Griffiths took Dillon and the others on a tour of the estate, pointing out the lie of the land, and where he felt they were most vulnerable to the poaching gangs. The scenery was breathtaking, but after seeing Malone Dillon wasn't in the mood to have his breath taken. Had he known the score, he wouldn't have accepted the job in the first place. He sat beside Griffiths in an open-topped Land Rover, the rest following on in the jeep, and tried to show polite interest, though his heart wasn't in it.
'Malone tells me you were in the same Regiment.'
'Yes, sir.' Dillon stared straight ahead. 'Then he quit, went over to the RMPs.'
'Explosives expert I believe,' Griffiths said, getting a nod and nothing more. 'How long have you been out of the Army?'
'Couple of months, sir. Eighteen years' service, sir.'
Griffiths pulled over suddenly and produced his field glasses, aiming them towards a rocky crag about five hundred yards away. 'There he is, see him?'
Dillon took the field glasses and found himself gazing at the proud, uplifted head of a magnificent stag with a huge spread of antlers. The animal surveyed the glens and lochs below, his world, his kingdom.
'He's the one with the price on his head, sir?' Dillon said, handing the glasses back.
Griffiths pursed his lips. 'Word certainly travels fast… some bloody taxidermist in Edinburgh,' he muttered darkly. 'He's very rare, and with antlers that size, a fair trophy. But he's worth a lot more than five thousand for stud.'
They drove on, Dillon glancing back. Five grand standing up there on the hill. He stroked his moustache, frowning thoughtfully.
Next stop on the itinerary was the main event, and it was clear from the boyish enthusiasm in Griffiths ' voice that the salmon tanks were his pride and joy. Enclosed in a compound of chain-link fencing topped with razor-wire, the three huge steel tanks, lined with polythene sheeting, were teeming with full-grown salmon, silver bodies flashing and tumbling in their thousands. To Dillon and the others the sight was mesmerising, almost hypnotic. They stood on a wooden gangway while Griffiths gave them the low-down.
'These are the big 'uns, the ones the poachers go for. We lost the entire stock last year, more than fifty thousand pounds' worth.' Griffiths shook his head. 'Can't afford to lose out this year.'
'How did they do it?' Dillon was curious to know.
'Very simply – Hoover them up! They move fast, and with that machine it doesn't take long…'
Cliff's jaw dropped. 'Did he say Hoover ?'
'You have any guard dogs?' Dillon asked, looking around.
'They were shot with a.22 rifle in '89. Bastards used Cymas that year; they also took the stock from the other tanks, so we were wiped out… fish and financially,' he added gloomily.
Dillon jumped down and Griffiths followed him over to the edge of the compound, the two of them looking out at the banks of heather stretching away to the stony ridge. Casting his military eye over it, Dillon was less than happy. 'You're wide open,' he said, rubbing his chin.
Griffiths spread his hands. 'To electrify the fences would be astronomical…'
Don Walker strolled up and offered an opinion. 'The one plus – if you can call it a plus – is that these men are professionals and dealing in bulk, so they need big trucks, not only to take the fish away, but to freeze it.'
'I think Malone's right,' Griffiths said. 'Best protection has to be manpower. That's why I got you chaps up here.'
Spoken like an officer, Dillon thought, which was what Griffiths was, in effect, certainly of the officer class.
The estate manager went off somewhere. Don had his field glasses out, checking the terrain. The other lads were messing about, joking and laughing, and Don waved them over, obviously excited about something.
'There he is, see him?' Don handed the glasses to Jimmy, pointing, chuffed as a schoolboy. 'Just on that ridge!'
'Oh yesssss…' The word hissed through Jimmy's grinning mouth. 'A fair set of coat hangers.'
Dillon said, 'Where's the nearest Para base to here, Jimmy?'
Jimmy turned to Dillon with a sly wink.
'This taxidermist on the level, is he? We heard last night he's got three grand on his head.'
Don grabbed the glasses off him. 'You touch him and I'll mount your fucking' head,' he promised, and stumped off.
'Nature boy's a bit touchy about the hatstand, isn't he?' Jimmy shrugged, raising an eyebrow.
Dillon said, 'Let's get the security sorted first.' He gave Jimmy a deadpan stare. 'And it's not three, it's five grand.'
'Five?' Jimmy looked towards the ridge and quickly back at Dillon. 'Thousand? Five?'
They both turned to contemplate the ridge for a moment, and then each other. A low growl of laughter came up from Jimmy's chest and he punched Dillon on the shoulder.
Steve Harris was having one of his filter problems. Leaning against the jeep, face puce, coughing and spluttering, thumping himself. Dillon went over as he was getting his breath back.
'All right, mate?' Steve nodded, sweat glistening on his brow. Dillon fished out a list and gave it to him. 'Okay, I want you to go into the village, get some stores.'
Dillon had intended to hand over the list to Griffiths, but seeing Steve in trouble he decided he would get him out of the way. 'Get yourself rested up, check your filter, okay mate?… Steve?'
Steve nodded. At that moment Jimmy walked past, he gave Steve an icy stare. 'Ruddy liability, I told you not to bring him!'
Dillon glared at Jimmy, then patted Steve's shoulder. 'Pay no attention.'
Steve stuffed the list into his top pocket, and climbed back into the jeep. His breath rattled, a hoarse sound in his chest and he couldn't look at Dillon, knowing he was already making excuses for him. He hated it. He started the engine, released the handbrake.
'Take your time, get back when you're done…'
Steve nodded, the errand boy, the waster, the liability. He looked back at Dillon, but he was already walking away, so Steve headed into the village. The simple errand of getting the stores, the packs of beer, the food for the camp was an effort. He had to write everything down and pass the note to the shop owners, and, already feeling depressed, he became worse. He needed a drink, needed something, anything, to give him the confidence to face them.
Hearing the jeep crunching over the gravel, Sissy MacFarland nipped out from behind the reception desk and skipped through the doors and down the steps.
'Mr Harris, can I talk to you for a minute?'
Steve nodded, giving her a shy smile. He gulped down some air and brought up a burp: 'Yeah! Sure!'
Sissy looked startled. He was polite all right, and very good-looking too, but she hoped he wasn't drunk at this early hour.
Steve pointed to his throat, swathed in the loose silken scarf, and said in a slow croak so that she understood, 'I just had – my tonsils – out.'
'Oh! I'm sorry.' Sissy smiled, dimples in her cheeks. 'I was wondering when your friends would be back. I really need to talk to them…' She bit her lip, and went on anxiously, 'There's two local boys going to get themselves hurt – this Malone could even kill them. They're going for him tonight.'
Steve's mouth opened, worked soundlessly. The poor boy's throat must hurt terribly, she thought, because he then scribbled something down on the back of the list and handed it to her. Sissy read it and quickly shook her head, dark curls bounding against her pale neck -'Och no! It's not Malone they're after… It's the stag.'
Steve felt better, he'd put a few pints down, and now he had something to do. It was important, he had to warn the lads about the poachers. He took a heavy swig from a bottle of scotch, and then turned the jeep round to head back to the camp.
Dillon tensed up, listening again for what had sounded like somebody or something disturbing the bracken a few yards away from the hide. Wearing his one-piece DPM combat suit with hood, lying full-length on a bed of straw, he peered through the six-inch gap, trying to discern a distinct shape in the darkness. Not a bloody sausage.
Then a low whistle, and Dillon relaxed as Jimmy slithered in, teeth white against his blacked-up face. He crawled between Dillon and Harry, cradling what looked like a brand-new weapon. Dillon stared more closely. An L42 sniper rifle fitted with an IWS night sight.
'I dunno how you do it!' Dillon marvelled, envy in his voice.
'It's all down to contacts,' Jimmy bragged, chuckling.
'That prat Steve come back with the nosh?' Harry grumbled. 'I'm starvin'!'
Dillon reached for the headset as the radio emitted a couple of snaps and crackles. He twisted a dial, boosted the power with the slide control, listening intently for Cliff.
'You know what we should do?' Jimmy ruminated, lovingly running a lightly-oiled rag over the L42. 'Entice him down onto low ground… they like apples. We get him as near to the truck as possible – give ourselves a hernia if we try and lift his carcass, and -' he squinted through the night sight, crooked his finger alongside the trigger. 'Pow!'
'Word of advice, mate – keep stum about nobblin' that stag,' Harry advised him. 'Don's passionate about it!'
Dillon held up his hand for quiet, pressing the tiny button microphone nearer his mouth. 'Zero contact,' he confirmed.
Blur of static and Cliff's voice, clear as a bell.
'Alpha One to Zero. Two kids moving out of grid range south-east. Suspects armed. Looks like a crossbow. Over.'
'Zero to Alpha One. Maintain position and surveillance. Out.' Dillon flicked off, frowning. 'Going the wrong way for the salmon,' he said, and turned to Jimmy, eyes narrowed. 'Sounds like they're after the stag…'
'Shit! He's ours.' Jimmy wriggled backwards. 'Okay, I'm on my way.' He hesitated for a second, waiting for the nod from Dillon, and crawled out.
Harry folded his arms and stared morosely into the darkness. 'I wouldn't mind nickin' a salmon,' he said with feeling. 'I'm bloody starvin'.'
Pacing himself, Steve jogged for a quarter-of-a-mile, alternated it with a 'double' – double-quick-time march – over the same distance. To his right, behind the chain-link fence, the compound and the salmon tanks, to his left open countryside. Judging roughly where the hide was, he came off the lane and onto the grass verge, intending to cut across below the ridge. In the pitch-darkness he had some difficulty locating the trip-wire the lads had laid, eventually found it, and carefully stepped over. He set off at an easy run, not because he was knackered, but because the little hummocks of tough, wiry grass were treacherous as hell, and he didn't want to finish up with a sprained ankle or, worse, a broken leg.
Steve had remembered the trip-wire. He'd forgotten about the pressure pads, set at fifty-metre intervals, until he stepped on one, triggering the battery of sulphur flares which zoomed up into the dark sky, blinding white bursts of light that blanked out his vision, turning night into day.
Stumbling, almost falling, blinking furiously, all that Steve could see was a mass of whirling red dots imprinted on his retina. High above, the fizzing flares drifted slowly downwards. Steve covered his face, mouth flapping open and shut, realising too late that he was caught out in the open, exposed to enemy fire. Where was the rest of his section? Why the hell hadn't he taken cover, the first rule when encountering SF, Sustained Fire? Tracer was coming at him. Masses of red streaking dots filling the sky. He heard the rattle of machine-gun fire, opened his mouth to scream, to howl, to cry for help, and nothing came. A mortar shell landed right in front of him, and in the gritty explosion a voice yelling, Corporal Harris, take cover: Harris, get down! Harris, take cover, get back, Harris, this is an order!
The voice echoed through Steve's head, but he could see Big Blackie Jeller crunched up, howling with pain, could see him, and no way could he turn back and run for cover. Big Blackie was his mate, and he hesitated just a fraction before he disobeyed the order and went back for him. As he gripped Blackie's hand, he felt the burning red-hot sensation rip through his neck, the blood filled his eyes, his mouth, everything was red, everything was over. Then came the darkness, weeks of darkness, of terror. He didn't remember being stretchered back, airlifted to the hospital, he remembered nothing but that moment of terrible scorching pain, and now it was back, squeezing the life out of him. Rooted to the spot, Steve shook all over, his arms in uncontrollable spasms, fingers twitching, and his mouth, gaping, filled with his own blood, unable to cry out.
Don found him, curled up like a child, hands over his head. For a second Don thought someone had been caught in one of the traps. He slithered and eased his way closer, and then he realised it was Steve. Steve huddled in wretched mute hysteria, his eyes wide, staring into oblivion. Don gently eased him to sit up, but Steve seemed afraid of him, and not until he had wrapped him in his arms repeating that it was all right, that he was safe, did Don feel the rigid tension released. But Steve's hands were still like a vice, holding on to Don, and Don sat with him, rocking him, talking to him. Don, who was too shy to talk to anyone, understood, had no need for words, because he had been in that darkness, he had been in that mute land of fear.
Steve tried, once, twice, and then burped out, 'Poachers – two kids.' Don gave a pat to Steve. 'Good lad, I'll go tip off the lads… they're up in the hide, can you make it there?'
Steve nodded, watching Don move like the clappers, bent low, zig-zagging out of the way of the flares, heading back to the camp. Steve was alone again, listening to his own heartbeat slowly returning to normal, unlike the rest of him, that would never come back.
CHAPTER 17
Kids, that's all they were, one of them barely fifteen, caught out there on open moorland which a moment ago had been inky black, now lit up to the horizon with the brightness of a film set.
Even while the shock of it was still registering, their young faces frozen with panic, Harry and Cliff broke from cover, running swiftly and silently down the slope, and were upon them from behind. It was nasty, quick, brutally efficient. Grabbed by their collars, kneed in the back of the legs, stamped into a prone position, faces pushed into the ground, arms twisted behind their backs. Handcuffs slapped on, sacks rammed over their heads, muffling their terrified screams.
Worse was to come, and it came in the shape of Malone, crashing through the bracken, red-faced, veins bulging in his neck. Pumped up like a mad bull, he charged forward and took a vicious, swinging kick at one of the hooded shapes, swung round and booted the other with all his sixteen-and-a-half stone behind it.
'Hey! That's enough, Malone. Back off!'
Dillon ran up as the two boys rolled and squirmed in agony, shrieking and slobbering in pain. 'Cliff, get the bag off the kid's head,' Dillon ordered. And stepped in front of Malone as he was about to land another brutal kick, shoving him in the chest.
Glowering at Dillon, Malone snarled. 'You don't like it? You got somethin' to say about it…?' He extended his hand, fingers curled, gently beckoning. 'Come on then, come on, Dillon, let's have you!'
Dillon didn't move, didn't speak.
Slowly, deliberately, Malone unzipped his quilted jacket and tossed it down, flexing huge shoulders, hairy tattooed arms and hard biceps straining the sleeves of a black T-shirt. He beckoned again, smiling.
'Don't, Frank!' Cliff spoke quietly in Dillon's ear. 'He's a madman, he'll kill you… back off him.'
'Don't tell me,' Dillon said in a tone like cold steel, 'what to do.' Turning away, he cupped his hand under the blood-smeared frightened face of one of the boys. 'You okay, son?'
Dillon ruffled the boy's hair, then stooped to pick up Malone's jacket, was about to throw it to him when Malone flicked out a left jab, catching Dillon off-balance. Clutching the jacket in two bunched fists, Dillon took a threatening pace forward.
'Frank – don't,' Harry said, shaking his head.
Cliff stepped in, snatched the jacket from Dillon and handed it to Malone. For perhaps five seconds nobody moved. Everybody waiting to see if Dillon, seething with rage, was going to take Malone on. Nobody else wanted to, but was Dillon the man to do it? Did he have the bottle? The fifteen-year-old
kid was whimpering, and as Dillon went to him, wiping blood from the boy's nose, Malone laughed. A loud, derisive laugh from the belly. And, shrugging into his quilted jacket, started to make soft little clucking chicken noises, black eyes glinting with triumphant bravado.
Turning his back on Malone, as if he hadn't heard, Dillon said stonily, 'We got a job to do, all right? Now, let's get on with it!'
But he had heard right enough, and everybody knew it.
Little Phil's hacking cough had awakened her, and as Susie hurried through in her bare feet, Kenny was at it too. She didn't turn on the light, didn't want to wake them. A chink in the curtains let in an orange glow from the corner streetlamp, giving a sepia tint to the glossy photographs pinned to the walls. Dillon and the lads, kitted up in jumping gear, boarding a Hercules, thumbs-up to the camera. A couple of the less gory shots from the Falklands. Two photos of the platoon in smart No. 2 dress-parade uniforms, collars and ties – sunlight flaring off their cap badges, taken on the square at The Depot. A large blowup in full colour of a sky filled with blossoming white and yellow parachutes – NATO manoeuvres in Germany. And postcards and mementoes from all over the world, every continent Dad had served in, plus bits and pieces of Para equipment: webbing, HALO goggles, tropical-issue water bottle, Parachute Regiment shoulder flash, the quick-release box off a PX1 harness, camouflage pattern forage cap, empty magazine clip. To the boys a hallowed shrine, material proof that Dad had been one of the famous 'Red Devils' – the meanest, toughest, fittest bunch going.
In the lower bunk, duvet kicked off, Phil was burning up, twisting and coughing in his sleep. Susie felt his forehead and the backs of her fingers came away sticky. Anxious now, she checked on Kenny in the top berth, pyjamas soaked with sweat, breath rasping. Both boys were really sick, no doubt about it.
The door was pushed open and Susie's mother peered in, hairnet over bulging curlers like an alien's headgear.
'It's mumps!' Susie whispered, distraught. 'Look at their throats…'
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