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The face stared back at her, frozen forever in time, his fatigues dusty and hanging loosely about him, the assault rifle slung casually under one arm. The smile on his face spoke of pride and excitement, Lance Corporal Jenkins was serving his country in Iraq. Most twenty one year olds would be thinking of university or advancing their careers, but John Jenkins had volunteered to serve. She knew the street well, she had met her handlers there twice a week to discuss targets and as she read the article a lump came to her throat.
He was dead.
She looked up from the table and swallowed hard. Cut to pieces by a suicide bomber yesterday, she bit back the rage and let her gaze fall to the bottom floor of the bookstore. She had wandered into Borders on the off chance of finding something interesting to read and had stumbled up the stairs to the café with a paper in hand. A stylishly dressed  young man met her eyes and she felt a momentary rush followed by the familiar coldness that came from emotional encounters and looked away again. When she risked another glance he was gone and she felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.
Johnny, she had always called him Johnny, which had sounded juvenile but he had never minded her calling him Johnny or even Johnny Boy. He had been assigned to her as a driver for the first three months of his tour. His mates had slagged him off about the assignment, referring to them as Mother and Son. She had accepted the jibes but he had secretly bit back the shame and in spite of her attempts to smooth things over she had known with inbuilt intuition that he resented being her driver.
She glanced at the picture again. She knew the street he was standing in, she had met her handlers there once a week to discuss operations. The briefing was always conducted in a basement beneath a café, Johnny would sit outside dressed in civilian clothes and fingering a mobile phone while he drank coffee and watched for Johnny Jihads. It was a difficult relationship but she had always been impressed by his devotion to duty. Even as a mere driver he was alert and eager to please.
The last time she had seen him had been on her last job, a mid ranking Al Queda official who had masterminded thirty kidnappings in the last two years.
Mohamet had gone to ground after the ambush but in a country crippled by rampant inflation and saddled with a shattered infrastructure, there were always fellow Iraqis willing to sell someone out for a price. Mohamet’s price had come cheaply, two tickets to Disneyland in Paris. Bin Laden would have been proud.
They had driven out into the Red Zone and posing as two contractors, parked the minibus and walked a mile to the safe house where they were to hole up until nightfall. It was there she had discovered Johnny’s secret.
She had never suspected the quietly spoken man was gay but on reflection it made sense, he was meticulous about his appearance. At first she had thought he was trying to play up to her, but her mild flirting had merely elicited a tight smile. Tracey had never considered herself a girlish type of girl but even tomboys had some sort of vanity.