Brute Force

by Andy McNab

  The door rattled.

  Somebody was working the handle.

  I took the couple of paces back to the bunk and lay down. What else could I do?

  The door swung open. Box-cutter filled my field of view, but he wasn't alone. More than one pair of hands reached down and yanked me off the bunk and onto the floor.

  I tensed every muscle that would still pay attention and curled into a ball. I took a hard kick in the back, and then my world became a frenzy of black leather. All I could do was stay foetal and take it. The drugs still had a hold. I'd be too slow to escape or retaliate. I'd have to bide my time.

  Each time a boot connected, my whole body convulsed. The drugs were an advantage. I felt I had a barrier against the worst of the pain, at least for now. Tomorrow I'd be suffering. But at least I now knew that tomorrow would come.

  The flurry of kicks and punches seemed indiscriminate, but none of them were landing on my face.

  113

  Lemony perfume did momentary battle with the diesel fumes and the attack stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

  The throbbing of the engines increased. She had left the door open.

  I opened one eye. A line of bright white det cord ran down the middle of the knackered red lino out in the corridor.

  She hunkered down alongside me. Luxuriant brown hair brushed fleetingly across my cheek.

  'Who betrayed us, Nick? Who gave up the Bahiti and my father?'

  I kept looking down, waiting for a slap, a punch, a kick, but nothing came. She sounded very calm, very collected, but I could feel the anger burning in her eyes.

  'You're dead anyway, Nick. It's not as if you're helping yourself. The woman and that wee little girl, and those two friends of yours from Dublin – they're the ones you can save.'

  I stayed clenched, ready to accept the punishment.

  I gave it a few more seconds.

  'I'm giving you fuck all until I'm sure they're safe.'

  Her breath whistled as she stood up. 'You're giving me precisely what I want you to give me, or your friends will die in the most painful ways even you can imagine.'

  She stepped back into the corridor.

  Box-cutter grabbed my right arm and forced it up. Not even bothering to roll up my sleeve, he jabbed an autojet into the bicep.

  My world went into slow motion again. Even his shouting against my ear was muffled and blurred.

  I felt myself drift away as my central nervous system closed down and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. The urge to sleep was just too strong.

  Fuck it, I needed the rest anyway.

  Fifteen seconds and I was gone.

  PART ELEVEN

  114

  It was like an oven in here. My throat was painfully dry and my head thumped like a bass drum. I tried to sit up but was too fucked and dizzy and out of it. In the end I rolled off the bunk and used the wall to pull myself upright.

  I worked my way over to the sink and slapped my hand on the press-button tap. I sucked at the tiny trickle. It took forever to get a mouthful of warm, brackish water.

  I swayed back to the bunk. How long had I been out? No idea. I remembered getting injected, filled in, dragged about, no more than that.

  I lay back on the bed and rested my eyes. Everything was still fuzzy and hazy. But I became aware that below the thud of the bass drum in my head, the chug of the engines was softer. They were doing no more than ticking over.

  I struggled to my feet. The motion of the ship was definitely calmer, but it didn't feel like we were in dock. I tried the door and it was locked.

  I went back and lay face-down on the bunk. Now that I'd recovered enough to notice such things, my stomach was aching. Was it the water I'd drunk? Was it the kicking? Or the fact that I hadn't eaten for fuck knew how long?

  There was a bang on the side of the hull, then another. The scrape of metal. The odd shout. A couple of minutes later, a mechanical whine. I remembered the sound from the Bahiti. A crane kicking off. They were unloading.

  That must mean we were near the coast: making an RV on the open sea would have been difficult for a ship as small as this one.

  It also probably meant it was dark.

  Ten minutes later, I heard shouts. The Russians. Then a young girl's cries. I was sure they passed the door.

  I got up and stumbled towards it. I was about to put my ear against the steel when it burst open and caught me on the side of my head. I toppled backwards, banging my lower back on the edge of the bed.

  115

  Box-cutter followed, a whirlwind of punches. He caught me in the stomach and I crumpled onto all fours. My body wanted to vomit but all that came up was watery bile.

  Another body came in behind him and got to work with his boots.

  I went down.

  I felt a hand on the back of my head. It grabbed a clump of my hair and yanked it up. I didn't need to focus big-time to see the box-cutter in his free hand.

  He tapped the handle against my forehead. 'Later.'

  The English was heavily accented and he wasn't smiling.

  Two sets of hands grabbed my arms and dragged me fast along the floor. My chest banged over the threshold and then, agonizingly, my knees and shins.

  116

  I felt the difference in temperature the moment we were out on the red lino. They hauled me through another doorway, over another threshold, and my breath immediately clouded.

  Were we outside?

  There were lights either side of me, and I could hear the sea.

  I could also hear a girl sobbing, and then a woman's shout. 'Bring them over! Bring them over!'

  I lifted my head. I was in the cargo hold of a small ship or the cold store of a fishing trawler. Lights ran down two sides of an eight- by six-metre space. The deck was three or four metres above me. It was a small vessel, but you didn't need that much room to cart around a few hundred kilos of white powder.

  In the far left-hand corner of the hold, towards the bow, was a huddle of bodies. I could see the back of the head of the one who was crying. Ruby. Holding her, protecting her, was Tallulah. Her eyes were fixed on me. Dom and Siobhan were there too, holding each other. All four were cuddled up, sharing body warmth. All they had on were jumpers.

  Mairead stood over them. She turned as I was dropped onto the cold steel floor of the hold. I saw the camcorder in her hand. She came over and shoved it into my face.

  'Now's your time, Nick. Now you get to tell everyone what you know. Tell the truth and they all go free. They all get on the boat with me. Everyone else has gone. The crew's gone, the shipment's gone. We're the only ones left. You're staying here – you know that. Accept it. But tell your story, and if I believe it they go free.'

  My face rested on the freezing metal. Running along the skin of the hull, I saw four dustbin lids held in place by gaffer tape. Det cord ran up into the lids and back out again.

  The ring main.

  I moved my head, but I could see no detonator on that side, no TPU. Maybe there wasn't one. Maybe she had a remote control: they'd get on a tender or something and fuck off before pressing the button.

  And in that moment, I knew beyond any doubt that none of us were going to get away from here. All five of us were good as dead.

  117

  I lay watching the two Russians' boots pace up and down. I turned my head when Mairead told one of them to rig up some arc lights.

  I made eye contact with Tallulah. She had Ruby in her arms, head into her shoulder so she couldn't see me. The little one was shivering and sobbing.

  I made myself cut away. I didn't want the Russians to see that we cared for each other. And in any case, I was just too exhausted, and I needed to think.

  One. I hadn't seen any weapons apart from the box-cutter.

  Two. They must have another boat tied up alongside for Mairead and the two Russians. Or was she so hell-bent on revenge she just wanted to hear me say the magic words and then blow us all to hell?

  118
/>   The bow end of the hold was soon bathed in light.

  I got slowly and painfully to my feet when told to do so.

  Mairead turned to Dom. 'You too.'

  She filmed us both as we made our way to what had been transformed into a well-lit performance area and stood facing each other.

  I saw Tallulah over Dom's shoulder, still trying to console Ruby. She cuddled her, rocked her back and forth in time with the movement of the boat.

  I glanced at Dom. His eyes told their own story.

  He nodded in the direction of the camera. 'What is it you want me to do?'

  I kept my head down, focusing on the position of the two Russians. Their top halves had disappeared into the shadows thrown by the beams of light directed at me and Dom, but I could see their boots.

  'You're going to interview Nick. Ask him about the Bahiti.'

  'Bahiti? I don't understand—'

  'You don't have to. Your man's going to tell you. Nick, I want you to speak to the camera. Dominick, when he's told you, you're going to ask him a direct question. Ask him if he was the man who killed Ben Lesser. And Nick, you're going to say yes.'

  'Ben Lesser?'

  'My father. Nick murdered my father.'

  The camera zoomed in on me.

  'Isn't that right, Nick? You're going to tell us the truth for the first time in your sorry little life. If not, everybody dies.'

  Tallulah could contain herself no longer. 'I've got a child here, for God's sake! She doesn't have to watch this. Let her go.'

  Mairead turned and filmed her. 'Oh but she does. She needs to know. She's the age I was when Nick took my daddy away from me.'

  The time had come. I wasn't exactly match-fit, but I was running short of choices.

  119

  I lunged at Mairead, screaming at the top of my voice.

  Her face didn't register surprise or fear, just anger. She tried to back away. I grabbed the camcorder with both hands. My eyes were fixed on her face as I swung it down onto her head. She screamed and fell, her body colliding against mine as she went down.

  Box-cutter was a metre away, going for a weapon in the waistband of his jeans.

  I yelled at Dom: 'Take the other one!' and threw the camcorder at Box-cutter. It bounced off his shoulder.

  I dived at him as the weapon came up, slammed into him and made a grab for his arm. His roar echoed around the hull as we hit the deck.

  I had two hands on his bicep, trying to force his hand down at the same time as he tried to bend his arm to shoot.

  The weapon went off.

  I dropped my head and sank my teeth into his cheek.

  He screamed and bucked like a wild animal, shook his head left and right. His whole body arched, desperate to throw me off.

  His left hand swung round and grabbed my hair and wrenched me off his face.

  The weapon clattered onto the steel and spun away into the shadows.

  I scrambled towards it, kicking and punching behind me as his arms closed round my leg.

  Then Tallulah shouted: 'Run! Run! Run!'

  A small pair of legs rushed across my field of view, heading for the door.

  The sudden pain was excruciating; sharp, deep, intense; exploding outwards from the top of my thigh.

  It got even worse as the Stanley knife plunged in again and this time carved its way down the back of my leg.

  120

  I twisted and thrashed to escape the blade.

  I had to get to the pistol.

  The blade dug in again. I squirmed and it gouged its way out. I half turned and saw it raised once more.

  That blade was my whole world now. I grabbed his wrist with both hands and wrenched it towards my face. I twisted it until the back of his hand was against my mouth. I opened my teeth and bit into taut skin and tendon.

  He screamed as he pulled his other hand free and hammered his fist on the back of my neck.

  I butted him with the back of my head, again and again, yelling like a madman. I found a bit of extra strength and jerked both my hands clockwise. There was a crack as his wrist snapped.

  The blade dropped free.

  I let go of his wrist and it flapped like a broken wing. I grabbed the blade and punched hard into the back of his neck, and pulled.

  There was a gush of air and a wobbling, rasping sound from the hole in his windpipe.

  121

  The two women were all over Mairead, fists flailing as anger poured out of them and into her curled-up figure. Primal forces were driving Tallulah; what she was doing was beyond her control.

  Dom staggered to his feet. He was a big lad but so was the Russian who now lay motionless on the floor. It must have been quite a battle.

  I took a couple of laboured steps towards them. I was aware of what was happening but the software was taking too long to kick in.

  Tallulah looked up. 'Find Ruby! For God's sake find Ruby!'

  122

  I turned left along the corridor, following the line of det cord. I needed to know how she planned to detonate the Semtex before going on to find Ruby.

  The cord ran up the wall next to a set of steep metal steps. I saw what I was looking for: a TPU just like Daddy used to make.

  I clambered upwards.

  I could hear sobbing. Ruby was on the bridge.

  A sliding door opened onto the deck. She was tugging uselessly at the handle in an uncontrolled frenzy. Whether it was because the door was locked or too heavy, she couldn't budge it no matter how frantically she tried.

  I ran over to her. 'Ruby! It's me, it's me.'

  She was still fumbling at the door.

  'Ruby! It's OK. It's me, Nick.'

  She wasn't listening; she was in a blind panic.

  I put a hand on her shoulder.

  Finally, she turned, and the moment she saw me her body went rigid. She screamed at the top of her voice.

  'It's me . . . it's Nick . . .'

  Then I realized: my head, face and hair were covered in blood. The deck was reddening round my feet.

  I didn't know what to do. Did I just pick her up, or what?

  'It's OK, Ruby. Everything's going to be all right. Calm down, please, it's all right.'

  I started throwing open drawers looking for a first-aid kit. There should be a good one on a boat this size. But all I could find was a sort of wooden shoe box with a couple of bandages and bottle of cough mixture inside. It would have to do.