Page 38 of Delta (Alpha #12)

W e follow Pugli's path across Italy and into Switzerland. He puts down at an airfield outside Geneva, but he's in a car and gone before we're even close. Lear tracks his progress across Geneva while we land and divide into a quartet of old but serviceable four-by-fours.

What follows is a comically long-distance chase across Geneva—we close in on his position, and he bugs out again. And I have to admit, I like Pugli being on the run, the mouse to my cat. I hope the fucking twat is out of his mind knowing we've got his ass on the run.

It’s the effort of a lifetime, though, to keep my focus on the task at hand rather than Eliza. In my mind, I know she's safe. But I've not seen her or held her. I can't comfort her or read her a story. I can't do anything but trust people I've never met to protect my little girl.

I've always been good at compartmentalizing my personal shit while I’m working.

But lately, I'm starting to realize that was mostly because I never had any real personal shit to deal with.

Then things happened with Rachel, and then we had Eliza, and then Rachel and I broke up, and then Rachel died, and then Eliza got diagnosed, and then Eliza got sicker…

Turned out I'm not so great at compartmentalizing. Not when serious shit is happening in my life. When you've got a dying child, however, everything is serious.

"Rush?" Bryn's voice brings me out of my thoughts.

"Wossat, love?"

"Why were you kicked out of the SAS?"

We're side by side in the back of a jeep, trying to make up time as we chase Pugli across the mountains.

I sigh. "That ain't a nice story, Bryn."

"Are any of your stories nice?" she asks.

I snort. “Nah, guess not. But it ain't something I'm proud of."

"Well now I'm even more curious," Bryn says. "Out with it, bub."

I groan. "Fuck. It's…well, not classified or nothin', exactly, but what really happened ain't on record."

She snorts. "Oh my. That sounds ominous."

"Definitely not what you're thinkin' it is, I can all but guarantee you that." I look at her, shaking my head. "Can't believe I'm telling you this. I'm really not supposed to—I signed an NDA an' all."

She gives me a wide-eyed stare. "Holy shit, you had to sign an NDA? What did you do , Rush?"

I grimace. "I, um, well, I sort of shagged the wife of the commanding officer of the entire SAS."

Silence.

"No shit."

"Not my brightest idea."

She huffs a laugh. "Yeah, I guess not. But…how? I mean, I can't imagine the average soldier really comes into contact with top brass all that often, let alone their wives.”

"Nah, not really, no. And to be fair, it wasn't all me.

I hate sounding childish or whatever, but she started it.

" I blow out a breath. "It was an accidental meeting, an' that's the honest truth.

I was having a pint with the lads near base, as you do, right?

Some of the lads left, and then more, and then more, and then suddenly it was just me halfway to rat-arsed with a fresh pint of bitters.

Well, in walks a lady. By herself, which in that area ain't a commonly done thing, mind you.

Bit of a rough place, it was. Still dunno what Vivian was doing in a place like that other than hunting the exact sort of trouble she found.

Meanin' me. Now, mind you, I was straight carparked by then, but I'm the sort who don't show how pissed I am till I'm arse up in a ditch outside Tisbury with a sausage in one hand and a biscuit in the other. "

Bryn stares at me. "What the fuck did you just say? I know you used English words, but… what ?"

I snicker. "I was hammered, babe. Proper shitfaced. But you can't really tell how drunk I am."

“Okay, but what the fuck is Tisbury, and what do a sausage and a biscuit have to do with anything? And furthermore, carparked? How many different words and phrases do you Brits have for drunk?"

"Tisbury is a place," I answer. "West of London and north of Southampton where Eliza's grandparents live.

Me and the lads stole a caravan and went on a drive out into the countryside.

Ended up in a pub in a place called Tisbury, got colossally pissed, and wandered off by myself.

The lads found me face down in a ditch with a half-eaten sausage in one hand and a biscuit in the other.

Because I was carparked. And to answer your question, we've got as many different ways to say drunk as the beach has grains of sand, love.

Think of any word and we can find a way to make it mean drunk. "

“Got it. But…when you say you and a lad stole a caravan?"

I sigh. "Gettin' pretty far off track here, but this was before I joined the service. Some lads I ran about London with, causing trouble, if I'm being honest. Mostly boosting cars and being vagrants, with the occasional bout of drunkenly picking fights with rich wankers."

"And you stole a caravan? Which is…?"

"I think your lot call it a camper."

“I’m confused."

"Oi, keep up. A big thing with wheels what you can live in. Got a kitchen and a shitter an' all, yeah? But you've got to have a jeep to tow it with. We stole a jeep and a caravan and did a runner right out of London. Made it as far as Taunton before the law caught up to us."

She blinks. “Well, I have no idea where Taunton is, but I guess it doesn't matter. So what then?"

"I get sent down. Went to jail, meanin'. That's where Leftenant Rodrick Ulysses found me."

"That's his name? For real?"

I nod. "Absolutely. He was an absolute unit, too.

Sort of bloke who could crush bricks with his bare hands.

Saw him do it, matter of fact. And the short version of that story is that jolly old Leftenant Ulysses told me I could rot in prison for a laundry list of crimes—which, by the way, was only what they could pin on me and not even the half of what I actually done—or I could join the military and he'd fast-track me into the SAS.

Turns out I'd taken some test or other during a short stint of attending a proper secondary school, and that test showed an aptitude or something?

I dunno. They heard about me somehow and decided an orphan with no family and no education would make a great fuckin' operator.

Guess they was right, ey? Coz I was. I am.

I'm a legit fuckin' top-tier operator. But what I'm not is a good soldier .

Which brings me back to the original story. "

Bryn grins at me. "See what I did there?"

I frown. "No, I don't."

"I got a whole bunch more information about you out of you and you didn't even notice."

This gets a laugh out of me. "You're a sneaky one, you are. Make a hell of an interrogator.”

"So, you're carparked at a pub, and in walks a woman." Bryn rolls her hand. "Carry on."

"She was a proper fit, Vivian was. Had no idea who she was, or I'd not have touched her with a ten-foot pole. But then, all’s I saw was a gorgeous woman. Some bit older than me, maybe, but so what? I've had some great sex with older women."

Bryn arches her brow at me. "Nice."

"What? It's true, and it's context. You wanted to know.

I didn't know how old she was or who she was.

She didn't look her age, and she didn't introduce herself as 'Vivian Goddard, wife of Major-General Albert Goddard, Director of Special Forces.

' Nah. She sat down next to me, ordered a G-and-T, and chatted me up.

Said her name was Viv. I had no reason to think she was anyone special.

So, you know, we shagged. She paid for a room at a hotel.

I assumed she was in town on business or something—I didn't ask.

Wasn't that kind of thing, I thought. Figured we'd just shag a time or two and she'd pop along her merry way. "

"I'm guessing that's not what happened."

"Not exactly, no. She showed at the pub again the next weekend. Same hotel, same room. This time, she gave me a key and told me to be there at the same time the next week. And it was just sex. She was Viv, I was Rush, we didn’t talk about our lives, or who we were, or our jobs.

Nothing personal, ever. Figured she came into town on business every week, and I was her little plaything while she was in town.

I was fine with the arrangement when that’s all I thought it was. ”

"But then?" Bryn prompts.

“Bu then…" I sigh. "There was an event. We all had to dress out in our parade uniforms and attend some ball or other.

Stuffy, boring, formal bullshit. We all hated it, but when brass says dance, you dance.

And guess who I saw waltzing with her husband, the commander of all special forces in the UK?

Viv. Gussied up in an expensive gown, dripping in diamonds and looking quite different from the lady who was laughing in bed with me just a few days prior. "

Bryn laughs. "Oh god. I bet that was a shock."

"To say the least, yeah. Nearly fainted, honestly."

"So how did the commander find out?"

"He started to suspect something and had her followed. Had photographs of us together."

Bryn winces. "Oof. Not good."

"Yeah nah," I drawl. "I got a summons to Goddard's office.

Which I don't have to tell you don't bode well.

A nobody soldier like me don't get summoned to the office of the D-S-F.

It just ain't done. But that's what happened.

Found myself sitting in his office getting the dressing down of a lifetime.

Didn't matter I didn't know, obviously. But it was delicate, it turns out.

He didn't want to risk social or political embarrassment as he had political aspirations or some such, so he needed me to keep quiet about it.

But he also couldn't let it go that I'd shagged his wife.

So I signed an NDA, got summarily booted, and got a referral to work for a bloke who could use my skills. "

"Pugli?" Bryn asks.