Chapter 29

 

Twelve months on and Milton was enjoying a new lease of life. His police career had become a fading memory. He regularly remembered those good times in Dubai, but they always turned sour with the vision of Pups dying on his lap in that Munich street.

He often wondered what had happened to Carson Jacks and the rest of the men. He had come to the conclusion that they had all gone their separate ways. Some probably answered the classifieds in the Soldier of Fortune magazine and were fighting in some far-flung foreign land while others, he suspected, had melted back into British society. Jacks would be elsewhere though. He would not return to Britain, but Milton was confident he was probably on some luxury paradise island spending the millions he had made from Expatriatedotcom - or the Germans to be more precise. He would be surrounded by new friends and new women and enjoying an early retirement. Despite everything he had been through in trying to catch his nemesis, he hoped that there was at least some respite for Jacks to rest his troubled mind.

Milton had left the force with the highest of recommendations from his seniors, which landed him his new role, that of head of security with the England football team.

There was no one else more suited to the job. His knowledge of foreign police forces was a bonus and he now spent his time arranging safe passage for the million pound superstars in whom he had previously shown no interest.

He was still single, although his new-found status ensured that there were plenty of opportunities. Maggie had moved on and was seeing another police officer. It had not surprised Milton, who often saw the funny side of his time spent with her and he hoped her new love would live up to the expectations of her father.

Nope - life these days was indeed good for John Milton, who was living life for John Milton, doing things for John Milton and breathing for John Milton. He felt like a free man; reborn and in control of his own destiny.

Depending on which way he looked at it, Carson Jacks was both the worst thing that had ever happened to him and the best. He had lost everything: his wife, career, home; but he felt it was a fair return for what he had now - a new life. He had reinvented himself and had never been happier.

He often thought of Jacks. Like the rest of his disciples, he had come to admire the man, and even more so after he had learned of the experiences he had been through. Jacks may have tricked an army into fighting his one-man crusade against England, but he had also given them a good life at a time when they had little.

In the end, Milton’s undercover operation achieved little. Germany, as expected, was awarded the 2006 World Cup and the hooligan ringleaders were still at large, although he knew they would not be showing up at football matches again.

 

It was just approaching 4.00 p.m. as the England team bus broke through the swathes of fans gathered outside their Swedish hotel. As always, Milton was the first off the bus and he cut a path through the autograph hunters to the rotating doors of the hotel.

He shook hands with the welcoming party and then grabbed the envelopes containing the room keys, which were waiting at reception, and handed them out to the players with whom he was on nickname terms and whose respect he had gained after more than six months on the job. He was their guardian angel and they did what they were told.

He briefed the lads on the basic dos and don’ts before they all retired to their rooms.

Milton had a room to himself and flicked on the TV to catch the tail end of the hourly news bulletin on CNN. This was a habit he was never going to lose when abroad.

But he watched in horror.

The American voice revealed something he had half expected to hear but hoped he would not.

“And we will return to our top story this hour. Six men, believed to be British nationals, have been shot dead by government forces at a diamond mine in Sierra Leone. Details are still coming in, but we are hearing that the six men are believed to have been mercenaries working for a local warlord who had assumed control of the mine earlier this week in a bloody gun battle with government forces. Up to 40 people have been reportedly killed in the firefight, but the six English nationals are believed to be the only foreigners involved.”

Milton was glued to the TV for the rest of the evening, but deep down he already knew what was confirmed to him later that evening. The dead were indeed Lenny, JT, Stardust, Chalky, Kirk and finally, as the news reader said:

“Jackie Carson, who was believed to have been killed during the Gulf War but has mysteriously turned up all these years later.”

It left Milton motionless. He knew it was coming, but when the words actually confirmed it he did not really know how to react. He was neither sad nor ecstatic. There was nothing to celebrate nor to mourn apart from the fact that it really was now finally over. His life could at last move on … although, in reality, it had done so already.