Recoil

by Andy McNab

  Crucial came back with the goodies. ‘I’m going to see the children before I join Sam. You OK?’

  I nodded. I didn’t need him. This next bit was a one-man drill – in case I fucked up and the whole lot exploded prematurely. ‘Just bring in the gunners. We need them in now.’

  He screamed and shouted at the sangars. A guy jumped out like a jack-in-the-box and started relaying the order.

  I wasn’t going to do anything until they were all sitting on the safe side of the claymores. While I waited, I took the ends of the firing cable, twisted them together and pushed it into the mud. Earthing was an SOP: if the cable still held a residual current, it might be enough to initiate the det when I attached it.

  Crucial stood behind me, waiting for everyone to take his position. Everything had gone quiet. No gunfire, no shouts, just the constant racket of the cicadas taking over the world.

  ‘The kid you condemned to death? You talking about Sunday?’

  Neither of us was looking at the other.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Don’t need to be a brain surgeon to work that one out, mate. The drugs, flapping about contaminating Tim, oh, and all that “What have I got to lose?” shite.’

  He stood stock still, gazing out over the valley. He might have been carved from stone.

  ‘It wasn’t the pain that made me cry out when he bit me. It was seeing him with a mouthful of my blood. I have given him HIV, Nick. I have killed him.’

  ‘How long you had it?’

  ‘After I fell from the helicopter Sam took me to an aid station outside Kinshasa. The blood transfusion was contaminated.’

  ‘I’m no doctor, mate, but Sunday’s got more chance of being struck by lightning. Your peripheral blood will be infectious, but not highly. And it was only one exposure. He can be tested anyway. And, as for you, the new drugs keep people alive for years. You’ve got plenty of time yet before you have that sit-down with God.’

  He nodded, then smiled. ‘I keep telling myself that, but it’s good to hear it from someone else. Thank you, Nick.’

  Fuck me, I seemed to be doling out happy pills today like they were going out of style. ‘Not a problem, mate. I was saying it to cheer myself up, as much as anything else. After all, if I hadn’t dropped you . . .’

  It was my turn to concentrate hard on the treeline. I certainly didn’t want to catch his eye. ‘I killed another kid today. Point blank in the face.’

  Crucial rested a giant hand on my shoulder. ‘And your claymores are going to kill more. That’s why you must stay and help us. We have to make sure people like Standish and Kony are never able to do this again, ever.’

  He was so close I could see the thin line of cement round his diamonds, and smell his parched breath. ‘We have to stop it, Nick.’

  The gunners arrived. He left without another word, and I got to work.

  If I hadn’t earthed the cable correctly, I was about to find out.

  I picked up the dets. They were loose in the bag, a demolition man’s nightmare: twenty or so aluminium tubes the size of half a cigarette, and the two thin metre-long wires that protruded from the back of each weren’t twisted together like they should have been. Left apart, the wires act like antennae and can pick up a radio signal or atmospheric electricity. Either could be enough to initiate the det, and this area was no stranger to electrical storms. They could have gone up at any moment.

  I pulled one out, untwisted the firing cable wires again, turned my back on the whole process, and joined one to the first of the det wires.

  If there was any electricity in the firing cable, it would flow to the det when I connected the second wires. It wouldn’t exactly blow my fingers off, but I’d collect a few splinters in the arse.

  I closed my eyes and touched the two ends together.

  PART EIGHT

  1

  There was no bang. There’d been no residual current in the cable.

  I twisted the last two wires together, unwound another couple of metres from its drum, and laid the det on the LRA side of the mound.

  Last item to be tested was the plunger. Only then could I be sure that the whole detonation system worked.

  I gave the wooden handle a quarter-turn clockwise to release it from the box and pulled it up. I winced as the ratchets inside clicked away like a football rattle.

  I pushed down hard, feeling the resistance. The shaft of the handle sank back into the box, generating current to the two terminals – screw shanks jutting from the top of the box and crowned by butterfly nuts – as it went. I watched the needle display beside them jump into the red. The current might still be as weak as rainwater, but it was an encouraging sign.

  I turned the handle back to the closed position, untwisted the end of the firing cable that was still on the drum and attached it to the terminals. I fastened the butterfly nuts and gave a little tug to make sure they were secure.

  I unlocked the handle again, pulled it up and brought it down.

  There was a loud crack, like a subsonic 9mm round, from the other side of the mound.

  The checks were time-consuming and a pain in the arse, but detail counts and I wouldn’t let myself rush, or be made to rush. When Sam wanted the claymores to go off, there and then, at that moment, I had to be sure that I’d catered for every eventuality.

  The circuit was complete. The cable wasn’t damaged anywhere in the reel and the plunger had only needed to send enough current down it to overcome about two ohms of resistance in the det. It was nothing in power terms – a fart had more – but there might have been snags: I didn’t know what charge the plunger was generating, this thing was ancient, and the cable might have been too long for it, draining current before it reached its destination.

  I gathered in the cable and what little remained of the det. I removed the det wires, twisted the cable wires together again, and did the same to the other end once I’d taken it off the plunger. It needed to be re-earthed before I attached a fresh det.

  I grasped the two lengths of cord running from the claymores. A distant rumble of thunder from the east made me wish I had some end caps, little rubber fittings that prevent water entering the cord. Moisture can penetrate a couple of inches into the cut ends and contaminate the HE, and if something like that can go wrong, it probably will. I thought about going in search of a Prudence or two, but there wasn’t time.

  I placed the det six inches from the ends, and bound them all together with a generous length of the sweaty and gooey gaffer-tape, making sure there was really good contact.

  The adhesive oozed. My sweaty hands kept slipping from the tape roll and the cords. My head was still thumping. My vision was getting fuzzy. It wouldn’t be long before I started losing my hand-eye co-ordination, and then I’d flake out. I badly needed fluid.

  All around me the cicadas were still taking over the world, and ahead, just past the mouth of the valley, the river roared. The only other sounds were the laboured rasp of my own breathing and the buzzing of squadrons of insects as they made their final approach before landing on my neck.

  2

  The only people to my front now were LRA. I wondered if they were already massed on our side of the river and, like our guys, sitting and waiting. Maybe they were just a couple of hundred away on each side of the entrance, psyching themselves up with an extra couple of rations of ghat. Or maybe they were still dragging themselves across the water with ropes. Some would have drowned, that was for sure, ripped away by the current – especially the younger, smaller ones, who could hardly lift a weapon, let alone carry it and fight the current.

  This whole situation was total and utter shite. In some trendy bar in the City, some white-socked trader would be checking tin prices on his handheld while I checked the connections between the detonator and the det cord.

  As he and his wife took their kids out to some fancy dinner in the West End, did they spare a thought for Sunday and his mates? Did they fuck. They wouldn’t even know about them. But Cr
ucial was right. We had to cut away from all that.

  I can’t change the world, but I can do something for this bit of it . . .

  The bond between the two lengths of det cord and the dets was good. Everything was ready to go. I had the firing cable wound round a rock to take the strain, and the ends that would connect to the plunger still twisted to make sure they didn’t pick up any static while I was on the move.

  I didn’t need the last slab of HE in the box, or the remaining dets. I twisted their wires and dumped the lot at the business end of the enterprise. It wasn’t as if I was going to get a second chance at rigging up this shit.

  I hauled the plunger-box strap over my shoulder. The detonation mechanism always stays with the guy who’s going to initiate. The plunger would be under my control right up until I handed it over to Sam. That way, there couldn’t be any mistakes.

  AK under my left arm, I started moving backwards into the valley.

  The wooden reel rumbled as the cable trailed out.

  3

  I hugged the side of the valley, making use of every scrap of cover. I shuffled backwards, making sure the cable didn’t have any kinks to interrupt the current. The sun was behind me, still in cloud, but able to cast the dullest of shadows. The guys inside the sangars weren’t stood-to yet, but they were in chest harnesses, and cradled their weapons over their legs. They didn’t look happy: like the rest of us, they’d been hoping for a few reinforcements.

  I heard mumbling, smelled cigarette smoke, but the area had pretty much fallen quiet. The miners had no tools left to work with; all they could do was sit in their holes, shut up and hope. The squaddies were probably shitting themselves at the thought of what was to come.

  I could tell I was approaching the re-entrant. Babies cried and the women somehow managed to wail and talk at the same time. Most of the Nuka mob were in cover, in dugouts or the shafts themselves. One of the Mercy Flight crew ran from one side to the other. He gave me a quick wave, but no smile.

  Sam’s kids were still huddled together in their dugout, still covering themselves with blankets, like they afforded some sort of protection. Flies landed uninterrupted on their faces. They hadn’t the energy to push them away. Their eyes stared out at the gloom, echoing the numbness inside their heads.

  I was out of breath now.

  A few paces later, I could see the wood at the centre of the spool. I’d run out of cable.

  I dropped the reel, turned and, with the plunger still over my shoulder, legged it back towards the dugout as fast as I could. The mud-caked OGs clung to my legs; my feet felt heavier than ever. My whole body screamed for fluid. I fantasized for a moment about sitting at a bar with a frosted glass of cold beer, maybe a beach in the background. I gave myself a mental slapping. Just crack on, shut up and get on with it.

  I grabbed another reel of firing cable from the dugout and headed straight back. I tried to twist the two wires together on the move, but my fingers were too slippery.

  By the time I reached the empty spool I was panting for breath. I sank to my knees, feeling for a patch of my shirt that was clean enough for me to wipe the sweat off my hands without covering them in mud. I repeated the earthing procedure with the new cable, then got ready to fasten each wire to the ends of the existing cable.

  A couple of hundred years ago, the Chinese were as famous for repairing telegraph wires in America’s Midwest as they were for inventing gunpowder and money. The method they used was called the Chinese pigtail. All I had to do was knot the first two wires as I would a shoelace, then push up the two ends and twist them together. If it was strong enough to take the weight and drag of a telegraph wire suspended between two poles, it was good enough for me.

  Sam was hollering from the tents behind me. I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, but I could guess. Something along the lines of ‘Get a fucking move on!’ Only without the ‘fuck’.

  I fumbled about, not letting myself be rushed, and finally got the two cables connected. I tested the joins and dropped them into the mud, then anchored the new cable round another rock and carried on shuffling backwards, towards the sound of Sam’s voice.

  4

  The sun was now only just visible above the horseshoe, having lost its fight to burn completely through the clouds. The place the ANFO had been mixed was now in shadow, a scrapyard of empty drums, discarded sticks and torn fertilizer bags. A layer of red dust and a dozen or so cigarette butts floated on top of the one drum of diesel that remained.

  I climbed through it, and up the track towards the tents. There was now a constant rumble of thunder beyond the river. Sam yelled an incomprehensible order and men stirred in the sangars.

  He was on the edge of the knoll, pointing at the second fire trench. ‘I want it here, with me.’ I lifted and flicked the firing cable like a hose, to manoeuvre it round the front of the trenches. I risked it getting trodden on or kinked if I left it draped along the track.

  I stopped Sam as he started to walk away.

  ‘Where is she?’

  He pointed to the first tent. It was dark inside the dirty, sagging canvas but I could see movement. Her face appeared briefly at the flap, and I was treated to the most fleeting half-smile before it disappeared back inside.

  Sunday was still tethered next door, surrounded by sheets of paper. I guessed they must now be covered with drawings of stick men firing guns into stick-man huts, and more stick men lying down with very real blood pouring out of them.

  Crucial bobbed up and down like a gravedigger as he grabbed RPG rounds from a stack at ground level and shifted them into the third trench.

  Sam’s had about ten RPG rounds in it, stored with the pointy bits facing up and a launcher in the corner, loaded, ready to fire. The bottom of the trench was lined with logs to keep the weapons mud-free. The RPGs were the closest we had to artillery, and that was why they were sited here. They wouldn’t be very effective if fired directly, because we didn’t have the fragmentation rounds that would throw out shrapnel with a kill area of more than a hundred metres. The anti-armour rounds we did have were designed to punch forward into armoured vehicles. They were killing American tanks in Iraq right now, by being fired in volleys. The weapon was easy to use, and very accurate if fired close up. The insurgents had been getting within eighty metres of their target before firing. The first round took out the outer plate of the tank’s reactive armour. The second, aimed at the same impact point, penetrated the remaining layers of armour and fucked up everyone inside.

  Here, if they were fired directly at the targets, the rounds would hit the mud and the main force of the explosion would be sucked into the ground. Sam was going to make use of their soft detonation. They self-detonated after about five seconds, and the further back they were fired from, the better the chance of them exploding above the ghat-munchers and killing them with an airburst.

  If we were attacked from the high ground, they could be fired over the valley lip and would explode as they started to come down into the dead ground the other side. Not a good day out for anyone on the way up.

  5

  Standish and Bateman were hunched over the cooking pot. The fire was long dead, but there was still some congealed gunk in the bottom of the pan, and they were digging in like they hadn’t eaten for days. Sam stood close by, not bothering to disguise his disdain.

  For the first time in history, Standish was looking rough. His hair was flat against his head, and his face, neck and arms all had long thin cuts from running through the bush after the contact. They were both in shit state, covered with mud and soaking wet. Flies buzzed round their heads, not much caring whether they got to the food, the sweat or the blood.

  The cicadas were going ape-shit now that it was getting darker. The only other ambient noise came from the river and the still-distant rumbles of thunder. No firing from the LRA, none of our guys making noise, nothing even from the Nuka mob in the dead ground.

  Standish and Bateman weren’t the only ones who were hungr
y and thirsty. I approached the huddle, the plunger still over my shoulder.

  I lifted one of the four jerry-cans now by the fire. The nozzle was caked with rice from the last drinker, but that didn’t bother me. The sterilization tabs made it taste like the council swimming-pool I used to piss in when I was a kid, but I wasn’t worried about that either. I gulped hard and long, feeling the water travel all the way down to my stomach, and only stopped when I ran out of breath.

  Sam waited for me to finish. ‘Take it with you.’

  Standish kept scooping rice from a burned tin can and shoving it into his face with the palm of his hand. He was a long way from the Guards Club. ‘It was the skinny surveyor who went down, right?’

  I lowered the jerry-can again, careful not to spill a drop. ‘Yep.’

  ‘We found the fat boy after we crossed the river. They’d taken his arms and legs off.’ His face contorted with anger. ‘All you had to do was get them out of here. What the fuck did you think you were doing? They’re expensive to replace, you idiot. Which fucking Chinaman with even half his marbles will want to spend months on end in a place like this once word gets out?’ He waved an arm across the skyline, then got back down to his rice.

  Fuck him. It wasn’t worth getting sparked up about. There was always time for that later, once we were out of here.

  I got more water down me. This wasn’t about enjoyment: this was a pit stop. ‘What about the rest of the patrol?’ I looked to Sam for an answer. ‘The gunshot wound and the other guy?’

  Sam pointed at the back of Standish’s not-so-immaculate blond head, with the sort of expression that said he was one step away from cracking it like an egg. ‘He killed them.’

  I brought the jerry-can down again. ‘What?’