up tight in a desperate attempt to shield himself from the torrent of blows. But Bald wasn’t in the mood to stop. Mohican blinked blood out of his eyes, waved his hands at Bald in surrender.

  ‘Please!’ Mohican gasped. ‘No fucking more. You win.’

  Bald wasn’t going let the bastard off that easily. He’d had enough of people taking the piss out of him. He didn’t see the Geordie lying there. He saw the Russians, the Poles, the Firm, all the guys who’d stabbed him in the back in the Regiment. Rage had been festering in his guts these past few months. Now he gave full vent to it. He was done taking shit. He switched the safety catch on the side of the Browning. Pulled back on the slider smeared with blood and skin from the battering he’d dished out to Spray-Tan. Nestled snug in the chamber was the golden nugget of a round of 9x19mm Parabellum. Bald released the slider. He let it snap back decisively into place. Then he pointed the Browning at Mohican’s left kneecap. The guy went wide-eyed with fear.

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, no—’

  Bald fired. A booming echo filled the indoor firing range as the round exploded from the handgun and smashed into the Geordie’s left kneecap. Blood instantly splashed all around, the spent jacket springing out of the side of the Browning, landing in the room behind him, three metres away. Down at his feet Mohican was howling, hands twitching, his face looking like the winner’s in a world gurning championship. Bald angled the weapon at the guy’s right kneecap and gave him a matching wound. Mohican was in such pain he couldn’t even scream. He rolled from side to side, his body convulsing, blood bubbling under his nostrils. Bald just stood there for a short while. Watching Mohican bleed and cry, he felt better about himself than he had done in a long while.