Crisis Four ns-2

by Andy McNab

  Sarah looked like death on legs.

  I tried to think of positives. If you run at 10 mph for one hour in an unknown direction, you could be anywhere in a circle of just over 300 square miles. An hour later that will have become an area of 1,256 square miles.

  In The Lone Ranger, Tonto used to stop and say, "Five wagons, two hours ago. That way, kemo sabe." Luckily, real life isn't that easy and Tonto lives in Arizona.

  I decided to lie up and wait until last light. With no compass or stars to guide us, I could be going around in circles for weeks. During darkness, the plan would be to move to a known quantity the road and parallel it until I could get my hands on a vehicle.

  I carried on for another ten minutes or so, with Sarah now up with me.

  About sixty or seventy meters away to my half right, there was something that looked as if it could work: a fallen tree on higher ground, its branches still intact but decaying. It had fallen down a sharp bank. It would give us ideal cover from view from the air as well as the ground and, just as important, it would give us cover from the elements. If the police didn't get hold of us, I didn't want the weather to finish us off. It wouldn't be long before exhaustion and cold would take their toll.

  "What are we doing now?" Sarah asked.

  "Why have you stopped?"

  I didn't bother replying; I was looking back at the route we'd taken.

  Then I turned around again and looked forward at the tree, off to my half right. The ground ahead was the same as behind, rises, with lots of dead ground beyond.

  I turned half left and started kicking my feet, leaving obvious sign. I wanted them to see my direction change away from the fallen tree. Sarah followed on behind, puffing and panting, struggling to keep the size eleven trainers on her size-five feet.

  Over a rise, and in the dead ground beyond, was a stream a couple of meters wide. I headed down and waded straight into the freezing water. I checked behind me and couldn't see the tree.

  Sarah stood her ground on the bank.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Get in."

  The water came over my knees. I turned left and moved downstream, stopping every dozen or so paces and looking back to make sure I couldn't see the tree. I had trudged about fifty meters, with Sarah splashing along behind me, before I decided this was far enough. I didn't know why, it just felt right. I got out on the far side of the stream and stood still. I could hear Sarah's trainers squelching as she came up beside me, visibly thankful for the rest.

  I gave myself a minute to collect my thoughts, looking at her, soaked and bedraggled, fir needles splattered on her face, twigs in her hair. Not exactly how she'd choose to appear at one of her embassy parties, but she was doing well; she'd obviously kept herself in shape.

  "Ready?"

  She nodded and took a deep breath to prepare.

  We moved up and down for another 300 meters or so, in a direct line away from the stream. Sarah was starting to feel the strain, and I could move only at her speed. I decided that this was far enough; it was time for one last bit of deception. I stopped and moved over to an outcrop of rock.

  Sarah came up level with me, and we both had our hands on our knees, panting for breath as if we'd just finished a 200-meter sprint.

  "Sarah, take off your underwear."

  She looked at me blankly. She'd heard me say that before, but not in a situation like this.

  "What?"

  "Your panties, I need them." I'd already taken off my jacket and was pulling off my shirt. I was after the T-shirt underneath. Her expression told me that she wasn't sure about this.

  "Sarah, trust me. They must have dogs." She didn't bother to ask, just moaned to herself about getting undressed.

  In any other situation it would have been quite nice to watch her drop her jeans and peel off her underwear, but that was the story of my life: wrong time, wrong place.

  I got my shirt back on and shivered as it touched my skin. Sarah was busy doing up her jeans. I picked up her panties and placed them with my T-shirt between the rocks and a bush. If we were being tracked visually or by dogs they would get to this point. The mutt doesn't know what's really happening and what exactly he's looking for; to him it's just a game. A dog can confuse an item of clothing with the quarry and assume victory with its find. Then the handler has to get the dog sparked up again before it will continue.

  Dogs pick up scent in two different ways: from the air, and from contact with the ground, trees, plants and buildings. Airborne scents don't last long; they are quite quickly blown away by the wind. Ground scent, however, can be obvious to a dog for anything up to forty-eight hours, and can be generated not only by leaving your smell on things you touch, but by your movement itself. If you're walking on grass, or pushing through vegetation, you'll crush leaves and stems with every step.

  Even on bare ground your footprints will release air and tiny quantities of moisture that have been trapped in the earth, and they smell quite different from the air above ground. From your "scent footprints," a dog can even tell which direction you are moving in, because as you push off each step with your toes, the front of the scent print is more obvious than the heel, and it doesn't take long for a well-trained dog to work out what that means.

  Just as each person's footprints look slightly different to the human eye, so does the mixture of scents in a smell footprint to a dog. If he's really switched on, he might even be able to track one individual where there are a number of people traveling together.

  A dog could out-hear, out-smell and out-run me. But I could outthink him.

  "The strongest odor is from the sweat glands," I said to Sarah.

  "But at the moment I think your underwear will smell more than your T-shirt." I grinned.

  "Nothing personal."

  She thought about it and nodded; she had to agree on that one.

  "OK, follow me. Step by step. Don't touch anything, not even to lean on." I started to pick my way over the outcrop, sticking to the highest rocks to keep out of any areas where scent could be trapped. Hopefully, they would be washed clean by the rain.

  We moved into dead ground, carefully picking our way to prevent leaving sign. I started to move back down to the river. I got seventy-five meters short of the water and moved left until I saw the fallen tree.

  From nowhere, the heli reappeared.

  We hurtled under the trees, hugging them as if they were long-lost relations.

  I heard the groan of the rotors again, moving deliberately over the top of the canopy. It got so close I could feel the downwash. I suddenly made sense of what it was doing it was following the line of the stream, maybe patrolling any exposed waterways because that was all they could see down here. It moved off and so did we.

  The fallen tree looked quite promising. There were enough branches to hide under, and we could even get under the trunk where it lay clear of the ground. It was going to be a squeeze, but we'd be needing to huddle together anyway to share body heat.

  Sarah was down on her knees trying to catch her breath. She searched my face as I motioned her in.

  "Why aren't we running?"

  "I'll explain later, just get under cover."

  She squeezed in and I followed. The underside of the trunk was just as wet and cold as the open air, but we were hidden and had a chance to rest.

  I wasn't too sure anymore if this was a good decision, but it was too late to worry now.

  I made sure I could see the first turning point before the stream by scraping away the mud between the trunk and the ground. I'd used the same tactic time and again in the jungle, where it was standard procedure to "loop the track" and put in an instant ambush on your own trail. If we were being followed, they would pass no more than sixty or seventy meters away and move half left, away from us and into the dead ground.

  There they'd find the stream, and start trying to cast over the other side to pick up our scent or ground sign again. That would give us vital time in which to act; if I saw dogs
while lying up, I'd just have to make a run for it.

  The heli passed overhead yet again, this time at speed, but we were well concealed. It could stay there all day if it wanted to, it wouldn't make any difference. Sarah was looking at me, waiting for an explanation.

  "We wait until last light and go back toward the road." I pointed uphill.

  "That way."

  She wasn't enjoying this outing, but she cuddled into me. I was wedged against the trunk, looking out; she was behind me, her body spooned against mine with her arms around my chest. I could feel her warmth. I tried hard not to think about how much I liked her depending on me. Continuing to look out, I tilted my head toward her.

  "Concealment is our best weapon. It's going to be cold, and you'll think you're about to die, but you won't as long as we keep close and keep each other warm. Do you understand that?"

  I felt her nodding, then she squeezed herself a little more tightly against me. Even in these circumstances, I had to admit it felt good.

  There were three situations I'd hated all of my life: being wet, cold or hungry. Four, if you included having to shit in the field. All our lives, even as children, those are the three things that most of us try to avoid, but here I was, doing it again, and I couldn't help feeling that, at thirty-eight, I should be seriously concentrating on getting a life. The one I had seemed to be going nowhere fast.

  As the minutes ticked by my body started to cool, even with Sarah snuggling in behind me, and the ground itself seemed to become colder and soggier. I could feel her body warmth at the points where she was making contact with me, but the rest of me was freezing. Every time she fidgeted to get comfortable, I could feel the cold attack the newly exposed area.

  She fidgeted again and muttered, "Sorry, cramp," as she tried to stretch out her leg and tip up her feet in an effort to counter it.

  I kept stag, listening to the stream, the wind in the treetops, the rain dropping onto the leaves and debris on the forest floor. There was a murky, calf-high mist permeating the woods that reminded me of stage smoke. That could work either for us or against us: it would give us some visual cover if we were forced to move, but it was also good for the dogs.

  As time passed without any hint of a follow-up, I started to feel better about our situation. I looked at my watch: seven forty-six. Only another twelve hours or so until last light. Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself? At least the Baby-G surfer was keeping cheerful.

  Sarah had settled down and wanted to talk.

  "Nick?"

  "Not now." I needed time to think. I wanted to take a long hard look at what she'd told me, and to think about all that had happened. Was she bluffing about the Netanyahu plot? How did they plan to kill him? How had she been planning to stop them?

  My head was full of questions, but no answers. Now wasn't the time to ask. Tactically, noise had to be kept to a minimum, and besides, I needed to keep my head clear for the task in hand. I had to get out of here alive, preferably with Sarah still alive, too, for there was still another job to do.

  n hour later Sarah and I were chilled to the bone and shivering violently.

  I tried to combat the cold by tensing up all my muscles and then releasing them; that worked for a while, but I was soon shaking again. I didn't have a clue how Sarah was coping, and I didn't care now; my head was in hyper mode trying to work out my options. Was she telling the truth? Should I call London if I got out of this? Should I get help from within the U.S.? From Josh, maybe? No, he wouldn't be back from the U.K. yet.

  I heard a noise and hoped that I hadn't.

  Peering through the mud hole, I opened my jaw to improve my hearing.

  My heart sank. I turned my head to look at Sarah, who was just about to tell me that she'd heard the dogs, too. The sounds were coming from the direction of our approach. I couldn't see them yet, but they would be on us. It was only a matter of time.

  My eyes and puckered lips told her to stay quiet, then I moved my head back to the hole in the mud.

  Sarah put her mouth against my ear.

  "Come on, let's go." I whispered for her to shut the fuck up; they were coming over the brow of the rise.

  There was a gang of them. The first thing I noticed was the two big snarling dogs on long leads, steam rising off their wet coats, their handler fighting to keep control. The good thing was that they were German Shepherds;

  they weren't tracker dogs, but "hard" dogs--there to bridge the gap between us and the pursuers if we were spotted. The other good thing was that they didn't look quite so big with their coats wet against their skin.

  The pursuit consisted of a six-man police team. One of them had a

  springer spaniel on a lead, its nose to the ground, loving the whole business.

  Apart from the tracker-dog handler, none of them was dressed for the hunt; they were wearing just their normal brown waterproof jackets, and two of them were even in shoes, with mud splattered up their pressed brown and yellow-striped trousers.

  They passed us in a haze of dog noise and steam as our tracks took them half left, away from us and toward the stream. The moment they were in dead ground I turned to Sarah.

  "Now we go."

  I squeezed under the trunk and immediately broke into a run in a line directly away from the river. Maybe my hide-until-dark plan hadn't been such a good idea after all. The only option now was to outrun the team. It was unlikely the dogs would tire, but they could go only as fast as their handlers, so I would just have to get them exhausted. The police had looked wet and hassled, and were breathing hard. Even in our shit state we should be fitter than they were.

  I pushed on, looking for a point where we could hide a change in direction.

  It might not stop them, but it would slow them down. After close to thirty minutes of hard running through thick woodland I had to stop and wait for Sarah to catch up; she was panting deeply, clouds of her breath fusing with the steam coming off her head. When we moved off again I checked my watch. It was ten thirty-nine.

  We went for it for another solid hour. Sarah was lagging farther and farther behind, but I pushed the pace. I knew she would keep going. When we used to train together in Pakistan she would never give up, even on a silly fun run. And then it was only her pride at stake; now it was a bit more than that.

  We were in low ground and I could see sky about 200 meters in front of us, through the tree trunks. I heard the sound of a car, and then splashing on tarmac.

  I crawled up to the tree line. It wasn't a major road, just a single carriage way in each direction, and not particularly well kept, probably because it wasn't used that much the sort of backwoods road that looked as if the tarmac had just been poured from the back of a slowly moving truck and left to get on with it. It might even be the same road as the last one, there was no way of telling. The rain wasn't firing down like a power shower anymore, just a constant drizzle.

  I still didn't have a clue where we were, but that didn't matter. You're never lost, you're only in a different place from the one you wanted, and at a different time. Sarah had crawled up next to me and was lying on her back. Her hair had clumped together, so I could see the white skin of her skull. We looked as if we both had our personal steam machines strapped to us.

  I decided to turn right it could have been left or right, it didn't really matter and just follow the road; at some stage we'd find a vehicle, or at least discover where we were, then work out what we were going to do.

  "Ready?"

  She looked up and gave a nod and a sniff, and we crawled backward, deeper into the tree line. I got to my feet and she accepted my outstretched hand. I hauled her upright and we started running again, paralleling the road. After only a minute or two I heard a car; I got down and watched as it splashed through the potholes, lights on dipped, side windows misted up and the wipers on overtime. As soon as it had disappeared from view we were up and running.

  The next vehicle was a truck loaded with logs; its wheels sank into an enormous poth
ole and threw up a wall of water that fell just short of us.

  There seemed to be a vehicle of some description every five minutes or so. Most were going in our direction, which was a good sign. I didn't know why, but it felt that way.

  After another two kilometers or so I began to see lights forward of us and on the opposite side of the road. As we got closer, I could see that it was a gas station-cum-small general store with a tall neon sign saying, "Drive Thru Open" in orange letters. It was a one-story, flat-roofed, concrete building with three pumps on the forecourt, protected by a high tin canopy on a pair of steel pillars. The place had probably been state of the art when it was built in the Sixties or early Seventies, but now the white paint was gray and peeling, and the whole fabric of the building was falling apart. I knew how it felt.

  There were windows on the three sides of the shop that I could see;

  above the ones at the front were large, red, raised letters telling me the place was called Happy Beverage & Grocery. Faded posters advertised coffee and corn dogs, Marlboro and Miller Lite. They were all the same, these sorts of places, family-run as opposed to franchised mini-markets, and I knew exactly what this one would smell like inside a mixture of stale cardboard and cona coffee, fighting with the aroma of the corn dogs as they rotated in their glass oven. All rounded off, of course, with a good layer of cigarette smoke. The main sound effect would be the hum of fridges working overtime.

  Even the pumps outside were early Seventies. This place was in decline;

  maybe years ago, when the road was first built, it was a major hot spot, but once the freeways had been laid to move the growing population of North Carolina, the traffic went elsewhere. Happy Beverage & Grocery looked like it was already history.

  I stopped just short of the Drive Thru sign on the other side of the road and got down. Sarah joined me, and I told her to wait where she was. I crawled forward. I'd been right; now that I could see through the windows my eyes hit on packets of everything from Oreos to Cheerios, and a line of glass-doored fridges which were less than a quarter full of milk cartons and Coke cans. A large glass pot of coffee was stewing away on a hob, alongside a whole range of polystyrene cups, from two pints down to half a pint, depending on how awake you wanted to be. If you wanted cream, it would be powdered, without a doubt.