by Andy McNab
I continued to move back under its weight as the German Shepherd jumped up and snarled. I could smell his raw-meat-eating breath mixed with mud and the shit on his coat from the follow-up. He took a deeper grip on my arm and I screamed out for Sarah again as I felt more flesh being mangled. She was nowhere to be seen.
I heard several gunshots as I staggered back toward the driver's side of the van. I was trying to look and act submissive; I didn't want to fight this fucking thing, I just wanted Sarah to come around and hose him down.
The dogs' handler and the police wouldn't be far behind. We needed to get moving.
The animal's growl changed tone as he shook his head from side to side like a mad thing, trying to get a deeper grip. His rear legs were now on the floor, with his front pads on my chest, walking back with me like a circus performer, still attempting to join his jaws together, but through my arm.
Now the black thing inside the van sparked up again as I heard more gunshots, but there was no instant, miraculous release of the grip on my arm.
It wasn't going to happen. I'd have to do it on my own.
The dog was feeling really confident now; he knew he'd got me. I bent down and, with my right hand, grabbed hold of his left rear leg. The limb twitched as if he were doing an Irish jig as he tried to kick away.
I started to pull the back leg up toward me. The dog was confused and pissed off, biting more and moving his head from left to right. I was grappling to keep hold of his leg. It was dancing away like Michael Flatley on speed.
I got a firmer grip on the spindly bit at the bottom of the dog's leg and, with my right arm, pulled it up as hard as I could toward my chest, at the same time starting to turn. The dog yelped with surprise, and I started to pirouette, as if I were spinning a child in a game. I did three, four, five turns, and the dog started to rise with the centrifugal force, anchored by its teeth in my arm and my hand on his leg. He had to make a decision, and he did: he let go of my arm. I didn't reciprocate by letting go of the leg; I kept hold now with both hands and swung him around and around as violently as I could. Still spinning, I managed to take two steps toward one of the concrete pillars supporting the forecourt canopy. On the third step, the dog's head connected with the pillar. There was a thud and a weak yelp and I let go. My own momentum carried me on around for another one and a half turns. My head was spinning as I tried to get my bearings.
I found the van. Sarah was sitting in the cab, firing out of the window. I screamed at her, "The door! The door!" She leaned across and opened it up. I looked down; my pistol was by the pump line. Bending down to pick it up, and keeping bent to avoid getting hit, I half jumped, half collapsed, into the driver's seat and slammed the door closed. As I did, the black thing in the back tried to scramble over the driver's seat.
Sarah shouted, "Let's go. Come on, let's go!"
1 was still in a semi stoop over the steering wheel, trying to present a smaller target, when the police started firing back at us.
All the windows were steamed up, probably from the dog's panting, which was good for us, because at least it hid us from the video. Just as well, as the T-shirt ploy had gone to rat shit the moment the dogs arrived on the scene.
I hit the ignition and the engine turned over, but it failed to engage. It sparked up on the second go. Sarah fired a few more rounds toward the tree line. The mutt behind me wasn't biting, but it was making more noise than the weapon reports.
The shots that hit the van reminded me of being in a helicopter under fire; because it's so loud inside the aircraft, you don't know you're being attacked until you see holes suddenly appearing in the airframe, accompanied by a dull ping as the rounds penetrate.
The driver was screaming his head off inside the shop, jumping up and down, but no way was he coming out until the shooting stopped. The woman was on the phone, shouting into the useless receiver, and as we rolled off the forecourt the driver started running along inside the shop, keeping up with us, his arms waving in the air as he screamed at the top of his voice. It was wasted on us. He was inside the shop and his fucking dog was making enough noise to drown the roar of a helicopter.
Ping. Sarah was still screaming, "Come on, come on, come on!" And the dog was adding his tuppence worth. He wanted out. Didn't we all.
I turned left onto the road. There was a coffee-holder on the dash, with a half-full poly cup of coffee in it, a cigarette butt floating on the top. As the van lurched, the whole lot went over my jeans. Then, surreally, the radio suddenly came on of its own accord. Sarah fired a few more rounds into the tree line. There was a return.
I looked in the wing mirror. The police were on the road, assuming proper firing positions. I put my foot down.
I jerked my thumb at the dog and shouted at Sarah, "Sort that nicking thing out!"
I turned left again and started to drive up the hill. I looked behind me and saw this big black mangy thing. Fuck knows what it was, just a wet, dank dog in the back, jumping up at the newspaper Sarah was trying to hit and distract it with, barking and yelping away at us both.
We started to take the right-hand bend in the road. The moment we were out of sight of the junction and shop I hit the brakes. I yelled, "Get that fucking thing out!"
"How?"
"Just get it out!"
She opened the door and tried to grab hold of the dog, but it was already scrabbling its way out, its claws tearing against her seat. It clambered over and fucked off. It probably hadn't been trying to have a go at us at all, it had just been frantic to get back to its owner.
She closed the door and I hit the gas pedal. I'd noticed some bags and stuff in the back.
"Why don't you check that out?"
She didn't need telling again. She was straight in there.
"Is there a map?" My arm was killing me as I gripped the steering wheel.
The wagon's heating system wasn't up to it, so I used my sleeve to wipe the condensation from the windshield. Even the wipers only worked on half speed. At least now I could sort of see where I was going, even if I wasn't too sure where that was.
The bend eventually straightened out and trees loomed up on either side. Above them, all I could see was thick gray cloud. Great; the worse the weather, the less the chance of the heli still operating.
"Nothing, just crap." Sarah was back in her seat. She wound down the window and started to adjust the wing mirror to keep a check behind us. I kept my foot down, but the vehicle was making only about 60 mph with the wind behind it, the threadbare tires not exactly gripping the road big time. All the shit in the back was rattling, and bits of paper were flying around in the draft rushing through the open windows. I just hoped the brake pads were in better shape than the bits of the wagon I could see.
She tried to pull open the glove compartment on her side, which probably hadn't been done for years. It gave way, and out spilled bits of fishing wire, lighters, greasy old garage receipts, all sorts. But no map. She shouted, "Shit, shit, shit!" I kept quiet, letting her frustration play itself out.
I drove on for about three miles, during which we didn't say a word to each other. We got to a T-junction with the same sort of road. There were no signposts. I turned right.
I was feeling exposed. I didn't know if the police back at the gas station had com ms which would depend on whether they had relay boards in the
area to bounce radio signals off. I couldn't help a smile: Metal Mickey's head would have come in handy.
I shouted at her so I could be heard above the noise of the wind.
"Did you drop any of the police?"
She was wiping the wing mirror. She seemed to have calmed down a bit.
"I don't know, I don't think so. Maybe."
I started to feel even more depressed. Whatever had happened, if we didn't get out of the area very soon and hide up, we'd be in a world of shit.
Less than two minutes later the chance came when I saw dipped headlights in front of us.
"I'm going to take it, Sarah. Make sure you don't say a wo
rd, OK?"
She nodded.
"What do I do?"
"Just point the gun at whoever's in there. Do not shoot anyone. Just keep your finger off the trigger .. . please."
I slowed down to about 20 mph and swung the van left, blocking the road. The car kept coming toward us. I couldn't see how many were in it, but it was a blue four-door sedan.
Sarah was waiting for instructions.
"Come out this side and follow me.
We have broken down, OK?"
I jumped out, trying to watch the car as well as listen for a heli. The car slowed. It was a Mazda, one up, and going by the big hair blocking half the windshield she was the twin sister of the woman at the gas station.
She wasn't too happy about what was going on. I had to be quick, in case she reached for a weapon; for all I knew, she might be one of Jim's best customers.
The car stopped. I ran over to the driver's side with a very thankful face on. She hit her window button and let it down only a couple of inches, but at least she wasn't going for her handbag or the glove compartment.
I got to the window and drew down on her, screaming, "Look down!
Look down!" My accent was getting worse.
She was maybe in her thirties. Her hair must have taken all day to tease into that beehive. Her makeup was about two millimeters thick and looked like wet cement now she'd started to cry.
I yelled, "Out, out!"
The door was locked. I kicked it and made out like a madman, which wasn't far from the truth. She finally relented; Sarah heard the clunk of the central locking and started moving toward the car as the woman got out. I motioned with my hand for Sarah to take the driver's seat; she passed the woman, who was standing on the road sobbing her heart out.
"I
have babies. Please don't kill me, please. Take the car, take the car. Take my money. Please don't kill me."
I wanted to tell her, Shut up. You're not going to die. I'm playing the madman because I want to scare you; that way you don't go for a weapon, and we all stay alive.
Sarah was in, door closed; I ran around to the other side and joined her.
Before I'd even shut the door she was slamming the car into a three-point turn. I looked under my legs to see what I was sitting on. It was Big Hair's bag. No point in fucking her up completely; I got the barrel of the pistol hooked in the bag and threw it out to her, just as Sarah finished a really bad turn with lots of braking and tires screaming in the wet.
"Get your foot down."
She didn't need any prompting for that.
The car interior smelled of fresh perfume and coffee. A large polystyrene cup with a lid was resting in the console holder; I lifted it out and gave it a shake. It was half full and the contents were still warm. I took a couple of sips and handed it over. The air conditioning was on; I turned a couple of dials and it soon changed to hot, hot, hot.
"Where to, Nick? Where am I going?"
I wasn't sure.
"Just keep going until we see a sign."
Ten minutes later we hit a main drag and were welcomed to Route 98 Raleigh was to the left, Durham to the right.
"Go left, left!" It was still a single carriage way but wider than before and with houses dotted along the way.
Before long we were joining other vehicles on their daily migration toward the city, and in no time we were in mainstream traffic and had some cover.
I said, "Have you got any rounds left?"
She gave me her weapon. I checked and refilled her mag from the spares in my pockets, and passed it back. She placed it under her right thigh with a "Thanks."
I started to recognize our surroundings. Traffic was starting to slow up;
every time we hit a major intersection there was another bunch of lights letting people out from all the suburbs around the city. We couldn't see any of the houses, though, because of the trees and low-level industrial units that hemmed us in on either side.
We had stopped at a set of lights alongside some other people drinking their breakfast. Some of them had big paper cups from drive-ins, some had mugs that looked like Apollo space capsules, really wide at the bottom so they didn't fall over in the car, then narrow at the top with a nozzle to drink through. All of a sudden I saw people in different cars around us smiling or laughing out loud to themselves. Sarah saw what was happening and she wanted to listen in. She hit the radio buttons on preset and cruised through the stations. Three goes and she got it. A man and a woman were talking about people's choices of bumper stickers. The woman said, "One is OK, but hey, more than that reads a ten on my geek meter."
The guy replied, "Have you seen the one that says, "A mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's opened ..." Come on, man, that's like, off the scale!" There was some canned laughter, then he quickly returned to the airwaves.
"Hey, morning! It's Q98 comin' attchaaa ..." The ads started to roll.
Everyone was laughing with us in the traffic. Then it got worse as they saw the same thing we did. The van four or five vehicles ahead had that very sticker in its rear window. I couldn't stop laughing as we started to move on green. I looked over at Sarah, who was joining in the fun; it wasn't that the joke was that funny. I think we were just so relieved to be back in civilization.
We hit the belt line saw signs for the airport and swung right at the intersection onto the highway. About halfway around we were on an elevated section, and down below us were low-level square buildings, mostly motels and burger joints, islands in a sea of neon. The rain had slackened to a drizzle.
I directed Sarah off the ramp and we cruised around, looking for a motel that would work for us. She drove past a Days Inn, standing in its own lot. It was a T-shaped building, with the reception at the top and three stories of brown doors making up the stern. It had seen better days, but was just what was needed. I let Sarah carry on past it so I could check out the area. That way I knew which way to run if we got bumped once we were inside.
"Turn left here."
She drove into the parking lot of an adjacent single-story sportswear outlet. There were about 200 cars in the 400-capacity car park; she found a space in the middle and parked. We wiped the car interior of our prints, got out and did the same to the outside--not that it mattered that much, as they would have our prints from the van; it would just slow them up a bit.
Walking back toward the motel, we made an effort to clean ourselves up, brushing the mud and pine needles off our clothes. It didn't seem to make much difference. We got a few strange looks in the car park, but nothing too serious; Americans know better than to stare at disheveled strangers. The motorway roared above us with the morning's traffic, and a truck's brakes hissed loudly as it stopped to make a delivery.
As I peeled the gloves and plastic wrap from the docs, I gave Sarah our story.
"OK, we're Brits--boyfriend-girlfriend, traveling up from the Cape Fear coast, had a puncture. We've been out in the rain trying to fix it, and all we want to do now is sort our shit out."
She thought for a few seconds.
"Got it."
I cleaned up the jacket sleeve the dog had ripped as best I could, wiping the dried blood on my hand against my jeans. A last quick spit and rub on the more stubborn stains did the trick.
We'd put our hands through our hair in a last-minute effort to sort ourselves out as we went through the door. We still looked rough, but so did the motel. The carpet in reception needed replacing and a new coat of paint wouldn't have gone amiss. To my left, a TV blared by the coffee and vending machines as the glass doors closed behind us.
The receptionist went through the automatic company welcome: "Hi, how are you today?" still looking down at something more important. She was about seventeen or eighteen, and wore a maroon polyester vest and skirt, with a white blouse. Her name tag said she was Donna. She was a black girl with relaxed hair put into a side parting, a big, round pair of glasses and, now that she was actually pointing it at us, a great big brilliant smile. It might
not be sincere, but at least she was the first person we'd been close to for a while who wasn't shooting at us.
Her smile evaporated as she took in our appearance.
"What's happened to you folks?"
I did my best stupid English tourist impression.
"We had a puncture this morning and the car went off the road in all this rain. Look at us. It's been a nightmare; we just want to clean up and sleep." I stopped my waffle and looked sorry for myself while showing her the state of my jeans.
She agreed, we were in shit state.
"Wow!" She looked down at the computer and hit the keys.
"Let me see .. ." She didn't sound too hopeful.
"It's early and I don't know if any rooms will be ready yet." She smiled as she read the screen, and I knew we were in luck.
"Hey, you know what? I have a double room but it's smoking." The way she said it, I knew that when the time came for her to have a child, she'd sue someone lighting up even two states away. She looked up, waiting for us to share her distaste.
I said, "That will be fine, thank you." She looked at us as if we were somewhere below subhuman.
"We don't smoke, but at the moment anything will do." I smiled. We became normal again and were given a big smile back.
She continued to hit the keys.
"Sure. I have a special at the moment:
thirty-nine dollars ninety-nine, plus tax." Her expression now said that I should be jumping up and down with joy. I took the hint.
"That's great!" I pulled out my wallet and gave her my credit card. She could have been asking for $139.99 plus tax, I wouldn't have given a shit.
"Thank you" she studied the card "Mr. Snell."
She swiped the plastic and the machine clicked and hummed as I filled in the registration form. I put down any shit I could think of for the vehicle registration. They never look at it anyway, and if she did, I'd just say, sorry, Hugh Grant-type character Brit abroad.
"OK, you're room two sixteen. Where are you parked?"
I pointed out and to the left. She started to direct with her hands.
"OK,
go around back to the left, up the first flight of stairs, and it's there on the right-hand side."
