by Andy McNab
‘Mate, sometimes being the good guy gets you fucked over. Better to lift Yulia and stop whatever’s happening without it being exposed to anyone. The more people that know, like the QRF, the more reasons there are to cover it up to stop even more people getting to know. Believe me, I’ve been here before. We all have. We’re only breathing because we have those memory sticks.’
Beside me, Jack adjusted his leg. ‘He’s right, Gabe. We have to stop them, but we need to protect ourselves.’
Rio gave a nod too, but he had something else to say. ‘Lads, the Chinese parliament has ended and there won’t be any call to the Falcon. I got lights approaching the junction.’
35
Forward and left, the faint bubble of light moved up the hill to Trethewey.
Jack made to get out but I held him back.
‘No, wait. They might turn right. Rio, trigger them away at the junction. Then we’ll take whichever way they turn.’
Gabe scowled as he slid into the footwell. We all got down, apart from Rio, who had to keep his head just above the dashboard to keep the trigger and give us direction. I ended up on top of Jack, and a thought flashed through my mind. I shouldn’t be covering his body to keep him out of sight: I should be covering his mouth and nose to keep him out of life.
I heard the faint sound of a vehicle.
Rio confirmed what I was hoping. ‘It’s the van.’
There was a pause.
‘He’s turning left, back towards the bungalow and Skewjack.’
I pushed myself up and, as I reached for the door, I couldn’t stop myself checking the interior lights. They didn’t come on. The Halfords gaffer tape was still doing its job.
Rio wasn’t happy. ‘Hold up. Hold up.’
I turned towards the windscreen as he gave the commentary. ‘Brake lights on – he’s stopping. Just round the bend.’
I couldn’t see the van but red light bathed the trees and a church over to the right. The light went out, then on again.
Gabe had his nose pressed to the windscreen. ‘The war memorial. They’re parking up.’
I pulled my wallet from my neck and chucked it to Jack along with my phone. ‘Get back to the Jeep. Try to use the time while they’re manoeuvring, before they go quiet. I’m going down there to see what the fuck they’re up to.’
There wasn’t time to wait for an answer. I was out and running at a low crouch, exploiting any patch of darkness among the red glow ahead of me. Half a dozen strides later I was close enough to hear the gravel grind under the tyres. They were still manoeuvring. They weren’t just parking up, they were looking for somewhere specific. The lights went out and I crouched lower and used the hedge. Dead ahead, at the edge of the gravelled area, was a set of recycling bins on wheels. I got right down and crawled on my belly.
The side door clicked open and slid back very slowly. There were no voices. By the time I’d inched to the end of the row of bins and positioned myself to see through the gap between the last two, I was soaking with dew. Once again, I saw slow, deliberate, professional actions happening. There’d be more room for fuck-ups and compromise if they rushed.
Boots crunched on the gravel, then two sets of knees came down to the ground. Two small fold-up shovels scraped away at the top layer, dimly lit by the glow from a laptop screen inside the van. I recognized the mass of hair in front of it.
The Wolves scraped some more, then became very happy at what they’d uncovered. Another two came over and did their job exactly the same as last time. Torchlight shone on top of the manhole cover before it focused on one of the keyholes to guide a lifting handle. The torch was then left lens down on the cover, and a fibre-optic cable went into another of the keyholes. This time the screen didn’t display cobwebs, gunge and cables, but instead, about a metre down in the chamber, a chequered steel plate. It was clean, and each of the four sides was secured with a massive padlock, like shops use on their shutters so a cutter can’t be got in to sever the shank. Whatever the Wolves were looking at, it was clearly the Holy Grail. There was gentle backslapping by the guys on the ground as they retrieved the fibre-optic from the manhole cover. I’d have to get moving before they finished. When the van manoeuvred, its lights would hit me.
I eased myself onto my elbows and toe tips and shuffled backwards, my knuckles oozing as the gravel dug in. The slightest sound would give me away. I managed to reach the grass and almost breathed a sigh of relief as I got up, stooped low and took a couple of strides towards the Jeep. I was now out in the open. Another couple of metres and I started to move faster, and that was when a big burst of red light washed over me.
Jack had silhouetted me to the Wolves.
There was another big burst of red, with my black shape caught in the middle of it – but no shouts. They were too switched on for that.
I broke into a run. I didn’t look behind. I’d soon know if they’d seen me.
The red light was gone and I heard the first pounding of boots on the grass. A split second later, a body slammed into me from behind. Arms wrapped around my waist and slid down until they took away my footing. I hit the ground on my chest and chin. My head jerked back. More hands came round and grabbed at my face and forehead. I braced my neck. Both my arms were pulled behind me, my hands twisted to breaking point. They knew exactly what they were doing. All I could hear was three sets of heavy breathing. Then a hand closed over my eyes and I was dragged back towards the gravel.
It was pointless playing ‘I’m looking for my dog’ because they didn’t even try to work out why I was there. Very soon they would know I wasn’t third party anyway.
There were no commands, no anger. There was nothing but control. Through the fingers of the hand gripping my face, I could see the blur of the van, no lights on, just the gentle glow of the screens.
Boots crunched on gravel as we passed the wheelie bins. I knew they wouldn’t start the engine and put the lights on until everyone was safely inside. They knew the danger of vehicle lights.
Unlike some.
But, then, that might have been why he’d done it.
36
Another two paces, and I was bundled into the van. Yulia jerked her feet away to make room for me, then fell onto a pile of the vinyl sports bags.
The two Wolves dragged me to the rear until my head banged against the tailgate and one jumped on top to control me. He pushed down on the back of my skull so my face was rammed into what felt and smelt like plastic roll-mats. My nose took the pressure, making my eyes water. Then knees weighed on my back and all the oxygen was forced out of my lungs as the second Wolf began to search me.
Hands ripped at my jacket, searching the prime places for weapons, then aggressively went everywhere else. If their hands weren’t already wet they soon would be: my shirt was soaked with sweat and grass dew.
The sliding door closed and a voice ordered the driver, almost gently, to move. Gravel crunched beneath us as we slowly rumbled across the memorial park before turning left onto tarmac, back the way they had come, probably now passing the bungalow.
I couldn’t see their faces. I was still being manhandled, like a rag doll, hands gripping me, knees pinning me down. It was pointless resisting. That would just cause me pain – and I might get enough of that later.
They knew I was fucked and were just maintaining me in that position as the search continued. I accepted I had no control over myself physically, but I still had control of my mind. There is always confusion in the heat of the moment; organization comes later. Professionalism is making sure that the gap between them takes a couple of breaths rather than hours.
I turned my head for a better view of what was happening around me but a boot tapped the side of my face. I rested my chin back on the floor. I counted a few seconds, then lifted my eyes and tried to look around once more. I was trying to gather as much information as possible to help me escape and also to make me feel better because I knew stuff. I saw, heard and felt no scenes of frenzy; everybody seemed to know
what they were doing. There was a lot of efficient movement. They’d taken prisoners before.
I analysed what I had seen. They were highly organized, and there were no panicked shouts or breathless orders, just heavy breathing from their exertions and my occasional grunt from their weight pinning me down.
I was turned onto my back and the jacket pulled apart as the Wolves continued to search. One pressed his knee into my stomach with all his weight. I tried lifting my head, only for it to be pushed down. There was nothing I could do but try to keep breathing.
At least I could see a little more now. From what I could make out through watery eyes, Phoenix was on his knees, up at the front of the van alongside Yulia, stooped over the laptop screens, which I could see now were held off the floor a couple of feet by stacked plastic milk crates. His face was caught in their glow as he got right up to an A4-sized hatch in the cab panel to talk to the two up front. He glanced back and told Yulia to get the screens switched off, which was done by closing the lids, and very soon the only interior light came from a small Maglite fixed to the ceiling with a magnetic mount. The Wolf sitting astride me, with a leg either side to pin my arms, moved it to put me in the spotlight, turning his body above me into a fuzzy and overbearing silhouette.
Phoenix was still talking through the hatch, but I couldn’t make out what was being said. As if to stop me listening, the Wolf above me pushed both hands against my face. The other dragged out my arms from under the legs. The short, sharp sound of ratcheting was accompanied by the pain of plastic tightening around my wrists. I didn’t tense my forearms to bulk them out and give me wriggle room: I wanted the plastic as tight around my wrists as it would go if I was going to get out of this van in one piece. The owner of the hands bearing down on my face now shoved mine under his arse and adjusted himself across my hips, a knee still either side of me.
The vehicle came off tarmac and bounced and rumbled over rough ground. Maybe we were on the mud track before the sharp bend near the duck pond. The silhouettes above me rocked in time with each jolt.
Phoenix’s voice came from near the closed-down laptops. It was louder, a clear command. He wanted to make sure the lads up front knew what was going on. ‘Lights off. No brakes. Stop.’
Through blurred and juddery vision I could just about make out a sliver of windscreen through the hatch in the cab panel. Up near where the rear-view mirror would have been I saw a run of trees caught in the headlights, and then it was dark again. I heard the ratchet of the handbrake that was slowly decelerating us.
Nearer to me, Phoenix opened one of the vinyl bags Yulia had jumped on top of. They were Ripcurl surf-gear bags, another layer to their cover. The branding was where any connection with surfing ended, because he retrieved from it a futuristic-looking Vector 9mm submachine gun already loaded with a thirty-three-round mag. He checked the magazine extended out of its housing and was on securely, pulled back the working parts, then thrust a hand back into the bag to grab another mag. That went into the back pocket of his jeans as the Wolf who had plasticuffed me grabbed another Vector out of the bag and carried out the same drills as he joined Phoenix by the door.
Phoenix hit the overhead light. In total darkness, the side door was pulled back to let in a gloomy light as the wagon rolled to a stop. Jumping out, Phoenix was about to stand his ground. He wasn’t flapping. He was accepting the situation, and knew what to do about it. A man with a plan, and a weapon in the shoulder. He pointed it back towards the road as the second Wolf joined him. Both knew that if the sixty-six rounds they each had on them weren’t enough to take anyone on they shouldn’t have been doing the job.
My hands were already swelling beneath the plasticuffs, sandwiched between my stomach and an arse. I tried to lean up and forward to relieve the pain, but the bulk pinning me down quickly reminded me he was still there by pushing my head back down on the roll-mats. I realized that everything had gone quiet; all I could hear was breathing above me, and even that was controlled as he listened for any follow-up.
It just wasn’t the wet wear that was on the top of its game, the hardware was, too. The Vectors were second-generation 9mm machine-guns, with a boxy chunk of green polymer and fat suppressors screwed to their muzzles, which made them look like they belonged on the set of Star Wars. They were deadly, and far more advanced than traditional automatic systems.
Instead of the working parts going back and forth horizontally as they fed a round into the chamber, fired it, then blew back, ejecting the empty case before the cycle started again, their working parts did the same job but not horizontally: instead, they moved downwards, behind the mag housing. Less recoil made the weapon more controllable and countered the tendency for it to walk upwards when it fired its six hundred rounds per minute. That meant these things could get a massive amount of controlled automatic fire down onto a target by playing about with Newton’s theory.
Soon I could hear engine noise in the distance. There was no flapping, no words exchanged between the two weapon platforms outside the van as they stood their ground. There had been a fuck-up, but they were dealing with it.
A dull white-light glow cut across the sky through the open side door. The engine noise got louder and the lights in the sky bolder, but the Wolves stood still, weapons in the shoulder, waiting for those headlights to come down the lane and illuminate us. The engine note decreased and the lights died. They were probably now illuminating the duck pond on the other side of the bend. A second vehicle was heading towards us, its dull lights getting brighter as it neared the bend. With the screech of a tyre or two the lights receded. So did the engine noise, and soon the van was surrounded by nothing but silence and gloom.
The Wolf pinning me to the mats leant towards the side door opening, which momentarily relieved a little of the pressure on my hands. He muttered to Phoenix in low, controlled tones. Phoenix took a step nearer the side door but was still checking the area as the other armed Wolf came back inside the van. The basic gist of the waffle was that I was sterile: I had nothing on me. Did that make me security? Police?
‘Do I kill him now?’
His hands came down around my neck. I could feel his thumbs pressing into my throat, probing my windpipe below my Adam’s apple. There was no point in trying to resist the already choking feeling as my windpipe partly collapsed, but I was still breathing. His voice was a little louder now so I could hear better.
‘All of us might need to fight soon. I can’t sit and fight. I’ll kill him, yes?’
That was the drift. My Russian was enough for me to be concerned. I could hear Yulia, by the laptops, breathing nervously, her feet shuffling around as she made room for the incoming Wolf.
Phoenix’s silhouette filled the side door opening, his head never leaving the direction of the road. The Vector was relaxed but still in the shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter who he is. All that matters is the mission. We continue.’
The other armed Wolf had taken up station near my head, sitting with his back against the rear tailgate, knees bent, weapon cradled in the crease of his hips. ‘But what do we do with him?’
Phoenix nodded across to the laptops and the mad hair kneeling by them. ‘Ask him.’
Yulia was even more nervous now that she had been brought into the drama.
‘Ask him who he works for, how many of them are out there, how many vehicles, what he was doing in the village. It’s okay, he won’t bite.’
Chances were, the computer geek was the only English speaker. Being a geek she would have to be.
Yulia did as she was asked and the hands relaxed around my neck a little. Her voice had a slightly lower pitch than I was expecting, but the Eastern European accent with an American slant was spot on.
Not that it got her anywhere, because I said nothing. It was clear to them I was a player, and I was hardly going to blurt out the truth. Phoenix was out to prove a point.
‘Fuck him. We will report and will be told what to do with him. But he is better alive to find out wha
t he knows, later. He and those others, they aren’t police. They aren’t security. Otherwise we’d have been hit by now. Who he is doesn’t matter because we have no control of the others. If I think it is needed, I will give the command for him to go to the ground. But now, this moment, only the mission matters.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘We’ve had worse than this. Simferopol, no?’
There was a sprinkling of knowing laughs and the one sitting astride me found it so funny he shook. I couldn’t hear anything from Yulia. Simferopol was at the epicentre of the 2014 annexation of Crimea. These lads had probably been very busy in that part of the world over the past few years, and I doubted it was on behalf of the Ukrainians who wanted to be part of the West.
Phoenix took one last look around, leaning into the darkness, ears cocked, then jumped back in and slid the door closed. The Wolf pinning me stretched up and the light came back on.
Phoenix thrust his head against the hatch. ‘Lights on. Next checkpoint.’
The VW reversed onto the tarmac, but this time we turned right, back towards the bungalow, the war memorial and, after that, who knew?
37
The VW steadied, once its tyres were back on tarmac. The laptops were powered up once more, producing enough dull glow for me to get a better idea of what the fuck was going on.
The Wolf on top of me smelt of a mixture of sweat and cheap spray-on deodorant. I wondered if it was 007. East Europeans loved the Bond movies, and when I lived in Moscow, the half of the city that didn’t stink of cooked cabbage and floor detergent reeked of the official range of spy fragrances. He was doing a good job pinning me to the floor, but at least my eyes were allowed to be open. It wasn’t my bad joke about deodorants that made me smile to myself but the fact that I’d thought of it. I had processed the initial capture phase and the fact that 007 could have strangled me to death. Now I could get on with other stuff. No more smiling to myself or any expression apart from compliance. I wanted no indication that I understood enough of their language to make trouble for me. I was in enough already.
