‘Don’t get me wrong, I want the wedge,’ said Skelton, his face relaxing back into its customary grin. ‘I’m just saying that’s not what it’s about.’

Carr nodded. That just about described his own position. The money was important – his old man could have worked a hundred years as a welder and never seen that much cash – but what he really wanted was the fight, and the chance to find that fucker with the dark eyes.

‘Of course, there’s the question of what happens if we don’t get back,’ said Geordie.

‘A million, after tax, chopped up any way you choose,’ said Carr. ‘All mortgages and other loans paid off, and twenty K a year to widows in perpetuity, and children until they reach eighteen.’

‘I’d better take out a fucking mortgage, then,’ said Skelton, with a big grin. ‘No missus, no kids, but my brother and sister could do with a hand.’

‘Same thought occurred to me,’ said Carr, with a grin of his own. ‘But the loans have to predate the day of the offer.’

‘Stingy fuckers.’

Both men laughed.

Geordie threw away the piece of grass he’d been chewing.

‘Fucking hell, man,’ he said. ‘Bring it on. I cannat wait.’

Chapter 61.

61.

THE OTHER TWO men arrived just before 11:00hrs.

Kevin McMullen and Paul ‘Fred’ West had both soldiered under Carr and Skelton in the same squadron, and had left the Regiment in the last eighteen months.

McMullen, a stocky, bearded, ball of energy and attitude, and a former Mobility Troop Staff Sergeant, had been the first name on Carr’s list after Skelton, and the only married man on it.

Ideally, for obvious reasons, Carr had wanted single guys, and the Londoner was a devoted father-of-four, still married to the childhood sweetheart he’d first met at junior school in Hackney. He’d written down and scrubbed out McMullen’s name several times, before finally deciding that the only selection criteria that really mattered was quality, and to rule out a man of Kevin McMullen’s sheer ability, guts, and drive would be a mistake. Added to which, to think that way was to acknowledge – even subconsciously – the risk of failure.

In Carr’s experience, men who thought about failing often failed.

So McMullen had got the call, and had jumped at it.

Truth was, unlike Carr and Skelton and West, he actually did need the money.

Things hadn’t gone so well for him since he’d left the Regiment. He’d gone on the spur of the moment, after thirteen years at Hereford and three years shy of his full twenty-two in the Army, after being passed over for selection as SQMS. That meant that he could never go on to become a Sabre Squadron Sergeant Major, and he’d taken this as a personal slight on his professional ability.