The Walking Dead

He was an Authorized Firearms Officer. He had been given the highest responsibility a policeman held: the right to carry a lethal weapon. He was not allowed the personal luxury of anger. But all that had gone clean out through the canteen's window. No apology, no backing off. Banks stared up at the ceiling, which was a mistake.

It was Delta 11 who saw the opportunity of advantage and took it. Beyond Banks's main eyeline, fast as a snake, Delta 11 came past two empty chairs, and had the notebook in his fist. Banks's reaction was a clawing grab at Delta li's sleeve, but he couldn't hold it. Delta 11 sank again on to his chair.

'Right, let's have a look — let's see what the Commie's got to say for himself.'

It had begun as a lark, then gone serious.

Banks was up — his chair fell back behind him — along the length of the table and his right hand snatched at the back of Delta li's neck while the left dived for the notebook. His left wrist, with his watch on it, brushed Delta li's earlobe, and the little metal angle holding the strap in place nicked the flesh. Banks had the notebook in his hand as the first drop of blood hit the table. Only a nick, just a scratch, but there was blood on the table. He spun on his heel and went back to his chair at the end of the table. Then he could have apologized, and maybe thrown his handkerchief to Delta ii.

Banks said, 'Actually, my great-uncle was an idealist and prepared to make sacrifices for those ideals, a brave and principled man.'

Delta 9 mocked, 'And what would make him any different from the foreign suicide-bombers in Iraq and their "sacrifices"? Come on, I'm listening, Banksy.'

Without thinking, without weighing, Banks spat back, 'It's perfectly possible that such men there are brave and principled, and though I don't agree—'

For a moment the silence hung, and the enormity of his statement, which contradicted the culture of Protection Officers, billowed in him. He saw their huddle re-form, and he heard, wafting low towards him, the debate resume on whether useful thermal socks could be bought for less than twenty pounds — and he was shut out.

Regret was not in David Banks's nature, or humility. And his great-uncle, Cecil Darke, had made no compromises.

He dropped the notebook into his jacket pocket, and went to sit at a far table — where there was no blood from a nicked ear — away from the clatter of conversation.

Chapter 4

Thursday, Day 8

He used the Isosceles stance, and fired.

About all that David Banks knew of the ancient Greek language was 'Isosceles', and most of what he knew about geometry was of a triangle with two sides of equal length. He felt the jolt of the mechanism's recoil, and from the side of his eye saw the cartridge case discharged. His feet were apart and his toes level; his knees were slightly bent and his arms were punched out; his back was straight; the triangle was from his head to his fists holding the pistol and back to his belt. He realized immediately that his shot would be rated poor, as were most of those he had fired before — counted the trigger squeezes and knew his magazine was exhausted.

He shouted, 'Out.' He went down on to one knee, because the training dictated that a marksman should reduce the size of the target he offered when he was taken from the equation, and was slipping out the empty magazine and replacing it with a loaded one. Around him he heard a chorus of similar yells: 'Out.' Then the clicks, metal scraping on metal, as the others and he worked the safety catches forward. He stood and was breathing hard; he shouldn't have been.

He was apart from the rest, as if outside a tribal fence, not invited in and not making the effort to approach them. Maybe the instructors who oversaw them, or the invigilators who checked the target sheets and awarded the marks for 'pass' or 'fail', had been told that he was beyond the pale as far as the rest of the Delta team were concerned, or maybe they hadn't noticed.

An instructor came to him, not to the others. They were rated as 'pass', but if an instructor came straight up to a marksman it indicated 'fail'. Must have been three years since he had last been confronted by an instructor, wearing an expression of puzzlement and disappointment, to be told that his score was below the forty-two points out of fifty that were required.

'You been out on the piss last night, Banksy? Trouble is, you're giving me a problem.' The voice was quietly confidential, but the others would have known. 'My problem is that I cannot fudge the score. You're not just one down, you're seven. I can't remember you having had difficulty before — well not in the last three years. You're on thirty-five. You'll have to repeat it after the Alley work — sorry and all that.'

He heard, and was meant to, a staged whisper from the knot of the tribe and thought it was Delta 7. 'Not on the piss, more likely worrying about the survival of a 'rather brave and principled man' and therefore screwing up.'