Free Aggressor by Andy McNab

are actually working.’
    I hoped the kettle was going to boil soon. Admin stuff might be fascinating to Dave, but I now knew all I needed to.
    No such luck. A light started to burn in his eyes. Maybe he was crazy after all. He was like a trainspotter who’d just been asked to give a guided tour of the Orient Express. ‘The system’s simple. A company calls and asks for four medics, say, and a demolitions guy. I go into the Standby box and shuffle through the cards from the front, until I’ve got the requirement. They get a call. If they want the work they get moved from Standby to Bayonets. If they don’t, their card goes to the back of the box. Once they’ve finished that job, if they still want to be on the books, they go into the back of the Standby box.’
    What could I say? I gave him the sort of look that I hoped he’d mistake for total fascination.
    The kettle finally rescued me. Crazy Dave busily squashed teabags as I settled in the chair the other side of his desk. He wheeled himself across to me with two mugs in one hand.
    The choice was Smarties Easter Egg or Thunderbird 4. I settled for Smarties; it wasn’t quite so chipped and stained.
    ‘So, what do you want to know about Charlie?’
    ‘He’s a dinosaur, Dave; he’s far too old to be fucking about. Hazel wants him home.’
    He manoeuvred his way back to his side of the desk. ‘She still putting up with the old fucker then?’
    I nodded. ‘Talking of which, your kids OK?’
    He sat back in his wheelchair and had a sip of the brew. ‘Married and gone, mate. The boy’s in London, fucking about with some Polish model, and the daughter’s married a pointy-head. Got a nice place in town.’
    Dave had lived here for over thirty years now, but he still called everyone a pointy-head, as if he’d just turned up.
    I took a sip of my own tea and nearly choked. It was three parts sugar.
    He grinned from ear to ear. ‘Even the exmissus has married a pointy-head. One of the local coppers. What about you, Nick? Married? Divorced? Kids? The whole catastrophe, I shouldn’t wonder . . .’
    I shook my head and smiled. ‘I think I may still have a German girlfriend back in Australia, but I had to leave her in a hurry because of you. She isn’t going to be impressed.’
    He grinned again. ‘Them box-heads have always got the hump about something or other.’
    We could have waffled on. I could have told him about Kelly – he’d known her dad, Kev. But we’d done the social bit, and I was here to find Charlie.
    ‘Can you give me some idea where the old fucker’s gone? I promised Hazel I’d give him the lecture. You know how it is.’
    Dave gave a smile that told me he did, and he’d heard it a hundred times. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything, mate. It’s the deal with the companies: they don’t want anybody knowing what jobs they’ve got going on. And if everybody went home as soon as their wives started honking, there’d be hardly any fucker working.’
    He put down his mug and gripped the arms of his wheelchair. He lifted himself a couple of inches out of the seat and held himself there; maybe something to do with circulation, or to stop pressure sores developing on his arse.
    ‘What about yourself, Nick? I haven’t heard your name mentioned on the circuit; what you doing?’
    ‘Oh, you know . . . Stuff.’ I shrugged and smiled. ‘Look, Dave, I don’t need to know what Charlie’s up to. I just want to be able to phone up Hazel and say I spoke to him.’
    He put his tea down and wheeled himself back alongside me. ‘Sorry, mate, but you’re fucked. Apart from security, what if you convinced him to head back for the pipe and cocoa? I’d have to find a replacement. And anyway, he was gagging for a job. I didn’t make him come to me, did I?’
    He swivelled the chair and headed off towards the door. ‘Tell you what, I’m going for a dump. I’ve been trying to put a toilet in here, but planning won’t let me, the bastards.’ He