Street Soldier

by Andy McNab

  ‘I mean what any of your officers would mean if they described something as an objective.’

  He let it sink in for a second while Sean stared at the photo.

  Shit and fuck. ‘Objective’ meant ‘target’. He was going to be expected to attack this place.

  ‘Consider it a little test of our relationship, to ensure that my trust is not misplaced. Let us not delude ourselves – we both know you became involved in our cause through the desire to make a little more money, not through your deep-seated convictions. Whatever it is that drives you, Sean Harker, I need to know that when I require something of you, you will deliver.’

  Sean held up the photo. ‘But . . .’

  Thank God he had the phone on him. He could feel it in his pocket. He had to find thirty seconds to call up Adams, spill the plan. Once he knew what the hell the plan was.

  ‘Let me describe the rest of the day to you,’ Rich was saying. ‘You will return to Andover with Malcolm and do as he tells you.’ His eyes bored into Sean’s. ‘No offence. You understand why you must be supervised.’

  Sean swallowed. ‘Goes without saying,’ he croaked.

  Rich gave a simple nod of satisfaction. ‘Malcolm will escort you to a safe place. At ten p.m. he will take you to the target and provide you with the means for accomplishing your task. It will be well within your skillset. Afterwards – and you have my word on this – responsibility will be claimed by some little-known jihadist group.’

  ‘But . . . soldiers . . .’ Sean stuttered. Soldiers were ninety-nine per cent of the Monty’s clientele. ‘Why? You can’t just kill—’

  ‘Our cause must be advanced,’ Rich said, eyes burning. ‘Remember, the purpose of this is to mobilize our government into action against IS and our other enemies. Soldiers are trained to fight and to die. There will not be one man or woman in that pub who would not lay down their life for their country if their duty called for it, and that is what will happen.’

  Sean knew he couldn’t refuse. But the Sean they thought he was – the recruited patriot, the East London lad, not the guy forced to work for MI5 – still wouldn’t just give in. So this Sean didn’t, either.

  ‘I can’t . . .’

  Rich sighed, and Malcolm slid another envelope towards him. Another photograph.

  Sean stared at it. ‘This is my—’

  ‘Yes, it’s your mother,’ Rich confirmed.

  She was behind the counter at the shop, passing a bag over to some bloke, no idea that she was the star of her own exclusive photoshoot.

  ‘She too could be an unfortunate victim of the kind of people we’re fighting, you know. You’ve seen the videos these murdering filth like to post. The mother of a serving soldier would really get people talking, wouldn’t it?’

  Rich stood up. ‘I will expect to hear from Malcolm at ten-thirty p.m. – and of course I’ll be watching the results on the national news shortly after.’

  Malcolm rose to his feet and jerked his thumb. Sean, sick to his stomach, got up to follow him.

  Chapter 27

  Waterloo Station was heaving with crowds starting to head home at the end of a Saturday in London. If Sean had wanted to give Malcolm the slip, now would have been the time. Problem was, he didn’t want to – at least, not permanently. But he had to find some time to send Adams a text. Just one simple little text. How hard could it be?

  Answer: harder than it looked. Malcolm was cutting him no slack at all. Since they’d left Trafalgar Square, there had never been more than about a metre between them. Several times Sean’s hand went to the phone in his left pocket. Spook phone in his left pocket, own phone in his right. His fingers brushed the smooth screen. And every time he was aware of Malcolm’s unwavering gaze on him.

  It was twenty minutes until the next Andover train. They lounged by a metal pillar and waited. Without moving his head, Sean could see four or five people on their mobiles. Wouldn’t it be natural to take the spook phone out, start using it?

  But suppose Malcolm wanted to inspect it? And found exactly one number on it?

  Thanks, guys, Sean thought bitterly. MI5 had been just too clever. Why couldn’t they have just given him the number to put on his own phone? Eh?

  There was only one way he was going to get anything like privacy.

  ‘Going for a slash,’ he announced. He set off without giving Malcolm a chance to object. He didn’t look back, but he could tell that Malcolm was following him. All the way over to the gents and down the stairs. He even produced his own 30p for the turnstile.

  The toilets were hot and crowded and smelled of disinfectant. Sean headed for one of the cubicles. He pushed the door open, stepped in, turned to close the door—

  And suddenly it was jammed. Malcolm had his hand on the other side. ‘You said a slash.’

  ‘I’m a nervous pisser,’ Sean said. ‘You going to stand and watch? ’Cos people in public toilets notice when guys do things like that.’

  Malcolm took his hand away. Sean pushed the door shut and locked it.

  Alone at last, thank God! He had about as long as it takes to have a normal piss. He pulled out the phone, swiped the screen, and—

  NO SIGNAL.

  The toilets were underground. Deep enough to cut off electronic signals from outside.

  There was nothing he could do about it. Sean flushed and turned towards the door. He hesitated, and then unzipped himself. Then he opened the door and zipped himself up again, making sure Malcolm saw the action. He gave his jeans a little tug just to make sure he was in character.

  And he washed his hands.

  It was a long, silent train ride.

  Sean waited twenty minutes into the journey, then stood up. ‘I need a piss.’

  Malcolm opened his mouth, looked around the crowded carriage, closed it again. But he stood up and followed, as Sean had guessed he would.

  There was a bit more privacy outside the compartment. Malcolm put his face close to Sean’s and spoke in a low growl. ‘You’ve been once.’

  ‘Could be, you know, I’m just a little bit nervous?’ Sean returned his gaze without blinking.

  Malcolm nodded. ‘This time you’re keeping the door open.’

  ‘Bollocks I am,’ Sean exclaimed. He stood back to let a mother with two small children push past towards the buffet car. Witnesses, witnesses, lots of lovely witnesses. He let them get a short distance away, and lowered his voice. ‘There’s words for old guys who like to sneak a look at young guys’ dicks. Do you want me to shout some of them out, real loud?’

  Malcolm’s eyes narrowed, but he considered the point. ‘If I hear that door lock, I’m knocking it down. If you’re still in there when we get to a station—’

  ‘You’re knocking it down,’ Sean agreed. ‘With you. Orders received loud and clear, strength five. That’s Harker, going into the bog and leaving the door unlocked. Shit—’

  Malcolm put his hand out to block Sean’s way. ‘And I’m taking your phone.’

  They locked eyes, and then Sean shrugged, delved into his right pocket and pulled out his phone. His phone – the one that didn’t have anything on it except general stuff and a little porn in the search history. He silently handed it over, and then took pleasure in shutting the door in Malcolm’s face.

  He called up the one number in the MI5 phone’s memory, selected SEND TEXT.

  Hit on Monty 2200 tonite dont kno how.

  SEND.

  The message vanished, replaced by a slowly rotating hourglass and the message, SENDING.

  Sean grinned and watched it spin. Any moment . . .

  SENDING.

  C’mon, c’mon, c’mon . . .

  SENDING.

  Oh for fuck’s sake, send already! he shouted inside his head.

  SENDING.

  And then he looked at the signal strength. There was half a bar, flickering on and off. What totally crap network did MI5 sign their phones up to? Or was it something to do with the train?

  He’d taken as long as it t
ook to pee. Malcolm would be waiting. Sean groaned and shoved the phone back into his pocket. Then he took it out again. Supposing Malcolm searched him? Or just noticed its outline in his pocket?

  It wasn’t a crime to have two phones, but he would have to delete the message from the log. Except that first the message had to fucking send itself.

  He looked around, desperately seeking inspiration in the narrow confines of an Intercity 125 toilet. Finally he left it behind the door, on top of the towel dispenser, still bravely trying to send its message. He flushed the bog, washed his hands and opened the door.

  The train pulled into Andover and disgorged travellers going home for their Saturday evenings, plus Sean and Malcolm. They shuffled their way through the crowd towards the exit and the car park. Malcolm jerked his head, and they made for a white van parked over to one side. He gave the side door a heave.

  ‘In.’

  Sean climbed in nervously and peered about. The rear windows were tinted and there were none at the side, so the interior was dark. He could make out some cushions.

  The driver was a man with a shaven head and tree-trunk arms covered in tattoos. He gave Sean a curt nod, then another that was only slightly warmer to Malcolm, who climbed into the passenger seat. The driver gunned the engine and Sean quickly sat down on the cushions as the van lurched into motion.

  It had been 18:00 when the train arrived in Andover. The next four hours were the longest of Sean’s life, and that was saying something when he thought back to sitting in a police cell waiting to be charged, and his time in solitary.

  From the floor of the van he couldn’t see where they were going, though he tried to follow the route. They stopped at a McDonald’s and Malcolm bought burgers and fries for three. Then they drove off somewhere else to wait.

  Sean tried to use his senses to work out where the fuck they were. He was pretty certain he could hear the steady rumble of traffic. Were they near the A303? It was a major dual carriageway a couple of miles south of Tidworth, linking London, the M3 and the West Country – there was always traffic on it. But just being near it didn’t narrow it down.

  After two hours he heard a car pulling up next to the van, and his ears pricked up. The engine sounded very familiar. Of course, the Matiz was an inexplicably popular vehicle so it could belong to anyone . . .

  Malcolm wound his window down. ‘You’re late.’

  Heaton’s voice spoke a couple of inches away, heavy with sarcasm. ‘Yeah. They’ve actually got security on these things. Crazy or what?’

  ‘In the back.’

  The side door opened with a rush of metal, and Heaton and Sean stared at each other. The corporal was carrying a large, ribbed plastic box, as thick and high as a suitcase but twice as long.

  ‘Guess I don’t need to leave instructions, then,’ he murmured. He dumped the box next to Sean and pulled the door shut again. A moment later, the Matiz drove away.

  Malcolm turned his head. ‘The box. Open it.’

  Sean knelt and pulled the box towards him. It was heavy, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He reached down and undid two simple clips to open the lid.

  Holy shit . . .

  Lying in the box was a Carl Gustav AE84-RCL recoilless rifle – what a layman would call an RPG. It was like a short drainpipe, painted light green, with a couple of pistol grips and a trigger, the tip of a rocket just poking its snout out at one end.

  Sean hadn’t been trained in its use, but he didn’t need to be. He knew his way around a weapon well enough. And bearing in mind that these things were meant to be used against tanks wrapped in steel armour inches thick, he could only imagine what it would do to a brick building.

  And he had to use it on the Monty or his mum was . . . Well, he didn’t want to think about that. At all.

  He closed the box again. The driver switched on the radio. After that the two men just sat in the front, waiting. Apparently they were quite prepared to do that for another two hours.

  Sean lay back and stared at the roof of the van. In his mind, that spinning hourglass from the phone was being projected up there. SENDING . . . Had it ever sent? Had MI5 been alerted? Had they had time to do anything about it? Should he have kept the phone on him and tried to send the text later?

  The sound of a phone going off in the van’s grave-like interior was like the opening chord of a heavy rock gig. Sean spasmed into a sitting position. It wasn’t just that a phone had gone off – it was his phone.

  Malcolm calmly pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. ‘Do you usually answer the phone at this time on a Saturday night?’

  ‘Huh? What?’ Sean demanded. The question was so ordinary that he had difficulty pulling the brain cells together to answer it.

  Malcolm turned and gazed at him. ‘It’s important that you stick to your usual routine. It’s a simple question. Yes or no?’

  ‘Uh – then, yeah. Yeah, I do.’

  Malcolm handed the phone over. ‘Then answer it.’

  Sean reached out for it, already pre-emptively running through excuses in his head for why, no, he couldn’t come out on the piss right now. It had to be one of the lads. They would have clocked that he wasn’t in barracks.

  His eyes bugged out when he saw the name on the screen. ‘Mum?’ It came out almost like a scream.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart!’ Amazingly, she didn’t sound like she was about to burst into tears, which was what usually happened when some crisis made her call him. She sounded almost . . . happy. ‘I just wanted to thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.’

  ‘F-flowers?’

  ‘From Sean and all his mates, it says here.’

  There was a few seconds’ silence as his mind raced.

  ‘So – what are you up to tonight?’ she asked, when he still hadn’t said anything.

  ‘Mum . . .’ He struggled to think.

  The Guyz were sending flowers? Matt and Copper? Come on!

  The lads in the platoon? They hardly knew she existed.

  The only alternative was . . .

  His eyes locked with Malcolm’s. The phone wasn’t on speaker, but it was quiet enough for the tinny voice to fill the van. The men in front had heard every word.

  ‘Perhaps you should ask if it says anything else,’ Malcolm suggested.

  And because Sean guessed Malcolm wasn’t one to make casual chat, he passed it on, dreading what the answer might be.

  ‘Ooh, hang on . . . Yes, it says, World’s best Mum. We always know where to find you. It’s so sweet, love.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said harshly. ‘Gotta go.’

  ‘Oh – right – of course. Didn’t want to bother you, just—’

  He jabbed the screen to end the call.

  We always know where to find you. Rich just making his point. He didn’t even have to send Malcolm round to do his dirty work. He could send a bomb through the post. Even the Guyz couldn’t protect her against that.

  Flowers? You shouldn’t have. No, really.

  He mutely handed the phone back to Malcolm for safekeeping, and went back to waiting.

  The icing on the cake was that by the time 22:00 came round, he was bursting for a piss. He hadn’t actually been all afternoon.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Malcolm. Sean looked at his watch as the van started moving again: 21:53. ‘Five minutes. Get ready.’

  ‘Right,’ Sean replied. He reluctantly lifted the weapon out of the box.

  He couldn’t even fake missing the pub. Once the van stopped, he would have to open the door, fire, and know that the rocket he had just launched was dead on. Anything else wasn’t so much inexcusable as just unbelievable. And Rich, Sean now knew, would not take kindly to the unbelievable.

  The van started to slow.

  ‘Two minutes. Put this on.’

  Malcolm handed Sean a black balaclava. Even with everything swirling around his head, he could see it made sense. Someone might catch a glimpse of the guy inside the van, might even recognize him.

  Sean
reluctantly pulled it over his head. The wool was scratchy against his face and it smelled of sweat. Not his.

  ‘Stand by.’

  He checked the weapon – not that there was much to check: a basic trigger mechanism and a flip-up iron sight that did little more than get in the way.

  He had to do this. He had to trust that the signal had got through – that the phone had finally sent its message, that the spooks had been able to arrange something. He was more in the dark than he had ever been before. He would never have gone into a job with the Guyz with as little information as this. That was how you screwed up; that was what got you arrested. He would have simply refused until Matt or whoever came up with a plan that actually made sense. But now he was in one place at one moment with one job, and he had to do it. Shit.

  The van slowed and stopped. Malcolm and the driver both pulled on balaclavas of their own and suddenly leaped out. A moment later, both the side door and the rear doors were pulled open. Of course, Sean thought. Got to ventilate the exhaust . . .

  And there was the Monty, right in front of him. They’d pulled up just at the entrance to the car park.

  Malcolm was at the side door. ‘Now!’

  Sean gave himself no time to think, no time to pause. In a smooth move, he had the Carl Gustav on his right shoulder and was staring down it towards the Monty. In the brief seconds between aiming and firing, he noticed the cars outside the pub, the shadows of figures in the windows. Music pulsed faintly from inside. The wind was warm, scented with the remaining heat of the day and something delicious from the pub restaurant.

  Sean pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 28

  The rocket shot out of the end of the launcher like a greyhound from its cage. The backblast filled the interior of the van with fumes, even though all the doors were open. Sparks flew from the rocket as it ignited and gained speed, racing towards the pub.

  The doors slammed shut a split second later, so Sean didn’t get to see the explosion. It wasn’t as dramatic as he had expected – a dull thud, followed by a sort of thumping pop that made the van rock, then the immediate chorus of car alarms set off by the explosion.