Last Light by Andy McNab

He glanced at his notes again.
    "Carrie and Aaron Yanklewitz. Fucking stupid name."
    He looked at Trainers, who nodded in agreement before getting back to the scrap of paper.
    There will be no contact with Mr. Frampton or anyone here. Everything to, or from, is via their handler."
    I wondered if there was just a faint chance the Yanklewitzes were Polish Americans. My head was pressed against the window as I gazed out at real life passing me by.
    "Are you listening, fuckhead?"
    I looked in the rear-view mirror and could see him, waiting for a reply. I nodded.
    They'll be at the airport with a name card and a pass number of thirteen. You got that? Thirteen."
    I nodded once more, this time not bothering to look at him.
    They'll show you the wee boy's house, and should have all the imagery and stuff by the time you get there. They don't know what your job is. But we do, don't we, boy?" He swivelled round to face me as I continued to gaze at nothing in particular, not feeling anything, just numb.
    "And that's to finish the job, isn't it?" He jabbed the air between us with his forefinger as he spoke.
    "You're going to finish what you were paid to do. And it's going to be done by Friday, last light. Do you understand, Stone? Finish it."
    I felt more depressed and pissed off each time the job was mentioned.
    "I'd be lost without you."
    Sundance's finger and thumb jabbed the air again as he made not too good a job of containing his rage.
    "Kill the fucking boy." He spat the words and flecks of saliva showered on to my face.
    I got the feeling everyone was under pressure in this car, and I bet that was because the Yes Man was himself. I wondered if C had been told about my security blanket or had the Yes Man decided to claim that the 'scuppering' was down to bad com ms After all, that was what I'd told him, wasn't it? I couldn't remember now.
    The Yes Man had probably told C that good old Stone whom C wouldn't know if I fell out of the sky and landed on his head -was on the case, and everything was going to be just fine. But I had the sneaking suspicion I was only going to Panama instead of Beachy Head because I was the only one on the books soft enough in the head to try to pull it off.
    As we joined the A40 out of London and headed for Brize, I tried to focus on the job. I needed to fill my head with work instead of woe. At least that was the theory. But it was easier said than done. I was penniless. I'd sold the Ducati, the house in Norfolk, even the furniture, everything apart from what I could shove into a sports bag, to pay for Kelly's treatment. Twenty-four-hour private care in leafy Hampstead and regular trips to the Moorings had cleaned me out.
    Walking away from the Norfolk house for the last time, I'd felt the same trepidation I had as a sixteen-year-old walking away from the housing estate to join the Army. Back then, I hadn't had a sports bag, but a pair of holed socks, a still-wrapped bar of Wright's Coal Tar soap, and one very old toothbrush in a Co-op plastic carrier. I planned to buy the toothpaste on my first pay day, not knowing when exactly that was, or how much I was going to get. I hadn't really cared, because however bad the Army might be, it was getting me out of a life of correction centres and a stepfather who had graduated from slaps to punches.
    Since March, the start of Kelly's therapy, I hadn't been able to work. And with no national insurance number, no record of employment not so much as a postcard to prove my existence after leaving the Regiment I couldn't even claim the dole or income support. The Firm wasn't going to help: I was deniable.
    And no one at Vauxhall Cross wants to know you if you aren't able to work, or if there isn't any to give you.
    For the first month or so of her sessions I'd done the bed sit shuffle around London if I was lucky, being able to do a runner whenever the landlord was stupid enough not to ask for money up front. Then, with the help of Nick Somerhurst's national insurance