When I turn the key in the ignition she starts purring first time, every time. German engineering mate. The idea is that you can just go down the chippy and ask old fucking toenails for a drum of his old frying oil that hes got knocking about in the yard cos hes too fucking lazy and tight arsed to dispose of it in the propper way that the council makes you nowadays and your doing him a favour, and your good to go. sling it on the back and thats you sorted 10 galons of that sludge does about 250 300 k. course if your goin to be doin it like that then you better make sure your checking the filters regularly but if youv got a turbo deisel youd be doin that anyway, not more maintinence than a turbo deisel and about 85 percent cheaper to run. Then youv got to take into account availability. If things go tits up first thing to become sarce probably goin to be deisel cos think about it, the tankers stop coming in and.

Waiting. Its a waiting game, this job. I rememer in my first tour of the badlands, kuwait 1995 10 paras. Waiting. You just learn to empty your mind out, think about the time passing, iv never been very good at that, not thinking, always going over something, chattering away in my head like a fucking talk show host I am most of the time. Rtalk about hering voies, its like a fucking trade fair for chat show hosts in my head after half an hour of waiting. Anyway, thats what I was saying, id learnt to play the waiting game out there in the sand, an old sargeant of mine was on the gun and I was watching him, through the monoular scope lying down on a old yellow sleeping matt. We were up on a rooftop watching a building and then some kids ad some children came out and one of them was carrying a klashnikov and so I clicked the safety off the rifle and I had him in my sights and it was a top secret mission, we were behind eney lines and wed got gold sovereigns sewn into our combats and cyanide pills and all that. Special Air Service. I had abeard back then, wiry I was, not like I am now, with all this sitting on me arse for thousands of miles. Probabaly end up with bowel cancer at this rate. I was fast like a whip then, got by on thin air, once I spent 8 months in Northern ireland, bandit country on an Op that wasnt even logged official, holed up in an old midden eating nothing but raw potatoes and multivits and thin air.

Bathroom lights on now, 21:00 hours. Windows opend a crack, shower going on probably, to let out the stream. Noted. Your average person showers for about 10 – 12 minutes, that gives a potential window of opportunity. But I do nothing. I sit and I wait. Light goes off aporximately 15 minutes later. Long shower. Somebody was feeling real dirty tonight. Hall light goes on, see a figure at the door fractured through the frosted glass. Bad idea having a glass front door. You want something think solid. Realll wood preferably not UPVC. Smoething that when the jackboot comes down on it, its goin to hold for a couple of seconds. Valuable seconds, which to the experienced can be lifesaving. Probably locking the door for the night. 21:45 noted. That means the back entrance is unattended, do the math. The targets like a sitting duck in there. I inch the truck out from the patch of shadow that ive parked in. Theres a blacked out streeghtlight, now thats nothing to do with me, but if I was running a real surveilance opp on this street id have a couple of the laps taken out just to lover the visibility.

I go in through the open door, drop my bag next to the dog bowl. Dog? I think quizically. Kevin is that you? she shouts from the bedroom. Im going over to see mum and dad Just come up here for a minute kevin Love would you?

Kevin is that you? Shit, fucking leggo all over the laminate flooring. Foiled by a kids toy. Real nice. Evening love, just getting a glass of water then ill be up. Want owt?

I was a sad bastard. Looking back at myself I an embarrassed I have to say,

Its not easy. My past being what it is. When ive got time to wait and think its hard not to go back over those early years. Ive got trish now and the kids. Kid. Youve probably feel like youve gheard this before but, im not a sappy bugger. Im a hard man, I was 19 when I first gunned down an IRA provo in south armagh. And I didnt even think twice about it. kill a man to stay alive came naturally to me. Call it instinct. Call it training. I think of it as my calling. Im a killing machine. But when I see that little bastards sappy face I go warm and fuzzy inside. A little mini version of e and trish. Was watching this Program the other night before I kipped down and this turkish gangster said Nothngs just about business, you see everything I do, I do for my family. And if anyone threatens me they threaten my family, do you understand. I thought to myself, Thats exactly how I feel and I made a mental note of it. Trish and that kid, theyre my world, my everything I dont know what id do without them. Its for the best that they dont know what I do for a living. For their prtection. The world I live in is no place for them.

I was a kid in the sixties but I didnt have any truck with all of that. I was a straight. A square. I didnt have any summers of love, let me tell you. I didnt have any love full stop mate. I never knew my real mum and dad. Biological parents as If theres any other kind. Disgusts me now ive got the kid I realise how much of a cunt youv got to be to leave your baby on the hospital steps. 1959. Guys hospital. Stuffed in a fucking harrods shopping bag, the irony of it. Ive made it my lifes work t track them down. Ive got a filing cabinet in the garage full of dossiers about potential leads. Mostlyfucking red herring to be honest. I have had a couple of court orders to leave certain folk alone. Restraining orders and that. Certain Targets. Make me laugh, Im used to operating in legal grey areas, you could say, deniable opreations. They only know I was watching them because I chose to reveal myself.