Mad Dog - No More Heroes

6 - The Brigadier:

London's commercial property market adheres to a simple rule: what goes round comes round.

The market follows a simple, cyclical pattern. First there's a boom, during which companies expand and there's an increased demand for office space.

Property companies buy older properties cheap to re-purpose which, inevitably, drives up prices. This, in turn, inflates the value of the property companies.

Investors, who have much in common with hungry sharks, join a feeding frenzy because the value of commercial real estate is rising. This pushes the price up even higher giving a higher virtual return on investment.

As a result of all this frenetic activity property companies start developing a shed load of offices. However, before most of them are completed the market contracts, then slumps, and London is left with massive amounts of surplus office space.

Of course this is good news for the spookier divisions of Her Majesty's Government, like TSG. They can rent, through proxy companies, of course, offices in suitably anonymous developments at attractively low rent.

This explains why the fourth floor of Rex House in Regent Street is currently rented by a firm with the suitably nebulous-sounding name of Stealth Associates Limited.

Constructed in 1938, and once home to the Paris Cinema and BBC studios, the Rex is adjacent to Whitehall, which I'm sure is a great source of comfort to those who comprise the TSG directorate.

I emerged from Oxford Street Underground blinking in that most rare thing for London; a sunny day in February. I walked to Rex House with my iPhone doubling as an MP3 player and the Modern Jazz Quartet's Vendome providing the soundtrack for my walk.

The receptionist in the lobby knew who I was and that I was expected. She issued me with a corporate guest ID on a lanyard and instructed me to wear it at all times in the building.

I took the elevator up to the fourth floor. There I was met by a security guard. Unlike every other security guard in the world, he looked efficient. And while the girl downstairs hadn't bothered with my ID he demanded to see my official MoD photo ID card.

The office was open plan with furniture that was almost, but not quite, Ikea. I was met by a very camp young man dressed in a beige cardigan, a shirt and tie, with a pair of reading glasses hanging in a cord round his neck. He was probably in his late-twenties but obviously couldn't wait to reach the age of sixty.

"Yeah, you're late," he informed me.

"I came by train," I shrugged, "what can I say?"

"The Brigadier is waiting for you," he informed me, "he's been waiting for some time."

He led me into a small conference room. Brigadier Mark Dankworth was standing looking out of the window at the bustle of Regent Street. He was in his mid-fifties I reckoned, a fraction under six foot tall, athletically-built with well groomed salt 'n' pepper hair.

More to the point he sported the dress down casual clothes of the rich white male, as originally modeled by Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear; neatly pressed Levi 501s and a Tattersall shirt with the cuffs folded back to display a classic Rolex.

Why was I here? Brigadiers don't normally request ex-sergeants to call on them for a quiet chat.

Dirty Harriet described this as a chore. OK, what, exactly, did Dankworth expect me to do for him?

He turned to face me.

"You're Mike, right?"

I nodded in answer. This was a British Army brigadier. I doubted that I'd ever be invited to call him by his first name.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked.

"Take a pew," he gestured to a meeting table with tea and coffee facilities. "Fancy a cuppa?"

"As they said on Monty Python, I wouldn't say no as long..."

"...As its warm and wet!" He completed the quote and grinned at me.

He sat down at the head of the conference table and picked up a tablet and a pair of reading glasses. He tapped the iPad's screen and started to read.

"You're with the TSG people up in Stafford, Team Leader with the Covert Action Team," he stated it rather than asked. "Before that you were in the regular army with the Royal Corps of Signals for six years, where you served in the Cyber Warfare role."

He was evidently reading my personnel file. I didn't answer him, but just made myself a cup of tea instead. To be honest I was disappointed there were no biscuits on the tray.

"When you left the regular army you served three years in the reserves." He looked up at me, "reserves as in 23 Regiment SAS. But then left suddenly. I mean, the selection course for the Regiment is probably the toughest in the world. Nobody makes any concessions for part-timers in the reserves. So why did you quit? "

"I was married, my wife, well, ah, we wanted to start a family," I poured boiling hot water from the Thermos jug into a mug. "We reckoned that my serving with special forces unit wasn't conducive to family life."

"you're not married now, are you?"

"No, I'm a widower," I sat down at the table.

"But dating," he said, "an all-American shemale isn't she?"

I stiffened. Mackenzie Foster. She had been born intersex, it used to be called hermaphroditism, but trends and terms change. What it meant in real terms was that while she was born with male genitals she also had XX female chromosomes. When she was eleven she began to develop breasts.

So far Mack and I had avoided any real trans-phobia as a couple, but at the back of my mind there was the nagging thought that at some point I'd run into a knuckle-dragging transphobic shit. I just never expected the shit to be a Brigadier in the British Army.

"Transgender woman's preferred."

"Of course," he said hurriedly.

I kept my face blank. Emotion. An angry outburst. It was what he wanted. It'd give him leverage. I had no intention of giving this bugger anything - at least not willingly.

"You know when I first joined up, the army still had rules against gay and bisexual men being recruited," he took another sip of tea but this time stared at me across the top of his mug. "Times have changed, now bisexual people like yourself..."

"I'm not bi," I said firmly.

"You're not?"

"No. Mack's a transgender woman," I put heavy emphasis on the last word.

Dankworth fiddled self-consciously with his mug. I was enjoying his discomfort, but I knew it couldn't last. In the end I took the initiative and broke the silence.

"You didn't invite me here to talk about my relationship..."

"I need to ask a favour," Dankworth said hurriedly, "it's a personal matter."

"Go on."

"Really, it's not for me as much as my daughter."

"I see," I didn't, but saying that I did would keep him talking.

"She's a student, a bit strapped for cash of course, and she doesn't like going to the bank of mum and dad," he stirred his tea absently. "She decided to get a part-time job. Unfortunately the job she got was as an escort."

The British upper classes spoil their kids. They give them bragging rights. It must've cost Dankworth a lot of pride to come out and admit that his precious little girl had gone on the game.

"First time out she was assaulted, both sexually and physically, by her punter."

What was he telling me this for? With Dankworth's military rank the Met police would fawn all over him just like the Maître D' at his favourite restaurant.

"I'm sure you could imagine what would happen if the press picked up on this."

"Yeah."

"And he apparently filmed the whole incident on his phone," he said quietly. "I've no idea if he did it for his own personal... enjoyment, or if he knows who I am and intends to blackmail me. I was hoping that with your background in covert ops you could discourage him."

"Discourage him?" I lent forwards steepling my fingers. "Let's get this clear, shall we? Buy discourage you mean you'd like me to give him a kicking and take his phone off him. Oh, and then have the TSG write the whole incident off as a covert operation."

"I'd be in your department's debt," he said quietly.

"Yes sir," I permitted myself a tight-lipped smile, "you will."