The Hit List by Chris Ryan Read Free Book Online

carried on drinking -- they all did -- and the NCOs talked Slater through life in the Regiment where to find the best bars, the cheapest cars, the prettiest girls. And then the corporal, who had been standing in silence, drinking bottle after bottle of Beck's, looked Slater in the eye. 'It's shite,' he said quietly. 'The whole thing's fucking shite. The Regiment's shite, the job's shite . . .'
    For a moment, the others fell silent.
    'You want to know a secret?' the corporal continued in the same flat, undemonstrative tone. 'They don't die. You shoot them, you stab them, you do what you like, but they don't fucking die.'
    'All right, that's it!' snapped the staff sergeant. 'Tony, Stevo, get him back to the Lines.'
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    The trio swiftly disappeared and the staff sergeant shook his head. 'He's had a bit of a rough tour. He's still in the old Darkland.'
    'Darkland?' Slater enquired.
    The sergeant glanced at him for a long moment, expressionless, and then returned to the inspection of his drink. It became clear that no answer was forthcoming.
    But Slater had remembered the expression.
    Darkland.
    He'd never seen the corporal again.
    Breakfast was an Egg McMuffin from the high street and a mug of the desk sergeant's tea.
    'Just had that headmaster of yours on the phone,' he told Slater with cheerful satisfaction.
    'Pembridge,' said Slater.
    'That's the one. Sounded like a very unhappy man!'
    'Have you met him?'
    'Once or twice, yes. A couple of years ago he tried to make the case that we should have a permanent detachment guarding the school. When the super suggested to him that he put his hand in his pocket for the privilege he ... got rather irate. Started spouting on about foreign policy by other means, invisible exports, defence sales to the Middle East - all bloody ' sorts.'
    'And ended up going private,' said Slater.
    The sergeant rolled his eyes but kept his opinion of ; the security arrangements to himself. At the desk the
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    The Hit List
    phone started ringing. 'No rest for the wicked,' he grumbled, retrieving Slater's empty mug.
    'Oh, I don't know about that!' murmured Slater, stretching out on his mattress.
    He was not feeling as bullish as he sounded. Two dead men, considered in the cold light of day, meant some very serious aggravation. No one would have blamed him if he had merely dialled 999 from the Matron's phone and left it at that -- technically speaking, in fact, that was precisely what he should have done. But whether Masoud would have survived if he'd done so was another matter. By the time marksmen and a hostage rescue unit had been activated, the snatch team would have been long gone. And even if they'd located them, the Arabs hadn't looked like men who'd come out with their hands up -- no matter how politely they'd been asked.
    How would the school view the incident? Badly, that was for sure. When Slater had joined Bolingbroke's staff six months earlier he'd told Pembridge that he'd spent the majority of his service career with the SAS, and indeed had played rugby for the Regiment, but had requested that these details were kept quiet. Pembridge had agreed, and the story was put about that Slater had been a physical training instructor with the Royal Engineers - his parent regiment.
    If an inquest on the dead men revealed Slater's true identity to the press, there were going to be some very angry faces on Bolingbroke's Board of Governors. Any
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    overage would be damaging enough; an SAS jnnection would punt the story straight to the front age and keep it there.
    The Regiment themselves, he guessed, would
    abably be understanding. Not happy -- the SAS
    4ted seeing their name in print in any connection --
    jt understanding. They would know that whatever
    ater was, they had made him.
    It was for this reason that he had rung Lark as soon he'd arrived at the station in the early hours of the iorning.
    Lark was a clean-up man, a conjuror in pinstripes
    10 made things disappear. If some