One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night Read online

  ‘Scotland’s answer to Carl Hiaasen, refined at the Rab C. Nesbitt school of guerrilla warfare … Dark, violent and very funny’

  DAILY TELEGRAPH

  ‘Brookmyre’s parody of bullet-strewn, hostage-taking action is spot-on, combining quick wit with genuine tension, but also suggests a formidable satirical intelligence’

  GUARDIAN

  ‘More one-liners than a Colombian coke dealer’

  MAXIM

  ‘Brookmyre’s satire isn’t that of the elegant knife in the back variety; he takes his victims down a dark alley and gives them a right good leathering’

  THE LIST

  ‘One of the punchiest writers of contemporary fiction’

  TIMES

  ‘His best yet … the gags come thick and fast’

  SUNDAY HERALD

  ‘Hair-raising and hilarious in equal measure … a vicious novel and one that you couldn’t read faster if you were at gunpoint’

  OBSERVER

  ‘Die Hard wi’ a kilt oan … a tale of extreme violence, bitter revenge and belly laughs’

  SCOTSMAN

  Also by Christopher Brookmyre

  QUITE UGLY ONE MORNING

  COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

  NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

  ONE FINE DAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

  BOILING A FROG

  A BIG BOY DID IT AND RAN AWAY

  THE SACRED ART OF STEALING

  BE MY ENEMY

  ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEBODY LOSES AN EYE

  A TALE ETCHED IN BLOOD AND HARD BLACK PENCIL

  ATTACK OF THE UNSINKABLE RUBBER DUCKS

  A SNOWBALL IN HELL

  PANDAEMONIUM

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-748-13198-3

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1999 by Christopher Brookmyre

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Christopher Brookmyre

  Copyright

  09:00 Nether Kilbokie Elite Unit Assembles

  09:09 Kilbokie Brae Return of the Mac

  09:17 Auchenlea The Start of a Great Adventure

  09:50 Glasgow Airport Lost Soul in Transit

  11:04 Fipr Charter Coach Road to (Inver)Nowhere

  11:08 Fipr Charter Coach Five Seats Doon

  11:19 Three Seats Back From That

  12:23 Floating Island Paradise Resort Behind a Great Man

  16:18 Rosstown Nick Cromarty’S Most Wanted

  17:38 ‘Tropics’ Bar Cocktails and Aperitifs

  19:30 Moran Cove Three Men in a Boat

  Meanwhile Fipr Humility and That

  19:51 Beneath Fipr Column 4.9 and Turning

  Still Sort of Meanwhile Fipr If Onlys

  21:00 Fipr Freestanding Ventilation Unit/Faecal Interface Scenario

  21:12 Orchid Suite The Uninvited

  21:12 Laguna Room 322 The Uninvited II

  21:12 Ballroom The Uninvited III

  21:18 Laguna Room 322 True Confessions

  21:44 Laguna Hotel Hunt the Cunt

  21:52 Laguna Ballroom Fuck This for

  21:55 Fipr A Game of Soldiers

  22:11 Majestic Room 105 Missing the War

  22:18 Laguna Ballroom Plan B Plan C Plan D

  22:27 Cromarty Firth Merrily Merrily Merrily

  22:54 Fipr Radioheadgames

  22:59

  22:59 And Thirty Seconds

  23:04 Laguna Laundry Depot Machine-Gun Etiquette

  23:13 Fipr Gunfight at the K-Mart Corral

  23:26 Laguna Laundry Depot Oh, That Bomb

  23:30 Laguna Laundry Depot Cometh the Hour

  23:42 Fipr Cometh the Man

  23:49 Laguna Laundry Depot Song for the Dumped

  23:52 Laguna Laundry Depot Murder Polis

  00:02 Orchid Suite All Along the Watchtower

  00:09 Fipr Two Riders Were Approaching

  00:28 Fipr Strike!

  00:33 Fipr This Never Happens

  00:38 The Ha’Penny Thing Inevitably

  Later

  For Andrew Torrance

  Thank you: Gerard Docherty and Allan McGuire, who know where all the bodies are buried (including the real owners); Pete Symes for kitting out the bad guys again; and Marisa for joining the dots at table 42.

  The following is based on a true story.

  09:00 nether kilbokie elite unit assembles

  William Connor was standing outside a disused cattleshed on a bright Highland summer’s morning, ankle-deep in cowshit, liquidised mercenary raining splashily down about his head from the crisp blue sky above. He wasn’t an overly superstitious man, but this was precisely the sort of thing that tended to make him wonder whether fate wasn’t trying to drop just the subtlest of hints.

  He reached up reluctantly and wiped the gore from his eyelids, then, grimacing, ran a hand through his caked hair, shaking it at the wrist in a whiplash motion. The slick red goo made a wet snicking sound as it licked the dung-carpeted ground. Sighing, he turned around languorously to face Dawson, who was as inevitably likely to be right behind him as he was extremely unlikely to be impressed. In fact, Dawson’s state of impressedness had begun at its default low and pursued a steepening downward trajectory since his arrival an hour back. At that point, he had given the assembled unit a cursory few moments’ scrutiny, then signalled Connor to join him out in the yard.

  ‘Who the fuck are these clowns?’ he’d asked.

  ‘This is the crew, Finlay. These are my men.’ Connor had tried to sound persuasively confident, but only managed slightly miffed.

  ‘Men? They look like a bunch of thugs. Where did you get them? Ned Warehouse?’

  ‘Don’t judge them till you’ve seen them in action,’ he countered, throwing in a knowing smile to disguise the fact that his teeth were beginning to grind. It had been a few years since he’d seen Dawson, but it had taken only moments for the backlog of irritation and resentment to catch up. ‘Believe me, mate, these guys are sharp.’

  ‘You’ve worked with them? All of them?’

  ‘Individually, yes,’ Connor offered confidently, until Dawson’s sodium-pentathol stare had its inescapable effect. ‘Well, most of them, anyway,’ he adjusted.

  ‘Never together, never as a unit?’

  Connor sighed, ever his most consistent means of expression in Dawson’s company. ‘No, but I can assure you—’

  ‘Who actually are they, Bill? What’s their background?’

  ‘Christ, Finlay, we don’t have time. Do you want a pile of fucking CVs? You’re the one came to me at about five minutes’ bloody notice. You wanted a team – I got you one.’

  The display of petulance failed to deflect Dawson’s stare. Connor guessed an extended tenure attaching electrodes to anyone who disagreed with him couldn’t have done much to mellow the man’s notoriously uncompromising nature.

  Dawson glanced across to where two men were unloading a crate from Connor’s truck.

  ‘Those two, for instance. Which half-derelict council scheme did they escape from?’

  Connor looked across to the diesel-reeking vehicle. Both of the men stopped a moment and gave
him a salute. He wasn’t sure whether it was paranoia induced by Dawson’s withering disapproval, but he couldn’t help thinking there was an element of sarcasm to the gesture.

  ‘That’s Mailey and McKelvie.’ Dawson’s penetrative gaze demanded he elaborate. Balls. He’d been hoping to put off this particular revelation until Dawson had seen what the pair could do. ‘They’ve both been in, em, active service,’ he mumbled.

  ‘British Army?’

  ‘British Army was involved, yes.’

  ‘Involved?’

  ‘Yes, they …’ Connor sighed, yet again, and rolled his eyes. ‘All right, they’re ex-paramilitaries,’ he admitted.

  Dawson’s eyeballs began to inflate. ‘Paramilitaries? Terrorists? Good God, I need soldiers, not amateurs, man.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Finlay, these guys are far from amateurs. It’s a bloody stunning track record they’ve got. You should see the list of places they’ve blown up. It’s like the back of a roadie’s t-shirt, I’m not kidding.’

  ‘So what are they doing here, working for you? Were they kicked out or something?’

  ‘No. They went freelance. They got bored. Too many cease-fires and peace agreements, not enough action. They’re not really interested in politics. They just like the pointing-guns-at-people part.’

  ‘And presumably you feel you – or rather we – can trust these pyro-Paddies?’

  Connor’s frequency of sighing was starting to make him sound like an asthmatic. He’d heard there was now a particular form of torture named after Dawson in the Middle-East; presumably it had to do with the rectal region.

  ‘Look, I’ll come clean with you right now,’ he told him. ‘Yes, I’ve hired ex-terrorists. And yes, before you ask, there’s more republicans than just those two in the unit. There’s guys in there with loyalist paramilitary backgrounds, as well. Ex-terrorists, get it? Not interested in politics – like action. What they’ve done before doesn’t matter – it’s just previous employment, if you like. No longer relevant. They work for me now. And yes, I do trust them, because I know I’m uniting these guys like no politician ever could, by offering them the chance to get well paid for doing what they do best and enjoy most: threatening unarmed civilians.’

  Dawson closed his eyes and exhaled at length, a hint of a smile finally appearing at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘All right, Bill, my man,’ he said, slapping Connor on the shoulder. The gesture was nauseatingly insincere, but he was grateful nonetheless. At least it meant he’d knock off moaning for a few minutes. ‘It’s been a while, a damn long while, but I’m still me and you’re still you, right?’ Dawson continued. ‘If you trust them, that’s good enough for me.’

  He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Connor doubted he’d managed it. The moaning would resume soon enough.

  ‘So what about the rest of them?’ Dawson asked, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘A few ex-army. Worked with them in various African shitholes, the usual cycle of coups and rebellions. Gaghen in there has got the record, I think. He helped Matsutu to the presidency, then joined the rebels and deposed him, then got the contract to put him back on top. An exemplar of mercenary professionalism. Absolute ideological detachment at all times. He’d be back with the rebels again now except he got Triso … Trypaso … Tryoso … Ah, fuck it, that nasty business with the tsetse flies – you remember, McGoldrick got it that time.’

  ‘I thought McGoldrick got elephantiasis.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what it was. Whatever, Gaghen says he’s feeling a lot better now. Anyway, there’s a few more from either side of the Ulster bomb-tennis match and a couple of Yanks, used to be in one of those militia capers until their particular Brownie pack got forcibly disbanded. A Norwegian, too. Roland something. Can’t pronounce his surname.’

  ‘And what about the bloke with the video camera?’

  ‘Oh, that’s Glover. He’s shooting our promotional video.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Promotional video. This is the future, Finlay. The mercenary market’s a busy place these days. If you want the contracts, you’ve got to be able to show people what you can do. Things have changed while you were sunning yourself in that wee Arabian sinecure. The competition’s absolutely fierce, and so many of them are complete fucking cowboys. All these ex-Soviet and Stasi guys for a start – wouldn’t trust them to kill your budgie, neither you would. And the worst of it is they’ve had a knock-on effect for the reputation of the business as a whole. People are very nervous of dealing with a new outfit, so we’re filming the crew limbering up here, handling the toys. Then when we tender for a job in future, we can show them what they’ll get for their money.’

  Dawson made no attempt to disguise a sneer. ‘So you see this … crew, as you called them, as a long-term venture? I thought you were complaining to me two seconds ago about only having five minutes’ notice?’

  Connor was determined not to sigh, frequent exposure to Dawson’s haughty expression having cultured in him a certain immunity to it. Unfortunately, his recent years of apparent good living meant there was more of Dawson’s face for the expression to take up. If offered a choice between a million quid or Dawson’s head stuffed with fivers, it would be a tough call.

  Connor sighed. ‘I wouldn’t say this is my envisaged first-team line-up,’ he admitted. ‘I wanted Gerry Thomson, for instance, but it turns out he’s in jail in some place hot and sticky. Got involved in drug running, silly boy.’

  ‘Drugs,’ Dawson said with obvious distaste, flicking ash from the end of his fag. ‘He should have known better than that.’

  ‘And Nigel Dixon was meant to be here too, but the Sonzolan air force went in the huff and bombed the army’s HQ, so he reckons the coup’s going to take another couple of weeks at least. He says hello, by the way. Truth is, a few of these guys are really only stop-gap appointments, but they’ll get the job done, don’t worry.’

  Dawson shrugged his shoulders, about as uncharacteristic a gesture as Connor could imagine. ‘Well, it’s a fish-in-a-barrel affair, I suppose,’ he reflected. ‘As long as they know one end of a gun from the other, there’s not really a lot can go wrong.’

  He did seem to be lightening up. Connor was evidently doing a remarkable job of masking his own misgivings about the patchwork assembly he’d thrown together. But, like the man said, it was a fish-in-a-barrel deal.

  ‘So do many of these guys know each other?’ Dawson enquired, incidentally pinpointing the very aspect of the assembly about which Connor had his misgivings.

  ‘Some,’ he managed, half-heartedly. ‘A few have worked together before, a few haven’t but know who each other are, and a few have never met in their lives. But in my experience, it’s amazing what the smell of cordite and the promise of a few bob can do to generate team spirit. This time tomorrow they’ll be ready to name their children after each other.’

  Dawson gave that laugh of his, that wheezy, gravelly effort, like jackboots coming up your garden path. Connor could never tell whether it was amusement or dubious derision.

  ‘Well, I suppose you’d better introduce me to this elite unit of yours,’ he said. ‘Then we can get on with explaining our evil masterplan.’

  ‘Soon as you’re ready, yeah.’

  Dawson paused a moment, looking quizzically at the half-smoked cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Never know what to do with these things when there isn’t a dissident to put them out on.’ He shrugged and dropped it to the ground, grinding the dowt into the mud beneath his boot. Connor looked to the heavens, thinking, Count the hours, count the money.

  They walked back towards the cattleshed, slaloming the voluminous country pancakes that lay scattered about the yard like an infestation of some cold, damp, parasitic alien species. Just as long as they didn’t attach themselves to your face.

  ‘I thought you said this place was disused,’ Dawson grumbled. ‘There’s shit everywhere.’

  ‘It is disused. But the area around h
ere is still farmland. There’s cows all over the place, and they come wandering through whenever they fancy. There’s one there.’ He pointed to an impressively horned specimen about fifty yards away, watching the munitions truck with bored disinterest. Dawson drew a pistol and pointed it at the beast. It glanced his way for a similarly disinterested moment, then back at the truck with uniform ennui, then dumped splatteringly with a jaded absence of enthusiasm.

  ‘Not much sport to stalk, are they?’ Dawson commented.

  ‘No, but they make some size of trophy. Come on, white hunter.’

  A second later there came the unmistakable sound of a shot being fired from inside the cattleshed, followed by a crash of splintering wood. Dawson looked at Connor accusingly.

  ‘I know we’re out in the middle of nowhere, Bill, but do the words “clandestine” or “discreet” mean anything to you?’

  Connor bit his tongue and stomped purposefully towards the entrance, almost grateful to have some idiot to take it all out on.

  ‘This isn’t a bloody firing range,’ he began shouting, then had to dive for the floor as a volley of bullets pinged through the massive, side-rolling corrugated iron door, puncturing whatever bombast he’d worked up but fortunately nothing else. He lifted his head and looked up from where he lay on his stomach. Inside the shed there were men lying similarly flat on the ground, while others sheltered behind crates and still others scurried frantically for the exits. He noticed that one of the men on the floor was missing the back of his head, the crate he’d presumably been carrying lying smashed open beside him, polystyrene packing shapes spewing out of it.

  Glover came crawling out on his hands and knees, camcorder slung around his shoulder, as several more shots echoed through the dilapidated structure.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Dawson demanded, arriving at Connor’s rear.

  Glover gestured to the pair of them to back up further from the doorway.