Steve tossed the Russian a carton of apple juice.
‘I said drink . . .’
Nick brought out a bottle of vodka, pouring a shot of the liquid into each man’s cup, then emptying the rest into the fruit bowl. Steve didn’t usually drink much whilst he was on a mission, although he knew plenty of men who did. He liked to have a clear head going into battle. But he could feel the alcohol unwinding him, and he was thankful for that. The tension has been eating away at him. He didn’t mind risking his life when he had to, but he had never attempted this kind of deception before. Relax, he told himself. You’ll feel better once the action kicks off.
‘One drink, guys, then we get some kip,’ said Ollie sternly. ‘We don’t know what tomorrow has in store for us yet, but we can be bloody sure it’s going to be a long hard day, so the more rest we can get the better.’
The men finished their food, then unpacked the kitbags. The barracks room was clean and there were fresh sheets on the beds. In the corner, David had lit up the brazier, creating a gentle warmth that radiated through the room.
‘So what the hell have you been up to since last year?’ Steve asked Dan.
The Australian shrugged. ‘Getting into trouble, I guess.’
Steve looked at the man closely, and he could see Ollie doing the same. Dan had spent a year in a military jail on charges of letting a couple of Afghan kids die in a fire-fight when he was with the SASR. When he said he’d been in trouble, it usually meant something serious.
Dan took a hit of his drink. ‘I came back from Afghanistan and I had half a million quid sitting in an offshore bank account,’ he said. ‘More money than I could ever have dreamed about.’
‘Less than we were promised,’ interrupted Ian.
‘But still more than we’d imagined,’ said Dan. ‘I spent a hundred of it paying off my parents’ mortgage. My dad’s been truck-driving in one of the iron ore mines for the last twenty years and that’s a hell of a hard life for a bloke. Even so, that still left me with four big ones. There’s only so much money a man can spend on beer and women . . .’
‘Don’t count on it,’ Maksim put in.
‘Maybe for an ugly bastard like you,’ said Dan, grinning. ‘Anyway, I went travelling for a bit, then found myself in Majorca, and I reckoned it wasn’t such a bad place. Bit like Oz, really. One day, I met this bloke Dudley who was selling his pub out there and it gave me an idea. Majorca doesn’t have an Australian bar. Unbelievable, I know, but there you go. I ended up paying the bloke three big ones for the place. My plan is to do it up, rename it “Dan’s Beer Bar” . . .’
‘Good title,’ said Steve. ‘Original.’
Dan nodded. ‘ “Dan’s Beer Bar” it says over the top. Then underneath it says: “Ice Cold Beer. Red Hot Girls. You Lucky Bastards”.’
‘Maybe you could get Nick’s mum to work there,’ said Ollie.
‘Leave it,’ snapped Nick. ‘My mum’s getting a proper job.’
‘So what went wrong?’ asked David.
‘Like I said, I paid three big ones for the place,’ said Dan. ‘But it was a ruin. The inside needed gutting, it needed a garden you could drink in, a new kitchen, the works. I’d met this Polish girl, Irenka. Blond hair, blue eyes, a real knockout. She was working as a waitress at one of the bars in Palma, which was how I met her. So Irenka starts helping me with the bar, and it turns out her brother back in Krakow is a builder, so I paid for him and three of his mates to come over and do the work on the place. Irenka and I went away for a couple of weeks, while the work got done.’
Dan took a hit on his drink. ‘By the time we got back, the brother had pissed off with all the money I left for him. When I went back to find out from Irenka what had happened, she’d pissed off as well. Un-bloody-believable. All I had for her was a mobile number. And that turned out to be dead.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘So I’m stuck with a ruin of a bar with no money to do it up. It’s costing me a fortune just to keep up with the taxes on the place.’
‘Poles,’ Maksim spat. ‘You can’t trust the bastards.’
‘Women either,’ said Ian.
‘Polish women,’ muttered Maksim, opening up a fresh bottle of vodka he’d hidden in his rucksack and topping up everyone’s mug. ‘I’d rather sleep with Nick than one of those bitches.’
‘Let’s skip past the geo-political rivalries, shall we?’ said Ian.
‘We’ll get you the money, mate,’ said Steve. ‘With the haul from this job, you’ll make it the best Aussie beer bar in the whole of Spain.’