Fire Force(19)

‘The bastard will get what he deserves,’ Steve said quietly.

Sam was already kissing his chest. Her tongue was flicking across his skin, stabbing at it in delicate, darting motions, and there was a playful smile on her face as she started to run her lips down towards his crotch.

‘There’s one thing a girl learns, growing up in Africa,’ she murmured.

‘What’s that?’ asked Steve breathlessly.

‘How to fuck like an animal.’

He grinned. ‘There’s hope for the continent yet then.’





Eight

GREAT MOUNDS OF FOOD WERE laid out on a buffet table for breakfast. Steve piled some sausages, bacon and eggs onto his plate, then helped himself to a couple of croissants and a bowl of fruit salad. He felt ravenous, and was tipping as much food as possible down his throat to try and recharge himself. Sitting down at one of the tables looking over the sea, he took a long hit of coffee. The rest of the unit was already up, tucking into their own grub. By the looks of them, Maksie and Ollie were the worse for a hard night’s drinking. Only Bruce looked fighting fit.

‘You’ll make your decisions shortly, and I don’t want to pressurise you, but if you have any doubts then I want you to know that you’ll be taking out one of the nastiest, most corrupt rulers in the world,’ said Archie.

Like Bruce, he looked fresh and well-turned out: unlike Bruce, he must have had two dozen or more drinks last night. A man who can hold his booze, noted Steve. Anyone who could do that usually had an iron constitution.

Sharratt had switched on a flat-screen TV showing documentary footage from Batota.

‘This used to be the bread-basket of Africa,’ continued Archie. ‘It has some of the most fertile land in the whole world and, on the highlands at least, one of the most temperate climates. It also has some of the best infrastructure, huge deposits of raw materials, and some of the hardest-working people on the planet. And look at it now. People are starving because they don’t have enough to eat. The opposition is beaten into submission by Kapembwa’s thugs. The jails are filled with decent, law-abiding men who were just trying to support their families. This mission - it will be a movement of liberation.’

As the guys chatted among themselves over their breakfast, Steve could tell that they didn’t need any more persuading. Their minds were already made up.

Ollie was still trying to put together enough cash to buy Katie the house he’d promised her down in Dorset.

Ian had spent too much of his life in a jail in Ulster and couldn’t find a way of settling back into civilian life.

Nick wanted another adventure, and was too young to grasp that every mission took you a step closer to death.

Newton didn’t have much choice. Archie had paid a lot of money to break the guy out of jail; he wasn’t about to say no to him. And it didn’t look like his career prospects were in great shape for any other line of work.

And Maksim? Well, the Russian had allowed himself to be tricked into betraying the unit during their last job together in Afghanistan and, although they had forgiven him for that, he’d been left with a desperate desire to prove himself as good a man as any of them.

Steve speared a sausage, and glanced out at the ocean. And what about me, he wondered.

‘If I may quote someone I know,’ said Ollie, sitting down next to Steve with a second plateful of bacon, sausages and eggs, ‘ “you’ll be making a few quid, and giving a right mean bastard a malleting. And a man can’t ask for much more from a day’s work than that”.’

Steve grinned. He knew that Ollie was quoting the words he’d used himself in Afghanistan right back at him. Across the terrace, Sam had just emerged. She’d tied her hair back in a ponytail, and was wearing a tight pair of black jeans and a red T-shirt. A string of beads was slung around her neck. Taking a plate of fruit salad, she winked at Steve, a lustful expression playing on her lips, then sat down next to Archie.

‘I might just be in,’ said Steve, looking back at Ollie.

‘What changed your mind?’ Ollie paused, then glanced at Sam. A knowing expression crossed his face. ‘OK, I get it.’

‘It’s not—’ started Steve. But then he paused.

The truth was, Sam was the reason he was taking the job.

‘Looks like we’re fighting for the same thing,’ said Ollie.

‘I’m not about to get married.’

‘We need the money.’

‘Jesus, mate, if that girl really cared about you, she wouldn’t be pressurising you to buy a house you can’t afford - and if you loved her, you wouldn’t be risking your neck like this.’