Silencer (29 page)

I’d never served with Frank Kitson, but when I joined the Green Jackets he was already a legend. He came to see the battalion at Tidworth when I was a very young corporal, and it was like a royal visit. The whole battalion was put to area-cleaning the camp. Even the guardroom got a quick lick of paint, just because Kitson would be driving past it.

We sat spellbound in the cookhouse as he told us about fighting the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the late fifties, where he’d won a Military Cross, then in the jungle during the Malayan Emergency, where he’d won another. While I’d been busy bunking primary school, he’d been a brigade commander in Belfast at the time of Bloody Sunday.

Despite his reputation, Kitson’s ideas weren’t all about blood and guts, and I could see why Dino would have backed him against the cartels. He understood there had to be an end-game once you’d ripped the enemy apart. To get to that point, the masses engaged in the insurgency had to be lured away from the leadership with the promise of concessions – which would
only kick in when life returned to normal. The sooner that happened, the sooner the sun would come out. And the moment a concession could be given, you gave it. You didn’t risk allegations of bad faith, of fucking the masses over.

Dominating the battle space reinforced the message: ‘Get out of the way, you’ll be fine. Get
in
the way and we’re going to fuck you.’ No more force than necessary should be employed to maintain the allegiance of the masses – but no mercy either, if anyone didn’t play the game.

Bribery, coercion, lies, assassinations, bombs – you’d use whatever it took to find the top dogs and wipe them out. Their replacements would also have to be destroyed, time after time, until only the mentally deficient would want to risk sticking their heads above the parapet.

The justice system needed to move swiftly to cement the legitimacy of their military commanders’ actions, and confirm them as a mechanism of government.

And the powers-that-be had to embrace as many prominent members of the masses as possible, as well as any surviving leaders who’d seen the light – at least for now. Bring them all inside the tent, pissing out; make them part of policy – that was Kitson’s way ahead.

His doctrine was the mother of all hearts-and-minds operations, but it wasn’t about giving them seeds to grow corn or polio vaccinations: that was soft power, and came later, once you’d gripped them by the bollocks and shown them who was boss – and invited them to become part of the solution.

Whatever, Dino Zavagno was obviously a fan, and the State Department wasn’t. The inside page of his report had been rubber-stamped:
Received and Returned
. Another slap in the face for fucked-up Dino.

To twist the knife, three words had been scrawled across the inked box:
No action advised
.

05.19 hrs

I tried to get my head down this time, but knew it wasn’t going to happen.

I hauled myself up and made for the bathroom. I pulled back the immaculate shower screen, took off my kit and dropped it on the tiled floor, but left the plasters on the two cannula sites in my right arm. I stepped into the cubicle and lifted my hands to inspect the wounds on my wrists. My shirt sleeves had kept them so well covered I might have forgotten about them if they hadn’t been so incredibly sore. The plasticuff welts were lumpy and livid, and a good inch wide. The bruising on my right thigh had come on nicely and my ribs burned even when I reached out to turn on the tap.

I lathered myself with the mall’s flowery gel and rubbed their best shampoo into my hair. Towelling myself dry, I wandered back to my room, put on my nice new jeans and blue shirt, and went across the hall for the first Lipton’s of the day.

The back porch had a raised wooden deck big enough for a bench and table, with a nylon windbreak to protect them from the neighbours’ prying eyes. I sat sipping my brew as the first
glimmers of dawn broke over the horizon. It had taken three teabags to bring it up to full monkey strength.

A light or two flickered in the windows of many of the houses nearby as their inhabitants ran around like lunatics trying to get to work on time or deliver the kids to school. The local bird population was starting to get vocal in the woods about fifty metres back from the house, competing with the distant rumble of the freeway. The shadowy remains of a swing and a slide stood out on the unkempt grass.

In my head, I started to run through the questions I wanted Dino to answer. I’d start with the basics. Was the target overlooked? What were the main access routes? Where were the garages, parking spaces and outbuildings? What were the dimensions and layouts of key rooms? Where was the power supply? Which doors were secured? Bolts or lever locks? Did they make a noise when they opened? Did I need to take in some oil to stop them creaking?

Were there any covered approach routes? Major obstacles? Was the surrounding ground ploughed, rocky, boggy? What about security fences, proximity lights? He’d already told me about the dogs, but were there any other animals? Horses, maybe? Geese? Those little bastards could wake the dead. The list went on – and that was even before I moved on to manpower and weapons.

In a perfect world, I’d take time to find out the target’s routine. But this world was far from perfect. I was running out of time and, although I still had no idea what the fuck Katya was up to, I guessed she was as well.

The kitchen door swung open and I heard footsteps making their way towards me. When Dino appeared around the edge of the screen and saw me, he froze like a deer in a set of oncoming headlights.

The titanium tubing and the hydraulics that made up his new knee glinted below a midnight-blue towelling bathrobe. He swayed slightly, as if he wanted to back away but I’d nailed his real foot and the false one to the deck. The crimson scar tissue and brutal toothmarks around his remaining calf showed that dogs weren’t always Man’s Best Friend.

Even in this light I could see that his expression had nothing to do with being startled by my unexpected presence – and everything to do with what I’d caught him holding. He’d been dropping blue-white crystals from a clear plastic zip-up into a glass pipe shaped like a test-tube, with an air-vented table-tennis ball on its end. Judging by the dark-brown stains and scorch-marks that covered it, Dino was already way past the experimental stage. He stared at me for another second or two, began to shake his head slowly from side to side, then turned back into the house.

The crystals explained the weight loss and fuck-all in the fridge, the loss of appetite, bad skin and ‘meth-mouth’ teeth. The attempt to self-medicate the trauma away was often a symptom of his condition, but it never worked.

I gave him five to sort himself out, then got up and went inside.

I followed the sound of sobbing to the La-Z-Boy. He leaned forward, his head almost touching his man-made knee. His pipe, bag and disposable lighter were squashed between his hand and his face.

I sat down on the sofa. ‘It’s OK, mate. No one has to know.’

‘No –
not
OK, Nick.
Not OK
.’

I could just about make out the words trying to fight their way past his hand and the jumble of meth gear.

‘I can’t keep it together any more. I’m wasted, man.’ His head rocked back and forth between sobs. ‘A wasted fuck …’

The best thing was to let him get it all out.

‘Mate, I’m sure you’re not the first DEA guy to suffer like this. Your people must have programmes that can help.’

His face remained buried among the paraphernalia. ‘It’s too late, Nick. I fucked up. It’s all gone – kids, wife. I’m just a wasted fuck.’

At last, with a superhuman effort, he managed to collect himself. He laid his gear carefully on the table and wiped his face with the heels of both hands. ‘It isn’t the meth, Nick. That just gets me through the day. It’s the pain I can’t handle. The failure. Seeing those assholes, right up close, every time I close my eyes, you know?’

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

‘Since I got back from Mexico … my head got fucked up big-time. I couldn’t sleep – still can’t. I keep going over everything that happened – all the things that fucker and his bitch of a mother did to me. Over and over. It’s like my fucking head can’t turn the page, man.

‘I know she’d be insane to come for me here, but that don’t stop the attacks, man. That don’t stop the paranoia. That don’t stop me locking myself in this fucking house, sometimes for weeks, thinking –
knowing
– they’re out there, on the fucking drive, waiting for me. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve called for back-up. Then I have to deal with the fucking pity, you hear what I’m saying?’

His face twisted as he did everything he could to fight back the
confusion and the shame. Every breath he took rasped like sandpaper.

‘The truth is, that bitch doesn’t need to take me back, Nick. She’s already inside my head …’

He knew as well as I did that, no matter how untouchable she was down there, they wouldn’t come up here and fuck about on DC’s doorstep. If they did, there wouldn’t just be a two-man DEA welcoming committee, there’d be a Combat Aviation Brigade complete with Blackhawks and Apaches coming their way to ‘assist’ the Mexican government to rid themselves of Public Enemy Number One.

‘Mate, you know you’ve got PTSD, don’t you? The meth – it’s just a part of it. Didn’t the Agency fix you up with counselling or whatever when you got back?’

He glared at me. ‘They offered it, but I didn’t need that shit.’

I moved in closer and gripped him by the arm. ‘You do, mate,
you do
.’

I’d seen it far too many times. PTSD was the silent killer. It could invade every fibre of your being. It wasn’t just the flashbacks and the anger. Guys like Dino couldn’t even communicate with loved ones, let alone accept their love and help. They pushed them away. The self-medication only increased the pain as they spiralled out of control.

He went quiet, rubbing his temples with his thumbs.

‘Dino, I know this shit is real. It’s fucked up some of my mates big-time. But you can pull yourself out of it. I’ve seen it happen.’

I’d also seen strong men destroyed because they didn’t understand that PTSD has nothing to do with machismo: it’s a normal reaction to an abnormal event. Some people suffer; others don’t.

He was still looking down at the floor, apparently mesmerized by the shiny little puddles of tears gathering around his feet. I was no expert, but the white mugs on parade, the lack of dust, the spotless sink, the absence of hairy soap in the shower was his way of trying to impose some order on his nightmare of a life.

‘Dino, mate …’ I waited for him to raise his glazed, watery eyes to mine. ‘The flashbacks are only your brain trying to process the shit that happened to you. The nightmares, the paranoia: they just mean your brain’s filing system is a little fucked up, that’s all. You’re not pitiful. You’re not bad. You’re not a wasted fuck. You’re not useless. There’s just a little bit of wiring that needs sorting between your left and right hemispheres, so
you can put that stuff in its proper place and get your life back. It can be sorted. You hear what
I
’m saying?’

I hoped he did. The three or four lads I’d served with who hadn’t got help when they should have had ended up killing themselves. Dino had been humiliated, badly injured, then shuffled sideways when he’d got back to work. His solo gigs for the new DEA intakes weren’t going to save him; his Kitson theory wasn’t either. All the ingredients were there for a very sad final chapter to the Dino Zavagno story.

‘Nick, I’m so sorry for letting you see this. It’s pathetic.’

‘It’s part of the life we lead, mate. But there’s a way back. Think of your wife. And James and Jacob …’

He fought back another flood of tears. ‘It ever happen to you?’

I gave him a gentle smile. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve always been too thick to understand what the fuck is going on around me. I don’t notice much, so I have nothing to process. If I did, I’d probably be in worse shape than you. Thankfully, I’ve got fuck-all wiring to repair.’

‘You got kids, Nick?’

I’d always batted any personal questions to one side: where I came from, you didn’t wear your heart on your sleeve. But for some reason I heard myself explaining the situation with Anna and our boy.

‘Poor little fucker hasn’t a clue who or what I am, and his mother seems to want to keep it that way.’

He was looking more confused than he probably did when he was hoovering up that shit on the table.

I rapped a set of knuckles on my head and got a dull, empty sound. ‘See? There’s nothing inside. This is me for life, mate, doing this shit.’

He sat back and laughed, and at last I saw a brief flash of the old Dino. ‘Man, I might not be all there but I reckon I got a better handle on my shit than you have on yours. You’re just as fucked up.’

I suddenly felt uncomfortable with the spotlight turned on me. Maybe that was because he’d veered pretty close to the truth. On the doorstep he’d told me I hadn’t changed. That wasn’t right in a
whole lot of ways, but it was Anna’s mantra, and I couldn’t deny that both of them had a point.

We sat for a while longer, until car doors began closing and engines started up, ready for another day of normality.

‘Nick, mind if I …?’ His gaze drifted back to the table. ‘I’ve got to … You know what I’m saying?’

‘Mate, knock yourself out. Whatever gets you through the day. But you will go and get some help, yeah? You need this shit like a hole in the head.’

He leaned over and picked up his paraphernalia. ‘Sure.’

We sat there in silence as he finished loading the crystals, held a lighter beneath the cup and inhaled. A stream of white smoke seeped from his mouth and nostrils and his whole body relaxed.

I realized where the slight smell of disinfectant had come from.

Energized by the hit, Dino was in full-on answering mode. That suited me just fine. I wanted as much out of him as he could give me before he slid back down and the paranoia and confusion took over again.