Crisis Four ns-2

by Andy McNab

  We huddled against the trunk, both of us shivering and shuddering.

  Adrenaline had kicked in when we were on the move, but its effects were subsiding. I just wanted to lie there, but I knew that if I made an effort it would pay off. I pulled the strap of Sarah's bag over my head and dropped it on the ground. Then I took out the knots with cold, numb and very fumbling hands and teeth. With my foot on the collar of the jacket, I got hold of the rest of it and started to twist out the worst of the water.

  Sarah looked at me like an abused puppy, huddled up and shivering. I untwisted the jacket and threw it at her. I wanted her to stay alive for two reasons now: I still didn't want to have to carry a dead weight out of the area, and I wanted her to answer some questions.

  She put the jacket around her shoulders and hungrily wrapped herself up in it. Then she wriggled backward until she was resting against the tree, cuddling herself, trying to tuck the jacket around her legs.

  I took off my shirt and T-shirt, and wrung them out, too. I was shivering so badly that it felt as if my muscles were in spasm, but it had to be done.

  I had to get the water out and some air into the fibers so that my body heat what was left of it could sustain itself. Not that cotton has that many air pockets.

  "Cotton kills," the saying goes in outdoors circles, and for good reason, but what I was doing was better than nothing. It made me think of Shirts KF, the thick woolly shirts we had to wear in the infantry.

  I'd never found out what the letters KF stood for; all I knew was that the material used to itch and scratch, and in summer made you feel as if you were wearing a greatcoat, but in the field during winter they were great wet or dry, the fibers retained heat.

  I put the shirt and T-shirt back on, then knelt to take off my boots, fumbling to undo the laces with numb, trembling fingers. Finally I wrung out my jeans, taking care to keep the pistol away from Sarah's grasp.

  When I was dressed again I tucked everything in, trying to minimize the number of ways in which the wind could get to me. I pushed the pistol into the back of my jeans by the base of my spine, where she wouldn't be able to get at it.

  I sat back against the trunk, with Sarah on my left. She was still in the same position as before, sitting in a curled up ball and using the jacket as best she could to keep herself warm, her hands keeping the collar pulled up around her face.

  It's always best to share body warmth, and two people of opposite sexes huddled together generate five percent more warmth than two of the same sex. I nudged her with my elbow, held out my arms and motioned with my head for her to move over. She shuffled across, sniffing, her hair soaking wet and plastered over her face.

  High above, a strong gust of wind made the tree sway. I straightened my legs and she arranged herself in my lap with her left side against me, then I lifted my legs to press her closer to my chest, which insulated her from the ground, and got more of her skin in contact with mine. Her wet hair was over my shoulder as her body pushed into mine. I put my arms around her. Neither of us could control our shivering. She snuggled into me, her head against my chest, and I could feel the benefit almost immediately.

  There was a silence during which we both willed ourselves to get warm. I looked down on her wet, muddy hair, flecked with pine needles and bits of bark.

  It almost took me by surprise when she spoke.

  "I suppose they told you I'm a runner?" Her body was shaking. She didn't move her head for me to see, but I could tell by her tone that her period of compliance was coming to an end.

  "Something like that." I bent my head to listen for any follow up, and raised my knees more to pull her nearer for warmth.

  "And I suppose you believed them? Christ, I've been putting this operation together for over four years, Nick. Now it's destroyed by some dunderhead who's sent to fuck me over."

  The dunderhead bit pissed me off.

  "Four years to do what? What operation?

  What the fuck are you talking about, Sarah?"

  Her speech was slow, the tone that of a schoolmistress trying to show patience as she explains simple things to tiny minds. It was only partly working; her shivering was making her speech disjointed.

  "Four years to infiltrate deep enough to discover their network in the U.S. and Europe-that's what I am talking about."

  "Infiltrate who? What? Why didn't London know?"

  "London..." She paused.

  "The reason London doesn't know is because I don't know who I can tell. I don't know the whole network yet, but the more I learn, the more I know I can't trust anyone."

  There was another pause. She intended it to give me time to think, but I left it for her to fill. After pulling the collar up farther around her face to fight the cold, she took the hint.

  "I suppose they sent you to kill me?" Her voice was slightly muffled by the jacket.

  "No, just to get you back to the U.K. for questioning. It seems you are becoming an embarrassment."

  She scoffed at my answer. I could feel her shoulders shaking as she covered her mouth to hide the noise of her coughing laugh.

  "Ah, London..." The laughter stopped and the coughing took over.

  She looked up at me.

  "Listen, Nick, London has got it wrong. This isn't about embarrassment, for Christ's sake. It's about assassination." I must have had that vacant expression on my face again, because she reverted to her kindergarten teacher voice.

  "The team in the house; they were planning a hit on Netanyahu."

  To be honest, I didn't really give a shit about Netanyahu, so I couldn't help a grin.

  "The hit has failed. They're all dead, apart from one."

  Her head started shaking like a mechanical toy. She was deadly serious, or as serious as you can be when all your extremities are purple, including your nose.

  "No, you're wrong. There are still two more members of the cell. They were going to RV with us at the house today. You don't understand, Nick; it's not a job to them, it's a quest. They will carry on." There was real frustration in her voice.

  "Believe me, ifNetanyahu dies, you will give a shit. It will change the way you live, Nick. That is, if you do."

  I hated all this beating around the bush; it was like being in the middle of a conversation with Lynn and Elizabeth again.

  "What the fuck are you on about, Sarah?"

  She thought for a while as she buried her head back into the jacket collar.

  The sound of the rotor blades kicked in to join the wind above us, then died as quickly as it came.

  "No, not yet. I'm going to keep that as my insurance; I need to make sure you get me out of here. You see, Nick, I don't believe you're here to take me back to London. It must be more important than that, or they wouldn't have sent you."

  She was right, of course. I would do exactly the same if I were in her position.

  "Look, Nick. Keep me alive and get me out of here, and I'll tell you everything. Don't let them use you; give me time to prove it."

  I hated not having control. I wanted to know more, but at the same I wasn't so desperate that I would lie awake at night with worry. I didn't reply;

  I had to think. And I was going to take her out of there anyway, whether she liked it or not.

  She adjusted her body on my legs, and looked up again and stared into my eyes.

  "Nick, please believe me. I've got involved in something where nobody can be trusted and I mean nobody."

  She kept her eyes locked on mine. She had just opened her mouth to speak again when we both heard the sound of somebody crashing through the trees.

  Whoever it was wasn't having much luck with their footing. They hit the ground with a loud curse.

  "Shittt!" It was a man's voice.

  I didn't need to say anything to Sarah. She jumped away from me and my hand reached for the pistol.

  The man must have got up, only to fall down again immediately with a grunt as he scrambled to recover.

  "Oh, fuck, fuck ..."

  On my h
ands and knees, I moved slowly to the edge of our hide and pushed my face against the branches. It was the American. He was stumbling around in the mud, his clothes soaking, his mustache looking like a drowned rat. He was heading in our general direction, looking as bedraggled as we were. But he wasn't just running, he was looking for ground sign. He was tracking us.

  I crawled back to Sarah and whispered in her ear, "It's your American.

  Go bring him in."

  She shook her head.

  "It won't work."

  "Make him."

  "He won't fall for it."

  "You're the one that needs his clothes, not me."

  She thought about it, then nodded slowly and took a deep breath. I watched as she turned away from me and crawled out of the hide.

  I heard her call, "Lance! Over here! Lance!"

  I moved to the opposite side of the tree, pushing back under the branches, just in case Sarah decided to become Lance's best friend again.

  I lay down and brought my pistol up into the aim, the barrel just clearing the branches.

  I could hear her talking to him as they got nearer. It was Arabic, but spoken rapidly. She was still gob bing off to him at warp speed as she shuffled backward into the hide. I started to feel vulnerable now. Why was she talking to him like this? I'd already heard him speak English. It could only mean trouble. But fuck it, whatever she was planning was about to happen.

  H9

  The first things to appear were his hands, the backs of which were covered in hair and looked way too big for his wrists. Then his head and shoulders, face down to avoid the low branches as he pushed his way in. He was nodding and agreeing with whatever it was that Sarah was saying as she followed him in.

  e didn't look up until he was right inside the shelter. When he did, he saw me crawling out of the branches opposite him. His eyes widened as he saw the weapon, and he shot a glance back at Sarah, looking for some kind of clarification or reassurance. He looked back at the weapon, then at her again, trying to work it out. After a couple of seconds he gave a deep sigh and lowered his head, rocking it slowly from side to side.

  Sarah was level with him now, and jerked her head to indicate for him to crawl forward a bit more; he did as he was told. She ran her hands underneath his jacket. I watched her like a hawk, ready to react if she tried to grab his weapon and draw down on me.

  She looked at me and shook her head.

  I motioned him to move to the left of the hide and he shuffled over on his hands and knees. I stopped him before he was too close to me, in case he fancied his chances.

  The black bomber jacket he was wearing had a Harley Davidson motif on the left-hand side and looked warm. I motioned with the pistol.

  "Clothes."

  Still on his knees, bent over with his back parallel to the ground, he started to remove the jacket. His gaze switched between me and Sarah; he didn't say a word, still trying to work it all out. Sarah was sitting against

  the tree with her hands in her jacket pockets and her knees against her chest.

  I grabbed the American's jacket and started to put it on, making sure I put Sarah's bag back over my shoulders.

  "Now the rest of your stuff," I said.

  "One hand."

  He put his left hand on the ground and fiddled with his belt buckle with the other. Sarah was impatient and very cold, and she snapped at him in Arabic. She must have been feeling grim, covered from head to toe with mud, leaves and pine needles, and her legs were wet, dirty and bleeding.

  Lance was wearing Nike trainers, and Sarah decided to help him by pulling them off from behind. His Levis were next, and when he'd finished she stretched out on the ground, arched her back and raised her backside to get the big jeans on. She was doing up the belt and he was pulling off his T-shirt when I heard the helicopter again. The two of us looked up, which was pretty fruitless considering the tree's canopy meant we couldn't see anything. Lance's T-shirt was over his head but not his shoulders.

  I put my left hand on the back of his neck and rammed his face into the mud, the barrel of my pistol pressing into his neck.

  The throbbing of the rotors was virtually overhead. The heli was hovering.

  It stayed there for several seconds, the trees flexing under the downwash.

  Shape, shine, shadow, silhouette, spacing and movement: those are the telltales that can betray your location. But we were in good cover;

  Sarah knew that, too, and continued slowly pulling on the warm clothes.

  The heli moved away about fifty meters, hovered again, then moved on.

  The sound of its rotor blades disappeared completely. I took the muzzle away from the American's neck and told him to carry on. He finished taking off his T-shirt. Sarah took off the jacket, put on the T-shirt, and replaced the jacket. All that was left were his socks and boxers. It was Lance's turn to shiver, the thick hair on his back plastered flat by the rain.

  I could see in his eyes that he was starting to flap. He must have thought he was going to be killed, and started mumbling some sort of prayer to himself. But it wasn't a plea, the tone was more of acceptance.

  I said, "It's OK, Lance, you don't need Allah yet, you're not going to die. Just shut the fuck up."

  Sarah was sorted, kneeling with her hands in her jacket pockets, wearing size eleven trainers and jeans with the gusset hanging halfway down to her knees, with turn ups so big they looked like some sort of fashion statement.

  The boy was still mumbling away to himself on his knees, bent forward with his forearms resting on the ground, his hands clasped together in prayer. He was trying his best to be the gray man.

  Sarah looked at me.

  "What about him?"

  I said, "Let's get moving while the heli's gone. I'll tie him to the tree with my belt. He'll be fucked off, but he'll live."

  She shook her head.

  I said, "No, just leave him. Come on, let's go. We need to make distance."

  She gave a sigh as I took the belt from the bag and kicked Lance over to the tree and began to secure him to it. An hour or two and he would free himself; if not, he deserved to die anyway. He was still muttering to himself, and as I tightened the knot he blurted out some insult to Sarah in Arabic.

  He was probably telling her what a bitch she was for fucking him over like this, after all they had been through together and all that shit. She ignored it. I felt like telling him I knew how he felt.

  I had a quick look around to check we hadn't left anything, and started to crawl out of the shelter. Sarah followed, or at least I thought she did.

  The Arabic mumblings got fainter.

  I was still on my hands and knees, my head just emerging from the branches, when the loud report of a weapon came from behind me. Instinct flattened me to the ground. In almost the same instant I realized it wasn't me who'd been shot and slithered out of the way.

  My first thought was that he'd somehow got Sarah. I jumped to my feet and ran around the tree to approach him from the other side. I started to crawl in, weapon at the ready. Pushing through the branches on my stomach, I saw him. He was still being held up by his secured hands, but his body was sagging and his legs were splayed, like the crumpled victim of a firing squad. There was no way Lance would be feeling the cold anymore.

  Sarah had head-jobbed him with a semiautomatic. She was on her knees, putting the weapon into her jacket pocket.

  What the fuck was it with this woman? Every time she was left alone with a man she landed up killing him.

  "Give me the gun, Sarah ... Give it."

  She looked up into the sky, as if I were being boring, pulled it from her pocket and threw it over to me. I crawled back out. It was pointless keeping a low voice now; half the state would know where we were. I snapped, "What the fuck are you doing?"

  "He wouldn't stop, believe me. He would try and join up with the other two or carry on himself. I know these people. I know Lance very well.

  Look, the other two they know where, how and when to do
the hit. What you did this morning won't stop them." Her face had taken on a manic look.

  "For rack's sake, Nick, I'm beginning to wish I'd just killed you and opted to carry on with him."

  There was no time for debate. We'd been compromised. We had to be like animals now and run as fast as we could; it didn't matter where, we just had to get out of that immediate danger area. Only when we were a safe distance away could I stop and assess.

  Assuming the shot had been heard, there would be chaos at the police control center as it was reported over the radio net. They would just have been starting to work through all their post-incident procedures when, literally, bang!" another problem. Initially they'd be confused, but they'd soon figure out where it had come from, and direct the helicopter and follow-up our way.

  We legged it. We could move much faster now than before, even with Sarah wearing her size-eleven Nikes. I was severely pissed off with her for what she'd done, but fried to control it. Once you allow yourself to get angry, you stop concentrating on the aim, which in this case was to make distance. Whether or not she was lying wasn't an issue at the moment, I didn't care. The only thing that mattered right now was escape.

  The helicopter swooped over the canopy. We stopped in our tracks and took cover beneath the trees. But the aircraft wasn't hovering this time, it was moving fast and low. It crossed directly overhead, blasting torrents of rain water from the trees onto our heads, then roared away at speed.

  I decided to keep going in the same direction, a straight line away from the house. I wanted to find a road or some habitation. A house should mean a vehicle.

  It was fully light now. Our faster pace had got some body warmth going, and if anything I was starting to overheat. Just like me, Sarah was puffing and panting as we scrabbled up the rises and stumbled headlong downhill. There was no need to explain to her what I was doing. She was actually a help, because it was so much easier to have two sets of eyes and ears.