“Yeah, I do, and I agree. What I was about to do was wrong, but the thought of that man living in a mansion, while the lives of those children, those women and those innocent men...” I shook my head, not satisfied with how I had said it. “Not their lives—their torture, the horror of the last minutes of their lives. All of that is forgotten, because that bastard can be useful. And his punishment for murdering those children and those women is to be given a mansion in Surrey, and a yearly income most working men can’t even dream of.”
He sipped his whisky and set it down carefully on the desk, like setting it down wrong might have consequences.
“I know, and between you, me and the bedpost, I actually agree with you. But, as soldiers, we can’t do anything about it. If you want to do something about it, you should get a different job.”
I snorted. “Like a politician?”
“Well.” He smiled. “I haven’t known many politicians to do much of any use, with some notable exceptions. But look, I have been instructed to make you an offer. It isn’t much of an offer, I’m afraid, but it’s the best we could get for you.”
“Resign or face a court martial.”
“That’s right. If you face the court martial I’m afraid the best you can hope for is a dishonorable discharge, which would be a shame, because you have served well and with honor.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will simply resign and we’ll give you your discharge papers.”
“Is that all? What kind of reference am I going to get when I apply for a job?”
He held my eye. “A bald statement that you served with the Regiment for eight years and saw active service.”
“And every major security company in the UK and the States will know exactly what that means.”
“I’m afraid so. But it’s better than a dishonorable discharge, or a prison term for attempted murder.”
“Is that a threat, sir?”
“Don’t be stupid, Bauer. I am as unhappy with this as you are, but I have my orders and I have to follow them. This is the choice they are giving you. And if they are offering it to you it’s because somebody in the brass is looking after you. They could simply court-martial you, but they have chosen not to do that, but to give you an option. My advice is to take the offer, because if Hartmann and the Firm bring pressure to bear at trial, things could go very badly for you.”
I examined the whisky in my glass. “Sure sounds like a threat.”
He blinked a couple of times. For “Buddy” Byrd that was a major display of emotion. “Look, Harry, you can’t afford to be emotional about this. Not least because you’ll wind up turning on your friends, and right now you need all the friends you can get. We stick together in the Regiment, you know that, and you need to remember it and trust it. I want things to work out for you, but clearly what I can’t do is go up against Whitehall and the MoD, or the Pentagon and the CIA, for that matter.”
I studied the whisky a little longer and decided I could allow myself to drink it. I threw it back and swallowed it, then set the glass on his desk. I looked him in the eye and nodded once.
“Eight years. It’s a lot to let go of.”
“I know, Harry, and I’m sorry.”
“You got the papers there?”
He opened the file and slid them across the desk to me. I read them through. They were neutral: a simple resignation. I took my pen and signed them, signed away eight years of my life, signed away the only family I had ever had, signed away my friends, my comrades, my clan.
I went to stand but he stopped me.
“We’ll fly you back to London...”
I shook my head. “I can do that myself.”
He paused, hesitated. “Fair enough. But my advice to you, Harry, is to go back to New York. If you want to work in security, I am sure you’ll find a good job there. It’s a big, rich market in the States. They need men like you.”
“Thanks.”
He stood and reached out his hand. “It has been an honor and a privilege. Look after yourself and, if you need anything, you have friends here. Remember that.”
We shook and I left.
I took his advice. When somebody like Buddy Byrd gives you advice, it’s because he knows what he’s talking about. So I took the next available flight back to London. It was summer, so it was raining and sultry. I have a theory that, as climate change takes hold, the British archipelago will become tropical, with large rainforests and huge, man-eating insects.
I spent two weeks sorting out my place in Hammersmith. I gave away everything I could, and what I couldn’t give away, I sold at what the Brits call “boot sales,” where you sell junk from the trunk of your car at a parking lot, a church hall or village green. After two weeks my house was pretty much empty; the rooms were bare and had that soulless, lifeless echo. The few bits and pieces that were left I gave to a charity shop, put my house on the market through a realtor and bought myself a ticket back to New York.
I hadn’t been in the USA for almost ten years, most of my adult life. I had left behind an unhappy childhood, an adolescence of violence and rebellion against injustice, and a pregnant wife. If she had been my wife I would have stayed, but she was the wife of a local pillar of the community, and she begged me to leave and not contact her ever again.
I had done as she asked and, pretending to myself I didn’t care and I wasn’t hurt, I got on a ship and sailed across the Atlantic to start a new life in what was then still Europe.
During my teens, searching for meaningful ways to rebel, I had picked up a black belt in tae kwon do and an instructor's level in jeet kune do. When I got to the UK and applied to join the Special Air Service, it turned out I was in better shape than I thought I was. I managed to claw my way through the first phase of selection, known as “endurance” or “the hills,” which is designed to break down normal people’s physical and mental resistance.
Less than ten percent of candidates make it through that phase. I believe I only managed it because the thought of giving in to authority was worse than dying of exhaustion. But when I told Buddy that, he laughed and told me it was what they all said, and that was the very quality they were looking for.
The second phase was jungle training in Latin America, near Mexico, and the third was escape and evasion techniques, and the hell of resisting interrogation. They are months of training that shape you, and live with you for the rest of your life.
Somehow I survived them and went on to spend the next eight years on active duty in Central and South America, the Middle East and other places I wouldn’t name if I could.
In all that time, the one place I never returned to was the one place I should have called home, but never did. The USA, New York.
And now was time to return: to what, I had no idea.
Nobody lives in Manhattan, unless they have inherited property, or they are millionaires. I explored the Village, Queens and Brooklyn, but they weren’t much more accessible than Manhattan. So finally I wound up with a pale blue, clapboard cottage on Shore Drive, just beside the Throggs Neck Memorial Post, with a head full of memories, an almost empty house and a rapidly dwindling bank balance.
I started a systematic round of all the major security companies, handing in my resume and applying for interviews. Some never bothered to answer, others politely declined. A small handful invited me along and told me they could not offer me work in the States, but they always had a need for high-caliber mercenaries.